The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works (71 page)

517
.
lurcones or epulones
: Meaning unknown.

518
. ‘An incipient Wellerism' (H.).

519
. Shaking, trembling.

520
. Mocks and makes fun of.

521
. An allusion to the story in one of the spurious ‘lives' of Homer that he died when unable to solve a riddle concerning life.

522
. See Nashe's note in
Pierce Penniless
, p.
105
.

523
. Steps in dancing.

524
. ‘Fantastic devices' (M.).

525
. A reference to the story of one who, promising to use his influence with his master, took bribes; he was publicly asphyxiated as ‘they which sell smoke should so perish with smoke' (Greene's
Farewell to Folly
) (M.).

526
. Headiest, strongest.

527
. Dunkirk pirates.

528
. Vessel for boiling pitch, especially on board ship.

529
. ‘Good companions'.

530
. Good fellows.

531
. Quipping and scoffing.

532
. Stomach.

533
. Great reverence.

534
. Homeric.

535
. Alluding to martyrdom by broiling.

1
. Probably Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, Earl of Derby.

2
. Used very loosely, here meaning love-poem.

3
. The motivation of the poem is an artistic desire to broaden the scope of poetry.

4
. Good will.

5
. An incomplete manuscript text reads ‘the high degrees'.

6
. M. emends to ‘At Ale's', an ale-drinking festival.

7
. Young men acting in the Morality plays often referred to as still being performed at Manningtree, Essex.

8
. Freeholders.

9
. In great numbers.

10
. Saints' days.

11
. A street of low repute in Southwark.

12
. Fictitious names for severe, puritanical officers.

13
. Prostitutes.

14
. Fat, gross.

15
. Deposit.

16
. Certainly.

17
. Twisted.

18
. Have intercourse.

19
. Assess.

20
. Lumps.

21
. Count out.

22
. In spite of everything.

23
. Immediately.

24
. Hugs and embraces.

25
.
sweet
…
leave
: A textual variant is ‘limmem', possibly meaning ‘leman', or lover. ‘Be' should then read ‘by'.

26
. Blemish.

27
. Unknown.

28
. cf. ‘Yet like as if cold hemlock I had drunk, it mock'd me, hung lown the head, and sunk', Marlowe's translation of Ovid's
Elegies
,
6
,
13
–
14
.

29
. Clasp.

30
. Mad.

31
. Strike.

32
. Thrust.

33
. Easily.

34
. Suddenly.

35
. In Chaucer's
Clerk's Tale
; since then an emblem of long-suffering womankind.

36
. Pride.

37
. To whom Jove came in a shower of gold.

38
. Unknown.

39
.
Oh, death
…
asleep
: First line of song attributed to Anne Boleyn.

40
. (?) Over-bars.

41
. Moment.

42
. Dies.

43
. Upright

44
. Surging.

1
. A reference to corrupt ways of obtaining property.

2
. As the last resort after their period of depravity and dissipation.

3
. Fail, be in want

4
.
free
…
pains
: Liberally offered reward of hard work.

5
. Precocity, forwardness.

6
. Ignore.

1
. Gang.

2
. Scrivener.

3
. Verses recited before execution on the gallows.

4
. Probably
Seneca his Ten Tragedies translated into English
,
1581
.

5
. A much-debated reference, in that Thomas Kyd has probably been obliquely referred to as one of the ‘shifting companions' who rely on ‘English Seneca', and may therefore be regarded as the author of the old version of
Hamlet
. Hibbard's view is that the ‘puzzles in it [the Preface] may well be deliberate' and that the case is nonproven.

6
. ‘Time, the consumer of all things' (Seneca).

7
. Not in Aesop, but in the May Eclogue of Spenser's
Shepherd's Calendar
; (‘kid' probably a play on Kyd).

8
.
provenzal
…
articles
: Meaning unknown, though it would make sense if ‘neither… nor' became ‘either… or'.

9
. Apparently implying a stiff and stately walk (M.).

10
.
inner parts
…
French Dowdy
: Perhaps a reference to booksellers in St Paul's churchyard and lewd French literature to be bought there, (‘dowdy' sometimes meant slut or prostitute).

11
. d.
1568
, Cambridge scholar, zealous Protestant.

12
.
1490
?–
1546
, author of
The Book named the Governor
, a treatise on education,
1531
, and
The Castle of Health
,
1539
.

13
.A scham, Public Orator of the University,
1546
–
54
.

14
. Colony founded.

15
. ‘From a single consignmemt, there appeared on the public stage…'

16
. Professor of Greek at Cambridge,
1540
–
51
; Public Orator,
1544
–
6
.

1
.
1560
?–
92
, romancer (author of
Perimedes the Blaksmith
and
Menaphon
) and playwright (
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Alphonsus
and
A Looking-Glass for London and England
). See also Introduction, p.
26
.

2
. A reference to the legend that Kentishmen had tails, given as punishment for cutting off the tail of Thomas à Becket's horse.

3
. Coins, at times worth as much as fifty pence.

4
. Earl of Oxford (‘thou'=Harvey).

5
.
casting
…
world
: Attempting to get on in the world.

1
. Touch, make palpable.

2
. Controvert, gainsay.

3
. M. suggests followers of Pyrrho of Ells, said to have affirmed nothing in his philosophy.

