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Biron. St. George's half-cheek in a brooch.4

Dum. Ay, and in a brooch of lead.

Biron. Ay, and worn in the cap of a tooth-drawer: And now, forward; for we have put thee in countenance. Hol. You have put me out of countenance. Biron. False; we have given thee faces.

Hol. But you have out-fac❜d them all.

Biron. An thou wert a lion, we would do so. Boyet. Therefore, as he is, an ass, let him go. And so adieu, sweet Jude! nay, why dost thou stay? Dum. For the latter end of his name.

Biron. For the ass to the Jude: give it him:-Jud-as,

away,

Hol. This is not generous, not gentle, not humble. Boyet. A light, for monsieur Judas: it grows dark, he may stumble.

Prin. Alas, poor Machabæus, how hath he been baited! Enter ARMADO arm'd, for Hector.

Biron. Hide thy head, Achilles; here comes Hector in arms.

Dum. Though my mocks come home by me, I will now be merry.

King. Hector was but a Trojan5 in respect of this. Boyet. But is this Hector?

Dum. I think, Hector was not so clean-timber'd.

Long. His leg is too big for Hector.

Dum. More calf, certain.

Boyet. No; he is best endued in the small.

Biron. This cannot be Hector.

Dum. He's a god or a painter; for he makes faces. Arm. The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,. Gave Hector a gift,—

4 St. George's half-check in a brooch.] A brooch is an ornamental buckle, for fastening hat-bands, girdles, mantles, &c. See a figure and description of a fine one, in Pennant's Tour in Scotland, Vol. III, p. 14. Harris.

5 Hector was but a Trojan-] A Trojan, I believe, was, in the time of Shakspeare, a cant term for a thief. So, in King Henry IV, P. I: "Tut there are other Trojans that thou dream'st not of," &c. Again, in this scene: "unless you play the honest Trojan," &c. Steevens.

6

of lances] i. e. of lance-men. So, in King Lear: "And turn our imprest lances in our eyes." Steevens.

Dum. A gilt nutmeg.

Biron. A lemon.

Long. Stuck with cloves."

Dum. No, cloven.

Arm. Peace!

The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,

Gave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion;

A man so breath'd, that certain he would fight, yea,3
From morn till night, out of his pavilion.

I am that flower,

Dum.

*Long.

That mint.

That columbine.

Arm. Sweet lord Longaville, rein thy tongue.

Long. I must rather give it the rein; for it runs against Hector.

Dum. Ay, and Hector 's a greyhound.

Arm. The sweet war-man is dead and rotten; sweet chucks, beat not the bones of the buried: when he breath'd, he was a man-But I will forward with my device: Sweet royalty, [to the Princess] bestow on me the sense of hearing. [BIRON whispers COST. Prin. Speak, brave Hector; we are much delighted. Arm. I do adore thy sweet grace's slipper. Boyet. Loves her by the foot.

Dum. He may not by the yard.

Arm. This Hector far surmounted Hannibal, –

Cost. The party is gone, fellow Hector, she is gone; she is two months on her way.

7 Stuck with cloves.] An orange stuck with cloves appears to have been a common new-year's gift. So, Ben Jonson, in his Christmas Masque: "he has an orange and rosemary, but not a clove to stick in it." A gilt nutmeg is mentioned in the same piece, and on the same occasion.

Steevens.

The quarto, 1598, reads-A gift nutmeg; and if a gilt nutmeg had not been mentioned by Ben Jonson, I should have thought it right. So we say, a gift-horse, &c. Malone.

8

he would fight, yea,] Thus all the old copies. Theobald very plausibly reads—he would fight ye; a common vulgarism.

I should read:

that certain he would fight ye,

Steevens.

which I think improves both the sense and the rhyme.-He would run you five miles in an hour-he would ride night, is a mode of expression still in use.

you

from morning till M. Mason.

Arm. What meanest thou?

Cost. Faith, unless you play the honest Trojan, the poor wench is cast away: she's quick; the child brags in her belly already; 'tis yours.

Arm. Dost thou infamonize me among potentates? thou shalt die.

Cost. Then shall Hector be whipp'd, for Jaquenetta that is quick by him; and hang'd, for Pompey that is dead by him.

Dum. Most rare Pompey!

Boyet. Renowned Pompey!

Biron. Greater than great, great, great, great Pompey! Pompey the huge!

Dum. Hector trembles.

Biron. Pompey is mov'd:-More Ates, more Ates;9 stir them on! stir them on!

Dum. Hector will challenge him.

Biron. Ay, if he have no more man's blood in 's belly than will sup a flea.

Arm. By the north pole, I do challenge thee.

Cost. I will not fight with a pole, like a northern man;1 I'll slash; I'll do it by the sword:-I pray you, let me borrow my arms again.

Dum. Room for the incensed worthies.

Cost. I'll do it in my shirt.

Dum. Most resolute Pompey!

Moth. Master, let me take you a button-hole lower. Do you not see, Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? you will lose your reputation.

Arm. Gentlemen, and soldiers, pardon me; I will not combat in my shirt.

Dum. You may not deny it; Pompey hath made the challenge.

Arm. Sweet bloods, I both may and will.

