'Kind souls, what, weep you when you but behold
Our Cæsar's vesture wounded?'-Julius Cæsar, iii. 2.

[By assumed astonishment.]

'What, shall one of us,

That struck the foremost man of all this world

But for supporting robbers, shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes,
And sell the mighty space of our large honours

For so much trash as may be grasped thus?

[By astonishment.]

'Did I not meet thy friends? and did not they Put on my brows this wreath of victory,

Ibid. iv. 3.

And bid me give't thee? Did'st thou not hear their shouts ? '

[By grief.]

Ibid. v. 3.

'Shall they hoist me up

And show me to the shouting varletry

Of censuring Rome ?'-Anthony and Cleopatra, v. 2.

[By pride and indignation.]

'Shall our coffers then

Be emptied to redeem a traitor home?

Shall we buy treason? and indent with fee'rs

When they have lost and forfeited themselves? '
1 Henry IV. i. 3.

[By indignation.]

The above divisions of questions, while sufficiently broad for elocutionary purposes, must not be taken as exhaustive, for there are a number of accidental divisions, each having a law of its own, and these we must now consider.

105. In Extended Questions the inflection should not be carried beyond what has been aptly termed the Point of the question. Additional clauses that do not in themselves convey interrogation should be regarded as separate sentences, and inflected accordingly. Although the note of interrogation comes at the end of the sentence, the question virtually ends in the following examples with the italicised words :

'And is this all the world has gain'd by thee,

Thou first and last of fields, king-making victory?
BYRON, Childe Harold.

'Would'st thou have that

Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,

And live a coward in thine own esteem;

Letting "I dare not " wait upon "I would,"

Like the poor cat i' the adage? '—Macbeth, i. 7.

Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,

And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds,

That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?'

2 Henry IV. iii. 1.

Will you put out mine eyes,

These eyes that never did nor never shall

So much as frown on you?'-King John, iv. 1.

'And can eternity belong to me,

Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?'

YOUNG, Night Thoughts.

'Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star

From his steep course, so long he seems to pause
On thy bald, awful head, O sovran Blanc ? '

COLERIDGE, Hymn before Sunrise.

'Princes, potentates,

Warriors, the flower of heaven! once yours, now lost,

If such astonishment as this can seize

Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place

After the toil of battle to repose

Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds
Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood
With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon
His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern
The advantage, and, descending, tread us down,
Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf ?—
Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!'

Paradise Lost, bk. i.

106. Parenthetical interruptions in the course of a question will sometimes dramatically require the inflection due to the nature of their own sentence:

'And reckon'st thou thyself with Spirits of Heaven,

Hell-doom'd! And break'st defiance here and scorn

Where I reign king, and to enrage the more,

Thy king and lord?'—Paradise Lost, ii.

107. When a question is Alternative, the rising inflection on the final syllable will be overruled:

Will you with these infirmities she owes,

Unfriended, new-adopted to our hate,

Dower'd with our curse, and stranger'd with our oath,

Take her, or leave her?'—King Lear, i. 1.

"To be, or not to be?'-Hamlet, iii. 1.

'Fathers, pronounce your thoughts; are they still fix'd

To hold it out and fight it to the last?

Or are your hearts subdu'd at length, and wrought,

By time and ill success, to a submission?'

ADDISON, Cato.

'I' the name of truth,

Are ye fantastical, or that indeed

Which outwardly ye show?'-Macbeth, i. 3.
'Were such things here as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten of the insane root,

That takes the reason prisoner ? '—Ibid.

'Did you by indirect and forced courses
Subdue and poison this young maid's affections?
Or came it by request, and such fair question

As soul to soul afforded?'-Othello, i. 3.

6

108. But or used alternately must not be confounded with 'or' used when no choice is offered.

'Do men gather grapes of thorns (100) or figs of thistles?
St. Matthew, vi. 16.

'Shall I seem crest-fallen in my father's sight?
Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height

Before this out-dared dastard?'—Richard II. i. 1.

109. When a question is dependent, it loses its interrogative quality, and its inflection is merged into that of the sentence in which it is embodied. Hence

(a) A Question dependent upon an Assertion will take a falling inflection:

I ask him why he wept.'-Sterne.

(b) A Question dependent upon an Imperative will require a falling inflection:

Tell me, my soul, can this be death?'

POPE, Dying Christian.

'Ask of thy mother earth why oaks are made
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade?
Or ask of yonder argent fields above,

Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove?'

F

POPE, Essay on Man.

'Say ye, who preach Heaven shall decide
When in the lists two champions ride,

Say, was Heaven's justice here?-SCOTT, Marmion.

'Say from whence

You owe this strange intelligence? or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting?'—Macbeth, i. 3.

(c) And if a Question forms a member of another Question, the inflection of the main question overrules that of the subordinate:

What philosopher has allowed himself to be daunted by the cynical inquiry,' Is it worth while?'

Will you

for ever, Athenians, do nothing but walk up and down

the city, asking one another what news?'

Note that what news?' if isolated, would, as a question asked by an interrogative (99, c), be read with a falling inflection: What news?

110. The test of the Dependence of a Question.Very frequently the 'dependence' of a question is a point to be determined by the taste of the speaker; and it must always be borne in mind that, in the mouth of a skilful, impassioned speaker, form will frequently be made subservient to dramatic feeling. Under this view, 'Can this be death?' and ' Was Heaven's justice here?' in the above examples, may be released from the grammatical government of tell and say, and be read as principal sentences.

111. A Question repeated because the person addressed has not clearly apprehended what has been asked, may be considered as governed by an assertion or imperative understood, as if the speaker said, 'I