Moth. No, no; O Lord, sir, no. Arm. How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender juvenal ? Moth. By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough senior. Arm. Why tough senior? why tough senior? Moth. And I, tough senior, as an appertinent title to your Arm. Pretty, and apt. Moth. How mean you, sir? I pretty, and my saying apt? or I apt, and my saying pretty? Arm. Thou pretty, because little. Moth. Little pretty, because little. Wherefore apt? 10, II, 16. senior] signeor Q 1; signeur Ff. apethaton Q I; apathaton F 1, Q 2. 6. O Lord, sir] surely, certainly. Compare Ben Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour, II. i.: "His lady! what, is she fair, splendidious, and amiable? Gent. O Lord, sir!"; and in Jonson's Case is Altered the ejaculation is so used. 8. juvenal] youth. The earliest example of the word in the New Eng. Dict. Later, this term became famous as a quibbling name for Nashe: "As Acteon was worried of his owne hound: so is Tom Nash of his Isle of Dogs. Dogges were the death of Euripides, but bee not disconsolate gallant young Iuvenall, Linus the sonne of Apollo died the same death" (Meres, Wits Treasurie, 1598); and Greene speaks of "young Iuvenal that byting Satyrist" in a well-known passage in his Groatsworth of Wit (Grosart, xii. 143), which probably (in spite of Dyce) refers to Nashe. Shakespeare has this word for a youth again in this play (II. i. 60) and in 1 Henry IV. 1. ii. 22, and A MidsummerNight's Dream, III. i. 97, with no reference to the proper name. The word seems to be due to Sir Philip Sidney: "I am, Potentissima Domina, a School ΙΟ 15 20 13. epitheton] Ff 2, 3, 4; master, that is to say, a Pedagogue, one not a little versed in the disciplinating of the juvenal frie" (The May-Lady [Nichols' Progresses, ii. 96 (1823)]; Presented before the Queen at Wanstead, 1578). See Introduction. See, however, the New Eng. Dict. in v. Disciplinating, where the word reads juventall; and in the edition 1739 (Dublin) it reads juvenile. 9. working] operation. 13. congruent] suitable. Ben Jonson uses the word in Discoveries (p. 131): "De Stylo. The congruent and harmonious fitting of parts in a sentence." We have this word again from Holofernes, v. i. 85. See note for better examples. epitheton] an adjective indicating some characteristic quality or attribute (New Eng. Dict.). The earliest form of the word "epithet." Compare Greene, Planetomachia (Grosart, v. 101), 1585: "which naturall and proper qualitie in my judgement caused the auncient Poets to attribute this Epitheton unto Venus: Alma." 16. appertinent] belonging. Henry ÏV. 1. ii. 194. See 2 Moth. Speak you this in my praise, master? Arm. In thy condign praise. 25 Moth. I will praise an eel with the same praise. Arm. What! that an eel is ingenious? Moth. That an eel is quick. Arm. I do say thou art quick in answers: thou heatest my blood. 30 Moth. I am answered, sir. Arm. I love not to be crossed. Moth. [Aside.] He speaks the mere contrary: crosses love not him. Arm. I have promised to study three years with the duke. 35 Moth. You may do it in an hour, sir. Arm. Impossible. Moth. How many is one thrice told? Arm. I am ill at reckoning; it fits the spirit of a tapster. Arm. I confess both: they are both the varnish of a complete man. 40 Moth. Then, I am sure you know how much the gross sum of deuce-ace amounts to. · Arm. It doth amount to one more than two. Moth. Which the base vulgar do call three. 45 33. mere contrary] 35. three] Q1; iii Ff 1, 2, Q 2; 3 Ff 3, 4. Q2; fitteth Q 1, Cambridge. 46. do] 27. ingenious] Q 1, F 4; ingenuous Q 2, Ff 1, 2, 3. Qq, F 1; clean contrary Ff 2, 3, 4. duke] King Theobald. 39. fits] Ff, Q1; omitted Ff, Q 2. 25. condign] well-merited. Commonly used as here at this time. Condigne thankes" occurs in Greene's Planetomachia (Grosart, v. 85), 1585. 33. mere contrary] There is much in favour of the reading "clean contrary of the later folios. It was a very popular expression at this date. crosses] coins, from many of them bearing the representation of a cross. A venerable and threadbare pun. Perhaps the commonest form is "The devil may dance in his pocket for he has never a cross there." It occurs in Hoccleve (circa 1420). Nashe (Grosart, ii. 247), 1593, says it "hath been a graybeard Proverbe two hundred yeares before Tarlton was born." 35. duke] See above, 1. i. 180. The king. The term was commonly used of a sovereign prince, as in The Tempest, 1. ii. 54, 58, etc. Sidney, in Arcadia (bk. v.), calls King Basilius "the duke." 39. tapster] a "tapster's arithmetic " is mentioned again in Troilus and Cressida, 1. ii. 123. A "tapster" was regarded as a very ignorant person. Nashe, in his Introduction to Greene's Menaphon (1589), speaks of "tapsterly terms as befitting the "mind of the meanest. 