For me, I am here a Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i' the foreft: Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to pifs my tallow? Who comes here? my doe? Enter Miftrefs Ford and Miftrefs Page. Mrs. Ford. Sir John? art thou there, my deer? my male deer? Fal. My doe with the black fcut?-Let the fky rain potatoes *; let it thunder to the tune of Green Sleeves ; hail kiffing-comfits', and fnow eringoes; let there come a tempeft of provocation, I will fhelter me here. "Jam olim ille ludum, impendio magis animus gaudebat mihi "Deum fefe in hominem convertiffe, atque per alienas tegulas "Veniffe clanculum per impluvium, fucum factum mulieri. "At quem deum? qui templa cœli fumma fonitu concutit. Ego homuncio hoc non facerem? Ego vero illud ita feci, ac lubens." 3 A tranflation of Terence was published in 1598. MALONE. Send me a cool rut-time, Jove; or who can blame me to pifs my tallow?-] This, I find, is technical. In Turberville's Booke of Hunting, 1575" During the time of their rut, the harts live with fmall fuftenance. -The red mushroome helpeth well to make them pyse their greace, they are then in fo vehement heate, &c." FARMER. In Ray's Collection of Proverbs, the phrafe is yet further explained: "He has pif'd his tallow. This is fpoken of bucks who grow lean after rutting-time, and may be applied to men." STEEVENS. -rain potatoes; -] Potatoes, when they were first introduced in England, were fuppofed to be strong provocatives. See Mr. Collins's note on a paflage in Troilus and Creffida, act V. fc. ii. STEEVENS. skiffing-comfits,-] Thefe were fugar-plums, perfum'd to make the breath fweet. So, in Webster's Dutchess of Malfy, 1623: -Sure your piftol holds "Nothing but perfumes or kiffing-comfits." In Swetnam Arraign'd, 1620, thefe confections are called-" kiffing-caufes." "Their very breath is fophifticated with amberpellets, and kiffing-carfes." Again, in The Siege, or Love's Con Aa3 vert, Mrs. Ford. Miftrefs Page is come with me, fweetheart. 6 Fal. Divide me like a bribe-buck, each a haunch: I will keep my fides to myfelf, my fhoulders for the 7 fellow of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman? ha! Speak I like Herne the hunter?-Why, now is Cupid a child of confcience; he makes reftitution, As I am a true fpirit, welcome! Mrs. Page. Alas! what noife? Mrs. Ford. [Noife within, Mrs. Page. Away, away, [The women run out, Fal. I think the devil will not have me damn'd, " vert, by Cartwright: kept mufk-plumbs continually in my mouth, &c." Again, in A Very Woman, by Maffinger: "Comfits of ambergris to help our kifles." For eating thefe, queen Mab may be faid, in Romeo and Juliet, to plague their lips with blifters. STEEVENS. Divide me like a brib'd buck, ] Thus all the old copies, mistakingly it must be bribe-buck; i. e. a buck fent for a bribe. THEOBALD. 7 : fellow of this walk, ] Who the fellow is, or why he keeps his thoulders for him, I do not understand. JOHNSON. To the keeper the Jhoulders and humbles belong as a perquifite. GRAY. So, in Friar Bacon, and Friar Bungay, 1599: "Butter and cheese, and humbles of a deer, "Such as poor keepers have within their lodge ""The keeper, by a -hath the fkin, head, umbles, chine and boulders." STEEVENS. So, in Holinfhed, 1586, vol. I. p. 204 : custom A walk, is that district in a foreft, to which the jurifdiction of a particular keeper extends. So, in Lodge's Rofalynd, 1592: "Tell me forefter, under whom maintaineft thou thy walke?" Again, ibid. "Thus, for two or three days he walked up and down with his brother, to fhew him all the commodities that belonged to his walke." MALONE. left left the oil that is in me fhould fet hell on fire; he never would elfe crofs me thus. Enter Sir Hugh like a fatur; Quickly, and others, dress'd like fairies, with tapers. Quic. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, Attend your office, and your quality.