Folk-lore of Shakespeare, Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer [e reader comics TXT] 📗
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The word occurs again in the following act (1), where Polonius uses the phrase “o’ertook in’s rouse;” and in the sense of a bumper, or glass of liquor, in “Othello” (ii. 3), “they have given me a rouse already.”
Sheer Ale. This term, which is used in the “Taming of the Shrew” (Induction, sc. 2), by Sly—“Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if she know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale”—according to some expositors, means “ale alone, nothing but ale,” rather than “unmixed ale.”
Sneak-cup. This phrase, which is used by Falstaff in “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 3)—“the prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup”—was used to denote one who balked his glass.
Earnest Money. It was, in olden times, customary to ratify an agreement by a bent coin. In “Henry VIII.” (ii. 3), the old lady remarks:
Old as I am, to queen it.”
There were, however, no threepences so early as the reign of Henry VIII.
Exclamations. “Charity, for the Lord’s sake!” was the form of ejaculatory supplication used by imprisoned debtors to the passers-by. So, in Davies’s “Epigrams” (1611):
Like Ludgate prisoner, lo, I, begging, make
My mone.”
In “Measure for Measure” (iv. 3), the phrase is alluded to by Pompey: “all great doers in our trade, and are now ‘for the Lord’s sake.’”
“Cry Budget.” A watchword. Thus Slender says to Shallow, in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (v. 2); “We have a nay-word, how to know one another: I come to her in white, and cry ‘mum;’ she cries ‘budget;’ and by that we know one another.”
“God save the mark.” “Romeo and Juliet” (iii. 2). This exclamation has hitherto baffled the research of every commentator. It occurs again in “1 Henry IV.” (i. 3); and in the “Merchant of Venice” (ii. 2) and in “Othello” (i. 1), we have “God bless the mark.” In the quarto, 1597, instead of “God save the mark” in the first passage quoted, we have “God save the sample,” an expression equally obscure.[973]
Halidom. This exclamation was used, says Minsheu,[974] by old countrymen, by manner of swearing. In “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (iv. 2), the Hostess says: “By my halidom, I was fast asleep;” the probable derivation being holy, with the termination dome.
Hall! Hall! An exclamation formerly used, to make a clear space in a crowd, for any particular purpose, was “A hall, a hall.” So, in “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 5), Capulet says:
A hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls.”
Hay. This is equivalent to “you have it,” an exclamation in fencing, when a thrust or hit is received by the antagonist. In “Romeo and Juliet” (ii. 4), Mercutio speaks of “the punto reverso! the hay!”
Hold. To cry hold! when persons were fighting, was an authoritative way of separating them, according to the old military law. So Macbeth, in his struggle with Macduff, says:
We may compare Lady Macbeth’s words (i. 5):
To cry, ‘Hold, hold!’”
“I’ the name of me.” A vulgar exclamation formerly in use. So in the “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 2) it is used by the Clown.
“O ho, O ho!” This savage exclamation was, says Steevens, constantly appropriated by the writers of our ancient mysteries and moralities to the devil. In “The Tempest” (i. 2), Caliban, when rebuked by Prospero for seeking “to violate the honor of my child,” replies:
Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else
This isle with Calibans.”
Push. An exclamation equivalent to pish.[975] It is used by Leonato in “Much Ado About Nothing” (v. 1):
and again, in “Timon of Athens” (iii. 6), where one of the lords says: “Push! did you see my cap?”
Rivo was an exclamation often used in Bacchanalian revels, but its origin is uncertain. It occurs in “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 4): “‘Rivo!’ says the drunkard.” Gifford suggests that it is “corrupted, perhaps, from the Spanish rio, which is figuratively used for a large quantity of liquor,” a derivation, however, which Mr. Dyce does not think probable.
Sneck-up. This was an exclamation of contempt, equivalent to “go and hang yourself.”[976] It is used by Sir Toby in “Twelfth Night” (ii. 3), in reply to Malvolio’s rebuke: “We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up!”
So-ho. This is the cry of sportsmen when the hare is found in her seat.
Spy. “I spy” is the usual exclamation at a well-known childish game called “Hie spy, hie!”[977]
Tailor. Johnson explains the following words of Puck in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1) thus:
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And ‘tailor’ cries, and falls into a cough.”
“The custom of crying tailor at a sudden fall backwards, I think I remember to have observed. He that slips beside his chair, falls as a tailor squats upon his board.” Mr. Dyce,[978] however, adds, “it may be doubted if this explains the text.”
Tilly-vally. An exclamation of contempt, the etymology of which is uncertain. According to Douce it is a hunting phrase borrowed from the French. Singer says it is equivalent to fiddle-faddle. It occurs in “Twelfth Night” (ii. 3), being used by Sir Toby: “Am not I consanguineous? am I not of her blood? Tilly-vally, lady!”
