Part 39
_An old_, &c.] Makes part of Lodovico’s speech in old ed.]
# 353:
_sort_] i. e. set, company.
# 354:
_keep a door_] i. e. be a bawd.
# 355:
_Frenchman_] Old. ed. “Frenchmen.”
# 356:
_muttons_] See note, p. 102.
# 357:
_Sirrah_] See note, vol. ii. p. 491.
# 358:
_What is’t you lack_] See note, p. 24.
# 359:
_Car._] Old ed. “Lod. and _Car._”
# 360:
_She nibbled_, &c. ... _which I know_] Old ed. by mistake assigns this to Lodovico.
# 361:
_garden-house_] See note, vol. i. p. 162.
# 362:
_bolt_] “i. e. sift.” REED.
# 363:
_warden-tree_] i. e. “pear-tree.” REED.
# 364:
_the_] Old ed. “de.”
# 365:
_agen_] See note, p. 182.
# 366:
_brave_] “i. e. fine, gaudily dressed.” REED.
# 367:
_a wild Cataian of forty such_] “i. e. forty such shallow knights, &c. would go to the composition of a _dexterous thief_. See a note on _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, [‘I will not believe such a _Cataian_,’ &c., act ii. sc. 1.]” REED. A _Cataian_ came to signify a sharper, because the people of _Cataia_ (China) were famous for their thieving.
# 368:
_catso_] See note, vol. i. p. 296.
# 369:
_blue coats_] See note, p. 146.
# 370:
_Than_] Old. ed. “That.”
# 371:
_gallant_] i. e. in fine clothes.
# 372:
_bin_] i. e. been—a form which frequently occurs, and which is here necessary for the rhyme.
# 373:
_Yes, thou hast_, &c.] An imperfect couplet: see note, p. 52.
# 374:
_bard cater-tray_] Properly, _barred_, &c., a sort of false dice, frequently mentioned by our early writers.—“The following passage from _The Art of Juggling, or Legerdemaine_, by S. R. 4to. 1612, sig. c 4, will sufficiently explain the terms above used: 'First you must know a langret, which is a die that simple men have seldom heard of, but often seene to their cost; and this is a well-favoured die, and seemeth good and square, yet it is forged longer upon _the cater and trea_ than any other way: and therefore it is called a langret. Such be also call’d _bard cater treas_, because commonly the longer end will of his owne sway drawe downewards, and turne up to the eie sice sincke deuce or ace. The principal use of them is at Novum, for so longe a paire of _bard cater treas_ be walking on the bourd, so long can ye not cast five nor nine, unles it be by great chance, that the roughnes of the table, or some other stoppe, force them to stay, and run against their kinde: for without _cater or trea_ ye know that five or nine can never come.” REED.
# 375:
_blue coats_] See note, p. 146.
# 376:
_roaring boy_] See note on _A Fair Quarrel_, act ii. sc. 2, in this vol.
# 377:
_footcloth_] i. e. long housing.
# 378:
_muttonmonger_] i. e. whoremonger: see note, p. 102.
# 379:
_good fellow_] A cant term for a thief.
# 380:
_hangers_] See note, vol. ii. p. 227.
# 381:
_blue coats_] See note, p. 146.
# 382:
_a cob_] “A herring is called _a cob_. See Nash’s _Lenten Stuff_. [See Gifford’s note on B. Jonson’s _Works_, vol. i. p. 28.] There is, however, a quibble here, for I think a _cob_ in Ireland signifies a coin or piece of money.” REED. See also Todd’s Johnson’s _Dict._ in v.
# 383:
_a’ t’other_] Old ed. “_a’_ the _tother_.”
# 384:
_footcloth nags_] i. e. nags with long housings.
# 385:
_must I choke_] He means, perhaps,—why do you not give me drink?
# 386:
_bombasted_] “i. e. stuffed out.” REED.
# 387:
_marks_] A mark was 13_s._ 4_d._
# 388:
_clapdish_] See note, vol. ii. p. 169.
# 389:
_blue coats_] See note, p. 146.
# 390:
_purchase_] “Was anciently a cant word for stolen goods.” REED.
# 391:
_this_] i. e., I suppose, his sword.