40. gamester] player, gambler. So in Cooke's Greene's Tu Quoque : "Primero! why I thought thou hadst not been so much gamester as to play at it." 46. vulgar] See note at iv. i. 68-69. Arm. True. Moth. Why, sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here is three studied ere ye'll thrice wink; and how easy it is to put years to the word three, and study three 50 years in two words, the dancing horse will tell you. Arm. A most fine figure! Moth. To prove you a cipher. Arm. I will hereupon confess I am in love; and as it is base for a soldier to love, so am I in love with a base 55 51. dancing horse] Morocco, Banks' famous horse. Halliwell believes that Banks taught more than one horse (Furness, from Halliwell's Memoranda, P. 71). Banks' horse is famous in Elizabethan literature, and on down to the middle of the seventeenth century. Halliwell quotes from an MS. diary kept by a native of Shrewsbury: "September, 1591. This yeare Master Banckes, a Staffordshire gentile brought into the towne of Salop a white horse which would doe wonderfull and strange things, as thease-wold in a company or prese tell how many peeces of money by hys foote were in a mans purce. many people judgid that it were impossible to be don except he had a famyliar, or don by the arte of magicke." Ben Jonson (Epigram 133) says they were both-old Banks the juggler and the learned horse-burned beyond sea for one witch, which circumstance according to a quotation, dated 1656, given by Reed, took place at Rome by command of the Pope. Pepys tells of a successor to Banks' horse (1st September, 1668). A tract with an illustration (reproduced by Chambers, Book of Days, i. 225) was published in 1596, under the name of "Moroccus Exstaticus: or Bankes Bay Horse in a Traunce." (Above, the animal is said to be white.) Óne of his most famous feats was the ascent of Saint Paul's, in 1600, and in one mention of this, Dekker calls him the dancing horse: "Since the dancing horse stood on the top of Powles whilst a number of asses stood braying below, 17 yeares" (Owles' Almanack [quoted by Dyce]). Dekker, in Seven Deadly Sinnes (Grosart, ii. 65), 1606, tells that "Bankes his horse did his tricks only by the eye and the eare." There is much confusion. In Marston's Pasquil and Katherine, Act i. (1600), occurs: "It shall be cronicled next after the death of Bankes his horse." This was probably some false report. See for more references (which are inexhaustible) Nares, Halliwell's Shakespeare (Outlines and Memoranda), Steevens' Shakespeare, Gifford's Ben Jonson, and Douce, who says the best account of Banks is to be found in Jean de Montlyard's French translation of Apuleius' Golden Asse, 1602. The horse is frequently mentioned as being ridden by an ape or baboon. With regard to his arithmetic, see Hall's Satires, iv. 2 (1598): "of strange Moroccos dumb arithmetic." woodcut referred to above, at the horse's feet are two dice, one of which has ace uppermost, while the other shows the deuce to the front. The horse is on his hind legs, in a dancing posture. This animal seems to have been first known in 1591, but our play's received date has been 1588 or 1589, and the passage would needs be regarded as a later insertion—a disagreeable supposition, and it is preferable to regard the allusion as evidence of the later date. There may have been other dancing horses. In the There is a passage ... in Greene's Groatsworth of Wit (Grosart, xii. 118), 1592: my young master waxed cranke, and the musicke continuing was very forward in dauncing, to shew his cunning. corvetting like a steede of Signor Roccoes teaching.' Is the resemblance here between Signor Rocco and "Ma. " (for Master) Rocco a mere coincidence? It should be observed here that Banks is usually stated to be a Scotchman. 52. figure] See v. ii. 408. ་ wench. If drawing my sword against the humour of Moth. Hercules, master. 