This spice was formerly held in very great repute, and especially among elderly persons. Sir Thomas Elyot in his Castle of health, 1580, 12mo, says, it comforts the head and stomach, and being green and well confectioned, quickens remembrance, if it be taken in a morning fasting. Henry Buttes, who wrote a whimsical book entitled Dyet's dry dinner, 1599, 12mo, speaks much in its praise, and says that being condite with honey it "warmes olde mens bellyes." In Ben Jonson's masque of The metamorphosed gipsies, a country wench laments the being robbed of "a dainty race of ginger;" and in the old play of The famous victories of Henry the fifth, a clown charges a thief with having "taken the great race of ginger, that bouncing Besse with the jolly buttocks should have had." In Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the burning pestle, the citizen's wife gives a man who had been soundly beaten some green ginger to comfort him. Ginger was used likewise to spice ale. In Lodge's Looking glasse for London and England, the clown says, "Ile tell you, sir, if you did taste of the ale, all Ninivie hath not such a cup of ale, it floures in the cup, sir, by my troth I spent eleven pence, besides three rases of ginger." The numerous virtues of this root are likewise detailed in Vennor's Via recta ad vitam longam.
Scene 3. Page 342.
Prov. One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate.
Some attempt to elucidate this name has been made in the first note to the Merchant of Venice, into which it is rather improperly introduced. Mr. Heath had supposed that Ragozine was put for Ragusan, i. e. a native of the city of Ragusa on the gulf of Venice, famous for its trading vessels; but it was incumbent on that gentleman to have shown that the inhabitants of the above city were pirates. This however would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible; for, on the contrary, Rycaut, in his State of the Ottoman empire, has expressly declared that the Ragusans never offered injury; but that, on receiving any, they very patiently supported it. Wherever Shakspeare met with the name of Ragozine, it should seem to be a metathesis of the French Argousin, or the Italian Argosino, i. e. an officer or lieutenant on board a galley; and, as Menage conjectures, a corruption of the Spanish Alguasil. See Carpentier, Suppl. ad gloss. Dufresne, under the word Argoisillo.
ACT V.
Scene 1. Page 358.
Isab. ... but let your reason serve
To make the truth appear, where it seems hid;
And hide the false, seems true.
The apparent difficulty in the last line proceeds from its elliptical construction; yet the meaning is sufficiently obvious. Isabella requests of the Duke to exert his reason to discover truth where it seems hid, and to suppress falsehood where it has the semblance of truth. Hide is, doubtless, a licentious word, but was used for the reason suggested by Mr. Malone.
Scene 1. Page 375.
Lucio. Show your sheep-biting face, and be hang'd an hour.