Chapter XLVIII: Act II: SCENE 1. Page 37

DUKE S. Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious _jewel_ in his head.

What that stone which many people suppose to come from the head of a toad really was, would be no easy task at present to determine. Various conjectures have made it the _bsatrachites_, _chelonites_, _brontia_, _ceraunia_, _glossopetra_, &c. Neither is it certain that the text alludes to a _stone_; for Gesner informs us that in his time, and _in England more particularly_, the common people made superstitious uses of a _real jewel_ that always could be found in a toad's head, viz., its _forehead bone_. To obtain this they severed the animal in two parts, and exposed it to be devoured by ants; by which means it presently became a skeleton. The above author carefully distinguishes this bone from the toadstone, and from Pliny's bone mentioned in Mr. Steevens's note. He has likewise with great industry, as on all occasions, collected much that relates to the subject of the toadstone. See his work _De quadrup. ovipar._ p. 65. It must be owned that better naturalists than Shakspeare believed in the common accounts of the toadstone. Batman in his edition to the article relating to the _botrax_ or _rubeta_ in Bartholomæus _De propr. rerum_, informs us that "some toads that breed in Italy and about Naples, have in their heads a stone called a _crapo_, of bignes like a big peach, but flat, of colour gray, with a browne spot in the midst _said to be of vertue_. In times past they were much worne, and used in ringes, as the forewarning against venime." Another learned divine who is often very witty, but on this occasion perfectly grave, has told us that "some report that the toad before her death sucks up (if not prevented with sudden surprisal) the precious stone (as yet but a jelly) in her head, grudging mankind the good thereof."--Fuller's _Church history_, p. 151. In a medical work too we are informed that "in the head of a greate tode there is a stone, which stone being stampt and geven to the pacyent to drinke in warme wine, maketh him to pise the stone out incontinent," &c.--Lloyd's _Treasure of helth_, pr. by Copland, n. d. 12mo. The notion of jewels in the heads of animals is very widely spread. Mr. Wilkins has informed us that it is a vulgar notion in India that some species of serpents have precious stones in their heads. _Hectopades_, p. 302. The best account of the different sorts of toadstones, so far as regards the illustration of the above superstitious notions, is in Topsell's _History of serpents_, 1608, folio, p. 188.

SCENE 1. Page 39.

1. LORD. To the which place a poor sequester'd stag
Did come to languish ...
... and _the big round tears_
Cours'd one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase.

The stag is said to possess a very large secretion of tears. "When the hart is arered, he fleethe to a ryver or ponde, and roreth cryeth and _wepeth_ when he is take."--Bartholomæus _De propriet. rerum_, 1. xviii. c. 30. Batman, in his commentary on that work, adds, from Gesner, that "when the hart is sick and hath eaten many serpents for his recoverie, he is brought unto so great a heate, that he hasteth to the water, and their covereth his body unto the very eares and eyes, at which time _distilleth many teares_ from which the [Bezoar] stone is gendered," &c. The translator of _The noble arte of Venerie_ makes the hart thus address the hunter:

"O cruell, be content, to take in worth my _teares_,
Which growe to gumme, and fall from me; content thee with my heares,
Content thee with my hornes, which every yeare I mew,
Since all these three make medicines, some sicknesse to eschew.
My _teares_ congeal'd to gumme, by peeces from me fall,
And thee preserve from pestilence, in pomander or ball.
Such wholesome _teares_ shedde I, when thou pursewest me so."

Compare also Virgil's description of the wounded stag in the seventh book of the Æneid.

SCENE 2. Page 43.

DUKE. And let not search and inquisition _quail_
To bring again these foolish runaways.

"To _quail_," says Mr. Steevens, "is to _faint_, to sink into dejection;" and so it certainly is, but not in this instance; for neither search nor inquisition could very well faint or become dejected. They might indeed _slacken_, _relax_, or _diminish_, and such is really the present meaning of the word. Thus "Hunger cureth love, for love _quaileth_ when good cheare faileth."--_The choise of change_, 1585, 4to, sign. L. i. _To quail_ is also used in the several senses of to _sink_, _abate_, _deaden_, _enfeeble_, _press down_, and _oppress_; all of which might be exemplified from the writings of authors contemporary with Shakspeare, and some of them from his own. It seems to be a modification of to quell, i. e. to destroy altogether, to kill, from the Saxon cƿellan.

SCENE 2. Page 54.

JAQ. But that they call compliment, is like the encounter of two
_dog-apes_.

Bartholomæus, speaking of apes, says, "some be called _cenophe_; and be lyke to an _hounde_ in the face, and in the body lyke to an _ape_."--Lib. xviii. c. 96.

SCENE 5. Page 55.

JAQ. Ducdáme, ducdáme, ducdáme.

The stanza which the facetious old squire sang before Dr. Farmer has occurred in the following shape; but where is the Œdipus who shall unfold the connexion of either with Jaques's song?

"O _damy_ what makes my _ducks_ to die?
What can ail them, Oh!
They eat their victuals and down they lie,
What can ail them, Oh!"

SCENE 7. Page 66.

JAQ. ... All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.

Mr. Steevens refers to the _totus mundus exerceat histrioniam_ of Petronius, with whom probably the sentiment originated; but this author had not been translated in Shakspeare's time. The play of _Damon and Pythias_, which Mr. Malone has cited, might have furnished the observation. There are likewise two other probable sources that are worthy of notice on this occasion. The first is Withal's _Short dictionarie in Latine and English_, several times printed in the reign of Elizabeth, where in fo. 69 of the edit. 1599, is the following passage: "This life is a certain enterlude or _plaie_. _The world is a stage_ full of chang everie way, _everie man is a plaier_." The other is Pettie's translation of Guazzo's _Civile conversation_, 1586, 4to, where one of the parties introduces the saying of some philosopher "that this _world_ was a _stage_, we the _players_ which present the comedie." Shakspeare had himself used nearly the same language in the first act of _The merchant of Venice_:

"I hold the world, but as the world, Gratiano,
A stage, where every man must play a part."

A portion of Jaques's speech has been imitated in some lines by Thomas Heywood among the commendatory verses prefixed to his _Actors vindication_, 1658, 4to:

"The world 's a theater, the earth a stage,
Which God and nature doth with actors fill;
All men have parts, and each man acts his own," &c.

SCENE 7. Page 66.

JAQ. And one man in his time plays many parts,
_His acts being seven ages_.

A print of the seven ages of men like those referred to by Messrs. Henley and Steevens may be seen in Comenius's _Orbis pictus_, tit. xxxvii., in which are found _the infant_, _the boy_, and _the decrepid old man_: the rest of Shakspeare's characters seem to be of his own invention. There is a division of the seven ages of man in Arnolde's _Chronicle_, fo. lix. verso, agreeing, except in the arrangement of years, with that given by Mr. Malone from _The treasury of ancient and modern times_.

SCENE 7. Page 69.

JAQ. _Sans_ teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.

This word, introduced into our language as early as the time of Chaucer, has sometimes received on the stage a French pronunciation, which in the time of Shakspeare it certainly had not. The old orthography will serve to verify this position:

"I none dislike, I fancie some,
But yet of all the rest,
_Sance_ envie, let my verdite passe,
Lord Buckhurst is the best."

Turbervile's verses before his
_Tragical tales_, 1587, 4to.