Abstract

At the beginning of the dog's trial the prosecution state the charge and the penalty they propose. It seems to me that there may be a more complicated joke here than is generally realized. The penalty of a collar is appropriate for a dog and in real life was sometimes imposed on a slave or a prisoner. The epithet applied to the collar is usually translated ‘of figwood’ and taken to be a pun on. Commentators see the same pun earlier in the play at 145, although in that passage the sense may be adequate without the pun; the adjective does not necessarily constitute a joke in itself but is perhaps chosen deliberately to lead into the joke.