"An evil conscience is a shrew, and gives most shocking curtain lectures."
— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for T. Cadell
Date
1775
Metaphor
"An evil conscience is a shrew, and gives most shocking curtain lectures."
Metaphor in Context
Evans, personating the King of the Fairies:
Cricket, to Windsor's chimneys shalt thou leap;
Where fires thou find'st unraked, and hearths unswept,
There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry.
Our radiant queen hates sluts, and sluttery. . . . . .
Go you, and where you find a maid
That ere she sleep hath thrice her prayers said,
Rein up the organs of her fantasy;
Sleep she as sound as careless infancy;
But those that sleep, and think not on their sins,
Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins.
The metaphorical exposition of this fable, is, I believe, and kindly hope too, most fully experienced by the difference of slumbers between an approving and an upbraiding mind. An evil conscience is a shrew, and gives most shocking curtain lectures.
(p. 129)
Cricket, to Windsor's chimneys shalt thou leap;
Where fires thou find'st unraked, and hearths unswept,
There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry.
Our radiant queen hates sluts, and sluttery. . . . . .
Go you, and where you find a maid
That ere she sleep hath thrice her prayers said,
Rein up the organs of her fantasy;
Sleep she as sound as careless infancy;
But those that sleep, and think not on their sins,
Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins.
The metaphorical exposition of this fable, is, I believe, and kindly hope too, most fully experienced by the difference of slumbers between an approving and an upbraiding mind. An evil conscience is a shrew, and gives most shocking curtain lectures.
(p. 129)
Categories
Provenance
Searching in ECCO-TCP
Citation
3 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1775, 1777).
Text from The Morality of Shakespeare's Drama Illustrated: By Mrs. Griffith. (London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1775). <Link to ECCO-TCP>
Text from The Morality of Shakespeare's Drama Illustrated: By Mrs. Griffith. (London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1775). <Link to ECCO-TCP>
Date of Entry
11/15/2013
