Scene 2. Page 86.
Cal. Nor scrape-trenchering, nor wash-dish.
Scraping trenchers was likewise a scholastic employment at college, if we may believe the illiterate parson in the pleasant comedy of Cornelianum dolium, where speaking of his haughty treatment of the poor scholars whom he had distanced in getting possession of a fat living, he says, "Illi inquam, qui ut mihi narrârunt, quadras adipe illitas deglubere sunt coacti, quamdiu inter academicas ulnas manent, dapsili more à me nutriti sunt, saginati imò &c." It was the office too of apprentices. In The life of a satirical puppy called Nim, 1657, 12mo, a citizen describes how long "he bore the water tankard, scrap't trenchers, and made clean shoes."
ACT III.
Scene 1. Page 91.
Fer. This wooden slavery, than I would suffer.
The old copy reads than to suffer, which, however ungrammatical, is justly maintained by Mr. Malone to be Shakspeare's language, and ought therefore to be restored. Mr. Steevens objects on the score of defective metre: but this is not the case; the metre, however rugged, is certainly perfect.
Scene 1. Page 92.
Mira. I am your wife, if you will marry me;
If not, I'll die your maid: to be your fellow
You may deny me; but I'll be your servant
Whether you will or no.
Mr. Malone has cited a very apposite passage from Catullus, but Shakspeare had probably on this occasion the pathetic old poem of The nut-brown maid in his recollection.