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the word captain as odious as the word occupy; which was an excellent good word before it was ill sorted: therefore captains had need look to it.

Bard. Pray thee, go down, good ancient.

Fal. Hark thee hither, mistress Doll.

Pist. Not I: I tell thee what, corporal Bardolph ;-I could tear her :-I'll be revenged on her.

Page. Pray thee, go down.

Pist. I'll see her damned first;-to Pluto's damned lake, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I. Down! down, dogs! down faitors!7 Have we not Hiren here? 3

merly sold at a cheap rate, as stale pies and cakes are at present. The allusion to stewed prunes, and all that is necessary to be known on this subject, has been already explained in the First Part of this historical play, p. 285, n. 3. Steevens.

4 — as odious as the word occupy;] So Ben Jonson, in his Discoveries: "Many, out of their own obscene apprehensions, refuse proper and fit words; as, occupy, nature," &c. Steevens.

This word is used with different senses in the following jest, from Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614: "One threw stones at an yll. fauor'd old womans Owle, and olde woman said: Faith (sir knaue) you are well occupy'd, to throw stones at my poore Owle, that doth you no harme. Yea marie (answered the wag) so would you be better occupy'd too (I wisse) if you were young againe, and had a better face." Ritson.

Occupant was formerly a term for a woman of the town, as occupier was for a wencher. Malone.

Again, in Promos and Cassandra, bl. 1 1578: "Mistresse, you must shut up your shop, and leave your occupying.” This is said to a bawd. Henderson.

5 I'll see her damned first;—to Pluto's damned lake, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile also ] These words, I believe, were intended to allude to the following passage in an old play called The Battel of Alcazar, 1594, from which Pistol afterwards quotes a line (see p. 71, n. 5):

"You dastards of the night and Erebus,

"Fiends, fairies, hags, that fight in beds of steel,
"Range through this army with your iron whips;---
"Descend and take to thy tormenting hell

"The mangled body of that traitor king.—
"Then let the earth discover to his ghost
"Such tortures as usurpers feel below.-

"Damn'd let him be, damn'd and condemn'd to bear
"All torments, tortures, pains and plagues of hell.”

Malone.

• Hold hook and line,] These words are introduced in ridicule,

Host. Good captain Peesel, be quiet; it is very late i' faith: I beseek you now, aggravate your choler.

by Ben Jonson, in The Case is alter'd, 1609. Of absurd and fus. tian passages from many plays, in which Shakspeare had been a performer, I have always supposed no small part of Pistol's character to be composed: and the pieces themselves being now irretrievably lost, the humour of his allusion is not a little obscured.

Let me add, however, that in the frontispiece to an ancient bl. 1. ballad, entitled The Royal Recreation of Joviall Anglers, one of the figures has the following couplet proceeding from his mouth : "Hold hooke and line,

"Then all is mine."

Steevens.

In Tusser's Husbandry, bl. 1. 1580, it is said:

"At noone if it bloweth, at night if it shine,

"Out trudgeth Hew Makeshift, with hook and with line."

Henderson.

7 Down! down, dogs! down faitors!] A burlesque on a play already quoted; The Battle of Alcazar:

"Ye proud malicious dogs of Italy,

"Strike on, strike down, this body to the earth." Malone. Faitours, says Minshieu's Dictionary, is a corruption of the French word faiseurs, i. e. factores, doers; and it is used in the statute 7 Rich. II, c. 5, for evil doers, or rather for idle livers; from the French, faitard, which in Cotgrave's Dictionary signifies slothful, idle, &c. Tollet.

down faitors!] i. e. traitors, rascals. So, Spenser:
"Into new woes, unweeting, was I cast

66

By this false faitour."

The word often occurs in The Chester Mysteries. Steevens.

8

Have we not Hiren here?] In an old comedy, 1608, called Law Tricks; or, Who would have thought it? the same quotation is likewise introduced, and on a similar occasion. The Prince Polymetes says:

"What ominous news can Polymetes daunt?

