[56] [An allusion to the romance entitled "The Mirror of Knighthood.">[
[57] She has just referred to the well-known work "The Mirror of Knighthood," and by Bevis she means Bevis of Hampton. Arundel was the name of his horse, and Morglay of his sword. Morglay is often used for a sword in general.
[58] In the old copy it is printed pinkanies, and from what follows it seems that the expression has reference to the redness of Sir Abraham's eyes from soreness. The following passage is to the same effect: "'Twould make a horse break his bridle to hear how the youth of the village will commend me: 'O the pretty little pinking nyes of Mopsa!' says one: 'O the fine fat lips of Mopsa!' says another."— Day's "Isle of Gulls," 1606, sig. D 4.
Shakespeare ("Antony and Cleopatra," act ii. sc. 7), speaks of "plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne;" and Lodge, in "The Wounds of Civil War," has pinky neyne, [vii. 167.] In both these instances drinking is supposed to have occasioned the redness.
[59] [See post.]
[60] The difficulty of concealing love has been the origin of a humorous proverb in Italian. In Pulci's "Morgante Maggiore," iv. 38, Rinaldo thus taunts the most sentimental of the Paladins, Oliver, when he becomes enamoured of Florisena—
"Vero è pur che l'uom non possa,
Celar per certo l'amore e la tossa."
[See Hazlitt's "Proverbs," 1869, p. 269.]
Franco Sacchetti, in his sixteenth novel, expressly tells us that it was a proverb. Perchè ben dice il proverbio, che l'amore e la tossa non si puo celare mai.
[61] The question