North. Come, come, go in with me: 'tis with my mind, As with the tide swell'd up unto its height, SCENE IV. [Exeunt London. A Room in the Boar's Head Tavern, in Eastcheap. Enter Two Drawers. 1 Draw. What the devil hast thou brought there? apple-Johns? thou know'st, sir John cannot endure an apple-John. 3 2 Draw. Mass, thou sayest truc: The prince once set a dish of apple-Johns before him, and told him, there were five more sir Johns: and, putting off his hat, said, I will now take my leave of these six dry, round, old, withered knights. It angered him to the heart; but he hath forgot that. 1 Draw. Why then, cover, and set them down: And see if thou canst find out Sneak's noise; mistress Tear 3 — an apple-John.] So, in The Ball, by Chapman and Shirley, 1639: 66 thy man, Apple-John, that looks "As he had been a sennight in the straw, "A ripening for the market." This apple will keep two years, but becomes very wrinkled and shrivelled. It is called by the French,-Deux-ans. Thus, Cogan, in his Haven of Health, 1595: "The best apples that we have in England are pepins, deusants, costards, darlings, and such other." Again, among instructions given in the year 1580 to some of our navigators, "for banketting on shipboard persons of credite," we meet with "the apple John that dureth two yeares, to make shew of our fruits." See Hackluyt, Vol. I, p. 441. Steevens. 4 Sneak's noise;] Sneak was a street minstrel, and therefore the drawer goes out to listen if he can hear him in the neighbourhood. Johnson. A noise of musicians anciently signified a concert or company of them. In the old play of Henry V, (not that of Shakspeare) sheet would fain hear some musick. Despatch:5—The room where they supped, is too hot; they 'll come in straight. 2 Draw. Sirrah, here will be the prince, and master Poins anon: and they will put on two of our jerkins, and aprons; and sir John must not know of it: Bardolph hath brought word. 1 Draw. By the mass, here will be old utis: It will be an excellent stratagem. there is this passage: "there came the young prince, and two or three more of his companions, and called for wine good store, and then they sent for a noyse of musitians," &c. Falstaff addresses them as a company in another scene of this play. So again, in Westward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607: "All the noise that went with him, poor fellows, have had their fiddle-cases pulled over their ears." Again, in The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, a comedy, printed 1598, the Count says: "O that we had a noise of musicians, to play to this antick as we go." Heywood, in his Iron Age, 1632, has taken two expressions from these plays of Henry IV, and put them into the mouth of Thersites addressing himself to Achilles: "Where's this great sword and buckler man of Greece? "And come peaking into the tents of the Greeks, Among Ben Jonson's Leges convivales is— "Fidicen, nisi accersitus, non venito." Steevens. 5 Despatch: &c.] This period is from the first edition. Pope. These words, which are not in the folio, are in the quarto given to the second drawer. Mr. Pope rightly attributed them to the first. Malone. 6- here will be old utis:] Utis, an old word yet in use in some counties, signifying a merry festival, from the French huit, octo, ab. A. S. Eahta, Octave festi alicujus.-Skinner. Pope. Skinner's explanation of utis (or utas) may be confirmed by the following passage from T. M.'s Life of Sir Thomas More: "-tomorrow is St. Thomas of Canterbury's eeve, and the utas of St. Peter." The eve of Thomas à Becket, according to the new style, happens on the 6th of July, and St. Peter's day on the 29th of June. Again, in A Contention between Liberality and Prodigality, a comedy, 1602: "Then if you please, with some roysting harmony, "Let us begin the utas of our iollitie." Henley. Old, in this place, does not mean ancient, but was formerly a common augmentative in colloquial language. Old Utis signifies festivity in a great degree. Draw. I'll see, if I can find out Sneak. Enter Hostess and Doll Tear-sheet. [Exit. Host. I' faith, sweet heart, methinks now you are in an excellent good temperality: your pulsidge beats" as extraordinarily as heart would desire; and your colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose: But, i' faith, you have drunk too much canaries; and that 's a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes the blood ere one can say, What's this? How do you now? Dol. Better than I was. Hem. Host. Why, that 's well said; a good heart's worth gold. Look, here comes sir John. Enter FALSTAFF, singing. Fal. When Arthur first in court-Empty the jordan. -And was a worthy king: [exit Draw.] How now, mistress Doll? So, in Lingua, 1607: 66 there 's old moving among them." Again, in Decker's comedy, called, If this be not a good Play the Devil is in it, 1612:" "We shall have old breaking of necks then." Again, in Soliman and Persedu, 1599: "I shall have old laughing." Again, in Arden of Feversham, 1592: "Here will be old filching, when the press comes out of Paul's." Steevens. See Vol. VI, p. 83, n. 5. Malone. 