This phrase always troubled me, even after I consulted the original text. Shakespeare used the term "fancy free" in A Midsummer Night's Dream. It doesn't mean anything to me. I know how we use it today and what we mean by it, but as a word construction, it collapses. Fancy free? I get nothing from this.
I think if I was foot loose I would definitely not be fancy free. I'd be way fancy. Just saying. But perhaps Shakespeare didn't mean fancy free to be a phrase like duty-free. In other words, "free" wasn't used as a disqualifier, in which case fancy is an adjective describing "free". I guess it means the free is fancy. Or something. Or maybe it means free as only the fancy set could be. That would make sense in this early era (and perhaps today, come to think of it).
But Shakespeare has always eluded me. Although I can read just about anything, I can't read any of his works. I've tried but I become very impatient. I know this is heresy but that's the way it is. I've read just about everyone else and can enjoy a good, boring book as well as the next guy. But Shakespeare? No.
Anyone have a better grasp of what he meant by the phrase? I didn't find anything helpful on the net.
I think if I was foot loose I would definitely not be fancy free. I'd be way fancy. Just saying. But perhaps Shakespeare didn't mean fancy free to be a phrase like duty-free. In other words, "free" wasn't used as a disqualifier, in which case fancy is an adjective describing "free". I guess it means the free is fancy. Or something. Or maybe it means free as only the fancy set could be. That would make sense in this early era (and perhaps today, come to think of it).
But Shakespeare has always eluded me. Although I can read just about anything, I can't read any of his works. I've tried but I become very impatient. I know this is heresy but that's the way it is. I've read just about everyone else and can enjoy a good, boring book as well as the next guy. But Shakespeare? No.
Anyone have a better grasp of what he meant by the phrase? I didn't find anything helpful on the net.
