Rob. My master sir John is come in at your backdoor, mistress Ford; and requests your company. Mrs. Page. You little Jack-a-lent,1 have you been true to us? Rob. Ay, I'll be sworn: My master knows not of your being here; and hath threatened to put me into everlasting liberty, if I tell you of it; for, he swears, he'll turn me away. Mrs. Page. Thou 'rt a good boy; this secrecy of thine shall be a tailor to thee, and shall make thee a new doublet and hose.-I'll go hide me. Mrs. Ford. Do so;-Go tell thy master, I am alone. Mistress Page, remember you your cue. [Exit ROB. Mrs. Page. I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me. [Exit Mrs. PAGE. Mrs. Ford. Go to then; we'll use this unwholesome humidity, this gross watry pumpion;-we 'll teach him to know turtles from jays.2 Fal. Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel?3 Why, youthful gay, "Like eyas-hauke, up mounts unto the skies, In The Booke of Haukyng, &c. commonly called The Book of St. Albans, bl. 1. no date, is the following derivation of the word; but whether true or erroneous is not for me to determine: "An hauk is called an eyesse from her eyen. For an hauke that is brought up under a bussarde or puttock, as many ben, have watry eyen," &c. Steevens. 1 Fack-a-lent,] A Jack o' lent was a puppet thrown at in Lent, like shrove-cocks. So, in The Weakest goes to the Wall, 1600: "A mere anatomy, a Fack of Lent," Again, in The Four Prentices of London, 1615: "Now you old Jack of Lent, six weeks and upwards." Again, in Greene's Tu Quoque: for if a boy, that is 66 throwing at his Jack o' Lent, chance to hit me on the shins," &c. See a note on the last scene of this comedy. Steevens. 2from jays.] So, in Cymbeline: 66 some jay of Italy, "Whose mother was her painting," &c. Steevens. 3 Have I caught my heavenly jewel?] This is the first line of the second song in Sidney's Astrophel and Stella. Tollet. now let me die, for I have lived long enough; this is the period of my ambition: O this blessed hour! Mrs. Ford. O sweet sir John! Fal. Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate, mistress Ford. Now shall I sin in my wish: I would thy husband were dead; I'll speak it before the best lord, I would make thee my lady. Mrs. Ford. I your lady, sir John! alas I should be a pitiful lady. Fal. Let the court of France show me such another; I see how thine eye would emulate the diamond: Thou hast the right arched bent of the brow, that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance.4 that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance.] Instead of—Venetian admittance, the old quarto reads-" or any Venetian attire." Steevens. The old quarto reads-tire-vellet, and the old folio readsor any tire of Venetian admittance. So that the true reading of the whole is this, that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-VALIANT, or any tire of Venetian admittance. The speaker tells his mistress, she had a face that would become all the head dresses in fashion. The ship-tire was an open head dress, with a kind of scarf depending from behind. Its name of ship-tire was, I presume, from its giving the wearer some resemblance of a ship (as Shakspeare says) in all her trim: with all her pendants out, and flags and streamers flying. This was an image familiar with the poets of that time. Thus Beaumont and Fletcher, in their play of Wit without Money: "She spreads sattens as the king's ships do canvas everywhere; she may space her misen," &c. This will direct us to reform the following word of tire valiant, which I suspect to be corrupt, valiant being a very incongruous epithet for a woman's head dress: I suppose Shakspeare wrote tire-vailant. As the ship-tire was an open head dress, so the tire-vailant was a close one, in which the head and breast were covered as with a veil. And these were, in fact, the two different head dresses then in fashion, as we may see by the pictures of that time. One of which was so open, that the whole neck, breasts, and shoulders, were opened to view: the other, so securely inclosed in kerchiefs, &c. that nothing could be seen above the eyes, or below the chin. Warburton. In the fifth act, Fenton mentions that his mistress is to meet him "With ribbons pendant flaring 'bout her head." This, probably, was what is here called the ship-tire. Malone. the tire-valiant,] I would read-tire volant. Stubbes, who describes most minutely every article of female dress, has men Mrs. Ford. A plain kerchief, sir John: my brows become nothing else; nor that well neither. tioned none of these terms, but speaks of vails depending from the top of the head, and flying behind in loose folds. The word volant was in use before the age of Shakspeare. I find it in Wilfride Holme's Fall and evil Successe of Rebellion, 1537 : high volant in any thing divine." Tire vellet, which is the reading of the old quarto, may be printed, as Mr. Tollet observes, by mistake, for tire velvet. We know that velvet-hoods were worn in the age of Shakspeare. Steevens. Among the presents sent by the Queen of Spain to the Queen of England, in April 1606, was a velvet cap with gold buttons. Catharine's cap, in The Taming of the Shrew, is likewise of velvet. Tire-volant, however, I believe with Mr. Steevens, was the poet's word. "Their heads (says Nashe in 1594) with their top and top-gallant lawne baby caps, and snow-resembled silver curlings, they make a plain puppet-stage of. Their breasts they embuske up on hie, and their round roseate buds they immodestly lay forth, to shew, at their hands there is fruit to be hoped." Christ's Tears over Jerusalem, 4to. 1594. Malone. - of Venetian admittance.] i. e. of a fashion received or admitted from Venice. So, in Westward Hoe, 1606, by Decker and Webster:-" now she 's in that Italian head tire you sent