You are here

"tailor"
Language
Act 2,
Scene 1
Lines 42b-57

An explanation of the exclamation of “tailor” in Act 2, Scene 1 of myShakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Robin 

                            Thou speak'st aright;
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon and make him smile
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal.
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl
In very likeness of a roasted crab;
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob
And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me.
Then slip I from her bum. Down topples she,
And “tailor” cries, and falls into a cough.
And then the whole choir hold their hips and laugh,
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.

"Tailor" was an exclamation that someone cried when they accidentally fell backwards. It possibly stems from the fact that tailors either sat on the floor, or were prone to lose their balance and fall backwards when squatting down to adjust the bottom of a garment. It’s also possible that the phrase comes from falling on one’s “tail.” The aunt, having fallen, laughs so hard she "coughs" because she can't catch her breath.