{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_32183/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_32183","id":"gutenberg_32183","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32183","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Plays/Films/Dramas","Folklore in literature","Literature and folklore -- England -- History -- 16th century","Literature and folklore -- England -- History -- 17th century","Oral tradition -- England","Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Knowledge -- Folklore"],"text":"Produced by Irma Spehar and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was\nproduced from images generously made available by The\nInternet Archive/Canadian Libraries)\n\n\n\n\n\n FOLK-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE\n\n BY THE\n\n REV. T. F. THISELTON DYER, M.A. OXON.\n AUTHOR OF \"BRITISH POPULAR CUSTOMS, PAST AND PRESENT,\" ETC.\n\n\n NEW YORK\n HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE\n 1884\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nIt would be difficult to overestimate the value which must be attached\nto the plays of Shakespeare in connection with the social life of the\nElizabethan age. Possessed of a rich treasury of knowledge of a most\nvaried kind, much of which he may be said to have picked up almost\nintuitively, he embellished his writings with a choice store of\nillustrations descriptive of the period in which he lived. Apart, too,\nfrom his copious references to the manners and customs of the time, he\nseems to have had not only a wide knowledge of many technical subjects,\nbut also an intimate acquaintance with the folk-lore of bygone days. How\nfar this was the case may be gathered from the following pages, in which\nare collected and grouped together, as far as arrangement would permit,\nthe various subjects relating to this interesting and popular branch of\nour domestic history. It only remains for me to add that the edition of\nthe poet's plays made use of is the \"Globe,\" published by Messrs.\nMacmillan.\n\n T. F. THISELTON DYER.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n CHAP. PAGE.\n\n I. FAIRIES 1\n\n II. WITCHES 25\n\n III. GHOSTS 43\n\n IV. DEMONOLOGY AND DEVIL-LORE 52\n\n V. NATURAL PHENOMENA 62\n\n VI. BIRDS 97\n\n VII. ANIMALS 161\n\n VIII. PLANTS 201\n\n IX. INSECTS AND REPTILES 250\n\n X. FOLK-MEDICINE 264\n\n XI. CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH THE CALENDAR 296\n\n XII. BIRTH AND BAPTISM 332\n\n XIII. MARRIAGE 342\n\n XIV. DEATH AND BURIAL 362\n\n XV. RINGS AND PRECIOUS STONES 386\n\n XVI. SPORTS AND PASTIMES 394\n\n XVII. DANCES 424\n\n XVIII. PUNISHMENTS 433\n\n XIX. PROVERBS 444\n\n XX. HUMAN BODY 475\n\n XXI. FISHES 497\n\n XXII. SUNDRY SUPERSTITIONS 505\n\n XXIII. MISCELLANEOUS CUSTOMS, ETC. 521\n\n INDEX 549\n\n\n\n\nFOLK-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nFAIRIES.\n\n\nThe wealth of Shakespeare's luxuriant imagination and glowing language\nseems to have been poured forth in the graphic accounts which he has\ngiven us of the fairy tribe. Indeed, the profusion of poetic imagery\nwith which he has so richly clad his fairy characters is unrivalled, and\nthe \"Midsummer-Night's Dream\" holds a unique position in so far as it\ncontains the finest modern artistic realization of the fairy kingdom.\nMr. Dowden, in his \"Shakspere Primer\" (1877, pp. 71, 72) justly remarks:\n\"As the two extremes of exquisite delicacy, of dainty elegance, and, on\nthe other hand, of thick-witted grossness and clumsiness, stand the\nfairy tribe and the group of Athenian handicraftsmen. The world of the\npoet's dream includes the two--a Titania, and a Bottom the weaver--and can\nbring them into grotesque conjunction. No such fairy poetry existed\nanywhere in English literature before Shakspere. The tiny elves, to whom\na cowslip is tall, for whom the third part of a minute is an important\ndivision of time, have a miniature perfection which is charming. They\ndelight in all beautiful and dainty things, and war with things that\ncreep and things that fly, if they be uncomely; their lives are gay with\nfine frolic and delicate revelry.\" Puck, the jester of fairyland, stands\napart from the rest, the recognizable \"lob of spirits,\" a rough,\n\"fawn-faced, shock-pated little fellow, dainty-limbed shapes around\nhim.\" Judging, then, from the elaborate account which the poet has\nbequeathed us of the fairies, it is evident that the subject was one in\nwhich he took a special interest. Indeed, the graphic pictures he has\nhanded down to us of\n\n \"Elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves;\n And ye, that on the sands with printless foot,\n Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him\n When he comes back; you demy-puppets that\n By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets make\n Whereof the ewe not bites,\" etc.,\n\nshow how intimately he was acquainted with the history of these little\npeople, and what a complete knowledge he possessed of the superstitious\nfancies which had clustered round them. In Shakespeare's day, too, it\nmust be remembered, fairies were much in fashion; and, as Johnson\nremarks, common tradition had made them familiar. It has also been\nobserved that, well acquainted, from the rural habits of his early life,\nwith the notions of the peasantry respecting these beings, he saw that\nthey were capable of being applied to a production of a species of the\nwonderful. Hence, as Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps[1] has so aptly written,\n\"he founded his elfin world on the prettiest of the people's traditions,\nand has clothed it in the ever-living flowers of his own exuberant\nfancy.\" Referring to the fairy mythology in the \"Midsummer-Night's\nDream,\" it is described by Mr. Keightley[2] as an attempt to blend \"the\nelves of the village with the fays of romance.\" His fairies agree with\nthe former in their diminutive stature--diminished, indeed, to dimensions\ninappreciable by village gossips--in their fondness for dancing, their\nlove of cleanliness, and their child-abstracting propensities. Like the\nfays, they form a community, ruled over by the princely Oberon and the\nfair Titania. There is a court and chivalry; Oberon would have the\nqueen's sweet changeling to be a \"knight of his train, to trace the\nforests wild.\" Like earthly monarchs, he has his jester, \"that shrewd\nand knavish sprite called Robin Goodfellow.\"\n\n [1] \"Illustrations of the Fairy Mythology of 'A\n Midsummer-Night's Dream,'\" 1845, p. xiii.\n\n [2] \"Fairy Mythology,\" p. 325.\n\nOf the fairy characters treated by Shakespeare may be mentioned Oberon,\nking of fairyland, and Titania, his queen. They are represented as\nkeeping rival courts in consequence of a quarrel, the cause of which is\nthus told by Puck (\"Midsummer-Night's Dream,\" ii. 1):\n\n \"The king doth keep his revels here to-night:\n Take heed the queen come not within his sight;\n For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,\n Because that she as her attendant hath\n A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;\n She never had so sweet a changeling;\n And jealous Oberon would have the child\n Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;\n But she perforce withholds the loved boy,\n Crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy;\n And now they never meet in grove or green,\n By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,\" etc.\n\nOberon first appears in the old French romance of \"Huon de Bourdeaux,\"\nand is identical with Elberich, the dwarf king of the German story of\nOtuit in the \"Heldenbuch.\" The name Elberich, or, as it appears in the\n\"Nibelungenlied,\" Albrich, was changed, in passing into French, first\ninto Auberich, then into Auberon, and finally became our Oberon. He is\nintroduced by Spenser in the \"Fairy Queen\" (book ii. cant. i. st. 6),\nwhere he describes Sir Guyon:\n\n \"Well could he tournay, and in lists debate,\n And knighthood tooke of good Sir Huon's hand,\n When with King Oberon he came to faery land.\"\n\nAnd in the tenth canto of the same book (stanza 75) he is the\nallegorical representative of Henry VIII. The wise Elficleos left two\nsons,\n\n \"of which faire Elferon,\n The eldest brother, did untimely dy;\n Whose emptie place the mightie Oberon\n Doubly supplide, in spousall and dominion.\"\n\n\"Oboram, King of Fayeries,\" is one of the characters in Greene's \"James\nthe Fourth.\"[3]\n\n [3] Aldis Wright's \"Midsummer-Night's Dream,\" 1877, Preface,\n pp. xv., xvi.; Ritson's \"Fairy Mythology,\" 1875, pp. 22, 23.\n\nThe name Titania for the queen of the fairies appears to have been the\ninvention of Shakespeare, for, as Mr. Ritson[4] remarks, she is not \"so\ncalled by any other writer.\" Why, however, the poet designated her by\nthis title, presents, according to Mr. Keightley,[5] no difficulty. \"It\nwas,\" he says, \"the belief of those days that the fairies were the same\nas the classic nymphs, the attendants of Diana. The fairy queen was\ntherefore the same as Diana, whom Ovid (Met. iii. 173) styles Titania.\"\nIn Chaucer's \"Merchant's Tale\" Pluto is the king of faerie, and his\nqueen, Proserpina, \"who danced and sang about the well under the laurel\nin January's garden.\"[6]\n\n [4] Essay on Fairies in \"Fairy Mythology of Shakspeare,\" p. 23.\n\n [5] \"Fairy Mythology,\" 1878, p. 325.\n\n [6] Notes to \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream,\" by Aldis Wright,\n 1877, Preface, p. xvi.\n\nIn \"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 4) she is known by the more familiar\nappellation, Queen Mab. \"I dream'd a dream to-night,\" says Romeo,\nwhereupon Mercutio replies, in that well-known famous passage--\n\n \"O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you,\"\n\nthis being the earliest instance in which Mab is used to designate the\nfairy queen. Mr. Thoms[7] thinks that the origin of this name is to be\nfound in the Celtic, and that it contains a distinct allusion to the\ndiminutive form of the elfin sovereign. _Mab_, both in Welsh and in the\nkindred dialects of Brittany, signifies a child or infant, and hence it\nis a befitting epithet to one who\n\n \"comes\n In shape no bigger than an agate-stone\n On the fore-finger of an alderman.\"\n\nMr. Keightley suggests that Mab may be a contraction of Habundia, who,\nHeywood says, ruled over the fairies; and another derivation is from\nMabel, of which Mab is an abbreviation.\n\n [7] \"Three Notelets on Shakespeare,\" pp. 100-107.\n\nAmong the references to Queen Mab we may mention Drayton's \"Nymphidia:\"\n\n \"Hence Oberon, him sport to make\n (Their rest when weary mortals take,\n And none but only fairies wake),\n Descendeth for his pleasure:\n And Mab, his merry queen, by night\n Bestrides young folks that lie upright,\" etc.\n\nBen Jonson, in his \"Entertainment of the Queen and Prince at Althrope,\"\nin 1603, describes as \"tripping up the lawn a bevy of fairies, attending\non Mab, their queen, who, falling into an artificial ring that there was\ncut in the path, began to dance around.\" In the same masque the queen is\nthus characterized by a satyr.\n\n \"This is Mab, the mistress fairy,\n That doth nightly rob the dairy,\n And can help or hurt the cherning\n As she please, without discerning,\" etc.\n\nLike Puck, Shakespeare has invested Queen Mab with mischievous\nproperties, which \"identify her with the night hag of popular\nsuperstition,\" and she is represented as\n\n \"Platting the manes of horses in the night.\"\n\nThe merry Puck, who is so prominent an actor in \"A Midsummer-Night's\nDream,\" is the mischief-loving sprite, the jester of the fairy court,\nwhose characteristics are roguery and sportiveness. In his description\nof him, Shakespeare, as Mr. Thoms points out, \"has embodied almost every\nattribute with which the imagination of the people has invested the\nfairy race; and has neither omitted one trait necessary to give\nbrilliancy and distinctness to the likeness, nor sought to heighten its\neffect by the slightest exaggeration. For, carefully and elaborately as\nhe has finished the picture, he has not in it invested the 'lob of\nspirits' with one gift or quality which the popular voice of the age was\nnot unanimous in bestowing upon him.\" Thus (ii. 1) the fairy says:\n\n \"Either I mistake your shape and making quite,\n Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite,\n Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are you not he\n That frights the maidens of the villagery;\n Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern,\n And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;\n And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;\n Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?\n Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,\n You do their work, and they shall have good luck:\n Are not you he?\"\n\nThe name \"Puck\" was formerly applied to the whole race of fairies, and\nnot to any individual sprite--_puck_, or _pouke_, being an old word for\ndevil, in which sense it is used in the \"Vision of Piers Plowman:\"\n\n \"Out of the poukes pondfold\n No maynprise may us fecche.\"\n\nThe Icelandic _puki_ is the same word, and in Friesland and Jutland the\ndomestic spirit is called Puk by the peasantry. In Devonshire, Piskey is\nthe name for a fairy, with which we may compare the Cornish Pixey. In\nWorcestershire, too, we read how the peasantry are occasionally\n\"poake-ledden,\" that is, misled by a mischievous spirit called _poake_.\nAnd, according to Grose's \"Provincial Glossary,\" in Hampshire they give\nthe name of Colt-pixey to a supposed spirit or fairy, which, in the\nshape of a horse, neighs, and misleads horses into bogs. The Irish,\nagain, have their Pooka,[8] and the Welsh their Pwcca--both words derived\nfrom Pouke or Puck. Mr. Keightley[9] thinks, also, that the Scottish\n_pawkey_, sly, knowing, may belong to the same list of words. It is\nevident, then, that the term Puck was in bygone years extensively\napplied to the fairy race, an appellation still found in the west of\nEngland. Referring to its use in Wales, \"there is a Welsh tradition to\nthe effect that Shakespeare received his knowledge of the Cambrian\nfairies from his friend Richard Price, son of Sir John Price, of the\nPriory of Brecon.\" It is even claimed that Cwm Pwcca, or Puck Valley, a\npart of the romantic glen of the Clydach, in Breconshire, is the\noriginal scene of the \"Midsummer-Night's Dream.\"[10]\n\n [8] See Croker's \"Fairy Legends of South of Ireland,\" 1862, p. 135.\n\n [9] \"Fairy Mythology,\" 1878, p. 316.\n\n [10] Wirt Sikes's \"British Goblins,\" 1880, p. 20.\n\nAnother of Puck's names was Robin Goodfellow, and one of the most\nvaluable illustrations we have of the \"Midsummer-Night's Dream\" is a\nblack-letter tract published in London, 1628, under the title of \"Robin\nGoodfellow: His Mad Pranks, and Merry Jests, full of honest mirth, and\nis a fit medicine for melancholy.\"[11] Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps,[12]\nspeaking of Robin Goodfellow, says, \"there can be no doubt that in the\ntime of Shakespeare the fairies held a more prominent position in our\npopular literature than can be now concluded from the pieces on the\nsubject that have descended to us.\" The author of \"Tarlton's News out of\nPurgatory,\" printed in 1590, assures us that Robin Goodfellow was\n\"famosed in every old wives chronicle for his mad merry pranks;\" and we\nlearn from \"Henslowe's Diary\" that Chettle was the writer of a drama on\nthe adventures of that \"merry wanderer of the night.\" These have\ndisappeared; and time has dealt so harshly with the memory of poor Robin\nthat we might almost imagine his spirit was still leading us astray over\nmassive volumes of antiquity, in a delusive search after documents\nforever lost; or, rather, perhaps, it is his punishment for the useless\njourneys he has given our ancestors, misleading night-wanderers, \"and\nlaughing at their harm.\"[13] He is mentioned by Drayton in his\n\"Nymphidia:\"\n\n \"He meeteth Puck, which most men call\n Hob-goblin, and on him doth fall,\" etc.,\n\n\"hob being the familiar or diminutive form of Robert and Robin, so that\nHobgoblin is equivalent to Robin the Goblin. _i. e._, Robin\nGoodfellow.\"[14] Burton, in his \"Anatomy of Melancholy,\" alludes to him\nthus: \"A bigger kinde there is of them, called with us hobgoblins and\nRobin Goodfellows, that would, in superstitious times, grinde corne for\na mess of milk, cut wood, or do any manner of drudgery work.\" Under his\nname of Robin Goodfellow, Puck is well characterized in Jonson's masque\nof \"Love Restored.\"[15]\n\n [11] This is reprinted in Hazlitt's \"Fairy Tales, Legends, and\n Romances, illustrating Shakespeare and other English Writers,\"\n 1875, p. 173.\n\n [12] \"Illustrations of the Fairy Mythology of the\n Midsummer-Night's Dream,\" printed for the Shakespeare Society,\n p. viii.\n\n [13] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. pp. 508-512.\n\n [14] Thoms's \"Three Notelets on Shakespeare,\" p. 88.\n\n [15] See Nares's Glossary, vol. ii. p. 695.\n\nAnother epithet applied to Puck is \"Lob,\" as in the \"Midsummer-Night's\nDream\" (ii. 1), where he is addressed by the fairy as\n\n \"Thou lob of spirits.\"[16]\n\nWith this we may compare the \"lubber-fiend\" of Milton, and the following\nin Beaumont and Fletcher's \"Knight of the Burning Pestle\" (iii. 4):\n\"There is a pretty tale of a witch that had the devil's mark about her,\nthat had a giant to be her son, that was called Lob-lye-by-the-Fire.\"\nGrimm[17] mentions a spirit, named the \"Good Lubber,\" to whom the bones\nof animals used to be offered at Manseld, in Germany. Once more, the\nphrase of \"being in,\" or \"getting into Lob's pound,\" is easy of\nexplanation, presuming Lob to be a fairy epithet--the term being\nequivalent to Poake-ledden or Pixy-led.[18] In \"Hudibras\" this term is\nemployed as a name for the stocks in which the knight puts Crowdero:\n\n \"Crowdero, whom in irons bound,\n Thou basely threw'st into _Lob's pound_.\"\n\n [16] Mr. Dyce considers that Lob is descriptive of the contrast\n between Puck's square figure and the airy shapes of the other\n fairies.\n\n [17] \"Deutsche Mythologie,\" p. 492.\n\n [18] See Keightley's \"Fairy Mythology,\" pp. 318, 319.\n\nIt occurs, also, in Massinger's \"Duke of Milan\" (iii. 2), where it means\n\"behind the arras:\"\n\n \"Who forc'd the gentleman, to save her credit,\n To marry her, and say he was the party\n Found in Lob's pound.\"\n\nThe allusion by Shakespeare to the \"Will-o'-the-Wisp,\" where he speaks\nof Puck as \"sometime a fire,\" is noticed elsewhere, this being one of\nthe forms under which this fairy was supposed to play his midnight\npranks.\n\nReferring, in the next place, to the several names of Shakespeare's\nfairies, we may quote from \"The Merry Wives of Windsor\" (iv. 3), where\nMrs. Page speaks of \"urchins, ouphes, and fairies\"--urchin having been\nan appellation for one class of fairies. In the \"Maydes' Metamorphosis\"\nof Lyly (1600), we find fairies, elves, and urchins separately\naccommodated with dances for their use. The following is the _urchin's_\ndance:\n\n \"By the moone we sport and play,\n With the night begins our day;\n As we frisk the dew doth fall,\n Trip it, little urchins all,\n Lightly as the little bee,\n Two by two, and three by three,\n And about goe wee, goe wee.\"\n\nIn \"The Tempest\" (i. 2) their actions are also limited to the night:\n\n \"Urchins\n Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,\n All exercise on thee.\"\n\nThe children employed to torment Falstaff, in \"The Merry Wives of\nWindsor\" (iv. 4), were to be dressed in these fairy shapes.\n\nMr. Douce regards the word _urchin_, when used to designate a fairy, as\nof Celtic origin, with which view Mr. Thoms[19] compares the _urisks_ of\nHighland fairies.\n\n [19] \"Three Notelets on Shakespeare,\" pp. 79-82.\n\nThe term _ouphe_, according to Grimm, is only another form of the\ncognate _elf_, which corresponds with the Middle High-German _ulf_, in\nthe plural _ulve_. He further proves the identity of this _ulf_ with\n_alp_, and with our English _elf_, from a Swedish song published by\nAsdwiddson, in his \"Collection of Swedish Ballads,\" in one version of\nwhich the elfin king is called Herr _Elfver_, and in the second Herr\n_Ulfver_.\n\nThe name _elf_, which is frequently used by Shakespeare, is the same as\nthe Anglo-Saxon _alf_, the Old High-German and the Middle High-German\n_ulf_. \"Fairies and elvs,\" says Tollet, \"are frequently mentioned\ntogether in the poets without any distinction of character that I can\nrecollect.\"\n\nThe other fairies, Peas-blossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustard-seed probably\nowe their appellations to the poet himself.\n\nHow fully Shakespeare has described the characteristics of the fairy\ntribe, besides giving a detailed account of their habits and doings, may\nbe gathered from the following pages, in which we have briefly\nenumerated the various items of fairy lore as scattered through the\npoet's writings.\n\nBeauty, then, united with power, was one of the popular characteristics\nof the fairy tribe. Such was that of the \"Fairy Queen\" of Spenser, and\nof Titania in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream.\" In \"Antony and Cleopatra\"\n(iv. 8), Antony, on seeing Cleopatra enter, says to Scarus:\n\n \"To this great fairy I'll commend thy acts,\n Make her thanks bless thee.\"\n\nIn \"Cymbeline\" (iii. 6), when the two brothers find Imogen in their\ncave, Belarius exclaims:\n\n \"But that it eats our victuals, I should think\n Here were a fairy.\"[20]\n\nAnd he then adds:\n\n \"By Jupiter, an angel! or, if not,\n An earthly paragon! behold divineness\n No elder than a boy.\"\n\n [20] Showing, as Mr. Ritson says, that they never ate.\n\nThe fairies, as represented in many of our old legends and folk-tales,\nare generally noticeable for their beauty, the same being the case with\nall their surroundings. As Sir Walter Scott,[21] too, says, \"Their\npageants and court entertainments comprehended all that the imagination\ncould conceive of what were accounted gallant and splendid. At their\nprocessions they paraded more beautiful steeds than those of mere\nearthly parentage. The hawks and hounds which they employed in their\nchase were of the first race. At their daily banquets, the board was set\nforth with a splendor which the proudest kings of the earth dared not\naspire to, and the hall of their dancers echoed to the most exquisite\nmusic.\"\n\n [21] \"Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft,\" 1831, p. 121.\n\nMr. Douce[22] quotes from the romance of \"Lancelot of the Lake,\" where\nthe author, speaking of the days of King Arthur, says, \"En celui temps\nestoient appellees faees toutes selles qui sentre-mettoient\ndenchantemens et de charmes, et moult en estoit pour lors principalement\nen la Grande Bretaigne, et savoient la force et la vertu des paroles,\ndes pierres, et des herbes, parquoy elles estoient tenues et jeunesse et\nen beaulte, et en grandes richesses comme elles devisoient.\"\n\n [22] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 115.\n\n\"This perpetual youth and beauty,\" he adds, \"cannot well be separated\nfrom a state of immortality;\" another characteristic ascribed to the\nfairy race. It is probably alluded to by Titania in \"A Midsummer-Night's\nDream\" (ii. 1):\n\n \"The human mortals want their winter here.\"\n\nAnd further on (ii. 1), when speaking of the changeling's mother, she\nsays:\n\n \"But she, being mortal, of that boy did die.\"\n\nAgain, a fairy addresses Bottom the weaver (iii. 1)--\n\n \"Hail, mortal!\"\n\n--an indication that she was not so herself. The very fact, indeed, that\nfairies \"call themselves _spirits_, ghosts, or shadows, seems to be a\nproof of their immortality.\" Thus Puck styles Oberon \"king of shadows,\"\nand this monarch asserts of himself and his subjects--\n\n \"But we are spirits of another sort.\"\n\nFletcher, in the \"Faithful Shepherdess,\" describes (i. 2)--\n\n \"A virtuous well, about whose flow'ry banks\n The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds,\n By the pale moonshine, dipping oftentimes\n Their stolen children, so to make them free\n From dying flesh, and dull mortality.\"\n\nAriosto, in his \"Orlando Furioso\" (book xliii. stanza 98) says:\n\n \"I am a fayrie, and to make you know,\n To be a fayrie what it doth import,\n We cannot dye, how old so e'er we grow.\n Of paines and harmes of ev'rie other sort\n We taste, onelie no death we nature ow.\"\n\nAn important feature of the fairy race was their power of vanishing at\nwill, and of assuming various forms. In \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\"\nOberon says:\n\n \"I am invisible,\n And I will overhear their conference.\"\n\nPuck relates how he was in the habit of taking all kinds of outlandish\nforms; and in the \"Tempest,\" Shakespeare has bequeathed to us a graphic\naccount of Ariel's eccentricities. \"Besides,\" says Mr. Spalding,[23]\n\"appearing in his natural shape, and dividing into flames, and behaving\nin such a manner as to cause young Ferdinand to leap into the sea,\ncrying, 'Hell is empty, and all the devils are here!' he assumes the\nforms of a water nymph (i. 2), a harpy (iii. 3), and also the Goddess\nCeres (iv. 1), while the strange shapes, masquers, and even the hounds\nthat hunt and worry the would-be king and viceroys of the island, are\nAriel's 'meaner fellows.'\" Poor Caliban complains of Prospero's spirits\n(ii. 2):\n\n \"For every trifle are they set upon me;\n Sometimes like apes, that mow and chatter at me,\n And after bite me: then like hedgehogs which\n Lie tumbling in my bare-foot way, and mount\n Their pricks at my footfall; sometime am I\n All wound with adders, who, with cloven tongues\n Do hiss me into madness.\"\n\n [23] \"Elizabethan Demonology,\" p. 50.\n\nThat fairies are sometimes exceedingly diminutive is fully shown by\nShakespeare, who gives several instances of this peculiarity. Thus Queen\nMab, in \"Romeo and Juliet,\" to which passage we have already had\noccasion to allude (i. 4), is said to come\n\n \"In shape no bigger than an agate stone\n On the fore-finger of an alderman.\"[24]\n\n [24] Agate was used metaphorically for a very diminutive\n person, in allusion to the small figures cut in agate for\n rings. In \"2 Henry IV.\" (i. 2), Falstaff says: \"I was never\n manned with an agate till now; but I will inset you neither in\n gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again\n to your master, for a jewel.\" In \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (iii.\n 1) Hero speaks of a man as being \"low, an agate very vilely\n cut.\"\n\nAnd Puck tells us, in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (ii. 1), that when\nOberon and Titania meet,\n\n \"they do square, that all their elves, for fear,\n Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there.\"\n\nFurther on (ii. 3) the duties imposed by Titania upon her train point to\ntheir tiny character:\n\n \"Come, now a roundel and a fairy song;\n Then, for the third part of a minute, hence;\n Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds,\n Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,\n To make my small elves coats.\"\n\nAnd when enamoured of Bottom, she directs her elves that they should--\n\n \"Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;\n Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,\n With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;\n The honey bags steal from the humble-bees,\n And for night tapers crop their waxen thighs\n And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,\n To have my love to bed, and to arise;\n And pluck the wings from painted butterflies\n To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.\"\n\nWe may compare, too, Ariel's well-known song in \"The Tempest\" (v. 1):\n\n \"Where the bee sucks, there suck I:\n In a cowslip's bell I lie;\n There I couch when owls do cry,\n On the bat's back I do fly\n After summer merrily,\n Merrily, merrily shall I live now\n Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.\"\n\nAgain, from the following passage in \"The Merry Wives of Windsor\" (iv.\n4) where Mrs. Page, after conferring with her husband, suggests that--\n\n \"Nan Page my daughter, and my little son,\n And three or four more of their growth, we'll dress\n Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies, green and white,\n With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,\n And rattles in their hands\"\n\nit is evident that in Shakespeare's day fairies were supposed to be of\nthe size of children. The notion of their diminutiveness, too, it\nappears was not confined to this country,[25] but existed in\nDenmark,[26] for in the ballad of \"Eline of Villenskov\" we read:\n\n \"Out then spake the smallest Trold;\n No bigger than an ant;--\n Oh! here is come a Christian man,\n His schemes I'll sure prevent.\"\n\n [25] See Grimm's \"Deutsche Mythologie.\"\n\n [26] Thoms's \"Three Notelets on Shakespeare,\" 1865, pp. 38, 39.\n\nAgain, various stories are current in Germany descriptive of the fairy\ndwarfs; one of the most noted being that relating to Elberich, who aided\nthe Emperor Otnit to gain the daughter of the Paynim Soldan of\nSyria.[27]\n\n [27] See Keightley's \"Fairy Mythology,\" 1878, p. 208.\n\nThe haunt of the fairies on earth are generally supposed to be the most\nromantic and rural that can be selected; such a spot being the place of\nTitania's repose described by Oberon in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (ii.\n1):[28]\n\n \"a bank where the wild thyme blows,\n Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,\n Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,\n With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:\n There sleeps Titania some time of the night,\n Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;\n And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,\n Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.\"\n\n [28] See also Thorpe's \"Northern Mythology,\" 1852, vol. iii. p.\n 32, etc.\n\nTitania also tells how the fairy race meet\n\n \"on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,\n By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,\n Or in the beached margent of the sea.\"\n\nIn \"The Tempest\" (v. 1), we have the following beautiful invocation by\nProspero:\n\n \"Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves;\n And ye, that on the sands with printless foot\n Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him\n When he comes back--\"\n\nTheir haunts, however, varied in different localities, but their\nfavorite abode was in the interior of conical green hills, on the slopes\nof which they danced by moonlight. Milton, in the \"Paradise Lost\" (book\ni.), speaks of\n\n \"fairy elves,\n Whose midnight revels, by a forest side\n Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,\n Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon\n Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth\n Wheels her pale course, they, on their mirth and dance\n Intent, with jocund music charm his ear;\n At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.\"\n\nThe Irish fairies occasionally inhabited the ancient burial-places known\nas tumuli or barrows, while some of the Scottish fairies took up their\nabode under the \"door-stane\" or threshold of some particular house, to\nthe inmates of which they administered good offices.[29]\n\n [29] Gunyon's \"Illustrations of Scottish History, Life, and\n Superstitions,\" p. 299.\n\nThe so-called fairy-rings in old pastures[30]--little circles of a\nbrighter green, within which it was supposed the fairies dance by\nnight--are now known to result from the out-spreading propagation of a\nparticular mushroom, the fairy-ringed fungus, by which the ground is\nmanured for a richer following vegetation. An immense deal of legendary\nlore, however, has clustered round this curious phenomenon, popular\nsuperstition attributing it to the merry roundelays of the moonlight\nfairies.[31] In \"The Tempest\" (v. 1) Prospero invokes the fairies as the\n\"demy-puppets\" that\n\n \"By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets make,\n Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pastime\n Is to make midnight-mushrooms.\"\n\n [30] Chambers's \"Book of Days,\" vol. i. p. 671.\n\n [31] Among the various conjectures as to the cause of these\n verdant circles, some have ascribed them to lightning; others\n maintained that they are occasioned by ants. See Miss Baker's\n \"Northamptonshire Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 218; Brand's \"Pop.\n Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. pp. 480-483; and also the\n \"Phytologist,\" 1862, pp. 236-238.\n\nIn \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (ii. 1), the fairy says:\n\n \"I do wander everywhere,\n Swifter than the moon's sphere;\n And I serve the fairy queen,\n To dew her orbs upon the green.\"\n\nAgain, in the \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (v. 5), Anne Page says:\n\n \"And nightly, meadow-fairies, look, you sing\n Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring;\n The expressure that it bears, green let it be,\n More fertile-fresh than all the field to see.\"\n\nAnd once in \"Macbeth\" (v. 1), Hecate says:\n\n \"Like elves and fairies in a ring.\"\n\nDrayton, in his \"Nymphidia\" (l. 69-72), mentions this superstition:\n\n \"And in their courses make that round,\n In meadows and in marshes found,\n Of them so called the fayrie ground,\n Of which they have the keeping.\"\n\nCowley, too, in his \"Complaint,\" says:\n\n \"Where once such fairies dance, no grass does ever grow.\"\n\nAnd again, in his ode upon Dr. Harvey:\n\n \"And dance, like fairies, a fantastic round.\"\n\nPluquet, in his \"Contes Populaires de Bayeux,\" tells us that the fairy\nrings, called by the peasants of Normandy \"Cercles des f\u00e9es,\" are said\nto be the work of fairies.\n\nAmong the numerous superstitions which have clustered round the fairy\nrings, we are told that when damsels of old gathered the May dew on the\ngrass, which they made use of to improve their complexions, they left\nundisturbed such of it as they perceived on the fairy-rings,\napprehensive that the fairies should in revenge destroy their beauty.\nNor was it considered safe to put the foot within the rings, lest they\nshould be liable to the fairies' power.[32] The \"Athenian Oracle\" (i.\n397) mentions a popular belief that \"if a house be built upon the ground\nwhere fairy rings are, whoever shall inhabit therein does wonderfully\nprosper.\"\n\n [32] Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 112.\n\nSpeaking of their dress, we are told that they constantly wore green\nvests, unless they had some reason for changing their attire. In the\n\"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (iv. 4) they are spoken of as--\n\n \"Urchins, ouphes, and fairies, green and white.\"\n\nAnd further on (v. 4):\n\n \"Fairies, black, grey, green, and white.\"\n\nThe fairies of the moors were often clad in heath-brown or lichen-dyed\ngarments, whence the epithet of \"Elfin-grey.\"[33]\n\n [33] Ritson's \"Fairy Mythology,\" 1878, pp. 26, 27.\n\nThe legends of most countries are unanimous in ascribing to the fairies\nan inordinate love of music; such harmonious sounds as those which\nCaliban depicts in \"The Tempest\" (iii. 2) being generally ascribed to\nthem:\n\n \"The isle is full of noises,\n Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.\n Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments\n Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices\n That, if I then had waked after long sleep,\n Will make me sleep again.\"\n\nIn the \"Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (ii. 3), when Titania is desirous of\ntaking a nap, she says to her attendants:\n\n \"Come, now a roundel, and a fairy song.\"\n\nAnd further on (iii. 1) she tells Bottom:\n\n \"I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee,\n And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,\n And sing, while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep.\"\n\nThe author of \"Round About our Coal Fire\"[34] tells us that \"they had\nfine musick always among themselves, and danced in a moonshiny night,\naround, or in, a ring.\"\n\n [34] Quoted by Brand, \"Pop. Antiq.,\" vol. ii. p. 481.\n\nThey were equally fond of dancing, and we are told how they meet--\n\n \"To dance their ringlets to the whistling wind;\"\n\nand in the \"Maydes' Metamorphosis\" of Lyly, the fairies, as they dance,\nsing:\n\n \"Round about, round about, in a fine ring a,\n Thus we dance, thus we dance, and thus we sing a,\n Trip and go, to and fro, over this green a,\n All about, in and out, for our brave queen a,\" etc.\n\nAs Mr. Thoms says, in his \"Three Notelets on Shakespeare\" (1865, pp. 40,\n41), \"the writings of Shakespeare abound in graphic notices of these\nfairy revels, couched in the highest strains of poetry; and a comparison\nof these with some of the popular legends which the industry of\nContinental antiquaries has preserved will show us clearly that these\ndelightful sketches of elfin enjoyment have been drawn by a hand as\nfaithful as it is masterly.\"\n\nIt would seem that the fairies disliked irreligious people: and so, in\n\"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (v. 5), the mock fairies are said to chastise\nunchaste persons, and those who do not say their prayers. This coincides\nwith what Lilly, in his \"Life and Times,\" says: \"Fairies love a strict\ndiet and upright life; fervent prayers unto God conduce much to the\nassistance of those who are curious hereways,\" _i. e._, who wish to\ncultivate an acquaintance with them.\n\nAgain, fairies are generally represented as great lovers and patrons of\ncleanliness and propriety, for the observance of which they were\nfrequently said to reward good servants, by dropping money into their\nshoes in the night; and, on the other hand, they were reported to punish\nmost severely the sluts and slovenly, by pinching them black and\nblue.[35] Thus, in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (v. 1), Puck says:\n\n \"I am sent, with broom, before,\n To sweep the dust behind the door.\"\n\n [35] Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. p. 483.\n\nIn \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (v. 5), Pistol, speaking of the mock fairy\nqueen, says:\n\n \"Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery;\"\n\nand the fairies who haunt the towers of Windsor are enjoined:\n\n \"About, about,\n Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out:\n Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room:\n\n * * * * *\n\n The several chairs of order look you scour\n With juice of balm and every precious flower.\"\n\nIn Ben Jonson's ballad of \"Robin Goodfellow\"[36] we have a further\nillustration of this notion:\n\n \"When house or hearth cloth sluttish lie,\n I pinch the maidens black and blue,\n The bed clothes from the bed pull I,\n And lay them naked all to view.\n 'Twixt sleep and wake\n I do them take,\n And on the key-cold floor them throw;\n If out they cry,\n Then forth I fly,\n And loudly laugh I, ho, ho, ho!\"\n\n [36] Halliwell-Phillipps's \"Illustrations of Fairy Mythology,\"\n p. 167; see Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" pp. 122, 123.\n\nIn \"Round About our Coal Fire,\" we find the following passage bearing on\nthe subject: \"When the master and mistress were laid on the pillows, the\nmen and maids, if they had a game at romps, and blundered up stairs, or\njumbled a chair, the next morning every one would swear 'twas the\nfairies, and that they heard them stamping up and down stairs all night,\ncrying, 'Waters lock'd, waters lock'd!' when there was no water in every\npail in the kitchen.\" Herrick, too, in his \"Hesperides,\" speaks of this\nsuperstition:\n\n \"If ye will with Mab find grace,\n Set each platter in his place;\n Rake the fire up, and set\n Water in, ere sun be set,\n Wash your pales and cleanse your dairies,\n Sluts are loathesome to the fairies:\n Sweep your house; who doth not so,\n Mab will pinch her by the toe.