“If we be English deer, be, then, in blood;
Not rascal-like, to fall down with a pinch”
—the expression being put in opposition to “rascal,” which was the term for the deer when lean and out of condition. In “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iv. 2), Holofernes says: “The deer was, as you know, sanguis,—in blood.”
The notion that the blood may be thickened by emotional influences is mentioned by Polixenes in the “Winter’s Tale” (i. 2), where he speaks of “thoughts that would thick my blood.” In King John’s temptation of Hubert to murder Arthur (iii. 3), it is thus referred to:
“Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,
Had bak’d thy blood and made it heavy, thick,
Which else runs tickling up and down the veins.”
Red blood was considered a traditionary sign of courage. Hence, in the “Merchant of Venice” (ii. 1), the Prince of Morocco, when addressing himself to Portia, and urging his claims for her hand, says:
“Bring me the fairest creature northward born,
Where Phoebus’ fire scarce thaws the icicles,
And let us make incision for your love,[899]
To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine.”
Again, in the same play, cowards are said to “have livers as white as milk,” and an effeminate man is termed a “milk-sop.” Macbeth, too (v. 3), calls one of his frighted soldiers a “lily-liver’d boy.” And in “King Lear” (ii. 2), the Earl of Kent makes use of the same phrase. In illustration of this notion Mr. Douce[900] quotes from Bartholomew Glantville, who says: “Reed clothes have been layed upon deed men in remembrance of theyr hardynes and boldnes, whyle they were in theyr bloudde.”
The absence of blood in the liver as the supposed property of a coward, originated, says Dr. Bucknill,[901] in the old theory of the circulation of the blood, which explains Sir Toby’s remarks on his dupe, in “Twelfth Night” (iii. 2): “For Andrew, if he were opened, and you find so much blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I’ll eat the rest of the anatomy.”
We may quote here a notion referred to in “Lucrece” (1744-50), that, ever since the sad death of Lucrece, corrupted blood has watery particles:
“About the mourning and congealed face
Of that black blood a watery rigol goes,
Which seems to weep upon the tainted place:
And ever since, as pitying Lucrece’ woes,
Corrupted blood some watery token shows;
And blood untainted still doth red abide,
Blushing at that which is so putrefied.”