Similar to "cut and run", a pejorative phrase used to describe cowardly withdrawal from battle, "stay the course" allegedly originated as a nautical metaphor on maintaining a constant, unaltering course while navigating. For instance, in a 2003 column, William Safire asked his readers what they knew of its origins, saying it "appears to be rooted in a nautical metaphor." In this context 'stay' refers to the ropes or guys and sheets that hold the 'course' (mainsail) in a fixed position appropriate to the heading. Citations from the late 19th century, however, show the phrase describing horses having the stamina to remain on the course of a racetrack. Safire found the same, writing that the earliest such use found was for an 1873 rowing competition. Safire's correspondent, lexicographer Benjamin Zimmer, pointed out that before that, "citations for 'stay the course' invariably have the countervailing sense of 'to stop or check the course (of something).'" Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe used it in that sense in "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus" in 1588.