\"\n\nWhile the belief in the power of fairies existed, they were supposed to\nperform much good service to mankind. Thus, in \"A Midsummer-Night's\nDream\" (v. 1), Oberon says:\n\n \"With this field-dew consecrate,\n Every fairy take his gait;\n And each several chamber bless,\n Through this palace, with sweet peace;\n And the owner of it blest,\n Ever shall in safety rest\"--\n\nthe object of their blessing being to bring peace upon the house of\nTheseus. Mr. Douce[37] remarks that the great influence which the belief\nin fairies had on the popular mind \"gave so much offence to the holy\nmonks and friars, that they determined to exert all their power to expel\nthese imaginary beings from the minds of the people, by taking the\noffice of the fairies' benedictions entirely into their own hands;\" a\nproof of which we have in Chaucer's \"Wife of Bath:\"\n\n \"I speke of many hundred yeres ago;\n But now can no man see non elves mo,\n For now the grete charitee and prayeres\n Of limitoures and other holy freres\n That serchen every land and every streme,\n As thikke as motes in the sonne beme,\n Blissing halles, chambres, kichenes, and boures,\n Citees and burghes, castles highe and toures,\n Thropes and bernes, shepenes and dairies,\n This maketh that ther ben no faeries:\n For ther as wont to walken was an elf\n Ther walketh now the limitour himself.\"\n\n [37] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" pp. 126, 127.\n\nMacbeth, too (v. 8), in his encounter with Macduff, says:\n\n \"I bear a charmed life, which must not yield\n To one of woman born.\"\n\nIn the days of chivalry, the champion's arms were ceremoniously blessed,\neach taking an oath that he used no charmed weapon. In Spenser's \"Fairy\nQueen\" (book i. canto 4) we read:\n\n \"he bears a charmed shield,\n And eke enchanted arms, that none can pierce.\"\n\nFairies were amazingly expeditious in their journeys. Thus, Puck goes\n\"swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow,\" and in \"A Midsummer-Night's\nDream\" he answers Oberon, who was about to send him on a secret\nexpedition:\n\n \"I'll put a girdle round about the earth\n In forty minutes.\"\n\nAgain, the same fairy addresses him:\n\n \"Fairy king, attend, and mark:\n I do hear the morning lark.\n\n _Oberon._ Then, my queen, in silence sad,\n Trip we after the night's shade:\n We the globe can compass soon,\n Swifter than the wand'ring moon.\"\n\nOnce more, Puck says:\n\n \"My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,\n For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,\n And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger,\" etc.\n\nIt was fatal, if we may believe Falstaff in \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (v.\n5) to speak to a fairy: \"They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall\ndie.\"\n\nFairies are accustomed to enrich their favorites; and in \"A Winter's\nTale\" (iii. 3) the shepherd says: \"It was told me I should be rich by\nthe fairies;\"[38] and in \"Cymbeline\" (v. 4), Posthumus, on waking and\nfinding the mysterious paper, exclaims:\n\n \"What fairies haunt this ground? A book? O rare one!\n Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment\n Nobler than that it covers,\" etc.\n\n [38] See Croker's \"Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of\n Ireland,\" p. 316.\n\nAt the same time, however, it was unlucky to reveal their acts of\ngenerosity, as the shepherd further tells us: \"This is fairy gold, boy;\nand 'twill prove so; up with't, keep it close, home, home, the next way.\nWe are lucky, boy; and to be so still requires nothing but secrecy.\"\n\nThe necessity of secrecy in fairy transactions of this kind is\nillustrated in Massinger and Field's play of \"The Fatal Dowry,\" 1632\n(iv. 1),[39] where Romont says:\n\n \"But not a word o' it; 'tis fairies' treasure,\n Which, but reveal'd, brings on the blabber's ruin.\"\n\n [39] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" vol. ii. p. 493.\n\nAmong the many other good qualities belonging to the fairy tribe, we are\ntold that they were humanely attentive to the youthful dead.[40] Thus\nGuiderius, in \"Cymbeline,\" thinking that Imogen is dead (iv. 2), says:\n\n \"With female fairies will his tomb be haunted,\n And worms will not come to thee;\"[41]\n\nthere having been a popular notion that where fairies resorted no\nnoxious creature could be found.\n\n [40] Ritson's \"Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare,\" 1875, p. 29.\n\n [41] Some copies read _them_.\n\nIn the pathetic dirge of Collins a similar allusion is made:\n\n \"No wither'd witch shall here be seen,\n No goblin lead their nightly crew;\n The female fays shall haunt the green,\n And dress thy grave with pearly dew.\"\n\nIt seems, however, that they were also supposed to be malignant; but\nthis, \"it may be,\" says Mr. Ritson, \"was merely calumny, as being\nutterly inconsistent with their general character, which was singularly\ninnocent and amiable.\" Thus, when Imogen, in \"Cymbeline\" (ii. 2), prays\non going to sleep,\n\n \"From fairies and the tempters of the night,\n Guard me, beseech ye,\"[42]\n\nit must have been, says Mr. Ritson,[43] the _incubus_ she was so afraid\nof.\n\n [42] We may compare Banquo's words in \"Macbeth\" (ii. 1):\n\n \"Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature\n Gives way to in repose.\"\n\n [43] \"Fairy Mythology,\" pp. 27, 28.\n\nHamlet, too, notices this imputed malignity of the fairies (i. 1):\n\n \"Then no planet strikes,\n Nor fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm.\"[44]\n\n [44] \"Comedy of Errors\" (iv. 2) some critics read:\n\n \"A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough.\"\n\nThat the fairies, however, were fond of indulging in mischievous sport\nat the expense of mortals is beyond all doubt, the merry pranks of Puck\nor Robin Goodfellow fully illustrating this item of our fairy-lore.\nThus, in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (ii. 1) this playful fairy says:\n\n \"I am that merry wanderer of the night.\n I jest to Oberon and make him smile,\n When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,\n Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:\n And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,\n In very likeness of a roasted crab;\n And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,\n And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.\n The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,\n Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;\n Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,\n And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough.\"\n\nA fairy, in another passage, asks Robin:\n\n \"Are you not he\n That frights the maidens of the villagery,\n\n * * * * *\n\n Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?\"\n\nWe have already mentioned how Queen Mab had the same mischievous humor\nin her composition, which is described by Mercutio in \"Romeo and Juliet\"\n(i. 4):\n\n \"This is that very Mab\n That plats the manes of horses in the night,\n And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,\n Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes.\"\n\nAnother reprehensible practice attributed to the fairies was that of\ncarrying off and exchanging children, such being designated\nchangelings.[45] The special agent in transactions of the sort was also\nQueen Mab, and hence Mercutio says:\n\n \"She is the fairies' midwife.\"\n\nAnd \"she is so called,\" says Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, \"because it was\nher supposed custom to steal new-born babes in the night and leave\nothers in their place.\" Mr. Steevens gives a different interpretation to\nthis line, and says, \"It does not mean that she was the midwife to the\nfairies, but that she was the person among the fairies whose department\nit was to deliver the fancies of sleeping men in their dreams, those\nchildren of an idle brain.\"\n\n [45] This superstition is fully described in chapter on _Birth_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nWITCHES.\n\n\nIn years gone by witchcraft was one of the grossest forms of\nsuperstition, and it would be difficult to estimate the extent of its\ninfluence in this and other countries. It is not surprising that\nShakespeare should have made frequent allusions to this popular belief,\nconsidering how extensively it prevailed in the sixteenth and\nseventeenth centuries; the religious and dramatic literature of the\nperiod being full of it. Indeed, as Mr. Williams[46] points out, \"what\nthe vulgar superstition must have been may be easily conceived, when men\nof the greatest genius or learning credited the possibility, and not\nonly a theoretical but possible occurrence, of these infernal\nphenomena.\" Thus, Francis Bacon was \"not able to get rid of the\nprinciples upon which the creed was based. Sir Edward Coke, his\ncontemporary, the most acute lawyer of the age, ventured even to define\nthe devil's agents in witchcraft. Sir Thomas Browne and Sir Matthew\nHale, in 1664, proved their faith--the one by his solemn testimony in\nopen court, the other by his still more solemn sentence.\" Hence, it was\nonly to be expected that Shakespeare should introduce into his writings\ndescriptions of a creed which held such a prominent place in the history\nof his day, and which has made itself famous for all time by the\nthousands of victims it caused to be sent to the torture-chamber, to the\nstake, and to the scaffold. Thus he has given a graphic account of the\ncelebrated Jeanne D'Arc, the Maid of Orleans, in \"1 Henry VI.,\" although\nMr. Dowden[47] is of opinion that this play was written by one or more\nauthors, Greene having had, perhaps, a chief hand in it, assisted by\nPeele and Marlowe. He says, \"It is a happiness not to have to ascribe to\nour greatest poet the crude and hateful handling of the character of\nJoan of Arc, excused though to some extent it may be by the occurrence\nof view in our old English chronicles.\"\n\n [46] \"Superstitions of Witchcraft,\" 1865, p. 220.\n\n [47] \"Shakspere Primer,\" 1877, p. 63.\n\nMr. Lecky,[48] too, regards the conception of Joan of Arc given in \"1\nHenry VI.\" as \"the darkest blot upon the poet's genius,\" but it must be\nremembered that we have only expressed the current belief of his day--the\nEnglish vulgar having regarded her as a sorceress, the French as an\ninspired heroine. Talbot is represented as accusing her of being a\nwitch, serving the Evil One, and entering Rouen by means of her\nsorceries (iii. 2):\n\n \"France, thou shalt rue this treason with thy tears,\n If Talbot but survive thy treachery.\n Pucelle, that witch, that damned sorceress,\n Hath wrought this hellish mischief unawares,\n That hardly we escaped the pride of France.\"\n\n [48] \"Rationalism in Europe,\" 1870, vol. i. p. 106.\n\nFurther on (v. 3) she is made to summon fiends before her, but she\nwishes them in vain, for they speak not, hanging their heads in sign of\napproaching disaster.\n\n \"Now help, ye charming spells and periapts;\n And ye choice spirits that admonish me\n And give me signs of future accidents.\n You speedy helpers, that are substitutes\n Under the lordly monarch of the north,\n Appear and aid me in this enterprise.\"\n\nBut she adds:\n\n \"See, they forsake me! Now the time is come\n That France must vail her lofty-plumed crest,\n And let her head fall into England's lap.\n My ancient incantations are too weak,\n And hell too strong for me to buckle with:\n Now, France, thy glory droopeth to the dust.\"\n\nFinally, convicted of practising sorcery, and filling \"the world with\nvicious qualities,\" she was condemned to be burned. Her death, however,\nSir Walter Scott[49] says, \"was not, we are sorry to say, a sacrifice to\nsuperstitious fear of witchcraft, but a cruel instance of wicked policy,\nmingled with national jealousy and hatred. The Duke of Bedford, when the\nill-starred Jeanne fell into his hands, took away her life in order to\nstigmatize her memory with sorcery, and to destroy the reputation she\nhad acquired among the French.\"\n\n [49] \"Demonology and Witchcraft,\" 1881, pp. 192, 193.\n\nThe cases of the Duchess of Gloucester and of Jane Shore, also\nimmortalized by Shakespeare, are both referred to in the succeeding\npages.\n\nThe Witch of Brentford, mentioned by Mrs. Page in \"The Merry Wives of\nWindsor\" (iv. 2), was an actual personage, the fame, says Staunton,[50]\nof whose vaticinations must have been traditionally well known to an\naudience of the time, although the records we possess of her are scant\nenough. The chief of them is a black-letter tract, printed by William\nCopland in the middle of the sixteenth century, entitled \"Jyl of\nBraintford's Testament,\" from which it appears she was hostess of a\ntavern at Brentford.[51] One of the characters in Dekker and Webster's\n\"Westward Ho\"[52] says, \"I doubt that old hag, Gillian of Brainford, has\nbewitched me.\"\n\n [50] \"Shakespeare,\" 1864, vol ii. p. 161.\n\n [51] See Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 51.\n\n [52] Webster's Works, edited by Dyce, 1857, p. 238.\n\nThe witches in \"Macbeth\" are probably Scottish hags. As Mr. Gunnyon\nremarks,[53] \"They are hellish monsters, brewing hell-broth, having cats\nand toads for familiars, loving midnight, riding on the passing storm,\nand devising evil against such as offend them. They crouch beneath the\ngibbet of the murderer, meet in gloomy caverns, amid earthquake\nconvulsions, or in thunder, lightning, and rain.\" Coleridge, speaking of\nthem, observes that \"the weird sisters are as true a creation of\nShakespeare's as his Ariel and Caliban--fates, fairies, and materializing\nwitches being the elements. They are wholly different from any\nrepresentation of witches in the contemporary writers, and yet\npresented a sufficient external resemblance to the creatures of vulgar\nprejudice to act immediately on the audience. Their character consists\nin the imaginative disconnected from the good, they are the shadowy\nobscure and fearfully anomalous of physical nature, elemental avengers\nwithout sex or kin.\"\n\n [53] \"Illustrations of Scottish History, Life, and\n Superstition,\" 1879, p. 322.\n\nIt has been urged, however, by certain modern critics, that these three\nsisters, \"who play such an important part in 'Macbeth,' are not witches\nat all, but are, or are intimately allied to, the Norns or Fates of\nScandinavian paganism.\"[54] Thus, a writer in the _Academy_ (Feb. 8,\n1879) thinks that Shakespeare drew upon Scandinavian mythology for a\nportion of the material he used in constructing these characters, and\nthat he derived the rest from the traditions of contemporary witchcraft;\nin fact, that the \"sisters\" are hybrids between Norns and witches. The\nsupposed proof of this is that each sister exercises the special\nfunction of one of the Norns. \"The third,\" it is said, \"is the special\nprophetess, while the first takes cognizance of the past, and the second\nof the present, in affairs connected with humanity. These are the tasks\nof Urda, Verdandi, and Skulda. The first begins by asking, 'When shall\nwe three meet again?' The second decides the time: 'When the battle's\nlost and won.' The third the future prophesies: 'That will be ere the\nset of sun.' The first again asks, 'Where?' The second decides: 'Upon\nthe heath.' The third the future prophesies: 'There to meet with\nMacbeth.'\"\n\n [54] Spalding's \"Elizabethan Demonology,\" 1880, p. 86.\n\nIt is further added that the description of the sisters given by Banquo\n(i. 3) applies to Norns rather than witches:\n\n \"What are these\n So wither'd and so wild in their attire,\n That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,\n And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught\n That man may question? You seem to understand me,\n By each at once her chappy finger laying\n Upon her skinny lips: you should be women,\n And yet your beards forbid me to interpret\n That you are so.\"\n\nBut, as Mr. Spalding truly adds, \"a more accurate poetical counterpart\nto the prose descriptions given by contemporary writers of the\nappearance of the poor creatures who were charged with the crime of\nwitchcraft could hardly have been penned.\" Scot, for instance, in his\n\"Discovery of Witchcraft\" (book i. chap. iii. 7), says: \"They are women\nwhich commonly be old, lame, bleare-eied, pale, fowle, and full of\nwrinkles; they are leane and deformed, showing melancholie in their\nfaces.\" Harsnet, too, in his \"Declaration of Popish Impostures\" (1603,\np. 136), speaks of a witch as \"an old weather-beaten crone, having her\nchin and knees meeting for age, walking like a bow, leaning on a staff,\nhollow-eyed, un-toothed, furrowed, having her limbs trembling with\npalsy, going mumbling in the streets; one that hath forgotten her\npaternoster, yet hath a shrewd tongue to call a drab a drab.\"\n\nThe beard, also, to which Shakespeare refers in the passage above, was\nthe recognized characteristic of the witch. Thus, in the \"Honest Man's\nFortune\" (ii. 1), it is said, \"The women that come to us for disguises\nmust wear beards, and that's to say a token of a witch.\" In the \"Merry\nWives of Windsor\" (iv. 2), Sir Hugh Evans says of the disguised\nFalstaff: \"By yea and no, I think the 'oman is a witch indeed: I like\nnot when a 'oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard under her\nmuffler.\"\n\nIt seems probable, then, that witches are alluded to by Shakespeare in\n\"Macbeth,\" the contemporary literature on the subject fully supporting\nthis theory. Again, by his introduction of Hecate among the witches in\n\"Macbeth\" (iii. 5), Shakespeare has been censured for confounding\nancient with modern superstitions. But the incongruity is found in all\nthe poets of the Renaissance. Hecate, of course, is only another name\nfor Diana. \"Witchcraft, in truth, is no modern invention. Witches were\nbelieved in by the vulgar in the time of Horace as implicitly as in the\ntime of Shakespeare. And the belief that the pagan gods were really\nexistent as evil demons is one which has come down from the very\nearliest ages of Christianity.\"[55] As far back as the fourth century,\nthe Council of Ancyra is said to have condemned the pretensions of\nwitches; that in the night-time they rode abroad or feasted with their\nmistress, who was one of the pagan goddesses, Minerva, Sibylla, or\nDiana, or else Herodias.[56] In Middleton's \"Witch,\" Hecate is the name\nof one of his witches, and she has a son a low buffoon. In Jonson's \"Sad\nShepherd\" (ii. 1) Maudlin the witch calls Hecate, the mistress of\nwitches, \"Our dame Hecate.\" While speaking of the witches in \"Macbeth,\"\nit may be pointed out that[57] \"the full meaning of the first scene is\nthe fag-end of a witch's Sabbath, which, if fully represented, would\nbear a strong resemblance to the scene at the commencement of the fourth\nact. But a long scene on such a subject would be tedious and\nuninteresting at the commencement of the play. The audience is therefore\nleft to assume that the witches have met, performed their conjurations,\nobtained from the evil spirits the information concerning Macbeth's\ncareer that they desired to obtain, and perhaps have been commanded by\nthe fiends to perform the mission they subsequently carry through.\"\nBrand[58] describes this \"Sabbath of the witches as a meeting to which\nthe sisterhood, after having been anointed with certain magical\nointments, provided by their infernal leader, are supposed to be carried\nthrough the air on brooms,\" etc. It was supposed to be held on a\nSaturday, and in past centuries this piece of superstition was most\nextensively credited, and was one of the leading doctrines associated\nwith the system of witchcraft.\n\n [55] \"Notes to Macbeth\" (Clark and Wright), 1877, p. 137.\n\n [56] Scot's \"Discovery of Witchcraft,\" 1584, book iii. chap.\n 16. See Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 235.\n\n [57] \"Elizabethan Demonology,\" pp. 102, 103. See Conway's\n \"Demonology and Devil-lore,\" vol. ii. p. 253.\n\n [58] \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. p. 8.\n\nReferring, in the next place, to the numerous scattered notices of\nwitches given by Shakespeare throughout his plays, it is evident that he\nhad made himself thoroughly acquainted with the superstitions connected\nwith the subject, many of which he has described with the most minute\naccuracy. It appears, then, that although they were supposed to possess\nextraordinary powers, which they exerted in various ways, yet these were\nlimited, as in the case of Christmas night, when, we are told in\n\"Hamlet\" (i. 1), \"they have no power to charm.\" In spite, too, of their\nbeing able to assume the form of any animal at pleasure, the tail was\nalways wanting. In \"Macbeth\" (i. 3), the first witch says:\n\n \"And, like a rat without a tail,\n I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.\"\n\nOne distinctive mark, also, of a were-wolf, or human being changed into\na wolf, was the absence of a tail. The cat was said to be the form most\ncommonly assumed by the familiar spirits of witches; as, for instance,\nwhere the first witch says, \"I come, Graymalkin!\"[59] (i. 1), and\nfurther on (iv. 1), \"Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.\" In German\nlegends and traditions we find frequent notice of witches assuming the\nform of a cat, and displaying their fiendish character in certain\ndiabolical acts. It was, however, the absence of the tail that only too\noften was the cause of the witch being detected in her disguised form.\nThere were various other modes of detecting witches: one being \"the\ntrial by the stool,\" to which an allusion is made in \"Troilus and\nCressida\" (ii. 1), where Ajax says to Thersites,\n\n \"Thou stool for a witch!\"\n\n--a practice which is thus explained in Grey's \"Notes\" (ii. 236): \"In one\nway of trying a witch, they used to place her upon a chair or a stool,\nwith her legs tied cross, that all the weight of her body might rest\nupon her seat, and by that means, after some time, the circulation of\nthe blood would be much stopped, and her sitting would be as painful as\nthe wooden horse; and she must continue in this pain twenty-four hours,\nwithout either sleep or meat; and it was no wonder that, when they were\ntired out with such an ungodly trial, they would confess themselves many\ntimes guilty to free themselves from such torture.\"\n\n [59] Graymalkin--a gray cat.\n\nAgain, it was a part of the system of witchcraft that drawing blood\nfrom a witch rendered her enchantments ineffectual. Thus, in \"1 Henry\nVI.\" (i. 5), Talbot says to the Maid of Orleans:\n\n \"I'll have a bout with thee;\n Devil or devil's dam, I'll conjure thee:\n Blood will I draw on thee, thou art a witch.\"\n\nAn instance of this superstition occurred some years ago in a Cornish\nvillage, when a man was summoned before the bench of magistrates and\nfined, for having assaulted the plaintiff and scratched her with a pin.\nIndeed, this notion has by no means died out. As recently as the year\n1870, a man eighty years of age was fined at Barnstaple, in Devonshire,\nfor scratching with a needle the arm of a young girl. He pleaded that he\nhad \"suffered affliction\" through her for five years, had had four\ncomplaints on him at once, had lost fourteen canaries, and about fifty\ngoldfinches, and that his neighbors told him this was the only way to\nbreak the spell and get out of her power.[60]\n\n [60] Henderson's \"Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,\" p. 181.\n\nIt was, also, a popular belief that a great share of faith was a\nprotection from witchcraft. Hence, in the \"Comedy of Errors\" (iii. 2),\nDromio of Syracuse says of Nell:\n\n \"if my breast had not been made of faith and my heart of steel,\n She had transform'd me to a curtail-dog, and made me turn i' the\n wheel.\"\n\nIn order, moreover, to check the power of witches, it was supposed to be\nnecessary to propitiate them, a ceremony which was often performed. It\nis alluded to further on in the same play (iv. 3), where Dromio of\nSyracuse says--\n\n \"Some devils ask but the parings of one's nail,\n A rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin,\n A nut, a cherry-stone;\"\n\nand in \"Macbeth\" we read of their being propitiated by gifts of blood.\nWitches were supposed to have the power of creating storms and other\natmospheric disturbances--a notion to which much prominence is given in\n\"Macbeth.\" Thus, the witches elect to meet in thunder, lightning, or\nrain. They are represented as being able to loose and bind the winds (v.\n3), to cause vessels to be tempest-tossed at sea. Hence Macbeth\naddresses them (iv. 1):\n\n \"Though you untie the winds, and let them fight\n Against the churches; though the yesty waves\n Confound and swallow navigation up;\n Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down;\n Though castles topple on their warders' heads;\n Though palaces and pyramids do slope\n Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure\n Of nature's germins tumble all together,\n Even till destruction sicken.\"\n\nThus, by way of illustration, we may quote a curious confession made in\nScotland, about the year 1591, by Agnes Sampson, a reputed witch. She\nvowed that \"at the time his majesty [James VI.] was in Denmark, she took\na cat and christened it, and afterwards bound to each part of that cat\nthe chiefest parts of a dead man, and several joints of his body; and\nthat in the night following, the said cat was conveyed into the midst of\nthe sea, by herself and other witches, sailing in their riddles, or\ncrieves, and so left the said cat right before the town of Leith, in\nScotland. This done, there arose such a tempest in the sea, as a greater\nhath not been seen, which tempest was the cause of the perishing of a\nboat or vessel coming from the town of Brunt Island to the town of\nLeith, wherein were sundry jewels and rich gifts, which should have been\npresented to the new Queen of Scotland at his majesty's coming to Leith.\nAgain, it is confessed that the said christened cat was the cause of the\nking's majesty's ship, at his coming forth of Denmark, having a contrary\nwind to the rest of the ships then being in his company, which thing was\nmost strange and true, as the king's majesty acknowledged.\" It is to\nthis circumstance that Shakespeare probably alludes in \"Macbeth\" (i. 3),\nwhere he makes the witch say:\n\n \"Though his bark cannot be lost,\n Yet it shall be tempest-toss'd.\"\n\nWitches were also believed to be able to sell or give winds, a notion\nthus described in Drayton's \"Moon-Calf\" (865):\n\n \"She could sell winds to any one that would\n Buy them for money, forcing them to hold\n What time she listed, tie them in a thread,\n Which ever as the seafarer undid\n They rose or scantled, as his sails would drive\n To the same port whereas he would arrive.\"\n\nSo, in \"Macbeth\" (i. 3):\n\n \"_2 Witch._ I'll give thee a wind.\n _1 Witch._ Thou'rt kind.\n _3 Witch._ And I another.\"\n\nSinger quotes from Sumner's \"Last Will and Testament:\"\n\n \"In Ireland, and in Denmark both,\n Witches for gold will sell a man a wind,\n Which, in the corner of a napkin wrapp'd,\n Shall blow him safe unto what coast he will.\"\n\nAt one time the Finlanders and Laplanders drove a profitable trade by\nthe sale of winds. After being paid they knitted three magical knots,\nand told the buyer that when he untied the first he would have a good\ngale; when the second, a strong wind; and when the third, a severe\ntempest.[61]\n\n [61] Olaus Magnus's \"History of the Goths,\" 1638, p. 47. See\n note to \"The Pirate.\"\n\nThe sieve, as a symbol of the clouds, has been regarded among all\nnations of the Aryan stock as the mythical vehicle used by witches,\nnightmares, and other elfish beings in their excursions over land and\nsea.[62] Thus, the first witch in \"Macbeth\" (i. 3), referring to the\nscoff which she had received from a sailor's wife, says:\n\n \"Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:\n But in a sieve I'll thither sail.\"[63]\n\n [62] See Hardwick's \"Traditions and Folk-Lore,\" pp. 108, 109;\n Kelly's \"Indo-European Folk-Lore,\" pp. 214, 215.\n\n [63] In Greek, [Greek: hepi rhipous plein], \"to go to sea in a\n sieve,\" was a proverbial expression for an enterprise of\n extreme hazard or impossible of achievement.--Clark and\n Wright's \"Notes to Macbeth,\" 1877, p. 82.\n\nStories of voyages performed in this way are common enough in Germany.\nA man, for instance, going through a corn-field, finds a sieve on the\npath, which he takes with him. He does not go far before a young lady\nhurries after him, and hunts up and down as if looking for something,\nejaculating all the time, \"How my children are crying in England!\"\nThereupon the man lays down the sieve, and has hardly done so ere sieve\nand lady vanish. In the case of another damsel of the same species,\nmentioned by Mr. Kelly, the usual exclamation is thus varied: \"My sieve\nrim! my sieve rim! how my mother is calling me in England!\" At the sound\nof her mother's voice the daughter immediately thinks of her sieve.\nSteevens quotes from the \"Life of Doctor Fian,\" \"a notable sorcerer,\"\nburned at Edinburgh, January, 1591, how that he and a number of witches\nwent to sea, \"each one in a _riddle or cive_.\" In the \"Discovery of\nWitchcraft,\" Reginald Scot says it was believed that \"witches could sail\nin an egg-shell, a cockle or muscle-shell, through and under the\ntempestuous seas.\" Thus, in \"Pericles\" (iv. 4), Gower says:\n\n \"Thus time we waste, and longest leagues make short;\n Sail seas in cockles, have, and wish but for't.\"\n\nTheir dance is thus noticed in \"Macbeth\" (iv. 1):\n\n \"I'll charm the air to give a sound\n While you perform your antic round.\"\n\nWitches also were supposed to have the power of vanishing at will, a\nnotion referred to in \"Macbeth\" (i. 3), where, in reply to Banquo's\ninquiry as to whither the witches are vanished, Macbeth replies:\n\n \"Into the air; and what seem'd corporal melted\n As breath into the wind.\"\n\nIn his letter to his wife he likewise observes: \"They made themselves\nair, into which they vanished.\" Hecate, in the third act, fifth scene,\nafter giving instructions to the weird host, says:\n\n \"I am for the air; this night I'll spend\n Unto a dismal and a fatal end.\"\n\nTo this purpose they prepared various ointments, concerning which\nReginald Scot[64] says: \"The devil teacheth them to make ointment of the\nbowels and members of children, whereby they ride in the air and\naccomplish all their desires. After burial they steal them out of their\ngraves and seethe them in a caldron till the flesh be made potable, of\nwhich they make an ointment by which they ride in the air.\" Lord Bacon\nalso informs us that the \"ointment the witches use is reported to be\nmade of the fat of children digged out of their graves, of the juices of\nsmallage, wolf bane, and cinquefoil, mingled with the meal of fine\nwheat; but I suppose the soporiferous medicines are likest to do it,\nwhich are henbane, hemlock, mandrake, moonshade--or rather\nnightshade--tobacco, opium, saffron,\"[65] etc. These witch recipes, which\nare very numerous, are well illustrated in Shakespeare's grim caldron\nscene, in \"Macbeth\" (iv. 1), where the first witch speaks of\n\n \"grease that's sweaten\n From the murderer's gibbet.\"\n\nWe may compare a similar notion given by Apuleius, who, in describing\nthe process used by the witch, Milo's wife, for transforming herself\ninto a bird, says: \"That she cut the lumps of flesh of such as were\nhanged.\"[66]\n\n [64] \"Discovery of Witchcraft,\" 1584, book iii. chap. i. p. 40;\n see Spalding's \"Elizabethan Demonology,\" p. 103.\n\n [65] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" vol. iii. pp. 8-10.\n\n [66] Douce, \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 245, says: \"See\n Adlington's Translation (1596, p. 49), a book certainly used by\n Shakespeare on other occasions.\"\n\nAnother way by which witches exercise their power was by looking into\nfuturity, as in \"Macbeth\" (i. 3), where Banquo says to them:\n\n \"If you can look into the seeds of time,\n And say which grain will grow and which will not,\n Speak then to me.\"\n\nCharles Knight, in his biography of Shakespeare, quotes a witch trial,\nwhich aptly illustrates the passage above; the case being that of\nJohnnet Wischert, who was \"indicted for passing to the green-growing\ncorn in May, twenty-two years since, or thereby, sitting thereupon\ntymous in the morning before the sun-rising; and being there found and\ndemanded what she was doing, thus answered, I shall tell thee; I have\nbeen piling the blades of the corn. I find it will be a dear year; the\nblade of the corn grows withersones [contrary to the course of the sun],\nand when it grows sonegatis about [with the course of the sun], it will\nbe a good, cheap year.\"\n\nAccording to a common notion firmly believed in days gone by, witches\nwere supposed to make waxen figures of those they intended to harm,\nwhich they stuck through with pins, or melted before a slow fire. Then,\nas the figure wasted, so the person it represented was said to waste\naway also. Thus, in \"Macbeth\" (i. 3), the first witch says:\n\n \"Weary sev'n-nights, nine times nine,\n Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine.\"\n\nReferring to the histories of the Duchess of Gloucester and of Jane\nShore, who were accused of practising this mode of witchcraft,\nShakespeare, in \"2 Henry VI.\" (i. 2), makes the former address Hume\nthus:\n\n \"What say'st thou, man? hast them as yet conferr'd\n With Margery Jourdain, the cunning witch,\n With Roger Bolingbroke, the conjurer?\n And will they undertake to do me good?\"\n\nShe was afterwards, however, accused of consulting witches concerning\nthe mode of compassing the death of her husband's nephew, Henry VI. It\nwas asserted that \"there was found in the possession of herself and\naccomplices a waxen image of the king, which they melted in a magical\nmanner before a slow fire, with the intention of making Henry's force\nand vigor waste away by like insensible degrees.\"\n\nA similar charge was brought against Jane Shore, the mistress of Edward\nIV., by Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Thus, in \"King Richard III.\" (iii.\n4), Gloucester asks Hastings:\n\n \"I pray you all, tell me what they deserve\n That do conspire my death with devilish plots\n Of damned witchcraft, and that have prevail'd\n Upon my body with their hellish charms?\"\n\nAnd he then further adds:\n\n \"Look how I am bewitch'd; behold mine arm\n Is, like a blasted sapling, wither'd up:\n And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,\n Consorted with that harlot, strumpet Shore,\n That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.\"\n\nThis superstition is further alluded to in \"King John\" (v. 4) by Melun,\nwho, wounded, says:\n\n \"Have I not hideous death within my view,\n Retaining but a quantity of life,\n Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax\n Resolveth from his figure 'gainst the fire?\"\n\nAnd, again, in \"The Two Gentlemen of Verona\" (ii. 4), Proteus says:\n\n \"for now my love is thaw'd;\n Which, like a waxen image 'gainst a fire,\n Bears no impression of the thing it was.\"[67]\n\n [67] See Henderson's \"Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties,\"\n 1879, p. 181.\n\nImages were frequently formed of other materials, and maltreated in some\nform or other, to produce similar results--a piece of superstition which\nstill prevails to a great extent in the East. Dubois, in his \"People of\nIndia\" (1825), speaks of magicians who make small images in mud or clay,\nand then write the names of their animosity on the breasts thereof;\nthese are otherwise pierced with thorns or mutilated, \"so as to\ncommunicate a corresponding injury to the person represented.\" They were\nalso said to extract moisture from the body, as in \"Macbeth\" (i. 3):\n\n \"I will drain him dry as hay.\"\n\nReferring to the other mischievous acts of witches, Steevens quotes the\nfollowing from \"A Detection of Damnable Driftes Practised by Three\nWitches, etc., arraigned at Chelmisforde, in Essex, 1579:\" \"Item--Also\nshe came on a tyme to the house of one Robert Lathburie, who, dislyking\nher dealyng, sent her home emptie; but presently after her departure\nhis hogges fell sicke and died, to the number of twentie.\" Hence in\n\"Macbeth\" (i. 3) in reply to the inquiry of the first witch:\n\n \"Where hast thou been, sister?\"\n\nthe second replies:\n\n \"Killing swine.\"\n\nIt appears to have been their practice to destroy the cattle of their\nneighbors, and the farmers have to this day many ceremonies to secure\ntheir cows and other cattle from witchcraft; but they seem to have been\nmost suspected of malice against swine. Harsnet observes how, formerly,\n\"A sow could not be ill of the measles, nor a girl of the sullens, but\nsome old woman was charged with witchcraft.\"[68]\n\n [68] See _Pig_, chap. vi.\n\nMr. Henderson, in his \"Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties\" (1879, p.\n182), relates how a few years ago a witch died in the village of Bovey\nTracey, Devonshire. She was accused of \"overlooking\" her neighbors'\npigs, so that her son, if ever betrayed into a quarrel with her, used\nalways to say, before they parted, \"Mother, mother, spare my pigs.\"\n\nMultiples of three and nine were specially employed by witches, ancient\nand modern. Thus, in \"Macbeth\" (i. 3), the witches take hold of hands\nand dance round in a ring nine times--three rounds for each witch, as a\ncharm for the furtherance of her purposes:[69]\n\n \"Thrice to thine and thrice to mine,\n And thrice again, to make up nine.\n Peace! the charm's wound up.\"\n\n [69] \"Notes to Macbeth,\" by Clark and Wright, 1877, p. 84.\n\nThe love of witches for odd numbers is further illustrated (iv. 1),\nwhere one of them tells how\n\n \"Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined,\"\n\nthis being the witches' way of saying four times.\n\nIn Fairfax's \"Tasso\" (book xiii. stanza 6) it is said that\n\n \"Witchcraft loveth numbers odd.\"\n\nThis notion is very old, and we may compare the following quotations\nfrom Ovid's \"Metamorphoses\" (xiv. 58):\n\n \"Ter novies carmen magico demurmurat ore.\"\n\nAnd, again (vii. 189-191):\n\n \"Ter se convertit; ter sumtis flumine crinem\n Irroravit aquis; ternis ululatibus ora\n Solvit.\"\n\nVergil, too, in his \"Eclogues\" (viii. 75), says:\n\n \"Numero deus impare gaudet.\"\n\nThe belief in the luck of odd numbers is noticed by Falstaff in the\n\"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (v. 1):\n\n \"They say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in\n nativity, chance, or death!\"\n\nIn \"King Lear\" (iv. 2) when the Duke of Albany tells Goneril,\n\n \"She that herself will sliver and disbranch\n From her material sap, perforce must wither\n And come to deadly use\"--\n\nhe alludes to the use that witches and enchanters were commonly supposed\nto make of withered branches in their charms.[70]\n\n [70] See Jones's \"Credulities, Past and Present,\" 1880, pp.\n 256-289.\n\nAmong other items of witch-lore mentioned by Shakespeare may be noticed\nthe common belief in the intercourse between demons and witches, to\nwhich Prospero alludes in the \"Tempest\" (i. 2):\n\n \"Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself\n Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!\"\n\nThis notion is seriously refuted by Scot in his \"Discovery of\nWitchcraft\" (book iv.), where he shows it to be \"flat knavery.\"\n\nThe offspring of a witch was termed \"Hag-seed,\" and as such is spoken of\nby Prospero in the \"Tempest\" (i. 2).\n\nWitches were also in the habit of saying their prayers backwards: a\npractice to which Hero refers in \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (iii. 1),\nwhere, speaking of Beatrice, she says:\n\n \"I never yet saw man,\n How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured,\n But she would spell him backward.\"\n\nFamiliar spirits[71] attending on magicians and witches were always\nimpatient of confinement.[72] So in the \"Tempest\" (i. 2) we find an\nillustration of this notion in the following dialogue:\n\n \"_Prospero._ What is't thou canst demand?\n\n _Ariel._ My liberty.\n\n _Prospero._ Before the time be out? No more.\"\n\n [71] Allusions to this superstition occur in \"Love's Labour's\n Lost\" (i. 2), \"love is a familiar;\" in \"1 Henry VI.\" (iii. 2),\n \"I think her old familiar is asleep;\" and in \"2 Henry VI.\" (iv.\n 7), \"he has a familiar under his tongue.\"\n\n [72] See Scot's \"Discovery of Witchcraft,\" 1584, p. 85.\n\nLastly, the term \"Aroint thee\" (\"Macbeth,\" i. 3), used by the first\nwitch, occurs again in \"King Lear\" (iii. 4), \"Aroint thee, witch, aroint\nthee.\" That _aroint_ is equivalent to \"away,\" \"begone,\" seems to be\nagreed, though its etymology is uncertain.[73] \"Rynt thee\" is used by\nmilkmaids in Cheshire to a cow, when she has been milked, to bid her get\nout of the way. Ray, in his \"Collection of North Country Words\" (1768,\np. 52), gives \"Rynt ye, by your leave, stand handsomely, as rynt you\nwitch, quoth Bessie Locket to her mother. Proverb, Chesh.\" Some connect\nit with the adverb \"aroume,\" meaning \"abroad,\" found in Chaucer's \"House\nof Fame\" (book ii. stanza 32):\n\n \"That I a-roume was in the field.