Note 639 — SCENE II.
Reading edition
Abram-colour’d] So in Soliman and Perseda, 1599, sig. H 3:
“Where is the eldest sonne of Pryam?
That abraham-couloured Troion.”
In Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor, act i. sc. 4, Slender is described as having a “Cain-coloured beard;” and in our author’s Chaste Maid in Cheapside, act iii. sc. 2, “Judas with the red beard” is mentioned. Theobald, in a note on the passage of Shakespeare just quoted, thinks that such expressions were suggested by old tapestries and pictures. Steevens, ibid., is not certain but that “Abraham” may be a corruption of auburn; and in Coriolanus, act ii. sc. 3, where we now read with the fourth folio, “our heads are some brown, some black, some auburn,” the three earlier folios have “Abram.”