[1018] A mistake for Frolic.
[1019] _Alamort_, mortally sick; and then, dispirited.
[1020] "A gay, reckless fellow."
[1021] Below 'Neptune,' Sig. A iii.
[1022] B. refers to Ebbsworth, _Roxburghe Ballads_, IV. 365, 468. See
also Nash, _Four Letters Confuted_ (Grosart, II. 190), who says of
Harvey's "barefoote rimes" that "they would have trowld off bravely to
the tune of _O man in desperation_, and, like _Marenzos_ Madrigals, the
mourneful note naturally have affected the miserable Dittie."
[1023] Chappell gives the song in _Popular Music of the Olden Time_, p.
216. _Three Merry Men_ is quoted in _Westward Hoe_, and in Barry's _Ram
Alley_ (sung by Smallshanks: see note, Hazlitt-Dodsley, X. 298), as
well as in _Twelfth Night_; and it is parodied by the musical cook in
_The Bloody Brother_. Chappell is somewhat daring when he takes these
words from the _Old Wives' Tale_ as the original; lines 3 and 4 look
like a parody.
[1024] Dy. points out the pun in 'wooden' (= mad).
[1025] Long wide breeches or trousers; Dy. See _Looking-Glass for
London and England_, near end: "This right slop is my pantry, behold a
manchet [_Draws it out_]" ...
[1026] A bit of nonsense like the talk of Macbeth's porter. The speech
is a sort of parody on the appeal of wandering knights or travellers
in romances, and Clunch, with his 'territories,' may take the place of
enchanter, giant, or the like.
[1027] This use of the third person is common in dramas of the time.
See Ward, _Old English Drama, Select Plays_, etc., Introd., p. xi.,
notes. So in Greene: "Which Brandamart (_i.e._ I)" ...; "For Sacripant
must have Angelica." It served to identify the actor.
[1028] They are now supposed to be at the cottage.
[1029] For fear of ...
[1030] A crab-apple. The pulp was mixed with ale, 'lamb's wool.'
[1031] Collier gave Dyce the following quotation from _Martin's Month's
Minde_: "leaving the ancient game of England (_Trumpe_), where every
coate and sute are sorted in their degree, are running to _Ruffe_,
where the greatest sorte of the sute carrieth away the game."
[1032] The familiar _motif_ of the contented peasant as entertainer of
royalty or what not.
[1033] According to the _Jests_ (Bullen, II. 314), George Peele had no
skill in music, and must have been a conspicuous exception; witness
the well-known statement of Chappell, _Popular Music_, p. 98. The
barber kept "lute or cittern" in his shop for the amusement of waiting
customers; and England had been a land of song from Cædmon's time down.
The "man in the street" was expected to know how to join in a part
song. The rural song, such as they sing here, was a great favorite with
the dramatists.
[1034] Chopcherry: "a game in which one tries to catch a suspended
cherry with the teeth; bob-cherry." ... New Engl. Dict.
[1035] A version of _Childe Rowland?_
[1036] Peele was probably of a Devonshire family.
[1037] A Dogberrian touch, evidently beloved by the pit, and a fine
makeweight to those pompous experiments with word and phrase which
delighted the serious playgoer.
[1038] Below 'extempore,' Sig. B.
[1039] See _Critical Essay_ for the folk-tales in question.
[1040] handsome.
[1041] 'he' keeps (frequents, lives), _i.e._ the young man. Omission of
subject is common in the ballads.
[1042] The conjurer.
[1043] See the _Critical Essay_ for this "play within the play."
[1044] The princes, of course, talk in metre when the "high style" is
needed, but in familiar prose with Erestus (= "Senex"). The repetitions
in this blank-verse are characteristic.
[1045] B. omits. Dy. proposes to omit 'faire.' Neither omission is
necessary.
[1046] Reminds one of nursery tales with bits of rhyme,--the
_cante-fable_ of folk-lore.
[1047] So Milton's famous "grey hooded Even, Like a sad votarist in
palmer's weed" ...
[1048] Below 'gold,' Sig. B ii.
[1049] Dy. assumes that "something ... has dropt out"; but this is not
necessary. Erestus, who says below that he 'speaks in riddles,' knows
the errand of the brothers, and asks the question abruptly. He plays
the part of Merlin in _Childe Rowland_.
[1050] The spell is important, solemn, and is therefore repeated. No
particular tale of The White Bear of England's Wood is known, but
similar cases of transformation are plentiful.
[1051] Dy. prints ''chanting'; needlessly.
[1052] Below 'mend,' Sig. B iii.
[1053] B. notes that "St. Luke's Day (18th October) was the day of
Horn Fair; and St. Luke was jocularly regarded as the patron saint of
cuckolds. St. Andrew was supposed to bring good luck to lovers." ...