\"\n\nOther derivations are from the Latin _averrunco_: the Italian _rogna_, a\ncutaneous disease, etc.\n\n [73] Sec Dyce's \"Glossary,\" pp. 18, 19.\n\nHow thoroughly Shakespeare was acquainted with the system of witchcraft\nis evident from the preceding pages, in which we have noticed his\nallusions to most of the prominent forms of this species of\nsuperstition. Many other items of witch-lore, however, are referred to\nby him, mention of which is made in succeeding chapters.[74]\n\n [74] \"Notes to Macbeth\" (Clark and Wright), pp. 81, 82.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nGHOSTS.\n\n\nFew subjects have, from time immemorial, possessed a wider interest than\nghosts, and the superstitions associated with them in this and other\ncountries form an extensive collection in folk-lore literature. In\nShakespeare's day, it would seem that the belief in ghosts was specially\nprevalent, and ghost tales were told by the firelight in nearly every\nhousehold. The young, as Mr. Goadby, in his \"England of Shakespeare,\"\nsays (1881, p. 196), \"were thus touched by the prevailing superstitions\nin their most impressionable years. They looked for the incorporeal\ncreatures of whom they had heard, and they were quick to invest any\ntrick of moonbeam shadow with the attributes of the supernatural.\" A\ndescription of one of these tale-tellings is given in the \"Winter's\nTale\" (ii. 1):\n\n \"_Her._ What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now\n I am for you again: pray you, sit by us,\n And tell's a tale.\n\n _Mam._ Merry or sad shall't be?\n\n _Her._ As merry as you will.\n\n _Mam._ A sad tale's best for winter:\n I have one of sprites and goblins.\n\n _Her._ Let's have that, good sir.\n Come on, sit down: Come on, and do your best\n To fright me with your sprites: you're powerful at it.\n\n _Mam._ There was a man,--\n\n _Her._ Nay, come, sit down; then on.\n\n _Mam._ Dwelt by a churchyard: I will tell it softly;\n Yond crickets shall not hear it.\n\n _Her._ Come on, then,\n And give't me in mine ear.\"\n\nThe important part which Shakespeare has assigned to the ghost in\n\"Hamlet\" has a special value, inasmuch as it illustrates many of the\nold beliefs current in his day respecting their history and habits.\nThus, according to a popular notion, ghosts are generally supposed to\nassume the exact appearance by which they were usually known when in the\nmaterial state, even to the smallest detail of their dress. So Horatio\ntells Hamlet how, when Marcellus and Bernardo were on their watch (i.\n2),\n\n \"A figure like your father,\n Arm'd at point, exactly, cap-a-pe,\n Appears before them, and with solemn march\n Goes slow and stately by them.\"\n\nFurther on, when the ghost appears again, Hamlet addresses it thus:\n\n \"What may this mean,\n That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel,\n Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,\n Making night hideous.\"\n\nIn the graphic description of Banquo's ghost in \"Macbeth\" (iii. 4), we\nhave a further allusion to the same belief; one, indeed, which is\nretained at the present day with as much faith as in days of old.\n\nShakespeare has several allusions to the notion which prevailed in days\ngone by, of certain persons being able to exorcise or raise spirits.\nThus, in \"Cymbeline\" (iv. 2), Guiderius says over Fidele's grave:\n\n \"No exorciser harm thee.\"\n\nIn \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (ii. 1), Ligarius says:\n\n \"Soul of Rome!\n Brave son, derived from honourable loins!\n Thou, like an exorcist, hast conjured up\n My mortified spirit. Now bid me run,\n And I will strive with things impossible;\n Yea, get the better of them.\"\n\nIn \"All's Well that Ends Well\" (v. 3) the king says:\n\n \"Is there no exorcist\n Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?\n Is't real that I see?\"\n\nThis superstition, it may be added, has of late years gained additional\nnotoriety since the so-called spiritualism has attracted the attention\nand support of the credulous. As learning was considered necessary for\nan exorcist, the schoolmaster was often employed. Thus, in the \"Comedy\nof Errors\" (iv. 4), the schoolmaster Pinch is introduced in this\ncapacity.\n\nWithin, indeed, the last fifty years the pedagogue was still a reputed\nconjurer. In \"Hamlet\" (i. 1), Marcellus, alluding to the ghost, says:\n\n \"Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.\"\n\nAnd in \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (ii. 1), Benedick says:\n\n \"I would to God some scholar would conjure her.\"\n\nFor the same reason exorcisms were usually practised by the clergy in\nLatin; and so Toby, in the \"Night Walker\" of Beaumont and Fletcher (ii.\n1), says:\n\n \"Let's call the butler up, for he speaks Latin,\n And that will daunt the devil.\"\n\nIt was also necessary that spirits, when evoked, should be questioned\nquickly, as they were supposed to be impatient of being interrogated.\nHence in \"Macbeth\" (iv. 1) the apparition says:\n\n \"Dismiss me. Enough!\"\n\nThe spirit, likewise, in \"2 Henry VI.\" (i. 4) utters these words:\n\n \"Ask what thou wilt. That I had said and done!\"\n\nSpirits were supposed to maintain an obdurate silence till interrogated\nby the persons to whom they made their special appearance.[75] Thus\nHamlet, alluding to the appearance of the ghost, asks Horatio (i. 2):\n\n \"Did you not speak to it?\"\n\nWhereupon he replies:\n\n \"My lord, I did;\n But answer made it none: yet once, methought\n It lifted up its head and did address\n Itself to motion, like as it would speak.\"\n\n [75] We may compare the words \"unquestionable spirit\" in \"As\n You Like It\" (iii. 2), which means \"a spirit averse to\n conversation.\"\n\nThe walking of spirits seems also to have been enjoined by way of\npenance. The ghost of Hamlet's father (i. 5) says:\n\n \"I am thy father's spirit,\n Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,\n And for the day confin'd to fast in fires,\n Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature\n Are burnt and purg'd away.\"\n\nAnd further on (iii. 2) Hamlet exclaims:\n\n \"It is a damned ghost that we have seen.\"\n\nThis superstition is referred to by Spenser in his \"Fairy Queen\" (book\ni. canto 2):\n\n \"What voice of damned ghost from Limbo lake\n Or guileful spright wand'ring in empty ayre,\n Sends to my doubtful eares these speeches rare?\"\n\nAccording to a universal belief prevalent from the earliest times, it\nwas supposed that ghosts had some particular reason for quitting the\nmansions of the dead, \"such as a desire that their bodies, if unburied,\nshould receive Christian rites of sepulture, that a murderer might be\nbrought to due punishment,\" etc.[76] On this account Horatio (\"Hamlet,\"\ni. 1) invokes the ghost:\n\n \"If there be any good thing to be done,\n That may to thee do ease and grace to me,\n Speak to me.\"\n\nAnd in a later scene (i. 4) Hamlet says:\n\n \"Say, why is this? wherefore? What should we do?\"\n\n [76] Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" pp. 450, 451.\n\nThe Greeks believed that such as had not received funeral rites would be\nexcluded from Elysium; and thus the wandering shade of Patroclus\nappears to Achilles in his sleep, and demands the performance of his\nfuneral. The younger Pliny tells a story of a haunted house at Athens,\nin which a ghost played all kinds of pranks, owing to his funeral rites\nhaving been neglected. A further reference to the superstition occurs in\n\"Titus Andronicus\" (i. 1), where Lucius, speaking of the unburied sons\nof Titus, says:\n\n \"Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths,\n That we may hew his limbs, and, on a pile,\n _Ad manes fratrum_ sacrifice his flesh,\n Before this earthy prison of their bones;\n That so the shadows be not unappeased,\n Nor we disturbed with prodigies on earth.\"\n\nIn olden times, spirits were said to have different allotments of time,\nsuitable to the variety and nature of their agency. Prospero, in the\n\"Tempest\" (i. 2), says to Caliban:\n\n \"Be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,\n Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins\n Shall, for that vast[77] of night that they may work,\n All exercise on thee.\"\n\n [77] Vast, _i. e._, space of night. So in \"Hamlet\" (i. 2):\n\n \"In the dead waste and middle of the night.\"\n\nAccording to a popular notion, the presence of unearthly beings was\nannounced by an alteration in the tint of the lights which happened to\nbe burning--a superstition alluded to in \"Richard III.\" (v. 3), where the\ntyrant exclaims, as he awakens:\n\n \"The lights burn blue.--It is now dead midnight,\n Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh--\n\n * * * * *\n\n Methought the souls of all that I had murder'd\n Came to my tent.\"\n\nSo in \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (iv. 3), Brutus, on seeing the ghost of C\u00e6sar,\nexclaims:\n\n \"How ill this taper burns! Ha! who comes here?\"\n\nIt has been a widespread belief from the most remote period that ghosts\ncannot bear the light, and so disappear at the dawn of day; their signal\nbeing the cock-crow.[78] The ghost of Hamlet's father says (i. 5):\n\n \"But, soft! methinks I scent the morning air;\n Brief let me be\"--\n\nand--\n\n \"Fare thee well at once.\n The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,\n And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire:\n Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me.\"\n\n [78] See p. 104.\n\nAgain, in \"King Lear\" (iii. 4), Edgar says: \"This is the foul fiend\nFlibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock.\"\n\nThe time of night, as the season wherein spirits wander abroad, is\nfurther noticed by Gardiner in \"Henry VIII.\" (v. 1):\n\n \"Affairs, that walk,\n As they say spirits do, at midnight.\"\n\nIt was a prevalent notion that a person who crossed the spot on which a\nspectre was seen became subject to its malignant influence. In \"Hamlet\"\n(i. 1), Horatio says, in reference to the ghost:\n\n \"But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!\n I'll cross it, though it blast me.\"\n\nLodge, in his \"Illustrations of British History\" (iii. 48), tells us\nthat among the reasons for supposing the death of Ferdinand, Earl of\nDerby (who died young, in 1594), to have been occasioned by witchcraft,\nwas the following: \"On Friday there appeared a tall man, who twice\ncrossed him swiftly; and when the earl came to the place where he saw\nthis man, he fell sick.\"\n\nReginald Scot, in his \"Discovery of Witchcraft\" (1584), enumerates the\ndifferent kinds of spirits, and particularly notices white, black, gray,\nand red spirits. So in \"Macbeth\" (iv. 1), \"black spirits\" are\nmentioned--the charm song referred to (like the one in act iv.) being\nfound in Middleton's \"Witch\" (v. 2):\n\n \"Black spirits and white,\n Red spirits and gray;\n Mingle, mingle, mingle,\n You that mingle may.\"\n\nA well-known superstition which still prevails in this and foreign\ncountries is that of the \"spectre huntsman and his furious host.\" As\nnight-time approaches, it is supposed that this invisible personage\nrides through the air with his yelping hounds; their weird sound being\nthought to forbode misfortune of some kind. This popular piece of\nfolk-lore exists in the north of England under a variety of forms among\nour peasantry, who tenaciously cling to the traditions which have been\nhanded down to them.[79] It has been suggested that Shakespeare had some\nof these superstitions in view when he placed in the mouth of Macbeth\n(i. 7), while contemplating the murder of Duncan, the following\nmetaphors:\n\n \"And pity, like a naked new-born babe,\n Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed\n Upon the sightless couriers of the air,\n Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,\n That tears shall drown the wind!\"\n\n [79] See Hardwick's \"Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-lore,\"\n 1872, pp. 153-176.\n\nAgain, in \"The Tempest\" (iv. 1), Prospero and Ariel are represented as\nsetting on spirits, in the shape of hounds, to hunt Stephano and\nTrinculo. This species of diabolical or spectral chase was formerly a\npopular article of belief. As Drake aptly remarks,[80] \"the hell-hounds\nof Shakespeare appear to be sufficiently formidable, for, not merely\ncommissioned to hunt their victims, they are ordered, likewise, as\ngoblins,\" to--\n\n \"grind their joints\n With dry convulsions; shorten up their sinews\n With aged cramps; and more pinch-spotted make them\n Than pard or cat o' mountain.\n\n _Ariel._ Hark, they roar!\n\n _Prospero._ Let them be hunted soundly.\"\n\n [80] \"Shakespeare and His Times,\" vol. i. p. 378.\n\n\n_TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS._\n\nShakespeare has several references to the old superstitious belief in\nthe transmigration of souls, traces of which may still be found in the\nreverence paid to the robin, the wren, and other birds. Thus, in \"The\nMerchant of Venice\" (iv. 1), Gratiano says to Shylock:\n\n \"Thou almost makest me waver in my faith\n To hold opinion with Pythagoras\n That souls of animals infuse themselves\n Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit\n Govern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter,\n Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,\n And, whilst thou lay'st in thy unhallow'd dam,\n Infused itself in thee; for thy desires\n Are wolfish, bloody, starved, and ravenous.\"\n\nCaliban, when remonstrating with the drunken Stephano and Trinculo, for\ndelaying at the mouth of the cave of Prospero, instead of taking the\nmagician's life (\"Tempest,\" iv. 1), says:\n\n \"I will have none on't: we shall lose our time,\n And all be turn'd to barnacles, or to apes.\"\n\nIn \"Hamlet\" (iv. 5), in the scene where Ophelia, in her mental\naberration, quotes snatches of old ballads, she says: \"They say the owl\nwas a baker's daughter! Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we\nmay be.\"[81]\n\n [81] See _Owl_, chap. vi.\n\nAgain, in \"Twelfth Night\" (iv. 2), there is another reference in the\namusing passage where the clown, under the pretence of his being \"Sir\nTopas, the curate,\" questions Malvolio, when confined in a dark room, as\na presumed lunatic:\n\n \"_Mal._ I am no more mad than you are: make the trial of it in\n any constant question.\n\n _Clo._ What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl?\n\n _Mal._ That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a\n bird.\n\n _Clo._ What thinkest thou of his opinion?\n\n _Mal._ I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his\n opinion.\n\n _Clo._ Fare thee well. Remain thou still in darkness: thou\n shalt hold the opinion of Pythagoras ere I will allow of thy\n wits, and fear to kill a woodcock lest thou dispossess the\n soul of thy grandam.\"\n\nAlthough this primitive superstition is almost effete among civilized\nnations, yet it still retains an important place in the religious\nbeliefs of savage and uncivilized communities.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nDEMONOLOGY AND DEVIL-LORE.\n\n\nThe state of popular feeling in past centuries with regard to the active\nagency of devils has been well represented by Reginald Scot, who, in his\nwork on Witchcraft, has shown how the superstitious belief in demonology\nwas part of the great system of witchcraft. Many of the popular\ndelusions of this terrible form of superstition have been in a masterly\nmanner exposed by Shakespeare; and the scattered allusions which he has\ngiven, illustrative of it, are indeed sufficient to prove, if it were\nnecessary, what a highly elaborate creed it was. Happily, Shakespeare,\nlike the other dramatists of the period, has generally treated the\nsubject with ridicule, showing that he had no sympathy with the grosser\nopinions shared by various classes in those times, whether held by king\nor clown. According to an old belief, still firmly credited in the\npoet's day, it was supposed that devils could at any moment assume\nwhatever form they pleased that would most conduce to the success of any\ncontemplated enterprise they might have in hand; and hence the charge of\nbeing a devil, so commonly brought against innocent and harmless persons\nin former years, can easily be understood. Among the incidental\nallusions to this notion, given by Shakespeare, Prince Hal (\"1 Henry\nIV.,\" ii. 4) tells Falstaff \"there is a devil haunts thee in the\nlikeness of an old fat man;\" \"an old white-bearded Satan.\" In the\n\"Merchant of Venice\" (iii. 1) Salanio, on the approach of Shylock, says:\n\"Let me say 'amen' betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer, for here he\ncomes in the likeness of a Jew.\"\n\nIndeed, \"all shapes that man goes up and down in\" seem to have been at\nthe devil's control, a belief referred to in \"Timon of Athens\" (ii. 2):\n\n \"_Var. Serv._ What is a whoremaster, fool?\n\n _Fool._ A fool in good clothes, and something like thee. 'Tis\n a spirit: sometime 't appears like a lord; sometime like a\n lawyer; sometime like a philosopher, with two stones moe\n than's artificial one: he is very often like a knight; and,\n generally, in all shapes that man goes up and down in from\n fourscore to thirteen, this spirit walks in.\"\n\nA popular form assumed by evil spirits was that of a negro or Moor, to\nwhich Iago alludes when he incites Brabantio to search for his daughter,\nin \"Othello\" (i. 1):\n\n \"Zounds, sir, you are robb'd; for shame, put on your gown;\n Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;\n Even now, now, very now, an old black ram\n Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise!\n Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,\n Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you.\n Arise, I say.\"\n\nOn the other hand, so diverse were the forms which devils were supposed\nto assume that they are said occasionally to appear in the fairest form,\neven in that of a girl (ii. 3):\n\n \"When devils will the blackest sins put on,\n They do suggest at first with heavenly shows.\"\n\nSo in \"The Comedy of Errors\" (iv. 3) we have the following dialogue:\n\n \"_Ant. S._ Satan, avoid! I charge thee, tempt me not!\n\n _Dro. S._ Master, is this mistress Satan?\n\n _Ant. S._ It is the devil.\n\n _Dro. S._ Nay, she is worse, she is the devil's dam; and here\n she comes in the habit of a light wench; and thereof comes\n that the wenches say, 'God damn me;' that's as much as to say,\n 'God make me a light wench.' It is written, they appear to men\n like angels of light.\"\n\n(Cf. also \"Love's Labour's Lost,\" iv. 3.) In \"King John\" (iii. 1) even\nthe fair Blanch seemed to Constance none other than the devil tempting\nLewis \"in likeness of a new untrimmed bride.\"\n\nNot only, too, were devils thought to assume any human shape they\nfancied, but, as Mr. Spalding remarks,[82] \"the forms of the whole of\nthe animal kingdom appear to have been at their disposal; and, not\ncontent with these, they seem to have sought for unlikely shapes to\nappear in\"--the same characteristic belonging also to the fairy tribe.\n\n [82] \"Elizabethan Demonology,\" p. 49.\n\nThus, when Edgar is trying to persuade the blind Gloucester that he has\nin reality cast himself over the cliff, he describes the being from whom\nhe is supposed to have just departed:\n\n \"As I stood here below, methought his eyes\n Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses,\n Horns whelk'd and wav'd like the enridged sea:\n It was some fiend.\"\n\nAgain, Edgar says (\"King Lear,\" iii. 6): \"The foul fiend haunts poor Tom\nin the voice of a nightingale\"--the allusion probably being to the\nfollowing incident related by Friswood Williams: \"There was also another\nstrange thing happened at Denham about a bird. Mistris Peckham had a\nnightingale which she kept in a cage, wherein Maister Dibdale took great\ndelight, and would often be playing with it. The nightingale was one\nnight conveyed out of the cage, and being next morning diligently sought\nfor, could not be heard of, till Maister Mainie's devil, in one of his\nfits (as it was pretended), said that the wicked spirit which was in\nthis examinate's sister had taken the bird out of the cage and killed it\nin despite of Maister Dibdale.\"[83]\n\n [83] Harsnet's \"Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures,\" p. 225.\n\nEven the shape of a fly was a favorite one with evil spirits, so much\nso, that the term \"fly\" was a popular synonym for a familiar. In \"Titus\nAndronicus\" (iii. 2) there is an allusion to this belief, where Marcus,\nbeing rebuked by Titus for having killed a fly, gives as his reason:\n\n \"It was a black ill-favour'd fly,\n Like to the empress' Moor: therefore I kill'd him.\"\n\nMr. Spalding gives the following illustrations of the superstition: \"At\nthe execution of Urban Grandier, the famous magician of Loudun, in 1634,\na large fly was seen buzzing about the stake; and a priest promptly\nseizing the opportunity of improving the occasion for the benefit of the\nonlookers, declared that Beelzebub had come in his own proper person to\ncarry off Grandier's soul to hell. In 1664 occurred the celebrated witch\ntrials which took place before Sir Matthew Hale. The accused were\ncharged with bewitching two children, and part of the evidence against\nthem was that flies and bees were seen to carry into their victims'\nmouths the nails and pins which they afterwards vomited.\"\n\nOnce more, another form devils assumed was that of a dead friend. Thus\n\"Hamlet\" (i. 4), when he confronts the apparition, exclaims:\n\n \"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!\n Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd,\n Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell,\n Be thy intents wicked, or charitable,\n Thou com'st in such a questionable shape\n That I will speak to thee\"--\n\nfor, as Mr. Spalding remarks, \"it cannot be imagined that Hamlet\nimagined that a 'goblin damned' could actually be the spirit of his dead\nfather; and, therefore, the alternative in his mind must be that he saw\na devil assuming his father's likeness--a form which the Evil One knew\nwould most incite Hamlet to intercourse.\"\n\nThe same idea seems present in Horatio's mind:\n\n \"What, if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,\n Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff,\n That beetles o'er his base into the sea,\n And there assume some other horrible form,\n Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,\n And draw you into madness?\"\n\nOnce more, in the next act (ii. 2), Hamlet again expresses his doubts:\n\n \"The spirit that I have seen\n May be the devil: and the devil hath power\n To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and, perhaps,\n Out of my weakness and my melancholy,\n As he is very potent with such spirits,\n Abuses me to damn me.\"\n\nIn the Elizabethan times, too, no superstitious belief exerted a more\npernicious and baneful influence on the credulous and ignorant than the\nnotion that evil spirits from time to time entered into human beings,\nand so completely gained a despotic control over them as to render them\nperfectly helpless. Harsnet, in his \"Declaration of Egregious Popish\nImpostures\" (1603), has exposed this gross superstition; and a\ncomparison of the passages in \"King Lear,\" spoken by Edgar when feigning\nmadness, with those given by Harsnet, will show that Shakespeare has\naccurately given the contemporary belief on the subject. Mr. Spalding\nalso considers that nearly all the allusions in \"King Lear\" refer to a\nyouth known as Richard Mainey, a minute account of whose supposed\npossession has been given by Harsnet.\n\nPersons so possessed were often bound and shut up in a dark room,\noccasionally being forced to submit to flagellation--a treatment not\nunlike that described in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 2):\n\n \"Not mad, but bound more than a madman is;\n Shut up in prison, kept without my food,\n Whipp'd and tormented.\"\n\nIn the \"Comedy of Errors\" (iv. 4) we have an amusing scene, further\nillustrative, probably, of the kind of treatment adopted in\nShakespeare's day:\n\n \"_Courtesan._ How say you now? is not your husband mad?\n\n _Adriana._ His incivility confirms no less--\n Good doctor Pinch, you are a conjurer;\n Establish him in his true sense again,\n And I will please you what you will demand.\n\n _Luciana._ Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks!\n\n _Courtesan._ Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy!\n\n _Pinch._ Give me your hand, and let me feel your pulse.\n\n _Ant. E._ There is my hand, and let it feel your ear.\n\n _Pinch._ I charge thee, Satan, hous'd within this man,\n To yield possession to my holy prayers,\n And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight:\n I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven.\"\n\nPinch further says:\n\n \"They must be bound, and laid in some dark room.\"\n\nAs Brand remarks,[84] there is no vulgar story of the devil's having\nappeared anywhere without a cloven foot. In graphic representations he\nis seldom or never pictured without one. In the following passage, where\nOthello is questioning whether Iago is a devil or not, he says (v. 2):\n\n \"I look down towards his feet;--but that's a fable.--\n If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee.\"\n\n [84] \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. pp. 517-519.\n\nDr. Johnson gives this explanation: \"I look towards his feet to see if,\naccording to the common opinion, his feet be cloven.\"\n\nIn Massinger's \"Virgin Martyr\" (iii. 3), Harpax, an evil spirit,\nfollowing Theophilus in the shape of a secretary, speaks thus of the\nsuperstitious Christian's description of his infernal enemy:\n\n \"I'll tell you what now of the devil:\n He's no such horrid creature; cloven-footed,\n Black, saucer-ey'd, his nostrils breathing fire,\n As these lying Christians make him.\"\n\n\nGOOD AND EVIL DEMONS.\n\nIt was formerly commonly believed that not only kingdoms had their\ntutelary guardians, but that every person had his particular genius or\ngood angel, to protect and admonish him by dreams, visions, etc.[85]\nHence, in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (ii. 3), the soothsayer, speaking of\nC\u00e6sar, says:\n\n \"O Antony, stay not by his side:\n Thy demon,--that's thy spirit which keeps thee,--is\n Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable,\n Where C\u00e6sar's is not; but, near him, thy angel\n Becomes a fear, as being o'erpower'd.\"\n\n [85] Ibid. vol. i. pp. 365-367.\n\nThus Macbeth (iii. 1) speaks in a similar manner in reference to Banquo:\n\n \"There is none but he\n Whose being I do fear; and, under him,\n My Genius is rebuked; as, it is said,\n Mark Antony's was by C\u00e6sar.\"\n\nSo, too, in \"2 Henry IV.\" (i. 2), the Chief-justice says:\n\n \"You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel.\"\n\nWe may quote a further reference in \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (iii. 2), where\nAntony says:\n\n \"For Brutus, as you know, was C\u00e6sar's angel.\"\n\n\"In the Roman world,\" says Mr. Tylor, in his \"Primitive Culture\" (1873,\nvol. ii. p. 202), \"each man had his 'genius natalis,' associated with\nhim from birth to death, influencing his action and his fate, standing\nrepresented by its proper image, as a _lar_ among the household gods and\nat weddings and joyous times, and especially on the anniversary of the\nbirthday when genius and man began their united career, worship was paid\nwith song and dance to the divine image, adorned with garlands, and\npropitiated with incense and libations of wine. The demon or genius was,\nas it were, the man's companion soul, a second spiritual Ego. The\nEgyptian astrologer warned Antonius to keep far from the young Octavius,\n'For thy demon,' said he, 'is in fear of his.'\"\n\nThe allusion by Lady Macbeth (i. 5), in the following passage, is to the\nspirits of Revenge:\n\n \"Come, you spirits\n That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,\n And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full\n Of direst cruelty!\"\n\nIn Nash's \"Pierce Pennilesse\" we find a description of these spirits and\nof their office. \"The second kind of devils which he most employeth are\nthose northern _Martii_, called the _Spirits of Revenge_, and the\nauthors of massacres and seed-men of mischief; for they have commission\nto incense men to rapine, sacrilege, theft, murder, wrath, fury, and all\nmanner of cruelties; and they command certain of the southern spirits to\nwait upon them, as also great Arioch, that is termed the Spirit of\nRevenge.\" In another passage we are further told how \"the spirits of the\naire will mixe themselves with thunder and lightning, and so infect the\nclime where they raise any tempest, that suddenly great mortalitie shall\nensue of the inhabitants.\" \"Aerial spirits or devils,\" according to\nBurton's \"Anatomy of Melancholy,\" \"are such as keep quarter most part in\nthe aire, cause many tempests, thunder and lightnings, tear oakes, fire\nsteeples, houses, strike men and beasts,\" etc. Thus, in \"King John\"\n(iii. 2), the Bastard remarks:\n\n \"Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot;\n Some airy devil hovers in the sky,\n And pours down mischief.\"\n\nIt was anciently supposed that all mines of gold, etc., were guarded by\nevil spirits. Thus Falstaff, in \"2 Henry IV.\" (iv. 3), speaks of\nlearning as \"a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil.\" This superstition\nstill prevails, and has been made the subject of many a legend. Thus, it\nis believed by the peasantry living near Largo-Law, Scotland, that a\nrich mine of gold is concealed in the mountain. \"A spectre once appeared\nthere, supposed to be the guardian of the mine, who, being accosted by a\nneighboring shepherd, promised to tell him at a certain time and on\ncertain conditions, where 'the gowd mine is in Largo-Law,' especially\nenjoining that the horn sounded for the housing of the cows at the\nadjoining farm of Balmain should not blow. Every precaution having been\ntaken, the ghost was true to his tryst; but, unhappily, when he was\nabout to divulge the desired secret, Tammie Norrie, the cowherd of\nBalmain, blew a blast, whereupon the ghost vanished, with the\ndenunciation:\n\n 'Woe to the man that blew the horn,\n For out of the spot he shall ne'er be borne.'\n\nThe unlucky horn-blower was struck dead, and, as it was found impossible\nto remove the body, a cairn of stones was raised over it.\"[86]\n\n [86] See Jones's \"Credulities, Past and Present,\" 1880, p. 133.\n\nSteevens considers that when Macbeth (iii. 2) says:\n\n \"Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;\n Whiles night's black agents to their preys do rouse,\"\n\nhe refers to those demons who were supposed to remain in their several\nplaces of confinement all day, but at the close of it were released;\nsuch, indeed, as are mentioned in \"The Tempest\" (v. 1), as rejoicing \"to\nhear the solemn curfew,\" because it announced the hour of their freedom.\n\nAmong other superstitions we may quote one in the \"Merchant of Venice\"\n(iii. 1), where Salanio says: \"Let me say 'amen' betimes, lest the devil\ncross my prayer.\"\n\nOf the devils mentioned by Shakespeare may be noted the following:\n\n_Amaimon_ is one of the chief, whose dominion is on the north side of\nthe infernal gulf. He might be bound or restrained from doing hurt from\nthe third hour till noon, and from the ninth hour till evening. In the\n\"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (ii. 2) Ford mentions this devil, and in \"1\nHenry IV.\" (ii. 4) Falstaff says: \"That same mad fellow of the north,\nPercy; and he of Wales, that gave Amaimon the bastinado, and made\nLucifer cuckold.\"[87]\n\n [87] See Scot's \"Discovery of Witchcraft,\" 1584, p. 393;\n Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 264.\n\nThe north was always supposed to be the particular habitation of bad\nspirits. Milton, therefore, assembles the rebel angels in the north. In\n\"1 Henry VI.\" (v. 3), La Pucelle invokes the aid of the spirits:\n\n \"Under the lordly monarch of the north.\"\n\n_Barbason._ This demon would seem to be the same as \"Marbas, alias\nBarbas,\" who, as Scot[88] informs us, \"is a great president, and\nappeareth in the forme of a mightie lion; but at the commandment of a\nconjurer cometh up in the likeness of man, and answereth fullie as\ntouching anything which is hidden or secret.\" In the \"Merry Wives of\nWindsor\" (ii. 2) it is mentioned by Ford in connection with Lucifer, and\nagain in \"Henry V.\" (ii. 1) Nym tells Pistol: \"I am not Barbason; you\ncannot conjure me.\"\n\n [88] Ibid. p. 378.\n\nThe names of the several fiends in \"King Lear,\" Shakespeare is supposed\nto have derived from Harsnet's \"Declaration of Egregious Popish\nImpostures\" (1603).\n\n_Flibbertigibbet_, one of the fiends that possessed poor Tom, is, we are\ntold (iv. 1), the fiend \"of mopping and mowing, who since possesses\nchambermaids and waiting-women.\" And again (iii. 4), \"he begins at\ncurfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives the web and the pin.\"\n\n_Frateretto_ is referred to by Edgar (iii. 6): \"Frateretto calls me; and\ntells me, Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness. Pray, innocent, and\nbeware the foul fiend.\"\n\n_Hobbididance_ is noticed as \"prince of dumbness\" (iv. 1), and perhaps\nis the same as Hopdance (iii. 6), \"who cries,\" says Edgar, \"in Tom's\nbelly for two white herring.\"\n\n_Mahu_, like _Modo_, would seem to be another name for \"the prince of\ndarkness\" (iii. 4), and further on (iv. 1) he is spoken of as the fiend\n\"of stealing;\" whereas the latter is described as the fiend \"of murder.\"\nHarsnet thus speaks of them: \"Maho was general dictator of hell; and\nyet, for good manners' sake, he was contented of his good nature to make\nshow, that himself was under the check of Modu, the graund devil in\nMa(ister) Maynie.\"\n\n_Obidicut_, another name of the fiend known as Haberdicut (iv. 1).\n\n_Smulkin_ (iii. 4). This is spelled Smolkin by Harsnet.\n\nThus, in a masterly manner, Shakespeare has illustrated and embellished\nhis plays with references to the demonology of the period; having been\ncareful in every case--while enlivening his audience--to convince them of\nthe utter absurdity of this degraded form of superstition.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nNATURAL PHENOMENA.\n\n\nMany of the most beautiful and graphic passages in Shakespeare's\nwritings have pictured the sun in highly glowing language, and often\ninvested it with that sweet pathos for which the poet was so signally\nfamous. Expressions, for instance, such as the following, are ever\nfrequent: \"the glorious sun\" (\"Twelfth Night,\" iv. 3); \"heaven's\nglorious sun\" (\"Love's Labour's Lost,\" i. 1); \"gorgeous as the sun at\nmidsummer\" (\"1 Henry IV.,\" iv. 1); \"all the world is cheered by the sun\"\n(\"Richard III.,\" i. 2); \"the sacred radiance of the sun\" (\"King Lear,\"\ni. 1); \"sweet tidings of the sun's uprise\" (\"Titus Andronicus,\" iii. 1),\netc. Then, again, how often we come across passages replete with pathos,\nsuch as \"thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west\" (\"Richard II.,\" ii. 4);\n\"ere the weary sun set in the west\" (\"Comedy of Errors,\" i. 2); \"the\nweary sun hath made a golden set\" (\"Richard III.,\" v. 3); \"The sun, for\nsorrow, will not show his head\" (\"Romeo and Juliet,\" v. 3), etc.\nAlthough, however, Shakespeare has made such constant mention of the\nsun, yet his allusions to the folk-lore connected with it are somewhat\nscanty.\n\nAccording to the old philosophy the sun was accounted a planet,[89] and\nthought to be whirled round the earth by the motion of a solid sphere,\nin which it was fixed. In \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (iv. 13), Cleopatra\nexclaims:\n\n \"O sun,\n Burn the great sphere thou mov'st in! darkling stand\n The varying shore o' the world.\"\n\n [89] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. x. p. 292.\n\nSupposing this sphere consumed, the sun must wander in endless space,\nand, as a natural consequence, the earth be involved in endless night.\n\nIn \"1 Henry IV.\" (i. 2), Falstaff, according to vulgar astronomy, calls\nthe sun a \"wandering knight,\" and by this expression evidently alludes\nto some knight of romance. Mr. Douce[90] considered the allusion was to\n\"The Voyage of the Wandering Knight,\" by Jean de Cathenay, of which the\ntranslation, by W. Goodyeare, appeared about the year 1600. The words\nmay be a portion of some forgotten ballad.\n\n [90] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, pp. 255, 256.\n\nA pretty fancy is referred to in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iii. 5), where\nCapulet says:\n\n \"When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;\n But for the sunset of my brother's son\n It rains downright.\"\n\nAnd so, too, in the \"Rape of Lucrece:\"\n\n \"But as the earth doth weep, the sun being set.\"\n\n\"That Shakespeare thought it was the air,\" says Singer,[91] \"and not the\nearth, that drizzled dew, is evident from many passages in his works.\nThus, in 'King John' (ii. 1) he says: 'Before the dew of evening fall.'\"\nSteevens, alluding to the following passage in \"A Midsummer-Night's\nDream\" (iii. 1), \"and when she [_i. e._, the moon] weeps, weeps every\nlittle flower,\" says that Shakespeare \"means that every little flower is\nmoistened with dew, as if with tears; and not that the flower itself\ndrizzles dew.\"\n\n [91] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. viii. p. 208.\n\nBy a popular fancy, the sun was formerly said to dance at its rising on\nEaster morning--to which there may be an allusion in \"Romeo and Juliet\"\n(iii. 5), where Romeo, addressing Juliet, says:\n\n \"look, love, what envious streaks\n Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east;\n Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day\n Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.\"\n\nWe may also compare the expression in \"Coriolanus\" (v. 4):\n\n \"The trumpets, sackbuts, psalteries, and fifes,\n Tabors, and cymbals, and the shouting Romans,\n Make the sun dance.\"\n\nMr. Knight remarks, there was \"something exquisitely beautiful in the\nold custom of going forth into the fields before the sun had risen on\nEaster Day, to see him mounting over the hills with tremulous motion, as\nif it were an animate thing, bounding in sympathy with the redeemed of\nmankind.\"[92]\n\n [92] See Knight's \"Life of Shakespeare,\" 1843, p. 63.\n\nA cloudy rising of the sun has generally been regarded as ominous--a\nsuperstition equally prevalent on the Continent as in this country. In\n\"Richard III.\" (v. 3), King Richard asks:\n\n \"Who saw the sun to-day?\n\n _Ratcliff._ Not I, my lord.\n\n _K. Richard._ Then he disdains to shine; for, by the book\n He should have braved the east an hour ago:\n A black day will it be to somebody.\"\n\n\"The learned Moresin, in his 'Papatus,'\" says Brand,[93] \"reckons among\nomens the cloudy rising of the sun.\" Vergil, too, in his first Georgic\n(441-449), considers it a sign of stormy weather:[94]\n\n \"Ille ubi nascentem maculis variaverit ortum\n Conditus in nubem, medioque refugerit orbe,\n Suspecti tibi sint imbres; namque urget ab alto\n Arboribusque satisque Notus pecorique sinister,\n Aut ubi sub lucem densa inter nubila sese\n Diversi rumpent radii, aut ubi pallida surget,\n Tithoni croceum linquens Aurora cubile,\n Heu, male tum mitis defendet pampinus uvas:\n Tam multa in tectis crepitans salit horrida grando.\"\n\n [93] \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. p. 241.\n\n [94] See Swainson's \"Weather-Lore,\" 1873, p. 176, for popular\n adages on the Continent.\n\nA red sunrise is also unpropitious, and, according to a well-known\nrhyme:\n\n \"If red the sun begins his race,\n Be sure the rain will fall apace.\"\n\nThis old piece of weather-wisdom is mentioned by our Lord in St.\nMatthew, xvi. 2, 3: \"When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair\nweather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather\nto-day, for the sky is red and lowring.\" Shakespeare, in his \"Venus and\nAdonis,\" thus describes it:\n\n \"a red morn, that ever yet betoken'd\n Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field,\n Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,\n Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.\"\n\nMr. Swainson[95] shows that this notion is common on the Continent.\nThus, at Milan the proverb runs, \"If the morn be red, rain is at hand.\"\n\n [95] \"Weather-Lore,\" pp. 175, 176.\n\nShakespeare, in \"Richard II.\" (ii. 4), alludes to another indication of\nrain:\n\n \"Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,\n Witnessing storms to come, woe and unrest.