Shakebag. He’s dead as if he had been condemned by
an Act of Parliament, if once Black Will and I
swear his death.
Greene. Here is ten pound, and when he is dead,
Ye shall have twenty more. 110
Will. My fingers itches to be at the peasant. Ah, that
I might be set a work thus through the year, and
that murder would grow to an occupation, that a
man might follow without danger of law:—zounds, I
warrant I should be warden of the company! Come,
let us be going, and we’ll bait at Rochester, where
I’ll give thee a gallon of sack to handsel the match
withal.
II. i. 51. Mr. Bullen says that such a line as this ‘might have come straight out of Tamburlaine.’ He goes on, ‘but in no other part of the play can we find a trace of Marlowe’s influence.’ Cf.—
‘He sent a shaggy tottered staring slave,
That when he speaks draws out his grisly beard,
And winds it twice or thrice about his ear;
Whose face has been a grindstone for men’s swords.’
Jew of Malta, IV. v. 6.
and Shakespeare’s—
‘They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-faced villain ...
A needy hollow-ey’d, sharp-looking wretch,
A living dead man.’
Com. of Errors, V. i. 237.