and swears with a good grace; and wears his boot very smooth, like unto the sign of the leg; and breeds no bate with telling of discreet stories: and such other gambol faculties he hath, that show a weak mind and an able body, for the which the prince admits him: for the prince himself is such another; the weight of a hair will turn the scales between their avoirdupois. P. Hen. Would not this nave of a wheels have his ears cut off? Poins. Let 's beat him before his whore. P. Hen. Look, if the withered elder hath not his poll clawed like a parrot. 6 Poins. Is it not strange, that desire should so many years outlive performance? 3 and rides the wild mare with the boys;] He probably means the two legged mare mentioned by Mr. Steevens in p. 41, n. 8. Malone. If Poins had ever ridden the mare alluded to by Mr. Steevens, she would have given him such a fall as would effectually prevent him from mounting her a second time. We must therefore suppose it was a less dangerous beast, that would not have disabled him from afterwards jumping upon joint stools, &c. Douce. 4 discreet stories:] We should read-indiscreet. Warburton. I suppose by discreet stories is meant what suspicious masters and mistresses of families would call prudential information; i. e. what ought to be known, and yet is disgraceful to the teller. Among the virtues of John Rugby, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Mrs. Quickly adds, that "he is no tell-tale, no breed-bate." 5 Steevens. nave of a wheel —] Nave and knave are easily reconciled, but why nave of a wheel? I suppose from his roundness. He was called round man, in contempt, before. Johnson. So, in the play represented before the king and queen in Hamlet: "Break all the spokes and fellies of her wheel, Steevens. his poll clawed like a parrot.] This custom, we may sup. pose, was not peculiar to Falstaff, especially as it occurred among the French, to whom we were indebted for most of our artificial gratifications. So, in La Venerie, &c. by Jaques de Fouilloux, &c. Paris, 4to. 1585: "Le seigneur doit auoir sa petite charette, là où il sera dedans, auec sa fillette, aagée de seize a dix sept ans, la quelle lui frottera la teste par les chemins." A wooden cut annexed, represents this operation on an old man, who lies along in his carriage, with a girl sitting at his head. Steevens. G Fal. Kiss me, Doll. P. Hen. Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction!" what says the almanack to that? 8 Poins. And, look, whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not lisping to his master's old tables; his note-book, his counsel-keeper. 7 Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction!] This was, indeed, a prodigy. The astrologers, says Ficinus, remark, that Saturn and Venus are never conjoined. Johnson. 8 the fiery Trigon, &c.] Trigonum igneum is the astronomical term when the upper planets meet in a fiery sign. The fiery Trigon, I think, consists of Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius. So, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, B. VI, chap. xxxi: "Even at the fierie Trigon shall your chief ascendant be." Again, in Pierce's Supererogation, or a new Praise of the old Asse, &c. by Gabriel Harvey, 1593: " now the warring planet was expected in person, and the fiery Trigon seemed to give the alarm." Steevens. So, in A Dialogue both pleasaunt and pietifull, &c. by Wm. Bulleyne, 1564: "Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, are hotte, drie, bitter, and cholerike, governing hot and drie thinges, and this is called the fierie triplicitie." Malone. 9 lisping to his master's old tables;] We should readclasping too his master's old tables; &c. i. e. embracing his master's cast off whore, and now his bawd [his note-book, his counselkeeper.] We have the same phrase again in Cymbeline: "You clasp young Cupid's tables." Warburton. I believe the old reading to be the true one. Bardolph was very probably drunk, and might lisp a little in his courtship: or might assume an affected softness of speech, like Chaucer's Frere: Tyrwhitt's edit. Prol. v. 266: "Somewhat he lisped for his wantonnesse, "To make his English swete upon his tonge." Or, like the Page, in The Mad Lover of Beaumont and Fletcher, who, "Lisps when he list to catch a chambermaid." Again, in Love's Labour's Lost: 66 He can carve too and lisp." Steevens. Certainly the word clasping better preserves the integrity of the metaphor; or, perhaps, as the expression is old tables, we might read licking: Bardolph was kissing the Hostess; and old ivory books were commonly cleaned by licking them. Farmer. The old table-book was a counsel-keeper, or a register of secrets; and so also was Dame Quickly. I have therefore not the least suspicion of any corruption in the text. Lisping is, in our author's dialect, making love, or, in modern language, saying soft things. So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff apologises to Mrs. Ford for his concise address to her, by saying, "I can Fal. Thou dost give me flattering busses. Dol. Nay, truly; I kiss thee with a most constant heart. Fal. I am old, I am old. Dol. I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young boy of them all. Fal. What stuff wilt have a kirtle of?1 I shall receive not cog, and say this and that, like a many of these lisping hawthorn-buds, that come like women in men's apparel, and smell like Buckler's-bury in simple-time; I cannot; but I love thee;" &c. Malone. 