# 392:
_old Cole_] Qy. Is this an allusion to the well-known song of _Old King Cole_? but I recollect no mention of it so early as Middleton’s time.
# 393:
_touch_] See note, vol. i. p. 344.
# 394: ——_concubine To an English king_] “_Arlotta_ (from whence the word _harlot_ is fancifully derived) was not the concubine of an English monarch, but mistress to Robert, one of the dukes of Normandy, and father to William the Conqueror.” STEEVENS.
# 395:
_than_] Is frequently used for _then_ by our old poets, to suit the rhyme.
# 396:
_blue coat_] See note, p. 146.
# 397:
_Sforza_] “A name taken by Lodovico, perhaps, for the occasion,” says the last editor of Dodsley’s _Old Plays_; but it is evident that he was called (like the hero of Massinger’s _Duke of Milan_) Lodovico Sforza.
# 398:
_pursenet_] “A net, of which the mouth is drawn together by a string.” REED.
# 399:
_agen_] See note, p. 182.
# 400:
_muster-book_] Old ed. “master-booke.”]
# 401:
_consort_] i. e. band of musicians.
# 402:
_pair of virginals_, &c.] See note, p. 112. _A pair of virginals_ (like _a pair of organs_, see note, p. 147) meant a single instrument.
# 403:
_drink healths, tobacco_, &c.] “To _drink_ tobacco was a common phrase for smoking it.” REED.
# 404:
_galley-foist_] See note, vol. ii. p. 531.
# 405:
_stewed prunes_] A dish very common in brothels: see Steevens’s elaborate note on _First Part of Henry IV._, act iii. sc. 3—Malone’s _Shakespeare_ (by Boswell), vol. xvi. p. 345.
# 406:
_Here’s ordnance able to sack a city_] “So Falstaff, on the same occasion, in the _First Part of Henry IV._, says, ‘there’s that will _sack a city_.’” STEEVENS.
# 407:
_Peter-sameene_] One of the several disguises under which the word _Pedro-Ximenes_ is found in our early writers. “The Pedro-Ximenes ... receives its name from a grape which is said to have been imported from the banks of the Rhine by an individual called _Pedro Simon_ (corrupted to Ximen, or Ximenes), and is one of the richest and most delicate of the Malaga wines, resembling very much the malmsey of Paxarete.” Henderson’s _Hist. of Anc. and Mod. Wines_, p. 193.
# 408:
_Charnico_] Or _Charneco_.—“Shakspeare and other dramatic writers mention a wine called _Charneco_.... According to Mr. Steevens, the appellation is derived from a village near Lisbon. There are, in fact, two villages in that neighbourhood, which take the name of _Charneca_; the one situated about a league and a half above the town of Lisbon, the other near the coast, between Collares and Carcavellos. We shall, therefore, probably not err much, if we refer the wine in question to the last-mentioned territory.” _Ibid._ p. 306.
# 409:
_Leatica_] Old ed. “Ziattica”—a misprint for _Leatica_, a not uncommon form (see _Philocothonista_, 1635, p. 48) of the word “_Aleatico_, or red muscadine, which is produced in the highest perfection at Montepulciano, between Sienna and the Papal state; at Monte Catini, &c. ... and of which the name in some measure expresses the rich quality (it is obviously derived from ἡλιαζω, _soli expono_); has a brilliant purple colour, and a luscious aromatic flavour,” &c. _Ibid._ p. 237.
# 410:
_towards_] i. e. in a state of preparation, at hand.
# 411:
_saker_, _basilisk_] Small pieces of ordnance.
# 412:
_Ast., Car., &c._] One of the many speeches to which in the old ed. is the prefix “_Omnes_.”
# 413:
_Cap_] i. e. flat-cap: see note, p. 58.
# 414:
_Kneels_] “This [common] custom of 'kneeling and drinking of healths’ kindled the wrath of various puritanical writers. Stubbes, in his _Anatomy of Abuses_, tells a story of a man in Almaine, who, drinking a health to his Creator on his knees, was fixed for ever like a statue, which horses could not draw nor fire burn. R. Junius, in his _Drunkard’s Character_, 1638, speaks of ‘a Lincolnshire man, well known, that in his cups drank a health to the devil, who had no sooner drank it off, but he fell down dead.’ ‘To mend the matter (he says elsewhere), lest Satan should want his due reverence, these wine-worshippers will be at it on their knees, especially if they drink a great man’s health,’ p. 313.” REED.
