Note 519 — SCENE III.

This proverb occurs twice in Shakespeare, in "Much Ado about Nothing," and in "The Taming of the Shrew," and Malone and Steevens laboured in vain to discover its applicability. It is also to be met with in H. Chettle's "Patient Grissel," 1603, where Farnese observes to Julia, "Then I perceive you mean to lead apes in hell," and she replies, "That spiteful proverb was proclaimed against them that are married upon earth, for to be married is to live in a kind of hell.... Your wife is your ape, and that heavy burden wedlock, your jack-an-ape's clog: therefore I'll not be tied to't." This does not throw any new light upon the matter, nor explain why old maids are destined in the infernal regions to this duty. If old bachelors were supposed to be transformed there into apes, it would be very intelligible.