ears peeled

[Robin Hamilton]

>> I'd guess the former (I seem to recall it comes up in Shakespeare
>> somewhere), but I *am guessing.
>
> Merchant of Venice, Act II, Scene II:
>
> Launcelot Gobbo: ... this is my true-begotten father, who being more
> than sand-blind, high-gravel blind, knows me not ...
>
> arnold

Thanks, Arnold, that was the quote I was ineffectually trying to remember.
MV isn't published till the folio of 1623, but was probably written and
staged about 1599, give or take a couple of years either way.  So (FWIW)
about eight years after the (mis-dated by a year in the OED) Greene use of
"stone blind" in ConeyCatching2.

"Daddy's more than sand-blind [but less than stone-blind] -- he's
high-gravel blind."

Robin

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