a thousand other her defences, which now are too strongly embattled against me: What say you to't, sir John ? FAL. Master Brook, I will first make bold with your money; next, give me your hand; and last, as I am a gentleman, you shall, if you will, enjoy Ford's wife. FORD. O good sir! FAL. Master Brook*, I say you shall. FORD. Want no money, sir John, you shall want none. FAL. Want no mistress Ford, master Brook, you shall want none. I shall be with her, (I may tell you,) by her own appointment; even as you came in to me, her assistant, or go-between, parted from me: I say, I shall be with her between ten and eleven; for at that time the jealous rascally knave, her husband, will be forth. Come you to me at night; you shall know how I speed. FORD. I am blest in your acquaintance. Do you know Ford, sir? FAL. Hang him, poor cuckoldly knave! I know him not-yet I wrong him, to call him poor; they say, the jealous wittolly knave hath masses of money; for the which his wife seems to me well-favoured. I will use her as the key of the cuckoldly rogue's coffer; and there's my harvest-home. FORD. I would you knew Ford, sir; that you might avoid him, if you saw him. FAL. Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue! I will stare him out of his wits; I will awe him with my cudgel: it shall hang like a meteor o'er *First folio omits Master Brook. 66 "Say this to him. 'He's beat from his best ward." M. MASON. the cuckold's horns: master Brook, thou shalt know I will predominate o'er the peasant, and thou shalt lie with his wife.-Come to me soon at night: -Ford's a knave, and I will aggravate his stile' thou, master Brook, shalt know him for a knave and cuckold;-come to me soon at night. [Exit. FORD. What a damned Epicurean rascal is this! -My heart is ready to crack with impatience.Who says, this is improvident jealousy? My wife hath sent to him, the hour is fixed, the match is made. Would any man have thought this ?—See the hell of having a false woman! my bed shall be abused, my coffers ransacked, my reputation gnawn at; and I shall not only receive this villainous wrong, but stand under the adoption of abominable terms, and by him that does me this wrong. Terms! names !——Amaimon sounds well; Lucifer, well; Barbason 2, well; yet they are devils' additions, the names of fiends: but cuckold! wittol-cuckold3! the devil himself hath not such a I and I will aggravate his STILE ;] Stile is a phrase from the Herald's office. Falstaff means, that he will add more titles to those he already enjoys. So, in Heywood's Golden Age, 1611: "I will create lords of a greater style." Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. v. c. 2: 2 "As to abandon that which doth contain "Your honour's stile, that is, your warlike shield." STEEVENS Amaimon-Barbason,] The reader who is curious to know any particulars concerning these dæmons, may find them in Reginald Scott's Inventarie of the Names, Shapes, Powers, Governments, and Effects of Devils and Spirits, of their several Segnories and Degrees: a strange Discourse worth the reading, p. 377, &c. From hence it appears that Amaimon was king of the East, and Barbatos, a great countie or earle. Randle Holme, however, in his Academy of Armory and Blazon, b. ii. ch. 1. informs us, that " Amaymon is the chief whose dominion is on the north part of the infernal gulph; and that Barbatos is like a Sagittarius, and hath 30 legions under him." STEEVENS. 3-WITTOL-cuckold!] One who knows his wife's falsehood, and is contented with it :-from wittan, Sax. to know. MALONE. name. Page is an ass, a secure ass; he will trust his wife, he will not be jealous: I will rather trust a Fleming with my butter, parson Hugh the Welchman with my cheese, an Irishman with my aqua-vitæ bottle, or a thief to walk my ambling gelding, than my wife with herself: then she plots, then she ruminates, then she devises: and what they think in their hearts they may effect, they will break their hearts but they will effect. Heaven be praised for my jealousy !-Eleven o'clock the hour; -I will prevent this, detect my wife, be revenged on Falstaff, and laugh at Page. I will about it; better three hours too soon, than a minute too late. Fie, fie, fie! cuckold! cuckold! cuckold! [Exit. 5 an IRISHMAN with my AQUA-VITÆ bottle,] Heywood, in his Challenge for Beauty, 1636, mentions the love of aqua-vita as characteristic of the Irish: "The Briton he metheglin quaffs, "The Irish aqua-vitæ.” The Irish aqua-vita, I believe, was not brandy, but usquebaugh, for which Ireland has been long celebrated. MALONE. Dericke, in The Image of Ireland, 1581, Sign. F 2, mentions Uskebeaghe, and in a note explains it to mean aqua vitæ. REED. 5-Eleven o'clock-] Ford should rather have said ten o'clock the time was between ten and eleven; and his impatient suspicion was not likely to stay beyond the time. JOHNSON. It was necessary for the plot that he should mistake the hour, and come too late. M. MASON. It is necessary for the business of the piece that Falstaff should be at Ford's house before his return. Hence our author made him name the later hour. See Act III. Sc. II.: "The clock gives me my cue ;-there I shall find Falstaff." When he says above, "I shall prevent this," he means, not the meeting, but his wife's effecting her purpose. MALONE. 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 promised 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 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: 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 Stale'? 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! "Should falsify the foine upon me thus, "Here will I take him." 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. quarto reads-my Francoyes. MALONE. 9 The - 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. I -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 - 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." |