by Thomas Nashe
8. Lacing (i.e. to keep them up).
9. i.e. on the stage (as opposed to ‘within’).
10. (?) The prompter.
11. ‘Good men’.
12. Despising.
13. References in Cornelius Agrippa (the source of other allusions in this speech) and Seneca.
14. A game like chuckstone (M.).
15. ‘All of us have been mad at some time’ (Mantuanus).
16. A kind of planetarium, mentioned by Cicero.
17. an egg-shell… spear: A trick described in Thomas Lupton’s Thousand Notable Things, 1579.
18. ‘Our poet’.
19. ‘Everyone may please himself’ (adapted from Ovid).
20. Term for allegory-hunters.
21. quips in characters: Personal allusions (M.).
22. Interpreters.
23. Entertainment.
24. the jig… God-son: Possibly a reference to a lost work by John Wolf called Rowlands’ Godson Moralized, 1592; perhaps to a ballad called Rowland’s Godson. Jig: ‘rhymed dialogue presenting a comic plot danced and sung by two or more characters’ (M.).
25. Jill of Brentford’s Testament, by Robert Copland. Reprinted 1871.
26. See Introduction, pp. 36 – 7.
27. God give… Watling Street: M. interprets as meaning ‘worse luck’ or ‘a bad thing for us’. Significance of Watling Street unknown.
28. In humour or temper (Grosart).
29. Nonplussed, not knowing what to do.
30. Unknown (perhaps ‘Jew Ben’, M.).
31. ‘One night awaits all, and all must tread death’s path once’ (Horace).
32. The Queen visited Newbury, Circencester, Woodstock and Oxford during August and September 1592.
33. Arcadia, 1590 edition.
34. Be fined a mark for non-attendance.
35. This and variants were common as refrains in popular songs.
36. black and yellow: Representing constancy and (here) sadness.
37 ‘The sum of all’.
38. Commonly emended from ‘ladle’ (but ladles were sometimes carried by fool or hobby-horse to collect money — M.).
39. Possibly a reference to a taborer of that name.
40. M. conjectures the morris dancers were Worcestershire men, perhaps some of Whitgift’s servants brought with him from Worcester, where he was Bishop till 1583.
41. Clothier’s.
42. Items.
43. Adapted from Terence.
44. Throwing them down on the grass (M.).
45. Credulous borrowers would be ‘paid’ in such goods by owners in lieu of money (they would be represented as having a certain value though they were in fact virtually unsaleable).
46. horses… stolen: Perhaps horses stolen by Germans, followers of Count Mompelgard, between Reading and Windsor.
47. Eat without appetite or squeamishly.
48. Foolishly.
49. ‘Till crime corrupted men’.
50. Terence, Eunuch, II, 2, 12.
51. Churl, niggard.
52. Horace, Epistolae, II, 2, 31.
53. Ovid, Remedia Amoris, 749.
54. ‘All my possessions I carry with me’ (Cicero).
55. Trouble, disturbance.
56. M.’s emendation. Q. has ‘court without: “Peace”’.
57. ‘Stay between the two; you are safest in the middle’ (Ovid).
58. Mixture, formless concoction.
59. Ninepins (kayles).
60. Small barrel.
61. Desire, choose.
62. The vintner’s sign.
63. wrong of Daphne: She was seduced by Apollo (the sun god), and changed to a bay-tree.
64. The ocean.
65. Heber… Orpheus: Orpheus’ severed head, still singing, floated on the River Hebrus.
66. The Heliades, who wept unceasingly for Phaeton (killed by Zeus) and were changed into poplars.
67. Amber (their tears oozing from the trees were hardened into amber by Helios).
68. Kept for a while by Apollo in Thessaly.
69. riff-raff… Eleanor: Nonsensical, crude verse with reference to Skelton’s Tunning of Elinor Rumming.
70. Stenography, as invented probably by Bales (1547?–1610), or plagiarized by him from Timothy Bright (1531?–1615).
71. Like ‘The Saracen’s Head’ (‘murrion’ = blackamoor).
72. Meaning unknown.
73. Haircut to make a man look terrible to his enemies.
74. Duppa’s Hill, near Croydon.
75. ‘Contrive’.
