Page:Some Textual Difficulties in Shakespeare.djvu/64

46 was no doubt related to the French escharre; and this means "a dry slough" or ravinelike place worn out by the action of water. It only remains, then, for us to take this simply worded passage and lend our imagination to what Shakespeare is saying. A figure of speech, we sometimes need to remind our- selves, has two sides to it. It is a little alle- gory, a fable in a word or two; it is an idea, a feeling, illustrated by a mental picture. And in Shakespeare's mind these pictures were always vividly conceived and exactly fitted to the parallel case.

Let us, then, imagine the coast of England. It is a shore faced by steep cliffs like those at Dover; and at the foot of these walls of Eng- land is the long smooth strip of strand—"the unnumbered sands" of the shore. A distance from shore, anchored in the offing, is a ship; and walking along the shore is a sailor, now left to an hour of liberty, who belongs to the ship. On the face of the cliff, here and there, are ropes by which samphire gatherers go up and down. Egg-gatherers sometimes come here, too, and fishermen and beach-combers; and the way from the long stretch of beach where "the unnumbered, idle pebble lies," up to the general level of the country is often by means of ropes. They hang down in plain sight on the bald face of the cliff. As the sailor wanders along he comes to where there is a scar or gully. In this dry gully, secluded