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chastise," ""to humble," according to Gifford, commonly in the West of England. Halliwell quotes MS. Devon Glossary, "To phease, i.e. to pay a person off for an injury." In Stanyhurst's Translation of Virgil (see Nares, sub Pheeze) it appears to be used for "to drive away:" We are touzed, and from Italy feased.

In spite of the positive assertions as to its meaning, it is evidently one of those words which came to be used in more than one sense; and its exact history has been lost. 2. Line 6: let the world SLIDE. - A proverbial expression. Compare Ralph Roister Doister, iii. 3:

Be of good cheer, man, and let the world pass. -Dodsley, vol. iii. p. 104. The exact expression occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher's Wit without Money, v. 2:

-Will you go drink, And let the world slide!

-Works, vol, i. p. 205.

3. Lines 9, 10: Go by, Jeronimy: go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.-Ff. have here (substantially) Go by, S. Jeronimy, as if Jeronimy were a saint. Mason suggested that the S was the beginning of says, and that the proper reading is Go by, says Jeronimy. (This is very unlikely, as the S, in that case, would not have been a capital S.) It is supposed to be a quotation from the Spanish Tragedy or Second Part of Jeronimo, by Thomas Kyd, a play which was very popular in its time. Frequent allusions, many in seeming ridicule, are made to both parts of that tragedy by the dramatists of Shakespeare's time. The passage supposed to be ridiculed, or alluded to here, is the following (Spanish Tragedy, act iv.):

Hieronimo. Justice, O, justice to Hieronimo.
Lorenzo. Back, seest thou not the king is busy?
Hieronimo. O, is he so?

King. Who is he that interrupts our business?
Hieronimo. Not I. Hieronimo, beware; go by, go by.

-Dodsley, vol. v. pp. 108, 109. There is no doubt the expression Go by Hieronimo, or Jeronimo, became almost a proverbial expression: it is to be found in Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humour, i. 4 (Works, vol. i. p. 34); in the Shomakers Holiday, or The Gentle Craft (Dekker's Works, vol. i. p. 18); in Beaumont and Fletcher's Captain, iii. 5 (Works, vol. i. p. 632); and in Taylor's Works, 1630, vol. i. p. 35 (according to Halliwell). The Camb. Edd. suggest that the S in text of Ff. "may have been derived from a note of exclamamation in the MS. written, as it is usually printed, like a note of interrogation." I am not at all sure that the commentators here have not fallen into an error; and that the real meaning may not be Go-by S. Jeronimy--go to thy cold bed, and warm thee-the compromise between the proverbial phrase from Hieronimo and the oath by St. Jerome or St. Hieronimus, which Sly intends to take, being intentional. It may be noted that the hermits of St. Jerome were called Jeronymites, so that the substitution of Jeronimo for Jerome or Jeromy is not such a great mistake. Be this as it may be, it is ridiculous to attempt, with some commentators, to twist go to thy cold bed, and warm thee into a contemptuous allusion to a line in the Spanish Tragedy (act ii.):

What outcries pluck me from my naked bed?

-Dodsley, vol. v. p. 54.

The same expression, as in our text, is used by Edgar, in Lear, iii. 4. 48:

Hum! go to thy cold bed, and warm thee. Nor does there seem to be any necessity for explaining it; the contradiction in terms being founded on the simple fact that a bed is cold till one's body has warmed it.

4. Lines 11, 12: I must go fetch the THIRD-BOROUGH — Ff. and Q. read Head-borough; but Sly's answer, unless he is meant to mistake the exact word used by the Hostess, renders the conjecture of Theobald, adopted in our text, most probable. For tharborough (third-borough) see Love's Labour's Lost, i. 1. 185. Ritson says (see his note in Var. Ed. vol. v. p. 361) that "In a book intitled, The Constable's Guide, &c. 1771, it is said that there are in several counties of this realm other officers; that is, by other titles, but not much inferior to our constables, as in Warwickshire a third-borough."" Shakespeare makes Sly a native of Warwickshire (see in the next scene of the Induction, lines 18-23).