\"\n\nA \"watery sunset\" is still considered by many a forerunner of wet. A red\nsunset, on the other hand, beautifully described in \"Richard III.\" (v.\n3)--\n\n \"The weary sun hath made a golden set.\"--\n\nis universally regarded as a prognostication of fine weather, and we\nfind countless proverbs illustrative of this notion, one of the most\npopular being, \"Sky red at night, is the sailor's delight.\"\n\nFrom the earliest times an eclipse of the sun was looked upon as an omen\nof coming calamity; and was oftentimes the source of extraordinary alarm\nas well as the occasion of various superstitious ceremonies. In 1597,\nduring an eclipse of the sun, it is stated that, at Edinburgh, men and\nwomen thought the day of judgment was come.[96] Many women swooned, much\ncrying was heard in the streets, and in fear some ran to the kirk to\npray. Mr. Napier says he remembers \"an eclipse about 1818, when about\nthree parts of the sun was covered. The alarm in the village was very\ngreat, indoor work was suspended for the time, and in several families\nprayers were offered for protection, believing that it portended some\nawful calamity; but when it passed off there was a general feeling of\nrelief.\" In \"King Lear\" (i. 2), Gloucester remarks: \"These late eclipses\nin the sun and moon portend no good to us: though the wisdom of nature\ncan reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the\nsequent effects; love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide; in\ncities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the\nbond cracked 'twixt son and father.\" Othello, too (v. 2), in his agony\nand despair, exclaims:\n\n \"O heavy hour!\n Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse\n Of sun and moon, and that the affrighted globe\n Should yawn at alteration.\"\n\n [96] Napier's \"Folk-Lore of West of Scotland,\" 1879, p. 141.\n\nFrancis Bernier[97] says that, in France, in 1654, at an eclipse of the\nsun, \"some bought drugs against the eclipse, others kept themselves\nclose in the dark in their caves and their well-closed chambers, others\ncast themselves in great multitudes into the churches; those\napprehending some malign and dangerous influence, and these believing\nthat they were come to the last day, and that the eclipse would shake\nthe foundations of nature.\"[98]\n\n [97] Quoted in Southey's \"Commonplace Book,\" 1849, 2d series,\n p. 462.\n\n [98] See Tylor's \"Primitive Culture,\" 1871, vol. i. pp. 261,\n 296, 297, 321.\n\nIn \"3 Henry VI.\" (ii. 1), Shakespeare refers to a curious circumstance\nin which, on a certain occasion, the sun is reported to have appeared\nlike three suns. Edward says, \"do I see three suns?\" to which Richard\nreplies:\n\n \"Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;\n Not separated with the racking clouds,\n But sever'd in a pale clear-shining sky.\n See, see! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,\n As if they vow'd some league inviolable:\n Now are they but one lamp, one light, one sun,\n In this the heaven figures some event.\"[99]\n\n [99] In \"3 Henry VI.\" (ii. 1), Edward says:\n\n \"henceforward will I bear\n Upon my target three fair shining suns.\"\n\nThis fact is mentioned both by Hall and Holinshed; the latter says: \"At\nwhich tyme the sun (as some write) appeared to the Earl of March like\n_three sunnes_, and sodainely joyned altogether in one, upon whiche\nsight hee tooke such courage, that he fiercely setting on his enemyes\nput them to flight.\" We may note here that on Trinity Sunday three suns\nare supposed to be seen. In the \"M\u00e9moires de l'Acad\u00e9mie Celtique\" (iii.\n447), it is stated that \"Le jour de la f\u00eate de la Trinit\u00e9, quelques\npersonne vont de grand matin dans la campagne, pour y voir levre trois\nsoleils \u00e0 la fois.\"\n\nAccording to an old proverb, to quit a better for a worse situation was\nspoken of as to go \"out of God's blessing into the warm sun,\" a\nreference to which we find in \"King Lear\" (ii. 2), where Kent says:\n\n \"Good king, that must approve the common saw,\n Thou out of heaven's benediction com'st\n To the warm sun.\"\n\nDr. Johnson thinks that Hamlet alludes to this saying (i. 2), for when\nthe king says to him,\n\n \"How is it that the clouds still hang on you?\"\n\nhe replies,\n\n \"Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun,\"\n\n_i. e._, out of God's blessing.\n\nThis expression, says Mr. Dyce,[100] is found in various authors from\nHeywood down to Swift. The former has:\n\n \"In your running from him to me, yee runne\n Out of God's blessing into the warme sunne;\"\n\nand the latter:\n\n \"_Lord Sparkish._ They say, marriages are made in heaven; but\n I doubt, when she was married, she had no friend there.\n\n _Neverout._ Well, she's got out of God's blessing into the\n warm sun.\"[101]\n\n [100] \"Glossary to Shakespeare,\" p. 283.\n\n [101] Ray gives the Latin equivalent \"Ab equis ad asinos.\"\n\nThere seems to have been a prejudice from time immemorial against\nsunshine in March; and, according to a German saying, it were \"better to\nbe bitten by a snake than to feel the sun in March.\" Thus, in \"1 Henry\nIV.\" (iv. 1), Hotspur says:\n\n \"worse than the sun in March,\n This praise doth nourish agues.\"\n\nShakespeare employs the word \"sunburned\" in the sense of uncomely,\nill-favored. In \"Much Ado\" (ii. 1), Beatrice says, \"I am sunburnt;\" and\nin \"Troilus and Cressida\" (i. 3), \u00c6neas remarks:\n\n \"The Grecian dames are sunburnt, and not worth\n The splinter of a lance.\"\n\n_Moon._ Apart from his sundry allusions to the \"pale-faced,\" \"silver\nmoon,\" Shakespeare has referred to many of the superstitions associated\nwith it, several of which still linger on in country nooks. A widespread\nlegend of great antiquity informs us that the moon is inhabited by a\nman,[102] with a bundle of sticks on his back, who has been exiled\nthither for many centuries, and who is so far off that he is beyond the\nreach of death. This tradition, which has given rise to many\nsuperstitions, is still preserved under various forms in most countries;\nbut it has not been decided who the culprit originally was, and how he\ncame to be imprisoned in his lonely abode. Dante calls him Cain; Chaucer\nassigns his exile as a punishment for theft, and gives him a thorn-bush\nto carry, while Shakespeare also loads him with the thorns, but by way\nof compensation gives him a dog for a companion. In \"The Tempest\" (ii.\n2), Caliban asks Stephano whether he has \"not dropped from heaven?\" to\nwhich he answers, \"Out o' the moon, I do assure thee: I was the man i'\nthe moon when time was.\" Whereupon Caliban says: \"I have seen thee in\nher and I do adore thee: my mistress show'd me thee, and thy dog and thy\nbush.\" We may also compare the expression in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\"\n(v. 1), where, in the directions for the performance of the play of\n\"Pyramus and Thisbe,\" Moonshine is represented \"with lanthorn, dog, and\nbush of thorn.\" And further on, in the same scene, describing himself,\nMoonshine says: \"All that I have to say, is, to tell you that the\nlanthorn is the moon; I, the man in the moon;[103] this thorn-bush, my\nthorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.\"\n\n [102] Baring-Gould's \"Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,\" 1877,\n p. 190.\n\n [103] Cf. \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 2): \"Yet still she is the\n moon, and I the man.\"\n\nOrdinarily,[104] however, his offence is stated to have been\nSabbath-breaking--an idea derived from the Old Testament. Like the man\nmentioned in the Book of Numbers (xv. 32), he is caught gathering sticks\non the Sabbath; and, as an example to mankind, he is condemned to stand\nforever in the moon, with his bundle on his back. Instead of a dog, one\nGerman version places him with a woman, whose crime was churning butter\non Sunday. The Jews have a legend that Jacob is the moon, and they\nbelieve that his face is visible. Mr. Baring-Gould[105] says that the\n\"idea of locating animals in the two great luminaries of heaven is very\nancient, and is a relic of a primeval superstition of the Aryan race.\"\nThe natives of Ceylon, instead of a man, have placed a hare in the moon;\nand the Chinese represent the moon by \"a rabbit pounding rice in a\nmortar.\"[106]\n\n [104] Fiske, \"Myths and Mythmakers,\" 1873, p. 27.\n\n [105] \"Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,\" 1877, p. 197.\n\n [106] Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, p. 10.\n\nFrom the very earliest times the moon has not only been an object of\npopular superstition, but been honored by various acts of adoration. In\nEurope,[107] in the fifteenth century, \"it was a matter of complaint\nthat some still worshipped the new moon with bended knee, or hood or hat\nremoved. And to this day we may still see a hat raised to her, half in\nconservatism and half in jest. It is with deference to silver as the\nlunar metal that money is turned when the act of adoration is performed,\nwhile practical peasant wit dwells on the ill-luck of having no piece of\nsilver when the new moon is first seen.\" Shakespeare often incidentally\nalludes to this form of superstition. To quote one or two out of many\ninstances, Enobarbus, in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (iv. 9), says:\n\n \"Be witness to me, O thou blessed moon!\"\n\n [107] For further information on this subject, see Tylor's\n \"Primitive Culture,\" 1873, vol. i. pp. 288, 354-356; vol. ii.\n pp. 70, 202, 203.\n\nIn \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 2) the king says:\n\n \"Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine,\n Those clouds, removed, upon our watery eyne.\"\n\nIndeed, it was formerly a common practice for people to address\ninvocations to the moon,[108] and even at the present day we find\nremnants of this practice both in this country and abroad. Thus, in many\nplaces it is customary for young women to appeal to the moon to tell\nthem of their future prospects in matrimony,[109] the following or\nsimilar lines being repeated on the occasion:\n\n \"New moon, new moon, I hail thee:\n New moon, new moon, be kind to me;\n If I marry man or man marry me,\n Show me how many moons it will be.\"\n\n [108] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" vol. iii. pp. 142, 143.\n\n [109] See \"English Folk-lore,\" pp. 43, 44.\n\nIt was also the practice to swear by the moon, to which we find an\nallusion in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (ii. 2), where Juliet reproves her lover\nfor testifying his affections by this means:\n\n \"O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,\n That monthly changes in her circled orb,\n Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.\"\n\nAnd again, in \"The Merchant of Venice\" (v. 1), where Gratiano exclaims:\n\n \"By yonder moon I swear you do me wrong.\"\n\nWe may note here that the inconstancy[110] of the moon is the subject\nof various myths, of which Mr. Tylor has given the following examples:\nThus, an Australian legend says that Mityan, the moon, was a native cat,\nwho fell in love with some one else's wife, and was driven away to\nwander ever since. A Slavonic legend tells us that the moon, king of\nnight, and husband of the sun, faithlessly loved the morning star,\nwherefore he was cloven through in punishment, as we see him in the sky.\nThe Khasias of the Himalaya say that the moon falls monthly in love with\nhis mother-in-law, who throws ashes in his face, whence his spots.[111]\n\n [110] \"Primitive Culture,\" 1873, vol. i. pp. 354, 355.\n\n [111] The words \"moonish\" (\"As You Like It,\" iii. 2) and\n \"moonlike\" (\"Love's Labour's Lost,\" iv. 3) are used in the\n sense of inconstant.\n\nAs in the case of the sun, an eclipse of the moon was formerly\nconsidered ominous. The Romans[112] supposed it was owing to the\ninfluence of magical charms, to counteract which they had recourse to\nthe sound of brazen instruments of all kinds. Juvenal alludes to this\npractice in his sixth Satire (441), when he describes his talkative\nwoman:\n\n \"Jam nemo tubas, nemo \u00e6ra fatiget,\n Una laboranti poterit succurrere lun\u00e6.\"\n\n [112] See Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, p. 18.\n\nIndeed, eclipses, which to us are well-known phenomena witnessing to the\nexactness of natural laws, were, in the earlier stages of civilization,\nregarded as \"the very embodiment of miraculous disaster.\" Thus, the\nChinese believed that during eclipses of the sun and moon these\ncelestial bodies were attacked by a great serpent, to drive away which\nthey struck their gongs or brazen drums. The Peruvians, entertaining a\nsimilar notion, raised a frightful din when the moon was eclipsed,[113]\nwhile some savages would shoot up arrows to defend their luminaries\nagainst the enemies they fancied were attacking them. It was also a\npopular belief that the moon was affected by the influence of\nwitchcraft, a notion referred to by Prospero in \"The Tempest\" (v. 1),\nwho says:\n\n \"His mother was a witch, and one so strong\n That could control the moon.\"\n\n [113] Tylor's \"Primitive Culture,\" vol. i. p. 329.\n\nIn a former scene (ii. 1) Gonzalo remarks: \"You are gentlemen of brave\nmettle; you would lift the moon out of her sphere.\" Douce[114] quotes a\nmarginal reference from Adlington's translation of \"Apuleius\" (1596), a\nbook well known to Shakespeare: \"Witches in old time were supposed to be\nof such power that they could put downe the moone by their\ninchantment.\"[115] One of the earliest references to this superstition\namong classical authorities is that in the \"Clouds\" of Aristophanes,\nwhere Strepsiades proposes the hiring of a Thessalian witch, to bring\ndown the moon and shut her up in a box, that he might thus evade paying\nhis debts by a month. Ovid, in his \"Metamorphoses\" (bk. xii. 263), says:\n\n \"Mater erat Mycale; quam deduxisse canendo\n S\u00e6pe reluctanti constabat cornua lun\u00e6.\"\n\n [114] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, p. 16.\n\n [115] See Scot's \"Discovery of Witchcraft,\" 1584, pp. 174, 226,\n 227, 250.\n\nHorace, in his fifth Epode (45), tells us:\n\n \"Qu\u00e6 sidera excantata voce Thessala,\n Lunamque c\u00e6lo deripit.\"[116]\n\n [116] For further examples, see Douce's \"Illustrations of\n Shakespeare,\" p. 17.\n\nReverting again to the moon's eclipse, such a season, being considered\nmost unlucky for lawful enterprises, was held suitable for evil designs.\nThus, in \"Macbeth\" (iv. 1), one of the witches, speaking of the\ningredients of the caldron, says:\n\n \"Gall of goat, and slips of yew,\n Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse.\"\n\nAs a harbinger of misfortune it is referred to in \"Antony and\nCleopatra,\" where (iii. 13), Antony says:\n\n \"Alack, our terrene moon\n Is now eclipsed; and it portends alone\n The fall of Antony!\"\n\nMilton, in his \"Paradise Lost\" (bk. i. 597), speaks much in the same\nstrain:\n\n \"as when the sun new-risen\n Looks through the horizontal misty air\n Shorn of his beams, or from behind the moon\n In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds\n On half the nations.\"\n\nAnd in \"Lycidas,\" he says of the unlucky ship that was wrecked:\n\n \"It was that fatal and perfidious bark\n Built in the eclipse.\"\n\nIts sanguine color is also mentioned as an indication of coming\ndisasters in \"Richard II.\" (ii. 4), where the Welsh captain remarks how:\n\n \"The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth.\"\n\nAnd its paleness, too, in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (ii. 2), is spoken\nof as an unpropitious sign.\n\nAccording to a long-accepted theory, insane persons are said to be\ninfluenced by the moon: and many old writers have supported this notion.\nIndeed, Shakespeare himself, in \"Othello\" (v. 2), tells how the moon\nwhen\n\n \"She comes more nearer earth than she was wont,\n And makes men mad.\"\n\nDr. Forbes Winslow, in his \"Light: its Influence on Life and Health,\"\nsays that \"it is impossible altogether to ignore the evidence of such\nmen as Pinel, Daquin, Guislain, and others, yet the experience of modern\npsychological physicians is to a great degree opposed to the deductions\nof these eminent men.\" He suggests that the alleged changes observed\namong the insane at certain phases of the moon may arise, not from the\ndirect, but the indirect, influence of the planet. It is well known that\ncertain important meteorological phenomena result from the various\nphases of the moon, such as the rarity of the air, the electric\nconditions of the atmosphere, the degree of heat, dryness, moisture, and\namount of wind prevailing. It is urged, then, that those suffering from\ndiseases of the brain and nervous system, affecting the mind, cannot be\nconsidered as exempt from the operation of agencies that are admitted\nto affect patients afflicted with other maladies. Dr. Winslow further\nadds, that \"an intelligent lady, who occupied for about five years the\nposition of matron in my establishment for insane ladies, has remarked\nthat she invariably observed among them a greater agitation when the\nmoon was at its full.\" A correspondent of \"Notes and Queries\" (2d\nseries, xii. 492) explains the apparent aggravated symptoms of madness\nat the full moon by the fact that the insane are naturally more restless\non light than on dark nights, and that in consequence loss of sleep\nmakes them more excitable. We may note here, that in \"Antony and\nCleopatra\" (iv. 9) Enobarbus invokes the moon as the \"sovereign mistress\nof true melancholy.\"\n\nThe moisture of the moon is invariably noticed by Shakespeare. In\n\"Hamlet\" (i. 1) Horatio tells how\n\n \"the moist star,\n Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,\n Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.\"\n\nIn \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (ii. 1) Titania says:\n\n \"Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,\n Pale in her anger, washes all the air,\n That rheumatic diseases do abound.\"\n\nAnd in \"The Winter's Tale\" (i. 2) Polixenes commences by saying how:\n\n \"Nine changes of the watery star hath been\n The shepherd's note, since we have left our throne\n Without a burthen.\"\n\nWe may compare, too, the words of Enobarbus in \"Antony and Cleopatra\"\n(iv. 9), who, after addressing the moon, says: \"The poisonous damp of\nnight disponge upon me.\" And once more, in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 4), we\nread of the \"moonshine's watery beams.\"\n\nThe same idea is frequently found in old writers. Thus, for instance, in\nNewton's \"Direction for the Health of Magistrates and Studentes\" (1574),\nwe are told that \"the moone is ladye of moisture.\" Bartholom\u00e6us, in \"De\nProprietate Rerum,\" describes the moon as \"mother of all humours,\nminister and ladye of the sea.\"[117] In Lydgate's prologue to his \"Story\nof Thebes\" there are two lines not unlike those in \"A Midsummer-Night's\nDream,\" already quoted:\n\n \"Of Lucina the moone, moist and pale,\n That many shoure fro heaven made availe.\"\n\n [117] See Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, p. 116.\n\nOf course, the moon is thus spoken of as governing the tides, and from\nits supposed influence on the weather.[118] In \"1 Henry IV.\" (i. 2)\nFalstaff alludes to the sea being governed \"by our noble and chaste\nmistress, the moon;\" and in \"Richard III.\" (ii. 2) Queen Elizabeth says:\n\n \"That I, being govern'd by the watery moon,\n May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world.\"\n\n [118] See Swainson's \"Weather-Lore,\" 1873, pp. 182-192.\n\nWe may compare, too, what Timon says (\"Timon of Athens,\" iv. 3):\n\n \"The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves\n The moon into salt tears.\"\n\nThe expression of Hecate, in \"Macbeth\" (iii. 5):\n\n \"Upon the corner of the moon\n There hangs a vaporous drop profound,\"\n\nseems to have been meant for the same as the _virus lunare_ of the\nancients, being a foam which the moon was supposed to shed on particular\nherbs, when strongly solicited by enchantment. Lucan introduces Erictho\nusing it (\"Pharsalia,\" book vi. 669): \"Et virus large lunare ministrat.\"\n\nBy a popular astrological doctrine the moon was supposed to exercise\ngreat influence over agricultural operations, and also over many \"of the\nminor concerns of life, such as the gathering of herbs, the killing of\nanimals for the table, and other matters of a like nature.\" Thus the\nfollowing passage in the \"Merchant of Venice\" (v. 1), it has been\nsuggested, has reference to the practices of the old herbalists who\nattributed particular virtues to plants gathered during particular\nphases of the moon and hours of the night. After Lorenzo has spoken of\nthe moon shining brightly, Jessica adds:\n\n \"In such a night\n Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs,\n That did renew old \u00c6son.\"\n\nAnd in \"Hamlet\" (iv. 7) the description which Laertes gives of the\nweapon-poison refers to the same notion:\n\n \"I bought an unction of a mountebank,\n So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,\n Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,\n Collected from all simples that have virtue\n Under the moon, can save the thing from death.\"\n\nThe sympathy of growing and declining nature with the waxing and waning\nmoon is a superstition widely spread, and is as firmly believed in by\nmany as when Tusser, in his \"Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry,\"\nunder \"February\" gave the following advice:\n\n \"Sow peason and beans in the wane of the moon,\n Who soweth them sooner, he soweth too soon,\n That they with the planet may rest and arise,\n And flourish, with bearing most plentifull wise.\"\n\nWarburton considers that this notion is alluded to by Shakespeare in\n\"Troilus and Cressida\" (iii. 2), where Troilus, speaking of the\nsincerity of his love, tells Cressida it is,\n\n \"As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,\n As sun to day, as turtle to her mate.\"\n\nThere is a little doubt as to the exact meaning of plantage in this\npassage. Nares observes that it probably means anything that is planted;\nbut Mr. Ellacombe, in his \"Plant-lore of Shakespeare\" (1878, p. 165),\nsays \"it is doubtless the same as plantain.\"\n\nIt appears that, in days gone by, \"neither sowing, planting, nor\ngrafting was ever undertaken without a scrupulous attention to the\nincrease or waning of the moon.\"[119] Scot, in his \"Discovery of\nWitchcraft,\" notes how \"the poore husbandman perceiveth that the\nincrease of the moone maketh plants fruitful, so as in the full moone\nthey are in best strength; decaieing in the wane, and in the conjunction\ndo utterlie wither and vade.\"\n\n [119] See Tylor's \"Primitive Culture,\" 1873, vol. i. p. 130;\n \"English Folk-Lore,\" 1878, pp. 41, 42.\n\nIt was a prevailing notion that the moon had an attending star--Lilly\ncalls it \"Lunisequa;\" and Sir Richard Hawkins, in his \"Observations in a\nVoyage to the South Seas in 1593,\" published in 1622, remarks: \"Some I\nhave heard say, and others write, that there is a starre which never\nseparateth itself from the moon, but a small distance.\" Staunton\nconsiders that there is an allusion to this idea in \"Love's Labour's\nLost\" (iv. 3), where the king says:\n\n \"My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon:\n She an attending star, scarce seen a light.\"\n\nThe sharp ends of the new moon are popularly termed horns--a term which\noccurs in \"Coriolanus\" (i. 1)--\n\n \"they threw their caps\n As they would hang them on the horns o' the moon.\"\n\nIt is made use of in Decker's \"Match me in London\" (i.):\n\n \"My lord, doe you see this change i' the moone?\n Sharp hornes doe threaten windy weather.\"\n\nWhen the horns of the moon appear to point upwards the moon is said to\nbe like a boat, and various weather prognostications are drawn from this\nphenomenon.[120] According to sailors, it is an omen of fine weather,\nwhereas others affirm it is a sign of rain--resembling a basin full of\nwater about to fall.\n\n [120] See Swainson's \"Weather-Lore,\" pp. 182, 183.\n\nAmong other items of folk-lore connected with the moon we may mention\nthe moon-calf, a false conception, or foetus imperfectly formed, in\nconsequence, as was supposed, of the influence of the moon. The best\naccount of this fabulous substance may be found in Drayton's poem with\nthat title. Trinculo, in \"The Tempest\" (ii. 2), supposes Caliban to be a\nmoon-calf: \"I hid me under the dead moon-calf's gaberdine.\" It has been\nsuggested that in calling Caliban a moon-calf Shakespeare alluded to a\nsuperstitious belief formerly current, in the intercourse of demons and\nother non-human beings with mankind. In the days of witchcraft, it was\nsupposed that a class of devils called Incubi and Succubi roamed the\nearth with the express purpose of tempting people to abandon their\npurity of life. Hence, all badly deformed children were suspected of\nhaving had such an undesirable parentage.[121]\n\n [121] See Williams's \"Superstitions of Witchcraft,\" pp.\n 123-125; Scot's \"Discovery of Witchcraft,\" bk. iv. p. 145.\n\nA curious expression, \"a sop o' the moonshine,\" occurs in \"King Lear\"\n(ii. 2), which probably alludes to some dish so called. Kent says to the\nsteward, \"Draw, you rogue; for, though it be night, yet the moon shines;\nI'll make a sop o' the moonshine of you.\"\n\nThere was a way of dressing eggs, called \"eggs in moonshine,\" of which\nDouce[122] gives the following description: \"Eggs were broken and boiled\nin salad oil till the yolks became hard. They were eaten with slices of\nonion fried in oil, butter, verjuice, nutmeg, and salt.\" \"A sop in the\nmoonshine\" must have been a sippet in this dish.[123]\n\n [122] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, p. 405.\n\n [123] Nares's \"Glossary,\" 1872, vol. ii. p. 580.\n\n_Planets._ The irregular motion of the planets was supposed to portend\nsome disaster to mankind. Ulysses, in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (i. 3),\ndeclares how:\n\n \"when the planets\n In evil mixture, to disorder wander,\n What plagues and what portents! what mutiny!\n What raging of the sea! shaking of earth!\n Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors,\n Divert and crack, rend and deracinate\n The unity and married calm of states\n Quite from their fixture.\"\n\nIndeed, the planets themselves were not thought, in days gone by, to be\nconfined in any fixed orbit of their own, but ceaselessly to wander\nabout, as the etymology of their name demonstrates. A popular name for\nthe planets was \"wandering stars,\" of which Cotgrave says, \"they bee\nalso called wandering starres, because they never keep one certain place\nor station in the firmament.\" Thus Hamlet (v. 1), approaching the grave\nof Ophelia, addresses Laertes:\n\n \"What is he, whose grief\n Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow\n Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand\n Like wonder-wounded hearers?\"\n\nIn Tomkis's \"Albumazar\" (i. 1) they are called \"wanderers:\"\n\n \"Your patron Mercury, in his mysterious character\n Holds all the marks of the other wanderers.\"\n\nAccording to vulgar astrology, the planets, like the stars, were\nsupposed to affect, more or less, the affairs of this world, a notion\nfrequently referred to by old writers. In \"Winter's Tale\" (ii. 1),\nHermione consoles herself in the thought--\n\n \"There's some ill planet reigns:\n I must be patient till the heavens look\n With an aspect more favourable.\"\n\nIn \"1 Henry VI.\" (i. 1), the Duke of Exeter asks:\n\n \"What! shall we curse the planets of mishap\n That plotted thus our glory's overthrow?\"\n\nAgain, King Richard (\"Richard III.,\" iv. 4):\n\n \"Be opposite all planets of good luck\n To my proceeding.\"\n\nAnd once more, in \"Hamlet\" (i. 1), Marcellus, speaking of the season of\nour Saviour's birth, says, \"then no planets strike.\"\n\nThat diseases, too, are dependent upon planetary influence is referred\nto in \"Timon of Athens\" (iv. 3):\n\n \"Be as a planetary plague, when Jove\n Will o'er some high-viced city hang his poison\n In the sick air: let not thy sword skip one.\"\n\n\"Fiery Trigon\" was a term in the old judicial astrology, when the three\nupper planets met in a fiery sign--a phenomenon which was supposed to\nindicate rage and contention. It is mentioned in \"2 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4):\n\n \"_P. Hen._ Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! what\n says the almanac to that?\n\n _Poins._ And, look, whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not\n lisping to his master's old tables.\"\n\nDr. Nash, in his notes to Butler's \"Hudibras,\" says: \"The twelve signs\nin astrology are divided into four _trigons_ or triplicities, each\ndenominated from the connatural element; so they are three fiery\n[signs], three airy, three watery, and three earthy:\"\n\n Fiery--Aries, Leo, Sagittarius.\n Airy--Gemini, Libra, Aquarius.\n Watery--Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces.\n Earthly--Taurus, Virgo, Capricornus.\n\nThus, when the three superior planets met in Aries, Leo, or Sagittarius,\nthey formed a _fiery trigon_; when in Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces, a\nwatery one.\n\n_Charles's Wain_ was the old name for the seven bright stars of the\nconstellation Ursa Major. The constellation was so named in honor of\nCharlemagne; or, according to some, it is a corruption of chorles or\nchurl's, _i. e._, rustic's, wain. Chorl is frequently used for a\ncountryman, in old books, from the Saxon ceorl. In \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii.\n1), the Carrier says, \"Charles' wain is over the new chimney.\"\n\n_Music of the spheres._ Pythagoras was the first who suggested this\nnotion, so beautifully expressed by Shakespeare in the \"Merchant of\nVenice\" (v. 1):\n\n \"There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st,\n But in his motion like an angel sings,\n Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins.\"\n\nPlato says that a siren sits on each planet, who carols a most sweet\nsong, agreeing to the motion of her own particular planet, but\nharmonizing with the other seven. Hence Milton, in his \"Arcades,\" speaks\nof the \"celestial Sirens' harmony, that sit upon the nine enfolded\nspheres.\"\n\n_Stars._ An astrological doctrine, which has kept its place in modern\npopular philosophy, asserts that mundane events are more or less\ninfluenced by the stars. That astronomers should have divided the sun's\ncourse into imaginary signs of the Zodiac, was enough, says Mr.\nTylor,[124] to originate astrological rules \"that these celestial signs\nhave an actual effect on real earthly rams, bulls, crabs, lions,\nvirgins.\" Hence we are told that a child born under the sign of the Lion\nwill be courageous; but one born under the Crab will not go forth well\nin life; one born under the Waterman is likely to be drowned, and so\nforth. Shakespeare frequently alludes to this piece of superstition,\nwhich, it must be remembered, was carried to a ridiculous height in his\nday. In \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (i. 2), Cassius says:\n\n \"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,\n But in ourselves, that we are underlings.\"\n\n [124] \"Primitive Culture,\" vol. i. p. 131.\n\nIn the following passage in \"Twelfth Night\" (i. 3):\n\n \"_Sir Tob._ Were we not born under Taurus?\n\n _Sir And._ Taurus! that's sides and heart.\n\n _Sir Tob._ No, sir; it is legs and thighs.\"\n\n\"Both the knights,\" says Mr. Douce (\"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p.\n54), \"are wrong in their astrology, according to the almanacs of the\ntime, which make Taurus govern the neck and throat.\"\n\nBeatrice, in \"Much Ado about Nothing\" (ii. 1), says: \"there was a star\ndanced, and under that was I born;\" Kent, in \"King Lear\" (iv. 3),\nremarks,\n\n \"It is the stars,\n The stars above us, govern our conditions;\"\n\nand once more, in \"Pericles\" (i. 1), King Antiochus, speaking of the\ncharming qualities of his daughter, says:\n\n \"Bring in our daughter, clothed like a bride,\n For the embracements even of Jove himself:\n At whose conception, till Lucina reign'd,\n Nature this dowry gave, to glad her presence,\n The senate-house of planets all did sit,\n To knit in her their best perfections.\"[125]\n\n [125] Cf. \"Richard III.\" (iv. 4); \"1 Henry IV.\" (i. 1, iii. 1);\n \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (iii. 13); \"The Tempest\" (i. 2);\n \"Hamlet\" (i. 4); \"Cymbeline\" (v. 4); \"Winter's Tale\" (iii. 2);\n \"Richard II.\" (iv. 1).\n\nThroughout the East, says Mr. Tylor,[126] \"astrology even now remains a\nscience in full esteem. The condition of medi\u00e6val Europe may still be\nperfectly realized by the traveller in Persia, where the Shah waits for\ndays outside the walls of his capital till the constellations allow him\nto enter; and where, on the days appointed by the stars for letting\nblood, it literally flows in streams from the barbers' shops in the\nstreets. Professor Wuttke declares that there are many districts in\nGermany where the child's horoscope is still regularly kept with the\nbaptismal certificate in the family chest.\" Astrology is ridiculed in a\nmasterly manner in \"King Lear\" (i. 2); and Warburton suggests that if\nthe date of the first performance of \"King Lear\" were well considered,\n\"it would be found that something or other had happened at that time\nwhich gave a more than ordinary run to this deceit, as these words seem\nto indicate--'I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other\nday, what should follow these eclipses.'\" Zouch,[127] speaking of Queen\nMary's reign, tells us that \"Judicial astrology was much in use long\nafter this time. Its predictions were received with reverential awe: and\neven men of the most enlightened understandings were inclined to believe\nthat the conjunctions and oppositions of the planets had no little\ninfluence in the affairs of the world.\"\n\n [126] \"Primitive Culture,\" vol. i. p. 131; see Brand's \"Popular\n Antiquities,\" 1849, vol. iii. pp. 341-348.\n\n [127] \"Walton's Lives,\" 1796, p. 113, note.\n\nThe pretence, also, of predicting events, such as pestilence, from the\naspect of the heavenly bodies--one form of medical astrology--is noticed\nin \"Venus and Adonis:\"\n\n \"Long may they kiss each other, for this cure!\n O, never let their crimson liveries wear!\n And as they last, their verdure still endure,\n To drive infection from the dangerous year!\n That the star-gazers, having writ on death,\n May say, the plague is banish'd by thy breath!\"\n\nHeroes were in ancient times immortalized by being placed among the\nstars, a custom to which Bedford refers in \"1 Henry VI.\" (i. 1):\n\n \"A far more glorious star thy soul will make\n Than Julius C\u00e6sar.\"\n\nAnd, again, \"Pericles\" (v. 3) exclaims:\n\n \"Heavens make a star of him.\"\n\nOn a medal of Hadrian, the adopted son of Trajan and Plotina, the\ndivinity of his parents is expressed by placing a star over their heads;\nand in like manner the medals of Faustina the Elder exhibit her on an\neagle, her head surrounded with stars.[128]\n\n [128] Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, p. 397.\n\nIn \"2 Henry IV.\" (iv. 3) a ludicrous term for the stars is, \"cinders of\nthe elements;\" and in \"Merchant of Venice\" (v. 1) they are designated\n\"candles of the night.\"\n\n_Meteors._ An elegant description of a meteor well known to sailors is\ngiven by Ariel in \"The Tempest\" (i. 2):\n\n \"sometime I'd divide\n And burn in many places; on the topmast,\n The yards, and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,\n Then meet and join.\"\n\nIt is called, by the French and Spaniards inhabiting the coasts of the\nMediterranean, St. Helme's or St. Telme's fire; by the Italians, the\nfire of St. Peter and St. Nicholas. It is also known as the fire of St.\nHelen, St. Herm, and St. Clare. Douce[129] tells us that whenever it\nappeared as a single flame it was supposed by the ancients to be Helena,\nthe sister of Castor and Pollux, and in this state to bring ill luck,\nfrom the calamities which this lady is known to have caused in the\nTrojan war. When it came as a double flame it was called Castor and\nPollux, and accounted a good omen. It has been described as a little\nblaze of fire, sometimes appearing by night on the tops of soldiers'\nlances, or at sea on masts and sailyards, whirling and leaping in a\nmoment from one place to another. According to some, it never appears\nbut after a tempest, and is supposed to lead people to suicide by\ndrowning. Shakespeare in all probability consulted Batman's \"Golden\nBooks of the Leaden Goddes,\" who, speaking of Castor and Pollux, says:\n\"They were figured like two lampes or cresset lightes--one on the toppe\nof a maste, the other on the stemme or foreshippe.\" He adds that if the\nfirst light appears in the stem or foreship and ascends upwards, it is a\nsign of good luck; if \"either lights begin at the topmast, bowsprit,\" or\nforeship, and descends towards the sea, it is a sign of a tempest. In\ntaking, therefore, the latter position, Ariel had fulfilled the commands\nof Prospero, and raised a storm.[130] Mr. Swainson, in his\n\"Weather-Lore\" (1873, p. 193), quotes the following, which is to the\nsame purport:\n\n \"Last night I saw Saint Elmo's stars,\n With their glittering lanterns all at play,\n On the tops of the masts and the tips of the spars,\n And I knew we should have foul weather that day.\"\n\n [129] Ibid. p. 3.\n\n [130] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. p. 400.\n\nCapell, in his \"School of Shakespeare\" (1779, iii. 7), has pointed out a\npassage in Hakluyt's \"Voyages\" (1598, iii. 450), which strikingly\nillustrates the speech of Ariel quoted above: \"I do remember that in the\ngreat and boysterous storme of this foule weather, in the night, there\ncame vpon the toppe of our maine yarde and maine maste, a certaine\nlittle light, much like unto the light of a little candle, which the\nSpaniards called the Cuerpo-Santo, and said it was St. Elmo, whom they\ntake to bee the aduocate of sailers.... This light continued aboord our\nship about three houres, flying from maste to maste, and from top to\ntop; and sometimes it would be in two or three places at once.\" This\nmeteor was by some supposed to be a spirit; and by others \"an exhalation\nof moyst vapours, that are ingendered by foul and tempestuous\nweather.\"[131] Mr. Thoms, in his \"Notelets on Shakespeare\" (1865, p. 59),\nsays that, no doubt, Shakespeare had in mind the will-o'-the-wisp.[132]\n\n [131] Purchas, \"His Pilgrimes\" (1625, pt. i. lib. iii. p. 133),\n quoted by Mr. Aldis Wright in his \"Notes to The Tempest,\" 1875,\n p. 86.\n\n [132] See Puck as Will-o'-the-Wisp; chapter on \"Fairy-Lore.\"\n\n_Fire-Drake_, which is jocularly used in \"Henry VIII.\" (v. 4) for a\nman with a red face, was one of the popular terms for the\nwill-o'-the-wisp,[133] and Burton, in his \"Anatomy of Melancholy,\" says:\n\"Fiery spirits or devils are such as commonly work by fire-drakes, or\nignes fatui, which lead men often in flumina et pr\u00e6cipitia.\" In\nBullokar's \"English Expositor\" (1616), we have a quaint account of this\nphenomenon: \"Fire-drake; a fire sometimes seen flying in the night like\na dragon. Common people think it a spirit that keepeth some treasure\nhid, but philosophers affirme it to be a great unequal exhalation\ninflamed betweene two clouds, the one hot, the other cold, which is the\nreason that it also smoketh, the middle part whereof, according to the\nproportion of the hot cloud being greater than the rest, maketh it seem\nlike a bellie, and both ends like unto a head and taill.\"[134] White,\nhowever, in his \"Peripateticall Institutions\" (p. 156), calls the\nfiery-dragon or fire-drake, \"a weaker kind of lightning. Its livid\ncolors, and its falling without noise and slowly, demonstrate a great\nmixture of watery exhalation in it.... 'Tis sufficient for its shape,\nthat it has some resemblance of a dragon, not the expresse figure.\"\n\n [133] See \"Notes and Queries,\" 5th series, vol. x. p. 499;\n Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. p. 410; Nares's\n \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 309.\n\n [134] A \"fire-drake\" appears to have been also an artificial\n firework, perhaps what is now called a serpent. Thus, in\n Middleton's \"Your Five Gallants\" (1607):\n\n \"But, like fire-drakes,\n Mounted a little, gave a crack and fell.\"\n\nAmong other allusions to the will-o'-the-wisp by Shakespeare, Mr.