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Taming

OF

The Shre w.

SCENE I.

Lord. Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my

hounds:

Brach Merriman,-the poor cur is imbost,-
And couple Clowder with the deep-mouth'd brach.

Brach Merriman, the poor cur is imbost,

And couple Clowder with the deep-mouth'd brach.]

Sir T. Hanmer reads, Leech Merriman, that is, apply some remedies to Merriman, the poor cur has his joints swell'd. Perhaps we might read, bathe Merriman, which is, I believe, the common practice of huntsmen, but the present reading may stand:

-tender well my hounds:

Brach-Merriman--the poor cur is imbost. JOHN.

Imbost.] A hunting term; when a deer is hard run and foams at the mouth, he is said to be emboss'd. A dog also when he is strained with hard running (especially upon hard ground) will have his knees swelled, and then he is said to be emboss'd: from the French word bosse, which signifies a tumor. WARTON.

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'Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds:
Brach Merriman,-the poor cur is imbost,-

And couple Clowder with the deep-mouth'd brach.' Brach,' is a bitch-hound, and could not be used in speaking of Merriman. The transcriber, or printer has been led into the error by the Brach in the third line, and which there is probably right. The Poet's word, 1 think, will be brace, i. e. swathe, apply bandages or rollers to Merriman, the poor cur is imbost,' i. e, strained, or swelled in the sinews from hard running. B.

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Sly. If she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer-ale, score me up for the lying'st knave in Christendom. What, I am not bestraught.

I am not bestraught:] I once thought that if our poet did not design to put a corrupted word into the mouth of the Tinker, we ought to read, distraught, i. e. distracted. STEEV.

I am not bestraught.' There is no corruption in the case, 'Bestraught' is the same as Distraught. B.

Tra. Talk logick with acquaintance that you have,
And practice rhetorick in your common talk;

Talk logick.] The old copies read-Balke logick, &c. MAL.

'Balke logic' is right. Balke, with the writers of Shakspeare's time, is omit Never regard truth,' says Tranio, in your worldly transactions; but be florishing and rhetorical in your ordinary discourse. This is meant as being politic: the way to fix at once our fortune and our fame. B.

Kath. A pretty peat! 'tis best
Put finger in the eye.

A pretty peat!] Peat or pet is a word of endearment from petit, little, as if it meant pretty little thing. JOHN.

'Pretty peat' is pretty lamb. A pet lamb is a lamb brought up in the house. B.

Gru. Is there any man has rebus'd your worship?

-has rebus'd your worship?] What is the meaning of rebus'd ? or is it a false print for abus'd? TYRWH,

Rebus'd your worship.' Has a rebus been made on your worship?-has any wit been exercised on you? B.

Pet.

Therefore, if thou know

One rich enough to be Petruchio's wife,

(As wealth is burden of my wooing dance)

(As wealth is burthen of my wooing dance)] The burthen of a dance is an expression which I have never heard; the burthen of his wooing song had been more proper. JoHN.

'Burden of my wooing dance.' Guerdon, which signifies reward, recompense, is no doubt the proper word. All I aim at in wooing, says Petruchio, is wealth: I seek not beauty, mental or corporeal; riches will satisfy me.

B.

Gru. Why, give him gold enough, and marry him to a puppet, or an aglet-baby; or an old trot with ne'er a tooth in her head, though she have as many diseases as two and fifty horses: why, nothing comes amiss, so money comes withal.

――as many diseases as two and fifty horses.] I suspect this passage to be corrupt, though I know not well how to rectify it-The fifty diseases of a horse seems to have been proverbial. So, in The Yorkshire Tragedy, 1608: "O stumbling jade! the spavin o'ertake thee! the fifty diseases stop thee!" MAL.

As many diseases as two and fifty horses.' Mr. Malone's quotation is not in point:-for if fifty diseases may be said to belong to a horse, it is not of diseases that Grumio will be found to speak, according to the text, but of horses; and why fifty two? Horses' is evidently wrong. The right word, I think, will be Houses-not the substantive, but the verb. The meaning will then be,-as many diseases as any one at the age of 52 may be supposed to have, or according to Grumio, to house-i. e. give reception to, admit. This reading will be strengthened by remembering that 52 is a climacterical year in human life, and that bodily infirmities are then supposed to be more particularly felt. B.

