Do you see this? Look on her,-look,—her lips,—— Look there, look there!— Edg. He faints !-My lord, my lord!— Kent. Break, heart; I pr'ythee, break! Edg. [Dies. Look up, my lord. Kent. Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer. Edg. He is gone, indeed. Kent. The wonder is, he hath endured so long: He but usurped his life. Alb. Bear them from hence.-Our present business Is general woe.-[To KENT and EDGAR.] Friends of my soul, you twain Rule in this realm, and the gored state sustain. Edg. The weight of this sad time we must obey; [Exeunt, with a dead march. NOTES I. i. p. 23. Scythian.-Some writers have stated that the Scythians fed upon human flesh. I. ii. p. 38. These late eclipses.-Perhaps an allusion to recent eclipses. (Cf. the earthquake reference in Romeo and the floods in Midsummer Night's Dream.) I. ii. p. 39. Tom o' Bedlam.-A mad beggar, or one who feigned madness. (See Bedlam beggars, II. iii. p. 78.) .I. iv. p. 48. Coxcomb.-The professional jester's cap was ornamented with an appendage in scarlet cloth formed like a cock's comb, and even sometimes with the cock's comb itself. In Minshew's Dictionary (1617) it is said. Natural idiots and fools have, and still do accustom themselves to weare in their cappes cockes feathers, or a hat with a cocke and heade of a cocke on the top, and a bell thereon." 66 I. iv. p. 52. Frontlet.-A forehead cloth, worn by ladies formerly to prevent wrinkles. Often associated as here with frowning. In Lyly's Euphues and his England (1580), we have "The next day coining to the gallery where she was solitary, walking, with her frowning cloth, as sick lately of the sullens," &c. In George Chapman's Hero and Leander there is the following: "E'en like the forehead cloth that in the night, I. iv. p. 55. The sea-monster.-Probably the hippopotamus, which was the hieroglyphical symbol of impiety and ingratitude. Sandys, in his Travels, mentions that this animal "killeth his sire." II. ii. p. 70. Worsted-stocking knave.-Stockings in England, when Shakspere wrote, were a very expensive says: article of apparel. Stubbes, in his Anatomie of Abuses, "Those who have not above forty shillings a year wages, will not stick to have two or three pairs of these silk nether stocks, or else of the finest yarn that may be got, though the price of them be a ryall, or twenty shillings." II. ii. p. 70. Action-taking knave, &c.-An actiontaking knave was a fellow who, if beaten, would bring an action for assault, instead of resenting it like a man. II. ii. p. 70. One-trunk-inheriting slave.-One whose sole inheritance was an old chest left by his father, containing all the family property. II. ii. p. 70. A sop o' the moonshine.—In allusion to an antique dish called " eggs in moonshine," which consisted of eggs broken and boiled in salad oil till the yolks became hard. The threat is equivalent to our modern "I'll beat you as flat as a pancake." II. ii. p. 72. Halcyon.-The kingfisher. It was popularly believed that when dried and hung by a thread it would turn its bill to the point from whence the wind blows. In the Book of Notable Things we have-" A lytle byrde called the King's Fysher, being hanged up in the ayre by the neck, his nebbe or byll wyll be always direct or strayght against ye winde." 66 II. ii. p. 73. Camelot.-Situated in Somersetshire. Selden, in his notes on Drayton's Polyolbion, says By South Cadbury is that Camelot; a hill of a mile compass at the top; four trenches encircling it; and betwixt every of them an earthen wall; the contents of it within, about twenty acres; full of ruins and reliques of old buildings. Antique report makes this one of Arthur's places of the Round Table, as the muse here sings: 'Like Camelot what place was ever yet renown'd? Where, as at Caerlion oft, he kept the Table Round.'" "In your running from him to me ye runne " And also in Howell's Collection of English Proverbs in his Dictionary (1660), together with the explanation: "He goes out of God's blessing to the warm sun, viz., from good to worse. II. iii. p. 78. Bedlam beggars.-Aubrey, in his MS., Remaines of Gentilisme_and_Judaisme, says: 66 "Before the civil wars, I remember Tom a Bedlams went about begging. They had been such as had been in Bedlam, and come to some degree of sobernesse; and when they were licensed to goe out, they had on their left arme an armilla of tinne printed, of about three inches breadth, which was sodered on.' Bedlam, the hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem, originally situated in Bishopsgate, rebuilt in 1676 near London Wall, and used as a Lunatic Asylum. II. iv. p. 81. How this mother, &c.-In Harsnet's Declaration of Popish Impostures it is said, Maynie had a spice of the hysterica passio, as seems, from his youth; he himself termes it the moother," and in another passage from the same work, "The disease I spoke of was a spice of the mother, wherewith I had been troubled before my going into Fraunce, whether I doe rightly term it the mother or no, I knowe not." a II. iv. p. 84. Cockney.-This word meant both ninny" and a "cook." In the only other passage where Shakspere uses the word, he employs it more in the sense in which it is now used, i.e. as a term of contempt for a simpleton born and bred in the metropolis. III. ii. p. 99. Cod-piece.-A bagged appendage to the front of the close-fitting hose or breeches worn by men from the 15th to the 17th centuries. Often conspicuous and ornamental. III. ii. p. 100. Summoners.-Officers that summon offenders before a proper tribunal. In Howard's Defensative against the Poison of Supposed Prophecies (1581) occurs the passage, "They seem to brag most of the strange events which follow for the most part after blazing starres, as if they were the summoners of God, to call princes to the seat of judgment." III. iv. p. 106. Bless thy five wits.-The wits were anciently reckoned "five" in correspondence with the number of the senses, these latter being sometimes called the five wits. In an old play, The Worlde and the Chylde there is the passage: "Forsoth, syr, heryinge, seynge and smellynge, III. iv. p. 107. Pillicock, &c.-In Ritson's Gammer Gurton's Garland: or, The Nursery Parnassus, there is the couplet: "Pillycock, Pillycock sat on a hill; If he's not gone, he sits there still." III. iv. p. 108. Gloves in my cap.-Gloves were anciently worn on the cap, either as the favour of a mistress, the memorial of a friend, or as a token to be challenged by an opponent. III. iv. p. 108. Lenders' books.-When spendthrifts resorted to usurers and moneylenders, receiving advances partly in cash, partly in goods, they had to enter their promissory notes or acknowledgments of the transaction in books kept for the purpose. 66 III. iv. p. 108. Dolphin, &c.-What the allusion is, is not certain. Steevens asserts that it referred to the King of France and the Dauphin or Dolphin as it was then written. The king suspected the valour of the Dauphin, yet was unwilling to put him to the test. As different champions cross the field of battle the king always discovers some objection to his attacking each of them, and repeats these two lines as every fresh personage is introduced "Dolphin, my boy, my boy, cease, let him trot by ; It seemeth not that such a foe from me or you would fly." III. iv. p. 109. And her troth plight.-In allusion to a popular spell against the nightmare, thus mentioned by Reginald Scot, in his Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584): 'If any hear the groaning of the party, speak unto him; so as he wake him, he is presently relieved. Howbeit there are magical cures for it; as for example: |