“Fair Margaret knows
That Suffolk doth not flatter, face, or feign.”
Hence the name of one of the characters in Ben Jonson’s “Alchemist.” So, in the “Taming of the Shrew” (ii. 1):
“Yet I have faced it with a card of ten.”
The phrase, also, “to face me down,” implied insisting upon anything in opposition. So, in the “Comedy of Errors” (iii. 1), Antipholus of Ephesus says:
“But here’s a villain that would face me down
He met me on the mart.”
Feet. Stumbling has from the earliest period been considered ominous.[911] Thus, Cicero mentions it among the superstitions of his day; and numerous instances of this unlucky act have been handed down from bygone times. We are told by Ovid how Myrrha, on her way to Cinyra’s chamber, stumbled thrice, but was not deterred by the omen from an unnatural and fatal crime; and Tibullus (lib. I., eleg. iii. 20), refers to it:
“O! quoties ingressus iter, mihi tristia dixi,
Offensum in porta signa dedisse pedem.”
This superstition is alluded to by Shakespeare, who, in “3 Henry VI.” (iv. 7), makes Gloster say:
“For many men that stumble at the threshold
Are well foretold that danger lurks within.”
In “Richard III.” (iii. 4), Hastings relates:[912]