Page 289 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

214 NOTES 3.4.
Greg, Variants, pp. 165-7) = causes to squint. Cf. 4.6.
135. <Q (uncorr.) 'squeues' (corr.) 'squemes'. F
(+Camb.) 'squints'—prob. sophistication.
118. white see G. creature Collective=creatures.
120-4. S'Withold...thee! Ace. to Warb. 'A
popular charm against the Ephialtes', i.e. demons of the
nightmare. He adds that Bedlam beggars sold such
charms at 'wakes and fairs and market-towns' (3. 6.
73-4)-
120. S'Withold(R.C.B.) Q 'swithald' F ' Swithold'.
Various edd. read S. Withold', 'St. Withold', and
'
'Saint Withold', but the popular corruption should be
preserved. Tyrwhitt thought St Vitalis is meant. Here
the protector from nightmare; he is invoked in T.R.
Sc. xi, 6 (' Sweet S. Withold of thy lenitie defend us from
extremitie'), as a protector from calamity in general.
thrice Magical number. W</(Camb.)=woldQ,F'old'.
121. Nightmare Formerly supposed an incubus;
'mare' meaning orig. a kind of demon which caused bad
dreams by sitting upon a sleeper's chest, but often (as
perh. here) taken to be a demon female horse.
nine fold (Q, F) Poss.='nine imps or familiars*
(Cap.) see G. But Q is full of literal misprints at this
point, so that it may be a common error for 'nine foles',
i.e. nine foals (conj. Farmer)—viz. familiars of a spectral
horsey species.
122. Bid her alight S'Withold commands her to get
down off the unhappy sleeper's chest.
123. troth plight (Q+Camb.) F 'troth-plight,'
i.e. makes her promise 'to do no more mischief < Warb.,
who cites from the chapter on the Incubus or Mare
(Bk. iv, ch. xi) in Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584),
the following 'magical cure' for Nightmare, a close
parallel to Edg.'s:
S. George, S. George, our ladies knight
He walkt by daie, so did he by night: