Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare," p. 120.

_Blood._ In old phraseology this word was popularly used for disposition
or temperament. In "Timon of Athens" (iv. 2), Flavius says:

"Strange, unusual blood,
When man's worst sin is, he does too much good!"

In the opening passage of "Cymbeline" it occurs in the same sense:

"You do not meet a man but frowns: our bloods
No more obey the heavens, than our courtiers
Still seem as does the king,"

the meaning evidently being that "our dispositions no longer obey the
influences of heaven; they are courtiers, and still seem to resemble the
disposition the king is in."

Again, in "Much Ado About Nothing" (ii. 3): "wisdom and blood combating
in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one, that blood hath the
victory."

Once more, in "King Lear" (iv. 2), the Duke of Albany says to Goneril:

"Were't my fitness
To let these hands obey my blood,
They are apt enough to dislocate and tear
Thy flesh and bones."

Again, the phrase "to be in blood" was a term of the chase, meaning, to
be in good condition, to be vigorous. In "1 Henry VI." (iv. 2), Talbot
exclaims:

"If we be English deer, be, then, in blood;
Not rascal-like, to fall down with a pinch"

--the expression being put in opposition to "rascal," which was the term
for the deer when lean and out of condition. In "Love's Labour's Lost"
(iv. 2), Holofernes says: "The deer was, as you know, _sanguis_,--in
blood."

The notion that the blood may be thickened by emotional influences is
mentioned by Polixenes in the "Winter's Tale" (i. 2), where he speaks of
"thoughts that would thick my blood." In King John's temptation of
Hubert to murder Arthur (iii. 3), it is thus referred to:

"Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,
Had bak'd thy blood and made it heavy, thick,
Which else runs tickling up and down the veins."

Red blood was considered a traditionary sign of courage. Hence, in the
"Merchant of Venice" (ii. 1), the Prince of Morocco, when addressing
himself to Portia, and urging his claims for her hand, says:

"Bring me the fairest creature northward born,
Where Phoebus' fire scarce thaws the icicles,
And let us make incision for your love,[899]
To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine."

[899] Mr. Singer, in a note on this passage, says, "It was
customary, in the East, for lovers to testify the