The Works of Aphra Behn Volume Iv Part 97

p. 233 _they bear the Bob._ i.e. They join in the chorus or refrain.

+ACT I: Scene iii+

p. 240 _shoveing the Tumbler._ 'Thieves' cant for being whipped at the cart's tail.' --(Grose). Tumbler, perhaps = tumbril.

p. 240 _lifting._ Filching. This slang term is very old and common.

p. 240 _filing the Cly._ 'Thieves' cant for picking a pocket.'

--(Grose). 'Cly,' a pocket.

p. 240 _Regalio._ An obsolete and, indeed, erroneous form of 'regalo', an elegant repast; choice food or drink. The word is very common, and the spelling, 'Regalio', is frequent in the second half of the seventeenth century.

+ACT II: Scene i+

p. 246 _Anticks._ Quaint fantastic measures. A favourite word with Mrs. Behn.

p. 248 _to knip._ To clip. (Dutch 'knippen', to cut, snip.) _N.E.D._ neglecting this pa.s.sage, only gives the meaning as to bite or crop (gra.s.s) of cattle. It appends two quotations having this sense--the one from Dunbar's _Poems_ (1500-20), the second from Douglas, _Aeneis_ (1513).

+ACT II: Scene ii+

p. 252 _Mundungus._ s.h.a.g, or rank tobacco. cf. Sir R. Howard, _The Committee_ (folio, 1665), ii: 'A Pipe of the worst Mundungus.'

Shadwell, _The Humourists_ (1671), iii, speaks with contempt of 'bottle ale ... and a pipe of Mundungus.' Johnson in his _Dictionary_ (1755) has: 'Mundungus. Stinking tobacco. A cant word.'

+ACT II: Scene iv+

p. 261 _a Bob._ cf. Prologue, _The False Count_ (Vol. III, p. 100), 'dry bobs,' and note on that pa.s.sage, pp. 479-80.

p. 263 _barbicu._ Better 'barbecu'. An Americanism meaning to broil over live coals. Beverley, _Virginia_, III, xii (1705), thus explains it: 'Broyling ... at some distance above the live coals [the Indians]

& we from them call Barbecuing.' cf. Pope, _Imitations of Horace_, Sat. ii, 25, 26:--

_Oldfield_ with more than Harpy throat endued Cries, 'Send me, G.o.ds, a whole hog barbecued!'

+ACT III: Scene i+

p. 264 _De-Wit._ 'To De-Wit' = to lynch. The word often occurs; it is derived from the deaths of John and Cornelius De Wit, opponents of William III (when stadt-holder). They were murdered by a mob in 1672.

cf. 'to G.o.dfrey' = to strangle, from the alleged murder of Sir Edmond Bury G.o.dfrey[1] in 1678. Crowne, _Sir Courtly Nice_ (1685), II, ii, has: 'Don't throttle me, don't _G.o.dfrey_ me.' The _N.E.D._ fails to include 'to G.o.dfrey'.

[Footnote 1: It is now pretty certainly established that this melancholist committed suicide.]

p. 265 _Dalton's Country-Justice._ A well-known work by the celebrated lawyer Michael Dalton (1554-1620). It was long held in great repute and regarded as supremely authoritative. On a page of advertis.e.m.e.nts (Some Books printed this Year 1677. For _John Amery_, at the _Peac.o.c.k_, against St. _Dunstan's Church_ in _Fleet-street_) in the _Rover I_ (4to 1677), occurs '_The Country Justice_, Containing the practice of the Justices of the Peace, in and out of their Sessions, with an Abridgment of all Statutes relating thereunto to this present Year 1677. By _Michael Dalton_ Esq; _Fol._ price bound 12s.' cf. _The Plain Dealer_ (4to 1676), III, i:

_Widow Blackacre._ Let's see Dalton, Hughs, Shepherd, Wingate.

_Bookseller's Boy._ We have no law books.

p. 266 _a Cagg._ Now corrupted to 'Keg', a small cask. cf. _Cotgrave_ (1611), 'Encacquer' to put in to a little barrell or cag. _N.E.D._ quotes this present pa.s.sage.

+ACT IV: Scene i+

p. 279 _Agah Yerkin._ The various dictionaries and vocabularies of the Indian languages I have had resource to give none of these words.

