"Si non aurea sunt juvenum simulacra per ædeis
Lampadas igniferas manibus retinentia dextris,
Lumina nocturnis epulis ut suppeditentur."
The practice might originate in a supposed indelicacy of placing candlesticks on a table. Gregory of Tours relates a story of a French nobleman named Rauching, who disgraced himself by an act of wanton and excessive cruelty. When a servant held a candle before him at his supper, he made him uncover his legs, and drop the burning wax on them; if the man offered to move, the cruel master was ready with his sword to run him through; and the more the unfortunate sufferer lamented, the more his persecutor convulsed himself with savage laughter. Gregor. Turon. Hist. lib. v. cap. 3.
The favourite forms of these inanimate candle-holders were those of armed warriors. Sometimes they were hairy savages, a fool kneeling on one knee, &c.
Scene 4. Page 439.
Pist. Quality, call you me?—Construe me, art thou a gentleman?
The old copy reads qualitee, calmie custure me, and has been corrected or rather corrupted anew into its present form. The proposed reading of Mr. Malone deserves a decided preference, as founded on the ingenious conjecture that Pistol is quoting, as he has elsewhere done, the fragment of an old ballad. It is exceedingly probable that, whenever chance shall disclose this ballad, we shall find in it this whole line,
"Calen, o custure me, art thou a gentleman."
Calen may be some proper name; the ballad itself may be provincial, and custure the representative of construe. Nothing is more probable than that calmie should be a misprint of calen o.
Scene 4. Page 441.
Fr. Sol. ... ayez pitié de moy!