her." Dr. Farmer proposes to read-" of Venetian remittance." Steevens. In how much request the Venetian tyre formerly was held, appears from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, 1624:-" let her have the Spanish gate, [gait] the Venetian tyre, Italian complements and endowments." Malone. May not the tire valiant be so called from the air of boldness and confidence which it might give the wearer? A certain court divine (who can hardly be called a courtly one) in a sermon preached before King James the First, thus speaks of the ladies' head dresses: "Oh what a wonder it is to see a ship under saile with her tacklings and her masts, and her tops and top-gallants, with her upper decks and her nether decks, and so bedeckt with her streames, flags and ensigns, and I know not what; yea but a world of wonders it is to see a woman created in God's image, so miscreate oft times and deformed with her French, her Spanish and her foolish fashions, that he that made her, when he looks upon her, shall hardly know her, with her plumes, her fans, and a silken vizard, with a ruffe, like a saile; yea, a ruffe like a rain. bow, with a feather in her cap, like a flag in her top, to tell (I thinke) which way the wind will blow." The MERCHANT ROYALL, a sermon preached at Whitehall before the King's Majestie, at the nuptialls of Lord Hay and his Lady, Twelfth-day, 1607, 4to. 1615. Again, "it is proverbially said, that far fetcht and deare bought is fittest for ladies; as now-a-daies what groweth at home Fal. Thou art a traitor" to say so: thou would'st make an absolute courtier; and the firm fixture of thy foot would give an excellent motion to thy gait, in a semi-circled farthingale. I see what thou wert, if fortune thy foe were not; nature is thy friend: Come, thou canst not hide it. Mrs. Ford. Believe me, there's no such thing in me. Fal. What made me love thee? let that persuade thee, there's something extraordinary in thee. Come, I cannot cog, and say, thou art this and that, like a many of these lisping haw-thorn buds, that come like women in men's apparel, and smell like Buckler's-bury1 is base and homely; and what every one eates is meate for dogs; and wee must have bread from one countrie, and drinke from another; and wee must have meate from Spaine, and sauce out of Italy; and if wee weare any thing, it must be pure Venetian, Roman, or barbarian; but the fashion of all must be French." Ibid. Reed. 7 a traitor -] i. e. to thy own merit. Steevens. The folio reads-thou art a tyrant, &c. but the reading of the quarto appears to me far better. Malone. 8 — fortune thy foe—] "was the beginning of an old ballad, in which were enumerated all the misfortunes that fall upon mankind, through the caprice of fortune." See note on The Custom of the Country, Act I, sc. i, by Mr. Theobald; who observes, that this ballad is mentioned again in a comedy by John Tatham, printed in 1660, called The Rump, or Mirror of the times, wherein a Frenchman is introduced at the bonfire made for the burning of the rumps, and, catching hold of Priscilla, will oblige her to dance, and orders the musick to play Fortune my Foe. See also, Lingua, Vol. V, Dodsley's Collection, p. 188; and Tom Essence, 1677, p. 37. Mr. Ritson observes, that "the tune is the identical air now known by the song of Death and the Lady, to which the metrical lamentations of extraordinary criminals have been usually chanted for upwards of these two hundred years." Reed. The first stanza of this popular ballad was as follows: "Fortune my foe, why dost thou frown on me? "And will my fortune never better be? "Wilt thou, I say, forever breed my pain, "And wilt thou not restore my joys again?" Malone. This ballad is also mentioned by Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, edit. 1632, p. 576: "What shall we do in such a case?" sing" Fortune my foe?" Steevens. 1— like Buckler's-bury &c.] Buckler's-bury, in the time of Shakspeare, was chiefly inhabited by druggists, who sold all kinds of herbs, green as well as dry. Steevens. in simple-time; I cannot: but I love thee; none but thee; and thou deservest it. Mrs. Ford. Do not betray me, sir; I fear, you love mistress Page. Fal. Thou might'st as well say, I love to walk by the Counter-gate; which is as hateful to me as the reek of a lime-kiln.3 Mrs. Ford. Well, heaven knows, how I love you; and you shall one day find it. Fal. Keep in that mind; I'll deserve it. Mrs. Ford. Nay, I must tell you, so you do; or else I could not be in that mind. Rob. [within] Mistress Ford, mistress Ford! here 's mistress Page at the door, sweating, and blowing, and looking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently. Fal. She shall not see me; I will ensconse me behind the arras.* Mrs. Ford. Pray you, do so; she's a very tattling [FAL. hides himself. woman. Enter Mistress PAGE and ROBIN. What's the matter? how now? Mrs. Page. O mistress Ford, what have you done? You're shamed, your are overthrown, you are undone forever. 2 I cannot cog, and say, thou art this and that, like a many of these lisping haw-thorn buds,—I cannot: but I love thee;] So, in Wily Beguil'd, 1606: 3 "I cannot play the dissembler, "And woo my love with courting ambages, "Like one whose love hangs on his smooth tongue's end; "But in a word I tell the sum of my desires, "I love faire Lelia." Malone. as hateful to me as the reek of a lime-kiln.] Our poet has a similar image in Coriolanus: whose breath I hate, "As reek o' the rotten fens." Steevens. behind the arras.] The spaces left between the walls and the wooden frames on which arras was hung, were not more commodious to our ancestors than to the authors of their ancient dramatic pieces. Borachio in Much Ado about Nothing, and Polonius in Hamlet, also avail themselves of this convenient recess. Steevens. |