"Given to the common enemy of man."
It is remarkable that the Devil should be likewise called the enemy of mankind in the East. See Gladwin's Persian moon-shee, part ii. p. 23.
Scene 4. Page 120.
Fab. Carry his water to the wise woman.
Here may be a direct allusion to one of the two ladies of this description mentioned in the following passage from Heywood's play of The wise woman of Hogsdon; "You have heard of Mother Notingham, who for her time was prettily well skill'd in casting of waters: and after her, Mother Bombye." The latter is sometimes alluded to by Gerarde the Herbalist, who, speaking of the properties of vervain, says, "you must observe mother Bumbies rules to take just so many knots or sprigs, and no more, least it fall out so that it do you no good, if you catch no harme by it." Historie of plants, p. 581.
Lilly's comedy of Mother Bombie is well known. The several occupations of these impostors are thus described in the above play by Heywood: "Let me see how many trades have I to live by: First, I am a wise-woman, and a fortuneteller, and under that I deale in physicke and forespeaking, in palmistry, and recovering of things lost. Next, I undertake to cure madd folkes. Then I keepe gentlewomen lodgers, to furnish such chambers as I let out by the night: Then I am provided for bringing young wenches to bed; and, for a need, you see I can play the match-maker. Shee that is but one, and professeth so many, may well be tearmed a wise-woman, if there bee any." Such another character was Julian of Brentford, mentioned in the Merry wives of Windsor. These persons were sometimes called cunning and looming women.
Scene 4. Page 121.
Sir To. Come, we'll have him in a dark room, and bound. My niece is already in the belief that he is mad.
The reason for putting Malvolio into a dark room was to make him believe that he was mad; for a madhouse seems formerly to have been called a dark-house. In the next act Malvolio says, "Good Sir Topas, do not think I am mad, they have laid me here in hideous darkness." And again, "I say this house is dark." In Act V. he asks, "Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd, kept in a dark-house?" In As you like it, Act III. Scene 1, Rosalind says that "love is a madness, and deserves as well a dark-house and a whip, as madmen do." Edward Blount, in the second dedication to his Hospitall of incurable fooles, 1600, 4to, a translation from the Italian, requests of the person whom he addresses to take on him the office of patron or treasurer to the hospital; and that if any desperate censurer shall stab him for assigning his office or place, he presently take him into the dark ward: and in the same work, certain idle fools are consigned to the darksome guesthouse of their madness.
Scene 4. Page 124.