[255] [Unless it be the drama printed in 1604 under the title of the “Wit of a Woman.”]

[256] [Possibly a revival, with alterations, of Edwardes’ play.]

[257] There is no list of characters prefixed to the old 4to.

[258] i.e., Skelton, who is supposed by the author to have acted the part of Friar Tuck, and who, when first he comes on the stage, is without his gown and hood.

[259] [Old copy, Hurt.  The two are inside plotting together.  See infra.]

[260] [The Queen Mother.]

[261] Wight means active, or (sometimes) clever.  It may be matter of conjecture whether “white boy,” “white poet,” “white villain,” &c., so often found in old dramatists, have not this origin.

[262] It is very obvious that Much begins his answer at “Cry ye mercy, Master King,” but his name is omitted in the old 4to.

[263] The old copy adds here Exeunt, and a new scene is marked; but this is a mistake, as Robin Hood just afterwards converses with the Prior, Sir Doncaster, and Warman, without any new entrance on their part.  They retire to the back of the stage.

[264] Warman is not mentioned, but we find him on the stage just afterwards, and he probably enters with Robin Hood.  The entrance of Friar Tuck is also omitted.

[265] i.e., Winding his horn.

[266] The 4to, reads “Pity of mind, thine,” &c.

[267] See the last scene of the first part of this play.

[268] The 4to merely reads exit.

[269] “And yet more medicinal is it than that Moly
      That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave.” 
                                 —­Milton’s “Comus.”

There are several kinds of moly, and one of them distinguished among horticulturists as Homer’s moly.  Sir T. Brown thus quaintly renders two lines in the “Odyssey” relating to it—­

“The gods it Moly call whose root to dig away
Is dangerous unto man, but gods they all things may.”

[270] [Displeased.]

[271] [Old copy, whindling.  See Halliwell, v.  Whimlen.  There is also windilling; but the word is one of those terms of contempt used by early writers rather loosely.]

[272] These two lines are taken, with a slight change, from the ballad of “The Jolly Finder of Wakefield.”  See Ritson’s “Robin Hood,” ii. 16—­

    “In Wakefleld there lives a jolly pinder,
    In Wakefield all on a green,” &c.

[273] [Old copy, monuments.]

[274] Ritson ("Notes and Illustrations to Robin Hood,” i. 62) observes correctly that Fitzwater confounds one man with another, and that Harold Harefoot was the son and successor of Canute the Great.

[275] [Old copy, them.]

[276] “In a trice” is the usual expression.  See a variety of instances collected by Mr Todd in his Dictionary, but none of them have it “with a trice,” as in this place.  The old copy prints the ordinary abbreviation for with, which may have been misread by the printer. [With is no doubt wrong, and has been altered.]