[1054] The reference is to the tale preserved in several versions,
and known as "The Three Heads of the Well," Jacobs, _English Fairy
Tales_, p. 222. "The Well of the World's End," p. 215, however, has the
incident of filling a sieve.
[1055] So "God ye good night, and twenty, sir!" In Middleton's _Trick
to Catch the Old One_--"A thousand farewells." Compare the well-known
forms of greeting, as "Grüss' mir mein Liebchen zehntausend mal!" or
the elaborate message at the opening of the ballad _Childe Maurice_.
[1056] See Appendix _B_ on this Song.
[1057] See Appendix _A_.
[1058] The 'Booby' is later called 'Corebus' or 'Chorebus.' See Harvey,
_The Trimming of Thomas Nashe_, Grosart, III. 29: "Thou mayest be cald
the very Chorœbus of our time, of whom the proverbe was sayde, more
foole than Chorœbus: who was a seely ideot, but yet had the name of a
wise man." ...
[1059] Mr. Fleay thinks this is a pun upon that eternal theme of satire
for Harvey's enemies, the rope-maker's trade of his father. "The
name," Mr. Fleay says, "for the stock of Huanebango are adapted from
Plautus, Polymachæroplacidus (from _Pseudulus_), Pyrgopolinices (from
_Miles Gloriosus_), in shapes which inevitably suggest English puns
indicating Harvey's rope-making extraction, Polly-make-a-rope-lass, and
Perg-up-a-line-O...." Mr. Fleay is bold.
[1060] A difficult passage. Dy. thinks the stock is a sword,--Corebus
"has run away from the Parish, and become a sort of knight-errant." Dr.
Nicholson: "He has started and they may catch" (if they can) and as a
vagabond put him in the stocks. B. makes the clown plume himself on his
finery. He points with pride to his feather; and he is equally proud of
his fashionable "long stock" (_i.e._ the stocking fastened high above
the knee). This gives better sense than the second explanation; Corebus
asserts a sort of equality with Huanebango.
[1061] The successful guessing of riddles wins a bride, fortune,
liberty, what not, in many a folk-tale.
[1062] Below 'the,' Sig. C.
[1063] Enter _Erestus_.
[1064] care for.
[1065] plenty. Corebus quotes the stilted talk of Huanebango.
[1066] This gift of the cake reminds one of a similar _motif_ in the
tale of _The Red Ettin_, Jacobs, p. 135.
[1067] though times are hard.
[1068] sings.
[1069] Below 'up,' Sig. C ii.
[1070] These tricks of magic are the staple of tales and chapbooks
about conjurers, and make a braver showing in plays like _Doctor
Faustus_ and _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay._ See the latter play in
this volume, and Mr. Ward's introduction to his edition of the two
dramas.
[1071] Later editions omit. The formula is less uncanny than usual; but
the two cocks have grim associations. The dark-red cock of Scandinavian
myth belonged to the underworld. See _The Wife of Usher's Well_, and R.
Köhler in the _Germania_, XI. 85 ff.
[1072] The local hits are to be noted: praise for roast beef of
England, wine of France, and girding at Spain, at brewers,--one thinks
of Falstaff's complaint about the lime in his sack,--friars, and
usurers.
[1073] Below 'begon,' Sig. C iii.
[1074] B. prints: 'heaven [n]or hell shall rescue her from me.'
[1075] Did this Echo suggest the song in _Comus_?
[1076] The "Life-Index," so called, of popular tales, connected with
the equally popular _motif_ of the "Thankful Dead."
[1077] Erestus.
[1078] Misprint for 'Corebus.'
[1079] Dogberry's distortion of words is about as old as English comedy.
[1080] Q. _assure_.
[1081] As above:--a gay, reckless fellow.
[1082] According to Sir Walter Scott "the very latest allusion to the
institution of brotherhood in arms" is in the ballad of _Bewick and
Grahame_, "sworn brethren" as they are, each "faith and troth" to the
other.
[1083] That's settled once for all.--Bullen.
[1084] Recent editions make the Sexton's speech end here, and put the
rest in the stage directions.
[1085] Below 'the,' Sig. D.
[1086] Open the argument from my side (with the aid of the
pike-staff).--Bullen.
[1087] Recent eds. [_Gives money_].
[1088] on.
[1089] harvesters.
[1090] See Appendix _B_.
[1091] Below 'men,' Sig. D ii.
[1092] B. points out that Corebus enters a moment later.
[1093] "The 'fee-fi-fo-fum' formula is common to all English stories of
giants and ogres; it also occurs in Peele's play and in _King Lear_....
