soft – qualities that are not at all suggestive of bravery or valor. The doctor, though, does not understand the insult. He does not realize that he is a source of comic amusement for the Host and others.
Another of the Host’s insults is “Castalian King Urinal” (29). Urinal is not a name of a king. Rather, it refers to a vessel or bottle for holding urine (since one of the common tasks of a doctor was to inspect urine). The first word, Castalian, is a pun: (1) It means to cast stale, and since stale is a Renaissance word for urine, the word then means to inspect urine.
Yet another of the Host’s insults is the reference to Doctor Caius as “Monsieur Mockwater” (49-50). The Host tells the physician that the word means valor or bravery, and Caius accepts this explanation. However, Mockwater is also an insult and a pun: (1) It indicates that Caius is a quack, an incompetent doctor, who mocks water. Water is another word for urine in this sense, and Caius mocks it by misdiagnosing it. (2) The word mockwater may also suggest that Caius is sterile. In this sense the word water means semen, and mock semen would thus indicate weakness or impotence. Thus, the Host is really declaring that Caius is a weak and powerless fighter: he is not brave at all.
Other characters also misuse the language in the scene. Notably, when Shallow declares that even though he is old and now serves as a Justice of the