SCENE III. Windsor Park. Enter CAIUS and RUGBY. CAIUS. Jack Rugby! RUG. Sir. CAIUS. Vat is de clock, Jack? RUG. 'Tis past the hour, sir, that sir Hugh pro mised to meet. CAIUS. By gar, he has save his soul, dat he is no come; he has pray his Pible vell, dat he is no come: by gar, Jack Rugby, he is dead already, if he be come. RUG. He is wise, sir; he knew, your worship would kill him, if he came. CAIUS. By gar, de herring is no dead, so as I vill kill him. Take your rapier, Jack: I vill tell you how I vill kill him. RUG. Alas, sir, I cannot fence. CAIUS. Villainy, take your rapier. Enter Host, SHALLOW, SLENder, and Page. HOST. 'Bless thee, bully doctor. SHAL. 'Save you, master doctor Caius. PAGE. Now, good master doctor! SLEN. Give you good-morrow, sir. CAIUS. Vat be all you, one, two, tree, four, come for? HOST. To see thee fight, to see thee foin, to see 6 to see thee FOIN,] To foin, I believe, was the ancient term for making a thrust in fencing, or tilting. So, in The Wise Woman of Hogsden, 1638 : "I had my wards, and foins, and quarter-blows." Again, in The Devil's Charter, 1607: 8 thee traverse, to see thee here, to see thee there; to see thee pass thy punto, thy stock', thy reverse, thy distance, thy montánt. Is he dead, my Ethiopian? is he dead, my Francisco ? ha, bully! What says my Esculapius? my Galen ? my heart of elder? ha! is he dead, bully Stale1? is he dead? CAIUS. By gar, he is de coward Jack priest of the vorld; he is not show his face. HOST. Thou art a Castilian2 king, Urinal! Hector of Greece, my boy! Spenser, in his Fairy Queen, often uses the word foin. So, in b. ii. c. 8: "And strook'd and foyn'd, and lashed outrageously." Again, in Holinshed, p. 833: “First six foines with handspeares," &c. STEEVENS. 7thy STOCK,] Stock is a corruption of stocata, Ital. from which language the technical terms that follow are likewise adopted. STEEVENS. 8 - my FRANCISCO ?] He means, my Frenchman. The quarto reads-my Francoyes. MALONE. 9 - my heart of elder?] It should be remembered, to make this joke relish, that the elder tree has no heart. I suppose this expression was made use of in opposition to the common one, heart of oak. STEEVENS. -bully STALE?] The reason why Caius is called bully Stale, and afterwards Urinal, must be sufficiently obvious to every reader, and especially to those whose credulity and weakness have enrolled them among the patients of the present German empiric, who calls himself Doctor Alexander Mayersbach. STEEVENS. 2 1 - Castilian] Sir T. Hanmer reads-Cardalian, as used corruptedly for Cœur de Lion. JOHNSON. Castilian and Ethiopian, like Cataian, appear in our author's time to have been cant terms. I have met with them in more than one of the old comedies. So, in a description of the Armada introduced in the Stately Moral of the Three Lords of London, 1590: "To carry, as it were, a careless regard of these Castilians, and their accustomed bravado." CAIUS. I pray you, bear vitness that me have stay six or seven, two, tree hours for him, and he is no come. SHAL. He is the wiser man, master doctor: he is a curer of souls, and you a curer of bodies; if you should fight, you go against the hair of your professions; is it not true, master Page? Again: 3 "To parley with the proud Castilians.” I suppose Castilian was the cant term for Spaniard in general. STEEVENS. I believe this was a popular slur upon the Spaniards, who were held in great contempt after the business of the Armada. Thus we have a Treatise Parænetical, wherein is shewed the right Way to resist the Castilian King; and a sonnet prefixed to Lea's Answer to the Untruths published in Spain, in glorie of their supposed Victory atchieved against our English Navie, begins : 'Thou fond Castilian king!"—and so in other places. 