THER. I shall fooner rail thee into wit and holiness: but, I think, thy horse will fooner con an oration, than thou learn a prayer without book. Thou canft ftrike, canst thou ? a red murrain o'thy jade's tricks !1

AJAX. Toads-ftool, learn me the proclamation.

THER. Doft thou think, I have no sense, thou strikeft me thus ?

AJAX. The proclamation,

THER. Thou art proclaimed a fool, I think.

AJAX. Do not, porcupine, do not; my fingers itch.

THER. I would, thou didst itch from head to foot, and I had the scratching of thee; I would

wrote first unsalted; but recollecting that want of falt was no fault in leaven, changed it to vinew'd. JOHNSON.

The want of falt is no fault in leaven; but leaven without the addition of falt will not make good bread: hence Shakspeare used it as a term of reproach. MALONE.

Unfalted is the reading of both the quartos. Francis Beaumont, in his letter to Speght on his edition of Chaucer's works, 1602, fays: "Many of Chaucer's words are become as it were vinew'd and hoarie with over long lying."

Again, in Tho. Newton's Herbal to the Bible, 8vo. 1587: "For being long kept they grow hore and vinewed."

STEEVENS.

In the Preface to James the First's Bible, the tranflators speak of fenowed (i. e. vinewed or mouldy) traditions.

BLACKSTONE.

The folio has-thou whinid'st leaven; a corruption undoubtedly of vinnewdft, or vinniedst: that is, thou most mouldy leaven. In Dorsetshire they at this day call cheese that is become mouldy, vinny cheese. MALONE.

I

a red murrain &c.] A fimilar imprecation is found in The Tempest: " -The red plague rid you!" STEEVENS.

When

make thee the loathfomest scab in Greece. thou art forth in the incurfions, thou strikest as flow as another.

AJAX. I fay, the proclamation, —

THER. Thou grumbleft and railest every hour on Achilles; and thou art as full of envy at his greatness, as Cerberus is at Proferpina's beauty, ay, that thou barkest at him.3

AJAX. Mistress Thersites!

THER. Thou shouldest strike him.

AJAX. Cobloaf! 4

THER. He would pun thee into shivers 5 with his fift, as a failor breaks a biscuit.

2

in Greece.] [Thus far the folio.] The quarto addswhen thou art forth in the incursions, thou strikest as flow as another. JOHNSON.

3

-ay, that thou barkest at him.] I read, - that thou barkedst at him, JOHNSON.

The old reading is I, which, if changed at all, should have been changed into ay. TYRWHITT.

4 Cobloaf! A crusty, uneven, gibbous loaf, is in fome counties called by this name. STEEVENS.

A cob-loaf, says Minsheu, in his Dictionary, 1616, is "a bunne. It is a little loaf made with a round head, fuch as cob-irons which support the fire. G. Bignet, a bigne, a knob or lump risen after a knock or blow." The word Bignets Cotgrave, in his Dictionary, 1611, renders thus : "Little round loaves or lumps, made of fine meale, oyle, or butter, and reafons: bunnes, lenten loaves."

Cob-loaf ought, perhaps, to be rather written cop-loaf.

5

MALONE..

-pun thee into shivers-] Pun is in the midland coun

ties the vulgar and colloquial word for-pound. JOHNSON.

It is used by P. Holland, in his tranflation of Pliny's Natural History, Book XXVIII. ch. xii : -punned altogether and

AJAX. You whorefon cur!

THER. Do, do.

AJAX. Thou stool for a witch! 6

[Beating him.

THER. Ay, do, do; thou fodden-witted lord! thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows; an affinego may tutor thee: Thou scurvy valiant

reduced into a liniment." Again, Book XXIX. ch. iv: gall of these lizards punned and diffolved in water."

"The

STEEVENS.

Cole, in his Dictionary, renders it by the Latin words contero, contundo. Mr. Pope, who altered whatever he did not understand, reads-pound, and was followed by three fubfequent editors.

