Page 297 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

222 NOTES 3.6.

fiend to glare at you' (K., after Cowden Clarke). S.D.
(Staunton) Q om.
2 5. Come o'er the burn.. .me From a song also qu oted,
K. notes, in Wager's The Longer thou Livest, the More
Fool Thou Art (c. 1559). burn (J.C.M. <Cap.
+Camb. 'bourn') Q 'broome*. Bessy App. poor
Tom's doxy.
26-8. S.D. (Camb.) £> om. Her boat...thee The
Fool invents indelicately: cf. Temp. 1. 1. 47.
29. The'foul'fiend'etc. 'Edg. pretends that the Fool's
singing is that of a fiend disguised as a nightingale'
(Muir). Harsnett, p. 225, mentions 'a nightingale'.
30. Hoppedance (Q) Harsnett's form is 'Hoberdi-
dance', or 'Haberdidance'. Q perh. corrupts Sh.'s
spelling, cries...croak nat ReflectsHarsnett, pp. 194-5,
'If they heard any croaking in her belly (a thing where-
unto many women are subject, especially when they are
fasting).. ;they said it was the deuill...that spake with
the voyce of a Toade.' [Muir, R.E.S. (1951), p. 19.]
31. Croak see G.
35. their evidence=th.e witnesses against them.
36. S.D. (Cap.) Qom. rabid (Pope) Q 'robbed*.
36-7. rob/d man of justice...equity Except here'Sh.
gives no hint that he knew of the existence of Courts of
Equity as distinguished from Courts of Law' (Sh. Eng. 1,
395). The Lord Chancellor presided at the one, the
Lord Chief Justice at the other. As this was a trial of
supreme importance in the mad King's eyes, he seems
to suppose the blanketed Bedlam as L.C.J. and his yoke-
fellow the Fool as L.C. 37. S.D. (Cap.) Qom.
38. Bench=take your seat as in the Court of King's
Bench. S.D. (Cap.) Q om. o'th'commission i.e. ap-
pointed under the Great Seal.
41-4. Steepest or zoakest etc. J. explains:
This seems to be a stanza of some pastoral song. A
shepherd is desired to pipe, and the request is enforced by