66 FARMER. Dr. Farmer's observation is just. Don Philip the Second affected the title of King of Spain; but the realms of Spain would not agree to it, and only styled him King of Castile and Leon, &c. and so he wrote himself. His cruelty and ambitious views upon other states rendered him universally 'detested. The Castilians, being descended chiefly from Jews and Moors, were deemed to be of a malign and perverse disposition; and hence, perhaps, the term Castilian became opprobrious. have extracted this note from an old pamphlet, called The Spanish Pilgrime, which I have reason to suppose is the same discourse with the Treatise Parænetical, mentioned by Dr. Farmer. TOLLET. I Dr. Farmer, I believe, is right. The Host, who, availing himself of the poor Doctor's ignorance of English phraseology, applies to him all kinds of opprobrious terms, here means to call him a coward. So, in The Three Lords of London, 1590: 66 My lordes, what means these gallantes to performe? "Come these Castillian cowards but to brave? "Do all these mountains move, to breed a mouse?' There may, however, be also an allusion to his profession, as a water-caster. I know not whether we should not rather point-Thou art a Castillian, king-urinal! &c. MALONE. 3 against the HAIR, &c.] This phrase is proverbial, and is taken from stroking the hair of animals a contrary way to that in PAGE. Master Shallow, you have yourself been a great fighter, though now a man of peace. SHAL. Bodykins, master Page, though I now be old, and of the peace, if I see a sword out, my finger itches to make one: though we are justices, and doctors, and churchmen, master Page, we have some salt of our youth in us; we are the sons of women, master Page. PAGE. 'Tis true, master Shallow. SHAL. It will be found so, master Page. Master doctor Caius, I am come to fetch you home. I am sworn of the peace; you have showed yourself a wise physician, and sir Hugh hath shown himself a wise and patient churchman: you must go with me, master doctor. HOST. Pardon, guest justice :-A word *, monsieur Muck-water 1. *First folio omits word. which it grows. So, in T. Churchyard's Discourse of Rebellion, &c. 1570: We "You shoote amis when boe is drawen to eare, "And brush the cloth full sore against the heare.” e now say against the grain. STEEVENS. 4- Muck-water.] The old copy reads-mock-water. STEEVENS. The Host means, I believe, to reflect on the inspection of urine, which made a considerable part of practical physick in that time; yet I do not well see the meaning of mock-water. JOHNSON. Dr. Farmer judiciously proposes to read-muck-water, i.e. the drain of a dunghill. Henry Cornelius Agrippa, of the Vanitie and Uncertainty of Arts and Sciences, Englished by James Sanford, Gent. bl. 1. 4to. 1569, might have furnished Shakspeare with a sufficient hint for the compound term muck-water, applied by Dr. Caius. Dr. Farmer's emendation is completely countenanced by the same work, p. 145: 66 Furthermore, Phisitians oftentimes be contagious by reason of urine," &c. but the rest of the passage (in which the names of Esculapius, Hippocrates, &c. are ludicrously introduced) is too indelicate to be laid before the reader. STEEVENS. Muck-water, as explained by Dr. Farmer, is mentioned in Evelyn's Philosophical Discourse on Earth, 1676, p. 160. REED. CAIUS. Muck-vater! vat is dat ? HOST. Muck-water, in our English tongue, is valour, bully. CAIUS. By gar, then I have as much muck-vater as de Englishman:- -Scurvy jack-dog priest! by gar, me vill cut his ears. 5 HOST. He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully. CAIUS. Clapper-de-claw! vat is dat? HOST. That is, he will make thee amends. CAIUS. By gar, me do look, he shall clapper-declaw me; for, by gar, me vill have it. HOST. And I will provoke him to't, or let him wag. CAIUS. Me tank you for dat. HOST. And moreover, bully,-But first, master guest, and master Page, and eke cavalero Slender, go you through the town to Frogmore. PAGE. Sir Hugh is there, is he? [Aside to them. HOST. He is there: see what humour he is in; and I will bring the doctor about by the fields: will it do well? SHAL. We will do it. PAGE. SHAL. and SLEN. Adieu, good master doctor. Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLender. CAIUS. By gar, me vill kill de priest: for he speak for a jack-an-ape to Anne Page. HOST. Let him die: but, first, sheath thy impatience; throw cold water on thy choler: go about the fields with me through Frogmore; I will bring thee where mistress Anne Page is, at a farm-house * First folio omits but first. 5 clapper-claw-] This word occurs also in Tom Tyler and his Wife, bl. 1.: 66 Wife. I would clapper-claw thy bones." STEEVENS. -throw cold water on thy choler:] So, in Hamlet : 66 Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper "Sprinkle cool patience." STEEVENS. |