Chapter LXXIII: Act II: SCENE 3. Page 436

LADY PER. Of _basilisks_, of cannon, _culverin_.

In the note we are only told that "a _basilisk_ is a cannon of a particular kind." It is well known that there was a serpent so called, perhaps an imaginary one; and this animal with others of a like nature being sculptured on the ancient pieces of artillery, supplied them with the various appellations of _serpentines_, _culverines_, (from the French _couleuvre_,) _flying dragons_, &c. Of these the _basilisk_ was the largest. It was sometimes called a _double culverine_, and was much used about the middle of the sixteenth century, especially by the Turks. It must have been of a prodigious size, as it carried a ball of near two hundred pounds weight. Coryat mentions that he saw in the citadel of Milan "an exceeding huge basiliske which was so great that it would easily contayne the body of a very corpulent man."--_Crudities_, p. 104, quarto edition. Father Maffei, in his History of the Indies, relates that Badur, king of Cambay, had at the siege of Chitor four basilisks of so large a size that each was drawn by a hundred yoke of oxen, so that the ground trembled beneath them.

SCENE 3. Page 438.

LADY PER. In faith _I'll break thy little finger, Harry_.

This "token of amorous dalliance" is more particularly exemplified in an ancient song, entitled _Beware my lyttyl fynger_, reprinted by Mr. Ritson from Sir John Hawkins's History of music.

As the learned historian has not stated whence he procured this piece, it may be worth adding that it occurs in a small oblong quarto volume of songs with music, printed, according to appearance, by Wynkyn de Worde, in 1530; but as it varies in some instances from the reading in Sir John's work it is possible that he might have used some other authority.

SCENE 4. Page 442.

P. HEN. I am no proud Jack, like Falstaff; but a _Corinthian_, a
lad of mettle.

The celebrity of Lais, the Corinthian courtezan, is said to have occasioned the proverb cited in Mr. Steevens's note, because from the extravagance of the lady's demands _every one could not afford to go to Corinth_, which, says Taverner, in his _Proverbs or adagies of Erasmus_, 1569, 12mo, is of like sense with our English proverb, _Every man may not be a lord_. We are told by Strabo that the temple of Venus at Corinth was furnished with a thousand young girls who performed the rites of the goddess. In short, that city appears to have been so notorious for its luxury, that ancient writers are full of allusions on this subject. See particularly Aristophanes's _Plutus_, Act I. Scene 2, and Saint Paul's first epistle to the _Corinthians_, ch. v. verse 1. This may serve to explain why _wenchers_ were called _Corinthians_.

SCENE 4. Page 444.

FRAN. Anon, anon, sir.

This was the _coming, sir_, of the waiters in Shakspeare's time. In _Summer's last will and testament_, Harvest says, "Why, friend, I am no _tapster_ to say, _anon, anon, sir_."

SCENE 4. Page 461.

P. HEN. Thou _knotty-pated_ fool.

Although it certainly stands thus in the old copy, the word should be changed without scruple to _nott-pated_, _i. e._ polled or cropped. The prince had a little before bestowed the same epithet on the drawer. In this place it may refer to the practice of nicking or cropping naturals.

SCENE 4. Page 461.

FAL. What upon compulsion? No; were I at the _strappado_, or all
the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion.

As the _strappado_ has been elsewhere improperly defined "a chastisement by blows," under an idea that a strap was used on the occasion, it may be necessary to take further notice of it on this occasion. It _was_ a military punishment, by which the unfortunate sufferer was most inhumanly tortured in the following manner:--a rope being fastened under his arms, he was drawn up by a pulley to the top of a high beam, and then suddenly let down with a jerk. The consequence usually was a dislocation of the shoulder blade. Representations of this nefarious process may be seen in Breughel's print of _The punishments of the law_; in one of Gerini's fine _Views of Florence_, and in Callot's _Miseries of war_. The term is evidently taken from the Italian _strappare_, to pull or draw with violence. At Paris there was a spot called _l'estrapade_ in the fauxbourg St. Jaques, where soldiers received this punishment. The machine, whence the place took its name, remained fixed like a perpetual gallows.

SCENE 4. Page 468.

FAL. ... he of Wales, that gave _Amaimon_ the bastinado.

_Amaimon_, king of the East, was one of the _principal devils_ who might be bound or restrained from doing hurt from the third hour till noon, and from the ninth hour till evening. See Scot's _Discovery of witchcraft_, B. xv. ch. 3.