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

Si fortuna metormenta, Sperato me contenta.

it on this occafion, 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. "Accinaus etiam Cali burno gladio optimo, lancea nomine IRON, dexteram fuam decoravit. M. Westmonasterienfis, p. 98. BOWLE.

"

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

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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 fword':

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"Feed then, and faint not, my faire Calypolis.

And again, in the same play:

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

And again:

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Feed and be fat that we may meet the foe, "With ftrength 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 it stands in Shakspeare. MALONE.

8 Si fortuna me tormenta, Sperato me contenta.) Sir Thomas Hanmer reads:

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

Pistol is only a copy of Hannibal Gonsaga, who vaunted on yielding himself a prisoner, as you may read in an old collection of Tales, called Wits, Fits, and Fancies :

"Si fortuna me tormenta,

"Il speranza me contenta.

Fear we broadfides? no, let the fiend give fire: Give me fome sack; - and, fweetheart, lie thou

there.

[Laying down his fword.

Come we to full points here; and are et cetera's

nothing?

FAL. Pistol, I would be quiet.

PIST. Sweet knight, I kiss thy neif:

have feen the seven flars.

What! we

DOL. Thrust him down stairs; I cannot endure fuch a fustian rafcal.

PIST. Thrust him down stairs! know we not Galloway nags? *

And Sir Richard Hawkins, in his Voyage to the South-Sea, 1593, throws out the same gingling diftich on the loss of his pinnace.

FARMER.

• Come we to full points here ; &c. ) That is, shall we stop here, shall we have no further entertainment? JOHNSON.

9 Sweet knight, 1 kiss thy neif; (i. e. kiss thy fift. Mr. Pope will have it, that neif here is from nativa; i. e. a woman flave that is born in one's house; and that Pistol would kiss Falstaff's domeftic mistrefs, Doll Tear-sheet.. THEOBALD.

Nief, neif, and naif, are certainly law-terms for a woman-flave. So, in Thoroton's Antiquities of Nottinghamshire: "Every naif or fhe-villain, that took a husband or committed fornication, paid marchet for redemption of her blood 5s. and 4d." Again, in Stanyhurst's, Virgil, 1582:

Me FAMULAM famuloque Heleno tranfmifit habendam.

"Me his nyefe to his servaunt Helenus full firmelye be

troathed."

But I believe neif is used by Shakspeare for fift. It is ftill emplayed in that sense in the northern counties, and by Ben Jonfon in his Portafter :

" Reach me thy neif."

Again, in The Witch of Edmonton, by Rowley, &c. 1658: "Oh, sweet ningle, thy neif once again.

STEEVENS.

So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "Give me thy neif, Monfieur Mustard-Seed. MALONE.

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Galloway nags?] That is, common hacknies.

JOHNSON.

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FAL. Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shovtgroat shilling: nay, if he do nothing but speak nothing, he shall be nothing here.

BARD. Come, get you down flairs.
PIST. What! shall we have incifion? shall we

imbrue?

[Snatching up his fword.

Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful
days!

Why then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds
Untwine the fifters three! Come, Atropos, I say!

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66

made it run as smooth off the

like a shove-groat shilling:) This expression occurs in Every Man in his Humour: tongue as a shove-groat shilling.

"

Again, in Humour's Ordinary, by Samuel Rowlands. Satire iv: "At shove-groat, venter-point, or crosse and pile." I suppose it to have been a piece of polished metal made use of in the play of shovel-board. See Vol. V. p. 22, n. 4.

STEEVENS.

Slide-thrift, or shove-groat, is one of the games prohibited by ftatute 33 Henry VIII. c. 9. BLACKSTONE.

4 Then death rock me asleep, This is a fragment of an ancient

fong supposed to have been written by Anne Boleyn:

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Bring me on quiet reft," &c.

For the entire song, fee Sir John Hawkins's General History of
Mufick, Vol. III. p. 31. Steevens.

In "Arnold Cofbie's Ultimum Vale to the vaine World, an Elegie written by himselfe in the Marshalfea, after his condemnation for murthering Lord Brooke," 4to. 1591, are these lines:

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“O death, rock me asleepe! Father of heaven, "That haft fole power to pardon finnes of men, Forgive the faults and follies of my youth. " REED. Come, Atropos, I Say!) Perhaps Pistol alludes to a poem printed in A Gorgious Gallery of Gallant Inuentions, &c. 4to. 1578. "The Louer complayneth of his Ladie's inconftancy, to the tune of I lothe that I did loue:

" I hate this lothsome life,
"O Atropos draw nie,

"Untwift ye thred of mortal ftrife,

"Send death, and let mee die." STEEVENS.

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Host. Here's goodly stuff toward!
FAL. Give me my rapier, boy.
DOL. I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw.
FAL. Get you down stairs.

[Drawing, and driving PISTOL out.

Host. Here's a goodly tumult! I'll forswear keeping house, afore I'll be in these tirrits and frights. So; murder, I warrant now. Alas, alas! put up your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons. (Exeunt PISTOL and BARDOLPH.

-

DOL. I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal is gone. Ah, you whorson little valiant villain, you. Host. Are you not hurt i'the groin? methought, he made a shrewd thrust at your belly.

Re-enter BARDOLPH.

FAL. Have you turn'd him out of doors? BARD. Yes, fir. The rascal's drunk: you have hurt him, fir, in the shoulder.

FAL. A rascal! to brave me!

DOL. Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! Alas, poor ape, how thou sweat'st? Come, let me wipe thy face; - come on, you whoreson chops: - Ah, rogue! i'faith, I love thee. Thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy, worth five of Agamemnon, and

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Come, Atropos, ) It has been suggested that this is a name which Pistol gives to his sword; but furely he means nothing more than to call on one of the fifters three to aid him in the fray.

MALONE.

6 Are you not hurt i'the groin?] Falstaff had promised to marry Mrs. Quickly, who, on this occafion, appears to have had the widow Wadman's folicitudes about her. STELVENS.

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ten times better than the nine worthies: Ah, villain!'

FAL. A rascally flave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.

DOL. Do, if thou darest for thy heart; if thou doft, I'll canvas thee between a pair of sheets.

Enter Musick.

PAGE. The mufick is come, fir.

FAL. Let them play; - Play, firs, - Sit on my knee, Doll. A rascal bragging slave! the rogue fled from me like quickfilver.

DOL. I'faith, and thou follow'dst him like a church. Thou whorefon little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, when wilt thou leave fighting o'days,

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Ah, villain!] Thus the folio: the quarto reads

lain; which may be right. She may mean Pistol.

- a vil

Since this note was written, I have observed that a is frequently printed in the quarto copies for ah: the reading of the folio is therefore certainly right. MALONE.

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This phrafe

I'll canvas thee between a pair of sheets.] occurs in the 12th Mery leste of the Widow Edyth, 1573:

"Hore, hore, by coks blood euen here,

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Doll's meaning here is sufficiently clear. There is however an allufion which might easily escape notice, to the material of which coarse sheets were formerly made. So, in the MS. Account-book of Mr. Philip Henflow, which has been already quoted: "7 Maye, 1594. Lent goody Nalle upon a payre of canvas sheates, for vs.

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MALONE.

little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, For tidy. Sir Thomas Hanmer read tiny; but they are both words of endearment, and équally proper. Bartholomew boar-pig is a little pig made of pafte, fold at Bartholomew fair, and given to children for a fairing.

JOHNSON.

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