" This theatrical cant term is of ancient date. In
the induction to Marston's comedy of "What You Will," 1607, it is
asked if the poet's resolve shall be "struck through with the blirt of
a goose breath?" Shakespeare makes no mention of goose in this sense,
but he refers now and then to hissing as the playgoers' method of
indicating disapproval. "Mistress Page, remember you your cue," says
Ford's wife in "The Merry Wives of Windsor." "I warrant thee," replies
Mistress Page, "if I do not act it, hiss me!" In the Roman theatres it
is well known that the spectators pronounced judgment upon the efforts
of the gladiators and combatants of the arena by silently turning
their thumbs up or down, decreeing death in the one case and life in
the other. Hissing, however, even at this time, was the usual method
of condemning the public speaker of distasteful opinions. In one of
Cicero's letters there is record of the orator Hortensius, "who
attained old age without once incurring the disgrace of being hissed."
The prologues of Ben Jonson and Beaumont and Fletcher frequently
deprecate the hissing of the audience.
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