Grasp'd arm in arm in thy adulterate bed,
Men call in witness of that mechall sin."
Old English Drama, vol. i. p. 71.
—where the editor's note is—"probably derived from the French word méchant, wicked." In his "English Traveller:"
"... Yet whore you may;
And that's no breach of any vow to heaven:
Pollute the nuptial bed with michall sin."
Dilke's Old English Plays, vol. i. p. 161.
This misprint the editor corrects to mickle: professing, however, as he well might, distrust of his amendment. Nares discards Dilke's guess, and says, "If a right reading, it must be derived from mich, truant, adulterous." Whereby to correct one error he commits another, assigning to mich a sense that it never bears. If haply any doubt should remain as to what the true reading in the above passage is, a reference to Heywood's Various History concerninge Women will at once assoil it. In that part of his fourth book which treats of adulteresses (p. 195.), reciting the very story on which his play was founded, and calling it "a moderne historie lately happening, and in mine owne knowledge," he continues his narrative thus:
"With this purpose, stealing, softly vp the stayres, and listening at the doore, before hee would presume to knocke, hee might heare a soft whispering, which sometimes growing lowder, hee might plainely distinguish two voyces (hers, and that gentleman's his supposed friend, whom the maide had before nominated), where hee might euidently vnderstand more than protestations passe betwixt them, namely, the mechall sinne itselfe."