748. ~homely ... home~. There is here a play upon words as in _Two Gent._
i. 1. 2: "_Home-keeping_ youth have ever _homely_ wits." _Homely_ is
derived from _home_.
749. Women with coarse complexions and dull cheeks are good enough for
household occupations.
750. ~of sorry grain~, not brilliant, of poor colour. 'Grain' is from Lat.
_granum_, a seed, applied to small objects, and hence to the coccus or
cochineal insect which yields a variety of red dyes. Hence _grain_ came
to denote certain colours, _e.g._ Tyrian purple, violet, etc., and is so
used by Milton: see _Il Pens._ 33, "a robe of darkest _grain_"; _Par.
Lost_, v. 285, "sky-tinctured _grain_"; xi. 242, "A military vest of
purple ... Livelier than ... the _grain_ Of Sarra," etc. And as these
were fast or durable colours we have such phrases as 'to dye in grain,'
'a rogue in grain,' 'an ingrained habit.' (See further in Marsh's _Lect.
on Eng. Lang._ p. 55).
751. ~sampler~, a sample or pattern piece of needlework. It is a doublet
of _exemplar_. ~tease the huswife's wool~. To _tease_ is to comb or card:
comp. the Lat. _vexare_. 'Huswife' = house-wife, further corrupted into
_hussy_. _Hussif_ (a case for needles, etc.) is a different word.
752. ~What need a vermeil-tinctured lip~? See note, l. 362, on 'what
need.' _Vermeil_: a French spelling of _vermilion_. The name is from
Lat. _vermis_, a worm (the cochineal insect, from which the colour used
to be got); and as _vermis_ is cognate with Sansk. _krimi_, a worm, it
follows that _vermilion_, _crimson_, and _carmine_ are cognate.
753. ~tresses~. Homer (_Odyssey_, v. 390) speaks of "the fair-tressed
Dawn," +euplokamos Êôs+.