60 Arm. Most sweet Hercules! More authority, dear boy, name more; and, sweet my child, let them be men of 65 good repute and carriage. Moth. Samson, master: he was a man of good carriage, great carriage, for he carried the town-gates on his back like a porter; and he was in love. Arm. O well-knit Samson! strong-jointed Samson! I do 70 excel thee in my rapier as much as thou didst me in 59. French courtier for a new-devised courtesy] a bow or complimentary acknowledgment after any of the new French fashions. Compare Richard III. 1. iii. 39: "French nods and apish courtesy "; and Ben Jonson's Case is Altered, 11. iii. (1598): “And she should make French court'sies so most low That every touch should turn her over backward." Montaigne (15801588) refers to our "kissing the hands our low-lowting courtesies " (Florio's trans. Temple Classics, iii. 237, bk. ii. chap. xii.). 60. think scorn] scorn, disdain. A frequent expression in Shakespeare, Ben Jonson (Cynthia's Revels, v. ii.) and others of the time. So Lyly in Euphues and his England (Arber rep. P. 424), 1580: "Hee that never tooke the oare in his hand must not thinke scorn to bee taught "; and Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, bk. i.: “ thinking foul scorn willingly to submit myself to be ruled." 66 60, 61. outswear Cupid]"surpass in swearing," according to some commentators and New Eng. Dict. ; conquer by swearing," Schmidt. I prefer the latter sense, i.e. forswear. 65. sweet my child] See note, III. i. 144. 66. carriage] for Hercules as a man of carriage see "Hercules and his load" (Hamlet, 11. ii. 382, and notes, Arden edition). 68. carried the town-gates] A passage in Middleton's Family of Love, 1. iii. (1607), recalls this about Samson : "from what good exercise come you three? Gerardius. From a play where we saw most excellent Sampson excel the whole world in gate-carrying. Dryfal. Was it performed by the youths? Lipsalve. By youths? Why, I tell thee we saw Sampson, and I hope tis not for youths to play Sampson. Believe it we saw Sampson bear the town-gates on his neck from the lower to the upper stage, with that life and admirable accord, that it shall never be equalled, unless the whole new livery of porters set their shoulders." A lost play by Samuel Rowley and Edward Juby, called Samson, was acted in July, 1602. See Bullen, Henslowe's Diary, p. 169 (1904). This may be referred to by Middleton as Bullen points out. 70. well-knit] under knit. The New Eng. Dict. refers to Pope's Odyssey, xxiii. 259 (1725): "Thy well-knit frame speaks thee an hero, from an hero sprung." Compare Holland's Plinie, xxx. 14 (P. 397), 1601: "preserveth woman's breasts plumpe and round . . . knit up and well trussed." Made up in a good shape as a packet (Nashe), or a sack. 71. my rapier] See note to The Merry Wives of Windsor, II. i. 227 (p. 79, Arden edition); and line 167 below. carrying gates. I am in love too. Who was Samson's love, my dear Moth? Moth. A woman, master. Arm. Of what complexion? Moth. Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the four. Arm. Tell me precisely of what complexion. Moth. Of the sea-water green, sir. Arm. Is that one of the four complexions? 75 80 Moth. As I have read, sir; and the best of them too. 75, 76. complexion? Of all the four] 85 colour, made of hony, rain water, and sea water." 82. Green.. colour of lovers] This statement is supported by a reference to "Green sleeves." See The Merry Wives of Windsor, II. i. 61, and v. v. 21, 22 (Arden ed. pp. 65, 207). Compare Ben Jonson's Cynthia's Revels, v. ii. (1600): "the green your mistress wears is her rejoicing, or exultation in his service; the yellow, suspicion of his truth, from her height of affection." Green was commonly the colour of hope and of rejoicing. Earlier, green denoted inconstancy. See Skeat, Chaucer, v. 386. 85. green wit] According to Grant White and the Cambridge Shakespeare there is an allusion here to the green withes (Judges xvi. 7) with which Samson was bound. Furness says White was the first to reveal this pun, as he was also the first to prove that "Moth" should be pronounced Mote. I doubt this; it seems to be too far-fetched, too much of a load for "Moth." "Green wit" was a common expression, bound to be suggested by the context. pare Greene's Never Too Late (Grosart, viii. 44), 1590: "his grave wisdome exceedes thy green wit"; and his Mamillia (1583): "your talk . . . sheweth surely but a green wit, not so full of gravity, as . . . age requires" (p. 46); and again on pp. 49, 79, in the same tale. In Lyly's Euphues " green " is used of a wit that remains fresh in spite of age. Gabriel Harvey in his Epistle Dedi Com |