Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.

220

Fal. I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced. Page. Well, what remedy?-Fenton, heaven give thee joy!

What cannot be eschew'd must be embraced.

Fal.

When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased.

Mrs. Page. Well, I will muse no further.

ter Fenton,

Heaven give you many, many merry days! -
Good husband, let us every one go home,
And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire;
Sir John and all.

Let it be so.

Sir John,

Ford.
To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word;
For he to-night shall lie with Mistress Ford.

Mas

226

230

[Exeunt.

.

ISRAEL GOLLANCZ'S NOTES

TO

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

I. i. 19. The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old coat. No satisfactory explanation of this passage has as yet been offered; various suggestions have been made, e.g. "salt-fish ” the hake borne by the stockfishmon" for "salt; gers; same "'tis ott fish" (assigned to Evans), etc. May not, however, the whole point of the matter lie in Shallow's use of "salt" in the sense of saltant, the heraldic term, used especially for vermin? If So, "salt fish" the leaping louse, with a quibble on "salt " as opposed to "fresh fish." There is further allusion to the proverbial predilection of vermin for "old coats," used quibblingly in the sense of coat-of-arms.

=

I. i. 80. Outrun on Cotsall, that is, on the Cotswold hills (in Gloucestershire); probably an allusion to the famous Cotswold Games, which were revived at the beginning of the seventeenth century, though evidently instituted earlier; the allusion does not occur in the first and second Quartos.

I. i. 156. Scarlet and John; Robin Hood's boon-companions; an allusion to Bardolph's red face.

I. iii. 26. A minute's rest; "a minim's rest"

119

is the

ingenious suggestion of Bennet Langton; cp. Romeo and Juliet, ii. 4. 22, "rests me his minim rest."

I. iii. 42. Carves; probably used here in the sense of to show favour by expressive gestures; cp. "A carver : one that useth apish motions with his hands." Littleton's Latin-English Dictionary (1675).

chironomus

I. iii. 65. Region in Guiana. Sir Walter Raleigh returned from his expedition to South America in 1596, and published his book on "The Discovery of the large, rich, and beautiful Empire of Guiana" in the same year.

I. iii. 88. By welkin and her star. This is no doubt the correct reading of the line, and there is no need to read stars, as has been suggested; "star" is obviously used here for the sun. The Quartos read "fairies."

II. i. 4. Though Love use Reason for his physician. The Folios read "precisian." The emendation adopted in the text was first suggested by Johnson, and has been generally accepted; cp. Sonnet 147: "My reason, the physician to my love."

II. i. 193, 195. My name is Brook. In the Folios the name "Broome " is given instead of "Brooke;" but Falstaff's pun (ii. 2. 135, 136), “ Such Brooks are welcome to me, that overflow such liquor," removes all doubt as to the correct reading, which is actually found in the Quartos.

II. i. 196. Will you go, An-heires? so the Folios and Quartos. Theobald's correction "mynheers" has been adopted by many modern editors. Other suggestions are "on, here; ""on, hearts; "on, heroes;" "cavaleires;

etc.

II. iii. 81. Cried I aim? The Folios and Quartos read "cried game; " the ingenious emendation, due to Douce, was first adopted by Dyce.

III. i. 15, etc. Sir Hugh oddly confuses Marlowe's famous ditty, "Come live with me and be my love," and the old version of the 137th Psalm, "When we did sit in Babylon."

III. i. 89. Gallia and Gaul; so the Folios; the first and second Quartos read "Gawle and Gawlia.” Farmer's conjecture, "Guallia and Gaul," was adopted by Malone • and other editors. "Gallia" Wales.

III. ii. 64. He shall not knit a knot in his fortunes (which are now as it were unravelled).

III. iii. 36. Have I caught thee; probably the reading of the Quarto which omits "thee is the more correct. Falstaff quotes from the second song in Sydney's Astrophel and Stella :

"Have I caught my heav'nly jewell,

Teaching sleep most faire to be ?
Now will I teach her that she

When she wakes is too-too cruell."

III. v. 4, 5. The reading of the Quartos is seemingly preferable, "Have I lived to be carried in a basket, and thrown into the Thames like a barrow of butcher's offal?"

III. v. 8. The rogues slighted me into the river, that is, "threw me in contemptuously." The Quartos read "slided me in."

“Ay,

IV. i. 44. Hang-hog is Latin for bacon; probably suggested by the famous story told of Sir Nicholas Bacon. A prisoner named Hog, who had been condemned to death, prayed for mercy on the score of kindred. but," replied the judge, "you and I cannot be of kindred unless you are hanged; for Hog is not Bacon till it be well hanged" (Bacon's Apophthegms).

IV. ii. 17. Old lunes; the Folios and third Quarto read