Chapter LVII: Act II: SCENE 1. Page 442

KATH. And, for your love to her, _lead apes in hell_.

It is perhaps an ill-natured, though a very common, presumption, that the single state of old maids originates either in prudery or in real aversion to the male sex, and that consequently they deserve some kind of punishment in the next world. It is therefore not a matter of wonder that some of our waggish forefathers, impressed with this idea, should have maintained that these obdurate damsels would be condemned to lead apes in the inferior regions, instead, as Mr. Steevens has ingeniously suggested, of children; or perhaps with a view to compel them to bestow such attention on these deformed animals as they had formerly denied to men. So in Rabelais' hell, Alexander the great is condemned, for his ambition, to mend old stockings, and Cleopatra, for her pride, to cry onions.

It is said that homicides and adulterers were in ancient times compelled by way of punishment to lead an ape by the neck, with their mouths affixed in a very unseemly manner to the animal's tail. The fact is mentioned in the early Latin dictionary entitled _Vocabularius breviloquus_, and in the _Catholicon_ of Johannes Januensis, both printed at the end of the fifteenth century, under the article _anulus_. It is added, that the above punishment being found too opprobrious was commuted for wearing a ring on the finger, which the higher classes caused to be made of gold or silver; and this is further stated to have been the reason why the general practice of wearing rings declined. After all it may be a mere fabrication for the purpose of introducing an etymology of the word _annulus_, that cannot here be repeated.

SCENE 1. Page 450.

HOR. And, _twangling Jack_.

It is the author's desire to withdraw a former note on this passage, which, as well as a few others of a confidential nature, was not intended for publication. To _twangle_ means to make any sharp shrill noise on a stringed instrument, as a bad player would do. A _Jack_ denotes a low or mean person, and is occasionally used as a term of reproach. Thus Horatio is afterwards called "swearing _Jack_." _Twangling Jack_ may sometimes allude to that little machine in harpsichords and spinnets in which the quill is placed that strikes the wires. The _jangling Jack_ mentioned in Mr. Steevens's note is not connected with the other. He is a mere _prating fellow_. Thus in Drant's translation of Horace's ninth satire, 1567, 4to:

"A _prater_ shal becom his death,
Therefore, let him alwayes,
If he be wise, shun _jangling jackes_,
After his youthful dayes."

SCENE 1. Page 461.

GRE. My hangings all of _Tyrian tapestry_.

Whether the purple of Tyre be here alluded to is doubtful. There is a Turkish city of some celebrity in Natolia called Tiria, where, according to the account of Paul Lucas, carpets are manufactured; and in the _Comedy of errors_, Act IV. Scene 1, mention is made of _Turkish tapestry_.