Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for
the rebellion of a codpiece to take away the
life of a man!
-Lucio
Measure For Measure Act III, Scene ii,
Line 116
Lucio is speaking to the Duke, who is disguised as a
friar. He’s talking about the fact that Angelo, the fellow who is in charge in
the Duke’s absence, is going to have a man put to death for the crime of
getting a woman pregnant (or was it just for having sex with her? Not sure). The
rebellion of a codpiece. The codpiece was a flap of material that
covered a man’s genitals. Interesting phraseology. The codpiece rebelled.
It’s always interesting to wonder about how many of
these turns of phrase Will invented, and how many were common phrases of the day that he just documented. Certainly many had to be the latter. I guess the
scholars know which is which from a study of other writings of the times, but I
sure don’t.
Still, it’s an interesting phrase and one that could
still easily be used. Let’s see.
Ahh,
there was no rebellion of the codpiece last night, Bert. I came home from the
bar quite alone.
Quel
Domage, my friend. Quel domage.
Well finding a picture for today's topic could have got me into all sorts of trouble. So instead of staying on topic, I'll just give you a pic of Spike in his pajamas. It has nothing to do with anything, but I hope you'll admit that Spike really knew how to rock those pj's. In fact, getting back on topic, I'll bet those pj's could get 'ol Spikey into some codpiece rebellions if worn in the right company. Am I right?