insanity. Cf. Malvolio's punishment in Twelfth Night.
III. ii. 449. liver. The liver was regarded by Elizabethans as the seat of love.
III. iii. 5. features. There is a jest here, caused by Audrey's misunderstanding, whose meaning has been lost. There are numerous conjectures but none satisfactory.
III. iii. 8. capricious . . . Goths. The pun is a double one on the word 'goats.' 'Capricious' is derived from the Latin 'capra,' a goat. 'Goths' was probably pronounced by the Elizabethans to sound like 'goats.' Ovid dwelt, during his exile, among the Getae on the shore of the Black Sea.
III. iii. 11. Jove in a thatch'd house. A reference to the story of Baucis and Philemon. Jove, in human form, was entertained unawares by the two peasants in their thatched house.
III. iii. 14. strikes . . . room. I. e., 'is more overwhelming than an excessive bill for the poor accommodation of a private room in an inn.'
III. iii. 49. gods . . . joy. From other references in Elizabethan literature this phrase appears to be equivalent to an acknowledgment of marriage.
III. iii. 105. 'O sweet Oliver.' Possibly a quotation from an old ballad (Warburton) or the lines from an old play (Capell).
III. iv. 7. dissembling. Red or auburn hair was supposed to indicate a deceitful person.
III. iv. 8. Judas's. Mediaeval tradition assigns red, hence a 'dissembling colour,' to Judas' hair.
III. iv. 11. your chestnut. In this sense 'your chestnut' means 'chestnut in general.'
III. iv. 16. winter's sisterhood. Used figuratively of nuns dedicated to the 'ice of chastity.'
III. iv. 43. traverse. An allusion to the disgrace
