Line 32. (i) is here equivalent to id est. Lilly gives the examples of lines 52, 53 (in which the same abbreviation here occurs) with the words written in full.

Line 48. Repente.—A play on the meaning of the English and the form of the Latin word repente is clearly intended.

Line 70. "Denarii dicti, quod denos Æris valebant; quinarii, quod quinos" (Varro).

Line 93. Janus is frequently, though not invariably, represented in mythology as guardian of the entrance to heaven; in which capacity he holds in his right hand a staff, and in his left a key, symbolical of his office (Ovid, Fast. i. 125). The names of Jupiter and Janus were usually coupled in prayer, as the divinities whose aid it was necessary to invoke at the beginning of any undertaking. Jupiter gave by augury the requisite sanction; but it was the part of Janus to confer a blessing at the outset.

Line 111. Hippocrise.—A beverage composed of wine, with spices and sugar, strained through a cloth; said to have been named from Hippocrates' sleeve, the term given by apothecaries to a strainer (Halliwell). Line 111. Muskadine.—A well-known rich wine.

(MS. Rawl. C. 86.)

Though muscadell is the usual form (for instances see Furnivall, The Babees Book, p. 205), the spelling muscadine occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher's Loyal Subject, iii. 4.

Line 112. The Pierides pies.—The reference is not to the Muses themselves (sometimes called Pierides from Pieria, near Olympus), but to the nine daughters of Pierus, who for attempting to rival the Muses were changed into birds of the magpie kind. For a full account of the transformation see Ovid, Met. v. 670, etc. There is a play here on the double meaning of pie, namely a bird (Latin pica), and an article of food.

II.

Line 23.—Keele, to cool, from O. E. cÊlan, M. E. kelen. See Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2, 930—"While greasy Joan doth keel the pot." Usually, however, the verb bore the derived sense of "to keep from boiling over by stirring round." A Tour to the Caves, 1781, gives—"Keel, to keep the pot from boiling over." This is evidently the meaning which should be adopted here.

III.

Line 13. It is bootles, etc.—Puns on the different meanings of the word boot are very common in Elizabethan writers, and the relevant use of the one frequently entails the irrelevant introduction of the other. See, for example, Two Gentlemen of Verona, i. 1, 27, etc.:

And Every Man in his Humour, i. 3, 30, etc.:

"Brai. Why, you may ha' my master's gelding, to save your longing, sir.

Step. But I ha' no boots, that's the spite on't.

Brai. Why, a fine wisp of hay roll'd hard, Master Stephen.

Step. No, faith, it's no boot to follow him now."

"Give me not the boots" = "do not make a laughing-stock of me."

Line 48. Ioynd stooles.—The word joint-stool, meaning a seat made with joints, a folding-chair, is sometimes spelt join'd stool in old editions of Shakespeare. The porter's use of this form is probably intended to convey a jest; ioynd stooles is here equivalent to stooles joined to one another, and the term is used as a facetious synonym for bench.

IV.

Line 6. Oulde.—So MS., possibly for whole.

Line 19. A man & noe beast.—An inversion, probably intentional.

Line 22. Condole my tragedies.—Condole is here used in the now obsolete transitive sense, and is equivalent to bewail, grieve over, lament. See (in 1607) Hieron, Works, i. 179—"How tender-hearted the Lord is, and how he doth ... condole our miseries." Cf. also Pistol's use of the verb, Henry V. ii. 1, 133.

Line 24. Craues.—The substantive crave, = craving, is not in general use, but appears to be considered rather as a new formation than as an obsolete word. Thus the earliest of the three examples given in the N. E. D. dates from 1830—"His crave and his vanity so far deluded him" (Fraser's Magazine, i. 134). This is a clear instance of a previous use.

The sentence as it stands presents some difficulty, inasmuch as the porter has made in the course of his speech only two distinct petitions, namely that he may be forgiven "all delictes and crimes" (l. 10), and that his black staff may be restored to him (l. 18). Perhaps the delicate hint concerning "my ladye pecunia," coupled with the appeal to "the profunditye or abisse" of the President's liberality, is to be considered as constituting a third.