And further on (iv. 1), one of the lords employs the same phrase:
“There is my honour’s pawn;
Engage it to the trial, if thou dar’st.”
It is difficult to discover why the glove was recognized as the sign of defiance. Brand[984] suggests that the custom of dropping or sending the glove, “as the signal of a challenge, may have been derived from the circumstance of its being the cover of the hand, and therefore put for the hand itself. The giving of the hand is well known to intimate that the person who does so will not deceive, but stand to his agreement. To shake hands upon it would not be very delicate in an agreement to fight, and, therefore, gloves may possibly have been deputed as substitutes.”
Again, the glove was often thrown down as a pledge, as in “Timon of Athens” (v. 4), where the senator says to Alcibiades:
“Throw thy glove,
Or any token of thine honour else,
That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress,
And not as our confusion.”
Whereupon Alcibiades answers: “Then there’s my glove.” In “King Lear” (v. 2), Albany thus speaks:
“Thou art arm’d, Gloster:—let the trumpet sound:
If none appear to prove, upon thy person,
Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons,
There is my pledge; [Throwing down a glove] I’ll prove it on thy heart.”
In “Troilus and Cressida” (iv. 5), Hector further alludes to this practice:
“Your quondam wife swears still by Venus’ glove:
She’s well, but bade me not commend her to you.”
Scented gloves were formerly given away as presents. In “Winter’s Tale” the custom is referred to by Mopsa, who says to the Clown (iv. 4): “Come, you promised me a tawdry lace, and a pair of sweet gloves;” and Autolycus is introduced singing: