Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

Enter Clown.

CLOWN. Let me fee :-Every 'leven wether tods;" every tod yields-pound and odd fhilling: fifteen hundred fhorn,-What comes the wool to?

Aur. If the fpringe hold, the cock's mine. [Afide. CLOWN. I cannot do't without counters."-Let

i tods;] A tod is twenty-eight pounds of wool. PERCY. I was led into an errour concerning this paffage by the word tods, which I conceived to be a fubftantive, but which is ufed ungrammatically as the third perfon fingular of the verb to tod, in concord. with the preceding words-every 'leven wether. The fame difregard of grammar is found in almoft every page of the old copies, and has been properly corrected, but here is in character, and should be preferved.

Dr. Farmer obferves to me, that to fod is used as a verb by dealers in wool; thus, they fay, "Twenty fheep ought to tod fifty pounds of wool," &c. The meaning therefore of the clown's words is, "Every eleven wether tods; i. e. will produce a tod, or twentyeight pounds of wool; every tod yields a pound and fome odd fhillings; what then will the wool of fifteen hundred yield?"

The occupation of his father furnished our poet with accurate knowledge on this fubject; for two pounds and a half of wool is; I am told, a very good produce from a fheep at the time of fhearing. About thirty fhillings a tod is a high price at this day. It is fingular, as Sir Henry Englefield remarks to me, that there fhould be fo little variation between the price of wool in Shak speare's time and the prefent.-In 1425, as I fearn from Kennet's Parochial Antiquities, a tod of wool fold for nine fhillings and fix pence.

MALONE.

Every 'leven wether tods;] This has been rightly expounded to mean that the wool of eleven sheep would weigh a tod, or 281b. Each fleece would, therefore, be 2 lb. 8 oz. 111⁄2dr. and the whole produce of fifteen hundred fhorn 136 tod. 9lb. box. z dr. which at pound and odd fhilling per tod would yield £. 143 3 0. Our au thor was too familiar with the fubject to be fufpected of inaccuracy. RITSON.

8 without counters.] By the help of small circular pieces of bafe metal, all reckonings were anciently adjufted among the illiterate and vulgar. Thus Iago, in contempt of Caffio, calls himcounter-cafter. See my note on Othello, Act I, fc. i. STEEVENS.

me fee; what am I to buy for our fheep-frearing feaft? Three pound of fugar; five pound of currants; rice--What will this fifter of mine do with rice? But my father hath made her mistress of the feast, and the lays it on. She hath made me four and twenty nofegays for the fhearers: three-man fongmen all, and very good ones; but they are most of them means and bafes: but one Puritan amongst them, and he fings pfalms to hornpipes. I muft have faffron, to colour the warden pies; mace,-dates,

9fbeep-fhearing feaft?] The expence attending these feftivities, appears to have afforded matter of complaint. Thus in Queftions of Profitable and Pleafant Concernings, &c. 1594: "If it be a fheep-fhearing feaft, maifter Baily can entertaine you with his bill of reckonings to his maifter of three fheapheard's wages, fpent on fresh cates, besides spices and saffron pottage." STEEVENS.

2

three-man fong-men all,] i. e. fingers of catches in three parts. A fix-man fong occurs in The Tournament of Tottenham. See The Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Vol. II. p. 24. PERCY.

So, in Heywood's King Edward IV. 1626: "call Dudgeon and his fellows, we'll have a three-man fong." Before the comedy of The Gentle Graft, or the Shoemaker's Holiday, 1600, fome of these three-man fongs are printed. STEEVENS.

[blocks in formation]

4

66

- he can fing

[ocr errors]

"A mean moft meanly.' STEEVENS.

warden pies ;] Wardens are a fpecies of large pears. I believe the name is difufed at prefent. It however afforded Ben Jonfon room for a quibble in his mafque of Gypfies Metamorphofed: "A deputy tart, a church-warden pye."

It appears from a paffage in Cupid's Revenge, by Beaumont and Fletcher, that these pears were ufually eaten roasted:

"I would have had him roafted like a warden,

"In brown paper."

The French call this pear the poire de garde. STEEVENS. Barrett, in his Alvearie, voce Warden Tree, [Vole mum] fays, Volema autem pyra funt prægrandia, ita dicta quod impleant volam.

REED.

-none; that's out of my note: nutmegs, Seven; a race, or two, of ginger;—but that I may beg;-four pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o'the fun.

AUT. O, that ever I was born!

[Groveling on the ground.

CLOWN. I'the name of me,5

Aur. O, help me, help me! pluck but off these rags; and then, death, death!

CLOWN. Alack, poor foul; thou haft need of more rags to lay on thee, rather than have these off.

Aur. O, fir, the loathfomenefs of them offends me more than the ftripes I have receiv'd; which are mighty ones, and millions.

CLOWN. Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a great matter.

AUT. I am robb'd, fir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta'en from me, and these deteftable things put upon me.

CLOWN. What, by a horse-man, or a foot-man? Aur. A foot-man, fweet fir, a foot-man. CLOWN. Indeed, he should be a foot-man, by the garments he hath left with thee; if this be a horseman's coat, it hath feen very hot fervice. Lend me thy hand, I'll help thee: come, lend me thy hand. [Helping him up.

AUT. O! good fir, tenderly, oh!

CLOWN. Alas, poor foul.

5 I' the name of me,] This is a vulgar exclamation, which I have often heard ufed. So, fir Andrew Ague-cheek:-" Before me, fhe's a good wench." STEEVENS.

Aur. O, good fir, foftly, good fir: I fear, fir, my fhoulder-blade is out.

CLOWN. How now? canft ftand?

Aur. Softly, dear fir; [picks his pocket.] good fir, foftly: you ha' done me a charitable office. CLOWN. Doft lack any money? I have a little money for thee.

Aur. No, good sweet fir; no, I beseech you, fir: I have a kinfman not paft three quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was going; I fhall there have money, or any thing I want: Offer me no money, Ι pray you; that kills my heart."

CLOWN. What manner of fellow was he that robb'd you?

Aur. A fellow, fir, that I have known to go about with trol-my-dames: I knew him once a

6

that kills my heart.] So, in K. Henry V. Dame Quickly, fpeaking of Falstaff, fays-" the king hath kill'd his heart.

See Vol. VI. p. 92, n. 3. MALONE.

STEEVENS.

with trol-my-dames:] Trou-madame, French. The game

of nine-holes.

WARBURTON.

In Dr. Jones's old treatife on Buckftone Bathes, he fays: "The ladyes, gentle woomen, wyves, maydes, if the weather be not agreeable, may have in the ende of a benche, eleven holes made, intoo the which to troule pummits, either wyolent or fofte, after their own discretion: the paftyme troule in madame is termed."

FARMER.

The old English title of this game was pigeon-boles; as the arches in the machine through which the balls are rolled, resemble the cavities made for pigeons in a dove-houfe. So, in The Antipodes, 1638:

"Three-pence I loft at nine-pins; but I got
"Six tokens towards that at pigeon-holes."

Again, in A wonder, or a Woman never vex'd, 1632: "What quickfands he finds out, as dice, cards, pigeon-holes." STEEVENS,

fervant of the prince; I cannot tell, good fir, for which of his virtues it was, but he was certainly whipp'd out of the court.

CLOWN. His vices, you would fay; there's no virtue whipp'd out of the court: they cherish it, to make it stay there; and yet it will no more but abide.R

AUT. Vices I would fay, fir. I know this man well: he hath been fince an ape-bearer; then a procefs-ferver, a bailiff; then he compafs'd a motion of the prodigal fon," and married a tinker's wife within a mile where my land and living lies; and, having flown over many knavifh profeffions, he fettled only in rogue: fome call him Autolycus.

CLOWN. Out upon him! Prig, for my life,prig:2 he haunts wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings.

Mr. Steevens is perfectly accurate in his defcription of the game of Trou-madame, or pigean holes. Nine holes is quite another thing;

Thus :

o being fo many holes made in the ground, into which O they are to bowl a pellet. I have feen both played O at. RITSON.

This game is mentioned by Drayton in the 14th fong of his Polyolbion:

"At nine-holes on the heath while they together play." STEEVENS.

8abide.] To abide, here, muft fignify, to fojourn, to live for a time without a fettled habitation. JOHNSON.

To abide is again used in Macbeth, in the fenfe of tarrying for a while:

[ocr errors]

"I'll call upon you straight; abide within." MALONE. motion of the prodigal fon,] i. e. the puppet-stew, then A term frequently occurring in our author.

called motions.

WARBURTON.

2- Prig, for my life, prig:] To prig is to filch. MALONE. In the canting language Prig is a thief or pick-pocket; and therefore in The Beggars Bush, by Beaumont and Fletcher, Prig is the name of a knavifh beggar. WHALLEY.

« FöregåendeFortsätt »