“This Sompnour, waiting ever on his pray,
Rode forth to sompne a widewe, an olde ribibe.”
v. 6958. ed. Tyrwhitt,—
who says he cannot guess how this musical instrument came to be put for an old woman, “unless perhaps from its shrillness.” The word so applied occurs also in Jonson’s Devil is an Ass, act i. sc. 1, where Gifford observes, “Ribibe, together with its synonym rebeck, is merely a cant expression for an old woman. A ribibe, the reader knows, is a rude kind of fiddle, and the allusion is probably to the inharmonious nature of its sounds.” Works, v. 8.
v. 493. She halted of a kybe] i. e. She limped from a chap in the heel. The following remedy is seriously proposed in The Countrie Farme, and was no doubt applied by our ancestors: “For kibes on the heeles, make powder of old shooe soles burned, and of them with oile of roses annoint the kibes; or else lay vnto the kibes the rinde of a pomegranat boiled in wine.” p. 83. ed. 1600.
v. 496.
And fell so wyde open
That one myght se her token]
Compare The foure P. P. by Heywood;
“So was thys castell layd wyde open