1. Divine Grace:
* Religious Context: Shakespeare often uses "grace" to refer to the divine favor or blessing bestowed by God. This is particularly prominent in plays with strong religious themes, like "Hamlet" or "King Lear."
* Example: "O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, / Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! / Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd / His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God! / How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of this world! / Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden / That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature / Possess it merely. That it should come to this! / But two months dead! nay, not so much, not two: / So excellent a king; that was, to this, / Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother / That he might not beteem the winds of heaven / Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth! / Must I remember? why, she would hang on him / As if increase of appetite had grown / By what it fed on: and yet, within a month— / Let me not think on't—Frailty, thy name is woman!— / A little month, or ere those shoes were old / With which she followed my poor father's body, / Like Niobe, all tears:—why she, even she— / O God, a beast, that wants discourse of reason, / Would have mourned longer—married with my uncle, / My father's brother, but no more like my father / Than I to Hercules: within a month: / Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears / Had left the flushing in her galled eyes, / She married. O, most wicked speed, to post / With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! / It is not nor it cannot come to good: / But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue." (Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2)
2. Elegance and Beauty:
* Physical Appearance: Shakespeare often uses "grace" to describe the beauty and elegance of a person's physical form.
* Example: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; / Coral is far more red than her lips' red; / If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; / If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head." (Sonnet 130)
3. Social Graces and Etiquette:
* Polite Behaviour: "Grace" can also refer to good manners, courtesy, and social refinement.
* Example: "Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. / The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, / Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; / But do not dull thy palm with entertainment / Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware / Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, / Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee." (Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3)
4. Grace as a Verb:
* To adorn or embellish: Shakespeare also uses "grace" as a verb, meaning "to adorn" or "to embellish."
* Example: "Now grace that, and let it pass." (Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene 1)
5. Grace as a Noun:
* Elegance: Shakespeare also uses "grace" as a noun, meaning "elegance" or "beauty."
* Example: "A grace as great as his was." (Othello, Act 3, Scene 3)
Context is Key:
It's essential to pay attention to the context in which Shakespeare uses "grace" to understand its precise meaning. The word can carry both religious and secular connotations, reflecting the complex and nuanced understanding of beauty, morality, and divine favor in Shakespeare's time.