Volume Iv Part 97 (2/2)
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.
<script>