Alas! the sweet woman leads an ill life with him; he's a very jealousy man; she leads a very frampold' life with him, good heart. FAL. Ten and eleven: Woman, commend me to her; I will not fail her. QUICK. Why, you say well: But I have another messenger to your worship: Mistress Page hath her hearty commendations to you too;-and let me tell you in your ear, she's as fartuous a civil modest wife, and one (I tell you) that will not miss you morning nor evening prayer, as any is in Windsor, whoe'er be the other: and she bade me tell your worship, that her husband is seldom from home; but, she hopes, there will come a time. I never knew a woman so dote upon a man; surely, I think you have charms, la; yes, in truth. -frampold-] This word I have never seen elsewhere, except in Dr. Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams, where a frampul man signifies a peevish troublesome fellow. JOHNSON. In The Roaring Girl, a comedy, 1611, I meet with a word, which, though differently spelt, appears to be the same: "Lax. Coachman. "Coach. Anon, sir! "Lax. Are we fitted with good phrampell jades?" Ray, among his South and East country words, observes, that frampald, or frampard, signifies fretful, peevish, cross, froward. As froward (he adds) comes from from; so may frampard. Nash, in his Praise of the Red Herring, 1599, speaking of Leander, says: "the churlish frampold waves gave him his belly full of fish-broth." Again, in The Inner Temple Masque, by Middleton, 1619: "-'tis so frampole, the puritans will never yield to it." Again, in The Blind Beggar of Bethnal-Green, by John Day: “I think the fellow's frampell," &c. And, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Wit at several Weapons: "Is Pompey grown so malapert, so frampel?” STEEVENS. Thus, in The Isle of Gulls-" What a goodyer aile you mother? are you frampull? know you not your own daughter?" HENLEY. FAL. Not I, I assure thee; setting the attraction of my good parts aside, I have no other charms. QUICK. Blessing on your heart for't! FAL. But, I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford's wife, and Page's wife, acquainted each other how they love me? QUICK. That were a jest, indeed!-they have not so little grace, I hope:-that were a trick, indeed! But mistress Page would desire you to send her your little page, of all loves; her husband has a marvellous infection to the little page: and, truly, master Page is an honest man. Never a wife in Windsor leads a better life than she does; do what she will, say what she will, take all, pay all, go to bed when she list, rise when she list, all is as she will; and, truly, she deserves it: for if there be a kind woman in Windsor, she is one. You must send her your page; no remedy. FAL. Why, I will. QUICK. Nay, but do so then: and, look you, he may come and go between you both; and, in any 3 to send her your little page, of all loves;] Of all loves, is an adjuration only, and signifies no more than if she had said, desires you to send him by all means. It is used in Decker's Honest Whore, P. I. 1635:-" conjuring his wife, of all loves, to prepare cheer fitting," &c. Again, in Holinshed's Chronicle, p. 1064: "Mrs. Arden desired him, of all loves, to come backe againe." Again, in Othello, Act III: "the general so likes your musick, that he desires you, of all loves, to make no more noise with it." A similar phrase occurs in a Letter from Gilbert Talbot to the Earl of Shrewsbury. See Lodge's Illustrations, &c. Vol. II. 101: "I earnestly desyred him, of all frendshipp, to tell me whether he had harde any thing to ye contrary. Again, ibid. "He charged me, of all love, that I should kepe this secrete." STEEVENS. case, have a nay-word, that you may know one another's mind, and the boy never need to understand any thing; for 'tis not good that children should know any wickedness: old folks, you know, have discretion, as they say, and know the world. FAL. Fare thee well: commend me to them both there's my purse; I am yet thy debtor.Boy, go along with this woman.-This news dis[Exeunt QUICKLY and ROBIN. tracts me! PIST. This punk is one of Cupid's carriers :Clap on more sails; pursue, up with your fights; ✦ — a nay-word,] i. e. a watch-word. So, in a subsequent Scene: "We have a nay-word to know one another," &c. STEEVENS. 5 This punk is one of Cupid's carriers :-] Punk is a plausible reading, yet absurd on examination. For are not all punks Cupid's carriers? Shakspeare certainly wrote: "This PINK is one of Cupid's carriers : And then the sense is proper, and the metaphor, which is all the way taken from the marine, entire. A pink is a vessel of the small craft, employed as a carrier (and so called) for merchants. Fletcher uses the word in his Tamer Tamed: "This PINK, this painted foist, this cockle-boat." WARBURTON. So, in The Ladies' Privilege, 1640: "These gentlemen know better to cut a caper than a cable, or board a pink in the bordells, than a pinnace at sea.' A small salmon is called a salmon-pink. Dr. Farmer, however, observes, that the word punk has been unnecessarily altered to pink. In Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, Justice Overdo says of the pig-woman: "She hath been before me, punk, pinnace, and bawd, any time these two and twenty-years." STEEVENS. 