Can have no note, unless the sun were post,
(The man in the moon’s too slow) till new born urchins
Be rough and razorable,”
On this there is the following note:
“Shakspeare’s great ignorance of geography is not more conspicuous in any instance than in this, where he supposes Tunis and Naples to have been at such an immeasurable distance from each other.”
It does not seem to me that the passage warrants the supposition of such an opinion on the part of Shakspeare. It is obviously a mere hyperbole in jest. It is not credible that such a writer could be so ignorant, and where other evidences of it appear in the course of his works, it is more rational (when they cannot be explained away as in the present instance) to ascribe them to typographical confusion, or the liberties of ignorant copyists, &c.
To the passage complained of, Sebastian himself answers,
“What stuff is this? How say you?
’Tis true, my brother’s daughter’s Queen of Tunis;
So is she heir of Naples; ’twixt which regions