76. Fierce dogs, e.g. mastiffs.
77. Hyrieus, the son of Neptune and Alcyone.
78. Are called.
79. Loosely used, here referring to the ignis fatuus (phosphorescent light from decaying matter).
80. Onomatopoeic word for the snarling of dogs.
81. M. points out that the whole passage is derived from Sextus Empericus’ Pyrrhoniae Hyptotyposes, probably in a lost English translation.
82. Pallas disguised Ulysses as a poor beggar to avoid recognition by Penelope’s suitors.
83. Remedial.
84. Cataposia… Cataplasmata: Pills, poultices, medicines to purge phlegm.
85. Gargles.
86. Enemas (sometimes suppositories).
87. Medicated plugs.
88. Salves.
89. Proverbial.
90. A reference to Brandt’s Stultifera Navis, 1494; translated in 1509.
91. Perhaps the name of the fool in Whitgift’s household, perhaps general like Tom-fool (M). (cf. p. 146, n. 4.)
92. Probably popular term for a dog.
93. (?) Backgammon.
94. Hoarder.
95. Miser.
96. A pun on a cold in the head and a puzzle.
97. A popular tune of a melancholy character often referred to.
98. Proverbial (‘You had on your harvest ears, thick of hearing,’ Heywood’s Proverbs).
99. baker’s loaf… thousands for one: Meaning unknown.
100. Jerked, cracked.
101. Vetches.
102. A pun on large ‘S’.
103. ‘A long slim awkward fellow… a lout, a laggard, a lingerer’ (NED).
104. Domingo, popular term for drunkard.
105. ‘His mind is on his dinner’ (Terence).
106. ‘Wine is a sort of kindling and tinder to the brain and the faculties’ (Aulus Gellius).
107. ‘Now is the time for drinking and for beating the ground with unrestrained feet’ (Horace).
108. Probably a drinking term.
109. ‘A conversational interchange’.
110. ‘Eloquent cups, whom have they not made a good speaker!’
111. the hunters’ hoop: Apparently a drink measure.
112. Our vintage… advantage: M. believes there is something wrong with the text.
113. A convert to Judaism.
114. Literally ‘Abstaining from beans’; one of Pythagoras’ enigmatical precepts.
115. A half-barrel (sixteen to eighteen gallons).
116. Petty thief, general term of contempt.
117. upsey-freeze.… Super nagulum: Drinking terms (for super nagulum see Pierce Penniless, N.’s note, p. 105).
118. A small gun or cannon.
119. make thy cup… element: Meaning unknown.
120. This Pupillonian… whif: Meaning unknown.
121. Meaning unknown.
122. dog’s… pot: Glutton, term of abuse.
123. ‘A bowl which touches the jack’ (NED); here a pun on ‘jack’ meaning a drinking vessel.
124. Swellings.
125. Reward.
126. Strong ale.
127. Poison.
128. Dregs (and candle end).
129. A reference to the Dutch as proverbial drunkards.
130. ‘The man that denies that he has sinned does not sin’ (Ovid).
131. ‘Flee from the people you believe are faithful, and you will be safe’ (Ovid).
1
32. ‘As many enemies have we at home as we have servants’ (Seneca).
133. ‘A slave is a necessary possession, but not a pleasant one.’
134. ‘Young hopefuls always reckon to prosper out of ignorance.’
135. Raise.
136. Dumb swans… pies: Adapted from Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella, sonnet fifty-four.
137. e.g. Ovid (Metamorphoses, II, 395 – 401).
138. A Greek in the Trojan War who could shout as loud as fifty men.
139. e.g. Cornelius Agrippa (De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum).
140. Lack.
141. Embracing… courtesy: Hazlitt emends to read ‘Embracing envy, guileless courtesy…’
142. Persuaded the Trojans to take in the wooden horse; used here as typical traitor.
143. Complain of.
144. wraught his bane: Made the poison that killed him.
145. ‘Generosity makes servants faithful’ (Plautus).
146. Slavery (i.e. harshness in the master makes mere servitude).
147. M. suggests Iceland, with which there is some authority to associate this legend.
148. Also means ‘favours’.
149. Bankrupt.
150. Built by Alcathous, with the assistance of Apollo, who rested his lyre on the ‘singing stone’.
151. ‘Ill-rumour, than which nothing is swifter’ (Virgil).