9 more Ates;] That is, more instigation. Ate was the mischievous goddess that incited bloodshed. Johnson. So, in King John:

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"An Até, stirring him to war and strife." Steevens.

·like a northern man;] Vir Borealis, a clown. See Glossary to Urry's Chaucer. Farmer.

2

my arms-] The weapons and armour which he wore in the character of Pompey. Johnson.

Biron. What reason have you for 't?

Arm. The naked truth of it is, I have no shirt; I go woolward for penance.

Boyet. True, and it was enjoin'd him in Rome for want of linen: 3 since when, I'll be sworn, he wore none,

3 it was enjoin'd him in Rome for want of linen: &c.] This may possibly allude to a story well known in our author's time, to this effect. A Spaniard at Rome falling in a duel, as he lay expiring, an intimate friend, by chance, came by, and offered him his best services. The dying man told him he had but one request to make him, but conjured him, by the memory of their past friendship, punctually to comply with it: which was not to suffer him to be stript, but to bury him as he lay, in the habit he then had on. When this was promised, the Spaniard closed his eyes, and expired with great composure and resignation. But his friend's curiosity prevailing over his good faith, he had him stript, and found, to his great surprise, that he was without a shirt. Warburton.

Boyet. True, and it was enjoin'd him in Rome for want of linen: &c.] This is a plain reference to the following story in Stowe's Annals, p. 98, (in the time of Edward the Confessor) "Next after this (king Edward's first cure of the king's evil) mine authors affirm, that a certain man, named Vifunius Spileorne, the son of Ulmore of Nutgarshall, who, when he hewed timber in the wood of Brutheullena, laying him down to sleep after his sore labour, the blood and humours of his head so congealed about his eyes, that he was thereof blind, for the space of nineteen years; but then (as he had been moved in his sleep) he went woolward and bare-footed to many churches, in every of them to pray to God for help in his blindness." Dr. Grey.

The same custom is alluded to in an old collection of Satyres, Epigrams, &c.

"And when his shirt 's a washing, then he must

"Go woolward for the time; he scorns it, he,

"That worth two shirts his laundress should him see."

Again, in A Mery Geste of Robyn Hood, bl. 1. no date:

"Barefoot, woolward have I hight,

"Thether for to go."

Again, in Powell's History of Wales, 1584: "The Angles and Saxons slew 1000 priests and monks of Bangor, with a great number of lay brethren, &c. who were come bare-footed and woolward to crave mercy," &c. Steevens.

In Lodge's Incarnate Devils, 1596, we have the character of a swashbuckler: "His common course is to go always untrust; except when his shirt is a washing, and then he goes woolward.”

Farmer.

Woolward]"I have no shirt; I go woolward for penance." The learned Dr. Grey, whose accurate knowledge of our old historians has often thrown much light on Shakspeare, supposes

but a dish-clout of Jaquenetta's; and that 'a wears next his heart, for a favour.

Enter MERCADE.

Mer. God save you, madam!

Prin. Welcome, Mercade;

But that thou interrupt'st our merriment.

Mer. I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring, Is heavy in my tongue. The king your father— Prin. Dead, for my life.

Mer. Even so; my tale is told.

Biron. Worthies, away; the scene begins to cloud.

that this passage is a plain reference to a story in Stowe's Annals, p. 98. But where is the connection or resemblance between this monkish tale and the passage before us? There is nothing in the story, as here related by Stowe, that would even put us in mind of this dialogue between Boyet and Armado, except the singular expression go woolward; which, at the same time is not explained by the annotator, nor illustrated by his quotation. To go woolward, I believe, was a phrase appropriated to pilgrims and penitentiaries. In this sense it seems to be used in Pierce Plowman's Visions, Pass. xviii, fol. 96, b. edit. 1550:

"Wolward and wetshod went I forth after

"As a rechless reuke, that of no wo retcheth,

"And yedeforth like a lorell," &c.

Skinner derives woolward from the Saxon wol, plague, secondarily any great distress, and weard, toward. Thus, says he, it signifies, "in magno discrimine & expectatione magni mali constitutus." I rather think it should be written woolward, and that it means clothed in wool, and not in linen. This appears, not only from Shakspeare's context, but more particularly from an historian who relates the legend before cited, and whose words Stowe has evidently translated. This is Ailred, abbot of Reivaulx, who says, that our blind man was admonished: "Ecclesias numero octoginta nudis pedibus et absque linteis circumire."-Dec. Scriptor, 302, 50. The same story is told by William of Malmsbury, Gest. Reg. Angl. Lib. II, p. 91, edit. 1601. And in Caxton's Legenda Aurea, fol. 307, edit. 1493. By the way it appears, that Stowe's Vifunius Spileorne, son of Ulmore of Nutgarshall, ought to be Wulwin, surnamed de Spillicote, son of Wulmar de Lutegarshelle, now Ludgershall: and the wood of Brutheullena is the forest of Bruelle, now called Brill in Buckinghamshire.

T. Warton.

To this speech in the old copy, Boy is prefixed, by which designation most of Moth's speeches are marked. The name of Boyet is generally printed at length. It seems better suited to Armado's page than to Boyet, to whom it has been given in the modern editions. Malone.

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