I thought to have told thee of it; but I fear'd, PRO. Say again, where didst thou leave these varlets? ARI. I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking; So full of valour, that they smote the air ears, Advanc'd their eye-lids, lifted up their noses, s Advanc'd their eyelids, &c.] Thus Drayton, in his Nymphidia, or Court of Fairie : "But once the circle got within, "The charms to work do straight begin, "For as he thus was busy, "A pain he in his head-piece feels, 66 Against a stubbed tree he reels, "And up went poor Hobgoblin's heels: "Alas, his brain was dizzy. "At length upon his feet he gets, "And through the bushes scrambles, "A stump doth hit him in his pace, "And lamentably tore his case Among the briers and brambles." JOHNSON. 6 As they smelt musick;] As is here, as in many other places, used for as if. 66 So in Cymbeline: he spoke of her "As Dion had hot dreams, and she," &c. MALONE. 7-pricking GOSS,] I know not how Shakspeare distin Which enter'd their frail shins: at last I left them I' the filthy mantled pool beyond your cell, There dancing up to the chins, that the foul lake O'erstunk their feet. PRO. This was well done, my bird: Thy shape invisible retain thou still : The trumpery in my house, go, bring it hither, For stale to catch these thieves 9. ARI. I go, I go. [Exit. PRO. A devil, a born devil, on whose nature Nurture can never stick'; on whom my pains, Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost 2; And as, with age, his body uglier grows, guished goss from furze; for what he calls furze is called goss or gorse in the midland counties. This word is used in the first chorus to Kyd's Cornelia, 1594: "With worthless gorse that, yearly, fruitless dies." STEEVENS. By the latter, Shakspeare means the low sort of gorse that only grows upon wet ground, and which is well described by the name of whins in Markham's Farewell to Husbandry. It has prickles like those of a rose-tree or a gooseberry. Furze and whins occur together in Dr. Farmer's quotation from Holinshed. TOLLETT. 8 I' the FILTHY mantled pool-] Perhaps we should read— filth-ymantled.-A similar idea occurs in King Lear: "Drinks the green mantle of the standing pool." STEEVENS. 9 For STALE to catch these thieves.] Stale is a word in fowling, and is used to mean a bait or decoy to catch birds.' So, in A Looking-glass for London and England, 1617: "Hence tools of wrath, stales of temptation!" Again, in Green's Mamilia, 1595: 66 that she might not strike at the stale, lest she were canvassed in the nets." I NURTURE can never stick ;] Nurture is education. A little volume entitled The Boke of Nurture, or Schoole of good Maners, &c. was published in the reign of King Edward VI. 4to. bl. 1. 2 STEEVENS. ALL, all lost,] The first of these words was probably introduced by the carelessness of the transcriber or compositor. We might safely read-are all lost. MALONE. So his mind cankers: I will plague them all, Hear a foot fall 3: we now are near his cell. STE. Monster, your fairy, which, you say, is a harmless fairy, has done little better than played the Jack with us1. TRIN. Monster, I do smell all horse-piss; at which my nose is in great indignation. STE. So is mine. Do you hear, monster? If I should take a displeasure against you; look you,TRIN. Thou wert but a lost monster. 2 And as with age, his body uglier grows, So his mind cankers:] Shakspeare, when he wrote this description, perhaps recollected what his patron's most intimate friend the great Lord Essex, in an hour of discontent, said of Queen Elizabeth :-" that she grew old and canker'd, and that her mind was become as crooked as her carcase :"-a speech, which, according to Sir Walter Raleigh, cost him his head, and which we may therefore suppose was at that time much talked of. This play being written in the time of King James, these obnoxious words might be safely repeated. MALONE. I trust that Shakspeare did not aim a reproach at his patroness in her grave. Boswell. 