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- 154 Notes [Act I
1 66. Marry trap. Johnson says : " When a man was caught in
his own stratagem, I suppose the exclamation of insult was marry,
trap ! " Nares remarks that it is " apparently a kind of proverbial
exclamation, as much as to say, * By Mary, you are caught ! ' . . .
but the phrase wants further illustration." No other instance of it
has been pointed out, and the meaning can be only guessed at.
Marry was originally a mode of swearing by the Virgin Mary, but
this had doubtless come to be forgotten in the time of S.
Nut-hook vfzs "a term of reproach for a catch-pole ^^ (Johnson).
Cf. 2 Hen. IV. v. 4. 8: "Nuthook, nuthook, you lie! " Steevens
makes if you run the nuthook' s hwnour on me = " if you say I am
a thief ; " that is, as a constable might.
172. Scarlet and John. "The names of two of Robin Hood's
men ; but the humour consists in the allusion to Bardolph's red
face'' (Warburton). Cf. the ballad of Robin Hood's Delight:-^
" But I will tell you of Will Scarlet,
Little John and Robin Hood."
177. Fap. A cant term for drunk. Some have attempted to
derive it from the Latin vappa, and have assumed that Slender
recognized it as Latin ; but the origin of the word is uncertain.
That Slender should take Bardolph's fantastic dialect for Latin is a
humorous touch which the dullest of critics ought to appreciate.
178. Conclusions passed the careers. This bit of boozy rhodo-
montade has been " Greek " to the commentators, as it was Latin
to Slender, and they have worried much over the interpretation of
it. Johnson says it "means that the common bounds of good behav-
iour are overpassed," which is very like Bardolph ! To pass the
career, according to Douce, was, like rtmning a career, a techni-
cal term for " galloping a horse violently backwards and forwards,
stopping him suddenly at the end of the career'' Malone and
Schmidt think that Bardolph means to say, " and so in the end he
reeled about like a horse passing a career." Clarke suggests that
the idea is, "and their words ran high, at full gallop." Slender did
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