Folk-lore of Shakespeare by Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer (year 2 reading books .txt) đź“–
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See-Saw. Another name for this childish sport is that given by Falstaff in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4), where he calls it “riding the wild mare.” Gay thus describes this well-known game:
And myself pois’d against the tott’ring maid;
High leap’d the plank, adown Buxonia fell.”
Shove-Groat. The object of this game was to shake or push pieces of money on a board to reach certain marks. It is alluded to in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4), where Falstaff says: “Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling;” or, in other words, Bardolph was to quoit Pistol down-stairs as quickly as the smooth shilling—the shove-groat—flies along the board. In a statute of 33 Henry VIII., shove-groat is called a new game, and was probably originally played with the silver groat. The broad shilling of Edward VI. came afterwards to be used in this game, which was, no doubt, the same as shovel-board, with the exception that the latter was on a larger scale. Master Slender, in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (i. 1), had his pocket picked of “two Edward shovel-boards, that cost me two shilling and two pence a-piece.” Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, in describing the game in his “Archaic Dictionary,” says that “a shilling or other smooth coin was placed on the extreme edge of the shovel-board, and propelled towards a mark by a smart stroke with the palm of the hand.” It is mentioned under various names, according to the coin employed, as shove-groat,[816] etc. The game of shove-halfpenny is mentioned in the Times of April 25, 1845, as then played by the lower orders. According to Strutt, it “was analogous to the modern pastime called Justice Jervis, or Jarvis, which is confined to common pot-houses.”
Snowballs. These are alluded to in “Pericles” (iv. 6), and in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (iii. 5).
Span-counter. In this boyish game one throws a counter, or piece of money, which the other wins, if he can throw another so as to hit it, or lie within a span of it. In “2 Henry VI.” (iv. 2), Cade says: “Tell the king from me, that, for his father’s sake, Henry the Fifth, in whose time boys went to span-counter for French crowns, I am content he shall reign.” It is called in France “tapper;” and in Swift’s time was played with farthings, as he calls it “span-farthing.”[817]
Stool-ball. This game, alluded to in the “Two Noble Kinsmen” (v. 2), was formerly popular among young women, and occasionally was played by persons of both sexes indiscriminately, as the following lines, from a song written by Durfey for his play of “Don Quixote,” acted at Dorset Gardens, in 1694, show:[818]
All the lads and lasses met to be merry;
A match for kisses at stool-ball to play,
And for cakes, and ale, and sider, and perry.
Strutt informs us that this game, as played in the north, “consists in simply setting a stool upon the ground, and one of the players takes his place before it, while his antagonist, standing at a distance, tosses a ball with the intention of striking the stool; and this is the business of the former to prevent by beating it away with the hand, reckoning one to the game for every stroke of the ball; if, on the contrary, it should be missed by the hand and touch the stool, the players change places. The conqueror is he who strikes the ball most times before it touches the stool.”
Tennis. According to a story told by the old annalists, one of the most interesting historical events in connection with this game happened when Henry V. was meditating war against France. “The Dolphin,” says Hall in his “Chronicle,” “thynkyng King Henry to be given still to such plaies and lyght folies as he exercised and used before the tyme that he was exalted to the Croune, sent to hym a tunne of tennis balles to plaie with, as who saied that he had better skill of tennis than of warre.” On the foundation of this incident, as told by Holinshed, Shakespeare has constructed his fine scene of the French Ambassadors’ audience in “Henry V.” (i. 2). As soon as the first Ambassador has given the Dauphin’s message and insulting gift, the English king speaks thus:
His present and your pains we thank you for:
When we have match’d our rackets to these balls,
We will, in France, by God’s grace, play a set
Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.
Tell him, he hath made a match with such a wrangler
That all the courts of France will be disturb’d
With chases.”
In “Hamlet” (ii. 1), Polonius speaks of this pastime, and alludes to “falling out at tennis.” In the sixteenth century tennis-courts were common in England, and the establishment of such places was countenanced by the example of royalty. It is evident that Henry VII. was a tennis-player. In a MS. register of his expenditures, made in the thirteenth year of his reign, this entry occurs: “Item, for the king’s loss at tennis, twelvepence; for the loss of balls, threepence.” Stow, in his “Survey of London,” tells us that among the additions that King Henry VIII. made to Whitehall, were “divers fair tennis-courts, bowling-allies, and a cock-pit.” Charles II. frequently diverted himself with playing at tennis, and had a particular kind of dress made for that purpose. Pericles, when he is shipwrecked and cast upon the coast of Pentapolis, addresses himself and the three fishermen whom he chances to meet thus (“Pericles,” ii. 1):
In that vast tennis-court, have made the ball
For them to play upon, entreats you pity him.”
