It appears from Stubbe's Anatomie of Abuses, 1595, that owches were worn by women in their hair in Shakspeare's time. Dr. Johnson's conjecture, however, may be supported by the following passage in Maroccus Exstaticus, 1595: "Let him pass for a churle, and wear his mistress's favours, viz. rubies and precious stones, on his nose, &c. and this et cetera shall, if you will, be the perfectest p- that ever grew in Shoreditch or Southwarke." MALONE. Line 527. the charged chambers-] Chambers are very small pieces of ordnance which are yet used in London on what are called rejoicing days, and were sometimes used in our author's theatre on particular occasions. See King Henry VIII. Act I. sc. iii. Malone. The quibble here lies in the word chamber. Line 533. -as two dry toasts;] Which cannot meet but JOHNSON. they grate one another. 545. —ancient Pistol-] Is the same as ensign Pistol. Falstaff was captain, Peto lieutenant, and Pistol ensign, or ancient. JOHNSON. Line 575. —a tame cheater,] Gamester and cheater were, in Shakspeare's age, synonymous terms. Ben Jonson has an epigram on Captain Hazard, the cheater. STEEVENS. Line 608. -an you play the saucy cuttle with me.] It appears from Greene's Art of Coneycatching, that cuttle and cuttle-boung were the cant terms for the knife used by the sharpers of that age to cut the bottoms of purses, which were then worn hanging at the girdle. STEEVENS. Line 611. —with two points-] As a mark of his commission. JOHNSON. 618. Captain, thou abominable damned cheater, &c.] Pistol's character seems to have been a common one on the stage in the time of Shakspeare. In A Woman's a Weathercock, by N. Field, 1612, there is a personage of the same stamp, who is thus described: "Thou unspeakable rascal, thou a soldier! "That with thy slops and cat-a-mountain face, " Thy blather chaps, and thy robustious words, 'Fright'st the poor whore, and terribly dost exact "A weekly subsidy, twelve pence a piece, Line 627. MALONE. -as odious as the word occupy ;] Occupant seems to have been formerly a term for a woman of the town, as occupier was for a wencher. Line 639. MALONE. -down faitors!] i. e. scoundrels, rascals. Have we not Hiren here?] Hiren from the title of an old play, formerly understood to mean an harlot. Line 648. Cannibals,] Cannibal is used by a blunder for Hannibal. This was afterwards copied by Congreve's Bluff and Wittol. Bluff is a character apparently taken from this of ancient Pistol. JOHNSON. Line 661. feed, and be fat, my fair Calipolis:] This is a burlesque on a line in an old play called The Battle of Alcazar, &c. printed in 1594, in which Muley Mahomet enters to his wife with lion's flesh on his sword. STEEVENS. Line 663. Si fortuna me tormenta, sperato me contenta.] Sir Thomas Hanmer reads: Si fortuna me tormenta, il sperare me contenta.— which is undoubtedly the true reading; but perhaps it was intended that Pistol should corrupt it. JOHNSON. Line 667. Come we to full points here; &c.] That is, shall we stop here, shall we have no further entertainment? JOHNSON. Line 670. Sweet knight, I kiss thy neif:] i. e. thy fist. -685. —Come, Atropos,] It has been suggested that this is a name which Pistol gives to his sword; but surely he means nothing more than to call on one of the sisters three to aid him in the fray. MALONE. Line 711. I'll canvas thee between a pair of sheets.] Doll's meaning here is sufficiently clear. There is however an allusion which might easily escape notice, to the material of which coarse sheets were formerly made. So, in the MS. Account-book of Mr. Philip Henslow, which has been already quoted: "7 Maye, 1594. Lent goody Nalle upon a payre of canvas sheates, for v s.” MALONE. Line 717. little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig,] For tidy, Sir. T. Hanmer reads tiny; but they are both words of endear ment, and equally proper. Bartholomew boar-pig is a little pig made of paste, sold at Bartholomew fair, and given to children for a fairing. Line 729. JOHNSON. -Tewksbury mustard:] Tewksbury is a market town in the county of Gloucester, formerly noted for mustard-balls made there, and sent into other parts. GREY. · Line 733. -eats conger and fennel; &c.] Conger with fennel was formerly regarded as a provocative. It is mentioned by Ben Jonson, in his Bartholomew Fair: "-like a long-laced conger with green fennel in the joll of it." STEEVENS. Line 734. — « flap-dragon; &c.] A flap-dragon is some small combustible body, fired at one end, and put afloat in a glass of liquor. It is an act of a toper's dexterity to toss off the glass in such a manner as to prevent the flap-dragon from doing michief. JOHNSON. Line 745. -nave of a wheel-] Nave and knave are easily reconciled, but why nave of a wheel? I suppose from his roundness. He was called round mun, in contempt, before. JOHNSON. Line 755. the fiery Trigon, &c.] So, in A Dialogue both pleasaunt and pietifull, &c. by Wm. Bulleyne, 1564: “Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, are hotte, drie, bitter, and cholerike, governing hot and drie thinges, and this is called the fierie triplicitie." MALONE. Line 764. -a kirtle of ?] It appears that a woman's kirtle, or rather upper-kirtle, (as distinguished from a petticoat, which was sometimes called a kirile,) was a long mantle which reached to the ground, with a head to it that entirely covered the face; and it was, perhaps, usually red. A half-kirtle was a similar garment, reaching only somewhat lower than the waist. MALONE. Line 773. Ha! a bastard &c.] The improbability of this scene is scarcely balanced by the humour. Line 792. tallow. JOHNSON. candle-mine,] Thou inexhaustible magazine of JOHNSON. Line 807. Not! to dispraise me;] The Prince means to say, "What! is it not abuse to dispraise me," &c. MALONE. Line 838. —and burns, poor soul!] This is Sir T. Hanmer's reading. Undoubtedly right. The other editions had-she is in hell already, and burns poor souls. The venereal disease was called, in those times, the brennynge, or burning. JOHNSON. Line 841. What's a joint of mutton or two, in a whole Lent ?] Perhaps a covert allusion is couched under these words. MALONE. . ACT III. SCENE I. Line 19. A watch-case, &c.] This alludes to the watchmen set in garrison-towns upon some eminence, attending upon an alarumbell, which was to ring out in case of fire, or any approaching danger. He had a case or box to shelter him from the weather, but at his utmost peril he was not to sleep whilst he was upon duty. These alarum-bells are mentioned in several other places of Shakspeare. HANMER. Line 27. That, with the hurly,] Hurly means noise, a commotion. -45. It is but as a body, yet, distemper'd;] Distemper, that is, according to the old physick, a disproportionate mixture of humours, or inequality of innate heat and radical humidity, is less than actual disease, being only the state which foreruns or produces diseases. The difference between distemper and disease seems to be much the same as between disposition and habit. JOHNSON. Line 70. But which of you was by, &c.] He refers to King Richard II. Act. IV. sc. ii. But whether the king's or the author's memory fails him, so it was, that Warwick was not present at that conversation. Line 77. -I had no such intent;] He means, have had no such intent, but that necessity." JOHNSON. 66 I should MALONE. Line 111. that Glendower is dead.] Glendower did not die till after king Henry IV. Shakspeare was led into this error by Holinshed, who places Owen Glendower's death in the tenth year of Henry's reign. MALONE. Line 117. -unto the Holy Land.] This play, like the former, proceeds in one unbroken tenor through the first edition, and there is therefore no evidence that the division of the Acts was made by the author. Since, then, every editor has the same right to mark the intervals of action as the players, who made the present distribution, I should propose that this scene may be added to the foregoing act, and the remove from London to Gloucestershire be made in the intermediate time, but that it would shorten the next Act too much, which has not, even now, its due proportion to the rest. ACT III. SCENE II. JOHNSON. Line 141. swinge-bucklers-] Swinge-bucklers and swash bucklers were words implying rakes or rioters in the time of Shakspeare. STEEVENS. Line 142. bona-robas-] See Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598: "Buona roba, as we say good stuff; a good wholesome plump-cheeked wench." Line 150. ward IV. Line 168. 169. teen score of yards. MALONE. -Skogan's head-] Scogan, a jester to king Ed -clapped 'the clout-] i. e. hit the white mark. WARBURTON. -fourteen, and fourteen and a half,] That is, four JOHNSON. The utmost distance that the archers of ancient times reached, is supposed to have been about three hundred yards. Old Double therefore certainly drew a good bow. MALONE. Line 260. - ——we have a number of shadows to fill up the musterbook.] That is, we have in the muster-book many names for which we receive pay, though we have not the men. JOHNSON. Line 375. I have three pound-] Here seems to be a wrong computation. He had forty shillings for each. Perhaps he meant to conceal part of the profit. JOHNSON. Line 390. the thewes,] i. e. brawny strength, -395. -swifter than he that gibbets-on the brewer's bucket.] Swifter than he that carries beer from the vat to the barrel, in buckets hung upon a gibbet or beam crossing his shoulders. Line 403. caliver-] A hand-gun. JOHNSON. JOHNSON. -411. Mile-end green,] From Stowe's Chronicle, p. 789, edit. 1631, it appears that "thirty thousand citizens-shewed on the 27th of August 1599, on the Mile's-end, where they trained all that day, and other dayes, under their captaines, (also citizens,) until the 4th of September." MALONE. Line 412. I was then sir Dagonet in Arthur's show,] The story of Sir Dagonet is to be found in La Morte d'Arthure, an old |
