What does Shakespeare mean by the word withal?

Answer 1

Withal is now an obsolete word because its work has been taken over entirely with the word "with".

An example from As You Like It:

Rosalind: By no means, sir. Time travels in divers paces with

divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time

trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still

withal.

Or from Merchant of Venice, when Shylock is asked what good the pound of flesh would be, he replies:

To bait fish withal.

In both cases, substituting the word "with" works perfectly in a more modern idiom. It would appear that Shakespeare did not like the sound of the preposition "with" at the end of the sentence and replaced it with "withal" in that position. (Many much more modern English speakers object to ending sentences with a preposition and recommend reversing the word order, with results which are sometimes amusing: "That is something up with which I will not put.")

Shakespeare was, however, really fond of this word and used it in other contexts where its meaning is not so clear. E.g. Portia talking to the Prince of Morocco:

The one of them contains my picture, prince:

If you choose that, then I am yours withal.

The word seems to add nothing except the two syllables necessary to round out the line. The same can be said of this line of Valentine's from The Two Gentlemen of Verona:

These banish'd men that I have kept withal

Are men endued with worthy qualities

Possibly these uses of the word suggest "with" and an unspecified object which we have to get from context. So Portia's line means that she is the Prince's with something, perhaps the picture or perhaps her wealth. Valentine's banished men have been kept with him, presumably. The OED lists some examples where the word clearly means "with all the rest" which may be the kind of meaning here.

Shakespeare uses this irritating word over 150 times.