6 Tamed: up with your fights;] So again, in Fletcher's Tamer "To hang her fights out, and defy me, friends! "A well-known man of war.". As to the word fights, both in the text and in the quotation, it was then, and, for aught I know, may be now, a common sea-term. Sir Richard Hawkins, in his Voyages, p. 66, says: Give fire; she is my prize, or ocean whelm them [Exit PISTOL. all! "For once we cleared her deck; and had we been able to have spared but a dozen men, doubtless we had done with her what we would; for she had no close FIGHTS," i. e. if I understand it right, no small arms. So that by fights is meant any manner of defence, either small arms or cannon. So, Dryden, in his tragedy of Amboyna: 66 Up with your FIGHTS, "And your nettings prepare," &c. WARBURTON. The quotation from Dryden might at least have raised a suspicion that fights were neither small arms, nor cannon. Fights and nettings are properly joined. Fights, I find, are clothes hung round the ship to conceal the men from the enemy; and close-fights are bulk-heads, or any other shelter that the fabrick of a ship affords. JOHNSON. So, in Heywood and Rowley's comedy, called Fortune by Land and Sea: 66 -display'd their ensigns, up with all their feights, their matches in their cocks," &c. Again, in The Christian turned Turk, 1612: "Lace the netting, and let down the fights, make ready the shot," &c. Again, in The Fair Maid of the West, 1615: "Then now up with your fights, and let your ensigns, "Blest with St. George's cross, play with the winds." Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Valentinian: 66 - while I were able to endure a tempest, This passage may receive an additional and perhaps a somewhat different illustration from John Smith's Sea-Grammar, 4to. 1627. In p. 58 he says: "But if you see your chase strip himself into fighting sailes, that is, to put out his colours in the poope, his flag in the maine top, his streamers or pendants at the end of his yards' arms, &c. provide yourself to fight." Again, p. 60: "Thus they use to strip themselves into their short sailes, or fighting sailes, which is only the fore sail, the maine and fore top sailes, because the rest should not be fired or spoiled; besides they would be troublesome to handle, hinder our sights and the using of our armes: he makes ready his close fights fore and aft." In a former passage, p. 58, he has said that "a ship's close fights are small ledges of wood laid crosse one another, like the grates of iron in a prison's window, FAL. Say'st thou so, old Jack? go thy ways; I'll make more of thy old body than I have done. Will they yet look after thee? Wilt thou, after the expence of so much money, be now a gainer? Good body, I thank thee: Let them say, 'tis grossly done; so it be fairly done, no matter. Enter BARDOLPH. BARD. Sir John, there's one master Brook below would fain speak with you, and be acquainted with you; and hath sent your worship a morning's draught of sack." betwixt the maine mast and the fore mast, and are called gratings or nettings," &c. STEEVENS. 7 one master Brook below would fain speak with you, and be acquainted with you; and hath sent your worship a morning's draught of sack.] It seems to have been a common custom at taverns, in our author's time, to send presents of wine from one room to another, either as a memorial of friendship, or (as in the present instance) by way of introduction to acquaintance. Of the existence of this practice the following anecdote of Ben Jonson and Bishop Corbet furnishes a proof: "Ben Jonson was at a tavern, and in comes Bishop Corbet (but not so then) into the next room. Ben Jonson calls for a quart of raw wine, and gives it to the tapster. Sirrah, says he, carry this to the gentleman in the next chamber, and tell him, I sacrifice my service to him.' The fellow did, and in those words. Friend,' says Dr. Corbet, I thank him for his love; but 'pr'ythee tell him from me that he is mistaken; for sacrifices are always burnt." Merry Passages and Jeasts, MSS. Harl. 6395. MALONE. This practice was continued as late as the Restoration. In the Parliamentary History, Vol. XXII. p. 114, we have the following passage from Dr. Price's Life of General Monk: "I came to the Three Tuns before Guildhall, where the general had quartered two nights before. I entered the tavern with a servant and portmanteau, and asked for a room, which I had scarce got into but wine followed me as a present from some citizens, desiring leave to drink their morning's draught with me." REED. |