Gru. Why, that's nothing; an he begin once, he'll rail in his rope-tricks. I'll tell you what, sir,-an she stand him but a little, he will throw a figure in her face, and

so disfigure her with it, that she shall have no more eyes to see withal than a cat :

An he begin once, he'll rail in his rope-tricks.] This is obscure. Sir Thomas Hanmer reads he'll rail in his rhetorick; I'll tell you, &c. Rhetorick agrees very well with figure in the succeeding part of the speech, yet I am inclined to believe that rope-tricks is the true word, JOHN.

In Romeo and Juliet, Shakspeare uses ropery for roguery, and therefore certainly wrote rope-tricks.

Rope-tricks we may suppose to mean tricks of which the contriver would deserve the rope. STEEV.

Rope-tricks is certainly right.-Ropery or rope-tricks originally signified abusive language, without any determinate idea; such language as parrots are taught to speak. So, in Hudibras:

"Could tell what subt'iest parrots mean,

That speak, and think contrary clean;

What member 'tis of whom they talk,

When they cry rope, and walk knave, walk."

The following passage in Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique, 1553, shows that this was the meaning of the term: "Another good fellow in the countrey, being an officer and maiour of a toune, and desirous to speak like a fine learned man, having just occasion to rebuke a runnegate fellow, said after this wise in a greate heate: Thou yngram and vacation knave, if I take thee any more within the circumcision of my dampnacion, I will so corrupte thee that all vacation-knaves shall take ill sample by thee." This the author in the margin calls "rope ripe chiding." So, in May-day, atomedy by Chapman, 1611: "Lord! how you roll in your rope-ripe terms." MAL.

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Rail in his rope tricks. In several Counties in England, guts are called ropes. Rope-tricks 'is, I believe, an expression equivalent to grumble in his gizzard. The meaning is, when his guts begin to grumble, when once he grows angry-I'll tell you what Sir,' &c.

Such language in the mouth of Grumio is apt and proper enough. B.

--that she shall have no more eyes to see withal than a cat:] The humour of his passage I do not understand. This animal is remarkable for the keenness of its sight. Probably the poet meant to have saida cut in a bottle. STEEV.

It may mean, that she shall swell up her eyes with blows, till she shall seem to peep with a contracted pupil, like a cat in the light, JOHN.

'No more eyes to see withal than a cat.' 'Cat,' I think, is a contraction of catin fr a doll, a puppet. The meaning is, she will see no more than a puppet, a wooden figure. B.

Tra. An if you break the ice, and do this feat,-
Atchieve the elder, set the younger free

For our access,-whose hap shall be to have her,
Will not so graceless be, to be ingrate.

--this feat- -1 The old copy reads— -this seekeemendation was made by Mr Rowe. STEEV.

The

This feat.' The emendation here made by Rowe is, like many of Mr. S.'s, none at all. Seeke was evidently printed in mistake for Seche, the old word for matter, business. B.

Petr.

Oh, the kindest Kate!

She hung about my neck; and kiss on kiss
She vy'd so fast, protesting oath to oath,
That in a twink she won me to her love.

-kiss on kiss

She vy'd so fast

-]

Vie and revye were terms at cards, now superseded by the more modern word, brag. Our author has in another place, " time revyes us," which has been unnecessarily altered. The words were frequently used in a sense somewhat remote from their original one. In the famous trial of the seven bishops, the chief justice says, "We must not permit vying and revying upon one another." FAR.

'She vy'd so fast.' 'To vye' or revye, is the same as the French expression Renvier which signifies to lay above the stakes. Hence, se renvier sur quelq'un-To go beyond a person, to surpass him. Petruchio's meaning is, that Catherine surpassed him in tokens of affection. B.

Gre. In cypress chests my arras, counterpoints,
Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,

Fine linen, Turky cushions boss'd with pearl.

-tents and canopies.] I suppose by tents old Gremio means work of that kind which the ladies call tent-stitch. He would hardly enumerate tents (in their common acceptation) among his domestic riches. STEEV.

Tents and Canopies.' ments of his house. B.

.

Tents,' are evidently tent-like orna

Gru. Was ever man so beaten? was ever man so ray'd? was ever man so weary?

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