7 your pulsidge beats &c.] One would almost regard this speech as a burlesque on the following passage in the interlude, called The Repentance of Mary Magdalene, 1567. Infidelity says to Mary: 8 "Let me fele your poulses, mistresse Mary, be you sicke? 'By my troth in as good tempre as any woman can be: "Your vaines are as full of blood, lusty and quicke, "In better taking truly I did you never see." Steevens. a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes the blood -] The same phraseology is seriously used by Arthur Hall, in his translation of the first Iliad, 4°. 1581: good Chrise with wine so red "The aulter throughly doth perfume:- Steevens. 9 When Arthur first in court-] The entire ballad is published in the first volume of Dr. Percy's "Reliques of ancient English Poetry. The words in the ballad are "When Arthur first in court began, Steevens. Host. Sick of a calm:1 yea, good sooth. Fal. So is all her sect;2 an they be once in a calm, they are sick. Dol. You muddy rascal, is that all the comfort you give me? Fal. You make fat rascals,3 mistress Doll. 1 Sick of a calm:] I suppose she means to say of a qualm. Steevens. 2 So is all her sect;] I know not why sect is printed in all the copies; I believe sex is meant. Johnson. Sect is, I believe, right. Falstaff may mean all of her profession. In Mother Bombie, a comedy, 1594, the word is frequently used: "Sil. I am none of that sect. "Can. Thy loving sect is an ancient sect, and an honourable," &c. Since the foregoing quotation was given, I have found sect so often printed for sex in the old plays, that I suppose these words were anciently synonymous. Thus, in Marston's Insatiate Countess, 1613: "Deceives our sect of fame and chastity." Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Valentinian: Modesty was made "When she was first intended: when she blushes "The purest temple of her sect, that ever "Made nature a blest founder." Steevens. In Middleton's Mad World my Masters, 1608, (as Dr. Farmer has elsewhere observed) a courte zan says, "it is the easiest art and cunning for our sect to counterfeit sick, that are always full of fits, when we are well," I have therefore no doubt that sect was licentiously used by our author, and his contemporaries, for sex. Malone. I believe sect is here used in its usual sense, and not for sex. Falstaff means to say, that all courtezans, when their trade is at a stand, are apt to be sick. Douce. 3 You make fat rascals,] Falstaff alludes to a phrase of the forest. Lean deer are called rascal deer. He tells her she calls him wrong, being fat he cannot be a rascal. Johnson. So, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle: "The heavy hart, the blowing buck, the rascal, and the pricket." Again, in The Two Angry Women of Abington, 1599: "What take you?-Deer.-You 'll ne'er strike rascal ?” Again, in Quarles's Virgin Widow, 1656: 66 and have known a rascal from a fat deer." "Rascall, (says Puttenham, p. 150,) is properly the hunting terme given to young deere, leane and out of season, and not to people." Steevens. To grow fat and bloated is one of the consequences of the ve Dol. I make them! gluttony and diseases make them; I make them not. Fal. If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to make the diseases, Doll: we catch of you, Doll, we catch of you; grant that, my poor virtue, grant that. Dol. Ay, marry; our chains, and our jewels. Fal. Your brooches, pearls, and owches;*—for to serve bravely, is to come halting off, you know: To come off the breach with his pike bent bravely, and to surgery bravely; to venture upon the charged chambers3 bravely: nereal disease; and to that Falstaff probably alludes. There are other allusions, in the following speeches, to the same disorder. M. Mason. 4 Your brooches, pearls, and owches;] Brooches were chains of gold that women wore formerly about their necks. Owches were bosses of gold set with diamonds. Pope. I believe Falstaff gives these splendid names as we give that of carbuncle, to something very different from gems and ornaments: but the passage deserves not a laborious research. Johnson. -Brooches were, literally, clasps, or buckles, ornamented with gems. See note on Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV, sc. xiii. Mr. Pope has rightly interpreted owches in their original sense. So, in Nash's Lenten Stuff, &c. 1599: “ three scarfs, bracelets, chains, and ouches." It appears likewise from a passage in the ancient satire called Cocke Lorelles Bote, printed by Wynkyn de Worde, that the makers of these ornaments were called owchers: "Owchers, skynners, and cutlers." Dugdale, p. 234, in his Account of the Will of T. de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, in the time of Edward III, says: "His jewels be thus disposed: to his daughter Stafford, an ouche called the eagle, which the prince gave him; to his daughter Alice, his next best ouche." Steevens. It appears from Stubbes'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. 5 the charged chambers -] To understand this quibble, it is necessary to say, that a chamber signifies not only an apart ment, but a piece of ordnance. A chamber is likewise that part in a mine where the powder is lodged. Steevens. |