> Shakespeare mentioned it time and time again in his plays I'm pretty sure what Shakespeare was referencing is a much more general idea prevalent in his day -

> Shakespeare mentioned it time and time again in his plays I'm pretty sure what Shakespeare was referencing is a much more general idea prevalent in his day - that smells (not necessarily unpleasant ones) could be poisonous, and could be warded off by opposing "good" smells. This roughly coincided with an explosion of scented-good manufacturing as a cottage industry, although I'm not sure which way the arrow of causation ran there. </digression>