- Eva. Elves, lift your names; filence, you airy toys 9, Cricket, You ORPHAN-heirs of fixed defliny,] But why orphan-heirs? Destiny, whom they fucceeded, was yet in being. Doubtless the poet wrote: You OUPHEN heirs of fixed deftiny, i. e. you elves, who minifter, and fucceed in fome of the works of destiny. They are called, in this play, both before and afterwards, ouphes; here ouphen; en being the plural termination of Saxon nouns. For the word is from the Saxon Alpenne, lamiæ, dæmones. Or it may be understood to be an adjective, as wooden, woolen, golden, &c. WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton corrects orphan to ouphen; and not without plaufibility, as the word ouphes occurs both before and afterwards. But, I fancy, in acquiefcence to the vulgar doctrine, the address in this line is to a part of the troop, as mortals by birth, but adopted by the fairies: orphans in refpect of their real parents, and now only dependent on deftiny herfelf. A few lines from Spenfer will fufficiently illuftrate this paffage: "The man whom heavens have ordaynd to bee "He wonneth in the land of Fayeree, "Yet is no Fary borne, ne fib at all, "To elfes, but fprong of feed terrestriall, 9 Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy o-yes. Edit. 1590. b. iii. st. 26, Eva. Elves, lift your names; filence, you airy toys.] These two lines were certainly intended to rhime together, as the preceding and fubfequent couplets do; and accordingly, in the old A a 4 editions, Cricket, to Windfor chimneys fhalt thou leap: Fal. They are fairies; he, that fpeaks to them, fhall die : I'll wink and couch; No man their works muft eye. [Lies down upon his face. Eva. Where's Bede?-Go you, and where you find a maid, That, ere fhe fleep, hath thrice her prayers faid, But editions, the final words of each line are printed, oyes and toyes. This therefore is a striking instance of the inconvenience which has arifen from modernizing the orthography of Shakespeare. TYRWHITT. as bilberry.] The bilberry is the whortleberry. Fairies were always fupposed to have a strong averfion to fluttery. Thus, in the old fong of Robin Good Fellow. See Dr. Percy's Reliques, &c. vol. III: "When house or hearth doth fluttish lye, "I pinch the maidens black and blue, &c." STEEVENS. RAISE up the organs of her fantafy;] The fenfe of this fpeech is. that the, who had performed her religious duties, fhould be fecure against the illufion of fancy; and have her fleep, like that of infancy, undisturbed by difordered dreams. This was then the popular opinion, that evil fpirits had a power over the fancy; and, by that means, could infpire wicked dreams into those who, on their going to fleep, had not recommended themselves to the protection of heaven. So Shakespeare makes Imogen, on her lying down, fay: From fairies, and the tempters of the night, Guard me, befeech ye! As this is the fenfe, let us fee how the common reading expreffes it; Raife up the organs of her fantafy; i. e. inflame her imagination with fentual ideas; which is just the contrary to what the poet would have the speaker fay. We cannot therefore but conclude he wrote: REIN up the organs of her fantafy; But thofe, as fleep, and think not on their fins, Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, fhoulders, fides, and fhins. Quic. About, about; Search Windfor caftle, elves, within and out: Strew good luck, ouphes, on every facred room; That it may ftand till the perpetual doom, 3 In ftate as wholfome, as in ftate 'tis fit; + Worthy the owner, and the owner it, The i. e. curb them, that she be no more disturbed by irregular ima, ginations, than children in their fleep. For he adds immediately: Sleep She as found as careless infancy. So, in The Tempeft: "Give not dalliance too much the REIN." And, in Meafure for Measure: "I give my fenfual race the REIN." To give the rein, being juft the contrary to rein up. The fame thought he has again in Macbeth; 66 Merciful powers! "Reftrain in me the curfed thoughts that nature This is highly plaufible; and yet, raife up the organs of her fantaly, may mean, elevate her ideas above fenfuality, exalt them to the nobleft contemplation. STEEVENS. 3 In ftate as wholefome,] The Oxford editor, not knowing the meaning of wholefome, has altered it to, In fite as wholfom, and fo has made the wish a most abfurd one. For the fite or fituation must needs be what it is, till the general deftruction. But wholfom here fignifies integer. He wishes the castle may stand in its prefent ftate of perfection, which the following words plainly fhew : as in flate 'tis fit. WARBURTON. 4 Worthy the owner, AND the owner it.] And cannot be the true reading. The context will not allow it; and his court to queen Elizabeth directs us to another: As the owner it. For, fure he had more address than to content himself with wishing a thing to be, which his complaifance muft fuppofe actually was, namely, the worth of the owner. WARBURTON. Surely this change is unneceffary. The fairy wishes that the castle and its owner, till the day of doom, may be worthy of each other. |