In Love’s Labour’s
Lost, the clown Costard violates Navarre’s statutes and is sentenced
to “fast a Week with Bran and water” executed by Armado, a braggard from Spain.
Armado’s page Moth reports to him that Costard is “broken in a shin” and they start a wonder
of dialogue.
Broken Shin
King of Navarre and his three lords disguise themselves
as Russians to entertain Princess of France and her three waiting
ladies. In this way the lords can avoid statutes set by the King himself. This also
relates to Costard’s “broken in a shin.”
To break shins is a Russian custom to punish those who
can but don’t pay their debts, as in The Seven Deadly Sinnes of
London (1606) by Thomas Dekker (1572–1632):
The Russians haue an excellent custome:
they beate them on the shinnes, that haue mony, and will not pay
their debts; if that law were well cudgeld from thence into England,
Barbar-Surgeons might in a few yeeres build vp a Hall for their Compnay, larger
then Powles, only with the cure of Bankrupt broken-shinnes.
Not paying one’s debts was a sin to be put
to jail in Shakespeare’s time. Costard has a broken shin insinuates his sin
is disclosed and punished. Shin to sin follows the same rule of enigma to egma.
Some editions assume broken in a shin means a physical wound, or disappointment
by a mistress as “broken shin” and “plantain leaf”
in Romeo and Juliet.
Enigma to Egma
Dialogue of Armado, Moth, and Costard is a crux. It also
shows how one-way anagram functions via various samples:
Some enigma .
. . No egma
Plantain, a plain
Plantain
a Goose, that’s flat
. . . Goose be fat
enfranchise thee . . . one Francis
No line is crossed in above diagrams. Enigma
to egma (removing -ni- from enigma) is a process of taking out letters from a word to frame a
new word without changing the sequence of remaining letters. The same method may
apply to other related words in this dialogue, such as shin (sin, hin), riddle
(ride, rid, idle), lenvoy (levy, envy, enoy), salve (save, sale, ale, ave), plantain
(plant, plan, pant, lant, lain).
Transforming of enigma to egma itself is an enigma. Egma can be a perfect anagram of mage, a magician or one who has great wisdom in certain field. It would be the reason to extract -ni- from enigma but not other letters. Costard the clown is a mage of words.
Broken Shin in Romeo and Juliet
Romeo is oppressed and sad for he cannot win
favor of Rosalind who has sworn to live a chastity life. Romeo’s cousin
Benvolio suggests him to forget her by examining other beauties. Romeo rejects
that. He doesn’t believe Benvolio can teach him to forget. Benvolio considers
himself is “in debt” to Romeo, and wants to prove that Romeo can forget
Rosalind.
Romeo.
Show me a Mistress that is passing fair,
What does her beauty serve but as a note,
Where I may read who past that passing
fair.
Farewell, thou can’st not teach me to
forget.
Benvolio.
I’ll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.
[Exeunt. . . .]
Tut, man, one fire burns out another’s
burning,
One pain is lessened by another’s anguish:
Turn giddy, and be holp by backward
turning:
One desperate grief, cures with another’s
languish:
Take thou some new infection to the eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.
Romeo.
Your Plantain leaf is excellent for that.
Benvolio.
For what, I pray thee?
Romeo.
Benvolio.
Why, Romeo, art thou mad?
Romeo.
Not mad, but bound more than a mad man is:
Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
Whipped and tormented.
*Your Plantain leaf is
excellent for that: Plantain leaf can salve one’s wound or broken
shin, but Benvolio has no physical wound. Plantain leaf sounds like
plainting-leave, exiting with grievance. Plaint has the usage of to complain
or lament. Romeo expects Benvolio will fail to persuade him and leave with
lament.
*For your broken shin: Benvolio is in debt to Romeo to let Romeo forget Rosalind, which Romeo does not believe. Benvolio can pay that debt by admitting Romeo is right, but Benvolio will not do that. Romeo forgets Rosalind right after Juliet appears.