Chapter LXXXI: Act V: SCENE 1. Page 207

SHAL. By _cock and pye_, sir, you shall not away to night.

This oath has been supposed to refer to the sacred name, and to that service book of the Romish church which in England, before the reformation, was denominated a _pie_; but it is improbable that a volume with which the common people would scarcely be acquainted, and exclusively intended for the use of the clergy, could have suggested a popular adjuration.

It will, no doubt, be recollected, that in the days of ancient chivalry it was the practice to make solemn vows or engagements for the performance of some considerable enterprise. This ceremony was usually performed during some grand feast or entertainment, at which a roasted peacock or pheasant, being served up by ladies in a dish of gold or silver, was thus presented to each knight, who then made the particular vow which he had chosen, with great solemnity. When this custom had fallen into disuse, the peacock nevertheless continued to be a favourite dish, and was introduced on the table in a _pie_, the head, with gilded beak, being proudly elevated above the crust, and the splendid tail expanded. Other birds of smaller value were introduced in the same manner, and the recollection of the old peacock vows might occasion the less serious, or even burlesque, imitation of swearing not only by the bird itself but also by the _pie_; and hence probably the oath _by cock and pie_, for the use of which no very old authority can be found. The vow to the peacock had even got into the mouths of such as had no pretensions to knighthood. Thus in _The merchant's second tale, or the history of Beryn_, the host is made to say,

"_I make a vowe to the pecock_ there shal wake a foul mist."

There is an alehouse sign of the _cock and magpie_, which seems a corruption of the _peacock pie_. Although the latter still preserved its genuine appellation of _the cock and pie_, the magic art of modern painters would not fail to produce a metamorphosis like that which we have witnessed on many other occasions.

SCENE 1. Page 211.

FAL. ... if to his men, I would _curry_ with Master Shallow----

_To curry_ is the same as to _curry favour_, to flatter, to please. _To curry_, in its genuine acceptation, is, as every one knows, to rub or dress leather, in French _courroyer_, from _cuir_; and in this sense it was applied to rubbing down a horse's hide, a process that conveys a sensation of pleasure to the animal. The rest of the phrase is corrupt, as will appear from the ancient orthography, which is, to curry _favel_. Thus in the old story _How a merchande dyd hys wyfe betray_, we have,

"There sche _currayed favell_ well;"

and in the prologue to _The merchant's tale of Beryn_, in Urry's Chaucer, p. 597,

"As though he had lerned _cury favel_ of some old frere."

Now the name of _Favel_ was anciently given to yellow-coloured horses, in like manner as _Bayard_, _Blanchard_, and _Lyard_ were to brown, white, or gray. One of Richard the First's horses was so called, as we learn from Robert of Brunne's _Chronicle_, p. 175:

"Sithen at Japhet [Jaffa] was slayn _fauvelle_ his stede,
The romance tellis grete pas ther of his douhty dede:"

and see Warton's _Hist. of Engl. poetry_, vol. i. p. 161. It must be obvious, therefore, that the phrase _to curry favel_ was a metaphorical expression adopted from the stable.

Puttenham informs us that moderation of words tending to flattery, or soothing, or excusing, is expressed by the figure _paradiastole_, "which therefore," says he, "nothing improperly we call _curry favell_, as when we make the best of a thing," &c.--_Arte of English poesie_, p. 154. There is likewise a proverb, "He that will in court dwell, must needes _currie fabel_;" the meaning of which was not well understood, even in the time of Elizabeth; for Taverner speaking of it says, "Ye shal understand that fabel is an olde Englishe worde, and signified as much as favour doth now a dayes."--_Proverbes or adagies gathered out of the Chiliades of Erasmus_, 1569, 18mo, fo. 44. Much about this time began the corruption from _favel_ to _favour_, of which an example may be seen in Forrest's translation of _Isocrates_, 1580, 4to, fo. 23.

It is necessary to add that _favel_ is also an old word that expresses _deceit_, from the French _favele_, fabula; and is so used by Skelton: but this will not invalidate the foregoing etymology. As to Skinner's derivation of _curry favour_ from the French _querir faveur_,--if an equivalent phrase had existed in the French language, it might at least have been plausible: but there is no instance of _cury_, or rather _curray_, the proper word, being used alone in the sense of _to seek_; nor does it appear from _ancient_ authority that _favel_ ever denoted _favour_.

SCENE 2. Page 217.

CH. JUST. And struck me in my very seat of justice.

In a note on this passage, the anachronism of continuing Gascoine chief justice in the reign of Henry the Fifth has been adverted to. The fault is properly to be ascribed to the author of the old play of _Henry the Fifth_, from which Shakspeare inadvertently adopted it.

