LEAR. Why, thou were better in thy grave, than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies.-Is man no more than this? Consider him well: Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume :Ha! here's three of us are sophisticated!-Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.-Off, off, you lendings:-Come; unbutton here."[Tearing off his Clothes. FOOL. Pr'ythee, nuncle, be contented; this is a naughty night to swim in.8-Now a little fire in a they are only to be found in the first folio, and were probably added by the players, who, together with the compositors, were likely enough to corrupt what they did not understand, or to add more of their own to what they already concluded to be nonsense. STEEVENS. Cokes cries out, in Bartholomew Fair: "God's my life!-He shall be Dauphin my boy!" FARMER. It is observable that the two songs to which Mr. Steevens refers for the burden of Hey no nonny, are both sung by girls distracted from disappointed love. The meaning of the burden may be inferred from what follows-Drayton's Shepherd's Garland, 1593, 4to: "Who ever heard thy pipe and pleasing vaine, "That doth not muse." 66 Again, in White's Wit of a Woman: these dauncers sometimes do teach them trickes above trenchmore, yea and sometimes such lavoltas, that they mount so high, that you may see their hey nony, nony, nony, no.” HENLEY. 7 Come; unbutton here.] Thus the folio. One of the quartos reads-Come on, be true. STEEVENS. unbutton here.] These words are probably only a marginal direction to the player crept into the text. HARRIS. 8 a naughty night to swim in.] So, Tusser, chap. xlii. fol. 93: "Ground grauellie, sandie, and mixed with claie, 9 wild field were like an old lecher's heart; a small spark, all the rest of his body cold.-Look, here comes a walking fire. EDG. This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet:' he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he Naughty signifies bad, unfit, improper. This epithet which, as it stands here, excites a smile, in the age of Shakspeare was employed on serious occasions. The merriment of the Fool, therefore, depended on his general image, and not on the quaintness of its auxiliary. STEEVENS. 9 —an old lecher's heart;] This image appears to have been imitated by Beaumont and Fletcher, in The Humorous Lieutenant: 66 an old man's loose desire "Is like the glow-worm's light the apes so wonder❜d at ; Flibbertigibbet:] We are not much acquainted with this fiend. Latimer, in his Sermons, mentions him; and Heywood, among his sixte hundred of Epigrams, edit. 1576, has the following, Of calling one Flebergibet: "Thou Flebergibet, Flebergibet, thou wretch! "Wottest thou whereto last part of that word doth stretch? STEEVENS. "Frateretto, Fliberdigibet, Hoberdidance, Tocobatto, were four devils of the round or morrice . . . . . These four had forty assistants under them, as themselves doe confesse." Harsnet, p. 49. PERCY. ..... 2 he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock;] It is an old tradition that spirits were relieved from the confinement in which they were held during the day, at the time of curfew, that is, at the close of day, and were permitted to wander at large till the first cock-crowing. Hence, in The Tempest, they are said to "rejoice to hear the solemn curfew." See Hamlet, Act I. sc. i: "and at his [the cock's] warning, gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the hare-lip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth. Saint Withold footed thrice the wold; He met the night-mare, and her nine-fold; And her troth plight, And, aroint thee, witch, aroint thee !* Again, sc. v: 3 "I am thy father's spirit, "Doom'd for a certain time to walk the night, See Vol. IV. p. 39, n. 4. web and the pin,] So, in Every Woman in STEEvens. MALONE. Diseases of the eye. JOHNSON. her Humour, 1609. One of the characters is giving a ludicrous description of a lady's face, and when he comes to her eyes he hair du roy." STEEVENS. 