There is, however, so great a confusion of Indian jargons and dialects that they cannot be p.r.o.nounced fict.i.tious. Yet Mrs. Behn would hardly, even if she had learned the language, have retained any exact knowledge of such barbaric tongues, and one may almost certainly say that these cries and incantations are her own composition. Amongst other authorities I have consulted _The Voyage of Robert Dudley ...

to the West Indies_, 1594-5, edited by G. F. Warner for the Hakluyt Society (1889). Dr. Brinton's _Arawack Language of Guiana_, an exhaustive monograph, (Philadelphia, 1871.) M. M. Crevaux, Sagot, L. Adam, _Grammaires et Vocabulaires roucouyenne, arrouague, piapoco, et d'autres Langues de la Region des Guyanes_ (Paris, 1882). _Relation des Missions ... dans les Isles et dans la terre ferme de l'Amerique Meridionale ... avec une introduction a la langue des Gabilis Sauvages_ (Paris, 1655), by Father Pierre Pelleprat, S.J.

p. 279 _Quiocto._ Mrs. Behn probably meant to spell this word 'Quiyoughcto', the sound being identical. There is in Virginia a river which in the seventeenth century was called the 'Quiyough'.

The inhabitants of the banks of this river had mysterious or supernatural properties ascribed to them. _In the Voyages & Discoveries of Capt. John Smith_ (1606), we have: 'They thinke that their Werowanees and Priests, which they also esteeme Quiyoughcosughes, when they are dead, doe goe beyond the mountaines towards the setting of the sun.' No doubt Mrs. Behn knew this pa.s.sage. I owe the above interesting note to the kindness of my friend Mr. Gosse.

+ACT IV: Scene ii+

p. 284 _Cadees._ The original form of 'cadets' from the French p.r.o.nunciation. _N.E.D._ cites this pa.s.sage as the earliest occurence of the word.

+ACT V: Scene i+

p. 293 _Cadeeing._ The verb 'to cadee' is only found here and may be a nonce phrase. _N.E.D._ does not include it.

p. 293 _to top Tobacco._ i.e. to cultivate our tobacco plantations.

p. 295 _Flambeaux._ Mrs. Behn (or, haply, George Jenkins, the first editor of _The Widow Ranter_), here uses the ordinary form 'flambeaux'

as a plural. In _The Emperor of the Moon_ (Vol. III, p. 418), she writes 'a Flambeaux'. In addition to the example from Herbert which I give in my note (Vol. III, p. 475), I find a plural 'Flambeaux's' used by Mrs. Manley. cf. _Secret Memoirs & Manners of Several Persons of Quality of Both s.e.xes from the New Atalantis_ (1709, the Second Edition), Vol. I, p. 88: 'She but thinks of an expensive Funeral, white Flambeaux's, Chariots, Horses, Streamers, and a Train of Mourners.'

+ACT V: Scene iii+

p. 302 _Starters._ i.e. cowards. cf. _The Double Marriage_ (Fletcher and Ma.s.singer, folio 1647), II, i:--

_Master._ We'll spare her our main-top-sail; She shall not look us long, we are no starters.

Down with the fore-sail too! we'll spoom before her.

cf. also _The Lucky Chance_, I, i: 'I am no Starter.' (Vol. III, p. 193), and note on that pa.s.sage, p. 485.

p. 302 _rubbing off._ Very common slang still in use for 'making off', 'clearing out', cf. Shadwell's _The Virtuoso_ (1676), Act V, sc. iii, the Masquerade, where Sir Samuel Harty says: 'Who held my sword while I danc'd? ... A curse on him! he's rubb'd off with it!'

p. 303 _Dullman and Timorous._ No entrance has been marked for these two characters, and I have not ventured to insert one owing to the fact that this fifth Act has been so cut (e.g. the omission of the Indian King's ghost, as noted by Jenkins in the Dedication) and mutilated that it would be perilous to make any insertion or alteration here as the copy now stands. We may suppose these two coward justices to have rushed on in one of the many melees.

+ACT V: Scene iv+

p. 304 _Hannibal._ Hannibal, when betrayed by Prusias, King of Bithynia, at whose court he had taken refuge, poisoned himself rather than fall into the hands of the Romans.

+Epilogue+

p. 309 _Epilogue._ This Epilogue is, it will be noted, almost precisely the same as the Prologue to _Abdelazer_. In line 32 we have 'Ba.s.set' in place of the obsolescent game, 'Beasts' (d.a.m.n'd Beasts).

Ba.s.set, which resembled Faro, was first played at Venice. cf. Evelyn's _Diary_, 1645 (Ascension Week at Venice): 'We went to the Chetto de San Felice, to see the n.o.blemen and their ladies at ba.s.set, a game at cards which is much used.' It became immensely popular in England.

Evelyn, in his famous description of 'the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming, and all dissoluteness' on the Sunday se'nnight before the death of Charles II, specially noted that 'about twenty of the great courtiers and other dissolute persons were at Ba.s.set round a large table, a bank of at least 2000 in gold before them.'

Cross-References from Critical Notes: _The Widow Ranter_

p. 261 _a Bob._ cf. Prologue, _The False Count_ (Vol. III, p. 100), 'dry bobs,' and note on that pa.s.sage, pp. 479-80.