[1] Troilus's euphuisms:—
"I was about to tell thee: when my heart
As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain,
Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,
I have, as when the sun doth light a storm,
Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile" (Act i. sc. I).
"——O gentle Pandarus,
From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings,
And fly with me to Cressid" (Act iii. sc. 2).
[2] F. Halliwell-Phillips has published, concerning these last two lines, a miniature book, The Fool and the Ice, London, 1883. He explains that a whole little history lies behind this curious simile. When Lord Chandos's Company played at Evesham, near Stratford (before 1600), a country fool there, Jack Miller by name, became so infatuated with their clown that he wanted to run away with them, and had, consequently, to be locked up. He saw from the window, however, that the company was preparing to depart, and springing out, sped, in spite of the danger, over forty yards of ice so thin that it would not bear a piece of brick which was laid upon it. (First told in a little book by the player Robert Arnim, afterwards one of Shakespeare's colleagues. It was published in 1603 under the title "Foole upon Foole, or Sixe Sortes of Sottes, by Colonnico del Mondo Snuffe," clown at the Globe Theatre.)
[XI]
DEATH OF SHAKESPEARE'S MOTHER—CORIOLANUS—HATRED OF THE MASSES
Shakespeare's mother was buried on the 9th of September 1608. He had travelled about the country of late, playing with his company, from the middle of May until far into the autumn, during which period court and aristocracy were absent from the capital. It is not certain whether he had returned to London at this time or not, but he hastened to Stratford on hearing of his mother's death, and must have stayed some time on his property, "New Place," after attending her funeral; for we find him still at Stratford on the 16th of October. On that day he stands godfather to the son of a friend of his youth, Henry Walker, an alderman of the borough, who is mentioned in Shakespeare's will.
The death of a mother is always a mournfully irreparable loss, often the saddest a man can sustain. We can realise how deeply it would go to Shakespeare's heart when we remember the capacity for profound and passionate feeling with which nature had blessed and cursed him. We know little of his mother; but judging from that affinity which generally exists between famous sons and their mothers, we may suppose that she was no ordinary woman. Mary Arden, who belonged to an old and honourable family, which traced its descent (perhaps justly) back to the days of Edward the Confessor, represented the haughty patrician element of the Shakespeare family. Her ancestors had borne their coat of arms for centuries, and the son would be proud of his mother for this among other reasons, just as the mother would be proud of her son.
In the midst of the prevailing gloom and bitterness of his spirit, this fresh blow fell upon him, and, out of his weariness of life as his surroundings and experiences showed it to him, recalled this one mainstay to him—his mother. He remembered all she had been to him for forty-four years, and the thoughts of the man and the dreams of the poet were thus led to dwell upon the significance in a man's life of this unique form, comparable to no other—his mother.