Chapter XLIII: Act II: SCENE 1. Page 423

MOR. But let us make incision for your love,
To prove whose blood is _reddest_, his, or mine.

Dr. Johnson's observation that "red blood is a traditionary sign of courage" derives support from our English Pliny, Bartholomew Glantville, who says, after Isidorus, "_Reed_ clothes ben layed upon deed men in remembrance of theyr _hardynes_ and _boldnes_, whyle they were in theyr bloudde." On which his commentator Batman remarks: "It appereth in the time of the Saxons that the manner over their dead was a _red_ cloath, as we now use black. The _red_ of _valiauncie_, and that was over kings, lords, knights and valyaunt souldiours."

SCENE 2. Page 426.

LAUN. Do not run; scorn _running with thy heels_.

Mr. Steevens calls this _absurdity_, and introduces a brother critic, Sir Hugh Evans, who had maintained that "he hears with ears" was _affectations_: both the parties had forgotten their Bible. As to the proposed alteration "_withe_ thy heels," it might be asked, who ever heard of a person _binding_ his _own heels_ to prevent running? Mr. Malone has well defended the consistency of Launcelot's speech. It may be added that in _King Richard II._ Act V. Scene 3, we have "_kneel_ upon my _knees_."

SCENE 2. Page 427.

LAUN. Well, my _conscience_ says--Launcelot, budge not; budge,
says the _fiend_; budge not, says my _conscience_.

It is not improbable that this curious struggle between Launcelot's conscience and the fiend might have been suggested by some well-known story in Shakspeare's time, grafted on the following Monkish fable. It occurs in a collection of apologues that remain only in manuscript, and have been severally ascribed to Hugo of Saint Victor, and Odo de Sheriton or Shirton, an English Cistercian Monk of the 12th century. "Multi sunt sicut mulier delicata et pigra. Talis vero mulier dum jacet mane in lecto et audit pulsari ad missam, cogitat secum quod vadat ad missam. Et cum _caro_, quæ pigra est, timet frigus, respondet et dicit, Quare ires ita mane, nonne scis quod clerici pulsant campanas propter oblationes? dormi adhuc; et sic transit pars diei. Postea iterum _conscientia pungit eam_ quod vadat ad missam. Sed _caro_ respondet, et dicit, Quare ires tu tam cito ad ecclesiam? certè tu destrueres corpus tuum si ita manè surrexeris, et hoc Deus non vult ut homo destruat seipsum; ergo quiesce et dormi. Et transit alia pars diei. Iterum _conscientia pungit eam_ quod vadat ad ecclesiam; sed _caro_ dicit, Ut quid ires tam cito? Ego bene scio quod talis vicina tua nondum vadit ad ecclesiam; dormi parum adhuc. Et sic transit alia pars diei. Postea _pungit eam conscientia_; sed _caro_ dicit, Non oportet quod adhuc vadas, quia sacerdos est curialis et bene expectabit te; attende et dormi. Et sic dormiendo transit tempus. Et tamen ad ultimum verecundia tacita atque coacta, surgit et vadit ad ecclesiam, et invenit portas clausas." Then follows the moral of the fable, in which the church is repentance, the bells the preachers. The lazy flesh prevails over conscience, till, on the approach of death, fear dictates the sending for the priest. An imperfect confession of sins takes place; the party dies, and the miserable soul finds the gates of heaven shut.

SCENE 5. Page 443.

SHY. The _patch_ is kind enough.

It has been supposed that this term originated from the name of a fool belonging to Cardinal Wolsey, and that his parti-coloured dress was given to him in allusion to his name. The objection to this is, that the motley habit worn by fools is much older than the time of Wolsey. Again, it appears that _Patch_ was an appellation given not to one fool only that belonged to Wolsey. There is an epigram by Heywood, entitled _A saying of Patch my Lord Cardinal's foole_; but in the epigram itself he is twice called _Sexten_, which was his real name. In a manuscript life of Wolsey, by his gentleman usher Cavendish, there is a story of another fool belonging to the Cardinal, and presented by him to the King. A marginal note states that "this foole was callid _Master Williames_, owtherwise called _Patch_."[12] In Heylin's _History of the reformation_, mention is made of another fool called _Patch_, belonging to Elizabeth. But the name is even older than Wolsey's time; for in some household accounts of Henry the Seventh, there are payments to a fool who is named _Pechie_, and _Packye_. It seems therefore more probable on the whole that fools were nick-named _Patch_ from their dress; unless there happen to be a nearer affinity to the Italian _pazzo_, a word that has all the appearance of a descent from _fatuus_. This was the opinion of Mr. Tyrwhitt in a note on _A midsummer night's dream_, Act III. Scene 2. But although in the above instance, as well as in a multitude of others, a _patch_ denotes a fool or simpleton, and, by corruption, a clown, it seems to have been occasionally used in the sense of _any low or mean person_. Thus in the passage in _A midsummer night's dream_ just referred to, Puck calls Bottom and his companions _a crew of patches_, _rude mechanicals_, certainly not meaning to compare them to pampered and sleek buffoons. Whether in this sense the term have a simple reference to that class of people whose clothes might be pieced or _patched_ with rags; or whether it is derived from the Saxon verb pæcan, to deceive by false appearances, as suggested by the acute and ingenious author of _The diversions of Purley_, must be left to the reader's own discernment.

SCENE 7. Page 450.

MOR. ... They have in England
A coin that bears the figure of an Angel
Stamped in gold; but that's _insculp'd upon_;
But here an angel in a golden bed
Lies all _within_.

To _insculp_, as Mr. Steevens has observed, means _to engrave_, but is here put in opposition to it, and simply denotes to _carve in relief_. The angel on the coin was _raised_; on the casket _indented_. The word _insculp_ was however formerly used with great latitude of meaning. Shakspeare might have caught it from the casket story in the _Gesta Romanorum_, where it is rightly used: "the third vessell was made of lead, and thereupon was _insculpt_ this posey, &c."

SCENE 7. Page 450.

MOR. _Gilded tombs_ do worms infold.

The old editions read _gilded timber_; and however specious the alteration in the text, on the ground of redundancy of measure or defect in grammar, it might have been dispensed with. _To infold_ is _to inwrap or contain any thing_; and therefore, unless we conclude that _do_ is an error of the press for _doth_, we must adopt the other sense, however ungrammatically expressed, and suppose the sentiment to be, that _timber though fenced or protected with gilding in still liable to the worm's invasion_. The lines cited by Mr. Steevens from the _Arcadia_ supports the original reading, as do the following from Silvester's _Works_, edit. 1633, p. 649:

"Wealth on a cottage can a palace build,
New paint old walls, and _rotten timber guild_."

SCENE 8. Page 453.

SALAR. And for the Jew's bond, which he hath of me,
Let it not enter in your _mind of love_.

Dr. Johnson suspects a corruption. Mr. Langton would place a comma after _mind_. The expression seems equivalent to a _loving_ or affectionate _mind_, a mind made up of love.

SCENE 9. Page 458.

AR. What's here? the portrait of a blinking ideot,
Presenting me a schedule.

This idea suggests the story of a Jew apothecary, who, to ridicule the Mayersbachs of his time, placed in the front of his shop the figure of a grinning fool holding out an urinal. See Pancirollus _De rebus deperditis_, lib. ii. tit. 1.