5. Line 17: TRASH Merriman. - Ff. and Q. read Brach, Amongst the numerous conjectures may be mentioned: (1) Leech (Hanmer); (2) Bathe (Johnson); (3) Breathe (Mitford). The reading we have adopted, Trash, is Dyce's conjecture, and seems to be the most probable emendation. This verb has apparently more than one meaning; but that it had the sense of "to check, to restrain," seems clear from a passage in Hammond's Works (vol. i. p. 23) quoted in Richardson's Dictionary: "That this contrariety always interposes some objections to hinder or trash you from doing the things that you would, i.e. sometimes the Spirit trashes you from doing the thing that the Spirit would have done." Shakespeare uses this verb, undoubtedly, in Tempest, i. 2. 80, 81:

who to advance, and who To trash for overtopping.

The sense is variously interpreted by commentators; but "to restrain" would seem to suit the context better than "to lop," which is usually given. Trashed is used by Chaucer in the Romaunt of the Rose (line 3231):

She hath thee trashed without wene.

-Minor Poems, vol. i. p. 97. Tyrwhitt explains it in his glossary as "betrayed." For more information on the subject of this word, see Nares, sub voce. As to the objection, made by Collier, that a hound who was embossed, i.e. "foaming at the mouth," would need no restraining, it may be regarded as an objection worthy of the "Old Corrector:" a dog of spirit is no less inclined to hunt because he is tired. Brach can make no sense, however the passage be stopped; because the next line goes on to tell what is to be done with Clowder; And couple Clowder, implying that some direction had been given in the previous line as to Merriman. The copyist, or compositor, probably caught the word Brach from the last word of the next line above mentioned.

6. Line 41: Would not the beggar then forget himself?— In this line the emphasis must be on himself, not on forget; the meaning being "Would he not forget his own identity?"

7. Line 64: And when he says he is, say that he dreams. -Many explanations have been given of this line. In Ff. and Q. the line is printed thus:

And when he says het, say that he dreams. Some commentators have proposed to insert various words after he is, such as poor, Sly; while others would read: when he says WHAT he is. The Lord does not know who or what Sly is; and it is most natural he should pause after he is, leaving the name to be supplied by the drunken man hereafter. Grant White explains the sentence thus: "When he says he is (lunatic), say that he dreams;" an explanation of which, I confess, I cannot see the force. Malone points out another passage, where Shakespeare has a similar unfinished sentence, in the Tempest, ii. 2. 90, 91, printed thus in F. 1:

Tri. I should know that voyce:

It should be,

But hee is dround.

Here a break is evidently intended after voyce, though the manner of printing adopted is different from that used in the passage in our text.

8. Lines 77, 78:

An't please your honour, players
That offer service to your lordship.

It was the custom for strolling companies of actors to call at any great lord's house and offer their services. That they were not overpaid, is shown by an extract from "The fifth Earl of Northumberland's Household Book, begun in the year 1512" (quoted by Steevens). "Item, to be payd to the said Richard Gowge and Thomas Percy for rewards to players for playes playd in Chrystinmas by stranegers in my house after xxd. every play by estimacion somme xxxiijs. iiijd." Perhaps matters had improved in Shakespeare's time.

9. Line 88: I think 't was SOTO that your honour means. -Soto was the name of a character in Beaumont and Fletcher's Women Pleased; Soto is a farmer's son; but as to his wooing "the gentlewoman," the reference must be to i. 3 of that play (Works, vol. ii. p. 181), where, in his master's clothes, he climbs the rope-ladder to Belvidere's window; but he never gets as far as wooing her. The description of the character, given by the Lord, answers better to Candius in Lilly's Mother Bombie. In F. 1, Q. the name Sincklo is prefixed to this line; he seems to have been an actor. The name occurs again in F. 1, in III. Henry VI. iii. 1, Enter SINKLO and Humfrey; again, in II. Henry IV. Q. has in iv. 4, at beginning of scene, Enter SINCKLO and three or foure officers. The name Sinkclow occurs in the Induction to the Malcontent (Marston's Works, vol. ii, p. 200).

10. Line 126: An ONION will do well for such a shift.There is a tone of solemn burlesque about this which may have been intended. Shakespeare has two or three references to the onion in connection with tears, e.g. in All's Well, v. 3. 321:

Mine eyes smell onions; I shall weep anon.

It may be, as Johnson suggests, he was indicating a common expedient to which the players in Interludes had recourse, when they wanted to shed real tears.

INDUCTION. SCENE 2.

11. Sly is discovered, &c.-In Ff., Q. the stage-direction is Enter aloft the Drunkard, &c. meaning, of course, in the balcony or upper stage, which served so many purposes in the theatres of Shakespeare's time. Here apparently Sly and his companions remained throughout the play, which was enacted on the lower stage.

