"The next VI. yere maketh foure and twenty
And fygured is to joly Apryll
The tyme of pleasures man hath moost plenty
Fresshe and lovyng his lustes to fulfyll."
Scene 4. Pages 364, 367.
Rom. Give me a torch——
I'll be a candle-holder, and look on.
Froissart, describing a dinner on Christmas day in the hall of the castle of Gaston Earl of Foix, at Ortern, in the year 1388, has these words: "At mydnyght when he came out of his chambre into the halle to supper, he had ever before hym twelve torches brennyng, borne by twelve varlettes standyng before his table all supper." In Rankin's Mirrour of monsters, 1587, 4to, is the following passage: "This maske thus ended, wyth visardes accordingly appointed, there were certain petty fellows ready, as the custome is, in maskes to carry torches, &c." In the Weiss kunig, being a collection of wood engravings representing the actions of Maximilian the First, there is a very curious exhibition of a masque before the emperor, in which the performers appear with their visards, and one of them holds a torch in his hand. There is another print on the same subject by Albert Durer. The practice of carrying torch lights at entertainments continued even after the time of Shakspeare. See a future note on Hamlet, Act III. Scene 2.
Scene 4. Page 368.
Mer. If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire.
There is no doubt that this is an allusion to some now forgotten sport or game, which gave rise to a proverbial expression, Dun is in the mire, used when a person was at a stand, or plunged into any difficulty. We find it as early as Chaucer's time in the Manciple's prologue:
"Ther gan our hoste to jape and to play,
And sayde; sires, what? Dun is in the mire."
How the above sport was practised we have still to learn. Dun is, no doubt, the name of a horse or an ass. There is an equivalent phrase, Nothing is bolder than blynde Bayard which falleth oft in the mire. See Dr. Bullein's dialogue between soarenesse and chirurgi, fo. 10; and there is also a proverb, As dull as Dun in the mire.
Scene 4. Page 376.