"Have we not Hiren here?"

Again, in Massinger's Old Law:

"Clown. No dancing for me, we have Siren here.

"Cook. Syren! 'twas Hiren the fair Greek, man." Again, in Decker's Satiromastix: “— therefore whilst we have Hiren here, speak my little dish-washers."

Again, in Love's Mistress, a masque, by T. Heywood, 1636: 66 says she is a foul beast in your eyes, yet she is my Hyren." Mr. Tollet observes, that in Adams's Spiritual Navigator, &c. 1615, there is the following passage: "There be sirens in the sea of the world. Syrens? Hirens, as they are now called. What a number of these sirens, Hirens, cockatrices, courteghians,-in plain English, harlots,-swimme amongst us?". Pistol may therefore mean,-Have we not a strumpet here? and why am I thus used by her? Steevens.

Pist. These be good humours, indeed! Shall packhorses,

And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia,9

From The merie conceited Fests of George Peele, Gentleman, sometime Student in Oxford, quarto, 1657, it appears that Peele was the author of a play called The Turkish Mahomet, and Hyren the fair Greek, which is now lost. One of these jests, or rather stories, is entitled How George read a Play-book to a Gentleman. "There was a gentleman (says the tale) whom God had endued with good living, to maintain his small wit,-one that took great delight to have the first hearing of any work that George had done, himself being a writer.-This self-conceited brock had George invited to half a score sheets of paper; whose Christianly pen had writ Finis to the famous play of The Turkish Mahomet, and Hyren the fair Greek;—in Italian called a curtezan; in Spaine, a margarite; in French, un curtain; in English, among the barbarous a whore; among the gentles, their usual associates, a punk. -This fantastick, whose brain was made of nought but cork and spunge, came to the cold lodging of Monsieur Peel.-George bids him welcome;-told him he would gladly have his opinion of his book. He willingly condescended, and George begins to read, and between every scene he would make pauses, and demand his opinion how he liked the carriage of it," &c.

Have we not Hiren here? was, without doubt, a quotation from this play of Peele's, and, from the explanation of the word Hiren above given, is put with peculiar propriety on the present occasion into the mouth of Pistol. In Eastward Hoe, a comedy, by Jonson, Chapman, and Marston, 1605, Quicksilver comes in drunk, and repeats this, and many other verses, from drámatick performances of that time:

"Holla, ye pamper'd jades of Asia!" [Tamburlaine.] "Hast thou not Hiren here?"

[Probably The Turkish Mahomet.] "Who cries on murther? lady, was it you?"

[A Parody on The Spanish Tragedy.] All these lines are printed as quotations, in Italicks. In John Day's Law Tricks, quoted by Mr. Steevens, in the preceding note, the Prince Polymetes, when he says, "Have we not Hiren here?" alludes to a lady then present, whom he imagines to be a harlot. Malone.

9

hollow pamper'd jades of Asia, &c.] These lines are in part a quotation out of an old absurd fustian play, entitled Tamburlaine's Conquests; or, The Scythian Shepherds, 1590, [by C. Marlowe.] Theobald.

These lines are addressed by Tamburlaine to the captive princes who drew his chariot:

"Holla, you pamper'd jades of Asia,

"What! can you draw but twenty miles a day?" The same passage is burlesqued by Beaumont and Fletcher, in

Which cannot go but thirty miles a day,
Compare with Cæsars, and with Cannibals,'
And Trojan Greeks? nay, rather damn them with
King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar.2

Shall we fall foul for toys?

Host. By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words. Bard. Be gone, good ancient: this will grow to a brawl anon.

Pist. Die men, like dogs;3 give crowns like pins; Have we not Hiren here?

Host. O' my word, captain, there's none such here.*

The Coxcomb. Young, however, has borrowed the idea for the use of his Busiris:

1

"Have we not seen him shake his silver reins
"O'er harness'd monarchs, to his chariot yok'd?"

