“his pure brain,
Which some suppose the soul’s frail dwelling-house,
Doth, by the idle comments that it makes,
Foretell the ending of mortality.”
Ear. According to a well-known superstition, much credited in days gone by, and still extensively believed, a tingling of the right ear is considered lucky, being supposed to denote that a friend is speaking well of one, whereas a tingling of the left is said to imply the opposite. This notion, however, varies in different localities, as in some places it is the tingling of the left ear which denotes the friend, and the tingling of the right ear the enemy. In “Much Ado About Nothing” (iii. 1), Beatrice asks Ursula and Hero, who had been talking of her:
“What fire is in mine ears?”
the reference, no doubt, being to this popular fancy. Sir Thomas Browne[905] ascribes the idea to the belief in guardian angels, who touch the right or left ear according as the conversation is favorable or not to the person.
In Shakespeare’s day it was customary for young gallants to wear a long lock of hair dangling by the ear, known as a “love-lock.” Hence, in “Much Ado About Nothing” (iii. 3), the Watch identifies one of his delinquents: “I know him; a’ wears a lock.”[906]
Again, further on (v. 1), Dogberry gives another allusion to this practice: “He wears a key in his ear, and a lock hanging by it.”
An expression of endearment current in years gone by was “to bite the ear.” In “Romeo and Juliet” (ii. 4), Mercutio says:
“I will bite thee by the ear for that jest,”
a passage which is explained in Nares (“Glossary,” vol. i. p. 81) by the following one from Ben Jonson’s “Alchemist” (ii. 3):
“Mammon. Th’ hast witch’d me, rogue; take, go.