FOOTNOTES:
[898] See Bucknill’s “Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 120.
[899] Mr. Singer, in a note on this passage, says, “It was customary, in the East, for lovers to testify the violence of their passion by cutting themselves in the sight of their mistresses; and the fashion seems to have been adopted here as a mark of gallantry in Shakespeare’s time, when young men frequently stabbed their arms with daggers, and, mingling the blood with wine, drank it off to the healths of their mistresses.”—Vol. ii. p. 417.
[900] “Illustrations of Shakspeare,” 1839, p. 156.
[901] “Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 124.
[902] Cf. “Tempest,” v. 1:
“the ignorant fumes that mantle
Their clearer reason.”
[903] Clark and Wright’s “Notes to Macbeth,” 1877, p. 101.
[904] Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. viii. p. 123.
[905] “Vulgar Errors,” book v. chap. 23 (Bohn’s edition, 1852, vol. ii. p. 82).
[906] Prynne attacked the fashion in his “Unloveliness of Love-locks.”
[907] See Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” pp. 165, 166.
[908] Ibid. p. 273.
[909] See “Romeo and Juliet” (iii. 5), where Capulet says, “My fingers itch,” denoting anxiety.
[910] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 44.
[911] See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. p. 249; Jones’s “Credulities Past and Present,” pp. 529-531; “Notes and Queries,” 5th series, vol. viii. p. 201.
[912] The following is from Holinshed, who copies Sir Thomas More: “In riding toward the Tower the same morning in which he (Hastings) was beheaded his horse twice or thrice stumbled with him, almost to the falling; which thing, albeit each man wot well daily happeneth to them to whome no such mischance is toward; yet hath it beene of an olde rite and custome observed as a token oftentimes notablie foregoing some great misfortune.”
[913] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 127; Dyce’s “Glossary,” pp. 61, 230.
[914] The quartos of 1602 read “a kane-coloured beard.”
[915] See Jaques’s Description of the Seven Ages in “As You Like It,” (ii. 6).
[916] “Parnassus Biceps,” 1656.
[917] See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. p. 179.
[918] “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 871.
[919] Ibid. vol. i. p. 402.
[921] Cf. “Antony and Cleopatra” (i. 2):
“Soothsayer. You shall be more beloving, than belov’d.
Charmian. I had rather heat my liver with drinking.”
[922] “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, pp. 38, 39.
[923] See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. pp. 252-255.