St. Lucia, April, 1851.
_On a Passage in Romeo and Juliet._--In the encounter between Mercutio
and Tybalt (Act III. Sc. 1.), in which Mercutio is killed, he addresses
Tybalt tauntingly thus:--
"Good king of cats, &c., will you pluck your sword out of his
_pilcher_ by the ears? Make haste, lest mine be about your ears
ere it be out."
The first quarto has _scabbard_, all the later editions have _pilcher_,
a word occurring nowhere else. There has been a vain attempt to make
_pilcher_ signify a _leathern sheath_, because a _pilch_ was a _garment
of leather_ or _pelt_. To me it is quite evident that _pilcher_ is a
mere typographical error for _pitcher_, which, in this jocose, bantering
speech, Mercutio substitutes for _scabbard_, else why are the _ears_
mentioned? The poet was familiar with the proverb "Pitchers have ears,"
of which he has elsewhere twice availed himself. The _ears_, as every
one knows, are the _handles_, which have since been called the _lugs_.
Shakspeare would hardly have substituted a word of his own creation for
_scabbard_; but _pitcher_ was suggested by the play upon the word
_ears_, which is used for _hilts_ in the plural, according to the
universal usage of the poet's time. The _ears_, applied to a _leathern
coat_, or even a _sheath_, would be quite unmeaning, but there is a well
sustained ludicrous image in "pluck your sword out of his _pitcher by
the ears_."