1. Lord. To the which place a poor sequester'd stag
Did come to languish ...
... and the big round tears
Cours'd one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase.
The stag is said to possess a very large secretion of tears. "When the hart is arered, he fleethe to a ryver or ponde, and roreth cryeth and wepeth when he is take."—Bartholomæus De propriet. rerum, 1. xviii. c. 30. Batman, in his commentary on that work, adds, from Gesner, that "when the hart is sick and hath eaten many serpents for his recoverie, he is brought unto so great a heate, that he hasteth to the water, and their covereth his body unto the very eares and eyes, at which time distilleth many teares from which the [Bezoar] stone is gendered," &c. The translator of The noble arte of Venerie makes the hart thus address the hunter:
"O cruell, be content, to take in worth my teares,
Which growe to gumme, and fall from me; content thee with my heares,
Content thee with my hornes, which every yeare I mew,
Since all these three make medicines, some sicknesse to eschew.
My teares congeal'd to gumme, by peeces from me fall,
And thee preserve from pestilence, in pomander or ball.
Such wholesome teares shedde I, when thou pursewest me so."
Compare also Virgil's description of the wounded stag in the seventh book of the Æneid.
Scene 2. Page 43.
Duke. And let not search and inquisition quail
To bring again these foolish runaways.
"To quail," says Mr. Steevens, "is to faint, to sink into dejection;" and so it certainly is, but not in this instance; for neither search nor inquisition could very well faint or become dejected. They might indeed slacken, relax, or diminish, and such is really the present meaning of the word. Thus "Hunger cureth love, for love quaileth when good cheare faileth."—The choise of change, 1585, 4to, sign. L. i. To quail is also used in the several senses of to sink, abate, deaden, enfeeble, press down, and oppress; all of which might be exemplified from the writings of authors contemporary with Shakspeare, and some of them from his own. It seems to be a modification of to quell, i. e. to destroy altogether, to kill, from the Saxon cƿellan.
Scene 2. Page 54.
Jaq. But that they call compliment, is like the encounter of two dog-apes.
Bartholomæus, speaking of apes, says, "some be called cenophe; and be lyke to an hounde in the face, and in the body lyke to an ape."—Lib. xviii. c. 96.