"Or wanton _Rigg_, or letcher dissolute, Do stand at Powles Crosse in a sheeten sute."--_Reed._ [254] The accoutrements of an itinerant trull.--_S._ [255] Thinkest or imaginest. [256] _Cut_ appears to have been an opprobrious term used by the vulgar when they scolded or abused each other. It occurs again, act v., sc. 2: "That lying _cut_ is lost, that she is not swinged and beaten." A horse is sometimes called _Cut_ in our ancient writers, as in the "First Part of Henry IV.," act ii., sc. 1., and Falstaff says: "If I tell thee a lye, spit in my face, and call me _horse_." _Cut_ is therefore probably used in the same sense as _horse_, to which it seems to have been synonymous. Several instances of the use of this term are collected by Mr Steevens, in his edition of Shakspeare; see vol. iv., p. 202. It appears probable to me that the opprobrious epithet _Cut_ arose from the practice of cutting the hair of convicted thieves; which was anciently the custom in England, as appears from the edicts of John de Northampton against adulterers, who thought, with Paulo Migante, that "England ne'er would thrive, Till all the whores were burnt alive." --See Holinshed, vol. 9., 754, Ed. 1807.--_O. G._ [257] [_Thee_ is not in the old copy.] [258] _i.e._, Rat. So in one of the Chester Whitsun plays-- "Here is a _rotten_, there a mouse."--_S._ [259] Not thy equal, but thy mistress. [260] _i.e._, Rank strumpet from the stews.--_S._ [261] _Fygh_--First edition. [262] _i.e._, Hodmandod.--_S._ I find this word used in Nash's "Anatomie of Absurditie," 1589, sig. B., where it seems intended as synonymous to _cuckold_: "But women, through want of wisedome, are growne to such wantonesse, that uppon no occasion they will crosse the streete, to have a glaunce of some gallant, deeming that men by one looke of them shoulde be in love with them, and will not stick to make an errant over the way, to purchase a paramour to help at a pinche, who, under hur husbands, that _hoddy peekes_ nose, must have all the destilling dew of his delicate rose, leaving him onely a sweet sent, good inough for such a sencelesse sotte." [263] A _losel_ is a worthless fellow. It is a term of contempt frequently used by Spenser. It is likewise to be met with in the "Death of Robert, Earl of Huntington," 1601: "To have the lozels company." Again, in "The Pinner of Wakefield," 1599: "Peace, prating lozel," &c. See Mr Steevens's "Notes on Shakspeare," vol. iv., p. 337. Again, in Hall's "Satires," edit. 1753, p. 78-- "How his enraged ghost would stamp and stare, That Cæsar's throne is turn'd to Peter chayre, To see an old shorne _lozel_ perched high, Crossing beneath a golden canopy."