p. 276.

In the "Two Gentlemen of Verona" (ii. 5), when Launce tells Speed, "thou
hast not so much charity in thee as to go to the ale with a Christian,"
these words have been explained to mean the rural festival so named,
though, as Mr. Dyce remarks ("Glossary," p. 10), the previous words of
Launce, "go with me to the ale-house," show this explanation to be
wrong.

In the old miracle-plays performed at this and other seasons Herod was a
favorite personage, and was generally represented as a tyrant of a very
overbearing, violent character. Thus Hamlet says (iii. 2): "O, it
offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a
passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings;
who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable
dumb-shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'er-doing
Termagant; it out-herods Herod." On this account Alexas mentions him as
the most daring character when he tells Cleopatra ("Antony and
Cleopatra," iii. 3):

"Good majesty,
Herod of Jewry dare not look upon you
But when you are well pleas'd."

In the "Merry Wives of Windsor" (ii. 1), Mrs. Page speaks of him in the
same signification: "What a Herod of Jewry is this!"

Mr. Dyce, in his "Glossary" (p. 207), has this note: "If the reader
wishes to know what a swaggering, uproarious tyrant Herod was
represented to be in those old dramatic performances, let him turn to
'Magnus Herodes' in 'The Towneley Mysteries,' p. 140, ed. Surtees
Society; to 'King Herod' in the 'Coventry Mysteries,' p. 188, ed.
Shakespeare Society; and to 'The Slaughter of the Innocents' in 'The
Chester Plays,' vol. i. p. 172, ed. Shakespeare Society."

Like Herod, Termagant[663] was a hectoring tyrant of the miracle-plays,
and as such is mentioned by Hamlet in the passage quoted above. Hence,
in course of time, the word was used as an adjective, in the sense of
violent, as in "1 Henry IV." (v. 4), "that hot termagant Scot." Hall
mentions him in his first satire:

"Nor fright the reader with the Pagan vaunt
Of mighty Mahound and great Termagaunt."

[663] According to the crusaders and the old romance writers a
Saracen deity. See Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. ix. p. 214.

While speaking of the old mysteries or miracle-plays we may also here
refer to the "moralities," a class of religious plays in which
allegorical personifications of the virtues and vices