"Then vail your stomachs; for it is no boot;
And place your hand below your husband's foot;
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready: may it do him ease."
Though Shakspeare was, in general, a most correct and careful writer,
that he sometimes wrote hastily it would be vain to deny. In the third
line of the foregoing extract, the meaning clearly is, "as which
token of duty;" and it is the performance of this "token of duty"
which Katharine hopes may "do him ease." The imitator, as usual, has
caught something of the words of the original which he has laboured
to reproduce at a most unusual sacrifice of grammar and sense; the
following passage appearing to represent that the wives, by laying
their hands under their husbands' feet--no reference being made to
the act as a token of duty--in some unexplained manner, "might procure
them ease."
"Laying our hands under their feet to tread,
If that by that we might procure their ease,
And, for a precedent, I'll first begin
And lay my hand under my husband's feet."--p. 213.
One more instance, and I have done. Shakspeare has imparted a
dashing humorous character to this play, exemplified, among other
peculiarities, by such rhyming of following words as--
"Haply to _wive_ and _thrive_ as least I may."
"We will have _rings_ and _things_ and fine array."
"With _ruffs_, and _cuffs_, and farthingales and things."
I quote these to show that the habit was Shakspeare's. In Act I. Sc.
1. occurs the passage--"that would thoroughly woo her, wed her, and
bed her, and rid the house of her." The sequence here is perfectly
natural: but observe the change: in Ferando's first interview with
Kate, he says,--
"My mind, sweet Kate, doth say I am the man
Must wed and bed _and marrie_ bonnie Kate."--p. 172.