Chapter XV: Act III: SCENE 1. Page 398

SIM. Marry, sir, the _city-ward_----

"The old editions read _pittie-ward_, the modern editors _pitty-wary_," says Mr. Steevens, who in this edition has abandoned the best part of a former note where he had proposed to read _petty-ward_, which is the right word, and of the same import as the old one. That such a word formerly existed is demonstrable from its still remaining as a proper name, and near Wimbledon is a wood so called, probably from the owner. Mr. Steevens mistakes in supposing _ward_ to mean _towards_ in this instance, where it is put for the division of a city; nor does his quotation from William of Worcester assist him. The _via de Petty_ and the _Pyttey gate_ might be named after the hundred of Pyttey in Somersetshire. In Lyne's Map of Cambridge, 1574, we find the _petticurie_.

SCENE 1. Page 399.

EVANS. I will knog his _urinals_ about his knave's costard----

This utensil was the usual concomitant of physicians in former times, as appears from most of the frontispieces to old medical books and other ancient prints.

SCENE 2. Page 410.

HOST. ... he smells April and May.

The same as if he had said he smells of _youth and courtship_, symbolized by these months, the former of which in old calendars is described in these lines:

"The next vi yere maketh foure and twenty,
And fygured is to joly Apryll;
That tyme of pleasures man hath moost plenty
Fresshe and lovyng his lustes to fulfyll----"

and the latter in the following:

"As in the month of Maye all thyng is in myght,
So at xxx yeres man is in chyef lykyng;
Pleasaunt and lusty, to every mannes syght,
In beaute and strength to women pleasyng."

SCENE 2. Page 412.

HOST. I will to my honest knight Falstaff, and drink _canary_ with him.

FORD. I think I shall drink-in _pipe-wine_ first with him; I'll make
him dance.

It may be doubted whether the exact meaning of this cluster of puns has already been given. Mr. Tyrwhitt says he cannot understand the phrase _to drink in pipe-wine_, and suggests that Shakspeare might have written _horn-pipe wine_. Now Ford terms canary _pipe-wine_, both because the _canary_ dance is performed to a tabor and _pipe_, and because the canary _bird_ is said to _pipe_ his tunes. Ford is speaking of Falstaff, not of Page, as Mr. Tyrwhitt's note implies when it refers to horns. He says he will make him pipe and dance too.

SCENE 3. Page 414.

MRS. FORD. How now, my _eyas-musket_?

There was no reason for disturbing the etymology of this word given by Dr. Warburton, by substituting that of Dame Juliana Bernes, which for ingenuity and veracity may be well classed with many of those in _Isidore of Seville_, or _The golden legend_. Take an example from the latter. "Felix is sayd of _fero fers_, that is to saye, to bere, and of this word _lis_, _litis_, whiche is as moche to say as stryfe, for he bare stryfe for the fayth of our lorde." Turberville tells us that "the first name and terme that they bestowe on a falcon is an _eyesse_, and this name doth laste as long as she is in the eyrie and for that she is taken from the _eyrie_." This is almost as bad as the lady abbess's account. _Eyrie_ is simply the nest or _eggery_, and has no connexion with the name of the bird. _Eyas_ or _nias_, is a term borrowed from the French _niais_, which means any young bird in the nest, _avis in nido_. It is the first of five several names by which a falcon is called during its first year. The best account of this bird is in _La fauconnerie de Charles d'Arcussa de Capre, seigneur d'Esparron_, 1643, 4to. A _musket_ is a sparrow-hawk, and is derived from the French _mouchet_, and the latter probably from _musca_, on account of its diminutive form. The humour therefore lies in comparing the page to a young male sparrow-hawk, an emblem of his tender years and activity.