152. Five years’ silence is said to have been required of pupils in the school of Pythagoras.
153. Thales Milesius… made: again from Cornelius Agrippa (De Incertitudine).
154. Ruin, destroy (archaic verb ‘lose’).
155. Go sight-seeing.
156. ‘In the work’s peroration’.
157. Fismenus non Nasutus: A character without a nose, and having no sense of smell.
158. (Perhaps this should read ‘Huic’.) ‘This stinking mouth’; a phrase used in association with the Devil.
159. ‘The Courtesan’.
160. Bartholomaeus Sacchi, fl. 1475.
161. ‘On the Art of Drinking’ (V. Obsopaeus, 1536).
162. Cicero, Pro Plancio (defence of Gnaius Plancius), IV, 9.
163. Ovid (Ovidius Naso, 43 B.C.–A.D. 17).
164. Amores, III, 8, 25 – 6.
165. One player throws his counter; another has to throw within a a span of it.
166. Bookworm.
167. Gibberish, nonsense.
168. Schoolboys’ textbooks.
169. The return of wintry conditions late in the season.
170. Pinchbeck, miser.
171. Who like… points: Who takes after his father in everything.
172. Mischievous creature.
173. Very near.
174. Taken out of its grave.
175. A dashing gallant and a good chap (often used ironically).
176. Perhaps the actor’s name.
177. M. mentions the possibility that this is a misprint for ‘hair’.
178. Taking up the sound of the word ‘dispatched’, leading to pun on ‘baker’, name of the actor who played Vertumnus.
179. Toad (cf., popular expression ‘a toad in the straw’).
180. Tub for salting and pickling beef.
181. Trained himself to carry a bull; the story of his eating a whole ox is in Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, X.
182. N. refers again in margin note to Lenten Stuff (‘The Sybarites never would make any banquet under a twelve month’s warning’).
183. city… moles: Thessalia, according to Lyly (M.).
184. bid me… beggars: Emended from ‘a whole fair of beggars bid me’.
185. Bowing.
186. Imagines.
187. A basket for scraps to be distributed among the poor.
188. Messenger, attendant.
189. ‘Generosity dies through generosity.’
190. Cheap hake.
191. Miser.
192. Secrecy.
193. The two verbs would be found on the same page on the standard Latin grammar of the time.
194. Mild exclamation, common in medieval plays.
195. Lazy idler.
196. Finely dressed.
197. ‘Oh unheard-of reprobate, oh voice of the damned!’
198. A reference to the fifty sons and fifty daughters of Priam.
199. Aeolus, keeper of the winds.
200. a few rushes… tumble: It is suggested that Backwinter struggles to resist arrest.
201. Prompt efficiently.
202. A poem of fourteen lines, more loosely constructed than a sonnet.
203. M. quotes Henry VIII on Otford House which ‘standeth low and is rheumatic, like unto Croyden, where I could never be without sickness’.
204. Worn-out clothes.
205. Give him practice and confidence.
206. A children’s game, also called slatter-pouch.
207. pigmy… cranes: Herodotus describes the pigmies and cranes as being in a perpetual state of war, therefore embassies would sometimes be necessary.
208. ‘Nobody knows all hours’ (Pliny).
209. ‘Be good to your friends, and bring them good fortune (Virgil).
210. Club-foot.
211. See pp. 165, 191.
212. ‘Farewell, spectators’.
213. ‘I am a barbarian here, for nobody understands me’ (Ovid).
1. bill of parcels: List, catalogue.
2. Tablet for writing memoranda or inscriptions.
3. ‘The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it’ (Proverbs, 30, 17).
4. Ovid, Remedia Amoris, 516.
5. Horace, Epistolae, i, 16, 62.
6. Called, named.
7. Desires, chooses.
8. An untraced allusion (Seleucus was one of Alexander’s generals).
9. At his disposal.
10. Cheat (as at cards or dice).
11. Small insect, possibly here gnat.
12. Familiar spirits, devils.
13. ‘A vermiform cartilage under the tongue, believed to be a parasite’ (M.).
