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The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare
The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare Author:William Shakespeare Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ACT II. Scene I. Rochester. An Inn Yard. Enter a Carrier, with a lantern in his hand. 1 Carrier. ?EIGH ho! An't be not four by the day, I'll be ha... more »nged: Charles' wain1 is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not pack'd. What, ostler! Ost. [Within Anon, anon. 1 Car. I pr'ythee, Tom, beat Cut's saddle, put a few flocks in the point: the poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess2. Enter another Carrier. 2 Car. Peas and beans are as dank3 here as a dog, and that is the next way to give poor jades the bots4 : this house is turned upside down, since Robin ostler died. 1 Charles' wain was the vulgar name for the constellation called the great bear. It is a corruption of Chorles or Churl's wain. Chorl is frequently used for a countryman in old books, from the Saxon ceorl. 2 Out of all cess is out of al l measure. Excessively, prceter modum. To cess, or assess, was to number, muster, value, measure, or appraise. 3 As danh as a dog, i. e. wet, moist, and consequently mouldu. Mr. Dyce quotes a passage from Taylor's The World runs on Wheels, which shows how frequent such unmeaning comparisons were in use:—" But many pretty ridiculous aspersions are cast npon dogges, so that it would make a dogge laugh to heare and understand them. As I have heard a man say, I am as hot as a dogge, or as cold as a dogge, I sweat lite a dogge, (when a dogge never sweates) as drunke as a dogge; and one told a man once that his wife was not to be beleev'd, for she would lye like a dogge." 4 Bnts are worms; a disease to which horses are very subject. 1 Car. Poor fellow ! never joyed since the price of oats rose; it was the death of him. 2 Car. I think, this be the most villainous house in all London road for fleas: I am stung like a tench5. 1 Car. Like a te...« less