8 MRS. FORD. What, John, Robert, John! [Exit ROBIN. Re-enter Servants.] Go take up these clothes here, quickly; Where's the cowl-staff? look, how you drumble: carry them to the laundress in Datchet mead;' quickly, come. 8 the cowl-staff?] Is a staff used for carrying a large tub or basket with two handles. In Essex the word cowl is yet used for a tub. MALONE. This word occurs also in Philemon Holland's translation of the seventh Book of Pliny's Natural History, ch. 56: “The first battell that ever was fought, was between the Africans and Ægyptians; and the same performed by bastions, clubs and coulstaves, which they call Phalanga." STEEVENS. 9 how you drumble:] The reverend Mr. Lambe, the editor of the ancient metrical history of the Battle of Floddon, observes, that look how you drumble, means-how confused you are; and that in the North, drumbled ale is muddy, disturbed ale. Thus, a Scottish proverb in Ray's collection: "It is good fishing in drumbling waters." Again, in Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, this word occurs: "-gray-beard drumbling over a discourse." Again: " - your fly in a boxe is but a drumble-bee in comparison of it." Again: "this drumbling course. STEEVENS. To drumble, in Devonshire, signifies to mutter in a sullen and inarticulate voice. No other sense of the word will either explain this interrogation, or the passages adduced in Mr. Steevens's note. To drumble and drone are often used in connection. HENLEY. A drumble drone, in the western dialect, signifies a drone or humble-bee. Mrs. Page may therefore mean-How lazy and stupid you are! be more alert. MALONE. 1 carry them to the laundress in Datchet mead ;] Mr. Dennis objects, with some degree of reason, to the probability of the circumstance of Falstaff's being carried to Datchet mead, and thrown into the Thames. "It is not likely (he observes) that Falstaff would suffer himself to be carried in the basket as far as Datchet mead, which is half a mile from Windsor, and it is plain that they could not carry him, if he made any resiste MALONE. ance." MRS. FORD. What, John, Robert, John! [Exit ROBIN. Re-enter Servants.] Go take up these clothes here, quickly; Where's the cowl-staff? 8 look, how you drumble: carry them to the laundress in Datchet mead;' quickly, come. 8 9 -the cowl-staff?] Is a staff used for carrying a large tub or basket with two handles. In Essex the word cowl is yet used for a tub. MALONE. This word occurs also in Philemon Holland's translation of the seventh Book of Pliny's Natural History, ch. 56: "The first battell that ever was fought, was between the Africans and Ægyptians; and the same performed by bastions, clubs and coulstaves, which they call Phalanga." STEEVENS. 9 how you drumble:] The reverend Mr. Lambe, the editor of the ancient metrical history of the Battle of Floddon, observes, that look how you drumble, means-how confused you are; and that in the North, drumbled ale is muddy, disturbed ale. Thus, a Scottish proverb in Ray's collection: "It is good fishing in drumbling waters." 66 66 Again, in Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, this word occurs: -gray-beard drumbling over a discourse." Again: - your fly in a boxe is but a drumble-bee in comparison of it." Again: "this drumbling course. STEEVENS. To drumble, in Devonshire, signifies to mutter in a sullen and inarticulate voice. No other sense of the word will either explain this interrogation, or the passages adduced in Mr. Steevens's note. To drumble and drone are often used in connection. HENLEY. A drumble drone, in the western dialect, signifies a drone or humble-bee. Mrs. Page may therefore mean-How lazy and stupid you are! be more alert. MALONE. carry them to the laundress in Datchet mead ;] Mr. Dennis objects, with some degree of reason, to the probability of the circumstance of Falstaff's being carried to Datchet mead, and thrown into the Thames. "It is not likely (he observes) that Falstaff would suffer himself to be carried in the basket as far as Datchet mead, which is half a mile from Windsor, and it is plain that they could not carry him, if he made any resiste MALONE. ance." Enter FORD, PAGE, CAIUS, and Sir HUGH FORD. Pray you, come near: if I suspect without cause, why then make sport at me, then let me be your jest; I deserve it. How now? whither bear you this? SERV. To the laundress, forsooth. MRS. FORD. Why, what have you to do whither they bear it? You were best meddle with buckwashing. FORD. Buck? I would I could wash myself of the buck! Buck, buck, buck? Ay, buck; I warrant you, buck; and of the season too; it shall appear.' [Exeunt Servants with the basket.] Gentlemen, I have dreamed to-night; I'll tell you my dream. Here, here, here be my keys: ascend my chambers, search, seek, find out: I'll warrant, we'll unkennel 1 it shall appear.] Ford seems to allude to the cuckold's horns. So afterwards: " -and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying, peer out, peer out." Of the season is a phrase of the forest. MALONE. Mr. Malone points the passage thus: " Ay, buck; I warrant you, buck, and of the season too; it shall appear." I am satisfied with the old punctuation. In The Rape of Lucrece, our poet makes his heroine compare herself to an "unseasonable doe ;" and, in Blunt's Customs of Manors, p. 168, is the same phrase employed by Ford: "A bukke delivered him of seyssone, by the woodmaster and keepers of Needwoode." STEEVENS. So, in a letter written by Queene Catharine, in 1526, Howard's Collection, Vol. I. p. 212: "We will and command you, that ye delyver or cause to be delyvered unto our trusty and well-beloved John Creusse-one buck of season. "The season of the hynd or doe (says Manwood) doth begin at Holyrood-day, and lasteth till Candelmas." Forest Laws, 1598. MALONE. |