Reading Kenji Yoshino' book on Shakespeare and justice (christmas gift from Annabelle) I found the following 1600 text from John Leo's A Geographical Histoire of Africa (Leo was a Moor and is describing his countrymen):
"Most honest people they are, and destitute of all fraud and guile, very proud and high-minded, and wonderfully addicted unto wrath... Their wits are but meane, and there are so credulous, that they will beleeue matters impossible, which are told them... No nation in the world is so subject unto jealousie; for they will rather leese their lives than put up any disgrace in the behalfe of their women".
What likely picked Shakespeare's curiosity and attracted him to the book was the official visit of the King if Barbary to London in 1600. Leo writes about the ambassador in his book.
Fascinating to discover how authors construct their characters!
(Funny context for this entry... I was at the radiologist, getting a mammogram and took along Yoshino's book for the waiting room. I decided to copy this paragraph and ended up doing it on my phone (one finger) inside the tiny curtained changing room. I was interrupted in the middle and then had to finish when I was already dressed. Well, the radiologist came to ask me why I was still in the changing booth, dressed up, if she had told me to leave 10 minutes ago!)
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