This allusion to fortified ears, implies that the parties wore helmets that covered these organs. For we two nights, therefore, read “we two knights.” Knights were at that time soldiers. So Joppa in his prophecy of the year 1790.
The knight now, his helmet on,
The spear and falchion handles;
But knights then, as thick as hops,
In bushy bobs shall keep their shops,
And deal, good lack! in figs and tripe,
And soap, and tallow candles.
The ghost now enters, and retreats like lord Burleigh, in the critic.
Bernardo. See, it stalks away.
Walks, if you please, Mr. Bernardo. I have heard of stalking horses indeed, and that of Troy made many ghosts. But ghosts themselves walk. In speaking to it afterwards, Horatio says, “You spirits oft walk,” “He durst as soon have met the devil in fight,” as have said “stalk.” The shades of difference in the meaning of these two words were nicely marked in a pantomime song of the late Mr. Edwin, in which he courteously applied the word “walk” to the softer sex,