A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Viii Part 106

[341] [Escutcheon.]

[342] [Abided.]

[343] [Old copy, _prepare_.]

[344] This word is found in "Henry VI., Part II." act v. sc. 1, where young Clifford applies it to Richard. Malone observes in a note, that, according to Bullokar's "English Expositor," 1616, _stugmatick_ originally and properly signified "a person who has been _branded_ with a hot iron for some crime." The name of the man to whom Hubert here applies the word, is _Brand_.

Webster, in his "Vittoria Corombona," applies the term metaphorically:--

"The G.o.d of melancholy turn thy gall to poison, And let the _stigmatic_ wrinkles in thy face.

Like to the boisterous wares in a rough tide, One still overtake another."

[345] [Are faulty.]

[346] [Old copy, _seld_.]

[347] [The printer has made havoc with the sense here, which can only be guessed at from the context. Perhaps for _go_ we should read _G.o.d_, in allusion to the woman's protestations. Yet even then the pa.s.sage reads but lamely.]

[348] [_These_ may be right; but perhaps the author wrote _his_. By his--i.e., G.o.d's--nails, is a very common oath.]

[349] [i.e., Mete or measure out a reward to her.]

[350] [To swear by the fingers, or the _ten commandments_, as they were often called, was a frequent oath.]

[351] [Old copy, _lamback'd_.]

[352] The 4to says, _between the monk and the nun_.

[353] [Query, _mother Bawd_; or is some celebrated procuress of the time when this play was written and acted meant here?]

[354] To swear by the cross of the sword was a very common practice, and many instances are to be found in D.O.P. See also notes to "Hamlet," act i. sc. 5.

[355] i.e., Secretly, a very common application of the word in our old writers.

[356] [In allusion to the proverb, "Maids say nay, and take."]

[357] Here, according to what follows, Brand steps forward and addresses Matilda. Hitherto he has spoken _aside_.

[358] See Mr Gilford's note on the words _rouse_ and _carouse_ in his Ma.s.singer, i. 239. It would perhaps be difficult, and certainly needless, to add anything to it.

[359] "Nor I to stir before I see the end,"

belongs to the queen, unquestionably, but the 4to gives it to the Abbess, who has already gone out.

[360] [Labour, pain.]

[361] The reading of the old copy is--

"Oh _pity, mourning_ sight! age pitiless!"

_Pity-moving_ in a common epithet, and we find it afterwards in this play used by young Bruce--

"My tears, my prayers, my _pity-moving_ moans."

[362] [Old copy, _wrath_.]

[363] This servant entered probably just before Oxford's question, but his entrance is not marked.

[364] To _pash_, signifies to crush or dash to pieces. So in the "Virgin Martyr," act ii. sc. 2--

"With Jove's artillery, shot down at once, To _pash_ your G.o.ds in pieces."

See Mr Gifford's note upon this pa.s.sage, and Reed's note on the same word in "Troilus and Cressida," act ii. sc. 3.

[365] The 4^o has it--

"_May_ an example of it, honest friends;"

but _make_ is certainly the true reading.

[366] _Bannings_ are _cursings_. Hundreds of examples might be added to those collected by Steevens in a note to "King Lear," act ii. sc. 3. It is a singular coincidence that _ban_, signifying a _curse_, and _ban_, a public notice of _marriage_, should have the same origin.

[367] The words, _at one door_, are necessary to make the stage direction intelligible, but they are not found in the original.

[368] [Here used apparently in the unusual sense of _scene_.]

[369] This line is quoted by Steevens in a note to "Measure for Measure," act v. sc. 1, to prove that the meaning of _refel_ is _refute_.

[370] Sir William Blunt's entrance is not marked in the old copy.

[371] To _blin_ is to _cease_, and in this sense it is met with in Spenser and other poets. Mr Todd informs us that it is still in use in the north of England. Ben Jonson, in his "Sad Shepherd," converts the verb into a substantive, "withouten _blin_."

[372] _Powder'd_ is the old word for salted: it is in this sense Shakespeare makes Falstaff use it, when he says: "If you embowel me to-day, I'll give you leave to _powder_ me and eat me to-morrow."

[373] i.e., _l'ouvert_ or opening--

"Ne lightned was with window nor with _lover_, But with continuall candle-light."

--Spenser's "Faerie Queene," b. vi. c. x.

[374] The sense is incomplete here: perhaps a line has been lost, or Leicester suddenly recollects that Bruce has possession of Windsor Castle, and warns him not to relinquish it.

[375] An abridgment of _Hubert_, apparently for the sake of the metre.

[376] [i.e., Spleen, indignation.]

[377] In this line there is, in the old copy, a curious and obvious misprint: it stands in the 4^o--