Illustrations of Shakspeare, and of Ancient Manners: / with Dissertations on the Clowns and Fools of Shakspeare; on a Collection of Popular Tales Entitled Gesta Romanorum; and on the English Morris dance.

by Francis Douce

ACT III.

Scene 1. Page 470.

Luc. ... for, but I be deceiv'd.

Mr. Malone has well explained this word as meaning unless, in which sense it is often used by Shakspeare. It is the Saxon buꞇon, nisi. Sometimes it was used with if, as "I wol breake thy heed but if thou get the hense;" from Terence's "Diminuam ego tibi caput, nisi abis," Udall's Floures from Latine, 1533, 12mo.

Scene 2. Page 487.

Pet. Go to the feast, revel and domineer.

So in Tarlton's Jests, "T. having been domineering very late at night with two of his friends." In these instances to domineer is to bluster.

Scene 2. Page 487.

Pet. She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,
My houshold stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing.

In the anonymous play of A knacke to knowe a knave, 1594, one of the old men says, "My house? why, 'tis my goods, my wyfe, my land, my horse, my ass, or any thing that is his." If Mr. Malone's conjecture respecting the date of The taming of the shrew be well founded, it is difficult to say whether Shakspeare is the borrower, in this instance, or not.