\nHunter[135] notices one in \"King Lear\" (iii. 4), where Gloster's torch\nbeing seen in the distance, the fool says, \"Look, here comes a walking\nfire.\" Whereupon Edgar replies, \"This is the foul fiend,\nFlibbertigibbet; he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock.\"\n\"From which,\" observes Mr. Hunter, \"Flibbertigibbet seems to be a name\nfor the will-o'-the-wisp. Hence the propriety of 'He _begins at curfew_,\nand walks till the crowing of the cock,' that is, is seen in all the\ndark of the night.\" It appears that when Shakespeare wrote, \"a walking\nfire\" was a common name for the _ignis fatuus_, as we learn from the\nstory of \"How Robin Goodfellow lead a company of fellows out of their\nway:\" \"A company of young men, having been making merry with their\nsweethearts, were, at their coming home, to come over a heath; Robin\nGoodfellow, knowing of it, met them, and to make some pastime hee led\nthem up and downe the heathe a whole night, so that they could not get\nout of it, for hee went before them in the shape of a _walking fire_,\nwhich they all saw and followed till the day did appeare; then Robin\nleft them, and at his departure spake these words:\n\n \"'Get you home, you merry lads,\n Tell your mammies and your dads,\n And all those that newes desire\n How you saw a walking fire,\n Wenches, that doe smile and lispe,\n Use to call me willy-wispe.'\"\n\n [135] \"New Illustrations of the Life, Studies, and Writings of\n Shakespeare,\" vol. ii. p. 272.\n\nAnother allusion to this subject occurs in \"The Tempest\" (iv. 1), where\nStephano, after Ariel has led him and his drunken companions through\n\"tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss and thorns,\" and at last\n\"left them i' the filthy mantled pool,\" reproaches Caliban in these\nwords: \"Monster, your fairy, which you say is a harmless fairy, has done\nlittle better than played the Jack with us\"--that is, to quote Dr.\nJohnson's explanation of this passage, \"he has played Jack-with-a-lanthorn,\nhas led us about like an _ignis fatuus_, by which travellers are decoyed\ninto the mire.\"[136] Once more, when Puck, in \"A Midsummer-Night's\nDream\" (iii. 1), speaks of the various forms he assumes in order to\n\"mislead night wanderers, laughing at their harm,\" he says:\n\n \"Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,\n A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire.\"\n\n [136] See Thoms's \"Notelets on Shakespeare,\" p. 59.\n\nShakespeare, no doubt, here alludes to the will-o'-the wisp, an opinion\nshared by Mr. Joseph Ritson,[137] who says: \"This Puck, or Robin\nGoodfellow, seems likewise to be the illusory candle-holder, so fatal to\ntravellers, and who is more usually called 'Jack-a-lantern,'[138] or\n'Will-with-a-wisp,' and 'Kit-with-the-candlestick.'\" Milton, in\n\"Paradise Lost\" (book ix.), alludes to this deceptive gleam in the\nfollowing lines:\n\n \"A wandering fire\n Compact of unctuous vapour, which the night\n Condenses, and the cold environs round,\n Kindled through agitation to a flame,\n Which oft, they say, some evil spirit attends,\n Hovering and blazing with delusive light,\n Misleads th' amaz'd night-wanderer from his way\n To bogs and mires, and oft through pond and pool.\"[139]\n\n [137] \"Fairy Mythology,\" edited by Hazlitt, 1875, p. 40.\n\n [138] Among the many other names given to this appearance may\n be mentioned the following: \"Will-a-wisp,\" \"Joan-in-the-wad,\"\n \"Jacket-a-wad,\" \"Peg-a-lantern,\" \"Elf-fire,\" etc. A\n correspondent of \"Notes and Queries\" (5th series, vol. x. p.\n 499) says: \"The wandering meteor of the moss or fell appears to\n have been personified as Jack, Gill, Joan, Will, or Robin,\n indifferently, according as the supposed spirit of the lamp\n seemed to the particular rustic mind to be a male or female\n apparition.\" In Worcestershire it is called\n \"Hob-and-his-lanthorn,\" and \"Hobany's\" or \"Hobnedy's Lanthorn.\"\n\n [139] Mr. Ritson says that Milton \"is frequently content to\n pilfer a happy expression from Shakespeare--on this occasion,\n 'night-wanderer.'\" He elsewhere calls it \"the friar's lantern.\"\n\nThis appearance has given rise to a most extensive folk-lore, and is\nembodied in many of the fairy legends and superstitions of this and\nother countries. Thus, in Germany, Jack-o'-lanterns are said to be the\nsouls of unbaptized children, that have no rest in the grave, and must\nhover between heaven and earth. In many places they are called\nland-measurers, and are seen like figures of fire, running to and fro\nwith a red-hot measuring rod. These are said to be persons who have\nfalsely sworn away land, or fraudulently measured it, or removed\nlandmarks.[140] In the neighborhood of Magdeburg, they are known as\n\"L\u00fcchtemannekens;\" and to cause them to appear, it is sufficient to\ncall out \"Ninove, Ninove.\" In the South Altmark they are termed\n\"Dickep\u00f4ten;\" and if a person only prays as soon as he sees one, he\ndraws it to him; if he curses, it retires. In some parts, too, a popular\nname is \"Huckep\u00f4ten,\" and \"Tuckbolde.\" The Jack-o'-lanterns of\nDenmark[141] are the spirits of unrighteous men, who, by a false\nglimmer, seek to mislead the traveller, and to decoy him into bogs and\nmoors. The best safeguard against them, when they appear, is to turn\none's cap inside out. A similar notion occurs in Devonshire with regard\nto the Pixies, who delight in leading astray such persons as they find\nabroad after nightfall; the only remedy to escape them being to turn\nsome part of the dress. In Normandy these fires are called \"Feux\nFollets,\" and they are believed to be cruel spirits, whom it is\ndangerous to encounter. Among the superstitions which prevail in\nconnection with them, two, says Mr. Thoms,[142] are deserving of notice:\n\"One is, that the _ignis fatuus_ is the spirit of some unhappy woman,\nwho is destined to run _en furolle_, to expiate her intrigues with a\nminister of the church, and it is designated from that circumstance La\nFourlore, or La Fourolle.\" Another opinion is, that Le Feu Follet is the\nsoul of a priest, who has been condemned thus to expiate his broken vows\nof perpetual chastity; and it is very probable that it is to some\nsimilar belief existing in this country, at the time when he wrote, that\nMilton alludes in \"L'Allegro,\" when he says:\n\n \"She was pinched and pulled, she said,\n And he by Friar's Lanthorn led.\"\n\n [140] Thorpe, \"Northern Mythology,\" 1852, vol. iii. pp. 85,\n 158, 220.\n\n [141] \"Notelets on Shakespeare,\" pp. 64, 65.\n\n [142] Ibid.\n\nIn Brittany the \"Porte-brandon\" appears in the form of a child bearing a\ntorch, which he turns like a burning wheel; and with this, we are told,\nhe sets fire to the villages, which are suddenly, sometimes in the\nmiddle of the night, wrapped in flames.\n\nThe appearance of meteors Shakespeare ranks among omens, as in \"1 Henry\nIV.\" (ii. 4), where Bardolph says: \"My lord, do you see these meteors?\ndo you behold these exhalations? What think you they portend?\" And in\n\"King John\" (iii. 4), Pandulph speaks of meteors as \"prodigies and\nsigns.\" The Welsh captain, in \"Richard II.\" (ii. 4), says:\n\n \"'Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay.\n The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd,\n And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven.\"\n\n_Comet._ From the earliest times comets have been superstitiously\nregarded, and ranked among omens. Thus Thucydides tells us that the\nPeloponnesian war was heralded by an abundance of earthquakes and\ncomets; and Vergil, in speaking of the death of C\u00e6sar, declares that at\nno other time did comets and other supernatural prodigies appear in\ngreater numbers. It is probably to this latter event that Shakespeare\nalludes in \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (ii. 2), where he represents Calpurnia as\nsaying:\n\n \"When beggars die, there are no comets seen;\n The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.\"\n\nAgain, in \"1 Henry VI.\" (i. 1), the play opens with the following words,\nuttered by the Duke of Bedford:\n\n \"Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night!\n Comets, importing change of times and states,\n Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky,\n And with them scourge the bad revolting stars\n That have consented unto Henry's death!\"\n\nIn \"Taming of the Shrew\" (iii. 2), too, Petruchio, when he makes his\nappearance on his wedding-day, says:\n\n \"Gentles, methinks you frown:\n And wherefore gaze this goodly company,\n As if they saw some wondrous monument,\n Some comet, or unusual prodigy?\"\n\nIn \"1 Henry IV.\" (iii. 2), the king, when telling his son how he had\nalways avoided making himself \"common-hackney'd in the eyes of men,\"\nadds:\n\n \"By being seldom seen, I could not stir\n But, like a comet, I was wonder'd at.\"\n\nArcite, in the \"Two Noble Kinsmen\" (v. 1), when addressing the altar of\nMars, says:\n\n \"Whose approach\n Comets forewarn.\"[143]\n\n [143] See Proctor's \"Myths of Astronomy;\" Chambers's \"Domestic\n Annals of Scotland,\" 1858, vol. ii. pp. 410-412; Douce's\n \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" pp. 364, 365.\n\n_Dew._ Among the many virtues ascribed to dew was its supposed power\nover the complexion, a source of superstition which still finds many\nbelievers, especially on May morning. All dew, however, does not appear\nto have possessed this quality, some being of a deadly or malignant\nquality. Thus Ariel, in \"The Tempest\" (i. 2), speaks of the \"deep brook\"\nin the harbor:\n\n \"where once\n Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew\n From the still vex'd Bermoothes.\"\n\nAnd Caliban (i. 2), when venting his rage on Prospero and Miranda, can\nfind no stronger curse than the following:\n\n \"As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd,\n With raven's feather from unwholesome fen\n Drop on you both!\"\n\nIt has been suggested that in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (iii. 12)\nShakespeare may refer to an old notion whereby the sea was considered\nthe source of dews as well as rain. Euphronius is represented as saying:\n\n \"Such as I am, I come from Antony:\n I was of late as petty to his ends\n As is the morn-dew on the myrtle leaf\n To his grand sea.\"\n\nAccording to an erroneous notion formerly current, it was supposed that\nthe air, and not the earth, drizzled dew--a notion referred to in \"Romeo\nand Juliet\" (iii. 5):\n\n \"When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew.\"\n\nAnd in \"King John\" (ii. 1):\n\n \"Before the dew of evening fall.\"\n\nThen there is the celebrated honey-dew, a substance which has furnished\nthe poet with a touching simile, which he has put into the mouth of\n\"Titus Andronicus\" (iii. 1):\n\n \"When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears\n Stood on her cheeks; as doth the honey-dew\n Upon a gather'd lily almost wither'd.\"\n\nAccording to Pliny, \"honey-dew\" is the saliva of the stars, or a liquid\nproduced by the purgation of the air. It is, however, a secretion\ndeposited by a small insect, which is distinguished by the generic name\nof aphis.[144]\n\n [144] See Patterson's \"Insects Mentioned by Shakespeare,\" 1841,\n p. 145.\n\n_Rainbow._ Secondary rainbows, the watery appearance in the sky\naccompanying the rainbow, are in many places termed \"water-galls\"--a term\nwe find in the \"Rape of Lucrece\" (1586-89):\n\n \"And round about her tear-distained eye\n Blue circles stream'd, like rainbows in the sky:\n These water-galls in her dim element\n Foretell new storms to those already spent.\"\n\nHorace Walpole several times makes use of the word: \"False good news are\nalways produced by true good, like the water-gall by the rainbow;\" and\nagain, \"Thank heaven it is complete, and did not remain imperfect, like\na water-gall.\"[145] In \"The Dialect of Craven\" we find \"Water-gall, a\nsecondary or broken rainbow. _Germ._ Wasser-galle.\"\n\n [145] \"Letters,\" vol. i. p. 310; vol. vi. pp. 1, 187.--Ed.\n Cunningham.\n\n_Thunder._ According to an erroneous fancy the destruction occasioned by\nlightning was effected by some solid body known as the thunder-stone or\nthunder-bolt. Thus, in the beautiful dirge in \"Cymbeline\" (iv. 2):\n\n \"_Guid._ Fear no more the lightning flash,\n\n _Arv._ Or the all-dreaded thunder-stone.\"\n\nOthello asks (v. 2):\n\n \"Are there no stones in heaven\n But what serve for the thunder?\"\n\nAnd in \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (i. 3), Cassius says:\n\n \"And, thus unbraced, Casca, as you see,\n Have bared my bosom to the thunder-stone.\"\n\nThe thunder-stone is the imaginary product of the thunder, which the\nancients called _Brontia_, mentioned by Pliny (\"Nat. Hist.\" xxxvii. 10)\nas a species of gem, and as that which, falling with the lightning, does\nthe mischief. It is the fossil commonly called the Belemnite, or\nfinger-stone, and now known to be a shell.\n\nA superstitious notion prevailed among the ancients that those who were\nstricken with lightning were honored by Jupiter, and therefore to be\naccounted holy. It is probably to this idea that Shakespeare alludes in\n\"Antony and Cleopatra\" (ii. 5):\n\n \"Some innocents 'scape not the thunderbolt.\"[146]\n\n [146] Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, p. 369.\n\nThe bodies of such were supposed not to putrefy; and, after having been\nexhibited for a certain time to the people, were not buried in the usual\nmanner, but interred on the spot where the lightning fell, and a\nmonument erected over them. Some, however, held a contrary opinion. Thus\nPersius (sat. ii. l. 27) says:\n\n \"Triste jaces lucis evitandumque bidental.\"\n\nThe ground, too, that had been smitten by a thunder-bolt was accounted\nsacred, and afterwards enclosed; nor did any one even presume to walk on\nit. Such spots were, therefore, consecrated to the gods, and could not\nin future become the property of any one.\n\nAmong the many other items of folk-lore associated with thunder is a\ncurious one referred to in \"Pericles\" (iv. 3): \"Thunder shall not so\nawake the bed of eels.\" The notion formerly being that thunder had the\neffect of rousing eels from their mud, and so rendered them more easy to\nbe taken in stormy weather. Marston alludes to this superstition in his\nsatires (\"Scourge of Villainie,\" sat. vii.):\n\n \"They are nought but eeles, that never will appeare\n Till that tempestuous winds or thunder teare\n Their slimy beds.\"\n\nThe silence that often precedes a thunder-storm is thus graphically\ndescribed in \"Hamlet\" (ii. 2):\n\n \"'we often see, against some storm,\n A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,\n The bold winds speechless, and the orb below\n As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder\n Doth rend the region.'\"\n\n_Earthquakes_, around which so many curious myths and superstitions have\nclustered,[147] are scarcely noticed by Shakespeare. They are mentioned\namong the ominous signs of that terrible night on which Duncan is so\ntreacherously slain (\"Macbeth,\" ii. 3):\n\n \"the obscure bird\n Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth\n Was feverous and did shake.\"\n\n [147] See Tylor's \"Primitive Culture,\" vol. i. pp. 364-367.\n\nAnd in \"1 Henry IV.\" (iii. 1) Hotspur assigns as a reason for the\nearthquakes the following theory:\n\n \"Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth\n In strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth\n Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd\n By the imprisoning of unruly wind\n Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving,\n Shakes the old beldam earth, and topples down\n Steeples, and moss-grown towers.\"\n\n_Equinox._ The storms that prevail in spring at the vernal equinox are\naptly alluded to in \"Macbeth\" (i. 2):\n\n \"As whence the sun 'gins his reflection\n Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break,\n So from that spring, whence comfort seem'd to come,\n Discomfort swells.\"\n\n--the meaning being: the beginning of the reflection of the sun is the\nepoch of his passing from the severe to the milder season, opening,\nhowever, with storms.\n\n_Wind._ An immense deal of curious weather-lore[148] has been associated\nwith the wind from the earliest period; and in our own and foreign\ncountries innumerable proverbs are found describing the future state of\nthe weather from the position of the wind, for, according to an old\nsaying, \"every wind has its weather.\" Shakespeare has introduced some of\nthese, showing how keen an observer he was of those every-day sayings\nwhich have always been much in use, especially among the lower classes.\nThus the proverbial wet which accompanies the wind when in the south is\nmentioned in \"As You Like It\" (iii. 5):\n\n \"Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain.\"\n\n [148] See Swainson's \"Weather-Lore.\"\n\nAnd again, in \"1 Henry IV.\" (v. 1):\n\n \"The southern wind\n Doth play the trumpet to his [_i. e._, the sun's] purposes;\n And by his hollow whistling in the leaves\n Foretells a tempest, and a blustering day.\"\n\nA popular saying to the same effect, still in use, tells us that:\n\n \"When the wind is in the south,\n It is in the rain's mouth.\"\n\nAgain, in days gone by, the southerly winds were generally supposed to\nbe bearers of noxious fogs and vapors, frequent allusions to which are\ngiven by Shakespeare. Thus, in \"The Tempest\" (i. 2), Caliban says:\n\n \"a south-west blow on ye\n And blister you all o'er.\"\n\nA book,[149] too, with which, as already noticed, Shakespeare appears to\nhave been familiar, tells us, \"This southern wind is hot and moist.\nSouthern winds corrupt and destroy; they heat, and make men fall into\nthe sickness.\" Hence, in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (v. 1), Thersites\nspeaks of \"the rotten diseases of the south;\" and in \"Coriolanus\" (i.\n4), Marcius exclaims:\n\n \"All the contagion of the south light on you.\"\n\n [149] Batman upon Bartholom\u00e6us--\"De Proprietatibus Rerum,\" lib.\n xi. c. 3.\n\nOnce more, in \"Cymbeline\" (ii. 3), Cloten speaks in the same strain:\n\"The south fog rot him.\"\n\n_Flaws._ These are sudden gusts of wind. It was the opinion, says\nWarburton, \"of some philosophers that the vapors being congealed in the\nair by cold (which is the most intense in the morning), and being\nafterwards rarefied and let loose by the warmth of the sun, occasion\nthose sudden and impetuous gusts of wind which were called 'flaws.'\"\nThus he comments on the following passage in \"2 Henry IV.\" (iv. 4):\n\n \"As humorous as winter, and as sudden\n As flaws congealed in the spring of day.\"\n\nIn \"2 Henry VI.\" (iii. 1) these outbursts of wind are further alluded\nto:\n\n \"And this fell tempest shall not cease to rage\n Until the golden circuit on my head,\n Like to the glorious sun's transparent beams,\n Do calm the fury of this mad-bred flaw.\"\n\nAgain, in \"Venus and Adonis\" (425), there is an additional reference:\n\n \"Like a red morn, that ever yet betoken'd\n Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field,\n Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,\n Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.\"\n\nIn the Cornish dialect a _flaw_ signifies primitively a cut.[150] But it\nis also there used in a secondary sense for those sudden or cutting\ngusts of wind.[151]\n\n [150] Polwhele's \"Cornish Vocabulary.\"\n\n [151] Cf. \"Macbeth,\" iii. 4, \"O, these flaws and starts.\"\n\n_Squalls._ There is a common notion that \"the sudden storm lasts not\nthree hours,\" an idea referred to by John of Gaunt in \"Richard II.\" (ii.\n1):\n\n \"Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short.\"\n\nThus, in Norfolk, the peasantry say that \"the faster the rain, the\nquicker the hold up,\" which is only a difference in words from the\npopular adage, \"after a storm comes a calm.\"\n\n_Clouds._ In days gone by, clouds floating before the wind, like a reek\nor vapor, were termed racking clouds. Hence in \"3 Henry VI.\" (ii. 1),\nRichard speaks of:\n\n \"Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;\n Not separated with the racking clouds.\"\n\nThis verb, though now obsolete, was formerly in common use; and in \"King\nEdward III.,\" 1596, we read:\n\n \"Like inconstant clouds,\n That, rack'd upon the carriage of the winds,\n Increase,\" etc.\n\nAt the present day one may often hear the phrase, the rack of the\nweather, in our agricultural districts; many, too, of the items of\nweather-lore noticed by Shakespeare being still firmly credited by our\npeasantry.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nBIRDS.\n\n\nIn the present chapter we have not only a striking proof of\nShakespeare's minute acquaintance with natural history, but of his\nremarkable versatility as a writer. While displaying a most extensive\nknowledge of ornithology, he has further illustrated his subject by\nalluding to those numerous legends, popular sayings, and superstitions\nwhich have, in this and other countries, clustered round the feathered\nrace. Indeed, the following pages are alone sufficient to show, if it\nwere necessary, how fully he appreciated every branch of antiquarian\nlore; and what a diligent student he must have been in the pursuit of\nthat wide range of information, the possession of which has made him one\nof the most many-sided writers that the world has ever seen. The\nnumerous incidental allusions, too, by Shakespeare, to the folk-lore of\nbygone days, while showing how deeply he must have read and gathered\nknowledge from every available source, serve as an additional proof of\nhis retentive memory, and marvellous power of embellishing his ideas by\nthe most apposite illustrations. Unfortunately, however, these have,\nhitherto, been frequently lost sight of through the reader's\nunacquaintance with that extensive field of folk-lore which was so well\nknown to the poet. For the sake of easy reference, the birds with which\nthe present chapter deals are arranged alphabetically.\n\n_Barnacle-Goose._ There was a curious notion, very prevalent in former\ntimes, that this bird (_Anser bernicla_) was generated from the barnacle\n(_Lepas anatifera_), a shell-fish, growing on a flexible stem, and\nadhering to loose timber, bottoms of ships, etc., a metamorphosis to\nwhich Shakespeare alludes in \"The Tempest\" (iv. 1), where he makes\nCaliban say:\n\n \"we shall lose our time,\n And all be turn'd to barnacles.\"\n\nThis vulgar error, no doubt, originated in mistaking the fleshy peduncle\nof the shell-fish for the neck of a goose, the shell for its head, and\nthe tentacula for a tuft of feathers. These shell-fish, therefore,\nbearing, as seen out of the water, a resemblance to the goose's neck,\nwere ignorantly, and without investigation, confounded with geese\nthemselves. In France, the barnacle-goose may be eaten on fast days, by\nvirtue of this old belief in its fishy origin.[152] Like other fictions\nthis one had its variations,[153] for sometime the barnacles were\nsupposed to grow on trees, and thence to drop into the sea, and become\ngeese, as in Drayton's account of Furness (\"Polyolb.\" 1622, song 27, l.\n1190). As early as the 12th century this idea[154] was promulgated by\nGiraldus Cambrensis in his \"Topographia Hiberni\u00e6.\" Gerarde, who in the\nyear 1597 published his \"Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes,\"\nnarrates the following: \"There are found in the north parts of Scotland,\nand the isles adjacent called Orcades, certain trees, whereon do grow\ncertain shell-fishes, of a white color, tending to russet, wherein are\ncontained little living creatures; which shells in time of maturity do\nopen, and out of them grow those little living things which, falling\ninto the water, do become fowls, whom we call barnacles, in the north of\nEngland brant geese, and in Lancashire tree geese; but the others that\ndo fall upon the land perish, and do come to nothing. Thus much of the\nwritings of others, and also from the mouths of people of those parts,\nwhich may very well accord with truth. But what our eyes have seen and\nhands have touched, we shall declare. There is a small island in\nLancashire called the Pile of Foulders, wherein are found the broken\npieces of old ships, some whereof have been cast thither by shipwreck,\nand also the trunks or bodies, with the branches, of old rotten trees,\ncast up there likewise, whereon is found a certain spume or froth, that\nin time breedeth into certain shells, in shape like those of the mussel,\nbut sharper pointed, and of a whitish color: wherein is contained a\nthing in form like a lace of silk, one end whereof is fastened unto the\ninside of the shell, even as the fish of oysters and mussels are. The\nother end is made fast unto the belly of a rude mass or lump, which in\ntime cometh to the shape and form of a bird; when it is perfectly formed\nthe shell gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the\nforesaid lace or string; next come the legs of the bird hanging out, and\nas it groweth greater it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length it\nis all come forth and hangeth only by the bill. In short space after it\ncometh to full maturity, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth\nfeathers and groweth to a fowl, bigger than a mallard, and lesser than a\ngoose; having black legs and bill, or beak, and feathers black and\nwhite, spotted in such a manner as is our magpie, which the people of\nLancashire call by no other name than a tree goose.\" An interesting cut\nof these birds so growing is given by Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps from a\nmanuscript of the 14th century, who is of opinion that the barnacle\nmentioned by Caliban was the tree-goose. It is not to be supposed,\nhowever, that there were none who doubted this marvellous story, or who\ntook steps to refute it. Belon, so long ago as 1551, says Mr.\nHarting,[155] and others after him, treated it with ridicule, and a\nrefutation may be found in Willughby's \"Ornithology,\" which was edited\nby Ray in 1678.[156] This vulgar error is mentioned by many of the old\nwriters. Thus Bishop Hall, in his \"Virgidemiarum\" (lib. iv. sat. 2),\nsays:\n\n \"The Scottish barnacle, if I might choose,\n That of a worme doth waxe a winged goose.\"\n\n [152] See Harland and Wilkinson's \"Lancashire Folk-Lore,\" 1867,\n pp. 116-121; \"Notes and Queries,\" 1st series, vol. viii. p.\n 224; \"Penny Cyclop\u00e6dia,\" vol. vii. p. 206, article \"Cirripeda.\"\n\n [153] Nares's \"Glossary,\" 1872, vol. i. p. 56.\n\n [154] See Harting's \"Ornithology of Shakespeare,\" 1871, pp.\n 246-257.\n\n [155] \"Ornithology of Shakespeare,\" 1871, p. 252.\n\n [156] See \"Philosophical Transactions\" for 1835; Darwin's\n \"Monograph of the Cirrhipedia,\" published by the Ray Society; a\n paper by Sir J. Emerson Tennent in \"Notes and Queries,\" 1st\n series, vol. viii. p. 223; Brand's \"Popular Antiquities,\" 1849,\n vol. iii. pp. 361, 362; Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\"\n 1839, p. 14.\n\nButler, too, in his \"Hudibras\" (III. ii. l. 655), speaks of it; and\nMarston, in his \"Malecontent\" (1604), has the following: \"Like your\nScotch barnacle, now a block, instantly a worm, and presently a great\ngoose.\"\n\n_Blackbird._ This favorite is called, in the \"Midsummer-Night's Dream\"\n(iii. 1) an ousel (old French, _oisel_), a term still used in the\nneighborhood of Leeds:\n\n \"The ousel cock, so black of hue,\n With orange-tawny bill.\"\n\nIn \"2 Henry IV.\" (iii. 2) when Justice Shallow inquires of Justice\nSilence, \"And how doth my cousin?\" he is answered: \"Alas, a black\nousel,[157] cousin Shallow,\" a phrase which, no doubt, corresponded to\nour modern one, \"a black sheep.\" In Spenser's \"Epithalamium\" (l. 82),\nthe word occurs:\n\n \"The ousel shrills, the ruddock warbles soft.\"\n\n [157] See Yarrell's \"History of British Birds,\" 2d edition,\n vol. i. p. 218; \"Dialect of Leeds,\" 1862, p. 329. In \"Hamlet\"\n (iii. 2), some modern editions read \"ouzle;\" the old editions\n all have _weasel_, which is now adopted.\n\n_Buzzard._ Mr. Staunton suggests that in the following passage of the\n\"Taming of the Shrew\" (ii. 1) a play is intended upon the words, and\nthat in the second line \"buzzard\" means a beetle, from its peculiar\nbuzzing noise:\n\n \"_Pet._ O slow-wing'd turtle! shall a buzzard take thee?\n\n _Kath._ Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.\"\n\nThe beetle was formerly called a buzzard; and in Staffordshire, a\ncockchafer is termed a hum-buz. In Northamptonshire we find a proverb,\n\"I'm between a hawk and a buzzard,\" which means, \"I don't know what to\ndo, or how to act.\"[158]\n\n [158] Miss Baker's \"Northamptonshire Glossary,\" 1854, vol. i.\n p. 94. See Nares's \"Glossary,\" 1872, vol. i. p. 124; and\n \"Richard III.,\" i. 1.\n\n_Chaffinch._ Some think that this bird is alluded to in the song in the\n\"Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (iii. 1), where the expression \"finch\" is\nused; the chaffinch having always been a favorite cage-bird with the\nlower classes.[159] In \"Troilus and Cressida\" (v. 1) Thersites calls\nPatroclus a \"finch-egg,\" which was evidently meant as a term of\nreproach. Others, again, consider the phrase as equivalent to coxcomb.\n\n [159] Harting's \"Ornithology of Shakespeare,\" p. 144;\n Halliwell-Phillipps's \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare,\" 1866, p.\n 187. The term finch, also, according to some, may mean either\n the bullfinch or goldfinch.\n\n_Chough._ In using this word Shakespeare probably, in most cases, meant\nthe jackdaw;[160] for in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (iii. 2) he says:\n\n \"russet-pated choughs, many in sort,\n Rising and cawing at the gun's report;\"\n\nthe term russet-pated being applicable to the jackdaw, but not to the\nreal chough. In \"1 Henry IV.\" (v. 1). Prince Henry calls Falstaff\n_chewet_--\"Peace, chewet, peace\"--in allusion, no doubt, to the chough or\njackdaw, for common birds have always had a variety of names.[161] Such\nan appellation would be a proper reproach to Falstaff, for his meddling\nand impertinent talk. Steevens and Malone, however, finding that\n_chewets_ were little round pies made of minced meat, thought that the\nPrince compared Falstaff, for his unseasonable chattering, to a minced\npie. Cotgrave[162] describes the French _chouette_ as an owlet; also, a\n\"chough,\" which many consider to be the simple and satisfactory\nexplanation of _chewet_. Belon, in his \"History of Birds\" (Paris, 1855),\nspeaks of the _chouette_ as the smallest kind of chough or crow. Again,\nin \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii. 2), in the amusing scene where Falstaff, with the\nPrince and Poins, meet to rob the travellers at Gadshill, Falstaff\ncalls the victims \"fat chuffs,\" probably, says Mr. Harting, who connects\nthe word with chough, from their strutting about with much noise.\nNares,[163] too, in his explanation of _chuff_, says, that some suppose\nit to be from chough, which is similarly pronounced, and means a kind of\nsea-bird, generally esteemed a stupid one. Various other meanings are\ngiven. Thus, Mr. Gifford[164] affirms that _chuff_ is always used in a\nbad sense, and means \"a coarse, unmannered clown, at once sordid and\nwealthy;\" and Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps explains it as spoken in contempt\nfor a fat person.[165] In Northamptonshire,[166] we find the word chuff\nused to denote a person in good condition, as in Clare's \"Village\nMinstrel:\"\n\n \"His chuff cheeks dimpling in a fondling smile.\"\n\n [160] See Yarrell's \"History of British Birds,\" 2d edition,\n vol. ii. p. 58.\n\n [161] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 156; Singer's\n \"Shakespeare,\" 1875, vol. v. p. 115; Dyce's \"Glossary,\" 1876,\n p. 77.\n\n [162] Mr. Dyce says that if Dr. Latham had been acquainted with\n the article \"Chouette,\" in Cotgrave, he would not probably have\n suggested that Shakespeare meant here the lapwing or pewit.\n Some consider the magpie is meant. See Halliwell-Phillipps's\n \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare,\" 1866, p. 83. Professor Newton\n would read \"russet-patted,\" or \"red-legged,\" thinking that\n Shakespeare meant the chough.\n\n [163] \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 162; Singer's \"Notes to\n Shakespeare,\" 1875, vol. v. p. 42.\n\n [164] Massinger's Works, 1813, vol. i. p. 281.\n\n [165] \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare,\" 1866, p. 86.\n\n [166] Miss Baker's \"Northamptonshire Glossary,\" 1854, vol. i.\n p. 116.\n\nShakespeare alludes to the practice of teaching choughs to talk,\nalthough from the following passages he does not appear to have esteemed\ntheir talking powers as of much value; for in \"All's Well That Ends\nWell\" (iv. 1), he says: \"Choughs' language, gabble enough, and good\nenough.\" And in \"The Tempest\" (ii. 1), he represents Antonio as saying:\n\n \"There be that can rule Naples\n As well as he that sleeps; lords that can prate\n As amply and unnecessarily\n As this Gonzalo; I myself could make\n A chough of as deep chat.\"\n\nShakespeare always refers to the jackdaw as the \"daw.\"[167] The chough\nor jackdaw was one of the birds considered ominous by our forefathers,\nan allusion to which occurs in \"Macbeth\" (iii. 4):\n\n \"Augurs and understood relations have,\n By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth\n The secret'st man of blood.\"\n\n [167] \"Coriolanus,\" iv. 5; \"Troilus and Cressida,\" i. 2; \"Much\n Ado About Nothing,\" ii. 3; \"Twelfth Night,\" iii. 4; \"Love's\n Labour's Lost,\" v. 2, song; \"1 Henry VI.\" ii. 4.\n\nAt the present day this bird is not without its folk-lore, and there is\na Norwich rhyme to the following effect:[168]\n\n \"When three daws are seen on St. Peter's vane together,\n Then we're sure to have bad weather.\"\n\nIn the north of England,[169] too, the flight of jackdaws down the\nchimney is held to presage death.\n\n [168] Swainson's \"Weather-Lore,\" 1873, p. 240.\n\n [169] Henderson's \"Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,\" 1879, p. 48.\n\n_Cock._ The beautiful notion which represents the cock as crowing all\nnight long on Christmas Eve, and by its vigilance dispelling every kind\nof malignant spirit[170] and evil influence is graphically mentioned in\n\"Hamlet\" (i. 1), where Marcellus, speaking of the ghost, says:\n\n \"It faded on the crowing of the cock.\n Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes\n Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,\n The bird of dawning singeth all night long.\n And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;\n The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,\n No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,\n So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.\"\n\n [170] See Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 438.\n\nIn short, there is a complete prostration of the powers of darkness; and\nthus, for the time being, mankind is said to be released from the\ninfluence of all those evil forces which otherwise exert such sway. The\nnotion that spirits fly at cock-crow is very ancient, and is mentioned\nby the Christian poet Prudentius, who flourished in the beginning of the\nfourth century. There is also a hymn, said to have been composed by St.\nAmbrose, and formerly used in the Salisbury Service, which so much\nresembles the following speech of Horatio (i. 1), that one might almost\nsuppose Shakespeare had seen it:[171]\n\n \"The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,\n Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat\n Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,\n Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,\n The extravagant and erring spirit hies\n To his confine.\"\n\n [171] See Ibid.\n\nThis disappearance of spirits at cock-crow is further alluded to (i.\n2):[172]\n\n \"the morning cock crew loud,\n And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,\n And vanished from our sight.\"\n\n [172] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. pp. 51-57;\n Hampson's \"Medii OEvi Kalendarium,\" vol. i. p. 84.\n\nBlair, too, in his \"Grave,\" has these graphic words:\n\n \"the tale\n Of horrid apparition, tall and ghastly,\n That walks at dead of night, or takes his stand\n O'er some new-open'd grave, and, strange to tell,\n Evanishes at crowing of the cock.\"\n\nThis superstition has not entirely died out in England, and a\ncorrespondent of \"Notes and Queries\"[173] relates an amusing legend\ncurrent in Devonshire: \"Mr. N. was a squire who had been so unfortunate\nas to sell his soul to the devil, with the condition that after his\nfuneral the fiend should take possession of his skin. He had also\npersuaded a neighbor to be present on the occasion of the flaying. On\nthe death of Mr. N. this man went, in a state of great alarm, to the\nparson of the parish, and asked his advice. By him he was told to fulfil\nhis engagement, but he must be sure and carry a cock into the church\nwith him. On the night after the funeral the man proceeded to the\nchurch, armed with the cock, and, as an additional security, took up his\nposition in the parson's pew. At twelve o'clock the devil arrived,\nopened the grave, took the corpse from the coffin, and flayed it. When\nthe operation was concluded, he held the skin up before him and\nremarked, 'Well, 'twas not worth coming for after all, for it is all\nfull of holes!' As he said this the cock crew, whereupon the fiend,\nturning round to the man, exclaimed, 'If it had not been for the bird\nyou have got there under your arm, I would have your skin too!' But,\nthanks to the cock, the man got home safe again.\" Various origins have\nbeen assigned to this superstition, which Hampson[174] regards as a\nmisunderstood tradition of some Sab\u00e6an fable. The cock, he adds, which\nseems by its early voice to call forth the sun, was esteemed a sacred\nsolar bird; hence it was also sacred to Mercury, one of the\npersonifications of the sun.\n\n [173] 1st series, vol. iii. p. 404.\n\n [174] \"Medii OEvi Kalendarium,\" vol. i. p. 85.\n\nA very general amusement, up to the end of the last century, was\ncock-fighting, a diversion of which mention is occasionally made by\nShakespeare, as in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (ii. 3):\n\n \"His cocks do win the battle still of mine,\n When it is all to nought.\"\n\nAnd again Hamlet says (v. 2):\n\n \"O, I die, Horatio;\n The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit\"--\n\nmeaning, the poison triumphs over him, as a cock over his beaten\nantagonist. Formerly, cock-fighting entered into the occupations of the\nold and young.[175] Schools had their cock-fights. Travellers agreed\nwith coachmen that they were to wait a night if there was a cock-fight\nin any town through which they passed. When country gentlemen had sat\nlong at table, and the conversation had turned upon the relative merits\nof their several birds, a cock-fight often resulted, as the birds in\nquestion were brought for the purpose into the dining-room.\nCock-fighting was practised on Shrove Tuesday to a great extent, and in\nthe time of Henry VII. seems to have been practised within the precincts\nof court. The earliest mention of this pastime in England is by\nFitzstephens, in 1191. Happily, nowadays, cock-fighting is, by law, a\nmisdemeanor, and punishable by penalty. One of the popular terms for a\ncock beaten in a fight was \"a craven,\" to which we find a reference in\nthe \"Taming of the Shrew\" (ii. 1):\n\n \"No cock of mine; you crow too like a craven.\"\n\n [175] Roberts's \"Social History of Southern Counties of\n England,\" 1856, p. 421; see \"British Popular Customs,\" 1876, p. 65.\n\nWe may also compare the expression in \"Henry V.\" (iv. 7): \"He is a\ncraven and a villain else.\" In the old appeal or wager of battle,[176]\nin our common law, we are told, on the authority of Lord Coke, that the\nparty who confessed himself wrong, or refused to fight, was to pronounce\nthe word _cravent_, and judgment was at once given against him.\nSinger[177] says the term may be satisfactorily traced from _crant_,\n_creant_, the old French word for an act of submission. It is so written\nin the old metrical romance of \"Ywaine and Gawaine\" (Ritson, i. 133):\n\n \"Or yelde the til us als creant.\"\n\n [176] Nares's \"Glossary,\" 1872, vol. i. p. 203.\n\n [177] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" 1875, vol. ix. p. 256;\n Halliwell-Phillipps's \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare,\" p. 112.\n\nAnd in \"Richard Coeur de Lion\" (Weber, ii. 208):\n\n \"On knees he fel down, and cryde, cr\u00eaaunt.\"\n\nIt then became _cravant_, _cravent_, and at length _craven_.