2. 2. 1 I haue no singular seruice, etc. I. e., This is the sort of thing I must become accustomed to, if I am to remain on earth.
2. 2. 49, 50 Though they take Master Fitz-dottrell, I am no such foule. Gifford points out that the punning allusion of foul to fowl is a play upon the word dottrel. ‘The dotterel (Fuller tells us) is avis γελοτοποιος a mirth-making bird, so ridiculously mimical, that he is easily caught, or rather catcheth himself by his over-active imitation. As the fowler stretcheth forth his arms and legs, stalking towards the bird, so the bird extendeth his legs and wings, approaching the fowler till he is surprised in the net.’—G.
This is what is alluded to in 4. 6. 42. The use of the metaphor is common. Gifford quotes Beaumont & Fletcher. Bonduca and Sea Voyage. Many examples are given in Nares and the NED., to which may be added Damon and Pithias, O. Pl. 4. 68; Nash, Wks. 3. 171; and Butler’s Character of a Fantastic (ed. Morley, p. 401): ‘He alters his gait with the times, and has not a motion of his body that (like a dottrel) he does not borrow from somebody else.’ Nares quotes Old Couple (O. Pl., 4th ed., 12. 41):
E. Our Dotterel then is caught? B. He is and just As Dotterels use to be: the lady first Advanc’d toward him, stretch’d forth her wing, and he Met her with all expressions.
It is uncertain whether the sense of ‘bird’ or ‘simpleton’ is the original. Dottrel seems to be connected with dote and dotard. The bird is a species of plover, and Cunningham says that ‘Selby ridicules the notion of its being more stupid than other birds.’ In Bart. Fair (Wks. 4. 445) we hear of the ‘sport call’d Dorring the Dotterel.’
2. 2. 51 Nor faire one. The dramatists were fond of punning on foul and fair. Cf. Bart. Fair passim.
2. 2. 77 a Nupson. Jonson uses the word again in Every Man in, Wks. 1. 111: ‘O that I were so happy as to light on a nupson now.’ In Lingua, 1607, (O. Pl., 4th ed., 9. 367, 458) both the forms nup and nupson are used. The etymology is uncertain. The Century Dictionary thinks nup may be a variety of nope. Gifford thinks it may be a corruption of Greek νηπ.
2. 2. 78 with my Master’s peace. ‘I. e. respectfully, reverently: a bad translation of cum pace domini.’—G.
2. 2. 81 a spic’d conscience. Used again in Sejanus, Wks. 3. 120, and New Inn, Wks. 5. 337.
2. 2. 90 The very forked top too. Another reference to the horned head of the cuckold. Cf. 1. 6. 179, 80.