"with grief condign"
The only sense of the word condign in the first edition of the OED that is not obsolete or archaic is the third:
Since the end of the 17th C. commonly used only of appropriate punishments: a use originating in the phraseology of Tudor Acts of Parliament.
This note follows:
Johnson 1755 says, "It is always used of something deserved by crimes." DE QUINCY Templars Dial. Wks. IV. 188 note, "Capriciously .. [sic] the word condign is used only in connection with the word punishment .. [sic] These and other words, if unlocked from their absurd imprisonment, would become extensively useful. We should say, for instance, 'condign honours,' 'condign reward,' 'condign treatment' (treatment appropriate to the merits [sic no closing paren]."
This discussion is based on the definition of the word condign in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which requires a little explanation.
To Act I or Act II of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado.
To the homepage of this Mikado website.
Suggestions, contributions, criticisms, questions? Email Sharon Cogdill.
(c) Copyright 1998 Sharon Cogdill, dramaturg for this production and author of this website.
College of Fine Arts and Humanities
St. Cloud State University
This URL: http://web.stcloudstate.edu/scogdill/mikado/condign.html.
Last update: 19 May 1998.