\n\nIn the time of Shakespeare the word _cock_ was used as a vulgar\ncorruption or purposed disguise of the name of God, an instance of which\noccurs in \"Hamlet\" (iv. 5): \"By cock, they are to blame.\" This\nirreverent alteration of the sacred name is found at least a dozen\ntimes[178] in Heywood's \"Edward the Fourth,\" where one passage is,\n\n \"_Herald._ Sweare on this booke, King Lewis, so help you God,\n You mean no otherwise then you have said.\n\n _King Lewis._ So helpe me Cock as I dissemble not.\"\n\n [178] Dyce's \"Glossary to Shakespeare,\" p. 85.\n\nWe find, too, other allusions to the sacred name, as in \"cock's\npassion,\" \"cock's body;\" as in \"Taming of the Shrew\" (iv. 1): \"Cock's\npassion, silence!\" A not uncommon oath, too, in Shakespeare's time was\n\"Cock and pie\"--_cock_ referring to God, and _pie_ being supposed to mean\nthe service-book of the Romish Church; a meaning which, says Mr. Dyce,\nseems much more probable than Douce's[179] supposition that this oath\nwas connected with the making of solemn vows by knights in the days of\nchivalry, during entertainments at which a roasted peacock was served\nup. It is used by Justice Shallow (\"2 Henry IV.,\" v. 1): \"By cock and\npye, sir, you shall not away to-night.\" We may also compare the\nexpression in the old play of \"Soliman and Perseda\" (1599): \"By cock and\npye and mousefoot.\" Mr. Harting[180] says the \"Cock and Pye\" (_i. e._,\nmagpie) was an ordinary ale-house sign, and may have thus become a\nsubject for the vulgar to swear by.\n\n [179] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, p. 290.\n\n [180] \"Ornithology of Shakespeare,\" p. 171.\n\nThe phrase, \"Cock-a-hoop\"[181]--which occurs in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (i.\n5),\n\n \"You'll make a mutiny among my guests!\n You will set cock-a-hoop! you'll be the man!\"\n\n--no doubt refers to a reckless person, who takes the cock or tap out of\na cask, and lays it on the top or hoop of the barrel, thus letting all\nthe contents of the cask run out. Formerly, a quart pot was called a\nhoop, being formed of staves bound together with hoops like barrels.\nThere were generally three hoops to such a pot; hence, in \"2 Henry VI.\"\n(iv. 2), one of Jack Cade's popular reformations was to increase their\nnumber: \"the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it\nfelony to drink small beer.\" Some, however, consider the term\nCock-a-hoop[182] refers to the boastful crowing of the cock.\n\n [181] It is also an ale-house sign.\n\n [182] See Dyce's \"Glossary to Shakespeare,\" p. 85.\n\nIn \"King Lear\" (iii. 2) Shakespeare speaks of the \"cataracts and\nhurricanoes\" as having\n\n \"drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!\"\n\nVanes on the tops of steeples were in days gone by made in the form of\na cock--hence weathercocks--and put up, in papal times, to remind the\nclergy of watchfulness.[183] Apart, too, from symbolism, the large tail\nof the cock was well adapted to turn with the wind.[184]\n\n [183] See \"Book of Days,\" 1863, vol. i. p. 157.\n\n [184] In \"King Lear\" (iv. 6), where Edgar says:\n\n \"Yond tall anchoring bark,\n Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy\n Almost too small for sight.\"\n\n the word \"cock\" is an abbreviation for cock-boat.\n\n_Cormorant._ The proverbial voracity of this bird[185] gave rise to a\nman of large appetite being likened to it, a sense in which Shakespeare\nemploys the word, as in \"Coriolanus\" (i. 1): \"the cormorant belly;\" in\n\"Love's Labour's Lost\" (i. 1): \"cormorant devouring Time;\" and in\n\"Troilus and Cressida\" (ii. 2): \"this cormorant war.\" \"Although,\" says\nMr. Harting,[186] \"Shakespeare mentions the cormorant in several of his\nplays, he has nowhere alluded to the sport of using these birds, when\ntrained, for fishing; a fact which is singular, since he often speaks of\nthe then popular pastime of hawking, and he did not die until some years\nafter James I. had made fishing with cormorants a fashionable\namusement.\"\n\n [185] For superstitions associated with this bird, see Brand's\n \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. p. 218.\n\n [186] \"Ornithology of Shakespeare,\" p. 260.\n\n_Crow._ This has from the earliest times been reckoned a bird of bad\nomen; and in \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (v. 1), Cassius, on the eve of battle,\npredicted a defeat, because, to use his own words:\n\n \"crows and kites\n Fly o'er our heads and downward look on us,\n As we were sickly prey: their shadows seem\n A canopy most fatal, under which\n Our army lies, ready to give up the ghost.\"\n\nAllusions to the same superstition occur in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (i.\n2); \"King John\" (v. 2), etc. Vergil (\"Bucolic,\" i. 18) mentions the\ncroaking of the crow as a bad omen:\n\n \"S\u00e6pe sinistra cava pr\u00e6dixit ab ilice cornix.\"\n\nAnd Butler, in his \"Hudibras\" (part ii. canto 3), remarks:\n\n \"Is it not ominous in all countries,\n When crows and ravens croak upon trees.\"\n\nEven children, nowadays, regard with no friendly feelings this bird of\nill-omen;[187] and in the north of England there is a rhyme to the\nfollowing effect:\n\n \"Crow, crow, get out of my sight,\n Or else I'll eat thy liver and lights.\"\n\n [187] See \"Folk-Lore Record,\" 1879, vol. i. p. 52; Henderson's\n \"Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,\" 1879, pp. 25, 126, 277.\n\nAmong other allusions made by Shakespeare to the crow may be noticed the\ncrow-keeper--a person employed to drive away crows from the fields. At\npresent,[188] in all the midland counties, a boy set to drive away the\nbirds is said to keep birds; hence, a stuffed figure, now called a\n_scarecrow_, was also called a crow-keeper, as in \"King Lear\" (iv. 6):\n\"That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper.\"\n\n [188] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 208.\n\nOne of Tusser's directions for September is:\n\n \"No sooner a-sowing, but out by-and-by,\n With mother or boy that alarum can cry:\n And let them be armed with a sling or a bow,\n To scare away pigeon, the rook, or the crow.\"\n\nIn \"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 4) a scarecrow seems meant:\n\n \"Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,\n Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper.\"\n\nAmong further references to this practice is that in \"1 Henry VI.\" (i.\n4), where Lord Talbot relates that, when a prisoner in France, he was\npublicly exhibited in the market-place:\n\n \"Here, said they, is the terror of the French,\n The scarecrow that affrights our children so.\"[189]\n\n [189] Cf. \"Henry IV.,\" iv. 2.\n\nAnd once more, in \"Measure for Measure\" (ii. 1):\n\n \"We must not make a scarecrow of the law,\n Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,\n And let it keep one shape, till custom make it\n Their perch and not their terror.\"\n\nThe phrase \"to pluck a crow\" is to complain good-naturedly, but\nreproachfully, and to threaten retaliation.[190] It occurs in \"Comedy of\nErrors\" (iii. 1): \"We'll pluck a crow together.\" Sometimes the word\n_pull_ is substituted for pluck, as in Butler's \"Hudibras\" (part ii.\ncanto 2):\n\n \"If not, resolve before we go\n That you and I must pull a crow.\"\n\n [190] Miss Baker's \"Northamptonshire Glossary,\" vol. ii. p.\n 161; Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. p. 393.\n\nThe crow has been regarded as the emblem of darkness, which has not\nescaped the notice of Shakespeare, who, in \"Pericles\" (iv. introd.),\nspeaking of the white dove, says:\n\n \"With the dove of Paphos might the crow\n Vie feathers white.\"[191]\n\n [191] Cf. \"Romeo and Juliet,\" i. 5.\n\n_Cuckoo._ Many superstitions have clustered round the cuckoo, and both\nin this country and abroad it is looked upon as a mysterious bird, being\nsupposed to possess the gift of second-sight, a notion referred to in\n\"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 2):\n\n \"Cuckoo, cuckoo:[192] O word of fear,\n Unpleasing to a married ear.\"\n\n [192] \"A cuckold being called from the cuckoo, the note of that\n bird was supposed to prognosticate that destiny.\"--Nares's\n \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 212.\n\nAnd again, in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (iii. 1), Bottom sings:\n\n \"The plain-song cuckoo gray,\n Whose note full many a man doth mark,\n And dares not answer nay.\"\n\nIt is still a common idea that the cuckoo, if asked, will tell any one,\nby the repetition of its cries, how long he has to live. The country\nlasses in Sweden count the cuckoo's call to ascertain how many years\nthey have to remain unmarried, but they generally shut their ears and\nrun away on hearing it a few times.[193] Among the Germans the notes of\nthe cuckoo, when heard in spring for the first time, are considered a\ngood omen. C\u00e6sarius (1222) tells us of a convertite who was about to\nbecome a monk, but changed his mind on hearing the cuckoo's call, and\ncounting twenty-two repetitions of it. \"Come,\" said he, \"I have\ncertainly twenty-two years still to live, and why should I mortify\nmyself during all that time? I will go back to the world, enjoy its\ndelights for twenty years, and devote the remaining two to\npenitence.\"[194] In England the peasantry salute the cuckoo with the\nfollowing invocation:\n\n \"Cuckoo, cherry-tree,\n Good bird, tell me,\n How many years have I to live\"--\n\nthe allusion to the cherry-tree having probably originated in the\npopular fancy that before the cuckoo ceases its song it must eat three\ngood meals of cherries. Pliny mentions the belief that when the cuckoo\ncame to maturity it devoured the bird which had reared it, a\nsuperstition several times alluded to by Shakespeare. Thus, in \"King\nLear\" (i. 4), the Fool remarks:\n\n \"The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,\n That it had its head bit off by its young.\"\n\n [193] Engel's \"Musical Myths and Facts,\" 1876, vol. i. p. 9.\n\n [194] See Kelly's \"Indo-European Folk-Lore,\" 1863, p. 99;\n \"English Folk-Lore,\" 1879, pp. 55-62.\n\nAgain, in \"1 Henry IV.\" (v. 1), Worcester says:\n\n \"And being fed by us you used us so\n As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo's bird,\n Useth the sparrow; did oppress our nest;\n Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk\n That even our love durst not come near your sight\n For fear of swallowing.\"\n\nOnce more, the opinion that the cuckoo made no nest of its own, but\nlaid its eggs in that of another bird, is mentioned in \"Antony and\nCleopatra\" (ii. 6):\n\n \"Thou dost o'er-count me of my father's house;\n But, since the cuckoo builds not for himself,\n Remain in't as thou may'st.\"\n\nIt has been remarked,[195] however, in reference to the common idea that\nthe young cuckoo ill-treats its foster-mother, that if we watch the\nmovements of the two birds, when the younger is being fed, we cannot\nmuch wonder at this piece of folk-lore. When the cuckoo opens its great\nmouth, the diminutive nurse places her own head so far within its\nprecincts that it has the exact appearance of a voluntary surrender to\ndecapitation.\n\n [195] See Mary Howitt's \"Pictorial Calendar of the Seasons,\" p.\n 155; Knight's \"Pictorial Shakespeare,\" vol. i. pp. 225, 226.\n\nThe notion[196] \"which couples the name of the cuckoo with the character\nof the man whose wife is unfaithful to him appears to have been derived\nfrom the Romans, and is first found in the Middle Ages in France, and in\nthe countries of which the modern language is derived from the Latin.\nBut the ancients more correctly gave the name of the bird, not to the\nhusband of the faithless wife, but to her paramour, who might justly be\nsupposed to be acting the part of the cuckoo. They applied the name of the\nbird in whose nest the cuckoo's eggs were usually deposited--'carruca'--to\nthe husband. It is not quite clear how, in the passage from classic to\nmedi\u00e6val, the application of the term was transferred to the husband.\"\nIn further allusion to this bird, we may quote the following from \"All's\nWell That Ends Well\" (i. 3):\n\n \"For I the ballad will repeat,\n Which men full true shall find,\n Your marriage comes by destiny,\n Your cuckoo sings by kind.\"\n\n [196] Chambers's \"Book of Days,\" vol. i. p. 531.\n\nThe cuckoo has generally been regarded as the harbinger of spring, and,\naccording to a Gloucester rhyme:\n\n \"The cuckoo comes in April,\n Sings a song in May;\n Then in June another tune,\n And then she flies away.\"\n\nThus, in \"1 Henry IV.\" (iii. 2), the king, alluding to his predecessor,\nsays:\n\n \"So, when he had occasion to be seen,\n He was but as the cuckoo is in June,\n Heard, not regarded.\"\n\nIn \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 2) spring is maintained by the cuckoo, in\nthose charming sonnets descriptive of the beauties of the country at\nthis season.\n\nThe word cuckoo has, from the earliest times, been used as a term of\nreproach;[197] and Plautus[198] has introduced it on more than one\noccasion. In this sense we find it quoted by Shakespeare in \"1 Henry\nIV.\" (ii. 4): \"O' horseback, ye cuckoo.\" The term _cuckold_, too, which\nso frequently occurs throughout Shakespeare's plays, is generally\nderived from cuculus,[199] from the practice already alluded to of\ndepositing its eggs in other birds' nests.\n\n [197] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. p. 201.\n\n [198] \"Asinaria,\" v. 1.\n\n [199] Nares, in his \"Glossary\" (vol. i. p. 212), says:\n \"Cuckold, perhaps, _quasi_ cuckoo'd, _i. e._, one served; _i.\n e._, forced to bring up a brood that is not his own.\"\n\n_Domestic Fowl._ In \"The Tempest\" (v. 1), the word chick is used as a\nterm of endearment: \"My Ariel; chick,\" etc.; and in \"Macbeth\" (iv. 3)\nMacduff speaks of his children as \"all my pretty chickens.\" In\n\"Coriolanus\" (v. 3), hen is applied to a woman: \"poor hen, fond of no\nsecond brood;\" and in \"Taming of the Shrew\" (ii. 1), Petruchio says: \"so\nKate will be my hen;\" and, once more, \"1 Henry IV.\" (iii. 3), Falstaff\nsays, \"How now, Dame Partlet the hen?\" In \"Othello\" (i. 3) Iago applies\nthe term \"guinea-hen\" to Desdemona, a cant phrase in Shakespeare's day\nfor a fast woman.\n\n_Dove._ Among the many beautiful allusions to this bird we may mention\none in \"Hamlet\" (v. 1), where Shakespeare speaks of the dove only laying\ntwo eggs:[200]\n\n \"as patient as the female dove\n When that her golden couplets are disclosed.\"\n\n [200] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" 1875, vol. ix. p. 294.\n\nThe young nestlings, when first disclosed, are only covered with a\nyellow down, and the mother rarely leaves the nest, in consequence of\nthe tenderness of her young; hence the dove has been made an emblem of\npatience. In \"2 Henry IV.\" (iv. 1), it is spoken of as the symbol of\npeace:\n\n \"The dove and very blessed spirit of peace.\"\n\nIts love, too, is several times referred to, as in \"Romeo and Juliet\"\n(ii. 1), \"Pronounce but--love and dove;\" and in \"1 Henry VI.\" (ii. 2),\nBurgundy says:\n\n \"Like to a pair of loving turtle-doves,\n That could not live asunder, day or night.\"\n\nThis bird has also been regarded as the emblem of fidelity, as in the\nfollowing graphic passage in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (iii. 2):\n\n \"As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,\n As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,\n As iron to adamant, as earth to the centre;\"\n\nand in \"Winter's Tale\" (iv. 4) we read:\n\n \"turtles pair,\n That never mean to part.\"\n\nIts modesty is alluded to in the \"Taming of the Shrew\" (ii. 1): \"modest\nas the dove;\" and its innocence in \"2 Henry VI.\" (iii. 1) is mentioned,\nwhere King Henry says:\n\n \"Our kinsman Gloster is as innocent\n From meaning treason to our royal person\n As is the sucking lamb or harmless dove:\n The duke is virtuous, mild and too well given\n To dream on evil, or to work my downfall.\"\n\nThe custom of giving a pair of doves or pigeons as a present or\npeace-offering is alluded to in \"Titus Andronicus\" (iv. 4), where the\nclown says, \"God and Saint Stephen give you good den: I have brought you\na letter and a couple of pigeons here;\" and when Gobbo tried to find\nfavor with Bassanio, in \"Merchant of Venice\" (ii. 2), he began by\nsaying, \"I have here a dish of doves, that I would bestow upon your\nworship.\" Shakespeare alludes in several places to the \"doves of Venus,\"\nas in \"Venus and Adonis:\"\n\n \"Thus weary of the world, away she [Venus] hies,\n And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid\n Their mistress, mounted, through the empty skies\n In her light chariot quickly is conveyed;\n Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen\n Means to immure herself and not be seen;\"\n\nand in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (i. 1), where Hermia speaks of \"the\nsimplicity of Venus' doves.\" This will also explain, says Mr.\nHarting,[201] the reference to \"the dove of Paphos,\" in \"Pericles\" (iv.\nIntrod.). The towns of Old and New Paphos are situated on the southwest\nextremity of the coast of Cyprus. Old Paphos is the one generally\nreferred to by the poets, being the peculiar seat of the worship of\nVenus, who was fabled to have been wafted thither after her birth amid\nthe waves. The \"dove of Paphos\" may therefore be considered as\nsynonymous with the \"dove of Venus.\"\n\n [201] \"Ornithology of Shakespeare,\" pp. 190, 191.\n\nMahomet, we are told, had a dove, which he used to feed with wheat out\nof his ear; when hungry, the dove lighted on his shoulder, and thrust\nits bill in to find its breakfast, Mahomet persuading the rude and\nsimple Arabians that it was the Holy Ghost, that gave him advice.[202]\nHence, in \"1 Henry VI.\" (i. 2), the question is asked:\n\n \"Was Mahomet inspired with a dove?\"\n\n [202] Sir W. Raleigh's \"History of the World,\" bk. i. pt. i.\n ch. 6.\n\n_Duck._ A barbarous pastime in Shakespeare's time was hunting a tame\nduck in the water with spaniels. For the performance of this\namusement[203] it was necessary to have recourse to a pond of water\nsufficiently extensive to give the duck plenty of room for making its\nescape from the dogs when closely pursued, which it did by diving as\noften as any of them came near it, hence the following allusion in\n\"Henry V.\" (ii. 3):\n\n \"And hold-fast is the only dog, my duck.\"[204]\n\n [203] Strutt's \"Sports and Pastimes,\" 1876, p. 329.\n\n [204] There is an allusion to the proverbial saying, \"Brag is a\n good dog, but Hold-fast is a better.\"\n\n\"To swim like a duck\" is a common proverb, which occurs in \"The Tempest\"\n(ii. 2), where Trinculo, in reply to Stephano's question how he escaped,\nsays: \"Swam ashore, man, like a duck; I can swim like a duck, I'll be\nsworn.\"\n\n_Eagle._ From the earliest time this bird has been associated with\nnumerous popular fancies and superstitions, many of which have not\nescaped the notice of Shakespeare. A notion of very great antiquity\nattributes to it the power of gazing at the sun undazzled, to which\nSpenser, in his \"Hymn of Heavenly Beauty\" refers:\n\n \"And like the native brood of eagle's kind,\n On that bright sun of glory fix thine eyes.\"\n\nIn \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (iv. 3) Biron says of Rosaline:\n\n \"What peremptory eagle-sighted eye\n Dares look upon the heaven of her brow,\n That is not blinded by her majesty?\"[205]\n\n [205] In the same scene we are told,\n\n \"A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind.\"\n\n Cf. \"Romeo and Juliet,\" iii. 5; \"Richard II.,\" iii. 3.\n\nAnd in \"3 Henry VI.\" (ii. 1) Richard says to his brother Edward:\n\n \"Nay, if thou be that princely eagle's bird,\n Show thy descent by gazing 'gainst the sun.\"\n\nThe French naturalist, Lacepede,[206] has calculated that the clearness\nof vision in birds is nine times more extensive than that of the\nfarthest-sighted man. The eagle, too, has always been proverbial for its\ngreat power of flight, and on this account has had assigned to it the\nsovereignty of the feathered race. Aristotle and Pliny both record the\nlegend of the wren disputing for the crown, a tradition which is still\nfound in Ireland:[207] \"The birds all met together one day, and settled\namong themselves that whichever of them could fly highest was to be the\nking of them all. Well, just as they were starting, the little rogue of\na wren perched itself on the eagle's tail. So they flew and flew ever so\nhigh, till the eagle was miles above all the rest, and could not fly\nanother stroke, for he was so tired. Then says he, 'I'm the king of the\nbirds,' says he; 'hurroo!' 'You lie,' says the wren, darting up a perch\nand a half above the big fellow. The eagle was so angry to think how he\nwas outwitted by the wren, that when the latter was coming down he gave\nhim a stroke of his wing, and from that day the wren has never been able\nto fly higher than a hawthorn bush.\" The swiftness of the eagle's flight\nis spoken of in \"Timon of Athens,\" (i. 1):\n\n \"an eagle flight, bold, and forth on,\n Leaving no tract behind.\"[208]\n\n [206] Quoted by Harting, in \"Ornithology of Shakespeare,\" p. 24.\n\n [207] Kelly's \"Indo-European Folk-Lore,\" pp. 75, 79.\n\n [208] Cf. \"Antony and Cleopatra,\" ii. 2: \"This was but as a fly\n by an eagle.\"\n\nThe great age, too, of the eagle is well known; and the words of the\nPsalmist are familiar to most readers:\n\n \"His youth shall be renewed like the eagle's.\"\n\nApemantus, however, asks of Timon (\"Timon of Athens,\" iv. 3):\n\n \"will these moss'd trees,\n That have outlived the eagle, page thy heels,\n And skip when thou point'st out?\"\n\nTurbervile, in his \"Booke of Falconrie,\" 1575, says that the great age\nof this bird has been ascertained from the circumstance of its always\nbuilding its eyrie or nest in the same place. The Romans considered the\neagle a bird of good omen, and its presence in time of battle was\nsupposed to foretell victory. Thus, in \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (v. 1) we read:\n\n \"Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign\n Two mighty eagles fell; and there they perch'd,\n Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands.\"\n\nIt was selected for the Roman legionary standard,[209] through being the\nking and most powerful of all birds. As a bird of good omen it is\nmentioned also in \"Cymbeline\" (i. 1):\n\n \"I chose an eagle,\n And did avoid a puttock;\"\n\nand in another scene (iv. 2) the Soothsayer relates how\n\n \"Last night the very gods show'd me a vision,\n ... thus:--\n I saw Jove's bird, the Roman eagle, wing'd\n From the spungy south to this part of the west,\n There vanish'd in the sunbeams: which portends\n (Unless my sins abuse my divination),\n Success to the Roman host.\"\n\n [209] Josephus, \"De Bello Judico,\" iii. 5.\n\nThe conscious superiority[210] of the eagle is depicted by Tamora in\n\"Titus Andronicus\" (iv. 4):\n\n \"The eagle suffers little birds to sing,\n And is not careful what they mean thereby,\n Knowing that with the shadow of his wing,\n He can at pleasure stint their melody.\"\n\n [210] Harting's \"Ornithology of Shakespeare,\" p. 33.\n\n_Goose._ This bird was the subject[211] of many quaint proverbial\nphrases often used in the old popular writers. Thus, a _tailor's goose_\nwas a jocular name for his pressing-iron, probably from its being often\nroasting before the fire, an allusion to which occurs in \"Macbeth\" (ii.\n3): \"come in, tailor; here you may roast your goose.\" The \"wild-goose\nchase,\" which is mentioned in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (ii. 4)--\"Nay, if thy\nwits run the wild-goose chase, I have done\"--was a kind of horse-race,\nwhich resembled the flight of wild geese. Two horses were started\ntogether, and whichever rider could get the lead, the other was obliged\nto follow him over whatever ground the foremost jockey chose to go. That\nhorse which could distance the other won the race. This reckless sport\nis mentioned by Burton, in his \"Anatomy of Melancholy,\" as a recreation\nmuch in vogue in his time among gentlemen. The term \"Winchester goose\"\nwas a cant phrase for a certain venereal disease, because the stews in\nSouthwark were under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Winchester, to\nwhom Gloster tauntingly applies the term in the following passage (\"1\nHenry VI.,\" i. 3):\n\n \"Winchester goose! I cry--a rope! a rope!\"\n\n [211] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 378.\n\nIn \"Troilus and Cressida\" (v. 10) there is a further allusion:\n\n \"Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss.\"\n\nBen Jonson[212] calls it:\n\n \"the Winchestrian goose,\n Bred on the banke in time of Popery,\n When Venus there maintain'd the mystery.\"\n\n [212] \"Execration against Vulcan,\" 1640, p. 37.\n\n\"Plucking geese\" was formerly a barbarous sport of boys (\"Merry Wives of\nWindsor,\" v. 1), which consisted in stripping a living goose of its\nfeathers.[213]\n\n [213] Singer's \"Notes,\" 1875, vol. i. p. 283.\n\nIn \"Coriolanus\" (i. 4), the goose is spoken of as the emblem of\ncowardice. Marcius says:\n\n \"You souls of geese,\n That bear the shapes of men, how have you run\n From slaves that apes would beat!\"\n\n_Goldfinch._ The Warwickshire name[214] for this bird is \"Proud Tailor,\"\nto which, some commentators think, the words in \"1 Henry IV.\" (iii. 1)\nrefer:\n\n \"_Lady P._ I will not sing.\n\n _Hotsp._ 'Tis the next way to turn tailor, or be red-breast teacher.\"\n\n [214] See \"Arch\u00e6ologia,\" vol. iii. p. 33.\n\nIt has, therefore, been suggested that the passage should be read thus:\n\"'Tis the next way to turn tailor, or red-breast teacher,\" _i. e._, \"to\nturn teacher of goldfinches or redbreasts.\"[215] Singer,[216] however,\nexplains the words thus: \"Tailors, like weavers, have ever been\nremarkable for their vocal skill. Percy is jocular in his mode of\npersuading his wife to sing; and this is a humorous turn which he gives\nto his argument, 'Come, sing.' 'I will not sing.' ''Tis the next [_i.\ne._, the readiest, nearest] way to turn tailor, or redbreast\nteacher'--the meaning being, to sing is to put yourself upon a level with\ntailors and teachers of birds.\"\n\n [215] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 693. Some think that the\n bullfinch is meant.\n\n [216] Singer's \"Notes,\" 1875, vol. v. p. 82; see Dyce's\n \"Glossary,\" p. 433.\n\n_Gull._ Shakespeare often uses this word as synonymous with fool. Thus\nin \"Henry V.\" (iii. 6) he says:\n\n \"Why, 'tis a gull, a fool.\"\n\nThe same play upon the word occurs in \"Othello\" (v. 2), and in \"Timon of\nAthens\" (ii. 1). In \"Twelfth Night\" (v. 1) Malvolio asks:\n\n \"Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd,\n Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,\n And made the most notorious geck and gull\n That e'er invention played on? tell me why.\"\n\nIt is also used to express a trick or imposition, as in \"Much Ado About\nNothing\" (ii. 3): \"I should think this a gull, but that the\nwhite-bearded fellow speaks it.\"[217] \"Gull-catchers,\" or\n\"gull-gropers,\" to which reference is made in \"Twelfth Night\" (ii. 5),\nwhere Fabian, on the entry of Maria, exclaims: \"Here comes my noble\ngull-catcher,\" were the names by which sharpers[218] were known in\nShakespeare's time.[219] The \"gull-catcher\" was generally an old\nusurer, who lent money to a gallant at an ordinary, who had been\nunfortunate in play.[220] Decker devotes a chapter to this character in\nhis \"Lanthorne and Candle-light,\" 1612. According to him, \"the\ngull-groper is commonly an old mony-monger, who having travailed through\nall the follyes of the world in his youth, knowes them well, and shunnes\nthem in his age, his whole felicitie being to fill his bags with golde\nand silver.\" The person so duped was termed a gull, and the trick also.\nIn that disputed passage in \"The Tempest\" (ii. 2), where Caliban,\naddressing Trinculo, says:\n\n \"sometimes I'll get thee\n Young scamels from the rock.\"\n\nsome think that the sea-mew, or sea-gull, is intended,[221] sea-mall, or\nsea-mell, being still a provincial name for this bird. Mr. Stevenson, in\nhis \"Birds of Norfolk\" (vol. ii. p. 260), tells us that \"the female\nbar-tailed godwit is called a 'scammell' by the gunners of Blakeney. But\nas this bird is not a rock-breeder,[222] it cannot be the one intended\nin the present passage, if we regard it as an accurate description from\na naturalist's point of view.\" Holt says that \"scam\" is a limpet, and\nscamell probably a diminutive. Mr. Dyce[223] reads \"scamels,\" _i. e._,\nthe kestrel, stannel, or windhover, which breeds in rocky situations and\nhigh cliffs on our coasts. He also further observes that this accords\nwell with the context \"from the rock,\" and adds that staniel or stannyel\noccurs in \"Twelfth Night\" (ii. 5), where all the old editions exhibit\nthe gross misprint \"stallion.\"\n\n [217] Some doubt exists as to the derivation of _gull_. Nares\n says it is from the old French _guiller_. Tooke holds that\n gull, guile, wile, and guilt are all from the Anglo-Saxon\n \"wiglian, gewiglian,\" that by which any one is deceived.\n Harting's \"Ornithology of Shakespeare,\" p. 267.\n\n [218] See D'Israeli's \"Curiosities of Literature,\" vol. iii. p. 84.\n\n [219] See Thornbury's \"Shakespeare's England,\" vol. i. pp. 311-322.\n\n [220] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 394.\n\n [221] Harting's \"Ornithology of Shakespeare,\" p. 269.\n\n [222] Aldis Wright's \"Notes to 'The Tempest',\" 1875, pp. 120, 121.\n\n [223] See Dyce's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. i. p. 245.\n\n_Hawk._ The diversion of catching game with hawks was very popular in\nShakespeare's time,[224] and hence, as might be expected, we find many\nscattered allusions to it throughout his plays. The training of a hawk\nfor the field was an essential part of the education of a young Saxon\nnobleman; and the present of a well-trained hawk was a gift to be\nwelcomed by a king. Edward the Confessor spent much of his leisure time\nin either hunting or hawking; and in the reign of Edward III. we read\nhow the Bishop of Ely attended the service of the church at Bermondsey,\nSouthwark, leaving his hawk in the cloister, which in the meantime was\nstolen--the bishop solemnly excommunicating the thieves. On one occasion\nHenry VIII. met with a serious accident when pursuing his hawk at\nHitchin, in Hertfordshire. In jumping over a ditch his pole broke, and\nhe fell headlong into the muddy water, whence he was with some\ndifficulty rescued by one of his followers. Sir Thomas More, writing in\nthe reign of Henry VIII., describing the state of manhood, makes a young\nman say:\n\n \"Man-hod I am, therefore I me delyght\n To hunt and hawke, to nourish up and fede\n The greyhounde to the course, the hawke to th' flight,\n And to bestryde a good and lusty stede.\"\n\n [224] See Strutt's \"Sports and Pastimes,\" 1876, pp. 60-97, and\n \"Book of Days,\" 1863, vol. ii. pp. 211-213; Smith's \"Festivals,\n Games, and Amusements,\" 1831, p. 174.\n\nIn noticing, then, Shakespeare's allusions to this sport, we have a good\ninsight into its various features, and also gain a knowledge of the\nseveral terms associated with it. Thus frequent mention is made of the\nword \"haggard\"--a wild, untrained hawk--and in the following allegory\n(\"Taming of the Shrew,\" iv. 1), where it occurs, much of the knowledge\nof falconry is comprised:\n\n \"My falcon now is sharp, and passing empty;\n And, till she stoop, she must not be full-gorged,[225]\n For then she never looks upon her lure.\n Another way I have to man my haggard,\n To make her come, and know her keeper's call;\n That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites\n That bate, and beat, and will not be obedient.\n She eat no meat to-day, nor none shall eat;\n Last night she slept not, nor to-night she shall not.\"[226]\n\n [225] \"A hawk full-fed was untractable, and refused the\n lure--the lure being a thing stuffed to look like the game the\n hawk was to pursue; its lure was to tempt him back after he had\n flown.\"\n\n [226] In the same play (iv. 2) Hortensio describes Bianca as\n \"this proud disdainful haggard.\" See Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 197;\n Cotgrave's \"French and English Dictionary,\" sub. \"Hagard;\" and\n Latham's \"Falconry,\" etc., 1658.\n\nFurther allusions occur in \"Twelfth Night\" (iii. 1), where Viola says of\nthe Clown:\n\n \"This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;\n And to do that well craves a kind of wit:\n He must observe their mood on whom he jests,\n The quality of persons, and the time;\n And, like the haggard, check at every feather\n That comes before his eye.\"\n\nIn \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (iii. 1), Hero, speaking of Beatrice, says\nthat:\n\n \"her spirits are as coy and wild\n As haggards of the rock.\"\n\nAnd Othello (iii. 3), mistrusting Desdemona, and likening her to a hawk,\nexclaims:\n\n \"if I do prove her haggard,--\n I'd whistle her off.\"[227]\n\n [227] \"To whistle off,\" or dismiss by a whistle; a hawk seems\n to have been usually sent off in this way against the wind when\n sent in pursuit of prey.\n\nThe word \"check\" alluded to above was a term in falconry applied to a\nhawk when she forsook her proper game and followed some other of\ninferior kind that crossed her in her flight[228]--being mentioned again\nin \"Hamlet\" (iv. 7), where the king says:\n\n \"If he be now return'd\n As checking at his voyage.\"[229]\n\n [228] Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 77; see \"Twelfth Night,\" ii. 5.\n\n [229] The use of the word is not quite the same here, because\n the voyage was Hamlet's \"proper game,\" which he abandons.\n \"Notes to Hamlet,\" Clark and Wright, 1876, p. 205.\n\nAnother common expression used in falconry is \"tower,\" applied to\ncertain hawks, etc., which tower aloft, soar spirally to a height in the\nair, and thence swoop upon their prey. In \"Macbeth\" (ii. 4) we read of\n\n \"A falcon, towering in her pride of place;\"\n\nin \"2 Henry VI.\" (ii. 1) Suffolk says,\n\n \"My lord protector's hawks do tower so well;\"\n\nand in \"King John\" (v. 2) the Bastard says,\n\n \"And like an eagle o'er his aery[230] towers.\"\n\n [230] See Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 456; Harting's \"Ornithology of\n Shakespeare,\" p. 39; Tuberville's \"Booke of Falconrie,\" 1611,\n p. 53.\n\nThe word \"quarry,\" which occurs several times in Shakespeare's plays, in\nsome instances means the \"game or prey sought.\" The etymology has, says\nNares, been variously attempted, but with little success. It may,\nperhaps, originally have meant the square, or enclosure (_carr\u00e9e_), into\nwhich the game was driven (as is still practised in other countries),\nand hence the application of it to the game there caught would be a\nnatural extension of the term. Randle Holme, in his \"Academy of Armory\"\n(book ii. c. xi. p. 240), defines it as \"the fowl which the hawk flyeth\nat, whether dead or alive.\" It was also equivalent to a heap of\nslaughtered game, as in the following passages. In \"Coriolanus\" (i. 1),\nCaius Marcius says:\n\n \"I'd make a quarry\n With thousands of these quarter'd slaves.\"\n\nIn \"Macbeth\" (iv. 3)[231] we read \"the quarry of these murder'd deer;\"\nand in \"Hamlet\" (v. 2), \"This quarry cries on havock.\"\n\n [231] Also in i. 2 we read:\n\n \"And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,\n Show'd like a rebel's whore.\"\n\n Some read \"quarry;\" see \"Notes to Macbeth.\" Clark and Wright,\n p. 77. It denotes the square-headed bolt of a cross-bow; see\n Douce's \"Illustrations,\" 1839, p. 227; Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol.\n ii. p. 206.\n\nAnother term in falconry is \"stoop,\" or \"swoop,\" denoting the hawk's\nviolent descent from a height upon its prey. In \"Taming of the Shrew\"\n(iv. 1) the expression occurs, \"till she stoop, she must not be\nfull-gorged.\" In \"Henry V.\" (iv. 1), King Henry, speaking of the king,\nsays, \"though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when\nthey stoop, they stoop with the like wing.\" In \"Macbeth\" (iv. 3), too,\nMacduff, referring to the cruel murder of his children, exclaims, \"What!\n... at one fell swoop?\"[232] Webster, in the \"White Devil,\"[233] says:\n\n \"If she [_i. e._, Fortune] give aught, she deals it in small parcels,\n That she may take away all at one swoop.\"\n\n [232] See Spenser's \"Fairy Queen,\" book i. canto xi. l. 18:\n\n \"Low stooping with unwieldy sway.\"\n\n [233] Ed. Dyce, 1857, p. 5.\n\nShakespeare gives many incidental allusions to the hawk's trappings.\nThus, in \"Lucrece\" he says:\n\n \"Harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells\n With trembling fear, as fowl hear falcon's bells.\"\n\nAnd in \"As You Like It\" (iii. 3),[234] Touchstone says, \"As the ox hath\nhis bow, sir, the horse his curb, and the falcon her bells, so man hath\nhis desires.\" The object of these bells was to lead the falconer to the\nhawk when in a wood or out of sight. In Heywood's play entitled \"A Woman\nKilled with Kindness,\" 1617, is a hawking scene, containing a striking\nallusion to the hawk's bells. The dress of the hawk consisted of a\nclose-fitting hood of leather or velvet, enriched with needlework, and\nsurmounted with a tuft of colored feathers, for use as well as ornament,\ninasmuch as they assisted the hand in removing the hood when the birds\nfor the hawk's attack came in sight. Thus in \"Henry V.\" (iii. 7), the\nConstable of France, referring to the valor of the Dauphin, says, \"'Tis\na hooded valour; and when it appears, it will bate.\"[235] And again, in\n\"Romeo and Juliet\" (iii. 2), Juliet says:\n\n \"Hood my unmann'd[236] blood, bating in my cheeks.\"\n\n [234] See \"3 Henry VI.\" i. 1.\n\n [235] A quibble is perhaps intended between bate, the term of\n falconry, and abate, _i. e._, fall off, dwindle. \"Bate is a\n term in falconry, to flutter the wings as preparing for flight,\n particularly at the sight of prey.\" In '1 Henry IV.' (iv. 1):\n\n \"'All plumed like estridges, that with the wind\n Bated, like eagles having lately bathed.'\"\n\n --Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 60.\n\n [236] \"Unmann'd\" was applied to a hawk not tamed.\n\nThe \"jesses\" were two short straps of leather or silk, which were\nfastened to each leg of a hawk, to which was attached a swivel, from\nwhich depended the leash or strap which the falconer[237] twisted round\nhis hand. Othello (iii. 3) says:\n\n \"Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings.\"\n\n [237] See Singer's \"Notes to Shakespeare,\" 1875, vol. x. p. 86;\n Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 448.\n\nWe find several allusions to the training of hawks.[238] They were\nusually trained by being kept from sleep, it having been customary for\nthe falconers to sit up by turns and \"watch\" the hawk, and keep it from\nsleeping, sometimes for three successive nights. Desdemona, in \"Othello\"\n(iii. 3), says:\n\n \"my lord shall never rest;\n I'll watch him tame and talk him out of patience;\n His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift;\n I'll intermingle everything he does\n With Cassio's suit.\"\n\n [238] See passage in \"Taming of the Shrew,\" iv. 1, already\n referred to, p. 122.\n\nSo, in Cartwright's \"Lady Errant\" (ii. 2):\n\n \"We'll keep you as they do hawks,\n Watching until you leave your wildness.\"\n\nIn \"The Merry Wives of Windsor\" (v. 5), where Page says,\n\n \"Nay, do not fly: I think we have watch'd you now,\"\n\nthe allusion is, says Staunton, to this method employed to tame or\n\"reclaim\" hawks.\n\nAgain, in \"Othello\" (iii. 3),[239] Iago exclaims:\n\n \"She that, so young, could give out such a seeming,\n To seel her father's eyes up close as oak;\"\n\nin allusion to the practice of seeling a hawk, or sewing up her eyelids,\nby running a fine thread through them, in order to make her tractable\nand endure the hood of which we have already spoken.[240] King Henry (\"2\nHenry IV.\" iii. 1), in his soliloquy on sleep, says:\n\n \"Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast\n Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains\n In cradle of the rude imperious surge.\"\n\n [239] Also in same play, i. 3.\n\n [240] Turbervile, in his \"Booke of Falconrie,\" 1575, gives some\n curious directions as \"how to seele a hawke;\" we may compare\n similar expressions in \"Antony and Cleopatra,\" iii. 13; v. 2.\n\nIn Spenser's \"Fairy Queen\" (I. vii. 23), we read:\n\n \"Mine eyes no more on vanity shall feed,\n But sealed up with death, shall have their deadly meed.