sheep formerly often pronounced (as it still is
in certain counties) ship, and even so written:
hence the quibbles,—
“Twenty to one, then, he is shipp'd already, And I have play'd the
sheep in losing him,”
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA, i. 1.
73
;
“Why, thou peevish sheep, What ship of Epidamnum stays for me?”
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS, iv. 1.
94
;
“Mar. Two hot sheeps,
marry. Boyet. And wherefore not ships?”
LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST, ii. 1.
218.
(Compare Dekker's Satiromastix, 1602:
“A hood shall flap vp and down heere, and this ship skin-cap shall be put off.”
Sig. F 3 verso.
That in Dryden's time ship was occasion
ally pronounced sheep appears from a rhyme in his
translation of Virgil:
“With whirlwinds from beneath she toss'd the ship,
And bare expos'd the bosom of the deep.”
Æn. B. i. 64; and that such was the case even at a later period is shown by a couplet in Nereides or Sea-Eclogues, 1712, by a poetaster named Diaper, who is several times mentioned in Swift's Journal to Stella:
“You'll find the fish, that stays the labouring ship,
Tho' ruffling winds drive o'er the noisy deep.”
Ecl. x. p. 44. )
“With whirlwinds from beneath she toss'd the ship,
And bare expos'd the bosom of the deep.”
Æn. B. i. 64; and that such was the case even at a later period is shown by a couplet in Nereides or Sea-Eclogues, 1712, by a poetaster named Diaper, who is several times mentioned in Swift's Journal to Stella:
“You'll find the fish, that stays the labouring ship,
Tho' ruffling winds drive o'er the noisy deep.”
Ecl. x. p. 44. )