12, Line 19: old Sly's son of BURTON-HEATH.-There is some difficulty in identifying exactly the villages here intended. There is a Barton-on-the-Heath in Warwickshire (according to Malone), and a "Burton Dorset" (according to Ritson), and also one called "Burton Hastings." Probably Burton-heath is identical with the first of these three.

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13. Line 23: the fat ale-wife of WINCOT.-T. Warton says in a note (see Var. Ed. vol. v. p. 375), "Wilnecotte is a village in Warwickshire, near Stratford. The house, kept by our genial hostess, still remains, but is at present a mill." Rolfe says that Wincot was more probably Wilnecote or Wilmecote, "a hamlet about three miles to the north of Stratford in the parish of Aston-Cantlow. Here lived Robert Arden, whose youngest daughter was Shakespeare's mother." There is a Wilnecote, almost in the extreme north of Warwickshire, between Tamworth and Atherstone.

14. Line 25: SHEER ale.-The explanation given in the foot-note is probably the right one. Compare Beaumont and Fletcher's Double Marriage, v. 1, where Castruccio, having been offered by the doctor wine and water, asks: Shall I have no sheer wine then?

-Works, vol. ii. p. 120. Another explanation, suggested in Malone's note, is that it may mean "harvest-ale," or ale drunk at shearing; a term applied in Warwickshire, as in the north, to the reaping, and not to "sheep-shearing," which is always called in the north "clipping."

15. Line 39: we'll HAVE THEE TO a couch.-Compare Mids. Night's Dream, iii. 1. 174:

To have my love to bed and to arise. The similarity of expression is worth noticing.

16. Line 75: nor CHRISTOPHER Sly.-F. 2, F. 3, F. 4 read Christophero; but the reading of the text, which is that of F. 1 and Q. is to our thinking preferable; the accent must, evidently, be placed on the second syllable, whichever reading we adopt

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once a year within a particular hundred, manor, or lordship, before the steward of the leet." Malone, in the note above quoted, refers to Kitchen, on Courts, 4th edn. 1663 (p. 21): "Also if tiplers sell by cups and dishes, or measures sealed, or not sealed, is inquirable.”

19. Line 95: John Naps o' TH' GREEN.—Ff. and Q. read of Greece: o' th' Green is Hanmer's conjecture, which is most probably right.

20. Line 140: a commonty.-This ridiculous blunder of Sly's of commonly "commodity" for comedy is taken from the Induction of the old play, lines 58, 59:

=

San. Marrie my lord you maie haue a Tragicall

Or a comoditie, or what you will.

The speaker being Sander, or Saunders, who afterwards plays the "Clown's" part, corresponding to Grumio's in Shakespeare's piece.

21. Line 147.-The Induction of the old play contains 147 lines: the Induction in this play contains 285 lines. Shakespeare is credited, even by the Three-handed theorists, with the "retouching" of this Induction. I thought it would be interesting to go through line by line, and word by word, the old Induction with the new one; and I find that, in the 285 lines of Shakespeare's Induction, there are only fourteen sentences which are practically the same as those of the old Induction; and some of these sentences consist of only two or three words. Of absolutely identical lines in the two Inductions I cannot find one instance; while of characteristic expressions common to the two Inductions there is only one, viz. I'll pheeze you (line 1).

ACT I. SCENE 1.

22. Line 2: Padua, nursery of arts.-The University of Padua was, in Shakespeare's time, one of the most popular, and resorted to by students and learned men from all parts of Europe. It was founded by Frederick Barbarossa, in 1228. Knight says that "once (we believe in Shakespeare's age) the number of students was eighteen thousand." Galileo, Petrarch, and Columbus were amongst the celebrated men who received their education at Padua.

23. Line 14: LUCENTIO his son.-Ff. Q. read Vincentio, which probably was copied from the line above (13), in which Ff. Q. read Vincentio 's come, instead of Vincentio, come. The reading in our text I had marked in the margin before seeing Hanmer's emendation, which is the same; and Heath made the same alteration. (See A Revisal of Shakespeare's Text, 1765, p. 156.)

24 Lines 18, 19:

Virtue, and that part of philosophy
Will I APPLY, that treats of happiness.

Apply and ply were both used without the preposition to: compare The Interlude of Nice Wanton (very near the end):

O ye children, let your time be well-spent,
Apply your learning, and your elders obey.
-Dodsley, vol. ii. p. 183.