# 415:
_Thus ... thus_] How they indicated the price I know not.
# 416:
_Billmen_] i. e. watchmen, who carried _bills_ (a sort of pikes with hooked points), which were anciently the weapons of the English foot-soldiers.
# 417:
_Is’t Shrove Tuesday, that these ghosts walk_] “From this passage, I apprehend it was formerly a custom for the peace-officers to make search after women of ill fame on that day, and to confine them during the season of Lent. So Sensuality says, in _Microcosmus_, ‘But now welcome a cart, or a _Shrove Tuesday’s_ tragedy.’” REED. “The progress of the constables on Shrove Tuesday was for the purpose of checking the outrages of the apprentices. See Taylor’s _Jack-a-Lent_, 115.” O. GILCHRIST. Demolishing houses of bad fame was one of the amusements of the apprentices on Shrove Tuesday (see my note on Webster’s _Works_, vol. iii. p. 225); and their riots no doubt required the check of the constable and his attendants: but it appears also, that on the same day an official search was made for brothel-keepers, who were either forthwith carted, or confined during Lent: vide Nares’s _Gloss._ in v. _Shroving_.
# 418:
_Me, sir_] “This ‘Me, sir?’ and the Billmen’s echo of it in the old copy are printed ‘Me, Sirrr?’ to indicate, perhaps, the manner in which Bots spoke it.” COLLIER.
# 419:
_sits in a blue gown_] “It appears from a passage in _Promos and Cassandra_ [and from a dozen other passages in various writers], that a _blue gown_ was the habit in which a strumpet did penance. So too in _The Northern Lass_, 1633, ‘All the good you intended me was a lockram coif, a _blue gown_, a wheel,’ &c. The _wheel_, as well as the _blue gown_, are mentioned in subsequent scenes of this comedy.” STEEVENS.
# 420:
_any woman_, &c.] i. e. that has been carted, and pelted with rotten eggs.
# 421:
_beats chalk, or grinds in the mill_] “To beat chalk, grind in mills, raise sand and gravel, and make lime, were among the employments assigned for vagrants who were committed to Bridewell. See _Orders appointed to be executed in the Cittie of London, for setting roges and idle persons to worke, and for releefe of the poore_. Printed by Hugh Singleton.” REED.
# 422:
_Your Bridewell_, &c.] “We have here a curious specimen of the license which ancient writers used to allow themselves of introducing facts and circumstances peculiar to one country into another. Every thing here said of Bridewell is applicable to the house of Correction which goes by that name in London. Changing the names of the duke and his son to those of Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth, all the events mentioned will be found to have happened in the English Bridewell. The situation of the place is also the same. In the time of Henry the Eighth princes were lodged there; part of it being built in the year 1522, for the reception of Charles the Fifth, whose nobles resided in it. In 1528, Cardinal Campeius had his first audience there; and after Henry’s death, Edward the Sixth, in the seventh year of his reign, 1552, gave to the citizens of London this his palace for the purposes above mentioned. To complete the parallel, it was endowed with land, late belonging to the Savoy, to the amount of 700 marks a-year, with all the bedding and furniture of that hospital. See Stowe’s _Survey_, Strype’s edit. 1721, vol. i. p. 264. There is also the like anachronism in the First Part of this play, concerning Bethlem Hospital.” REED.
# 423:
_marks_] See note, p. 198.
# 424:
_war_] Old ed. “warres.”
# 425:
_agen_] See note, p. 182.
# 426:
_on_] Old ed. “or.”
# 427:
_and_] Old ed. “before.”
# 428:
_he_] Old ed. “she.”
# 429:
_anatomies_] i. e. skeletons:
“And rouse from sleep that fell _anatomy_.” Shakespeare’s _King John_, act iii. sc. 4.
# 430:
_Sforza_] See note, p. 206.
