ACT V.
Scene 1. Page 567.
P. Hen. Of fickle changelings, and poor discontents,
Which gape and rub the elbow, at the news
Of hurly burly innovation.
The itching of the elbow, according to popular belief, denoted an approaching change of some kind or other.
Scene 4. Page 587.
Hot. ... and life time's fool.
Mr. Steevens could not very easily have supported his opinion, that the allusion here is to the fool in the ancient farces, or in the representations called the Dance of death; a character which has been altogether misconceived in the course of the annotations on Shakspeare. Dr. Johnson's interpretation is much more natural and intelligible, and the allusion is certainly to the common or domestic fool, who was retained for the express purpose of affording sport to his still more foolish employers. In this sense our author uses death's fool, fortune's fool, and fate's fool.
Scene 5. Page 589.
P. Hen. Embowel'd will I see thee by and by.
An ingenious commentator on Mr. Mason's supplement to Dr. Johnson's dictionary, (see the Monthly magazine, vol. xii. p. 299,) has disputed the usual sense of embowel'd in this speech, on the ground that the prince would not be guilty of such brutality as to see Falstaff eviscerated; and he therefore contends that the meaning is, put into the bowels of the earth. But surely the prince designs no more than that Falstaff's body shall be embalmed in the usual manner. When the knight rises, he exclaims, "if thou embowel me to day, I'll give you leave to powder me, and eat me to-morrow," evidently alluding to the practice of evisceration and subsequent treatment of a dead body by strewing aromatics over it for preservation. If the body were to be put into the bowels of the earth, as the commentator contends, Falstaff's "eat me to-morrow" would manifestly be an absurd expression. That the present writer may not be suspected of plagiarism on this occasion, he feels himself obliged to lay claim to the above opinion in answer to the commentator, as it appeared in the before-mentioned periodical publication.
But the following curious extract from the arraignment of Hugh Le Despenser, the favourite of Edward II., will set the question at rest for ever: "Hugh contraytour este trove, par quoy vous agardent touz lez bonez gentz de realme, meyndrez et greyndres, ryches et povrez par comun assent, que vous come larone estes trove, par quey vous serrez pendue. Et contreytour estez trove, par quey vous serrez treynez[15] et quarterecez, et envoye parmy le realme. Et pur ceo que vous fuistez utlage par nostre seignour le roy et par commune assent, et estez revenue en courte sanz garrant, vous serrez decollez. Et pur ceo que vous abbestatez et procurastez discorde entre nostre seignour le roy et la royne et lez altrez del realme, si serret enbouelleez, et puis ils serront ars. Retrayez vous traytour, tyrant reneyee, si alez vostre juyse prendre. Traytour malveys et attaynte." In English. "Hugh Le Despencer, you have been found an arch-traitor, for which cause all good people of the realm, great and small, rich and poor, by common consent, award you a convicted felon; therefore you shall be hanged. And forasmuch as you have been found a traitor, you shall be drawn and quartered, and [your limbs] dispersed throughout the kingdom. And having been outlawed by our lord the king, and by common assent, you have unwarrantably returned into court; and therefore you shall be beheaded. And because you have procured and abetted discord between our lord the king, and the queen, and others of the realm, you shall be embowelled, and [your bowels] afterwards burnt. Begone traitorous renegade tyrant, and await the execution of your sentence. Wicked and attainted traitor!"—Knighton, inter Historiæ Anglicanæ decem scriptores, col. 2549.
The author of Aulicus coquinariæ, 1650, speaking of the opening of King James the First's body, has these words: "The next day was solemnly appointed for imbowelling the corps, in the presence of some of the counsell, all the physicians, chirurgions, apothecaries, and the Palsgrave's physician."
We got this word from the old French eboeler, the orthography of which at once declares its meaning. With us it might perhaps be more properly written ebowel, if the ear were not likely to be offended by the change.
Foote has borrowed some hints from Falstaff's speeches, in his admirably drawn character of Mother Cole. Among others take the following:—"Now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give it over." He immediately changes his praying into pursetaking. See particularly the beginning of the third scene in the third act. Our English Aristophanes seems to have been likewise indebted to a story related in Lord Bacon's Apophthegms, of an old bawd who on her death-bed was interrogated by a customer whether a wench whom she had provided for him was in all respects as she had promised; to which she answered, that she was; and further left it to him to judge with what comfort and confidence she could expect to meet her Saviour, if she should leave the world with a lie in her mouth.