\"\n\nIt was a common notion that if a dove was let loose with its eyes so\nclosed it would fly straight upwards, continuing to mount till it fell\ndown through mere exhaustion.[241]\n\n [241] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. pp. 777, 778; cf. Beaumont\n and Fletcher, \"Philaster,\" v. 1.\n\nIn \"Cymbeline\" (iii. 4), Imogen, referring to Posthumus, says:\n\n \"I grieve myself\n To think, when thou shalt be disedged by her\n That now thou tir'st on,\"--\n\nthis passage containing two metaphorical expressions from falconry. A\nbird was said to be _disedged_ when the keenness of its appetite was\ntaken away by _tiring_, or feeding upon some tough or hard substance\ngiven to it for that purpose. In \"3 Henry VI.\" (i. 1), the king says:\n\n \"that hateful duke,\n Whose haughty spirit, winged with desire,\n Will cost my crown, and like an empty eagle\n Tire on the flesh of me and of my son.\"\n\nIn \"Timon of Athens\" (iii. 6), one of the lords says: \"Upon that were\nmy thoughts tiring, when we encountered.\"\n\nIn \"Venus and Adonis,\" too, we find a further allusion:\n\n \"Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast,\n Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh, and bone,\" etc.\n\nAmong other allusions to the hawk may be mentioned one in \"Measure for\nMeasure\" (iii. 1):\n\n \"This outward-sainted deputy,\n Whose settled visage and deliberate word\n Nips youth i' the head, and follies doth _emmew_,\n As falcon doth the fowl\"\n\n--the word \"emmew\" signifying the place where hawks were shut up during\nthe time they moulted. In \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iii. 4), Lady Capulet says\nof Juliet:\n\n \"To-night she's mew'd up to her heaviness;\"\n\nand in \"Taming of the Shrew\" (i. 1), Gremio, speaking of Bianca to\nSignor Baptista, says: \"Why will you mew her?\"\n\nWhen the wing or tail feathers of a hawk were dropped, forced out, or\nbroken, by any accident, it was usual to supply or repair as many as\nwere deficient or damaged, an operation called \"to imp[242] a hawk.\"\nThus, in \"Richard II.\" (ii. 1), Northumberland says:\n\n \"If, then, we shall shake off our slavish yoke,\n Imp out our drooping country's broken wing.\"\n\n [242] Imp, from Anglo-Saxon, _impan_, to graft. Turbervile has\n a whole chapter on \"The way and manner how to ympe a hawke's\n feather, howsoever it be broken or bruised.\"\n\nSo Massinger, in his \"Renegado\" (v. 8), makes Asambeg say:\n\n \"strive to imp\n New feathers to the broken wings of time.\"\n\nHawking was sometimes called birding.[243] In the \"Merry Wives of\nWindsor\" (iii. 3) Master Page says: \"I do invite you to-morrow morning\nto my house to breakfast; after, we'll a-birding together, I have a\nfine hawk for the bush.\" In the same play (iii. 5) Dame Quickly,\nspeaking of Mistress Ford, says: \"Her husband goes this morning\na-birding;\" and Mistress Ford says (iv. 2): \"He's a-birding, sweet Sir\nJohn.\" The word hawk, says Mr. Harting, is invariably used by\nShakespeare in its generic sense; and in only two instances does he\nallude to a particular species. These are the kestrel and sparrow-hawk.\nIn \"Twelfth Night\" (ii. 5) Sir Toby Belch, speaking of Malvolio, as he\nfinds the letter which Maria has purposely dropped in his path, says:\n\n \"And with what wing the staniel[244] checks at it\"\n\n--staniel being a corruption of stangdall, a name for the kestrel\nhawk.[245] \"Gouts\" is the technical term for the spots on some parts of\nthe plumage of a hawk, and perhaps Shakespeare uses the word in allusion\nto a phrase in heraldry. Macbeth (ii. 1), speaking of the dagger, says:\n\n \"I see thee still,\n And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood.\"\n\n [243] Harting's \"Ornithology of Shakspeare,\" p. 72.\n\n [244] The reading of the folios here is stallion; but the word\n wing, and the falconer's term _checks_, prove that the bird\n must be meant. See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 832.\n\n [245] See kestrel and sparrow-hawk.\n\n_Heron._ This bird was frequently flown at by falconers. Shakespeare, in\n\"Hamlet\" (ii. 2), makes Hamlet say, \"I am but mad north-north-west; when\nthe wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw;\" handsaw being a\ncorruption of \"heronshaw,\" or \"hernsew,\" which is still used, in the\nprovincial dialects, for a heron. In Suffolk and Norfolk it is\npronounced \"harnsa,\" from which to \"handsaw\" is but a single step.[246]\nShakespeare here alludes to a proverbial saying, \"He knows not a hawk\nfrom a handsaw.\"[247] Mr. J. C. Heath[248] explains the passage thus:\n\"The expression obviously refers to the sport of hawking. Most birds,\nespecially one of heavy flight like the heron, when roused by the\nfalconer or his dog, would fly down or with the wind, in order to\nescape. When the wind is from the north the heron flies towards the\nsouth, and the spectator may be dazzled by the sun, and be unable to\ndistinguish the hawk from the heron. On the other hand, when the wind is\nsoutherly the heron flies towards the north, and it and the pursuing\nhawk are clearly seen by the sportsman, who then has his back to the\nsun, and without difficulty knows the hawk from the hernsew.\"\n\n [246] \"Notes to Hamlet,\" Clark and Wright, 1876, p. 159.\n\n [247] Ray's \"Proverbs,\" 1768, p. 196.\n\n [248] Quoted in \"Notes to Hamlet,\" by Clark and Wright, p. 159;\n see Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 416.\n\n_Jay._ From its gay and gaudy plumage this bird has been used for a\nloose woman, as \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (iii. 3): \"we'll teach him to\nknow turtles from jays,\" _i. e._, to distinguish honest women from loose\nones. Again, in \"Cymbeline\" (iii. 4), Imogen says:\n\n \"Some jay of Italy,\n Whose mother was her painting,[249] hath betray'd him.\"\n\n [249] That is, made by art: the creature not of nature, but of\n painting; cf. \"Taming of the Shrew,\" iv. 3; \"The Tempest,\" ii. 2.\n\n_Kestrel._ A hawk of a base, unserviceable breed,[250] and therefore\nused by Spenser, in his \"Fairy Queen\" (II. iii. 4), to signify base:\n\n \"Ne thought of honour ever did assay\n His baser breast, but in his kestrell kynd\n A pleasant veine of glory he did fynd.\"\n\n [250] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 482.\n\nBy some[251] it is derived from \"coystril,\" a knave or peasant, from\nbeing the hawk formerly used by persons of inferior rank. Thus, in\n\"Twelfth Night\" (i. 3), we find \"coystrill,\" and in \"Pericles\" (iv. 6)\n\"coystrel.\" The name kestrel, says Singer,[252] for an inferior kind of\nhawk, was evidently a corruption of the French _quercelle_ or\n_quercerelle_, and originally had no connection with coystril, though in\nlater times they may have been confounded. Holinshed[253] classes\ncoisterels with lackeys and women, the unwarlike attendants on an army.\nThe term was also given as a nickname to the emissaries employed by the\nkings of England in their French wars. Dyce[254] also considers kestrel\ndistinct from coistrel.\n\n [251] Harting's \"Ornithology of Shakespeare,\" p. 74.\n\n [252] \"Notes,\" vol. iii. pp. 357, 358.\n\n [253] \"Description of England,\" vol. i. p. 162.\n\n [254] \"Glossary to Shakespeare,\" p. 88.\n\n_Kingfisher._ It was a common belief in days gone by that during the\ndays the halcyon or kingfisher was engaged in hatching her eggs, the sea\nremained so calm that the sailor might venture upon it without incurring\nrisk of storm or tempest; hence this period was called by Pliny and\nAristotle \"the halcyon days,\" to which allusion is made in \"1 Henry VI.\"\n(i. 2):\n\n \"Expect Saint Martin's summer, halcyon days.\"\n\nDryden also refers to this notion:\n\n \"Amidst our arms as quiet you shall be,\n As halcyons brooding on a winter's sea.\"\n\nAnother superstition connected with this bird occurs in \"King Lear\" (ii.\n2), where the Earl of Kent says:\n\n \"turn their halcyon beaks\n With every gale and vary of their masters;\"\n\nthe prevalent idea being that a dead kingfisher, suspended from a cord,\nwould always turn its beak in that direction from whence the wind blew.\nMarlowe, in his \"Jew of Malta\" (i. 1), says:\n\n \"But now how stands the wind?\n Into what corner peers my halcyon's bill?\"\n\nOccasionally one may still see this bird hung up in cottages, a remnant,\nno doubt, of this old superstition.[255]\n\n [255] Sir Thomas Browne's \"Vulgar Errors,\" bk. iii. chap. 10.\n\n_Kite._ This bird was considered by the ancients to be unlucky. In\n\"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (v. 1) Cassius says:\n\n \"ravens, crows, and kites,\n Fly o'er our heads, and downward look on us.\"\n\nIn \"Cymbeline\" (i. 2), too, Imogen says,\n\n \"I chose an eagle,\n And did avoid a puttock,\"\n\nputtock, here, being a synonym sometimes applied to the kite.[256]\nFormerly the kite became a term of reproach from its ignoble habits.\nThus, in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (iii. 13), Antony exclaims, \"you kite!\"\nand King Lear (i. 4) says to Goneril, \"Detested kite! thou liest.\" Its\nintractable disposition is alluded to in \"Taming of the Shrew,\" by\nPetruchio (iv. 1). A curious peculiarity of this bird is noticed in\n\"Winter's Tale\" (iv. 3), where Autolycus says: \"My traffic is sheets;\nwhen the kite builds, look to lesser linen\"--meaning that his practice\nwas to steal sheets; leaving the smaller linen to be carried away by the\nkites, who will occasionally carry it off to line their nests.[257] Mr.\nDyce[258] quotes the following remarks of Mr. Peck on this passage:\n\"Autolycus here gives us to understand that he is a thief of the first\nclass. This he explains by an allusion to an odd vulgar notion. The\ncommon people, many of them, think that if any one can find a kite's\nnest when she hath young, before they are fledged, and sew up their back\ndoors, so as they cannot mute, the mother-kite, in compassion to their\ndistress, will steal lesser linen, as caps, cravats, ruffles, or any\nother such small matters as she can best fly with, from off the hedges\nwhere they are hanged to dry after washing, and carry them to her nest,\nand there leave them, if possible to move the pity of the first comer,\nto cut the thread and ease them of their misery.\"\n\n [256] Also to the buzzard, which see, p. 100.\n\n [257] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. iv. p. 67.\n\n [258] \"Glossary,\" p. 243.\n\n_Lapwing._ Several interesting allusions are made by Shakespeare to this\neccentric bird. It was a common notion that the young lapwings ran out\nof the shell with part of it sticking on their heads, in such haste were\nthey to be hatched. Horatio (\"Hamlet,\" v. 2) says of Osric: \"This\nlapwing runs away with the shell on his head.\"\n\nIt was, therefore, regarded as the symbol of a forward fellow.\nWebster,[259] in the \"White Devil\" (1857, p. 13), says:\n\n \"forward lapwing!\n He flies with the shell on's head.\"\n\n [259] \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 495; see Yarrell's \"History of\n British Birds,\" 2d edition, vol. ii. p. 482.\n\nThe lapwing, like the partridge, is also said to draw pursuers from her\nnest by fluttering along the ground in an opposite direction or by\ncrying in other places. Thus, in the \"Comedy of Errors\" (iv. 2),\nShakespeare says:\n\n \"Far from her nest the lapwing cries away.\"\n\nAgain, in \"Measure for Measure\" (i. 4), Lucio exclaims:\n\n \"though 'tis my familiar sin,\n With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest,\n Tongue far from heart.\"\n\nOnce more, in \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (iii. 1), we read:\n\n \"For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs,\n Close by the ground, to hear our conference.\"\n\nSeveral, too, of our older poets refer to this peculiarity. In Ben\nJonson's \"Underwoods\" (lviii.) we are told:\n\n \"Where he that knows will like a lapwing fly,\n Farre from the nest, and so himself belie.\"\n\nThrough thus alluring intruders from its nest, the lapwing became a\nsymbol of insincerity; and hence originated the proverb, \"The lapwing\ncries tongue from heart,\" or, \"The lapwing cries most, farthest from her\nnest.\"[260]\n\n [260] Ray's \"Proverbs,\" 1768, p. 199.\n\n_Lark._ Shakespeare has bequeathed to us many exquisite passages\nreferring to the lark, full of the most sublime pathos and lofty\nconceptions. Most readers are doubtless acquainted with that superb song\nin \"Cymbeline\" (ii. 3), where this sweet songster is represented as\nsinging \"at heaven's gate;\" and again, as the bird of dawn, it is\ndescribed in \"Venus and Adonis,\" thus:\n\n \"Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest,\n From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,\n And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast\n The sun ariseth in his majesty.\"[261]\n\n [261] Cf. \"Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (iv. 1). \"the morning\n lark;\" \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iii. 5), \"the lark, the herald of\n the morn.\"\n\nIn \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 2, song) we have a graphic touch of\npastoral life:\n\n \"When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,\n And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks.\"\n\nThe words of Portia, too, in \"Merchant of Venice\" (v. 1), to sing \"as\nsweetly as the lark,\" have long ago passed into a proverb.\n\nIt was formerly a current saying that the lark and toad changed eyes, to\nwhich Juliet refers in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iii. 5):\n\n \"Some say, the lark and loathed toad change eyes;\"\n\nWarburton says this popular fancy originated in the toad having very\nfine eyes, and the lark very ugly ones. This tradition was formerly\nexpressed in a rustic rhyme:\n\n \"to heav'n I'd fly,\n But that the toad beguil'd me of mine eye.\"\n\nIn \"Henry VIII.\" (iii. 2) the Earl of Surrey, in denouncing Wolsey,\nalludes to a curious method of capturing larks, which was effected by\nsmall mirrors and red cloth. These, scaring the birds, made them crouch,\nwhile the fowler drew his nets over them:\n\n \"let his grace go forward,\n And dare us with his cap, like larks.\"\n\nIn this case the cap was the scarlet hat of the cardinal, which it was\nintended to use as a piece of red cloth. The same idea occurs in\nSkelton's \"Why Come Ye not to Court?\" a satire on Wolsey:\n\n \"The red hat with his lure\n Bringeth all things under cure.\"\n\nThe words \"tirra-lirra\" (\"Winter's Tale,\" iv. 3) are a fanciful\ncombination of sounds,[262] meant to imitate the lark's note; borrowed,\nsays Nares, from the French _tire-lire_. Browne, \"British Pastorals\"\n(bk. i. song 4), makes it \"teery-leery.\" In one of the Coventry pageants\nthere is the following old song sung by the shepherds at the birth of\nChrist, which contains the expression:\n\n \"As I out rode this endenes night,\n Of three joli sheppards I sawe a syght,\n And all aboute there fold a stare shone bright,\n They sang terli terlow,\n So mereli the sheppards their pipes can blow.\"\n\n [262] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 886; Douce's\n \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, p. 217.\n\nIn Scotland[263] and the north of England the peasantry say that if one\nis desirous of knowing what the lark says, he must lie down on his back\nin the field and listen, and he will then hear it say:\n\n \"Up in the lift go we,\n Tehee, tehee, tehee, tehee!\n There's not a shoemaker on the earth\n Can make a shoe to me, to me!\n Why so, why so, why so?\n Because my heel is as long as my toe.\"\n\n [263] Chambers's \"Popular Rhymes of Scotland,\" 1870, p. 192.\n\n_Magpie._ It was formerly known as magot-pie, probably from the French\n_magot_, a monkey, because the bird chatters and plays droll tricks like\na monkey. It has generally been regarded with superstitious awe as a\nmysterious bird,[264] and is thus alluded to in \"Macbeth\" (iii. 4):\n\n \"Augurs and understood relations, have\n By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth\n The secret'st man of blood.\"\n\n [264] See \"English Folk-Lore,\" p. 81.\n\nAnd again, in \"3 Henry VI.\" (v. 6), it is said:\n\n \"chattering pies in dismal discords sung.\"\n\nThere are numerous rhymes[265] relating to the magpie, of which we\nsubjoin, as a specimen, one prevalent in the north of England:\n\n \"One is sorrow, two mirth,\n Three a wedding, four a birth,\n Five heaven, six hell,\n Seven the de'il's ain sell.\"\n\n [265] Henderson's \"Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,\" p. 127.\n\nIn Devonshire, in order to avert the ill-luck from seeing a magpie, the\npeasant spits over his right shoulder three times, and in Yorkshire\nvarious charms are in use. One is to raise the hat as a salutation, and\nthen to sign the cross on the breast; and another consists in making the\nsame sign by crossing the thumbs. It is a common notion in Scotland that\nmagpies flying near the windows of a house portend a speedy death to one\nof its inmates. The superstitions associated with the magpie are not\nconfined to this country, for in Sweden[266] it is considered the\nwitch's bird, belonging to the evil one and the other powers of night.\nIn Denmark, when a magpie perches on a house it is regarded as a sign\nthat strangers are coming.\n\n [266] Thorpe's \"Northern Mythology,\" vol. ii. p. 34; Brand's\n \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, pp. 215, 216; see also Harland and\n Wilkinson's \"Lancashire Folk-Lore,\" 1867, pp. 143, 145.\n\n_Martin._ The martin, or martlet, which is called in \"Macbeth\" (i. 6)\nthe \"guest of summer,\" as being a migratory bird, has been from the\nearliest times treated with superstitious respect--it being considered\nunlucky to molest or in any way injure its nest. Thus, in the \"Merchant\nof Venice\" (ii. 9), the Prince of Arragon says:\n\n \"the martlet\n Builds in the weather, on the outward wall,\n Even in the force and road of casualty.\"\n\nForster[267] says that the circumstance of this bird's nest being built\nso close to the habitations of man indicates that it has long enjoyed\nfreedom from molestation. There is a popular rhyme still current in the\nnorth of England:\n\n \"The martin and the swallow\n Are God Almighty's bow and arrow.\"\n\n [267] \"Atmospherical Researches,\" 1823, p. 262.\n\n_Nightingale._ The popular error that the nightingale sings with its\nbreast impaled upon a thorn is noticed by Shakespeare, who makes Lucrece\nsay:\n\n \"And whiles against a thorn thou bear'st thy part\n To keep thy sharp woes waking.\"\n\nIn the \"Passionate Pilgrim\" (xxi.) there is an allusion:\n\n \"Everything did banish moan,\n Save the nightingale alone.\n She, poor bird, as all forlorn,\n Lean'd her breast up-till a thorn,\n And there sung the dolefull'st ditty,\n That to hear it was great pity.\"\n\nBeaumont and Fletcher, in \"The Faithful Shepherdess\" (v. 3), speak of\n\n \"The nightingale among the thick-leaved spring,\n That sits alone in sorrow, and doth sing\n Whole nights away in mourning.\"\n\nSir Thomas Browne[268] asks \"Whether the nightingale's sitting with her\nbreast against a thorn be any more than that she placeth some prickles\non the outside of her nest, or roosteth in thorny, prickly places, where\nserpents may least approach her?\"[269] In the \"Zoologist\" for 1862 the\nRev. A. C. Smith mentions \"the discovery, on two occasions, of a strong\nthorn projecting upwards in the centre of the nightingale's nest.\"\nAnother notion is that the nightingale never sings by day; and thus\nPortia, in \"Merchant of Venice\" (v. 1), says:\n\n \"I think,\n The nightingale, if she should sing by day,\n When every goose is cackling, would be thought\n No better a musician than the wren.\"\n\n [268] Sir Thomas Browne's Works, 1852, vol. i. p. 378.\n\n [269] See \"Book of Days,\" vol. i. p. 515.\n\nSuch, however, is not the case, for this bird often sings as sweetly in\nthe day as at night-time. There is an old superstition[270] that the\nnightingale sings all night, to keep itself awake, lest the glow-worm\nshould devour her. The classical fable[271] of the unhappy Philomela\nturned into a nightingale, when her sister Progne was changed to a\nswallow, has doubtless given rise to this bird being spoken of as _she_;\nthus Juliet tells Romeo (iii. 5):\n\n \"It was the nightingale, and not the lark,\n That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear;\n Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree;\n Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.\"\n\n [270] Southey's \"Commonplace Book.\" 5th series. 1851, p. 305.\n\n [271] Ovid's \"Metamorphoses,\" bk. vi. ll. 455-676; \"Titus\n Andronicus,\" iv. 1.\n\nSometimes the nightingale is termed Philomel, as in \"Midsummer-Night's\nDream\" (ii. 2, song):[272]\n\n \"Philomel, with melody,\n Sing in our sweet lullaby.\"\n\n [272] Cf. \"Lucrece,\" ll. 1079, 1127.\n\n_Osprey._ This bird,[273] also called the sea-eagle, besides having a\ndestructive power of devouring fish, was supposed formerly to have a\nfascinating influence, both which qualities are alluded to in the\nfollowing passage in \"Coriolanus\" (iv. 7):\n\n \"I think he'll be to Rome,\n As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it\n By sovereignty of nature.\"\n\n [273] See Yarrell's \"History of British Birds,\" 1856, vol. i.\n p. 30; Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 620; also Pennant's\n \"British Zoology;\" see Peele's Play of the \"Battle of Alcazar\"\n (ii. 3), 1861, p. 28.\n\nDrayton, in his \"Polyolbion\" (song xxv.), mentions the same fascinating\npower of the osprey:\n\n \"The osprey, oft here seen, though seldom here it breeds,\n Which over them the fish no sooner do espy,\n But, betwixt him and them by an antipathy,\n Turning their bellies up, as though their death they saw,\n They at his pleasure lie, to stuff his gluttonous maw.\"\n\n_Ostrich._ The extraordinary digestion of this bird[274] is said to be\nshown by its swallowing iron and other hard substances.[275] In \"2 Henry\nVI.\" (iv. 10), the rebel Cade says to Alexander Iden: \"Ah, villain, thou\nwilt betray me, and get a thousand crowns of the king by carrying my\nhead to him; but I'll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my\nsword like a great pin, ere thou and I part.\" Cuvier,[276] speaking of\nthis bird, says, \"It is yet so voracious, and its senses of taste and\nsmell are so obtuse, that it devours animal and mineral substances\nindiscriminately, until its enormous stomach is completely full. It\nswallows without any choice, and merely as it were to serve for ballast,\nwood, stones, grass, iron, copper, gold, lime, or, in fact, any other\nsubstance equally hard, indigestible, and deleterious.\" Sir Thomas\nBrowne,[277] writing on this subject, says, \"The ground of this conceit\nin its swallowing down fragments of iron, which men observing, by a\nforward illation, have therefore conceived it digesteth them, which is\nan inference not to be admitted, as being a fallacy of the consequent.\"\nIn Loudon's \"Magazine of Natural History\" (No. 6, p. 32) we are told of\nan ostrich having been killed by swallowing glass.\n\n [274] Called _estridge_ in \"1 Henry IV.\" iv. 1.\n\n [275] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. p. 365.\n\n [276] \"Animal Kingdom,\" 1829, vol. viii. p. 427.\n\n [277] See Sir Thomas Browne's Works, 1852, vol. i. pp. 334-337.\n\n_Owl._ The dread attached to this unfortunate bird is frequently spoken\nof by Shakespeare, who has alluded to several of the superstitions\nassociated with it. At the outset, many of the epithets ascribed to it\nshow the prejudice with which it was regarded--being in various places\nstigmatized as \"the vile owl,\" in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (ii. I); and\nthe \"obscure bird,\" in \"Macbeth\" (ii. 3), etc. From the earliest period\nit has been considered a bird of ill-omen, and Pliny tells us how, on\none occasion, even Rome itself underwent a lustration, because one of\nthem strayed into the Capitol. He represents it also as a funereal bird,\na monster of the night, the very abomination of human kind. Vergil[278]\ndescribes its death-howl from the top of the temple by night, a\ncircumstance introduced as a precursor of Dido's death. Ovid,[279] too,\nconstantly speaks of this bird's presence as an evil omen; and indeed\nthe same notions respecting it may be found among the writings of most\nof the ancient poets. This superstitious awe in which the owl is held\nmay be owing to its peculiar look, its occasional and uncertain\nappearance, its loud and dismal cry,[280] as well as to its being the\nbird of night.[281] It has generally been associated with calamities and\ndeeds of darkness.[282] Thus, its weird shriek pierces the ear of Lady\nMacbeth (ii. 2), while the murder is being committed:\n\n \"Hark!--Peace!\n It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,\n Which gives the stern'st good night.\"\n\n [278] \"\u00c6neid,\" bk. iv. l. 462.\n\n [279] \"Metamorphoses,\" bk. v. l. 550; bk. vi. l. 432; bk. x. l.\n 453; bk. xv. l. 791.\n\n [280] \"2 Henry VI.\" iii. 2; iv. 1.\n\n [281] \"Titus Andronicus,\" ii. 3.\n\n [282] Cf. \"Lucrece,\" l. 165; see Yarrell's \"History of British\n Birds,\" vol. i. p. 122.\n\nAnd when the murderer rushes in, exclaiming,\n\n \"I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?\"\n\nshe answers:\n\n \"I heard the owl scream.\"\n\nIts appearance at a birth has been said to foretell ill-luck to the\ninfant, a superstition to which King Henry, in \"3 Henry VI.\" (v. 6),\naddressing Gloster, refers:\n\n \"The owl shriek'd at thy birth, an evil sign.\"\n\nIts cries[283] have been supposed to presage death, and, to quote the\nwords of the _Spectator_, \"a screech-owl at midnight has alarmed a\nfamily more than a band of robbers.\" Thus, in \"A Midsummer-Night's\nDream\" (v. 1), we are told how\n\n \"the screech-owl, screeching loud,\n Puts the wretch that lies in woe\n In remembrance of a shroud;\"\n\nand in \"1 Henry VI.\" (iv. 2), it is called the \"ominous and fearful owl\nof death.\" Again, in \"Richard III.\" (iv. 4), where Richard is\nexasperated by the bad news, he interrupts the third messenger by\nsaying:\n\n \"Out on ye, owls! nothing but songs of death?\"\n\n [283] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. p. 209.\n\nThe owl by day is considered by some equally ominous, as in \"3 Henry\nVI.\" (v. 4):\n\n \"the owl by day,\n If he arise, is mock'd and wonder'd at.\"\n\nAnd in \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (i. 3), Casca says:\n\n \"And yesterday the bird of night did sit,\n Even at noon-day, upon the market-place,\n Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies\n Do so conjointly meet, let not men say,\n 'These are their reasons,--they are natural;'\n For, I believe, they are portentous things\n Unto the climate that they point upon.\"\n\nConsidering, however, the abhorrence with which the owl is generally\nregarded, it is not surprising that the \"owlet's wing\"[284] should form\nan ingredient of the caldron in which the witches in \"Macbeth\" (iv. 1)\nprepared their \"charm of powerful trouble.\" The owl is, too, in all\nprobability, represented by Shakespeare as a witch,[285] a companion of\nthe fairies in their moonlight gambols. In \"Comedy of Errors\" (ii. 2),\nDromio of Syracuse says:\n\n \"This is the fairy land: O, spite of spites!\n We talk with goblins, owls, and elvish sprites.\n If we obey them not, this will ensue,\n They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue!\"\n\n [284] The spelling of the folios is \"howlets.\" In Holland's\n translation of Pliny (chap. xvii. book x.), we read \"of owlls\n or howlets.\" Cotgrave gives \"Hulotte.\"\n\n [285] Halliwell-Phillipps's, \"Handbook Index,\" 1866, p. 354.\n\nSinger, in his Notes on this passage (vol. ii. p. 28) says: \"It has been\nasked, how should Shakespeare know that screech-owls were considered by\nthe Romans as witches?\" Do these cavillers think that Shakespeare never\nlooked into a book? Take an extract from the Cambridge Latin Dictionary\n(1594, 8vo), probably the very book he used: \"Strix, a _scritche owle_;\nan unluckie kind of bird (as they of olde time said) which sucked out\nthe blood of infants lying in their cradles; a witch, that changeth the\nfavour of children; an hagge or fairie.\" So in the \"London Prodigal,\" a\ncomedy, 1605: \"Soul, I think I am sure crossed or witch'd with an\nowl.\"[286] In \"The Tempest\" (v. 1) Shakespeare introduces Ariel as\nsaying:\n\n \"Where the bee sucks, there suck I,\n In a cowslip's bell I lie,\n There I couch when owls do cry.\"\n\n [286] See Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 302.\n\nAriel,[287] who sucks honey for luxury in the cowslip's bell, retreats\nthither for quiet when owls are abroad and screeching. According to an\nold legend, the owl was originally a baker's daughter, to which allusion\nis made in \"Hamlet\" (iv. 5), where Ophelia exclaims: \"They say the owl\nwas a baker's daughter. Lord! we know what we are, but know not what we\nmay be.\" Douce[288] says the following story was current among the\nGloucestershire peasantry: \"Our Saviour went into a baker's shop where\nthey were baking, and asked for some bread to eat; the mistress of the\nshop immediately put a piece of dough into the oven to bake for him; but\nwas reprimanded by her daughter, who, insisting that the piece of dough\nwas too large, reduced it to a very small size; the dough, however,\nimmediately began to swell, and presently became a most enormous size,\nwhereupon the baker's daughter cried out, 'Heugh, heugh, heugh!' which\nowl-like noise probably induced our Saviour to transform her into that\nbird for her wickedness.\" Another version of the same story, as formerly\nknown in Herefordshire, substitutes a fairy in the place of our Saviour.\nSimilar legends are found on the Continent.[289]\n\n [287] See Singer's \"Notes to The Tempest,\" 1875, vol. i. p. 82.\n\n [288] See _Gentleman's Magazine_, November, 1804, pp. 1083,\n 1084. Grimm's \"Deutsche Mythologie.\"\n\n [289] See Dasent's \"Tales of the Norse,\" 1859, p. 230.\n\n_Parrot._ The \"popinjay,\" in \"1 Henry IV.\" (i. 3), is another name for\nthe parrot--from the Spanish _papagayo_--a term which occurs in Browne's\n\"Pastorals\" (ii. 65):\n\n \"Or like the mixture nature dothe display\n Upon the quaint wings of the popinjay.\"\n\nIts supposed restlessness before rain is referred to in \"As You Like It\"\n(iv. 1): \"More clamorous than a parrot against rain.\" It was formerly\ncustomary to teach the parrot unlucky words, with which, when any one\nwas offended, it was the standing joke of the wise owner to say, \"Take\nheed, sir, my parrot prophesies\"--an allusion to which custom we find in\n\"Comedy of Errors\" (iv. 4), where Dromio of Ephesus says: \"prophesy like\nthe parrot, _beware the rope's end_.\" To this Butler hints, where,\nspeaking of Ralpho's skill in augury, he says:[290]\n\n \"Could tell what subtlest parrots mean,\n That speak and think contrary clean;\n What member 'tis of whom they talk,\n When they cry _rope_, and _walk, knave, walk_.\"\n\n [290] \"Hudibras,\" pt. i. ch. i.\n\nThe rewards given to parrots to encourage them to speak are mentioned in\n\"Troilus and Cressida\" (v. 2):[291] \"the parrot will not do more for an\nalmond.\" Hence, a proverb for the greatest temptation that could be put\nbefore a man seems to have been \"An almond for a parrot.\" To \"talk like\na parrot\" is a common proverb, a sense in which it occurs in \"Othello\"\n(ii. 3).\n\n [291] In \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (i. 1), Benedick likens\n Beatrice to a \"parrot-teacher,\" from her talkative powers.\n\n_Peacock._ This bird was as proverbially used for a proud, vain fool as\nthe lapwing for a silly one. In this sense some would understand it in\nthe much-disputed passage in \"Hamlet\" (iii. 2):\n\n \"For thou dost know, O Damon dear,\n This realm dismantled was\n Of Jove himself; and now reigns here\n A very, very--peacock.\"[292]\n\n [292] This is the reading adopted by Singer.\n\nThe third and fourth folios read _pajock_,[293] the other editions have\n\"paiock,\" \"paiocke,\" or \"pajocke,\" and in the later quartos the word was\nchanged to \"paicock\" and \"pecock,\" whence Pope printed peacock.\n\n [293] \"Notes to Hamlet,\" Clark and Wright, 1876, pp. 179, 180.\n\nDyce says that in Scotland the peacock is called the peajock. Some have\nproposed to read _paddock_, and in the last scene Hamlet bestows this\nopprobrious name upon the king. It has been also suggested to read\n_puttock_, a kite.[294] The peacock has also been regarded as the emblem\nof pride and arrogance, as in \"1 Henry VI.\" (iii. 3):[295]\n\n \"Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while,\n And, like a peacock, sweep along his tail;\n We'll pull his plumes, and take away his train.\"\n\n [294] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 645; Singer's\n \"Notes,\" vol. ix. p. 228.\n\n [295] Cf. \"Troilus and Cressida,\" iii. 3.\n\n_Pelican._ There are several allusions by Shakespeare to the pelican's\npiercing her own breast to feed her young. Thus, in \"Hamlet\" (iv. 5),\nLaertes says:\n\n \"To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms;\n And like the kind life-rendering pelican,\n Repast them with my blood.\"\n\nAnd in \"King Lear,\" where the young pelicans are represented as piercing\ntheir mother's breast to drink her blood, an illustration of filial\nimpiety (iii. 4), the king says:\n\n \"Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers\n Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?\n Judicious punishment! 'Twas this flesh begot\n Those pelican daughters.\"[296]\n\n [296] Cf. \"Richard II.\" i. 1.\n\nIt is a common notion that the fable here alluded to is a classical one,\nbut this is an error. Shakespeare, says Mr. Harting, \"was content to\naccept the story as he found it, and to apply it metaphorically as the\noccasion required.\" Mr. Houghton, in an interesting letter to \"Land and\nWater\"[297] on this subject, remarks that the Egyptians believed in a\nbird feeding its young with its blood, and this bird is none other than\nthe vulture. He goes on to say that the fable of the pelican doubtless\noriginated in the Patristic annotations on the Scriptures. The\necclesiastical Fathers transferred the Egyptian story from the vulture\nto the pelican, but magnified the story a hundredfold, for the blood of\nthe parent was not only supposed to serve as food for the young, but was\nalso able to reanimate the dead offspring. Augustine, commenting on\nPsalm cii. 6--\"I am like a pelican of the wilderness\"--remarks: \"These\nbirds [male pelicans] are said to kill their offspring by blows of their\nbeaks, and then to bewail their death for the space of three days. At\nlength, however, it is said that the mother inflicts a severe wound on\nherself, pouring the flowing blood over the dead young ones, which\ninstantly brings them to life.\" To the same effect write Eustathius,\nIsidorus, Epiphanius, and a host of other writers.[298]\n\n [297] Mr. Harting, in his \"Ornithology of Shakespeare,\" quotes\n an interesting correspondence from \"Land and Water\" (1869), on\n the subject.\n\n [298] See Sir Thomas Browne's Works, 1852, vol. ii. pp. 1-4.\n\nAccording to another idea[299] pelicans are hatched dead, but the cock\npelican then wounds his breast, and lets one drop of blood fall upon\neach, and this quickens them.\n\n [299] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. pp. 366, 367.\n\n_Pheasant._ This bird is only once alluded to, in \"Winter's Tale\" (iv.\n4), where the Clown jokingly says to the Shepherd, \"Advocate's the\ncourt-word for a pheasant; say, you have none.\"\n\n_Phoenix._ Many allusions are made to this fabulous bird, which is said\nto rise again from its own ashes. Thus, in \"Henry VIII.\" (v. 4), Cranmer\ntells how\n\n \"when\n The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix,\n Her ashes new create another heir,\n As great in admiration as herself.\"\n\nAgain, in \"3 Henry VI.\" (i. 4), the Duke of York exclaims:\n\n \"My ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth\n A bird that will revenge upon you all.\"\n\nOnce more, in \"1 Henry VI.\" (iv. 7), Sir William Lucy, speaking of\nTalbot and those slain with him, predicts that\n\n \"from their ashes shall be rear'd\n A phoenix that shall make all France afeard.\"[300]\n\n [300] Cf. \"The Tempest,\" iii. 3; \"All's Well that Ends Well,\"\n i. 1; \"Antony and Cleopatra,\" iii. 2; \"Cymbeline,\" i. 6.\n\nSir Thomas Browne[301] tells us that there is but one phoenix in the\nworld, \"which after many hundred years burns herself, and from the ashes\nthereof ariseth up another.\" From the very earliest times there have\nbeen countless traditions respecting this wonderful bird. Thus, its\nlongevity has been estimated from three hundred to fifteen hundred\nyears; and among the various localities assigned as its home are\nEthiopia, Arabia, Egypt, and India. In \"The Phoenix and Turtle,\" it is\nsaid,\n\n \"Let the bird of loudest lay\n On the sole Arabian tree,\n Herald sad and trumpet be.\"\n\n [301] Works, 1852, vol. i. pp. 277-284.\n\nPliny says of this bird, \"Howbeit, I cannot tell what to make of him;\nand first of all, whether it be a tale or no, that there is never but\none of them in the whole world, and the same not commonly seen.\"\nMalone[302] quotes from Lyly's \"Euphues and his England\" (p. 312, ed.\nArber): \"For as there is but one phoenix in the world, so is there but\none tree in Arabia wherein she buyldeth;\" and Florio's \"New Worlde of\nWordes\" (1598), \"Rasin, a tree in Arabia, whereof there is but one\nfound, and upon it the phoenix sits.\"\n\n [302] See Aldis Wright's \"Notes to The Tempest,\" 1875, p. 129.\n\n_Pigeon._ As carriers, these birds have been used from a very early\ndate, and the Castle of the Birds, at Bagdad, takes its name from the\npigeon-post which the old monks of the convent established. The building\nhas crumbled into ruins long ago by the lapse of time, but the bird\nmessengers of Bagdad became celebrated as far westward as Greece, and\nwere a regular commercial institution between the distant parts of Asia\nMinor, Arabia, and the East.[303] In ancient Egypt, also, the carrier\nbreed was brought to great perfection, and, between the cities of the\nNile and the Red Sea, the old traders used to send word of their\ncaravans to each other by letters written on silk, and tied under the\nwings of trained doves. In \"Titus Andronicus\" (iv. 3) Titus, on seeing a\nclown enter with two pigeons, says:\n\n \"News, news from heaven! Marcus, the post is come.\n Sirrah, what tidings? have you any letters?\"\n\n [303] _Daily Telegraph_, January 31, 1880; see Southey's\n \"Commonplace Book,\" 1849, 2d series, p. 447.\n\nFrom the same play we also learn that it was customary to give a pair of\npigeons as a present. The Clown says to Saturninus (iv. 4), \"I have\nbrought you a letter and a couple of pigeons here.\"[304]\n\n [304] See _Dove_, pp. 114, 115.\n\nIn \"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 3) the dove is used synonymously for pigeon,\nwhere the nurse is represented as\n\n \"Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall.\"\n\nMr. Darwin, in his \"Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication\"\n(vol. i. pp. 204, 205), has shown that from the very earliest times\npigeons have been kept in a domesticated state. He says: \"The earliest\nrecord of pigeons in a domesticated condition occurs in the fifth\nEgyptian dynasty, about 3000 B.C.; but Mr. Birch, of the British Museum,\ninforms me that the pigeon appears in a bill of fare in the previous\ndynasty. Domestic pigeons are mentioned in Genesis, Leviticus, and\nIsaiah. Pliny informs us that the Romans gave immense prices for\npigeons; 'nay, they are come to this pass that they can reckon up their\npedigree and race.' In India, about the year 1600, pigeons were much\nvalued by Akbar Khan; 20,000 birds were carried about with the court.\"\nIn most countries, too, the breeding and taming of pigeons has been a\nfavorite recreation. The constancy of the pigeon has been proverbial\nfrom time immemorial, allusions to which occur in \"Winter's Tale\" (iv.\n3), and in \"As You Like It\" (iii. 3).\n\n_Quail._ The quail was thought to be an amorous bird, and hence was\nmetaphorically used to denote people of a loose character.[305] In this\nsense it is generally understood in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (v. 1):\n\"Here's Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough, and one that loves quails.