4
. i.e. of years.

5
. Probably Puritan attacks on the Apocrypha (M.).

6
. Foreigners, from beyond the Alps.

7
. Terence,
Heautontimorutnenos
,
1
,
4
,
1
–
3
.

8
. Strong broths (eg. beef-tea).

9
. The ivy-bush was the vintners' sign.

10
. Ornamenting by cutting eyelet-holes, scalloping edges, etc.

11
. Thales of Miletus.

12
. Pleats, gatherings in skirt, etc.

13
. Frills.

14
. Fringes.

15
. Duelling ground, and resort of rough types and criminals.

16
.
closing in with
: Getting on good terms with.

17
. Peeled and polled, skinned and shaven.

1
. Didymus was a famous Greek scholar, b.
63
B.C.
Diomedes a Roman grammarian of the fourth century
A.D.
Cornelius Agrippa and Bodin are Nashe's probable authorities on their output.

2
. Bongrace, shield fixed to hat normally as sunshade; here perhaps as placard advertising name and offence.

3
. Cheating.

4
. Literally one who holds his estate in copyhold, here a punning reference presumably to scribes getting schoolboys to do their work.

5
. Flaunting (only use: NED).

6
. Writing ‘with great rounded curves' like the Greek letter (M.).

7
. ‘You are a boy, and want to be taught' (from Lily's
Short Introduction of Grammar
,
1577
).

8
. Syntax and prosody taught in the school books.

9
.
no barrel better herring
: It made no difference, (proverbial).

10
. A story in Scot's
Discovery of Witchcraft
,
1584
.

11
. Meaning unknown.

12
. Pawnbroker.

13
. Harvey was once expecting to go abroad, but there is no evidence that he did so.

14
. A reference to Harvey's poem
Speculum Tuscanismi
, generally seen as an attack on the Earl of Oxford.

15
. ‘That is'.

16
. Harvey describes the earthquake of
6
April in
Three Proper Letters
,
1580
.

17
. ‘The final goal of things' (Horace).

18
. Harvey's attack in
Pierce's Supererogation
on Lyly, supposed author of the anti-Puritan pamphlet
Pap with a Hatchet
.

19
. Musket.

20
. Pop-gun made with a hollow shoot of elder-wood (NED).

21
. Told (‘noised abroad').

22
. Swaggering.

23
.
Talatamtana
…
Hum
: Meaning unknown.

24
. Tricks.

25
. i.e. in
Strange News
(M., I,
276
).

26
. Finicking, over-refined.

27
. The supposed name of an eccentric hanger-on at the Court.

28
. Niceties of etiquette.

29
. Ninny (NED has earlier word ‘nodgecock' with same meaning).

30
. Probably the Earl of Leicester.

31
. Mood, humour.

32
. Furbishing, polishing up.

33
. Adorning.

34
. Dressing up.

35
. ‘After various hindrances'.

36
. ‘And so many troubles'

37
. Ceremonial kissing of hands.

38
. Giver of kisses; a reference to courtly terms in which civilities were exchanged.

39
. A beautiful boy in Ovid's
Metamorphoses
(X,
106
).

40
. From Harvey's
Gratulationes Valdinenses
.

41
.
what a stomach… him
: ‘How I wanted to have a go at him'.

42
. M. suggests should read ‘
non velit fac
' or ‘
non velle fac
' (‘assume that he won't').

43
. Blandishment.

44
. Go-betweens.

45
. Messengers.

46
. ‘Let it be noted'.

47
. Using the mortar and pestle.

48
.
Italian… seasoner
: Poisoner.

49
. Burnt.

50
. Dark, swarthy.

51
. Rancid.

52
. Hakluyt reports this of the Russians.

53
. Castiglione's
Il Cortegiano
, translated by Hoby,
1561
.

54
. ‘Must see it as the sad work of the North wind' (Ovid).

55
. ‘Figure of a man set up to be pelted' (NED).

56
. Neat, spruce.

57
. Old pensioners lodged at Windsor.

58
. Harvey was defeated by Anthony Wingfield, supported by Dr Andrew Perne, in his candidature for the appointment in
1579
.

59
. Advanced another instead of him.

60
. (?) Offal.

61
. Allusion to Harvey's enthusiasm for the hexameter line in English verse.

62
. A book was published in
1583
, advertised as a newly discovered work by Cicero; but there is no evidence for Harvey's authorship of it.

63
. In
De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium
,
1543
.

64
. Published
1593
.

65
. John Wolfe, the printer.

66
. Proverbially meaning ‘cash payment' (from the Psalm set for the twenty-fifth morning,
25
March being Quarter Day).

67
. Youth.

68
. Cheated.

69
. Trick for putting him off.

70
. Owed.

71
. Have for his Shrovetide feast.

72
. Possibly T. Scarlet, printer of
The Unfortunate Traveller
.

73
. Martha Harvey, widow of Gabriel's brother, John, after whose death (
1592
) she went to law in a dispute over the property.

74
. Going stale.

75
. Dissatisfied, angry.

76
. Well-stuffed.

77
. A kind of haggis.

78
.
raw-head and bloody-bones
: Proverbial names to frighten children.

79
. William Hacket, a visionary, proclaimed as Christ by supporters, and executed.