them from offering any outrages: but this is nothing to your followers, you shall not run a penny more in arrearage for them, an you list, yourself. Sog. No! how should I keep 'em then? Car. Keep 'em! 'sblood, let them keep themselves, they are no sheep, are they? what! you shall come in houses, where plate, apparel, jewels, and divers other pretty commodities lie negligently scattered, and I would have those Mercuries follow me, I trow, should remember they had not their fingers for nothing.3 Sog. That's not so good, methinks. Car. Why, after you have kept them a fortnight, or so, and shew'd them enough to the world, you may turn them away, and keep no more but a boy, it's enough. Sog. Nay, my humour is not for boys, I'll keep men, an I keep any; and I'll give coats, that's my humour: but I lack a cullisen." 3 I would have those Mercuries follow me, I trow, should remember they had not their fingers for nothing.] Non ales famulos axeipovs et ob id axpelovs, mittantur huc et illuc, invenient aliquid: scis varias esse talium rerum occasiones.-Ergo famulos ale non segnes, aut etiam sanguine propinquos, qui alioqui forent alendi.-Reperient aliquid in diversosiis, aut in ædibus, incustoditum. Tenes? Meminerint non frustra datos homini digitos, &c. Eras. Id. * But I lack a cullisen.] No dictionary that I can find will help us to the meaning of this word; nor does the context lead us to discover it. WHAL. I had occasion to observe, in a note on Massinger, that dictionaries were but ill calculated to supply the kind of information here wanted, which must be sought in the colloquial language of contemporary poets. Happily, however, Jonson explains himself. In a subsequent scene, Carlo says, I come from Sogliardo but now, he is at the herald's office yonder; he requested me to go afore and take up a man or two for him in Paul's, against his cognizance was ready." Cognizance, or as Sogliardo ignorantly and corruptly terms it, cullisen, is the badge or mark of distinction which retainers, servants, &c. usually wore on the shoulder or sleeve of their coats, that it might be known to whom and what Car. Why, now you ride to the city, you may buy one; I'll bring you where you shall have your choice for money. Sog. Can you, sir? Car. O, ay: you shall have one take measure of you, and make you a coat of arms to fit you, of what fashion you will. Sog. By word of mouth, I thank you, signior: I'll be once a little prodigal in a humour, i'faith, and have a most prodigious coat. Mac. Torment and death! break head and brain at once, To be deliver'd of your fighting issue. Who can indure to see blind fortune dote thus ? This clod, a whoreson puck-fist!5 O G-! Car. [seeing Macilente.] Let him alone; some stray, some stray. Sog. Nay, I will examine him before I go, sure. Car. The lord of the soil has all wefts and strays here, has he not? Sog. Yes, sir. Car. Faith then I pity the poor fellow, he's fallen into a fool's hands. [Aside. Sog. Sirrah, who gave you a commission to lie in my lordship? they belonged. It should be recollected that the livery of servants at this time was, with few exceptions, of blue, so that some note of discrimination was absolutely necessary. Cullisen appears again in the Case is Altered, and in a way that clearly determines its sense: "But what badge shall we give, what cullisen?" A. iv. 5 This clod, a whoreson puck-fist!] A fungous excrescence of the mushroom kind, often used by our author to denote an insipid, insignificant fellow. WHAL. ACT I. › buy hoice Mac. Your lordship! Sog. How! my lordship? do you know me, sir? Car. He answers him like an echo. [Aside. re of Sog. Why, who am I, sir? what Mac. One of those that fortune favours. Car. The periphrasis of a fool." I'll observe this better. [Aside. Sog. That fortune favours! how mean you that, friend? Mac. I mean simply: that you are one that lives not by your wits. Sog. By my wits! no, sir, I scorn to live by my wits, I. I have better means, I tell thee, than to take such base courses, as to live by my wits. What, dost thou think I live by my wits? Mac. Methinks, jester, you should not relish this well. Car. Ha! does he know me? Mac. Though yours be the worst use a man can put his wit to, of thousands, to prostitute it at every tavern and ordinary; yet, methinks, you should have turn'd your broadside at this, and have been ready with an apology, able to sink this hulk of ignorance into the bottom and depth of his contempt. Car. Oh, 'tis Macilente! Signior, you are well encountered; how is it?-O, we must not regard what he says, man, a trout, a shallow fool, he has no more brain than a butterfly, a mere stuft suit; he looks like a musty bottle new wicker'd, his head's the cork, light, light! [Aside to Macilente.] -I am glad to see you so well return'd, signior. • The periphrasis of a fool.] According to the Latin adage, Fortuna favet fatuis. So in Wily Beguiled, "Sir, you may see that fortune is your friend, WHAL. Mac. You are! gramercy, good Janus. Sog. Is he one of your acquaintance? I love him the better for that. Car. Od's precious, come away, man, what do you mean? an you knew him as I do, you'd shun him as you would do the plague. Sog. Why, sir? Car. O, he's a black fellow,' take heed of him. Car. Both, both; a lean mungrel, he looks as if he were chop-fallen, with barking at other men's good fortunes: 'ware how you offend him; he carries oil and fire in his pen, will scald where it drops: his spirit is like powder, quick, violent; he'll blow a man up with a jest: I fear him worse than a rotten wall does the cannon; shake an hour after at the report. Away, come not near him. Sog. For God's sake let's be gone; an he be a scholar, you know I cannot abide him; I had as lieve see a cockatrice, specially as cockatrices go now.8 Car. What, you'll stay, signior? this gentleman Sogliardo, and I, are to visit the knight Puntarvolo, and from thence to the city; we shall meet there. [Exit with SOgliardo. Mac. Ay, when I cannot shun you, we will meet. 'Tis strange! of all the creatures I have seen, I envy not this Buffone, for indeed Neither his fortunes nor his parts deserve it : 70, he's a black fellow, &c.] Black is mischievous, malignant. It is from Horace : Hic niger est, hunc tu, Romane, caveto. WHAL. 8 I had as lieve see a cockatrice, specially as cockatrices go now.] A cockatrice, as every one knows, is a serpent, supposed to kill by the look; but Jonson plays on the cant meaning of the term, which I have already explained, p. 9. Or that brass-visaged monster Barbarism. Of the old lady Chance's! I'll observe him. Enter SORDIDO with an almanack in his hand. Sord. O rare! good, good, good, good, good! I thank my stars, I thank my stars for it. it. Mac. Said I not true? doth not his passion speak Out of my divination? O my senses, Why lose you not your powers, and become I know him, it is Sordido, the farmer, A boor, and brother to that swine was here. [Aside. Sord Excellent, excellent, excellent! as I would wish, as I would wish Mac. See how the strumpet fortune tickles him, And makes him swoon with laughter, O, O, O! Sord. Ha, ha, ha! I will not sow my grounds this year. Let me see, what harvest shall we have? June, Fuly Mac. What, is't a prognostication raps him so? I thank my stars, &c.] The folio edition of this play varies so little from the quarto, that I have not always thought it necessary to call the reader's attention to the very few unimportant changes made in the present text. Not to defraud Jonson of his due praise, however, it is proper to observe, that in this, as in the preceding play, he has omitted or softened many of the profane ejaculations which deformed the first copies. To shock or nauseate the reader, by bringing back what the author, upon better consideration, flung out of his text, though unfortunately not without example, is yet a species of gratuitous mischief, for which simple stupidity scarcely forms an adequate excuse. |