Act I: Scene i
[p. 14] Armida. cf. Tasso’s La Gerusalemme Liberata, canto xiv, &c. Armida is called Corcereis owing to the beauty and wonder of her enchanted garden. Corcyra was the abode of King Alcinous, of whose court, parks and orchards a famous description is to be found in the seventh Odyssey. Martial (xiii, 37), speaks of ‘Corcyraei horti’, a proverbial phrase.
Act I: Scene ia
[p. 20] Mum budget. ‘Mum budget’, meaning ‘hush’, was originally the name of a children’s game which required silence, cf. Merry Wives of Windsor, v, IV: ‘I ... cried mum and she cried budget.’ cf. also the term ‘Whist’.
[p. 22] Beginning at Eight. The idea of this little speech is, of course, from Bonnecorse’s La Montre, Mrs. Behn’s translation of which will be found with an introduction in Vol. VI, p. 1.
[p. 22] the Bergere. cf. The Feign’d Curtezans (Vol. II, p. 346): ‘The hour of the Berjere’; and the note on that passage (p. 441). [ Cross-Reference: The Feign’d Curtezans]
Act II: Scene i
[p. 32] Ay and No Man. cf. Prologue to The False Count (Vol. III, p. 100): ‘By Yea and Nay’; and note on that passage (p. 480). [ Cross-Reference: The False Count]
Act III: Scene i
[p. 44] Within a Mile of an Oak. A proverbial saw. cf. D’Urfey’s Don Quixote (1696), III, Act v, I, where Teresa cries: ‘The Ass was lost yesterday, and Master Carasco tells us your Worship can tell within a mile of an Oak where he is.’