IV, iv, 30. _such defence_--i. e., “the defence of such a one.” _Such_
= qualis.
IV, iv, 66. _To this_--i. e., to tears.
IV, iv, 70. _those fam’d matrones_--cf. Massinger in _The Virgin
Martyr_, C-G. 33 a:
“You will rise up with reverence, and no more,
As things unworthy of your thoughts, remember
What the canonized Spartan ladies were,
Which lying Greece so boasts of. Your own matrons,
Your Roman dames, whose figures you yet keep
As holy relics, in her history
Will find a second urn: Gracchus’ Cornelia,
Paulina, that in death desired to follow
Her husband Seneca, nor Brutus’ Portia,
That swallowed burning coals to overtake him,
Though all their several worths were given to one,
With this is to be mention’d.”
IV, iv, 112. _on it_--i. e., “on what you say.”
IV, iv, 156. _be_--“be” expresses more doubt than “is” after a verb of
_thinking_. Cf. Abbott, S. G., § 299.
V, i, 5. _lay me vp_--imprison me.
V, i, 7. _varlets_--the name given to city bailiffs or sergeants.
Perhaps here, however, it is applied merely as a term of abuse.
V, i, 9. _Innes of court man_--a member of one of the four Inns of
Court (The Inner Temple, The Middle Temple, Lincoln’s Inn, and Gray’s
Inn), legal societies which served for the Elizabethan the function
which our law-schools perform to-day. Overbury says of the Inns of
Court Man, in his _Characters_: “Hee is distinguished from a scholler
by a pair of silk-stockings, and a beaver hat, which make him contemn
a scholler as much as a scholler doth a school-master.... He is as far
behind a courtier in his fashion, as a scholler is behind him.... He
laughs at every man whose band sits not well, or that hath not a faire
shoo-tie, and he is ashamed to be seen in any mans company that weares
not his clothes well. His very essence he placeth in his outside....
You shall never see him melancholy, but when he wants a new suit, or
feares a sergeant....”
V, i, 13. _coming forth_--appearance in court, or from prison.
V, i, 28. _manchets_--small loaves or rolls of the finest wheaten
bread. There seems to have been a commonplace concerning the huge
quantities of bread devoured by tailors. Cf. l. 88 below, and Note.
V, i, 31. _leaue swordmen_--i. e., swordmen (swaggering ruffians who
claim the profession of arms) _on leave_. It is possible, however, that
_leaue_ is a misprint (by inversion of a letter) for _leane_ = hungry.
V, i, 83. _hangers_--not “short-swords”, as in l. 31, but here
“pendants”, perhaps a part of the hat-band hanging loose, or else loops
or straps on the swordbelt, often richly ornamented, from which the
sword was hung. Cf. Shakespeare, _Hamlet_, V, ii, 157-167.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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