Here is a thynge" in dede, by the masse though ich

speake it,

56 Tom Tankard's great bald curtal, I thinke could not breake it.

And when he spyed my neede, to be so straight and hard,

Hays lent me here his naull, to set the gyb forward.* As for my gammer's neele, the flyenge feynd go weete, Chill not now go to the doore again with it to meete. Chould make shyfte good enough, and chad a candels ende

The cheefe hole in my breeche, with these two chill amende.

THE THIRD ACTE.

THE SECOND SCEANE.

GAMMER. HODGE.

Gammer. How, Hodge! mayst nowe be glad, cha newes to tell thee,

Ich knowe who hais my neele, ich trust soone shalt it

see.

Hodge. The devyll thou does: hast hard gammer in deede, or doest but jest?

Gammer. Tys as true as steele, Hodge.

Hodge. Why, knowest well where dydst leese it?

55 Mr. Dodsley altered this word to thong.

56 Tom Tankard's great bald curtal,] Curtal is a small horse; properly one who hath his tail docked or curtailed. So, in Dekker's Villanies discovered by Lanthorne and Candlelight, &c. 1620, Sig H.: "He could shewe more crafty foxes in this wild goose chase, then "there are white foxes in Russia; and more strange horse-trickes "plaide by such riders, then Bankes his curtal did ever practise "(whose gambals of the two were the honester)."

to set the gyb forward.] A naval phrase. The gib is the gib-sail. To set a sail, is also the technical term. S.

Gammer. Ich know who found it, and tooke it

shalt see or it be longe.

up,

Hodge. God's mother dere, if that be true, farwel both naule and thong.

But who hais it, gammer, say? one chould faine here it disclosed.

Gammer. That false fixen, that same dame Chat, that counts her selfe so honest.

Hodge. Who tolde you so?

Gammer. That same did Diccon the bedlam, which saw it done.

Hodge. Diccon! it is a vengeable knave, gammer, 'tis a bonable horson,

*

Can do mo things than that, els cham deceyved evil : By the masse ich saw him of late cal up a great blacke

devill.

O, the knave cryed ho, ho, he roared and he thundred, And ye❜ad bene here, cham sure you'ld murrenly ha wondred.

Gummer. Was not thou afraide, Hodge, to see him in this place?

Hodge. No, and chad come to me, chould have laid him on the face,

Chould have promised him.

Gammer. But Hodge, had he no horns to pushe? Hodge. As long as your two armes.

fryer Rushe

Saw ye never

Painted on a cloth, with a side long cowe's tayle,
And crooked cloven feet, and many a hoked nayle?
For al the world (if I shuld judg) chould reckon him
his brother:

57 Loke even what face frier Rush had, the devil had such another.

bonable] I suppose he means to say banable, from to ban, to curse; a rogue that ought to be execrated. S.

57 Loke even what face frier Rush had,] Fryar Rush is mentioned in Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, p. 522: “Frier Rush was for all the world such another fellow as this Hudgin, "and brought up even in the same schoole; to wit, in a kitchen: insomuch as the selfesame tale is written of the one as of the

Gammer. Now Jesus mercy, Hodge, did Diccon in him bring?

Hodge. Nay, gammer (heare me speke) chil tel you a greater thing.

The devil, when Diccon bad him (ich hard him wondrous weel)

Sayd plainly (here before us) that dame Chat had your neele.

Gammer. Then let us go, and aske her wherefore she minds to kepe it,

Seeing we know so much, 'tware madness now to slepe it.

Hodge. Go to her, gammer, see ye not where she stands in her doores?

Byd her geve you the neele, 'tys none of hers but yours.

Gammer. Dame Chat, cholde praye the fair, let me have that is mine,

Chil not this twenty yeres take one fart that is thyne; Therfore give me mine owne, and let me live besyde the.

Chat. Why art thou crept from home hether to mine own doores to chide me?

Hence, doting drab, avaunt, or I shall set the further. Intends thou and this knave, mee in my house to murther?

Gammer. Tush! gape not so; 58 no woman, shalt not yet eate mee,

Nor all the frends thou hast, in this shall not intreat

mee;

"other concerning the skullian, which is said to have beene slaine, "&c. For the reading whereof I referre you to Frier Rush his storie, or else to John Wierus De præstigiis demonum."

"

58 me.

Mine owne Goods I will have, and aske the no 59

beleve:

What woman; pore folks must have right, though the thing you agreve.

Chat. Give thee thy right, and hang the up, with all thy bagger's broode;

What, wilt thou make me a theefe, and say I stole thy good?

Gammer. Chil say nothing (ich warrant thee) but that ich can prove it well,

Thou fet my good even from my doore, cham able this to tell.

Chat. Did I (olde witch) steal oft was thine?* how should that thing be knowen?

Gammer. Ich can not tell, but up thou tokest it as though it had bin thine own.

Chat. Mary, fy on thee, thou old Gyb, with al my very hart.

Gammer. Nay, fy on thee thou rampe, thou ryg,† with al that take thy part.

Chat. A vengeaunce on those lips that laieth such things to my charge.

Gammer. A vengeaunce on those callats hips, whose conscience is so large.

Chat. Come out, hogge.

Gammer. Coine out, hogge, and let have me right. Chat Thou arrant witche.

Gammer. Thou bawdie bitche chil make thee curse this night.

59 on.

*oft was thine?] i. e. aught, any thing. S,

60 Nay, fy on thee thou rampe, &c.] Dr. Gabriel Harvey, in his Pierce's Supererogation, 4to. 1593. speaking of Long Meg of Westminster, says: Although she were a lusty, bouncing rampe, "somewhat like Gallimetta, or maid Marian, yet was she not "such a roinish rannel, such a dissolute flirt gillian," &c.

+ ryg,] i. e. thou strumpet. See Note on Antony and Cleopatra, Shaks. 1778, vol. 8. p. 175. S.

So in Davies's Scourge of Folly, 12mo:

"Or wanton Rigg, or letcher dissolute

"Do stand at Powles Crosse in a sheeten sute." I. R.

Chat. A bag and a wallet.*

Gammer. A carte for a callet.

Chat. Why 61 wenest thou thus to prevaile?

I hold thee a grote,

I shall patche thy coate.

Gammer. Thou warte as good kysse my tayle;

62 Thou slut, thou kut, thou rakes, thou jakes, will not shame make thee hide the 63 ?

Chat. Thou skald, thou bald, thou roten,* thou glotton, I will no longer chyd thee;

But I will teache the to kepe home.
Gammer. Wylt thou, drunken beaste?

Hodge. Sticke to her, gammer, take her by the head, chil warrant you this feast.

* A bag and wallet.] i. e. the accoutrements of an itinerant trull.

61

wenest] Thinkest or imaginest.

again, A. 5. S. 2:

S.

Obsolete. It occurs

Iweene, the ende will prove this brawle did first arise
Upon no other ground, but only Diccon's lyes."

Again, in Euphues, 1581, p. 14: "Weenest thou that he wil have no mistrust of thy faithfulnesse, when he hath had tryall of thy "ficklenesse ?"

62 Thou slut, thou kut,] Cut appears to have been an opprobrious term used by the vulgar when they scolded or abused each other. It occurs again, A. 5. S. 2: "That lying cut is lost, that "she is not swinged and beaten."

A horse is sometimes called Cut in our ancient writers, as in the First Part of Henry IV. A. 2. S. 1. and Falstaffe says: if I "tell thee a lye spit in my face, and call me horse." Cut is therefore probably used in the same sense as horse, to which it seems to have been synonymous. Several instances of the use of this term are collected by Mr. Steevens, in his edition of Shakspeare; see vol. IV. p. 202.

It appears probable to me that the opprobrious epithet Cut arose from the practice of cutting the hair of convicted thieves; which was anciently the custom in England, as appears from the edicts of John de Northampton against adulterers, who thought, with Paulo Migante, that

"England ne'er would thrive,

"Till all the whores were burnt alive."

63 The addition.

See Holinshed, vol. 9.754, Ed. 1807. O. G.

+ thou roten,] i. e. rat. So in one of the Chester Whitsun plays : "Here is a rotten, there a mouse." S.