# 431:
_atomies_] i. e. atoms.
# 432:
_mutton pasty_] See note, p. 102.
# 433:
_A barber’s cittern_] See note, vol. i. p. 174.
# 434:
_prize be play’d_] See note, p. 86.
# 435:
_a beetle_] “A mallet.” REED. See speech of First Master, p. 233.
# 436:
_billmen_] See note, p. 217.
# 437:
_a squire of the body_] “A squire of the body, says Mr. Steevens (note on the _First Part of Henry IV._)— [Malone’s _Shakespeare_ (by Boswell), vol. xvi. p. 191]—signified, originally, the attendant on a knight, the person who bore his head-piece, spear, and shield. It afterwards became a cant term for a _pimp_, and is so used here.” REED. So also B. Jonson uses the single word _squire_ for pimp or procurer: (see Gifford’s note on _Every Man in his Humour_—_Works_, vol. i. p. 132.) See also our author’s _Fair Quarrel_, act iv. sc. 4.
# 438:
_apple-squire_] In a note on Hall’s _Satires_, 1824, p. 8, the editor remarks: “This cant phrase has been erroneously explained as meaning a pander or pimp. The fact is, that it meant what is in modern slang called a _flash-man_: a _squire of the body_ had the same meaning.” No doubt one of its meanings was a kept gallant; but it generally signifies, as in our text, a pimp. Greene, enumerating the professors of the “sacking law,” mentions “_The Bawd_; if a man, an _Apple squire_.” _Notable Discouery of Coosenage_, 1592, sig. c 2. See also the fourth line of the song in our author’s _Fair Quarrel_, act iv. sc. 4.
# 439:
_brave_] See note, p. 190.
# 440:
_a wheel ... blue gown_] The use of both is presently mentioned in the text; and see note, p. 220.
# 441:
_rosemary_] See note, p. 151.
# 442:
_marry muff_] See note, p. 36.
# 443:
_spittle_] See note, vol. ii. p. 465.
# 444:
_mought_] i. e. might.
# 445:
_chalk_, &c.] See note, p. 221.
# 446:
_guarded_] A play on the word—trimmed, faced.
# 447:
_God_] “In the old copy there is a blank left for this word, to avoid the _prophanationem nominis Dei_, as T. Bastard terms it in his _Epigrams_.... This vice, as is well known, was, not many years afterwards, reformed in a great degree, as far as the theatre was concerned. See the statute 3. James I. chap. xxi.” COLLIER.
# 448:
_loose-bodied gowns_] The common dress of courtesans: see note, vol. i. p. 431.
# 449:
_chare_] “i. e. task-work.” REED.
# 450:
_flat-caps_] See note, p. 58.
# 451:
_a beadle beating a basin_] The First Master presently tells the Duke that the basin “is an emblem of their revelling.” Here Reed cites a parallel passage from B. Jonson’s _New Inn_, act iv. sc. 3, and a remark of Whalley, that it alludes “to the custom of old, when bawds and other infamous persons were carted. A mob of people used to precede them _beating basins_ and other utensils of the same kind, to make the noise and tumult the bigger,” &c. &c.
# 452:
_guarded_] See note, p. 236.
# 453:
_ancient_] i. e. “an ensign.” REED. “This point will be better understood from the following [passage of _The Fleire_, by Sharpham, sig. F 2, ed. 1615.]
‘FLEIRE. What, Signior! in loue with my Ladie’s _Ancient_. SPARKE. Why her Ancient? FLEIRE. Because she carries her colours for her, but ’tis in a boxe.’” COLLIER. I doubt if there be any such point in our text.
# 454:
_aqua vitæ_] “Formerly the general name for spirits.” REED.
# 455:
_defy_] i. e. reject, disclaim.
# 456:
_and_] i. e. if.
# 457:
_brave_] See note, p. 190.
# 458:
_marry muff_] See note, p. 36.
# 459:
_placket_] See vol. ii. p. 497. The assertion of Nares, there mentioned, is disproved by the present passage.
# 460:
_and_] i. e. if.
# 461:
_let_] Old ed. “lets.”