Messrs. Jones and Krorf have some remarks on it in their 'Magyar
Tales,' pp. 340-341; so has Mr. Lang in his 'Perrault,' p. lxiii, where
he traces it to the furies in Æschylus' _Eumenides_."--Jacobs, _Eng.
Fairy Tales_, p. 243.
[1094] Recent eds.--_Enter_ Sacrapant _the Conjurer and_ Two Furies.
[1095] Recent eds.--Huanebango _is carried out by the_ Two Furies.
[1096] Recent eds.--_Strikes_ Corebus _blind_.
[1097] goad.
[1098] In this and like cases the editors restore a tolerable metre
by different printing. Thus 'Here hard' may be taken as part of the
preceding line.
[1099] Dr. Nicholson would read 'name' to no advantage. Sacrapant says
she has forgotten her name, but has not forgotten as much as she ought
to forget. The phrase is awkward, but is perhaps more "intelligible"
than Mr. Bullen allows.
[1100] Below 'to,' Sig. D iii.
[1101] Dy. prints 'Well done!'
[1102] To the popular tale, here plainly drawn upon, Peele has added an
amusing feature which seems to be his own invention. He provides the
deaf Huanebango with a scolding wife, while the blind Corebus takes her
ugly sister.
[1103] As much as "uncomely," "ugly," as shown by the countless
passages in Elizabethan literature, and the connotation of the
opposite, "fair." Dyce quotes the same phrase,--"though I am blacke, I
am not the Divell ..." from Greene's, _Quip for an Upstart Courtier_.
[1104] _In The Three Heads of the Well_, "a golden head came up
singing:--
"'Wash me and comb me,
And lay me down softly.
And lay me on a bank to dry,
That I may look pretty
When somebody passes by.'"
[1105] _Sc._ beard.
[1106] The upshot of much investigation seems to be that the phrase to
have cockell-bread means to get a lover or a husband.
[1107] So in Hartmann's _Iwein_, a knight pours water from a certain
well upon a stone near by; a terrible thunderstorm is the immediate
result. A similar act may bring the milder rain for one's crops (Grimm,
_Mythologie_, p. 494).
[1108] Harvey had an indifferent ear for verse, and here,
perhaps,--since the hexameters follow so hard upon,--is a neat way of
stating the fact.
[1109] Both Stanyhurst and Harvey were favorites for this sort of
ridicule. The hexameters of the former are described admirably by
Nash, and, of course, are parodied here. Huff, Ruff, and Snuff were
characters in the play of _King Cambyses_. Cf. too Harvey in "Green's
Memoriall or certain funerall sonnets" (Son. vi):--
"I wott not what these cutting Huffe-snuffes meane,
Of alehouse daggers I have little skill...."
[1110] Dy. points out that this is an actual line in Harvey's _Encomium
Lauri_.
[1111] Below 'rattle,' Sig. E.
[1112] Used by Chaucer to describe the "hunting of the letter," in his
day still a normal rule of verse, particularly in the north of England
(Prologue to the "Persone's Tale"):--
"But trusteth wel, I am a suthern man,
I can not geste rum, ram, ruf, by letter...."
Professor Skeat (_Notes to C.T._, p. 446) thinks Peele has Chaucer in
mind, and shows that the latter probably borrowed the words "from some
French source."
[1113] 'Ka'=quoth he.--'Wilshaw'? [Qy.: Will ich ha(ve)? _Cf._ l. 648.
_Gen. Ed._]
[1114] Lob's pound, is B. notes, was a phrase of the day for "the
thraldom of the hen-pecked married man."
[1115] It is hardly necessary to correct this into 'thy.'
[1116] As a ghost, of course.
[1117] Below 'runne,' Sig. E ii.
[1118] The "foot-page" of the ballads.
[1119] These rhyming scraps remind one constantly of the _cante-fable_,
of the formula-jingles in popular tales.
[1120] Probably a misprint for 'come.'
[1121] Below 'pursse,' Sig. E iii.
[1122] Celanto.
[1123] He is blind.
[1124] In the tale there are three heads.
[1125] Dyce's copy read 'tost.' Mr. P. A. Daniel: "Qy.: 'Toast'?"
[1126] Milton, _Comus_, 817: "backward mutters of dissevering power."
[1127] Mr. P. A. Daniel would read 'iced.'
[1128] Dy., 'Acts.'
[1129] Below 'maide,' Sig. F.
[1130] Dy. notes that this and the three following lines are taken
almost verbatim from Greene's _Orlando Furioso_.
[1131] It is not necessary to adopt Mr. Daniel's emendation.
[1132] Below 'Venelia,' Sig. F ii.
[1133] Calypha.
[1134] That is, all the actors of the play within the play. Below
'_Omnes_,' Sig. F iii.
[1135] Q., _shuts_.
[1136] Part.