25. Line 25: Mi perdonate.-Ff. read Me pardonato;

Q. Me pardinato, which blunders afford another instance of the ignorance of Italian displayed in the old copies; the correction was made by Steevens.

26. Line 32: Or so devote to Aristotle's ETHICS. —Ff. Q.

read checkes. Blackstone first suggested ethics, which seems the obvious reading. In the old play, in line 2, Aristotle's walkes does not help us, because walkes is evidently there the most appropriate word in the mouth of the speaker, who is welcoming his friend to Athens, the birthplace of the Peripatetic sect. Aristotle's distinguishing quality is his treatment of ethics, not the checks or reproofs that he administers to vice, or to Ovid's favourite subject, Love. Below (lines 34-37) we have logic, rhetoric, music, poesy, and metaphysics all mentioned; therefore, ethics is certainly the word we might expect. Compare Ben Jonson's Silent Woman, iv. 2: "but in these (cases) they are best, and Aristotle's ethicks" (Works, vol. iii. p. 443). But in justice to those who may prefer the reading of Ff. Q., we may point out that Shakespeare uses checks frequently in the sense of "rebukes," "reproofs."

27. Line 34: BALK logic.—So Ff. Q. Talk logic is Rowe's very weak and unnecessary emendation, adopted by some editors. The occurrence of talk at the end of the next line should have forbidden such a conjecture. Balk is used by Spenser in one passage at least, where it apparently means "to dispute," or "to argue :'

But to occasion him to further talke,

To feed her humor with his pleasing style,

Her list in stryfull termes with him to balke,

And thus replyde. -Fairy Queen, b. iii. c. 2, st. 12. Britomart is the her referred to, and she evidently proceeds to question the virtues of Artegall in order that the Red-Cross Knight, who has been praising him, may be drawn into an argument. The expression, in our text, may be paraphrased by the more modern one, chop logic. 28. Line 48: Gentlemen, PRAY impórtune me no farther.-Ff. and Q. read:

Gentlemen, importune me no farther. We have ventured to insert pray as the line is very inharmonious without some syllable there. Theobald inserted both.

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31. Line 64: To comb your noddle with a three-legg'd stool. This expression is very interesting, as it testifies to the antiquity of the common phrase, used nowadays with regard to a wife of strong character, "She 'll comb his hair for him." Halliwell, in his Folio edition of Shakespeare, quotes from Skelton's Merie Tales "Hys wife woulde divers tymes in the week kimbe his head with a iij. footed stoole."

32. Line 79: Put finger in the eye, an she knew why.— Probably a quotation, more or less accurate, from some well-known song. Compare Comedy of Errors, ii. 2. 205, 206:

Come, come, no longer will I be a fool,
To put the finger in the eye and weep.

In Heywood's First Part of King Edward the Fourth we find:

Seem you but sorry for what you haue done, And straight shele put the finger in the eye. -Works, vol. i. p. 5. 33. Line 108: OUR love is not so great.-So F. 3, F. 4: F. 1, F. 2 read Their, of which it is difficult to make any sense. Malone suggested Your; but certainly the context seems to require Our. The attempts to explain Their, as referring to the love or good-will of Bianca and her father towards Petruchio and Gremio, or to the love between Katharina and her father, are not particularly happy.

34. Lines 108-110: but we may blow our nails together, and fast it fairly out.-No commentator seems to have thought this passage required explanation; but I confess it seems to me rather a difficult one. Gremio means to say, I suppose, that his and Hortensio's love is not so great but they may together blow their nails (as people do when cold) and fast it out, i.e. expel their love by fasting. He recognizes the fact that they are both practically rejected, and may consider themselves both "out in the cold." In Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2. 923 (in the song) we have:

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail.

35 Line 110: our cake's dough on both sides.-Compare Ben Jonson's The Case is Altered (v. 4):

Steward, your cake is dough, as well as mine.

-Works, vol. vi. p. 419. The meaning is, we have both failed. In Bohn's Handbook of Proverbs is given a Scotch proverb which is evidently the same: Your meal's a' deagh.

36. Lines 113, 114: I will WISH him To her father, i.e. "I will recommend him." Compare i. 2. 60 of this play: And wish thee to a shrewd ill-favour'd wife.

And again, i. 2. 64:

And I'll not wish thee to her.