# 462:
_Yet, good_, &c.] An imperfect couplet: see note, p. 52. In the passage which immediately precedes it, Orlando seems to be seized with a fit of rhyming.
# 463:
_Then hear, Matheo: all_, &c.] Qy. “_Then_ here, _Matheo, all_,” &c.
# 464:
_have_] Old ed. “hath.”
# 465:
_recovered_] From the playhouse probably, as Steevens conjectures.
# 466:
_a banquet towards_] i. e. a banquet at hand, ready. _Banquet_ means here, as in many (though not all) passages of our early writers, what we now call a dessert. Our ancestors usually quitted the eating-room as soon as they had dined, and removed to another apartment, where the _banquet_ was set out.
# 467:
_duke’s_] MS. “king’s.”
# 468:
_know_] MS. “knew.”
# 469:
_suckets_] i. e. sweetmeats.
# 470:
_termers_] i. e. persons resorting to the capital during term-time: compare vol. ii. pp. 107, 433.
# 471:
_Amsterdam_] See note, vol. i. p. 205.
# 472:
_she that sunk_, &c.] i. e. Queen Elinor, wife to King Edward the First: see Peele’s drama entitled _Edward I._, and the Ballad prefixed to it, in my sec. ed. of his _Works_, vol. i. p. 69. 1829.
# 473:
_charms_] Written in MS. “_charmes_”—is used as a dissyllable in the next scene,
“Knit with these _charms_ and retentive knots.”
But perhaps I ought to have reduced the present hobbling speech to prose.
# 474:
_a country house_, &c.] “The country house here alluded to,” says Malone, “was at Brentford; and in the plays written in 1607, and for some years afterwards, there are frequent allusions to the practice of carrying women of the town thither.” _Life of Shakespeare_, p. 428 (_Sh. by Boswell_, vol. ii.)
# 475:
_conclusions_] i. e. experiments.
# 476:
_A banquet_] See note, p. 252.
# 477:
_have_] MS. “hath.”
# 478:
_The round_] See note, vol. ii. p. 190.
# 479:
_The abode of Hecate. Enter Hecate_] MS. has, “_Enter Heccat; and other Witches_ (_with Properties, and Habitts fitting_).“—I had originally prefixed to this scene, ”_A Cave: Hecate discovered in front of the stage: Stadlin, Hoppo, other witches, and Firestone, in an inner cave, where a caldron is boiling_:” but Hecate does not _see_ the caldron; and as we shall presently find that Almachildes (vide p. 268) is on the point of falling into it, _before_ he meets with Hecate, it could not have been placed in an _inner_ cave.
# 480:
_Hoppo and Stadlin_] See quotation from R. Scot, note, p. 265.
# 481:
_Hellwain_] MS. “Hellwin:” see note, p. 264.
# 482:
_Puckle_] MS. “Prickle.”
# 483:
_The nips of fairies_, &c.] This passage is explained by the following lines of Browne:
“where oft the Fairy-Queene At twy-light sate, and did command her Elues To pinch those Maids that had not swept their shelues; And further if by Maidens ouersight Within doores water were not brought at night, Or if they spread no Table, set no Bread, _They should haue nips_ from toe vnto the head.” _Britannia’s Pastorals_, b. i. song ii. p. 41, ed. 1625.
# 484:
_Why, when_] See note, p. 164.
# 485:
_There, take this unbaptised brat_, &c.] Here, and in the next three speeches of Hecate, Middleton follows Reginald Scot, using sometimes the very words of that curious writer. In the _Discouerie of Witchcraft_, Scot gives from “John Bapt. Neap.” i. e. Porta, the following receipts for the miraculous transportation of witches: “℞. _The fat of yoong children, and seeth it with water in a brasen vessell_, reseruing the thickest of that which remaineth boiled in the bottome, which they laie vp and keepe, vntill occasion serueth to vse it. _They put herevnto Eleoselinum, Aconitum, frondes populeas, and soote._” “℞. _Sium, acarum vulgare, pentaphyllon, the bloud of a flitter-mouse, solanum somniferum et oleum_. They stampe all these togither, and then they rubbe all parts of their bodies exceedinglie, till they looke red and be verie hot, so as the pores may be opened and their flesh soluble and loose. They ioine herewithall either fat or oile in steed thereof, that the force of the ointment maie the rather pearse inwardly, and so be more effectual. By this means (saith he) _in a moone light night they seeme to be carried in the aire, to feasting, singing, dansing, kissing, culling, and other acts of venerie, with such youthes as they loue and desire most_,” &c. B. x. c. viii. p. 184, ed. 1584.—See the original of this in Porta’s _Magiæ Naturalis, sive De Miraculis Rerum Naturalium Libri iiii._, 1561, 12mo. p. 180. Porta omitted the passage in (at least some) later and enlarged editions of his work.