In “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4), the Hostess corrupts it to tilly-fally: “Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne’er tell me: your ancient swaggerer comes not in my doors.”
As a further illustration of the use of this word, Singer quotes a conversation between Sir Thomas More and his wife, given in Roper’s Life: “Is not this house, quoth he, as nigh heaven as my own? To whom she, after her accustomed homely fashion, not liking such talk, answered, Tylle-valle, Tylle-valle.”
Westward, ho. This was one of the exclamations of the watermen who plied on the Thames, and is used by Viola in “Twelfth Night” (iii. 1). Dyce[979] quotes from Peel’s “Edward I.” to illustrate the use of this word:
That there I may bewail my sinful life,
And call to God to save my wretched soul.
[A cry of ‘Westward, ho!’
Woman, what noise is this I hear?
passengers to go westward now.”
Dekker took the exclamation “Westward, ho!” for the title of a comedy; and Jonson, Chapman, and Marston adopted that of “Eastward, ho!” for one jointly written by them a few years afterwards.
Fools. Mr. Douce, in his essay “On the Clowns and Fools of Shakespeare,” has made a ninefold division of English fools, according to quality or place of employment, as the domestic fool, the city or corporation fool, the tavern fool, the fool of the mysteries and moralities. The last is generally called the “vice,” and is the original of the stage clowns so common among the dramatists of the time of Elizabeth, and who embody so much of the wit of Shakespeare.
A very palpable distinction is that which distinguishes between such creatures as were chosen to excite to laughter from some deformity of mind or body, and such as were chosen for a certain alertness of mind and power of repartee—or, briefly, butts and wits. The dress of the regular court fool of the middle ages was not altogether a rigid uniform, but seems to have changed from time to time. The head was shaved, the coat was motley, and the breeches tight, with, generally, one leg different in color from the other. The head was covered with a garment resembling a monk’s cowl, which fell over the breast and shoulders, and often bore asses’ ears, and was crested with a coxcomb, while bells hung from various parts of the attire. The fool’s bauble was a short staff bearing a ridiculous head, to which was sometimes attached an inflated bladder, by which sham castigations were inflicted; a long petticoat was also occasionally worn, but seems to have belonged rather to the idiots than the wits. The fool’s business was to amuse his master, to excite his laughter by sharp contrast, to prevent the over-oppression of state affairs, and, in harmony with a well-known physiological precept, by his liveliness at meals to assist his lord’s digestion.[980]
The custom of shaving and nicking the head of a fool is very old. There is a penalty of ten shillings, in one of Alfred’s Ecclesiastical Laws, if one opprobriously shave a common man like a fool; and Malone cites a passage from “The Choice of Change,” etc., by S. R. Gent, 4to, 1598—“Three things used by monks, which provoke other men to laugh at their follies: 1. They are shaven and notched on the head like fooles.”
In the “Comedy of Errors” (v. 1), the servant says:
His man with scissors nicks him like a fool.”
Forfeits. In order to enforce some kind of regularity in barbers’ shops, which were once places of great resort for the idle, certain laws were usually made, the breaking of which was to be punished by forfeits. Rules of this kind, however, were as often laughed at as obeyed. So, in “Measure for Measure” (v. 1):
But faults so countenanc’d, that the strong statutes
Stand like the forfeits in a barber’s shop,
As much in mock as mark.”
Gambling. It was once customary for a person when going abroad “to put out” a sum of money on condition of receiving good interest for it on his return home; if he never returned the deposit was forfeited. Hence such a one was called “a putter-out.” It is to this practice that reference is made in the following passage (“The Tempest,” iii. 3):
Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find
Each putter-out of five for one will bring us
Good warrant of.”
Malone quotes from Moryson’s “Itinerary” (1617, pt. i. p. 198): “This custom of giving out money upon these adventures was first used in court and noblemen;” a practice which “banker-outs, stage-players, and men of base condition had drawn into contempt,” by undertaking journeys merely for gain upon their return. In Ben Jonson’s “Every Man Out of His Humour” (ii. 3) the custom is thus alluded to: “I do intend, this year of jubilee coming on, to travel; and because I will not altogether go upon expence, I am determined to put forth some five thousand pound, to be paid me five for one, upon the return of my wife, myself, and my dog, from the Turk’s court at Constantinople. If all, or either of us, miscarry in the journey, ’tis gone; if we be successful, why then there will be five and twenty thousand pound to entertain time with.”
Garters. It was the regular amorous etiquette in the reign of Elizabeth,[981] “for a man, professing himself deeply in love,
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