Richard III is called a "foul stigmatic" (2H6 5.1.214) and a "foul misshapen stigmatic"(3H6 2.2.136). In the only other occurrence of the word, the distraught Adriana describes her wayward husband:
17 I cannot, nor I will not, hold me still,
18 My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will.
19 He is deformed, crooked, old, and sere,
20 Ill-fac'd, worse bodied, shapeless every where;
21 Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind,
22 Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.
Luc.
23 Who would be jealous then of such a one?
24 No evil lost is wail'd when it is gone.Adr.
25 Ah, but I think him better than I say,
26 And yet would herein others' eyes were worse:
27 Far from her nest the lapwing cries away;
28 My heart prays for him though my tongue do curse,
Adriana's words fit Richard better than Antipholous, but the association allows us to link Adriana's comic eloquence with Lady Anne's tragic silence. Perhaps every marriage is a mismatch and the male is always stigmatical. The ugly associative chains of 'ram' point in that direction.
26 July, 1999
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