oks no division."

In Beaumont and Fletcher's "Nice Valour" it is so used:

"A lady of my hair cannot want pitying."

_Hands._ Various superstitions have, at different times, clustered round
the hand. Thus, in palmistry, a moist one is said to denote an amorous
constitution. In "Othello" (iii. 4) we have the following allusion to
this popular notion:

"_Othello._ Give me your hand. This hand is moist, my lady.

_Desdemona._ It yet has felt no age, nor known no sorrow.

_Othello._ This argues fruitfulness, and liberal heart."

Again, in "Antony and Cleopatra" (i. 2), Iras says: "There's a palm
presages chastity;" whereupon Charmian adds: "If an oily palm be not a
fruitful prognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear." And, in the
"Comedy of Errors" (iii. 2), Dromio of Syracuse speaks of barrenness as
"hard in the palm of the hand."

A dry hand, however, has been supposed to denote age and debility. In "2
Henry IV." (i. 2) the Lord Chief Justice enumerates this among the
characteristics of such a constitution.[917]

[917] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 179.

In the "Merchant of Venice" (ii. 2), Launcelot, referring to the
language of palmistry, calls the hand "the table," meaning thereby the
whole collection of lines on the skin within the hand: "Well, if any man
in Italy have a fairer table, which doth offer to swear upon a book, I
shall have good fortune." He then alludes to one of the lines in the
hand, known as the "line of life:" "Go to, here's a simple line of
life."

In the "Two Noble Kinsmen" (iii. 5) palmistry is further mentioned:

"_Gaoler's Daughter._ Give me your hand.

_Gerrold._ Why?

_Gaoler's Daughter._ I can tell your fortune."

It was once supposed that little worms were bred in the fingers of idle
servants. To this notion Mercutio refers in "Romeo and Juliet" (i. 4),
where, in his description of Queen Mab, he says:

"Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid."

This notion is alluded to by John Banister, a famous surgeon in
Shakespeare's day, in his "Compendious Chyrurgerie" (1585, p. 465): "We
commonly call them worms, which many women, sitting in the sunshine, can
cunningly picke out with needles, and are most common in the handes."

A popular term formerly in use for the nails on the ten fingers was the
"ten comman