14. King of Rome (673 – 42 B.C.) (There is no reference in Livy or Pliny to his trembling.)
15. cf. Falstaff on Poins: ‘His wit as thick as Tewksbury mustard’ 2 Henry IV, II, iv, 240.
16. Mahomet was said to feed a dove by the ear and to receive from the dove God’s secrets in return.
17. Mixed, like this material woven of coarse wool and flax.
18. rare… studies: Studies of a recondite character.
19. Head cold, catarrh.
20. Nothing is so like.
21. Made, derived.
22. Thrown into disorder, confusion.
23. Rushing ahead, headlong.
24. Completely, exactly.
25. A jumble, a mixture; literally a hash or stew made of odds and ends.
26. Ideas, thoughts.
27. Black sanctus; noisy discordant singing.
28. ‘Accepting, I suppose, her identification with Hecate’ (M.).
29. Spiritual powers.
30. Ostrich.
31. Captured.
32. The Dead Sea, Asphaltites.
33. Qui va là?
34. Thought to be an abode of lost souls, because of the ‘lamenting’ noise made by the ice in the sea near-by.
35. Pinned to a wheel for the attempted rape of Hera.
36. Tityus, son of Earth, condemned, also for attempted rape, to have his liver pecked perpetually by vultures.
37. A proverbial trickster, condemned to roll a boulder up a hill.
38. Served the gods with the flesh of his son at a banquet, and was condemned to perpetual hunger and thirst.
39. Favour.
40. M. suggests ‘old’.
41. a riding snarl: A slip-knot.
42. Lake Vetter or Wetter in Sweden.
43. Aetna.
44. Enamel.
45. Inkstand.
46. against… Mounsier: In readiness for the arrival in England of the Duke of Anjou, a suitor of the Queen, in 1581.
47. Make noisy conversation.
48. Paganism.
49. Change, transference.
50. The high-priest of Troy who, believing that the city was doomed, defected to the Greeks.
51. Tricking, deceptive.
52. Accused.
53. Deceitful.
54. Surface, pile, of material.
55. Gibberish.
56. skirts and outshifts: Suburbs, outskirts.
57. merchant and chapmanable: Saleable, marketable.
58. News, reputation.
59. Eating house.
60. The ‘astronomer’s staff’ for taking the altitude of the sun.
61. Author of Materia Medica (first or second century A.D.).
62. Famous Greek physician (c. 460 – 377 B.C.).
63. Confides in.
64. Speaks contemptuously of.
65. Paracelsus (c. 1490 – 1541) extended the study of minerals in medical use.
66. Proven remedies.
67. Tittle est amen. Words given at the end of the alphabet in horn-books, or reading manuals, i.e. the conclusion.
68. Cannot tolerate.
69. A jot, the smallest amount.
70. Once upon a time.
71. A Trojan captain.
72. A giant, killed by Corineus.
73. A rowdy from Queenhithe, (a rough neighbourhood).
74. Knavery.
75. To make… bolt: To make something definite.
76. Mumbling, droning.
77. Toothless mumbling.
78. A rattler or empty talker.
79. Wrinkled and entwined.
80. Conclude, gather.
81. Zopyrus, a quack physiognomist.
82. seek not… bulrush: Don’t go looking for trouble.
83. Possibly a mistake for ‘Capias Utligatum’, ‘a writ directing the arrest of an outlaw’ (M.).
84. Beautiful valley in Thessaly.
85. William Camden (1551 – 1623), antiquary and historian. His Britannia was first published in 1586.
86. Sir George Carey
87. Accuse, prosecute.
88. Worthy, deserving.
89. ‘Are you called Carey [Carus = dear] because that is what you are?’
90. ‘After all my companions are gone, I will remember you, oh Carus.’
91. Small ship’s-boats.
92. Discipline, in my charge.
93. Food, or possibly recreation, pastime.
94. Compensation.
95. The seat of laughter.
96. Normally means impure, dreggy.
97. every… while: In the dme it takes to say the Lord’s Prayer.
98. A rogue, swindler.
99. ‘A mouth able to utter an exclamation with a sharp outburst’ (NED).