37. Line 137: at the high cross-i e. "in the market place." In the principal streets of some of our old towns there were two Crosses, the High Cross and the Low Cross. (See note in Rolfe's edition of this play, p. 135.)

38. Line 144: Happy man be his dole!-This was a common proverb. Compare Damon and Pithias:

So I mean in the court to lose no time:
Wherein, happy man be his dole, I trust that I
Shall not speed worst, and that very quickly.
-Dodsley, vol. iv. p. 21.

See Merry Wives of Windsor, iii. 4. 68; and Winter's Tale, i. 2. 163. Dole here means "lot," or "share," meted out by Fortune.

39. Line 145: He that runs fastest gets the ring.-Not, as Douce explains it, "an allusion to the sport of running at the ring," but to the custom of giving a ring as one of the prizes formerly given in wrestling or running matches.

40. Line 167: Redime te captum quam queas minimo.-This Latin sentence is from Lilly's Latin Grammar. Lilly was trying to quote a passage from Terence, which runs as follows:

Quid agas? nisi ut te redimas captum quam queas
Minimo.
-Eunuchus, i. 1. 29, 30.

41. Line 170: you look'd so LONGLY on the maid.-Longly does not mean "longingly," "fondly," as Schmidt (following Steevens) explains it, but "for a long time." See Cotgrave, who explains "Longuement. LONGLY, long time,

a great while."

42. Line 212: take my COLOUR'D hat and cloak.-Clarke explains the use of colour'd here by saying that, "In Shakespeare's time the servants wore soberer tinted clothes than their masters, who flaunted about in garments of bright and varied hues that might well, by contrast, be emphatically call'd colour'd." But was not blue the colour usually worn by servants in Shakespeare's time? The allusions to this are so frequent in the writers of that period, that it is unnecessary to do more than refer to them generally. (See Nares, sub voce.) Colour'd may here mean "of various colours," in contradistinction to the uniform colour of the servants' livery.

43. Line 216: In brief, sir, sith it THUS your pleasure is. I have ventured to supply the word thus, which might easily have been omitted by the copyist. The Camb. Edd. give an anonymous emendation: sith it is your pleasure THUS; but mine was made independently. There are many defective lines in this play, which can easily be set right by a very slight alteration. This speech of Tranio's is one of those passages which the supporters of the triple authorship of this play say is decidedly not Shakespeare's. I cannot see myself that it is any more irreconcilable with his usual style than much of his other early work.

44. Lines 244-249.-This rhymed speech of Tranio's is certainly unlike any of Shakespeare's known writing; but in Comedy of Errors, iii. 1, may be found some rhymed lines very nearly, if not quite, as halting in rhythm. The whole speech is printed in Ff. and Q. as prose.

45. Line 249: your master Lucentio.-F. 1, you. The correction was made in F. 2.

46. Lines 250-253.-We have followed Ff. in printing these lines as verse; but it is very doubtful if they were intended for such; one cannot imagine Shakespeare deliberately passing off such limping doggerel as verse, even in his most careless moments. Perhaps the text is corrupt here, or, at any rate, very much confused. The fact that this speech is printed as verse in Ff. and the former one of Tranio's (lines 244–249) as prose, seems to point to

the fact that the MS. before the copyist was in a very faulty condition, and had never been revised by the author.

47. [The presenters above speak.-This stage direction is from Ff. Q.: it means those in the upper stage; viz. Sly and his companions.

48. Lines 258, 259: 'Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady: would 't were done!-Sly seems here to anticipate the unspoken criticism of some of the frequenters of the stalls when one of Shakespeare's plays is being represented. There is no appreciable difference in the amount of intellectual capacity appealed to in either case.

ACT I. SCENE 2.

49. Enter PETRUCHIO.-Shakespeare may have taken the name from Petrucio, one of the servants of "Scenose" in Gascoigne's Supposes. But he may have found the not uncommon Italian name elsewhere. It should be spelled Petruccio if it is meant to be pronounced as Petruchio, according to English pronunciation, the ch having the same sound as in "church." In Italian, of course, the ch would be pronounced hard, like k. The termination uccio has certainly no complimentary sense according to Torriano, who, in his Introduction unto the Italian Tongue (1687), appended to the 1688 edition of Florio, says that, "Nouns ending in uccio or uzzo, declare the thing to be of the least, and absolutely despicable and contemptible;" and "Most of the nick names are made to run upon this termination, as by way of detraction, as Minicuccio from Dominico, a man's name so call'd." But we find the termination used in Basile's well-known Pentamerone (a collection of fairy stories) without any apparently depreciatory meaning.