MALONE.

• Thou Stool for a witch! In one way of trying a witch they used to place her on a chair or stool, with her legs tied across, that all the weight of her body might reft upon her feat ; and by that means, after some time, the circulation of the blood would be much stopped, and her fitting would be as painful as the wooden horfe. GREY.

7

--- an affinego-) I am not very certain what the idea conveyed by this word was meant to be. Afinaio is Italian, says Sir T. Hanmer, for an afs-driver: but, in Mirza, a tragedy, by Rob. Baron, Act III. the following paffage occurs, with a note annexed to it:

"the stout trusty blade,

"That at one blow has cut an afinego

"Afunder like a thread.-"

"This (fays the author) is the usual trial of the Perfian shamsheers, or cemiters, which are crooked like a crefcent, of so good metal, that they prefer them before any other, and fo sharp as any razor."

I hope, for the credit of the prince, that the experiment was rather made on an ass, than an ass-driver. From the following paffage I should suppose afinego to be merely a cant term for a foolish fellow, an idiot: They apparelled me as you fee, made a fool, or an afinego of me." See The Antiquary, a comedy, by S. Marmion, 1641. Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady: "-all this would be forfworn, and I again an afinego, as your fifter left me." STEEVENS.

Afinego is Portuguese for a little afs. MUSGRAVE.

ass! thou art here put to thrash Trojans; and thou art bought and folds among those of any wit, like a Barbarian flave. If thou use to beat me, I will begin at thy heel, and tell what thou art by inches, thou thing of no bowels, thou!

AJAX. You dog!

THER. You scurvy lord!

AJAX. You cur!

[Beating him.

THER. Mars his idiot! do, rudeness; do, camel; do, do.

Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS.

ACHIL. Why, how now, Ajax ? wherefore do you

thus?

How now, Thersites? what's the matter, man?
THER. You see him there, do you?
ACHIL. Ay; what's the matter?

And Dr. Musgrave might have added, that, in his native county, it is the vulgar name for an ass at present. HENLEY. The same term, as I am informed, is also current among the lower rank of people in Norfolk. STEEVENS.

An afinego is a he afs. "A fouldiers wife abounding with more luft than love, complaines to the king, her husband did not fatisfie her, whereas he makes her to be coupled to an afinego, whose villainy and luft took away her life."

8

Herbert's Travels, 1634, p. 98. RITSON.

--thou art bought and fold-] This was a proverbial expreffion. MALONE.

So, in King Richard III:

"For Dickon thy master is bought and fold."

Again, in King Henry VI. Part I:

"From bought and fold lord Talbot." STEEVENS.

If thou use to beat me,] i. e. if thou continue to beat me,

or make a practice of beating me.

STEEVENS.

THER. Nay, look upon him.

ACHIL. So I do; What's the matter?
THER. Nay, but regard him well.

ACHIL. Well, why I do fo.

THER. But yet you look not well upon him; for, whofoever you take him to be, he is Ajax, ACHIL. I know that, fool.

THER. Ay, but that fool knows not himself.

AJAX. Therefore I beat thee,

THER. Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! his evasions have ears thus long. I have bobbed his brain, more than he has beat my bones: I will buy nine sparrows for a penny, and his pia mater is not worth the ninth part of a sparrow. This lord, Achilles, Ajax,-who wears his wit in his belly, and his guts in his head, I'll tell you what I say of him.

ACHIL. What?

THER. I say, this Ajax

ACHIL. Nay, good Ajax.

[AJAX offers to strike him, ACHILLES

interpofes.

THER. Has not so much wit-

ACHIL. Nay, I must hold you.

THER. As will stop the eye of Helen's needle,

for whom he comes to fight.

ACHIL. Peace, fool!

- his pia mater &c.] So, in Twelfth Night: "-here comes one of thy kin has a most weak pia mater." The pia mater is a membrane that protects the substance of the brain.

STEEVENS,