more lovely images to contemplate

[angevin2]

From 2 Henry IV 1.2.:
I was never manned with an agate till now, but I will inset you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master for a jewel -- the juvenal, the Prince your master, whose chin is not yet fledge. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand than he shall get one of his cheek, and

Comments

[ineptshieldmaid]

in general you don't see serious cultural freakouts about masturbation until a couple of centuries later.

you don't? HUH INTERESTING.

[angevin2]

Yeah. I mean, of course it was considered by moralists to be a Bad Thing, but you don't really see this sort of thing until the 18th century or so, IIRC.

[ineptshieldmaid]

I never knew masturbation caused consumption :P... *giggles*

[angevin2]

Falstaff is talking to his page there, whom he suggests is no bigger than a stone that would go in a ring. He's snarking about how Hal clearly sent him a tiny little page in order to make him look even fatter.

[angevin2]

It was one word that people don't use much. Give yourself a break.

[helixaspersa]

Hmm, well for the sense of the line it needs to suggest that the palm-hair growing is *very* unlikely (making Hal's puberty even less likely) and I'm not sure why he would be implying that if masturbation is what he's getting at. Although there's also maybe a pun on 'sooner' meaning 'rather'. I think it's more likely that it refers to something generally freakish and unlikely - and aren't werewolves meant to have hair in the palms of their hands?

[rikibeth]

Rip up my skin and try.

[quietprofanity]

Well, now we know why Harold Bloom identifies with him.

Ah, Bloom burns: Always fun.