# 486:
_leek_] i. e. like—for the sake of the rhyme.
# 487:
_coll_] i. e. embrace, or clasp round the neck.
# 488:
_Whelplie’s_] What place is meant by this word I know not.
# 489:
_his throat_] i. e. the dead child’s.
# 490:
_Pentaphyllon_] MS. “Dentaphillon.”
# 491:
_flitter-mouse_] Or _flicker_-mouse—i. e. bat.
# 492:
_churnings_] MS. “charmings.”
# 493:
_meet_] i. e. even.
# 494:
_dew-skirted_] MS. “dew’d-skirted.”
# 495:
_swathy feastings_] i. e. (I suppose) feastings among the _swaths_—the mown rows of grass.
# 496:
_costermonger’s_] i. e. apple-seller’s.
# 497:
_Sylvans_] MS. “Silence.”—Here again Middleton borrows from Reginald Scot: “And they haue so fraied vs with bull beggers, spirits, witches, _vrchens_, _elues_, _hags_, fairies, _satyrs_, _pans_, _faunes_, _sylens_ [sylvans], _kit with the cansticke_, _tritons_, _centaurs_, _dwarfes_, giants, _imps_, calcars, coniurors, nymphes, changlings, Incubus, Robin good-fellowe, _the spoorne_, _the mare_, _the man in the oke_, _the hell waine_, _the fierdrake_, _the puckle_, Tom thombe, hob gobblin, Tom tumbler, boneles, and such other bugs, that we are afraid of our owne shadowes.” _Discouerie of Witchcraft_, b. vii. c. xv. p. 153, ed. 1584.—Sir W. Scott, having given the above quotation from the work of his namesake, observes: “It would require a better demonologist than I am to explain the various obsolete superstitions which Reginald Scot has introduced, as articles of the old English faith, into the preceding passage. I might indeed say, the Phuca is a Celtic superstition, from which the word Pook, or Puckle, was doubtless derived; and I might conjecture, that the man-in-the-oak was the same with the Erl-König of the Germans; and that the hellwain were a kind of wandering spirits, the descendants of a champion named Hellequin, who are introduced into the romance of Richard sans Peur. But most antiquarians will be at fault concerning the spoorn, Kitt-with-the-candlestick, Boneless, and some others.” _Letters on Demonology, &c._, p. 174, sec. ed.— Whatever “Hellwain” may be properly, Middleton meant to express by the term some individual spirit: see p. 259, and the 3d scene of act iii.—The words with which Hecate concludes this speech, “A ab hur hus!” are also borrowed from R. Scot’s work, b. xii. c. xiv. p. 244, where they are mentioned as a charm against the toothache.
# 498:
_as_] MS. “and.”
# 499:
_Stadlin’s within_, &c.] From R. Scot: “It is constantlie affirmed in M. Mal. that Stafus vsed alwaies to hide himselfe in a monshoall [mouse-hole], and had a disciple called Hoppo, who made Stadlin a maister witch, and could all when they list inuisiblie transferre the third part of their neighbours doong, hay, corne, &c. into their owne ground, make haile, tempests, and flouds, with thunder and lightning; and kill children, cattell, &c.: reueale things hidden, and many other tricks, when and where they list.” _Discouerie of Witchcraft_, b. xii. c. v. p. 222, ed. 1584.—See Sprenger’s _Malleus Maleficarum_, Pars Sec. quæst. i. cap. xv. p. 267, ed. 1576, where the name _Stadio_, not _Stadlin_, is found; but the latter occurs at p. 210.
# 500: