1 SERV. I hope not; I had as lief bear so much lead. Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS, and Sir HUGH EVANS. FORD. Ay, but if it prove true, master Page, have you any way then to unfool me again ?-Set down the basket, villain :-Somebody call my wife : -You, youth in a basket, come out here !-O, you panderly rascals! there's a knot, a ging', a pack, a conspiracy against me: Now shall the devil be shamed. What! wife, I say! come, come forth; behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching. PAGE. Why, this passes! Master Ford, you are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned. 4 You, youth in a basket, come out here!] This reading I have adopted from the early quarto. The folio has only-" Youth in a basket!" MALONE. 5 -- a GING.] Old copy-gin. Ging was the word intended by the poet, and was anciently used for gang. So, in Ben Jonson's New Inn, 1631: "The secret is, I would not willingly Again, in The Alchemist, 1610: 66 Sure he has got "Some baudy picture to call all this ging; "The friar and the boy, or the new motion," &c. MALONE. The second folio [1632] (so severely censured by Mr. Malone, and yet so often quoted by him as the source of emendations,) reads-ging. Milton, in his Smectymnuus, employs the same word : 66 I am met with a whole ging of words and phrases not mine." See edit. 1753, vol. i. p. 119. STEEVENS. - this PASSES!] The force of the phrase I did not understand, when a former impression of Shakspeare was prepared; and therefore gave these two words as part of an imperfect sentence. One of the obsolete senses of the word, to pass, is to go beyond bounds. So, in Sir Clyomon, &c. Knight of the Golden Shield, 1599: "I have such a deal of substance here when Brian's men are slaine, "That it passeth. O that I had while to stay!" EVA. Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad dog! SHAL. Indeed, master Ford, this is not well; indeed. Enter Mrs. FORD. FORD. So say I too, sir.-Come hither, mistress Ford; mistress Ford, the honest woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath the jealous fool to her husband!—I suspect without cause, mistress, do I? MRS. FORD. Heaven be my witness, you do, if you suspect me in any dishonesty. FORD. Well said, brazen-face; hold it out. Come forth, sirrah. [Pulls the Clothes out of the Basket. PAGE. This passes! MRS. FORD. Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone. FORD. I shall find you anon. EVA. 'Tis unreasonable! Will you take up your wife's clothes? Come away. FORD. Empty the basket, I say. MRS. FORD. Why, man, why, FORD. Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed out of my house yesterday in this basket: Why may not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is: my intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable: Pluck me out all the linen. MRS. FORD. If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death. PAGE. Here's no man. SHAL. By my fidelity, this is not well, master Ford; this wrongs you' 17. "This Again, in the translation of the Menæchmi, 1595: passeth! that I meet with none, but thus they vexe me with strange speeches." STEEVENS. See p. 32. MALONE. EVA. Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart: this is jealousies. FORD. Well, he's not here I seek for. PAGE. No, nor no where else, but in your brain. FORD. Help to search my house this one time: if I find not what I seek, show no colour for my extremity, let me for ever be your table-sport; let them say of me, As jealous as Ford, that searched a hollow walnut for his wife's leman. Satisfy me once more; once more search with me. MRS. FORD. What hoa, mistress Page! come you, and the old woman, down; my husband will come into the chamber. FORD. Old woman! What old woman's that? MRS. FORD. Why, it is my maid's aunt of Brentford. FORD. A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men; we do not know what's brought to pass under the profession of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, 7 this WRONGS you.] This is below your character, unworthy of your understanding, injurious to your honour. So, in The Taming of the Shrew, Bianca, being ill treated by her rugged sister, says: "You wrong me much, indeed you wrong yourself." JOHNSON. 8 his wife's LEMAN.] Leman, i. e. lover, is derived from leef, Dutch, beloved, and man. STEEVENS. 9 She works by charms, &c.] Concerning some old woman of Brentford, there are several ballads; among the rest, Julian of Brentford's Last Will and Testament, 1599. STEEVENS. This without doubt was the person here alluded to; for in the early quarto Mrs. Ford says-" my maid's aunt, Gillian of Brentford, hath a gown above." So also, in Westward Hoe, a comedy, 1607: "I doubt that old hag, Gillian of Brentford, has bewitched me." MALONE. Mr. Steevens, perhaps, has been misled by the vague expression of the Stationers' book. Jyl of Breyntford's Testament, to 1 by the figure, and such daubery 1 as this is; beyond our element: we know nothing.- -Come down, you witch, you hag you; come down I say. MRS. FORD. Nay, good, sweet husband ;-good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman 2. Enter FALSTAFF in Women's Clothes, led by Mrs. PAGE. MRS. PAGE. Come, mother Prat, come, give me your hand. FORD. I'll prat her:--Out of my door, you witch! [beats him] you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you ronyon! out! out! I'll conjure you, I'll fortune-tell you. [Exit FALSTAFF. which he seems to allude, was written by Robert, and printed by William Copland, long before 1599. But this, the only publication, it is believed, concerning the above lady, at present known, is certainly no ballad. RITSON. Julian of Brainford's Testament is mentioned by Laneham in his letter from Killingwoorth Castle, 1575, amongst many other works of established notoriety. HENLEY. I such DAUBERY —] Dauberies are counterfeits; disguises. So, in King Lear, Edgar says: STEEVENS. "I cannot daub it further." Perhaps rather-such gross falshood, and imposition. In our author's time a dauber and a plasterer were synonymous. See Minshieu's Dict, in v. "To lay it on with a trowel" was a phrase of that time, applied to one who uttered a gross lie. It may however mean, superficial external appearances. So, in King Richard III.: 2 "So smooth he daub'd his vice with shew of virtue." MALONE. let him NOT strike the old woman.] Not, which was inadvertently omitted in the first folio, was supplied by the second. 3 MALONE. you RAG,] This opprobrious term is again used in Timon of Athens: " thy father, that poor rag Mr. Rowe unnecessarily dismissed this word, and introduced hag in its place. -. MALONE. ronyon!] Ronyon, applied to a woman, means, as far as can be traced, much the same with scall or scab spoken of a man. JOHNSON. MRS. PAGE. Are you not ashamed? I think, you have killed the poor woman. MRS. FORD. Nay, he will do it :-Tis a goodly credit for you. FORD. Hang her, witch! EVA. By yea and no, I think, the 'oman is a witch indeed: I like not when a 'oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard under her muffler 5. FORD. Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow; see but the issue of my jealousy: if I cry out thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open again. PAGE. Let's obey his humour a little further: Come, gentlemen. [Exeunt PAGE, FORD, SHALLOW, and Evans. From Rogneux, Fr. So, in Macbeth: "Aroint thee, witch, the rump-fed ronyon cries." Again, in As You Like It: 66 -the roynish clown." STEEVENS. 5-I spy a great PEARD under her MUFFLER.] One of the marks of a supposed witch was a beard. So, in The Duke's Mistress, 1638: 66 a chin, without all controversy, good "To go a fishing with; a witches beard on't." See also Macbeth, Act I. Sc. III. The muffler (as I have learned since our last sheet was worked off) was a thin piece of linen that covered the lips and chin. See the figures of two market-women, at the bottom of G. Hoefnagle's curious plate of Nonsuch, in Braunii Civitates Orbis Terrarum ; Part V. Plate I. See likewise the bottom of the view of Shrewsbury, &c. ibid. Part VI. Plate II. where the female peasant seems to wear the same article of dress. See also a country-woman at the corner of Speed's map of England. STEEVens. As the second stratagem, by which Falstaff escapes, is much the grosser of the two, I wish it had been practised first. It is very unlikely that Ford, having been so deceived before, and knowing that he had been deceived, would suffer him to escape in so slight a disguise. JOHNSON. 6 CRY out thus upon no TRAIL,] The expression is taken from the hunters. Trail is the scent left by the passage of the To cry out, is to open or bark. game. So, in Hamlet: JOHNSON. "How cheerfully on the false trail they cry: "Oh! this is counter, ye false Danish dogs!" STEEVENS. |