1-a kirtle of?] I know not exactly what a kirtle is. The following passages may serve to shew that it was something different from a gown: "How unkindly she takes the matter, and cannot be reconciled with less than a gown or a kirtle of silk." Greene's Art of Legerdemain, &c. 1612. Bale, in his Actes of English Votaries, says, that Roger earl of Shrewsbury sent "to Clunyake in France, for the kyrtle of holy Hugh the abbot." Perhaps kirtle, in its common acceptation, means a petticoat. "Half a dozen taffata gowns or satin kirtles." Cynthia's Revels, by Ben Jonson. Steevens. A kirtle, I believe, meant a long cloak. Minshieu describes it as an upper or exterior garment, worn over another; what in French is called a garde-robe See his Dict. 1617. The latter word is explained by Cotgrave thus: "A cloth or cloak worn or cast over a garment to keep it from dust, rain," &c. That writer, however, supposes kirtle and petticoat to be synonymous; for he renders the word vasquine thus: “ A kirtle or petticoat," and surcot he calls "an upper kirtle, or a garment worn over a kirtle." When, therefore, a kirtle is mentioned simply, perhaps a petticoat is meant; when an upper kirtle is spoken of, a long cloak or mantle is probably intended; and I imagine a half-kirtle, which occurs in a subsequent scene in this play, meant a short cloak, half the length of the upper kirtle. The term half-kirtle seems inconsistent with Dr. Farmer's idea; as does Milton's use of the word in his Masque, "the flowery-kirtled Naiades." My interpretation of kirtle is confirmed by Barret's Alvearie, 1580, who renders kirtle, by subminia, cyclas, palla, pallula, Xhaïva, surcot.-Subminia Cole interprets in his Latin Dictionary, 1697, "A kirtle, a light red coat." Cyclas, "a kirtle, a cimarr." -Palla, “a woman's long gown; a veil that covers the head.". Pallula, "a short kirtle."-Lena, "an, Irish rugge, a freeze cassock, a rough hairy gaberdine,” From hence it appears, that a woman's kirtle, or rather upperkirtle, (as distinguished from a petticoat, which was sometimes called a kirtle,) was a long mantle which reached to the ground, with a head to it that entirely covered the face; and it was, perhaps, usually red. A half-kirtle was a similar garment, reaching money on Thursday: thou shalt have a cap to-morrow. A merry song, come: it grows late, we'll to bed. Thou 'It forget me, when I am gone. Dol. By my troth thou 'It set me a weeping, an thou sayest so: prove that ever I dress myself handsome till thy return.- -Well, hearken the end. Fal. Some sack, Francis. P. Hen. Poins. Anon, anon, sir.2 [Advancing. Fal. Ha! a bastard son of the king's?3-And art not thou Poins his brother?4 P. Hen. Why, thou globe of sinful continents, what a life dost thou lead? Fal. A better than thou; I am a gentleman, thou art a drawer. P. Hen. Very true, sir; and I come to draw you out by the ears. Host. O, the Lord preserve thy good grace! by my troth, welcome to London.-Now the Lord bless that sweet face of thine! O Jesu, are you come from Wales? Fal. Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty,-by this light flesh and corrupt blood, thou art welcome. [Leaning his hand upon DoL. Dol. How! you fat fool, I scorn you. Poins. My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge, and turn all to a merriment, if you take not the heat.5 P. Hen. You whoreson candle-mine, you, how vilely only somewhat lower than the waist. See Florio's Italian Dict. 1598: "Semicinto. A garment coming lower than the belly; also half-girt, as we may say a half-kirtle." Malone. 2 Anon, anon, sir.] The usual answer of drawers at this period.. So, in The Discoverie of the Knights of the Poste, 1597: "wherefore hee calling, the drawer presently answered with a shrill voyce, anon, anon, sir." Reed. 3 Ha! a bastard &c.] The improbability of this scene is scarcely balanced by the humour. Johnson. 4 Poins his brother?] i. e. Poins's brother, or brother to Poins; a vulgar corruption of the genitive case. Ritson. 5—if you take not the heat.] Alluding, I suppose, to the proverb, Strike while the iron is hot." So again, in King Lear "We must do something, and i' the heat." Steevens. 6 candle-mine,] Thou inexhaustible magazine of tallow. Johnson did you speak of me even now, before this honest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman? Host. 'Blessing o' your good heart! and so she is, by my troth. Fal. Didst thou hear me? P. Hen. Yes; and you knew me, as you did when you ran away by Gads-hill: you knew, I was at your back; and spoke it on purpose, to try my patience. Fal. No, no, no; not so; I did not think, thou wast within hearing. P. Hen. I shall drive you then to confess the wilful abuse; and then I know how to handle you. Fal. No abuse, Hal, on mine honour; no abuse. P. Hen. Not! to dispraise me; and call me-pantler, and bread-chipper, and I know not what? Fal. No abuse, Hal. Poins. No abuse! Fal. No abuse, Ned, in the world; honest Ned, none. I dispraised him before the wicked, that the wicked might not fall in love with him:-in which doing, I have done the part of a careful friend, and a true subject, and thy father is to give me thanks for it. No abuse, Hal; -none, Ned, none;-no, boys, none. P. Hen. See now, whether pure fear, and entire cowardice, doth not make thee wrong this virtuous gentlewoman to close with us? Is she of the wicked? Is thine hostess here of the wicked? Or is the boy of the wicked? Or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his nose, of the wicked? Poins. Answer, thou dead elm, answer. Fal. The fiend hath pricked down Bardolph irrecoverable; and his face is Lucifer's privy-kitchen, where he doth nothing but roast malt-worms. For the boy,—there is a good angel about him; but the devil outbids him too. 8 7 Not! to dispraise me;] The Prince means to say, "What! is it not abuse to dispraise me," &c. Some of the modern editors ead-No! &c. but, I think, without necessity. So, in Coriolanus : "Com. He'll never hear him. "Sic. Not?" There also Not has been rejected by the modern editors, and No inserted in its place. Malone. |