Anyhow on to archaic matters. I'm taking a class on Shakespeare this year so there will be loads of juicy archaic goodness to speak of. Right now I am reading Henry IV. The semester has only just started so I've only read three acts of it. Still it has been good. Here are a few things that stuck with me.
Knave:
actually i first heard this word when watching Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. My favorite character was the Knave of Hearts. So i had to research what Knave was. in his case it was the obsolete way of saying Jack of Hearts(though it might be a pun upon the second meaning as well since he was a thief). However, in Henry IV Knave refers to a dishonest or unscrupulous man.
Originally, it meant boy, or servant. According to google:
Old English cnafa ‘boy, servant’; related to German Knabe ‘boy.’
What made this word stand out to me especially was in Act II, Scene I, I believe. Gadshill yells to the chamberlain "Farewell, you muddy knave!" At that, I just cracked up laughing for some reason and fell in love with the word even more.
Also ironically the Knave of Hearts in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland was evil, and thus a dishonest man.
Tim Burton's version of the Knave of Hearts
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland's Knave of Hearts
(he was a very lovable character, not so much evil as perhaps a thief with a ton of debts)
Damnable:
If for no reason other than having an archaic way to tell someone "Damn You.." (aka Thou art damnable.) I like this word lol.
As for where this shows up in Henry IV: it is when falstaff tells Hal "O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able to corrupt a saint." (iteration is a synonym to utterance, if you were wondering.)
"A plague upon it" :
I just love how they kept throwing this phrase around. Or sometimes it was altered a bit. Such as when Falstaff said "A plague on all cowards," when he was actually the aforementioned coward. For the characters themselves though, wishing a plague on something must have been one of the strongest ways of ill-wishing something - especially being that the plague was around and deadly in those days.
'Sblood:
Basically another way of saying "Damn It!" It refers to the words "Christ's Blood," just without the "Christ." This also appears rather frequently in Henry IV. I'd never heard of it before when I was researching. I guess the best words are the ones that find you instead.
I know the word is so tiny here, but it does say 'Sblood.
Forswear:
Means to give up something, or go without something. It could also mean to denounce something. I'm not sure why this one stuck out to me; probably because it doesnt look like what it means. For some reason I like words like that. However it could also mean to swear falsely, aka lie. Strange fact: in Old English it was "forswerian" - sounds like Spanish in all honesty.
Anon, Anon Sir:
How could this one not stick with me? If you've ever read or watched Henry IV then you know what I mean. The scene where Hal and Poins are playing a prank on the bartender, Francis, was too funny to forget. Anyhow, anon means soon. Francis didn't know much english, so when someone called for him he would keep shouting: Anon, Anon Sir! Which means "give me a minute, I'll be there soon Sir" in a nutshell.
Popinjay:
Its basically another way of calling someone uppity. Or as I have heard people say "bougie" aka, "bourgeouis." These are all the same meaning. Again, it seems that the laughable parts of Henry IV are the most memorable for me. When Hotspur called the carrier a popinjay, I just burst out laughing because it sounded so funny. By the way popinjay is also archaic for parrot. How ironic :3
