E. A. Abbott, A Shakespearean Grammar, GRAMMAR., PRONOUNS., PRONOUNS, PERSONAL. It emphatic as antecedent

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PRONOUNS, PERSONAL. It emphatic as antecedent

It is sometimes more emphatically used than with us. We have come to use it so often superfluously before verbs that the emphatic use of it for "that" before "which" is lost.

“There was it
For which my sinews shall be stretched upon him.
”
Coriol. v. 6. 44.

“That's it that always makes a good voyage of nothing.
”
T. N. ii. 4. 80.

“An if it please me which thou speak'st.
”
T. A. v. 1. 59.

“It holds current that I told you of.
”
1 Hen. IV. ii. 1. 59.

So Isaiah (A. V.) li. 9: "Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab?"

Perhaps we must explain it as the antecedent of "what" (and not as in 226) in “Deign it, Goddess, from my hand
To receive whate'er this land
From her fertile womb doth send.” B. and F. Fair Sh. i. 1.

A Shakespearean Grammar. Edwin Abbott Abbott. London and New York. Macmillan and Company. 1870.

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E. A. Abbott, A Shakespearean Grammar

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PRONOUNS, PERSONAL. It emphatic as antecedent