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There are better ways to word this question, I'm sure, but I can't think of any for some reason: my apologies.

In Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 4, the lead character speaks as follows:

Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell
Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulcher,
Wherein we saw thee quietly interred,
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws
To cast thee up again.

Shakespeare's taking liberties with usage (or inventing usage as he went along) is well known. Some of the instances (such as this one) may or may not be beautiful, but they certainly stick in your memory.

One certainly wouldn't expect "marble" to follow "ponderous and ..." because ... hmm ...

Well, because there is a bunch of adjective categories (some say thirteen), and different categories should not be separated by a conjunction. As in, a descriptive or qualitative adjective ("ponderous" in this case) followed by a material or participial adjective ("marble" in this case) should not be separated by a conjunction ("and"). As in -

... red and riding hood ...
... antique and wooden table ...

... and so forth.

Except that Shakespeare's example, odd as it may sound, sets up camp in your memory. Deservedly so, I hasten to add.

My question is:

Can you recall any other such phrases in Shakespeare's works?

(Bonus question: is there an official term for this type of grammatical and/or usage error?)

UPD:

Tevildo just provided another example in the comments, from Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1:

How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!

More examples, please!

Ricky
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    [There are a bunch] You can use the Searchable Shakepeare for this. It is not an error. Where did you find that "rule"? Poe, The Raven: For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—Lewis Carroll The Hunting of the Snark: A perfect and absolute blank!" [Next?] – Lambie Mar 07 '24 at 23:21
  • Sap cheque'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone, Shakespeare, Sonnet Five – Lambie Mar 07 '24 at 23:25
  • Last one: Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,5 And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time, Also the Bard, Sonnet 19 For the plays, you will have to plough through them yourself. – Lambie Mar 07 '24 at 23:28
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    There's a name for this type of play on words, but it escapes me now. – Barmar Mar 07 '24 at 23:53
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    Meter definitely plays a role here in the presence of "and". – Stuart F Mar 08 '24 at 00:11
  • @Barnar: please try to recall! – Ricky Mar 08 '24 at 00:12
  • @StuartF: Of course it does. But that's not the point. – Ricky Mar 08 '24 at 00:13
  • @Barmar It is not a play on words. – Lambie Mar 08 '24 at 00:58
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    It's a mild form of *zeugma* – FumbleFingers Mar 08 '24 at 01:13
  • @FumbleFingers: kind of. Are there any other instances that come to mind? (In Shakespeare, I mean)? – Ricky Mar 08 '24 at 02:40
  • Wikipedia: a figure of speech in which one word applies to two others in different senses of that word, and in some cases only logically applies to one of the other two words. How is that zeugma here? What it is, is description, at best a metaphor: His jaws are large and bulky and hard like marble. – Lambie Mar 08 '24 at 15:34
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    Hyperbaton would be the term if Shakespeare were writing in Latin (Robor et aes triplex), but, unfortunately, the term has a different meaning when applied to English.

    For another example: "How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!" (Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1).

     – Tevildo Mar 08 '24 at 20:13
  • @Tevildo: Excellent! Thank you! Got more? – Ricky Mar 08 '24 at 20:19
  • @lambie Zuegma what I was thinking of, but I guess I misunderstood what Shakespeare was trying to say. I assumed "ponderous jaws" and "marble jaws" were two metaphors using different senses of "jaw". – Barmar Mar 08 '24 at 21:26
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    @Tevildo Be careful, or someone may clobber you with their large and menacing hyperbaton! ;-) – Robusto Mar 08 '24 at 22:40
  • hendiadys could also apply. – TimR Mar 10 '24 at 19:24
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    @Robusto: That's brilliant, sir! – Ricky Mar 11 '24 at 21:56

2 Answers2

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There are two factors that in general can be at play here. One is just the twinning of adjectives (in general, premodifiers) so semantically incongruous that the result is ludicrous.

  • An expensive sharpened pencil.

This is not the case here with 'ponderous' and 'marble'. But the string 'secret, black, and midnight' is a different matter.

The other is that the conjunction 'and' is normally only used between a certain type of pairing of adjectives (and adjective / attributive noun pairs):

  • Coordinate adjectives are separated by a comma and sound fine if you change their order or insert “and” between them instead of a comma.

  • Cumulative adjectives are not separated by a comma and must be placed in a specific order based on their category [and don't sound fine if "and" is inserted].

[Writing Fundamentals Guide]

'Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws' or

'Has opened his ponderous marble jaws'

sounds awful if the modifiers are reversed

*'Has opened his marble ponderous jaws'.

So the order is invariant, and using an 'and' between the premodifiers non-standard.

Edwin Ashworth
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Can you say iambic pentameter? ← Hint: That’s ten syllables.

Most of Shakespeare’s characters speak in what is called “blank verse.” It contains no rhyme, but each line has an internal rhythm with a regular rhythmic pattern. The pattern most favored by Shakespeare is iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter is defined as a ten-syllable line with the accent on every other syllable, beginning with the second one. The rhythm of this pattern of speech is often compared to a beating heart.
Source: Utah Shakespeare Festival — Hamlet: Examining the Text

I’m not saying that the and in ponderous and marble jaws is wrong or that it’s just there for syllable count but, yeah, you’re going to find a lot of that. Count ’em up:

/ Hath / oped / his / pon / der / ous / and / mar / ble / jaws

/ How / now / you / se / cret / black / and / mid / night / hags

See also: ThoughtCo — Examples of Iambic Pentameter in Shakespeare’s Plays

Tinfoil Hat
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  • I'm well aware that it scans just fine. That wasn't the question. +1 anyway, thank you. – Ricky Mar 09 '24 at 05:36
  • For the Macbeth quotation, something like "secret, cursed, midnight hags" would fit the meter without employing the figure of speech. I'm sure that Shakespeare used the "and" deliberately. – Tevildo Mar 09 '24 at 08:02
  • As a quick follow-up, here's a negative example from Hamlet - "Thy knotted and combined locks to part". "And" here is just a normal conjunction; it's essential to the meter, but it doesn't have the striking quality of - unorthodoxy - that's seen in the other examples. – Tevildo Mar 09 '24 at 08:11
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    The and is not an error, and it’s used for meter. Was that not your question? – Tinfoil Hat Mar 09 '24 at 15:40
  • @TinfoilHat: No, the question was, "In Shakespeare, besides "ponderous and marble jaws," are there any similarly structured phrases?" – Ricky Mar 09 '24 at 19:49
  • @ricky you're giving me very strong pretentious vibes like you're very impressed with yourself and your own writing "style". Just FYI. I'm sure you don't want to come off as pretentious, so just trying to help. – sat0ri Mar 10 '24 at 14:17