ACT II.
Scene 1. Page 423.
Mor. But let us make incision for your love,
To prove whose blood is reddest, his, or mine.
Dr. Johnson's observation that "red blood is a traditionary sign of courage" derives support from our English Pliny, Bartholomew Glantville, who says, after Isidorus, "Reed clothes ben layed upon deed men in remembrance of theyr hardynes and boldnes, whyle they were in theyr bloudde." On which his commentator Batman remarks: "It appereth in the time of the Saxons that the manner over their dead was a red cloath, as we now use black. The red of valiauncie, and that was over kings, lords, knights and valyaunt souldiours."
Scene 2. Page 426.
Laun. Do not run; scorn running with thy heels.
Mr. Steevens calls this absurdity, and introduces a brother critic, Sir Hugh Evans, who had maintained that "he hears with ears" was affectations: both the parties had forgotten their Bible. As to the proposed alteration "withe thy heels," it might be asked, who ever heard of a person binding his own heels to prevent running? Mr. Malone has well defended the consistency of Launcelot's speech. It may be added that in King Richard II. Act V. Scene 3, we have "kneel upon my knees."
Scene 2. Page 427.
Laun. Well, my conscience says—Launcelot, budge not; budge,
says the fiend; budge not, says my conscience.
It is not improbable that this curious struggle between Launcelot's conscience and the fiend might have been suggested by some well-known story in Shakspeare's time, grafted on the following Monkish fable. It occurs in a collection of apologues that remain only in manuscript, and have been severally ascribed to Hugo of Saint Victor, and Odo de Sheriton or Shirton, an English Cistercian Monk of the 12th century. "Multi sunt sicut mulier delicata et pigra. Talis vero mulier dum jacet mane in lecto et audit pulsari ad missam, cogitat secum quod vadat ad missam. Et cum caro, quæ pigra est, timet frigus, respondet et dicit, Quare ires ita mane, nonne scis quod clerici pulsant campanas propter oblationes? dormi adhuc; et sic transit pars diei. Postea iterum conscientia pungit eam quod vadat ad missam. Sed caro respondet, et dicit, Quare ires tu tam cito ad ecclesiam? certè tu destrueres corpus tuum si ita manè surrexeris, et hoc Deus non vult ut homo destruat seipsum; ergo quiesce et dormi. Et transit alia pars diei. Iterum conscientia pungit eam quod vadat ad ecclesiam; sed caro dicit, Ut quid ires tam cito? Ego bene scio quod talis vicina tua nondum vadit ad ecclesiam; dormi parum adhuc. Et sic transit alia pars diei. Postea pungit eam conscientia; sed caro dicit, Non oportet quod adhuc vadas, quia sacerdos est curialis et bene expectabit te; attende et dormi. Et sic dormiendo transit tempus. Et tamen ad ultimum verecundia tacita atque coacta, surgit et vadit ad ecclesiam, et invenit portas clausas." Then follows the moral of the fable, in which the church is repentance, the bells the preachers. The lazy flesh prevails over conscience, till, on the approach of death, fear dictates the sending for the priest. An imperfect confession of sins takes place; the party dies, and the miserable soul finds the gates of heaven shut.
Scene 5. Page 443.
Shy. The patch is kind enough.
It has been supposed that this term originated from the name of a fool belonging to Cardinal Wolsey, and that his parti-coloured dress was given to him in allusion to his name. The objection to this is, that the motley habit worn by fools is much older than the time of Wolsey. Again, it appears that Patch was an appellation given not to one fool only that belonged to Wolsey. There is an epigram by Heywood, entitled A saying of Patch my Lord Cardinal's foole; but in the epigram itself he is twice called Sexten, which was his real name. In a manuscript life of Wolsey, by his gentleman usher Cavendish, there is a story of another fool belonging to the Cardinal, and presented by him to the King. A marginal note states that "this foole was callid Master Williames, owtherwise called Patch."[12] In Heylin's History of the reformation, mention is made of another fool called Patch, belonging to Elizabeth. But the name is even older than Wolsey's time; for in some household accounts of Henry the Seventh, there are payments to a fool who is named Pechie, and Packye. It seems therefore more probable on the whole that fools were nick-named Patch from their dress; unless there happen to be a nearer affinity to the Italian pazzo, a word that has all the appearance of a descent from fatuus. This was the opinion of Mr. Tyrwhitt in a note on A midsummer night's dream, Act III. Scene 2. But although in the above instance, as well as in a multitude of others, a patch denotes a fool or simpleton, and, by corruption, a clown, it seems to have been occasionally used in the sense of any low or mean person. Thus in the passage in A midsummer night's dream just referred to, Puck calls Bottom and his companions a crew of patches, rude mechanicals, certainly not meaning to compare them to pampered and sleek buffoons. Whether in this sense the term have a simple reference to that class of people whose clothes might be pieced or patched with rags; or whether it is derived from the Saxon verb pæcan, to deceive by false appearances, as suggested by the acute and ingenious author of The diversions of Purley, must be left to the reader's own discernment.
Scene 7. Page 450.
Mor. ... They have in England
A coin that bears the figure of an Angel
Stamped in gold; but that's insculp'd upon;
But here an angel in a golden bed
Lies all within.
To insculp, as Mr. Steevens has observed, means to engrave, but is here put in opposition to it, and simply denotes to carve in relief. The angel on the coin was raised; on the casket indented. The word insculp was however formerly used with great latitude of meaning. Shakspeare might have caught it from the casket story in the Gesta Romanorum, where it is rightly used: "the third vessell was made of lead, and thereupon was insculpt this posey, &c."
Scene 7. Page 450.
Mor. Gilded tombs do worms infold.
The old editions read gilded timber; and however specious the alteration in the text, on the ground of redundancy of measure or defect in grammar, it might have been dispensed with. To infold is to inwrap or contain any thing; and therefore, unless we conclude that do is an error of the press for doth, we must adopt the other sense, however ungrammatically expressed, and suppose the sentiment to be, that timber though fenced or protected with gilding in still liable to the worm's invasion. The lines cited by Mr. Steevens from the Arcadia supports the original reading, as do the following from Silvester's Works, edit. 1633, p. 649:
"Wealth on a cottage can a palace build,
New paint old walls, and rotten timber guild."
Scene 8. Page 453.
Salar. And for the Jew's bond, which he hath of me,
Let it not enter in your mind of love.
Dr. Johnson suspects a corruption. Mr. Langton would place a comma after mind. The expression seems equivalent to a loving or affectionate mind, a mind made up of love.
Scene 9. Page 458.
Ar. What's here? the portrait of a blinking ideot,
Presenting me a schedule.
This idea suggests the story of a Jew apothecary, who, to ridicule the Mayersbachs of his time, placed in the front of his shop the figure of a grinning fool holding out an urinal. See Pancirollus De rebus deperditis, lib. ii. tit. 1.