INTRO

There is again a strong echo of Pettie in the scene where DUCTION Beatrice is induced to play the eavesdropper and listen to Hero and Ursula sounding the praises of Benedick, in order to lure her into falling in love with him :

'My talk to thee' [says Hero]' must be how Benedick

Is sick in love with Beatrice of this matter

Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made,

That only wounds by hearsay.'

(III. i. 20.)

Beatrice, caught in the trap, when the conspirators have gone breaks into soliloquy :

'What fire is in mine ears ? . . .

And, Benedick, love on.

For others say thou dost deserve, and I
Believe it better than reportingly.'

(Ib. 107-116.)

Now Guazzo when treating of the best way to choose a wife writes:

'I will shew it you by the authoritie of Olympias the mother of Alexander, whose saying, worthy to be written in letters of Golde, was that women are to be married with the eares, before they are with the eyes, for . . . we ought at least to deale in such sort, that out of the mouth of divers, constant report may come to our eares of the parentage, and of the life and behavyour of them' (Bk. III. 14-15).

Othello.

Iago's description of Cassio- A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife at the opening of Othello has perplexed a vast number of Shakespeare scholars; but with the help of a passage in Pettie the line is relieved of all obscurity : 'It is yet an ordinary saying, That he that hath a white

Horse, and a fayre woman, is never without trouble: 'wherto maye be added this saying: Haste thou taken

one fayre? to thine owne care' (Bk. 11. 10). What is more likely than that Shakespeare should put an Italian proverb into the mouth of Iago, after having found it in the Civile Conversation?

In the same play occur the lines

:

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls:

Who steals my purse steals trash: . . .

But he that filches from me my good name,' etc.:

which we can well believe were developed from :

(III. iii.)

For as the soule is more precious then the body, so is it a greater offence to take away ones good name, which refresheth the soule, then to defraud one of food, which sustaineth the body' (Bk. 1. 66).

Again, when Emilia has told the truth about the handkerchief-how it was she who gave it to Iago, who had begged of her to steal it—the Moor turns on her husband exclaiming :

'Are there no stones in heaven

But what serve for the thunder? Precious villain !'

(v. ii. 233.) The adjective was manifestly one of unusual offensiveness, and it is followed by the stage direction, He runs at Iago'; but its full meaning has apparently escaped the commentators. Pettie, however, supplies a telling elucidation in describing an old beggar, whose nose,' he says,

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by some infirmitie was become mervellous great, deformed, 'ful of pimples, precious, and monstrous' (Bk. 1. 97). The true meaning in that passage is rendered certain by the Italian and Chappuys' French, being pieno di marcia, and

INTRO

DUCTION

INTRO- moisy, respectively; and so Othello's adjective is what DUCTION would now be called 'scabby.'1

Romeo and Juliet.

In discussing the bringing up of daughters a question is raised as to whether a very strict control by the father is more efficacious than gentler methods. William Guazzo, who is against extreme measures, expresses himself as follows:

'I see not how those extremities can be commendable: for
not to suffer a mayde to go abrode but once or twise in the
yeare, and to keeps her inclosed like a holy relique, is the
way to make her become foolish, fearefull, and oute of counten-
aunce in company, and more easie to bee caught in a net:
for being not accustomed to see the sunne, so soone as she
sets her foote forth of the house, her eyes dazell with the least
beame therof, and down she falleth backward' (Bk. 111. 75).
The last portion of this prediction is somewhat coarsely
worded; but, possibly for this very reason, Shakespeare
thought fit to pass it on to a character like Juliet's nurse.
This garrulous and not too squeamish old lady describes
the fall which Juliet had when she was a child, and then
continues :

' And then my husband-God be with his soul,
A' was a merry man-took up the child:
"Yea," quoth he, " dost thou fall upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit.'
(1. iii. 39 sqq.)

'Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won,

nay,

I'll frown and be perverse and say thee
So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.' (11. ii. 95.)

1 The New English Dictionary quotes only the example from Pettie in this sense.

DUCTION

So speaks Juliet from the balcony. The thought here INTROis one dwelt on at some length by Lord William at the Banquet in Bk. IV., where amongst other things he says:

...

'I doe not know anie wise Gentlewoman in deede ... who would not accompt it a great shame, to like and favour her lover, unlesse she were (not once or twice) but a thousand times earnestlie entreated, and sued to before. . . . And if he doe not... then with a disdainfull minde she mockes and floutes him. . . . In brief, women do alwaise esteme more of those lovers, who pray to them, then of those who do vainly gape, that they should cast themselves down from the windowes, into their armes' (pp. 195-6).

...

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The force of this parallel lies largely in Pettie's final words, down from the windowes.' The stage direction at the opening of the Shakespeare scene is: Juliet appears above at a window.

Richard III.

At p. 131 of Bk. 11. we find 'but also by the windowes of his eyes. . .'; and in Richard III. v. iii. 117 we have the windows of my eyes.' The phrase also occurs elsewhere in Shakespeare.

Taming of the Shrew.

There are a few striking traces of Pettie in this play. Tranio, in the character of a suitor, says to Petruchio:

'If it be so, sir, that you

Achieve the elder, set the younger free

For our access, whose hap shall be to have her

Will not so graceless be to be ingrate': (1. ii. 268-73.)

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a speech that may well have been suggested by no child should be so graceless and grateless. . . to forget those 'three benefits received' (Bk. 111. 72).

INTRODUCTION

Again :

...

'BAPTISTA. If either of you both love Katharina .
Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.
GREMIO. To cart her rather: she 's too rough for me':

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(1. i. 52.)

with which compare coveting to bee courtlike, they become plaine cartlike' (Bk. 11. 165); and later, they take upon 'them the name of Courtiers, yet in their behaviour 'they shewe themselves little better than Carters' (ib. 176).

It is, besides, a somewhat curious coincidence that when Shakespeare gave the name of Sugarsop' to one of the servants in the play (Iv. i. 92) he should have adopted one of the two receites' which Anniball gives for enabling courtiers to maintain themselves in their prince's favour: These are abstinence, or else suger soppes

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suger soppes '—the meaning

of which he proceeds to expound in verse:

'Before their Prince let Courtiers silent be,

Or let their words be saust [sauced] with pleasaunt glee.'

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(Bk. III. 112.)

In Bk. 111. 29 we have, the wisdome, valour, and autho'ritie of the husband, serveth as a buckler to defende the 'honour of the wife'; and in a like spirit Petruchio declares to Katherine:

'Fear not, sweet wench; they shall not touch thee, Kate: I'll buckler thee against a million.'

(III. ii. 241.)

Then again, Lucentio welcoming his guests says:

'My banquet is to close our stomachs up,
After our great good cheer':

(v. ii. 9.)

the origin of which may well have been: Now after the