FOOTNOTES:
[98] I.e. of the audience as representing mankind.
[99] For use as a plural cf. l. 347 'besecheth,' 844 'ye doth.'
[100] The dispensers respectively of frost, sunshine, wind, and rain.
[101] placed on record.
[102] powers, not 'pores.'
[103] that which they have experienced.
[104] conclusion.
[105] I.e. some one in the audience.
[106] Said to one of the attendants.
[107] The phrase in alphabet-learning for a letter sounded by itself; cf. Wily Beguiled: "A per se A" (Hawkins' Origin of English Drama, 3: 357. Oxford: 1772).
[108] matters.
[109] frieze.
[110] sweeting, sweetheart.
[111] separated.
[112] impartial.
[113] out of good fellowship.
[114] the end.
[115] equivalent to stanza.
[116] clownish rascals.
[117] Louvain.
[118] In Herts.
[119] Perhaps one of the numerous Barfords.
[120] In Notts.
[121] In Essex.
[122] Tottenham.
[123] In Suffolk.
[124] Near Woolwich.
[125] Witham, in Essex.
[126] Bristol.
[127] Possibly Gravelye near Baldock.
[128] There is a parish of Buttsbury in Essex: 'ynge Gyngiang Jayberd' defies explanation.
[129] Have given notice to the petitioners to appear. The 'cry' is supposed to have been made outside.
[130] mastership.
[131] the audience.
[132] journeying.
[133] rouse the game.
[134] call off after a kill.
[135] avail.
[136] clyster, purge.
[137] parson.
[138] As the play was written before 1533, the clergy were still celibates, and this is only Mery-reporte's 'humour.'
[139] immediately.
[140] Explained by 'thynges wherof there is plente.'
[141] available.
[142] heard more, or others.
[143] in the same rightness.
[144] Scio (Chios).
[145] Purlieus are technically the woods adjacent to a royal forest; a chase is an unenclosed part.
[146] What on earth would it matter?
[147] dispensed with, missed.
[148] To give two pounds of wheat for grinding sixty-four.
[149] wheel.
[150] feeder of the mill.
[151] axletree.
[152] Jupiter's proclamation.
[153] making rejoice.
[154] too far at variance.
[155] given less freedom.
[156] the kingdom of saints.
[157] assembly.
[158] scatter, blow about.
[159] flying apart.
[160] murrain, plague.
[161] dispensed with.
[162] roundly, completely.
[163] the psalms appointed for the Hours of the Blessed Virgin.
[164] esteem.
[165] admit.
[166] hair-breadth.
[167] float.
[168] sent.
[169] moderate cool breezes.
[170] choir.
[171] Sic in all editions.
[172] of not sufficient advantage.
[173] Indistinguishable from trifles.
[174] off.
[175] The earliest reference to a dearth of corn in the reign of Henry VIII. which I can find in Holinshed is sub anno 1523, when he states that the price in London was 20 s. a quarter, but without assigning any cause. The reference here is, I think, clearly to the great rains of the autumn of 1527 and April and May, 1528, of which Holinshed writes that they "caused great floods and did much harme namelie in corne, so that the next yeare [1528?] it failed within the realme and great dearth ensued."
[176] one.
[177] preliminary.
[178] moderate, adjust.
[179] morass.
[180] stands still.
[181] the flat fixed stone (or bed stone) over which the turning stone, or runner, moved.
[182] reviling.
[183] decayed.
[184] be leaky; misprinted belyke by Kitson.
[185] or jet (l. 835), strut.
[186] parrot.
[187] simpletons.
[188] Jesus.
[189] trim.
[190] smart.
[191] guess.
[192] Mlle. Simper de Coquette.
[193] communicate.
[194] wanton.
[195] Cf. note on Roister Doister, I. iv. 12. Merygreeke: "But with whome is he nowe so sadly roundyng yonder?" Dougerie: "With Nobs nicebecetur miserere fonde." Explained by Flügel as a contraction of Nescio quid dicitur = Mistress 'What's-her-name.' Gen. Ed.
[196] At regard, i.e. as the object of.
[197] perils.
[198] sweeter.
[199] fetch.
[200] thee.
[201] In The Play of Love, Heywood writes of "bybbyll babbyll, clytter clatter."
[202] hospital, lazar-house.
[203] rubbing.
[204] casualties, chance perquisites.
[205] swing to and fro with your heels before the sheriff, as a censer is swung by a thurifer.
[206] made arrangements.
[207] once.
[208] Cardinal Wolsey suggests himself as the person most likely to be thus referred to, but if the reference of l. 636 is to the excessive rain of 1527-28, Wolsey's disgrace followed it rather too closely for the phrase "within this seven yere."
[209] Rastell ed., 'whose.'
[210] provided.
[211] Usually a mere exclamation, but here apparently as if from non, not.
[212] bargained for.
[213] assemblage.
[214] oyez, hearken.
[215] likely.
[216] foolish.
[217] plunder.
[218] Cf. l. 590, "meane cooles."
[219] reached.
[220] pressed, have hastened.
[221] in order.
[222] use.
[223] whole.
[224] solely.
[225] wholly.
[226] St. John's copy ends.
JOHAN JOHAN
Previous Editions and the Present Text.—An edition of "A Mery Play between Johan Johan, the Husbande, Tyb, his Wyfe and Syr Jhan, the Preest, attributed to John Heywood 1533,"[227] was printed at the Chiswick Press by C[harles] Whittingham "from an unique copy in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford," some time in the first half of the present century.[228] The anonymous editor prefaces it with the following brief "advertisement":—
"This is one of the six Plays attributed by our dramatic biographers to John Heywood, author of The Four P's (contained in Dodsley's collection), of 'the Spider and Flie,' and of some other poems, an account of which may be found in the Third Volume of Warton's History of English Poetry. No copy of this Mery Play appears to exist except that in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, from which this is a faithful reprint. Exclusive of its antiquity and rarity, it is valuable as affording a specimen of the earliest and rudest form of our Comedy (for the Poem is shorter, & the number of the Dramatis Personæ yet fewer than those of the Four P's) & of the liberty with which even the Roman Catholic authors of that age felt themselves authorized to treat the established priesthood."
The Ashmolean copy (now in the Bodleian Library) can no longer be reckoned unique, another copy having been discovered in the Pepys collection at Magdalene College, Cambridge. This copy has been used in correcting the Chiswick Press text, and it may be as well to mention that the following changes, besides a good many minor ones, have been made on its authority, and are not surreptitious emendations of the present editor.
l. 4, myche for muche; l. 27, Whan for Whyn; l. 31, thwak for twak; l. 89, enrage for engage; l. 94, But for Thou; l. 121, thou for you; l. 129, lyk for syk; l. 132, to go for go; l. 137, fare for face; l. 305, waxe for ware; l. 335, for I for I; l. 471, Ye for le; l. 497, mych for much; l. 540, beyond for beand; l. 542, a bevy for bevy; l. 552, beyond for beyand; l. 581, v for ix; l. 604, I am for am I.
In the apportionment of ll. 240-266 between the two speakers, my predecessor, like myself, though not in the same manner, has departed from Rastell's (clearly erroneous) arrangement of the speeches, but his dislike of footnotes has caused him to omit any mention of the fact. The title-page is a representation, not a facsimile. There is no running head-line in the original.
Alfred W. Pollard.