In “Much Ado About Nothing” (iii. 2), Claudio, referring to Benedick, says: “the old ornament of his cheek hath already stuffed tennis-balls;”[819] and in “Henry V.” (iii. 7), the Dauphin says his horse “bounds from the earth as if his entrails were hairs.” Again, “bandy” was originally a term at tennis, to which Juliet refers in “Romeo and Juliet” (ii. 5), when speaking of her Nurse:
She’d be as swift in motion as a ball;
My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
And his to me.”
Also, King Lear (i. 4) says to Oswald: “Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?”
Tick-tack. This was a sort of backgammon, and is alluded to by Lucio in “Measure for Measure” (i. 2) who, referring to Claudio’s unpleasant predicament, says: “I would be sorry should be thus foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack.” In Weaver’s “Lusty Juventus,” Hipocrisye, seeing Lusty Juventus kiss Abhominable Lyuing, says:
Smicke smacke, and all thys gere!
You well [will] to tycke take, I fere,
If thou had tyme.”[820]
“Jouer au tric-trac” is used, too, in France in a wanton sense.
Tray-trip. This was probably a game at cards, played with dice as well as with cards, the success in which chiefly depended upon the throwing of treys. Thus, in a satire called “Machivell’s Dog” (1617):
To passage, treitrippe, hazarde, or mumchance.”
In “Twelfth Night” (ii. 5). Sir Toby Belch asks: “Shall I play my freedom at tray-trip, and become thy bond-slave?” It may be remembered, too, that in “The Scornful Lady” of Beaumont and Fletcher (ii. 1), the Chaplain complains that the Butler had broken his head, and being asked the reason, says, for
Some are of opinion that it resembled the game of hopscotch, or Scotch-hop; but this, says Nares,[821] “seems to rest merely upon unauthorized conjecture.”
Troll-my-dame. The game of Troll-madam, still familiar as Bagatelle, was borrowed from the French (Trou-madame). One of its names was Pigeon-holes, because played on a board, at one end of which were a number of arches, like pigeon-holes, into which small balls had to be bowled. In “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 2), it is mentioned by Autolycus, who, in answer to the Clown, says that the manner of fellow that robbed him was one that he had “known to go about with troll-my-dames.” Cotgrave declares it as “the game called Trunkes, or the Hole.”
Trump. This was probably the triumfo of the Italians, and the triomphe of the French—being perhaps of equal antiquity in England with primero. At the latter end of the sixteenth century it was very common among the inferior classes. There is, no doubt, a particular allusion to this game in “Antony and Cleopatra” (iv. 14), where Antony says:
Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine;
Which, whilst it was mine, had annex’d unto’t
A million more, now lost—she, Eros, has
Pack’d cards with Cæsar, and false-play’d my glory
Unto an enemy’s triumph.”
The poet meant to say, that Cleopatra, by collusion, played the great game they were engaged in falsely, so as to sacrifice Antony’s fame to that of his enemy. There is an equivoque between trump and triumph. The game in question bore a very strong resemblance to our modern whist—the only points of dissimilarity being that more or less than four persons might play at trump; that all the cards were not dealt out; and that the dealer had the privilege of discarding some, and taking others in from the stock. In Eliot’s “Fruits for the French,” 1593, it is called “a very common ale-house game in England.”
Wrestling. Of the many allusions that are given by Shakespeare to this pastime, we may quote the phrase “to catch on the hip,” made use of by Shylock in the “Merchant of Venice” (i. 3), who, speaking of Antonio, says,
I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him”
—the meaning being, “to have at an entire advantage.”[822] The expression occurs again in “Othello” (ii. 1), where Iago says:
Nares,[823] however, considers the phrase was derived from hunting; because, “when the animal pursued is seized upon the hip, it is finally disabled from flight.”
In “As You Like It” (ii. 3), where Adam speaks of the “bonny priser of the humorous duke,” Singer considers that a priser was the phrase for a wrestler, a prise being a term in that sport for a grappling or hold taken.
[764] See Drake’s “Shakespeare and His Times,” vol. ii. pp. 178-181.
[765] Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1870, vol. ii. p. 290.
[766] “Glossary,” p. 84.
[767] “Glossary,” p. 210.
[768] From Gifford’s Note on Massinger’s Works, 1813, vol. i. p. 104.
[769] See Jamieson’s “Scottish Dictionary,” 1879, vol. i. p. 122.
[770] “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 57.
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