[ [133] Old ed. Pil.
[ [134] The origin of this boisterous exclamation is uncertain. Gifford suggested that it was corrupted from the Spanish rio, which is figuratively used for "a large quantity of liquor." Dyce quotes from the anonymous comedy, Look about you:—
"And Ryvo will he cry and Castile too."
[ [135] A corrupt passage. "Snickle" is a North-country word for "noose." Cunningham proposed "snickle hard and fast."
[ [136] Old ed. "incoomy." The word "incony" (which is found in Love's Labour's Lost, &c.) means "delicate, dainty." It has been doubtfully derived from the North-country "canny" or "conny" (in the sense of pretty), the prefix "in" having an intensive force.
[ [137] Dyce quotes from Sir John Mandeville:—
"And fast by is zit the tree of Eldre that Judas henge him self upon for despeyt that he hadde when he solde and betrayed our Lorde."—Voiage and Travell, &c., p. 112, ed. 1725.
"That Judas hanged himself," says Sir Thomas Browne, "much more that he perished thereby, we shall not raise a doubt. Although Jansenius, discoursing the point, produceth the testimony of Theophylact and Euthymius that he died not by the gallows but under a cart-wheel; and Baronius also delivereth, this was the opinion of the Greeks and derived as high as Papias one of the disciples of John. Although, also, how hardly the expression of Matthew is reconcileable unto that of Peter, and that he plainly hanged himself, with that, that falling headlong he burst asunder in the midst—with many other the learned Grotius plainly doth acknowledge."—Vulgar Errors, vii. 11.
[ [138] Old ed. "masty." Dyce "nasty."
[ [139] Old ed. "we."
[ [140] Scene: the Senate-house.
[ [141] We are to suppose that Barabas' body had been thrown "o'er the walls," according to the Governor's order. The scene is now changed from the Senate-house to the outside of the city.