Patrons. The custom of clergymen praying for their patrons, in what is called the bidding prayer, seems alluded to by Kent in “King Lear” (i. 1):
“Royal Lear,
Whom I have ever honour’d as my king,
Lov’d as my father, as my master follow’d,
As my great patron thought on in my prayers.”
Sagittary. This was a monster, half man, half beast, described as a terrible archer; neighing like a horse, and with its eyes of fire striking men dead as if with lightning. In “Troilus and Cressida” (v. 5), Agamemnon says:
“The dreadful Sagittary
Appals our numbers.”
Hence any deadly shot was called a sagittary. In “Othello” (i. I) the barrack is so named from the figure of an archer over the door.
Salad Days. Days of green youth and inexperience. Cleopatra says (i. 5):
“My salad days,
When I was green in judgment:—cold in blood.”
Salt. The salt of youth is that vigor and strong passion which then predominates. The term is several times used by Shakespeare for strong amorous passion. Iago, in “Othello” (iii. 3), refers to it as “hot as monkeys, as salt as wolves in pride.” In “Measure for Measure” (v. I), the Duke calls Angelo’s base passion his “salt imagination,” because he supposed his victim to be Isabella, and not his betrothed wife, whom he was forced by the Duke to marry.[987]
Salutations. God-den was used by our forefathers as soon as noon was past, after which time “good-morrow” or “good-day” was esteemed improper; the phrase “God ye good den” being a contraction of “God give you a good evening.” This fully appears from the following passage in “Romeo and Juliet” (ii. 4):
“Nurse. God ye good morrow, gentlemen.