KING. Call them forth quickly, we will do so. Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH, COSTard, and others. This side is Hiems, winter; this Ver, the spring; the one maintain'd by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin. SONG. SPRING. When daisies pied3, and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver-white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, Do paint the meadows with delight, 3 When daisies pied, &c.] The first lines of this song that were transposed, have been replaced by Mr. Theobald. JOHNSON. 4 cuckoo-buds-] Gerard, in his Herbal, 1597, says, that the flos cuculi cardamine, &c. are called "in English cuckooflowers, in Norfolk Canterbury-Bells, and at Namptwich in Cheshire ladie-smocks." Shakspeare, however, might not have been sufficiently skilled in botany to be aware of this particular. Mr. Tollet has observed, that Lyte in his Herbal, 1578 and 1579, remarks, that cowslips are in French, of some called coquu, prime vere, and brayes de coquu. This, he thinks, will sufficiently account for our author's cuckoo-buds, by which he supposes cowslip-buds to be meant; and further directs the reader to Cotgrave's Dictionary, under the articles-Cocu, and herbe a coqu. STEEVENS. Cuckoo-buds must be wrong. I believe cowslip-buds, the true reading. FARmer. Mr. Whalley, the learned editor of Ben Jonson's works, many years ago proposed to read crocus buds. The cuckoo-flower, he observed, could not be called yellow, it rather approaching to the colour of white, by which epithet, Cowley, who was himself no mean botanist, has distinguished it : "Albaque cardamine," &c. MALONE. Crocus buds is a phrase unknown to naturalists and gardeners. STEEVENS. The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men, for thus sings he, Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear, II. When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear, III. WINTER. When icicles hang by the wall3, And milk comes frozen home in pail, 5 When icicles hang BY THE WALL,] i. e. from the eaves of the thatch or other roofing, from which in the morning icicles are found depending in great abundance, after a night of frost. So, in King Henry IV.: "Let us not hang like roping icicles, 66 Upon our houses' thatch. Our author (whose images are all taken from nature) has alluded in The Tempest, to the drops of water that after rain flow from such coverings, in their natural unfrozen state: 66 His tears run down his beard like winter's drops "From eaves of reeds." MALONE. 6 And Dick the SHEPHERD BLOWS HIS NAIL,] So, in K. Hen. VI. Part III. : "What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails, "Can neither call it perfect day or night." MALONE. 7 When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul, Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note, - nightly sings the staring owl, To-who; tu-whit, to-who,] So, in Lyly's Mother Bombie: 66 To-whit, to-whoo, the owle does cry." HOLT WHITE. Tu-whit, to-who," These terms were employed also to denote the musick of birds in general. Thus, in the song of Spring, in Summer's Last Will and Testament, 1600: "Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds doe sing, 66 'Cuckow, jugge, jugge, pu we, to witta woo.' But, in Sidney's verses at the end of the Arcadia, they are confined to the owl: 8 "Their angel-voice surpriz'd me now; 66 And, therefore, O thou precious owl," &c. TODD. doth KEEL the pot.] This word is yet used in Ireland, and signifies to scum the pot. GOLDSMITH. So, in Marston's What You Will, 1607:-" Faith, Doricus, thy brain boils, keel it, keel it, or all the fat's in the fire." STEEVENS. To keel the pot is certainly to cool it, but in a particular manner : it is to stir the pottage with the ladle to prevent the boiling over. 66 FARMER. keel the pot." i. e. cool the pot. "The thing is, they mix their thicking of oatmeal and water, which they call blending the litting [or lithing,] and put it in the pot, when they set on, because when the meat, pudding and turnips are all in, they cannot so well mix it, but 'tis apt to go into lumps; yet this method of theirs renders the pot liable to boil over at the first rising, and every subsequent increase of the fire; to prevent which it becomes necessary for one to attend to cool it occasionally, by lading it up frequently with a ladle, which they call keeling the pot, and is indeed a greasy office." Gent. Mag. 1760. This account seems to be accurate. RITSON. To keel signifies to cool in general, without any reference to the kitchen. So, in the ancient metrical romance of The Sowdon of Babyloyne, MS. p. 80: "That alle men shall take hede "What deth traytours shall fele, "That assente to such falshede, "Howe the wynde theyr bodyes shal kele." IV. When all aloud the wind doth blow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, Again, in Gower De Confessione Amantis, lib. v. fol. 121, b: "The cote he found, and eke he feleth "The mace, and then his herte keleth Again, fol. 131, b: "With water on his finger ende "Thyne hote tonge to kele." Mr. Lambe observes, in his notes on the ancient metrical History of The Battle of Floddon, that it is a common thing in the North" for a maid servant to take out of a boiling pot a wheen, i. e. a small quantity, viz. a porringer or two of broth, and then to fill up the pot with cold water. The broth thus taken out, is called the keeling wheen. In this manner greasy Joan keeled the pot." "Gie me beer, and gie me grots, "And lumps of beef to swum abeen; "He's hae frae me the keeling wheen." STEEVENS. 9 —the parson's SAW,] Saw seems anciently to have meant, not as at present, a proverb, a sentence, but the whole tenor of any instructive discourse. So, in the fourth chapter of the first Book of The Tragedies of John Bochas, translated by Lidgate : "These old poetes in their sawes swete "Full covertly in their verses do fayne." STEEVENS. Yet in As You Like It, our author uses this word in the sense of a sentence or maxim: "Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might," &c. It is, I believe, so used here. MALONE. When roasted crabs, &c.] i. e. the wild apples so called. Thus, in The Midsummer-Night's Dream: "And sometimes lurk I in a gossip's bowl, "In very likeness of a roasted crab." Again, in Like Will to Like, quoth the Devil to the Collier, 1587: "Now a crab in the fire were worth a good groat : "That I might quaffe with my captain Tom Toss-pot." Again, in Summer's Last Will and Testament, 1600: Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. ARM. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You, that way; we, this way. [Exeunt 2. "Sitting in a corner, turning crabs, 66 Or coughing o'er a warmed pot of ale." "When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl," Hence, perhaps, the following passage in Milton's Epitaphium Damonis: 66 grato cum sibilat igni "Molle pyrum,-" STEEVENS. The bowl must be supposed to be filled with ale: a toast and some spice and sugar being added, what is called lamb's wool is produced. So, in King Henry V. 1598 (not our author's play) : Yet we will have in store a crab in the fire, "With nut-brown ale, that is full stale," &c. 66 MALONE. 2 In this play, which all the editors have concurred to censure, and some have rejected as unworthy of our poet, it must be confessed that there are many passages mean, childish, and vulgar; and some which ought not to have been exhibited, as we are told they were, to a maiden Queen. But there are scattered through the whole many sparks of genius; nor is there any play that has more evident marks of the hand of Shakspeare. JOHNSON. ACT I. SCENE I. Page 289. This CHILD OF FANCY, that Armado hight, &c.] This, as I have shown in the note in its place, relates to the stories in the books of chivalry. A few words, therefore, concerning their origin and nature, may not be unacceptable to the reader. As I don't know of any writer, who has given any tolerable account of this matter and especially as Monsieur Huet, the bishop of Avranches, who wrote a formal treatise of The Origin of Romances, has said little or nothing of these in that superficial work. For having brought down the account of romances to the later Greeks, and entered upon those composed by the barbarous western writers, which have now the name of romances almost appropriated to them, he puts the change upon his reader, and instead of giving us an account of these books of chivalry, one of the most curious and interesting parts of the subject he promised |