50. Line 5: KNOCK,-knock, I say.-This is Lettsom's emendation. Ff. and Q. read, knock, I say.

51. Lines 28, 29: 't is no matter, sir, what he 'LEGES in Latin.-Grumio, who is supposed to be an Italian, mistakes his own language for Latin. Accordingly the ingenious Tyrwhitt suggests that we should read, "no matter what BE LEGES in Latin, "T is no matter what is law, if this be not a lawful cause,' &c. Surely it was more probable that Grumio, who was the Clown or lowcomedy character of the play, should be supposed to mistake Italian for Latin, considering that he speaks Eng lish, and is thoroughly English in character, than that such a piece of Latinity, apropos of nothing at all, should be placed in his mouth. We might just as well expect Biondello to give the list of the diseases of Petruchio's horse in Italian (iii. 2), as to find Grumio remembering, when a joke was in question, to what nationality he belonged.

52. Line 33: two and thirty, -a pip out.-The spots on the cards are sometimes called pips; the allusion is to the old game of " Bone-ace, or one and thirty." Compare Massinger's Fatal Dowry, ii. 2: "You think, because you served my lady's mother, are thirty-two years old, which is a pip out, you know--" (Works, p. 362). Boneace is thus described in Cotton's Compleat Gamester (1674): "The least [i.e. the one who cuts lowest] deals.

He deals out two to the first hand, and turns up the third, and so goes on to the next, to the third, fourth, fifth, &c. He that hath the biggest Card carries the Bone, that is one half of the Stake, the other (half) remaining for the Game; now if there be three Kings, three Queens, three Tens, &c., turn'd up, the eldest hand wins it. Here note that the Ace of Diamonds is Bone-ace, and wins all other Cards whatever: thus much for the Bone; afterwards the nearest to one and thirty wins the Game, and he that turns up or draws to one and thirty wins it immediately" (pp. 129, 130).

53. Line 69: Be she as foul as was FLORENTIUS' LOVE. -Alluding to the story in Gower's Confessio Amantis, book i., of the knight Florent or Florentius, who plighted his troth to marry a deformed and hideous hag, in return for her telling him the answer to a riddle, which if he could not solve he was to die. On this story Chaucer founded his Wife of Bath's Tale; The Marriage of Sir Gawaine, an old ballad, is also derived from the same source. Gower was probably indebted to the Gesta Romanorum for the source of his story. See Tyrwhitt's Chaucer, Introductory Discourse, vol. i. p. 131.

54. Lines 81, 82: though she have as many diseases as two and fifty horses. - Malone says in his note: "I suspect this passage to be corrupt, though I know not how to rectify it. The fifty diseases of a horse seem to have been proverbial. So, in The Yorkshire Tragedy, 1608: '0 stumbling jade! the spavin o'ertake thee! the fifty diseases stop thee!"" Perhaps these fifty diseases were in Shakespeare's mind when he wrote the speech of Biondello's (iii. 2. 50-58). I think the passage, as it stands in our text, is easily explained: no animal, not even a female hypochondriac, is subject to so many diseases as a horse; and any one who has as many discases as two and fifty horses would have quite enough to suffer.

55. Line 112: he'll rail in his ROPE-TRICKS.-Hanmer absurdly altered rope-tricks to rhetorick. Compare Romeo and Juliet, ii. 4. 153, 154, in the speech of the Nurse: "what saucy merchant was this, that was so full of his ropery?" So rope-ripe, in Chapman's May Day (act iii.): "Lord, how you roule in your rope-ripe termes" (Works, vol. ii. p. 368)-a word which Howell, in his Lexicon Tetraglotton (1660) explains as "ripe for hanging." Ropetricks seems to be equivalent here to abusive language, though its proper meaning probably is "actions deserving the rope (hanging)."

56. Line 116: she shall have no more eyes to see withal than a cat.-A cat's sight certainly is not bad, especially in the dark; but their habit of keeping their eyes halfclosed, in the day time, probably led to their being called "blear-eyed," as in Wynkyn de Worde's Castell of Laboure (1506): "That was as blereyed as a cat." There is evidently a play on cat and Kate in Grumio's speech. 57. Lines 121, 122:

And her withholds from me, and other more,
Suitors to her and rivals in my love.

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