fool —“Poor,” a sort of term of endearment:
“I thank it, poor fool,”
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, ii. 1.
282
;
“Alas, poor fool,”
TWELFTH NIGHT, v. 1. 356
;
“my poor fool is hang'd!”
KING LEAR, v. 3. 305
(that is, Cordelia);
“poor venomous fool,”
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, v. 2.
303
;
“The poor fool,”
VENUS AND ADONIS, 578
;
“the poor dappled fools,”
AS YOU LIKE IT, ii. 1. 22
;
“the poor fools,”
3 HENRY VI., ii. 5. 36.
(With poor dappled fools compare
“Then he stroking once or twice his prettie goate [which hee
yet held fast by the hornes] said thus, Lie downe, pide
foole, by me, for we shall haue time enough to returne home againe.”
Shelton's transl. of Don
Quixote, Part First, p. 556, ed. 1612
.)