-colored
spot in his forehead between his eyes. This gives him a sour look, and,
being supposed to indicate an ill-temper, is generally considered a
great blemish. This notion is alluded to in "Antony and Cleopatra" (iii.
2), where Agrippa, speaking of Caesar, says:

"He has a cloud in's face,"

whereupon Enobarbus adds:

"He were the worse for that, were he a horse;
So is he, being a man."

Burton, in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," uses the phrase for the look of
a woman: "Every lover admires his mistress, though she be very deformed
of herselfe--thin, leane, chitty face, have clouds in her face," etc.

"To mose in the chine," a phrase we find in "Taming of the Shrew" (iii.
2)--"Possessed with the glanders, and like to mose in the chine"--refers
to a disorder in horses, also known as "mourning in the chine."

Alluding to the custom associated with horses, we may note that a
stalking-horse, or stale, was either a real or artificial one, under
cover of which the fowler approached towards and shot at his game. It is
alluded to in "As You Like It" (v. 4) by the Duke, who says of
Touchstone: "He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the
presentation of that he shoots his wit." In "Much Ado About Nothing"
(ii. 3), Claudio says: "Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits."[431] In
"Comedy of Errors" (ii. 1), Adriana says: "I am but his stale," upon
which Malone remarks: "Adriana undoubtedly means to compare herself to a
stalking-horse, behind whom Antipholus shoots at such game as he
selects." In "Taming of the Shrew," Katharina says to her father (i. 1):

"is it your will
To make a stale of me amongst these mates?"

which, says Singer, means "make an object of mockery." So in "3 Henry
VI." (iii. 3), Warwick says:

"Had he none else to make a stale but me?"

[431] See Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," p. 106;
Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 830.

That it was also a hunting term might be shown, adds Dyce,[432] by
quotations from various old writers. In the inventories of the wardrobe
belonging to King Henry VIII. we frequently find the allowance of
certain quantities of stuff for the purpose of making "stalking-coats
and stalking-hose for the use of his majesty."[433]

[432] "Glossary," p. 412.

[433] See Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," p. 48.

Again, the forehorse of a team was generally gayly ornamented with tufts
and ribbons and bells. H