The glove was also worn in the hat as the memorial of a friend, and in the “Merchant of Venice” (iv. 1), Portia, in her assumed character, asks Bassanio for his gloves, which she says she will wear for his sake:
“Give me your gloves, I’ll wear them for your sake.”
When the fashion of thus wearing gloves declined, “it fell into the hands of coxcombical and dissolute servants.”[982] Thus Edgar, in “King Lear” (iii. 4), being asked by Lear what he had been, replies: “A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled my hair; wore gloves in my cap.”
To throw the glove, as the signal of a challenge, is alluded to by Troilus (iv. 4), who tells Cressida:
“For I will throw my glove to Death himself,
That’s there’s no maculation in thy heart”
—the meaning being, says Johnson: “I will challenge Death himself in defence of thy fidelity.”
The glove then thrown down was popularly called “a gage,”[983] from the French, signifying a pledge, and in “Richard II.” (iv. 1), it is so termed by Aumerle:
“There is my gage, the manual seal of death,
That marks thee out for hell.”
In the same play it is also called “honor’s pawn.” Thus Bolingbroke (i. 1) says to Mowbray:
“Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,
Disclaiming here the kindred of the king;
And lay aside my high blood’s royalty,
Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.
If guilty dread hath left thee so much strength
As to take up mine honour’s pawn, then stoop.”