In olden times the heart was esteemed the seat of the understanding. Hence, in “Coriolanus” (i. 1), the Citizen speaks of “the counsellor heart.” With the ancients, also, the heart was considered the seat of courage, to which Shakespeare refers in “Julius Cæsar” (ii. 2):
“Servant. Plucking the entrails of an offering forth,
They could not find a heart within the beast.
Cæsar. The gods do this in shame of cowardice:
Cæsar should be a beast without a heart,
If he should stay at home to-day for fear.”
Liver. By a popular notion, the liver was anciently supposed to be the seat of love, a superstition to which Shakespeare frequently alludes. Thus, in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iv. 3), Biron, after listening to Longaville’s sonnet, remarks:
“This is the liver vein, which makes flesh a deity,
A green goose, a goddess; pure, pure idolatry.”
In “Much Ado About Nothing” (iv. 1), Friar Francis says:
“If ever love had interest in his liver.”
Again, in “As You Like It” (iii. 2), Rosalind, professing to be able to cure love, which, he says, is “merely a madness,” says to Orlando, “will I take upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep’s heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in’t.” In “Twelfth Night” (ii. 4), the Duke, speaking of women’s love, says:
“Their love may be call’d appetite,
No motion of the liver, but the palate,” etc.
And Fabian (ii. 5), alluding to Olivia’s supposed letter to Malvolio, says: “This wins him, liver and all.”