66 says, a pin and web argent, in • Saint Withold footed thrice the wold; He met the night-mare, and her nine-fold; thus: And her troth plight, And, aroint thee, witch, aroint thee !] We should read it mare; Saint Withold footed thrice the wold, He met the night-mare, and her name told, And aroynt thee, witch, aroynt thee right. i. e. Saint Withold traversing the wold or downs, met the nightwho having told her name, he obliged her to alight from those persons whom she rides, and plight her troth to do no more mischief. This is taken from a story of him in his legend, Hence he was invoked as the patron saint against that distemper. And these verses were no other than a popular charm, or nightspell against the Epialtes. The last line is the formal execration or apostrophe of the speaker of the charm to the witch, aroynt thee right, i. e. depart forthwith. Bedlams, gipsies, and such like vagabonds, used to sell these kinds of spells or charms to the people. They were of various kinds for various disorders, KENT. How fares your grace? and addressed to various saints. We have another of them in the Monsieur Thomas of Fletcher, which he expressly calls a nightspell, and is in these words: "Saint George, Saint George, our lady's knight, "He her beat and her bound; “Until to him her troth she plight, "She would not stir from him that night." WARBURTON. This is likewise one of the "magical cures" for the incubus, quoted, with little variation, by Reginald Scott in his Discovery of Witchcraft, 1584. STEEVENS. In the old quarto the corruption is such as may deserve to be noted. "Swithalde footed thrice the olde anelthu night moore and her nine fold bid her, O light and her troth plight and arint thee, with arint thee." JOHNSON. Her nine fold seems to be put (for the sake of the rhyme) instead of her nine foals. I cannot find this adventure in the common legends of St. Vitalis, who, I suppose, is here called St. Withold. TYRWHITT. Shakspeare might have met with St. Withold in the old spurious play of King John, where this saint is invoked by a Franciscan friar. The wold I suppose to be the true reading. So, in The Coventry Collection of Mysteries, Mus. Brit. Vesp. D. viii. p. 23, Herod says to one of his officers: "Seyward bolde, walke thou on wolde, "And wysely behold all abowte," &c. Dr. Hill's reading, the cold, (mentioned in the next note,) is the reading of Mr. Tate in his alteration of this play in 1681. Lest the reader should suppose the compound-night-mare,has any reference to horse-flesh, it may be observed that maɲa, Saxon, signifies an incubus. See Keysler, Antiquitat. sel. Septentrion. p. 497, edit. 1720. STEEVENS. It is pleasant to see the various readings of this passage. In a book called the Actor, which has been ascribed to Dr. Hill, it is quoted "Swithin footed thrice the cold." Mr. Colman has it in his alteration of Lear "Swithin footed thrice the world." The ancient reading is the olds: which is pompously corrected by Mr. Theobald, with the help of his friend Mr. Bishop, to the wolds: in fact it is the same word. Spelman writes, Enter GLOSTER, with a Torch. LEAR. What's he? KENT. Who's there? What is't you seek? EDG. Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the tadpole, the wall-newt, and the water;5 that in the fury of his heart, when the foul Burton upon olds: the provincial pronunciation is still the oles: and that probably was the vulgar orthography. Let us read then, St. Withold footed thrice the oles, He met the night-mare, and her nine foles, &c. FARMER. I was surprised to see in the Appendix to the last edition of Shakspeare, [i. e. that of 1773] that my reading of this passage was "Swithin footed thrice the world." I have ever been averse to capricious variations of the old text; and, in the present instance, the rhyme, as well as the sense, would have induced me to abide by it. World was merely an error of the press. Wold is a word still in use in the North of England; signifying a kind of down near the sea. A large tract of country in the EastRiding of Yorkshire is called the Woulds. COLMAN. Both the quartos and the folio have old, not olds. Old was merely the word wold misspelled, from following the sound. There are a hundred instances of the same kind in the old copies of these plays. For what purpose the Incubus is enjoined to plight her troth, will appear from a passage in Scott's Discovery of Witchcraft, 1584, which Shakspeare appears to have had in view: "-howbeit, there are magical cures for it, [the night-mare or incubus,] as for example: "S. George, S. George, our ladies knight, "He walk'd by daie, so did he by night, "Until such time as he hir found: "He hir beat and he hir bound, "Until hir troth she to him plight "She would not come to hir [r. him] that night." Her nine fold are her nine familiars. Aroint thee! [Dii te averruncent!] has been already explained in Vol. X. p. 29, n. 1. MALONE. -the wall-newt, and the water;] i. e. the water-newt、 |