3 the blind mole may not queen and Hear a foot fall:] This quality of hearing, which the mole is supposed to possess in so high a degree, is mentioned in Euphues, 4to. 1581, p. 64: "Doth not the lion for strength, the turtle for love, the ant for labour, excel man? Doth not the eagle see clearer, the vulture smell better, the moale hear lightlyer?" REED. 4 has done little better than played the JACK with us.] i. e. He has played Jack with a lantern; has led us about like an ignis fatuus, by which travellers are decoyed into the mire. JOHNSON. CAL. Good my lord, give me thy favour still: Be patient, for the prize I'll bring thee to Shall hood-wink this mischance: therefore, speak softly, All's hush'd as midnight yet. TRIN. Ay, but to lose our bottles in the pool,STE. There is not only disgrace and dishonour in that, monster, but an infinite loss. TRIN. That's more to me than my wetting: yet this is your harmless fairy, monster. STE. I will fetch off my bottle, though I be o'er my labour. ears for CAL. Pr'ythee, my king, be quiet: Seest thou here, This is the mouth o' the cell: no noise, and enter: Do that good mischief, which may make this island Thine own for ever, and I, thy Caliban, For aye thy foot-licker. STE. Give me thy hand: I do begin to have bloody thoughts. TRIN. O king Stephano! O peer! O worthy Stephano! look, what a wardrobe here is for thee 5! CAL. Let it alone, thou fool; it is but trash. TRIN. O, ho, monster; we know what belongs to a frippery :-O king Stephano! 6 5 Trin. O king Stephano! O peer! O worthy Stephano! look, what a wardrobe is here for thee!] The humour of these lines consists in their being an allusion to an old celebrated ballad, which begins thus: "King Stephen was a worthy peer "—and celebrates that king's parsimony with regard to his wardrobe.-There are two stanzas of this ballad in Othello. WARBURTON. The old ballad is printed at large in The Reliques of Ancient Poetry, vol. i. PERCY. 6 we know what belongs to a FRIPPERY] A frippery was a shop where old clothes were sold. Fripperie, Fr. Beaumont and Fletcher use the word in this sense, in Wit Without Money, Act II. : 66 "As if I were a running frippery." So, in Monsieur d' Olive, a comedy, by Chapman, 1606: Passing yesterday by the frippery, I spied two of them hanging out at a stall, with a gambrell thrust from shoulder to shoulder." STE. Put off that gown, Trinculo; by this hand, I'll have that gown. TRIN. Thy grace shall have it. CAL. The dropsy drown this fool! what do you mean, To doat thus on such luggage? Let it alone", From toe to crown he'll fill our skins with pinches ; STE. Be you quiet, monster.-Mistress line, is not this my jerkin? Now is the jerkin under the line: now, jerkin, you are like to lose your hair, and prove a bald jerkin. TRIN. Do, do: We steal by line and level, and't like your grace. The person who kept one of these shops was called a fripper. Strype, in the Life of Stowe, says, that these frippers lived in Birchin Lane and Cornhill. STEEVENS. For the emendation in the text the present editor is answerable. Caliban had used the same expression before. Mr. Theobald reads-" Let's along." MALONE. Hanmer also reads, Let it alone. BosWELL. "Let's alone," may mean- Let you and I only go to commit the murder, leaving Trinculo, who is so solicitous about the trash of dress, behind us.' STEEVENS. 8 under the line:] "An allusion to what often happens to people who pass the line. The violent fevers, which they contract in that hot climate, make them lose their hair." Edwards' MSS. Perhaps the allusion is to a more indelicate disease than any peculiar to the equinoxial. So, in The Noble Soldier, 1632: "Tis hot going under the line there." Again, in Lady Alimony, 1659: 66 Where you inhabit; that's the torrid zone: Yea, there goes the hair away." Shakspeare seems to design an equivoque between the equinoxial and the girdle of a woman. It may be necessary, however, to observe, as a further elucidation of this miserable jest, that the lines on which clothes are hung, are usually made of twisted horse-hair. STEEVENS. |