Steevens.

Cannibals,] Cannibal is used by a blunder for Hannibal. This was afterwards copied by Congreve's Bluff and Wittol. Bluff is a character apparently taken from this of ancient Pistol, Johnson.

Perhaps the character of a bully on the English stage might have been originally taken from Pistol; but Congreve seems to have copied his Nol Bluff more immediately from Jonson's Captain Bobadil. Steevens.

2 and let the welkin roar.] Part of the words of an old ballad, entitled What the Father gathereth with the Rake, the Son doth scatter with the Forke;

"Let the welkin roare,

"Ile never give ore," &c.

Again, in another ancient song, called The Man in the Moon drinks Claret:

"Drink wine till the welkin roares,
"And cry out p- of your scores."

So, in Eastward Hoe, 1605; “.

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Steevens.

turn swaggering gallant, and

let the welkin roar, and Erebus also." Malone.

3 Die men, like dogs;] This expression I find in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611:

4

"Your lieutenant 's an ass.

"How an ass! Die men like dogs?" Steevens.

Have we not Hiren here?

Host. O' my word, captain, there's none such here.] i. e. shall I fear, that have this trusty and invincible sword by my side? For, as King Arthur's swords were called Caliburne and Ron; as Edward the Confessor's, Curtana; as Charlemagne's, Joyeuse; Orlando's, Durindana; Rinaldo's, Fusberta; and Rogero's, Balisarda; so Pistol, in imitation of these heroes, calls his sword Hiren. I have been told, Amadis de Gaul had a sword of this

What the good-year! do you think, I would deny her? for God's sake, be quiet.

Pist. Then, feed, and be fat, my fair Calipolis: 5 Come, give 's some sack.

name.

Si fortuna me tormenta, sperato me contenta."———

Hirir is to strike, and from hence it seems probable that Hiren may be derived; and so signify a swashing, cutting sword. -But what wonderful humour is there in the good Hostess so innocently mistaking Pistol's drift, fancying that he meant to fight for a whore in the house, and therefore telling him, O' my word, captain, there's none such here; what the good-year! do you think, I would deny her? Theobald.

As it appears from a former note, that Hiren was sometimes a cant term for a mistress or harlot, Pistol may be supposed to give it on this occasion, as an endearing name, to his sword, in the same spirit of fondness that he presently calls it-sweetheart. Steevens.

I see no ground for supposing that the words bear a different meaning here from what they did in a former passage. He is still, I think, merely quoting the same play he had quoted before. Malone.

Have we not Hiren here?] I know not whence Shakspeare derived this allusion to Arthur's lance. "Accinctus etiam Caliburno gladio optimo, lancea nomine IRON, dexteram suam decoravit." M. Westmonasteriensis, p. 98. Bowle.

5

Geoffery of Monmouth, p. 65, reads Ron instead of Iron.

Steevens.

-feed, and be fat, my fair Calipolis:] This is a burlesque on a line in an old play called The Battel of Alcazar, &c. printed in 1594, in which Muley Mahomet enters to his wife with lion's flesh on his sword:

"Feed then, and faint not, my faire Calypolis." And again, in the same play:

"Hold thee Calipolis; feed, and faint no more." And again:

"Feed and be fat, that we may meet the foe,

"With strength and terrour to revenge our wrong."

This line is quoted in several of the old plays; and Decker in his Satiromastix, 1602, has introduced Shakspeare's burlesque of it: "Feed and be fat, my fair Calipolis: stir not my beauteous wriggle-tails." Steevens.

It is likewise quoted by Marston, in his What you will, 1607, as stands in Shakspeare. Malone.

6 Si fortuna me tormenta, sperato me contenta.] Sir Thomas Han

mer reads:

Si fortuna me tormenta, il sperare me contenta.— which is undoubtedly the true reading; but perhaps it was intended that Pistol should corrupt it. Johnson.

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