110. _In thy best robes_, etc. The Italian custom here alluded to, of carrying the dead body to the grave richly dressed and with the face _uncovered_ (which is not mentioned by Paynter), S. found particularly described in _Romeus and Juliet_:--
"Now throughout Italy this common vse they haue, That all the best of euery stocke are earthed in one graue;
An other vse there is, that whosoeuer dyes, Borne to their church with open face vpon the beere he lyes, In wonted weede attyrde, not wrapt in winding sheete."
Cf. _Ham._ iv. 5. 164: "They bore him barefac'd on the bier." Knight remarks that thus the maids and matrons of Italy are still carried to the tomb; and he quotes Rogers, _Italy_:--
"And lying on her funeral couch, Like one asleep, her eyelids closed, her hands Folded together on her modest breast As 'twere her nightly posture, through the crowd She came at last--and richly, gaily clad, As for a birthday feast."
114. _Drift._ Scheme. Cf. ii. 3. 55 above.
119. _Inconstant toy._ Fickle freak or caprice. Cf. _Ham._ i. 3. 5: "a fashion and a toy in blood;" _Id._ 1. 4. 75: "toys of desperation;" _Oth._ iii. 4. 156: "no jealous toy," etc. _Inconstant toy_ and _womanish fear_ are both from Brooke's poem:--
"Cast of from thee at once the weede of womannish dread, With manly courage arme thy selfe from heele vnto the head;
God graunt he so confirme in thee thy present will, That no inconstant toy thee let [hinder] thy promesse to fulfill."
121. _Give me, give me!_ Cf. _Macb._ i. 3. 5: "'Give me,' quoth I."
SCENE II.--2. _Twenty cunning cooks._ Ritson says: "Twenty cooks for half a dozen guests! Either Capulet has altered his mind strangely, or S. forgot what he had just made him tell us" (iii. 4. 27). But, as Knight remarks, "Capulet is evidently a man of ostentation; but his ostentation, as is most generally the case, is covered with a thin veil of indifference." Cf. i. 5. 124: "We have a trifling foolish banquet towards."
According to an entry in the books of the Stationers' Company for 1560, the preacher was paid six shillings and twopence for his labour; the minstrel, twelve shillings; and the cook, fifteen shillings. But, as Ben Jonson tells us, a master cook is--
"a man of men For a professor; he designs, he draws, He paints, he carves, he builds, he fortifies, Makes citadels of curious fowl and fish.