Chapter III: Act II: SCENE 1. Page 54

GON. How _lush_ and lusty the grass looks!

_Lush_, as Mr. Malone observes, has not yet been rightly interpreted. It is, after all, an old word synonymous with _loose_. In the _Promptuarium parvulorum_ 1516, 4to, we find "_lushe or slacke, laxus_." The quotation from Golding, who renders _turget_ by this word, confirms the foregoing definition, and demonstrates that as applied to grass, it means _loose or swollen_, thereby expressing the state of that vegetable when, the fibres being relaxed, it expands to its fullest growth.

SCENE 2. Page 76.

CAL. Sometime like _apes_, that moe and chatter at me
And after bite me; then like _hedge-hogs_, which
Lie _tumbling_ in my barefoot way----

Shakspeare, who seems to have been well acquainted with Bishop Harsnet's _Declaration of Popish impostures_, has here recollected that part of the work where the author, speaking of the supposed possession of young girls, says, "they make anticke faces, _girn, mow and mop like an ape, tumble like a hedge-hogge_, &c." Another reason for the introduction of urchins or hedge-hogs into this speech is, that on the first discovery of the Bermudas, which, as has been already stated, gave rise in part to this play, they were supposed to be "haunted as all men know with _hogs_ and hobgoblings." See Dekkar's _Strange horserace_, &c. sign. f. 3. b. and Mr. Steevens's note in p. 28.

SCENE 2. Page 77.

TRIN. A strange fish! Were I in England now (as once I was) and had
but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a
piece of silver: there would this monster make a man; any strange
beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit to relieve
a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian.

This speech happily ridicules the mania that appears to have always existed among our countrymen for beholding strange sights, however trifling. A contemporary writer and professor of divinity has been no less severe. Speaking of the crocodile, he says, "Of late years there hath been brought into England, the cases or skinnes of such crocodiles to be seene, and much money given for the sight thereof; the policy of strangers laugh at our folly, either that we are too wealthy, or else that we know not how to bestow our money." Batman _uppon Bartholome_, fo. 359 b.

SCENE 2. Page 82.

STE. This _mooncalf_.

The best account of this fabulous substance may be found in Drayton's poem with that title.

SCENE 2. Page 83.

STE. I was the _man in the moon_.

This is a very old superstition founded, as Mr. Ritson has observed, on _Numbers_ xv. 32. See _Ancient songs_, p. 34. So far the tradition is still preserved among nurses and schoolboys; but how the culprit came to be imprisoned in the moon, has not yet been accounted for. It should seem that he had not merely gathered sticks on the sabbath, but that he had _stolen_ what he gathered, as appears from the following lines in Chaucer's _Testament of Creseid_, where the poet, describing the moon, informs us that she had

"On her brest a chorle painted ful even,
Bearing a bush of thorns on his backe,
Which for his _theft_ might clime no ner the heven."

We are to suppose that he was doomed to perpetual confinement in this planet, and precluded from every possibility of inhabiting the mansions of the just. With the Italians Cain appears to have been the offender, and he is alluded to in a very extraordinary manner by Dante in the twentieth canto of the _Inferno_, where the moon is described by the periphrasis _Caino e le spine_. One of the commentators on that poet says, that this alludes to the popular opinion of Cain loaded with the bundle of faggots, but how he procured them we are not informed. The Jews have some Talmudical story that Jacob is in the moon, and they believe that his face is visible. The natives of Ceylon, instead of a man, have placed a hare in the moon; and it is said to have got there in the following manner. Their great Deity Budha when a hermit on earth lost himself one day in a forest. After wandering about in great distress he met a hare, who thus addressed him: "It is in my power to extricate you from your difficulty; take the path on your right hand, and it will lead you out of the forest." "I am greatly obliged to you, Mr. Hare," said Budha, "but I am unfortunately very poor and very hungry, and have nothing to offer you in reward for your kindness." "If you are hungry," returned the hare, "I am again at your service; make a fire, kill me, roast me, and eat me." Budha made the fire, and the hare instantly jumped into it. Budha now exerted his miraculous powers, snatched the animal from the flames, and threw him into the moon, where he has ever since remained. This is from the information of a learned and intelligent French gentleman recently arrived from Ceylon, who adds that the Cingalese would often request of him to permit them to look for the hare through his telescope, and exclaim in raptures, that they saw it. It is remarkable that the Chinese represent the moon by a rabbit pounding rice in a mortar. Their mythological moon Jut-ho is figured by a beautiful young woman with a double sphere behind her head, and a rabbit at her feet. The period of this animal's gestation is thirty days; may it not therefore typify the moon's revolution round the earth?

SCENE 2. Page 86.

CAL. Nor _scrape-trenchering_, nor wash-dish.

_Scraping trenchers_ was likewise a scholastic employment at college, if we may believe the illiterate parson in the pleasant comedy of _Cornelianum dolium_, where speaking of his haughty treatment of the poor scholars whom he had distanced in getting possession of a fat living, he says, "Illi inquam, qui ut mihi narrârunt, quadras adipe illitas deglubere sunt coacti, quamdiu inter academicas ulnas manent, dapsili more à me nutriti sunt, saginati imò &c." It was the office too of apprentices. In _The life of a satirical puppy called Nim_, 1657, 12mo, a citizen describes how long "he bore the water tankard, _scrap't trenchers_, and made clean shoes."