732 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters . 
In the Merry Wives of Windsor (1598-99) we have an echo 
of the animal testament. 1 Falstaff disguised as Herne is wait¬ 
ing to meet Mrs. Ford. The park and his own dress suggest 
to him a comparison with a stag. Mrs. Ford appears and ad¬ 
dresses him as her male deer, and then tells him that Mrs. 
Page has come with her. Falstaff then humorously makes 
his testament as a deer brought to bay might be expected to do: 
“Divide me like a bribe buck, each a haunch: I will keep 
my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, 
and my horns I bequeath to your husbands.” 
Again there is a suggestion of the animal testament in As 
You Like It (1599). There Jacques sees the dying deer and 
says: “Thou makest a testament as worldlings do.” 2 
At the end of the same play Jacques’ disposition of his 
friends strongly suggests the testament. As he is about to 
renounce the world he makes bequests of his several friends. 3 
At the close of Troilus and Cressida (1601-02), Pandarus 
proposes to make his will in which he promises to bequeath his 
diseases to his enmies. 4 In Pericles (1608) th© Prince, about 
to try the riddle of Antiochus, makes a testament in which we 
are interested to find that peace is one of the bequests. 5 In 
Anthony and Cleopatra (c. 1608) there is a suggestion of the 
testament. Cleopatra in her dying speech bequeathes to the 
earth all of herself except the fire and air. 6 The idea of the 
testament seems still to have been haunting Shakespere’s mind 
when in the Winter's Tale (1611) Paulina, awakening the 
statue of Hermione, is made to say: “Bequeath to death your 
numbness.” 7 Here we have the situation of the ordinary will 
reversed, for the testator is coming back from death to life and 
is supposed while yet in the realm of death to be making a will 
before returning. Again in the Passionate Pilgrim, some* 
1 V, v, 27. I think that none of the commentators has explained this 
passage as a testament. If my interpretation is correct, “bequeath” 
has the regular testamentary sense instead of meaning “commit” as 
glossed hy Schmidt. 
2 II, i, 47. 
3 V, iv, 192. 
4 V, x, 51. 
e I, i, 47. 
e V, ii, 292. 
7 V, iii, 102. 