SCENE 3. Page 229.

SIL. And dub me knight.

The following addition to the ceremony of dubbing topers knights _on their knees_ in Shakspeare's time, from a contemporary pamphlet, may not be unacceptable: "The divell will suffer no dissensions amongst them untill they have executed his wil in the deepest degree of drinking, and made their sacrifice unto him, and most commonly that is done _upon their knees being bare_. The prophaneness whereof is most lamentable and detestable, being duely considered by a Christian, to think that that member of the body which is appointed for the service of God is too often abused with the adoration of a harlot, or a base drunkard, as I myself have been (and to my griefe of conscience) may now say have in presence, yea and amongst others, been an actor in the business, when _upon our knees_, after healthes to many private punkes, a health have been drunke to all the whoores in the world."--Young's _England's bane_, or the _description of drunkennesse_, 1617, quarto.

SCENE 4. Page 238.

DOL. You _blue-bottle_ rogue.

This allusion to the dress of the beadle is further confirmed by the _two beadles in blew gownes_ who are introduced in the fourth act of the old play of _Promos and Cassandra_, which at the same time furnishes additional illustration of Mr. Steevens's remark on the strumpet's dress, as Polina is there exhibited doing penance in a _blue habit_.

SCENE 5. Page 241.

1. GROOM. More rushes, more rushes.

Dr. Bullein, who speaks much in general commendation of the rush for its utility, informs us, that "rushes that grow upon dry groundes be good to strew in halles, chambers and galleries, to walke upon, _defending apparell, as traynes of gownes and kertles from dust_. Rushes be olde courtiers, and when they be nothing worth, then they be cast out of the doores; so be many that do treade upon them."--_Bulwarke of defence_, 1579, fol. 21. The _length_ of the _kirtle_ is here ascertained, and Mr. Malone's account of it in this respect fully confirmed. See his note in Act II. Scene 4, of this play.

SCENE 5. Page 248.

CH. JUST. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet.

Every body will agree with Dr. Johnson in the impropriety of Falstaff's cruel and unnecessary commitment to prison. The king had already given him a fit admonition as to his future conduct, and banished him to a proper distance from the court. We must suppose therefore that the chief justice had far exceeded his royal master's commands on this occasion, or that the king had repented of his lenity. The latter circumstance would indeed augur but unfavourably of the sovereign's future regard to justice; for had he not himself been a partaker, and consequently an encourager, of Falstaff's excesses? On the stage this scene may very well be spared. The audience will be better pleased at the poor knight's retiring with his companions under the impression that the king's behaviour to him has been necessarily disguised. No one will wish to see him _punished_.

KING HENRY V.

Page 263.

CHORUS. O for a muse of fire, &c.

"This," says Dr. Warburton, "goes upon the notion of the Peripatetic system, which imagines several heavens, one above another; the last and highest of which was one of fire." We have here one of the very best specimens of the doctor's flights of fancy. Shakspeare, in all probability, knew nothing of the Peripatetic philosophy; he simply wishes for poetic fire, and a due portion of inventive genius. The other explanation by Dr. Johnson seems likewise too refined.

Page 264.

CHORUS. ... Can this cock-pit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O, the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?

Dr. Johnson has elsewhere remarked that Shakspeare was fully sensible of the absurdity of showing battles on the theatre, which, says he, is never done but tragedy becomes a farce. The whole of this chorus receives considerable illustration from a passage in Sir Philip Sidney's _Defence of poesie_, where, speaking of the inartificial management of time and place in the theatres of his time, he thus proceeds: "where you shall have Asia of the one side and Affricke of the other, and so many other under-kingdoms, that the player when he comes in, must ever begin with telling where hee is, or else the tale will not be conceived. Now shall you have three ladies walke to gather flowers, and then we must beleeve the stage to bee a garden. By and by we heare newes of shipwracke in the same place, then we are too blame if we accept it not for a rocke. Upon the backe of that comes out a hidious monster with fire and smoke, and then the miserable beholders are bound to take it for a cave: _while in the meane time two armies flie in, represented with foure swordes and bucklers, and then what hard hart will not receive it for a pitched field?_ Now of time they are much more liberal. For ordinarie it is that two young princes fall in love, and after many traverses she is got with child, delivered of a faire boy; he is lost, groweth a man, falleth in love, and is ready to get another child; and all this in two houres space: which how absurd it is in sence, even sence may imagine: and art hath taught, and all ancient examples justified, and at this day the ordinary players in Italie will not erre in." These remarks might with great propriety be applied to the play before us, to the _Winter's tale_, to _Pericles_, and some others of Shakspeare's dramas. In France, the contemporary playwrights were commonly more observant of the unities, though many charges to the contrary might be brought against them.