A tub in Shakespeare is always a "hot tub" viewed through a strong lens of sexual disgust. Pompey in Measure for Measure refers to Mistress Overdone as being "in the tub" (MeM 3.2.57)
The word appears again in its plural form in an outburst that Timon directs at Timandra in Timon of Athens:
84 Be a whore
still. They love thee not that use thee;
85 Give them diseases, leaving with
thee their lust.
86 Make use of thy salt hours, season
the slaves
87 For tubs and baths, bring down
rose-cheek'd youth
88 To the tub-fast and the
diet. (Tim. 4.3.84-88)
In Cymbeline Iachimo tries to seduce Innogen by portraying her husband as unfaithful and expresses his astonishment that a man could abandon so beautiful a woman. He attributes this to
The cloyed will --
That satiate yet unsatisfied desire, that tub
Both fill'd and running -- ravening first the lamb,
Longs after for the garbage.
(1.6.39-50)
Iachimo's tub is not the sweating tub of the previous two passages, but has its roots in the Platonic allegory of the soul as a leaky vessel (Gorgias 493). But the association with sexual disgust is clear. A similar context restriction appears in the use of 'garbage'. This word collocates with the root 'sat*' in both of its occurrences, and Iachimo's lines almost may be said to cite the Ghost speaking to Hamlet:
53 But virtue,
as it never will be moved,
54 Though lewdness court it in a shape
of heaven,
55 So [lust], though to a radiant
angel link'd,
56 Will [sate] itself in a
celestial bed
57 And prey on garbage. (Ham.
1.5.53-57)
(Matthew Sullivan)
29 July 1999
mailto:martinmueller@nwu.edu