\"\nMr. Harting,[306] however, thinks that the passage just quoted refers to\nthe practice formerly prevalent of keeping quails, and making them fight\nlike game-cocks. The context of the passage would seem to sanction the\nformer meaning. Quail fighting[307] is spoken of in \"Antony and\nCleopatra\" (ii. 3), where Antony, speaking of the superiority of C\u00e6sar's\nfortunes to his own, says:\n\n \"if we draw lots, he speeds;\n His cocks do win the battle still of mine,\n When it is all to nought; and his quails ever\n Beat mine, inhoop'd, at odds.\"\n\n [305] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 704;\n Halliwell-Phillipps's \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare,\" 1866, p.\n 398; Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 345; Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol.\n vii. p. 264.\n\n [306] \"Ornithology of Shakespeare,\" p. 218.\n\n [307] Strutt's \"Sports and Pastimes,\" 1876, pp. 19, 97, 677;\n Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. pp. 59, 60.\n\nIt appears that cocks as well as quails were sometimes made to fight\nwithin a broad hoop--hence the term _inhoop'd_--to keep them from quitting\neach other. Quail-fights were well known among the ancients, and\nespecially at Athens.[308] Julius Pollux relates that a circle was made,\nin which the birds were placed, and he whose quail was driven out of\nthis circle lost the stake, which was sometimes money, and occasionally\nthe quails themselves. Another practice was to produce one of these\nbirds, which being first smitten with the middle finger, a feather was\nthen plucked from its head. If the quail bore this operation without\nflinching, his master gained the stake, but lost it if he ran away. Some\ndoubt exists as to whether quail-fighting prevailed in the time of\nShakespeare. At the present day[309] the Sumatrans practise these quail\ncombats, and this pastime is common in some parts of Italy, and also in\nChina. Mr. Douce has given a curious print, from an elegant Chinese\nminiature painting, which represents some ladies engaged at this\namusement, where the quails are actually inhooped.\n\n [308] Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, p. 367.\n\n [309] Marsden's \"History of Sumatra,\" 1811, p. 276.\n\n_Raven._ Perhaps no bird is so universally unpopular as the raven, its\nhoarse croak, in most countries, being regarded as ominous. Hence, as\nmight be expected, Shakespeare often refers to it, in order to make the\nscene he depicts all the more vivid and graphic. In \"Titus Andronicus\"\n(ii. 3), Tamora, describing \"a barren detested vale,\" says:\n\n \"The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,\n O'ercome with moss and baleful mistletoe:\n Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds,\n Unless the nightly owl or fatal raven.\"\n\nAnd in \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (v. 1), Cassius tells us how ravens\n\n \"Fly o'er our heads, and downward look on us,\n As we were sickly prey.\"[310]\n\n [310] Cf. \"2 Henry VI.\" iii. 2; \"Troilus and Cressida,\" v. 2.\n\nIt seems that the superstitious dread[311] attaching to this bird has\nchiefly arisen from its supposed longevity,[312] and its frequent\nmention and agency in Holy Writ. By the Romans it was consecrated to\nApollo, and was believed to have a prophetic knowledge--a notion still\nvery prevalent. Thus, its supposed faculty[313] of \"smelling death\"\nstill renders its presence, or even its voice, ominous. Othello (iv. 1)\nexclaims,\n\n \"O, it comes o'er my memory,\n As doth the raven o'er the infected house,\n Boding to all.\"\n\n [311] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. pp. 211, 212.\n\n [312] \"English Folk-lore,\" 1878, p. 78.\n\n [313] See Hunt's \"Popular Romances of West of England,\" 1881, p. 380.\n\nThere is no doubt a reference here to the fanciful notion that it was a\nconstant attendant on a house infected with the plague. Most readers,\ntoo, are familiar with that famous passage in \"Macbeth\" (i. 5) where\nLady Macbeth, having heard of the king's intention to stay at the\ncastle, exclaims,\n\n \"the raven himself is hoarse\n That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan\n Under my battlements. Come, you spirits\n That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,\n And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full\n Of direst cruelty!\"\n\nWe may compare Spenser's language in the \"Fairy Queen\" (bk. ii. c. vii.\nl. 23):\n\n \"After him owles and night ravens flew,\n The hateful messengers of heavy things,\n Of death and dolor telling sad tidings.\"\n\nAnd once more the following passage from Drayton's \"Barons' Wars\" (bk.\nv. stanza 42) illustrates the same idea:\n\n \"The ominous raven often he doth hear,\n Whose croaking him of following horror tells.\"\n\nIn \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (ii. 3), the \"night-raven\" is mentioned.\nBenedick observes to himself: \"I had as lief have heard the night-raven,\ncome what plague could have come after it.\" This inauspicious bird,\naccording to Steevens, is the owl; but this conjecture is evidently\nwrong, \"being at variance with sundry passages in our early writers, who\nmake a distinction between it and the night-raven.\"[314]\n\n [314] Dyce's \"Glossary,\" 1876, p. 288.\n\nThus Johnson, in his \"Seven Champions of Christendom\" (part i.), speaks\nof \"the dismal cry of night-ravens, ... and the fearefull sound of\nschriek owles.\" Cotgrave regarded the \"night-crow\" and the \"night-raven\"\nas synonymous; and Mr. Yarrell considered them only different names for\nthe night-heron.[315] In \"3 Henry VI.\" (v. 6) King Henry says:\n\n \"The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time.\"\n\n [315] See Harting's \"Ornithology of Shakespeare,\" pp. 101, 102;\n Yarrell's \"History of British Birds,\" vol. ii. p. 581.\n\nGoldsmith, in his \"Animated Nature,\" calls the bittern the night-raven,\nand says: \"I remember, in the place where I was a boy, with what terror\nthe bird's note affected the whole village; they consider it as the\npresage of some sad event, and generally found or made one to succeed\nit. If any person in the neighborhood died, they supposed it could not\nbe otherwise, for the night-raven had foretold it; but if nobody\nhappened to die, the death of a cow or a sheep gave completion to the\nprophecy.\"\n\nAccording to an old belief the raven deserts its own young, to which\nShakespeare alludes in \"Titus Andronicus\" (ii. 3):\n\n \"Some say that ravens foster forlorn children,\n The whilst their own birds famish in their nests.\"\n\n\"It was supposed that when the raven,\" says Mr. Harting,[316] \"saw its\nyoung ones newly hatched and covered with down, it conceived such an\naversion that it forsook them, and did not return to the nest until a\ndarker plumage had shown itself.\" To this belief the commentators\nconsider the Psalmist refers, when he says, \"He giveth to the beast his\nfood, and to the young ravens which cry\" (Psalm cxlvii. 9). We are told,\ntoo, in Job, \"Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones\ncry unto God, they wander for lack of meat\" (xxxviii. 41). Shakespeare,\nin \"As You Like It\" (ii. 3), probably had the words of the Psalmist in\nhis mind:\n\n \"He that doth the ravens feed,\n Yea, providently caters for the sparrow.\"\n\n [316] \"Ornithology of Shakespeare,\" p. 107.\n\nThe raven has from earliest times been symbolical of blackness, both in\nconnection with color and character. In \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iii. 2),\nJuliet exclaims:\n\n \"O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!\n Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?\n Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!\n Dove-feather'd raven!\"[317]\n\n [317] Cf. \"Midsummer-Night's Dream,\" ii. 2; \"Twelfth Night,\" v. 1.\n\nOnce more, ravens' feathers were formerly used by witches, from an old\nsuperstition that the wings of this bird carried with them contagion\nwherever they went. Hence, in \"The Tempest\" (i. 2), Caliban says:\n\n \"As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd\n With raven's feather from unwholesome fen\n Drop on you both!\"\n\n_Robin Redbreast._ According to a pretty notion,[318] this little bird\nis said to cover with leaves any dead body it may chance to find\nunburied; a belief which probably, in a great measure, originated in the\nwell-known ballad of the \"Children in the Wood,\" although it seems to\nhave been known previously. Thus Singer quotes as follows from\n\"Cornucopia, or Divers Secrets,\" etc. (by Thomas Johnson, 1596): \"The\nrobin redbreast, if he finds a man or woman dead, will cover all his\nface with moss; and some think that if the body should remain unburied\nthat he would cover the whole body also.\" In Dekker's \"Villaines\nDiscovered by Lanthorn and Candlelight\" (1616), quoted by Douce, it is\nsaid, \"They that cheere up a prisoner but with their sight, are robin\nredbreasts that bring strawes in their bills to cover a dead man in\nextremitie.\" Shakespeare, in a beautiful passage in \"Cymbeline\" (iv. 2),\nthus touchingly alludes to it, making Arviragus, when addressing the\nsupposed dead body of Imogen, say:\n\n \"With fairest flowers,\n Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,\n I'll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack\n The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor\n The azured harebell, like thy veins; no, nor\n The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander\n Out-sweeten'd not thy breath: the ruddock would,\n With charitable bill,--O bill, sore-shaming\n Those rich-left heirs, that let their fathers lie\n Without a monument!--bring thee all this;\n Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none\n To winter-ground thy corse\"--\n\nthe \"ruddock\"[319] being one of the old names for the redbreast, which\nis nowadays found in some localities. John Webster, also, refers to the\nsame idea in \"The White Devil\" (1857, ed. Dyce, p. 45):\n\n \"Call for the robin redbreast and the wren\n Since o'er shady groves they hover,\n And with leaves and flowers do cover\n The friendless bodies of unburied men.\"\n\n [318] \"English Folk-Lore,\" pp. 62-64; Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\"\n 1849, vol. iii. p. 191; Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. x. p. 424;\n Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, p. 380.\n\n [319] Cf. Spenser's \"Epithalamium,\" v. 8:\n\n \"The thrush replies, the mavis descant plays,\n The ouzell shrills, the ruddock warbles soft.\"\n\nDrayton, too, in \"The Owl,\" has the following lines:\n\n \"Cov'ring with moss the dead's unclosed eye,\n The little redbreast teaching charitie.\"\n\n_Rook._ As an ominous bird this is mentioned in \"Macbeth\" (iii. 4).\nFormerly the nobles of England prided themselves in having a\nrookery[320] in the neighborhood of their castles, because rooks were\nregarded as \"fowls of good omen.\" On this account no one was permitted\nto kill them, under severe penalties. When rooks desert a rookery[321]\nit is said to foretell the downfall of the family on whose property it\nis. A Northumbrian saying informs us that the rooks left the rookery of\nChipchase before the family of Reed left that place. There is also a\nnotion that when rooks haunt a town or village \"mortality is supposed to\nawait its inhabitants, and if they feed in the street it shows that a\nstorm is at hand.\"[322]\n\n [320] _Standard_, January 26, 1877.\n\n [321] \"English Folk-Lore,\" p. 76.\n\n [322] Henderson's \"Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,\" 1879, p. 122.\n\nThe expression \"bully-rook,\" in \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (i. 3), in\nShakespeare's time, says Mr. Harting,[323] had the same meaning as\n\"jolly dog\" nowadays; but subsequently it became a term of reproach,\nmeaning a cheating sharper. It has been suggested that the term derives\nits origin from the _rook_ in the game of chess; but Douce[324]\nconsiders it very improbable that this noble game, \"never the amusement\nof gamblers, should have been ransacked on this occasion.\"\n\n [323] \"Ornithology of Shakespeare,\" p. 121.\n\n [324] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, p. 36; the term\n \"bully-rook\" occurs several times in Shadwell's \"Sullen\n Lovers;\" see Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 58.\n\n_Snipe._ This bird was in Shakespeare's time proverbial for a foolish\nman.[325] In \"Othello\" (i. 3), Iago, speaking of Roderigo, says:\n\n \"For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane,\n If I would time expend with such a snipe,\n But for my sport and profit.\"\n\n [325] In Northamptonshire the word denotes an icicle, from its\n resemblance to the long bill of the bird so-called.--Baker's\n \"Northamptonshire Glossary,\" 1854, vol. ii. p. 260.\n\n_Sparrow._ A popular name for the common sparrow was, and still is,\nPhilip, perhaps from its note, \"Phip, phip.\" Hence the allusion to a\nperson named Philip, in \"King John\" (i. 1):\n\n _Gurney._ Good leave, good Philip.\n\n _Bastard._ Philip?--sparrow!\n\nStaunton says perhaps Catullus alludes to this expression in the\nfollowing lines:\n\n \"Sed circumsiliens, modo huc, modo illuc,\n Ad solam dominam usque pipilabat.\"\n\nSkelton, in an elegy upon a sparrow, calls it \"Phyllyp Sparowe;\" and\nGascoigne also writes \"The praise of Philip Sparrow.\"\n\nIn \"Measure for Measure\" (iii. 2), Lucio, speaking of Angelo, the\ndeputy-duke of Vienna, says: \"Sparrows must not build in his\nhouse-eaves, because they are lecherous.\"[326]\n\n [326] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 653; Dyce's\n \"Glossary,\" p. 320.\n\n_Sparrow-hawk._ A name formerly given to a young sparrow-hawk was\neyas-musket,[327] a term we find in \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (iii. 3):\n\"How now, my eyas-musket! what news with you?\" It was thus\nmetaphorically used as a jocular phrase for a small child. As the\ninvention, too, of fire-arms took place[328] at a time when hawking was\nin high fashion, some of the new weapons were named after those birds,\nprobably from the idea of their fetching their prey from on high.\n_Musket_ has thus become the established name for one sort of gun. Some,\nhowever, assert that the musket was invented in the fifteenth century,\nand owes its name to its inventors.\n\n [327] Derived from the French _mouschet_, of the same meaning.\n\n [328] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 593: Douce's\n \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, p. 46. Turbervile tells\n us \"the first name and terme that they bestowe on a falcon is\n an eyesse, and this name doth laste as long as she is an eyrie\n and for that she is taken from the eyrie.\"\n\n_Starling._ This was one of the birds that was in days gone by trained\nto speak. In \"1 Henry IV.\" (i. 3), Hotspur says:\n\n \"I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak\n Nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him,\n To keep his anger still in motion.\"\n\nPliny tells us how starlings were taught to utter both Latin and Greek\nwords for the amusement of the young C\u00e6sars; and there are numerous\ninstances on record of the clever sentences uttered by this amusing\nbird.\n\n_Swallow._ This bird has generally been honored as the harbinger of\nspring, and Athen\u00e6us relates that the Rhodians had a solemn song to\nwelcome it. Anacreon has a well-known ode. Shakespeare, in the \"Winter's\nTale\" (iv. 3), alludes to the time of the swallow's appearance in the\nfollowing passage:\n\n \"daffodils,\n That come before the swallow dares, and take\n The winds of March with beauty.\"\n\nAnd its departure is mentioned in \"Timon of Athens\" (iii. 6): \"The\nswallow follows not summer more willing than we your lordship.\"\n\nWe may compare Tennyson's notice of the bird's approach and migration in\n\"The May Queen:\"\n\n \"And the swallow 'll come back again with summer o'er the wave.\"\n\nIt has been long considered lucky for the swallow to build its nest on\nthe roof of a house, but just as unlucky for it to forsake a place which\nit has once tenanted. Shakespeare probably had this superstition in his\nmind when he represents Scarus as saying, in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (iv.\n12):\n\n \"Swallows have built\n In Cleopatra's sails their nests: the augurers\n Say, they know not,--they cannot tell;--look grimly,\n And dare not speak their knowledge.\"\n\n_Swan._ According to a romantic notion, dating from antiquity, the swan\nis said to sing sweetly just before its death, many pretty allusions to\nwhich we find scattered here and there throughout Shakespeare's plays.\nIn \"Merchant of Venice\" (iii. 2), Portia says:\n\n \"he makes a swan-like end,\n Fading in music.\"\n\nEmilia, too, in \"Othello\" (v. 2), just before she dies, exclaims:\n\n \"I will play the swan,\n And die in music.\"\n\nIn \"King John\" (v. 7), Prince Henry, at his father's death-bed, thus\npathetically speaks:\n\n \"'Tis strange that death should sing.\n I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,\n Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,\n And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings\n His soul and body to their lasting rest.\"\n\nAgain, in \"Lucrece\" (1611), we have these touching lines:\n\n \"And now this pale swan in her watery nest,\n Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending.\"\n\nAnd once more, in \"The Phoenix and Turtle:\"\n\n \"Let the priest in surplice white,\n That defunctive music can,\n Be the death-divining swan,\n Lest the requiem lack his right.\"\n\nThis superstition, says Douce,[329] \"was credited by Plato, Chrysippus,\nAristotle, Euripides, Philostratus, Cicero, Seneca, and Martial. Pliny,\n\u00c6lian, and Athen\u00e6us, among the ancients, and Sir Thomas More, among the\nmoderns, treat this opinion as a vulgar error. Luther believed in it.\"\nThis notion probably originated in the swan being identified with\nOrpheus. Sir Thomas Browne[330] says, we read that, \"after his death,\nOrpheus, the musician, became a swan. Thus was it the bird of Apollo,\nthe bird of music by the Greeks.\" Alluding to this piece of folk-lore,\nCarl Engel[331] remarks: \"Although our common swan does not produce\nsounds which might account for this tradition, it is a well-known fact\nthat the wild swan (_Cygnus ferus_), also called the 'whistling swan,'\nwhen on the wing emits a shrill tone, which, however harsh it may sound\nif heard near, produces a pleasant effect when, emanating from a large\nflock high in the air, it is heard in a variety of pitches of sound,\nincreasing or diminishing in loudness according to the movement of the\nbirds and to the current of the air.\" Colonel Hawker[332] says, \"The\nonly note which I ever heard the wild swan make, in winter, is his\nwell-known 'whoop.'\"[333]\n\n [329] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, p. 161.\n\n [330] Works, 1852, vol. i. p. 357.\n\n [331] \"Musical Myths and Facts,\" 1876, vol. i. p. 89.\n\n [332] \"Instructions to Young Sportsmen,\" 11th ed., p. 269.\n\n [333] See Baring-Gould's \"Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,\"\n 1877, p. 561; Thorpe's \"Northern Mythology,\" 1852, vol. iii.\n pp. 302-328.\n\n_Tassel-Gentle._[334] The male of the goshawk was so called on account\nof its tractable disposition, and the facility with which it was tamed.\nThe word occurs in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (ii. 2):\n\n \"O, for a falconer's voice\n To lure this tassel-gentle back again!\"\n\n [334] Properly \"tiercel gentle,\" French, _tiercelet_; cf.\n \"Troilus and Cressida,\" iii. 2, \"the falcon as the tercel.\"\n\nSpenser, in his \"Fairy Queen\" (bk. iii. c. iv. l. 49), says:\n\n \"Having far off espied a tassel-gent\n Which after her his nimble wings doth straine.\"\n\nThis species of hawk was also commonly called a \"falcon-gentle,\" on\naccount of \"her familiar, courteous disposition.\"[335]\n\n [335] \"Gentleman's Recreation,\" p. 19, quoted in Nares's\n \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 867.\n\n_Turkey._ This bird, so popular with us at Christmas-tide, is mentioned\nin \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii. 1), where the First Carrier says: \"God's body! the\nturkeys in my pannier are quite starved.\" This, however, is an\nanachronism on the part of Shakespeare, as the turkey was unknown in\nthis country until the reign of Henry VIII. According to a rhyme written\nin 1525, commemorating the introduction of this bird, we are told how:\n\n \"Turkies, carps, hoppes, piccarell, and beere,\n Came into England all in one yeare.\"\n\nThe turkey is again mentioned by Shakespeare in \"Twelfth Night\" (ii. 5),\nwhere Fabian says of Malvolio: \"Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock\nof him: how he jets under his advanced plumes!\"\n\n_Vulture._ In several passages Shakespeare has most forcibly introduced\nthis bird to deepen the beauty of some of his exquisite passages. Thus,\nin \"King Lear\" (ii. 4), when he is complaining of the unkindness of a\ndaughter, he bitterly exclaims:\n\n \"O Regan, she hath tied\n Sharp-tooth'd unkindness, like a vulture, here.\"\n\nWhat, too, can be more graphic than the expression of Tamora in \"Titus\nAndronicus\" (v. 2):\n\n \"I am Revenge, sent from the infernal kingdom,\n To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind.\"\n\nEqually forcible, too, are Pistol's words in \"The Merry Wives of\nWindsor\" (i. 3): \"Let vultures gripe thy guts.\"\n\nJohnson considers that \"the vulture of sedition\" in \"2 Henry VI.\" (iv.\n3) is in allusion to the tale of Prometheus, but of this there is a\ndecided uncertainty.\n\n_Wagtail._ In \"King Lear\" (ii. 2), Kent says, \"Spare my grey beard, you\nwagtail?\" the word being used in an opprobrious sense, to signify an\nofficious person.\n\n_Woodcock._ In several passages this bird is used to denote a fool or\nsilly person; as in \"Taming of the Shrew\" (i. 2): \"O this woodcock! what\nan ass it is!\" And again, in \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (v. 1), where\nClaudio, alluding to the plot against Benedick, says: \"Shall I not find\na woodcock too?\" In \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (iv. 3) Biron says:\n\n \"O heavens, I have my wish!\n Dumain transformed: four woodcocks in a dish.\"\n\nThe woodcock has generally been proverbial as a foolish bird--perhaps\nbecause it is easily caught in springes or nets.[336] Thus the popular\nphrase \"Springes to catch woodcocks\" meant arts to entrap\nsimplicity,[337] as in \"Hamlet\" (i. 3):\n\n \"Aye, springes to catch woodcocks.\"\n\n [336] Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 508.\n\n [337] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 971.\n\nA similar expression occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher's \"Loyal Subject\"\n(iv. 4):\n\n \"Go like a woodcock,\n And thrust your neck i' th' noose.\"\n\n\"It seems,\" says Nares, \"that woodcocks are now grown wiser by time, for\nwe do not now hear of their being so easily caught. If they were\nsometimes said to be without brains, it was only founded on their\ncharacter, certainly not on any examination of the fact.\"[338] Formerly,\none of the terms for twilight[339] was \"cock-shut time,\" because the net\nin which cocks, _i. e._, woodcocks, were shut in during the twilight,\nwas called a \"cock-shut.\" It appears that a large net was stretched\nacross a glade, and so suspended upon poles as to be easily drawn\ntogether. Thus, in \"Richard III.\" (v. 3), Ratcliff says:\n\n \"Thomas the Earl of Surrey, and himself,\n Much about cock-shut time, from troop to troop,\n Went through the army, cheering up the soldiers.\"\n\n [338] See Willughby's \"Ornithology,\" iii. section 1.\n\n [339] Minsheu's \"Guide into Tongues,\" ed. 1617.\n\nIn Ben Jonson's \"Masque of Gypsies\" we read:\n\n \"Mistress, this is only spite;\n For you would not yesternight\n Kiss him in the cock-shut light.\"\n\nSometimes it was erroneously written \"cock-shoot.\" \"Come, come away\nthen, a fine cock-shoot evening.\" In the \"Two Noble Kinsmen\" (iv. 1) we\nfind the term \"cock-light.\"\n\n_Wren._ The diminutive character of this bird is noticed in \"A\nMidsummer-Night's Dream\" (iii. 1, song):\n\n \"The wren with little quill.\"\n\nIn \"Macbeth\" (iv. 2), Lady Macbeth says:\n\n \"the poor wren,\n The most diminutive of birds, will fight,\n Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.\"\n\nConsidering, too, that as many as sixteen young ones have been found in\nthis little bird's nest, we can say with Grahame, in his poem on the\nbirds of Scotland:\n\n \"But now behold the greatest of this train\n Of miracles, stupendously minute;\n The numerous progeny, claimant for food\n Supplied by two small bills, and feeble wings\n Of narrow range, supplied--ay, duly fed--\n Fed in the dark, and yet not one forgot.\"\n\nThe epithet \"poor,\" applied to the wren by Lady Macbeth, was certainly\nappropriate in days gone by, when we recollect how it was cruelly hunted\nin Ireland on St. Stephen's day--a practice which prevailed also in the\nIsle of Man.[340]\n\n [340] See Yarrell's \"History of British Birds,\" vol. ii. p. 178.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nANIMALS.\n\n\nAs in the case of the birds considered in the previous chapter,\nShakespeare has also interwoven throughout his plays an immense deal of\ncurious folk-lore connected with animals. Not only does he allude with\nthe accuracy of a naturalist to the peculiarities and habits of certain\nanimals, but so true to nature is he in his graphic descriptions of them\nthat it is evident his knowledge was in a great measure acquired from\nhis own observation. It is interesting, also, to note how carefully he\nhas, here and there, worked into his narrative some old proverb or\nsuperstition, thereby adding a freshness to the picture which has, if\npossible, imbued it with an additional lustre. In speaking of the dog,\nhe has introduced many an old hunting custom, and his references to the\ntears of the deer are full of sweet pathos, as, for instance, where\nHamlet says (iii. 2), \"Let the stricken deer go weep.\" It is not\nnecessary, however, to add further illustrations, as these will be found\nin the following pages.\n\n_Ape._ In addition to Shakespeare's mention of this animal as a common\nterm of contempt, there are several other allusions to it. There is the\nwell-known phrase, \"to lead apes in hell,\" applied to old maids,\nmentioned in the \"Taming of the Shrew\" (ii. 1)--the meaning of this term\nnot having been yet satisfactorily explained.[341] (It is further\ndiscussed in the chapter on Marriage.)\n\n [341] See page 165.\n\nIn \"2 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4), the word is used as a term of endearment,\n\"Alas, poor ape, how thou sweat'st.\"\n\n_Ass._ Beyond the proverbial use of this much ill-treated animal to\ndenote a silly, foolish person, Shakespeare has said little about it.\nIn \"Troilus and Cressida\" (ii. 1), Thersites uses the word _assinego_, a\nPortuguese expression for a young ass, \"Thou hast no more brain than I\nhave in mine elbows; an assinego may tutor thee.\" It is used by Beaumont\nand Fletcher in the \"Scornful Lady\" (v. 4): \"All this would be forsworn,\nand I again an assinego, as your sister left me.\"[342] Dyce[343] would\nspell the word \"asinico,\" because it is so spelled in the old editions\nof Shakespeare, and is more in accordance with the Spanish word.[344] In\n\"King Lear\" (i. 4), the Fool alludes to \u00c6sop's celebrated fable of the\nold man and his ass: \"thou borest thine ass on thy back o'er the dirt.\"\n\n [342] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 38.\n\n [343] \"Glossary to Shakespeare,\" 1876, p. 20.\n\n [344] \"Asinico, a little ass,\" Connelly's \"Spanish and English\n Dictionary,\" Madrid, 4to.\n\n_Bat._ The bat, immortalized by Shakespeare (\"The Tempest,\" v. 1) as the\n\"delicate Ariel's\" steed--\n\n \"On the bat's back I do fly,\"\n\n--has generally been an object of superstitious dread, and proved to the\npoet and painter a fertile source of images of gloom and terror.[345] In\nScotland[346] it is still connected with witchcraft, and if, while\nflying, it rise and then descend again earthwards, it is a sign that the\nwitches' hour is come--the hour in which they are supposed to have power\nover every human being who is not specially shielded from their\ninfluence. Thus, in \"Macbeth\" (iv. 1) the \"wool of bat\" forms an\ningredient in the witches' caldron. One of its popular names is\n\"rere-mouse,\" which occurs in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (ii. 2), where\nTitania says:\n\n \"Some, war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,\n To make my small elves coats.\"\n\n [345] \"English Folk-Lore,\" p. 115; cf. \"Macbeth,\" iii. 2.\n\n [346] Henderson's \"Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,\" 1879, pp.\n 125, 126.\n\nThis term is equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon, _hr\u00e9re-m\u00fas_, from _hreran_,\nto stir, agitate, and so the same as the old name \"flitter-mouse.\"[347]\nThe early copies spell the word _reremise_.[348] It occurs in the\nWicliffite version of Leviticus xi. 19, and the plural in the form\n\"reremees\" or \"rere-myis\" is found in Isaiah ii. 20. At Polperro,\nCornwall,[349] the village boys call it \"airy-mouse,\" and address it in\nthe following rhyme:\n\n \"Airy mouse, airy mouse! fly over my head,\n And you shall have a crust of bread;\n And when I brew, and when I bake,\n You shall have a piece of my wedding-cake.\"\n\n [347] It has been speciously derived from the English word\n _rear_, in the sense of being able to raise itself in the air,\n but this is erroneous. Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 726.\n\n [348] Aldis Wright's \"Notes to A Midsummer-Night's Dream,\"\n 1877, p. 101.\n\n [349] \"Folk-Lore Record,\" 1879, p. 201.\n\nIn Scotland[350] it is known as the Backe or Bakie bird. An immense deal\nof folk-lore has clustered round this curious little animal.[351]\n\n [350] Jamieson's \"Scottish Dictionary,\" 1879, vol. i p. 106.\n\n [351] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. p. 189;\n Harting's \"Ornithology of Shakespeare,\" 1871, pp. 13, 14.\n\n_Bear._ According to an old idea, the bear brings forth unformed lumps\nof animated flesh, and then licks them into shape--a vulgar error,\nreferred to in \"3 Henry VI.\" (iii. 2), where Gloster, bemoaning his\ndeformity, says of his mother:\n\n \"She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe,\n\n * * * * *\n\n To disproportion me in every part,\n Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp,\n That carries no impression like the dam.\"\n\nThis erroneous notion, however, was long ago confuted by Sir Thomas\nBrowne.[352] Alexander Ross, in his \"Arcana Microcosmi,\" nevertheless\naffirms that bears bring forth their young deformed and misshapen, by\nreason of the thick membrane in which they are wrapped, that is covered\nover with a mucous matter. This, he says, the dam contracts in the\nwinter-time, by lying in hollow caves without motion, so that to the\neye the cub appears like an unformed lump. The above mucilage is\nafterwards licked away by the dam, and the membrane broken, whereby that\nwhich before seemed to be unformed appears now in its right shape. This,\nhe contends, is all that the ancients meant.[353] Ovid (Metamorphoses,\nbk. xv. l. 379) thus describes this once popular fancy:\n\n \"Nec catulus, partu quem reddidit ursa recenti,\n Sed male viva caro est: lambendo mater in artus\n Fingit, et in formam, quantam capit ipsa, reducit.\"\n\n [352] \"Vulgar Errors,\" 1852, vol. i. p. 247.\n\n [353] See Bartholom\u00e6us, \"De Proprietate Rerum,\" lib. xviii. c.\n 112; Aristotle, \"History of Animals,\" lib. vi. c. 31; Pliny's\n \"Natural History,\" lib. viii. c. 54.\n\nBears, in days gone by, are reported to have been surprised by means of\na mirror, which they would gaze on, affording their pursuers an\nopportunity of taking the surer aim. In \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (ii. I), this\npractice is mentioned by Decius:\n\n \"unicorns may be betray'd with trees,\n And bears with glasses.\"[354]\n\n [354] Steevens on this passage.\n\nBatman, \"On Bartholom\u00e6us\" (1582), speaking of the bear, says, \"And when\nhe is taken he is made blinde with a bright basin, and bound with\nchaynes, and compelled to playe.\" This, however, says Mr. Aldis\nWright,[355] probably refers to the actual blinding of the bear.\n\n [355] \"Notes on Julius C\u00e6sar,\" 1878, p. 134.\n\nA favorite amusement with our ancestors was bear-baiting. As early as\nthe reign of Henry II. the baiting of bears by dogs was a popular game\nin London,[356] while at a later period \"a royal bear-ward\" was an\nofficer regularly attached to the royal household. In \"2 Henry VI.\" (v.\n1), this personage is alluded to by Clifford, who says:\n\n \"Are these thy bears? We'll bait thy bears to death,\n And manacle the bear-ward in their chains,\n If thou dar'st bring them to the baiting place.\"\n\n [356] \"Notices Illustrative of the Drama and other Popular\n Amusements,\" incidentally illustrating Shakespeare and his\n contemporaries, extracted from the MSS. of Leicester, by W.\n Kelly, 1865, p. 152.\n\nAnd again, in \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (ii. 1), Beatrice says, \"I will\neven take sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his apes into\nhell.\" The synonymous term, \"bear-herd,\" occurs in \"Taming of the Shrew\"\n(Ind. scene 2), where Sly speaks of himself as \"by transmutation a\nbear-herd;\" and in \"2 Henry IV.\" (i. 2), Sir John Falstaff remarks how\n\"true valor is turned bear-herd.\" Among the Harleian MSS.[357] is\npreserved the original warrant of Richard III. appointing John Brown to\nthis office, and which recites \"the diligent service he had done the\nking\" as the ground for granting him the privilege of wandering about\nthe country with his bears and apes, and receiving the \"loving\nbenevolence and favors of the people.\"[358] In the time of Queen\nElizabeth bear-baiting was still a favorite pastime, being considered a\nfashionable entertainment for ladies of the highest rank.[359] James I.\nencouraged this sport. Nichols[360] informs us that on one occasion the\nking, accompanied by his court, took the queen, the Princess Elizabeth,\nand the two young princes to the Tower to witness a fight between a lion\nand a bear, and by the king's command the bear (which had killed a child\nthat had been negligently left in the bear-house) was afterwards \"baited\nto death upon a stage in the presence of many spectators.\" Popular, says\nMr. Kelly, as bear-baiting was in the metropolis and at court, it was\nequally so among all classes of the people.[361] It is on record that at\nCongleton, in Cheshire, \"the town-bear having died, the corporation in\n1601 gave orders to sell their Bible, in order to purchase another,\nwhich was done, and the town no longer without a bear.\" This event is\nkept up in a popular rhyme:\n\n \"Congleton rare, Congleton rare,\n Sold the Bible to pay for a bear.\"\n\n [357] No. 433. The document is given at length in Collier's\n \"Annals of the Stage,\" vol. i. p. 35, note.\n\n [358] Kelly's \"Notices of Leicester,\" p. 152.\n\n [359] Wright's \"Domestic Manners,\" p. 304.\n\n [360] \"Progresses and Processions,\" vol. ii. p. 259.\n\n [361] About 1760 it was customary to have a bear baited at the\n election of the mayor. Corry, \"History of Liverpool,\" 1810, p.\n 93.\n\nThe same legend attaches to Clifton, a village near Rugby:\n\n \"Clifton-upon-Dunsmore, in Warwickshire,\n Sold the Church Bible to buy a bear.\"\n\nIn Pulleyn's \"Etymological Compendium,\"[362] we are told that \"this\ncruel amusement is of African origin, and was introduced into Europe by\nthe Romans.\" It is further alluded to by Shakespeare in \"Twelfth Night\"\n(i. 3), \"dancing and bear-baiting;\" and further on in the same play (ii.\n5) Fabian says, \"he brought me out o' favor with my lady about a\nbear-baiting here;\" and Macbeth (v. 7) relates:\n\n \"They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,\n But, bear-like, I must fight the course.\"[363]\n\n [362] Edited by M. A. Thorns, 1853, p. 170.\n\n [363] For further information on this subject consult Strutt's\n \"Sports and Pastimes,\" 1876; Kelly's \"Notices of Leicester,\"\n pp. 152-159.\n\nAnd in \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (iv. 1), Octavius says:\n\n \"we are at the stake,\n And bay'd about with many enemies.\"\n\n_Boar._ It appears that in former times boar-hunting was a favorite\nrecreation; many allusions to which we find in old writers. Indeed, in\nthe Middle Ages, the destruction of a wild boar ranked among the deeds\nof chivalry,[364] and \"won for a warrior almost as much renown as the\nslaying an enemy in the open field.\" So dangerous, too, was boar-hunting\nconsidered, that Shakespeare represents Venus as dissuading Adonis from\nthe perilous practice:\n\n \"'O be advised! thou know'st not what it is,\n With javelin's point a churlish swine to gore,\n Whose tushes never sheathed he whetteth still,\n Like to a mortal butcher, bent to kill.\n\n * * * * *\n\n His brawny sides, with hairy bristles arm'd,\n Are better proof than thy spear's point can enter;\n His short thick neck cannot be easily harm'd;\n Being ireful, on the lion he will venture.'\"\n\n [364] Chambers's \"Book of Days,\" 1864, vol. ii. pp. 518, 519.\n\nSuch hunting expeditions were generally fatal to some of the dogs, and\noccasionally to one or more of the hunters. An old tradition of Grimsby,\nin Lincolnshire,[365] asserts that every burgess, at his admission to\nthe freedom of the borough, anciently presented to the mayor a boar's\nhead, or an equivalent in money, when the animal could not be procured.\nThe old seal of the mayor of Grimsby represents a boar hunt. The lord,\ntoo, of the adjacent manor of Bradley, was obliged by his tenure to keep\na supply of these animals in his wood, for the entertainment of the\nmayor and burgesses.[366] A curious triennial custom called the \"Rhyne\nToll,\" is observed at Chetwode, a small village about five miles from\nBuckingham.[367] According to tradition, it originated in the\ndestruction of an enormous wild boar--the terror of the surrounding\ncounty--by one of the lords of Chetwode; who, after fighting with it for\nfour hours on a hot summer's day, eventually killed it:\n\n \"Then Sir Ryalas he drawed his broad sword with might,\n Wind well thy horn, good hunter;\n And he fairly cut the boar's head off quite,\n For he was a jovial hunter.\"\n\n [365] Hampson's \"OEvi Medii Kalendarium,\" vol. i. p. 96.\n\n [366] See _Gentleman's Magazine_, vol. xcviii. pp. 401, 402.\n\n [367] See \"Book of Days,\" vol. ii. pp. 517-519.\n\nAs a reward, it is said, the king \"granted to him and to his heirs\nforever, among other immunities and privileges, the full right to levy\nevery year the Rhyne Toll.\" This is still kept up, and consists of a\nyearly tax on all cattle found within the manor of Chetwode between the\n30th of October and the 7th of November, inclusive. In \"Antony and\nCleopatra\" (iv. 13) Cleopatra alludes to the famous boar killed by\nMeleager,\n\n \"the boar of Thessaly\n Was never so emboss'd.\"[368]\n\n [368] \"Embossed\" is a hunting term, properly applied to a deer\n when foaming at the mouth from fatigue, see p. 179; also Dyce's\n \"Glossary to Shakespeare,\" p. 142; see Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol.\n i. p. 275.\n\n_Bull._ Once upon a time there was scarcely a town or village of any\nmagnitude which had not its bull-ring.[369] Indeed, it was not until the\nyear 1835 that baiting was finally put down by an act of Parliament,\n\"forbidding the keeping of any house, pit, or other place for baiting or\nfighting any bull, bear, dog, or other animal;\" and, after an existence\nof at least seven centuries, this ceased to rank among the amusements of\nthe English people.[370] This sport is alluded to in \"Merry Wives of\nWindsor\" (v. 5), \"Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa.\" We\nmay, too, compare the expressions in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (v. 7),\n\"Now, bull, now, dog!... The bull has the game.\"[371]\n\n [369] Wright's \"Domestic Manners,\" p. 304; see Strutt's \"Sports\n and Pastimes;\" Smith's \"Festivals, Games, and Amusements,\"\n 1831, pp. 192-229.\n\n [370] \"Book of Days,\" vol. ii. p. 59.\n\n [371] Cf. \"2 Henry IV.\" ii. 2, \"the town-bull.\"\n\n_Cat._ Few animals, in times past, have been more esteemed than the cat,\nor been honored with a wider folk-lore. Indeed, among the Egyptians this\nfavored animal was held sacred to Isis, or the moon, and worshipped with\ngreat ceremony. In the mythology of all the Indo-European nations the\ncat holds a prominent place; and its connection with witches is well\nknown. \"The picture of a witch,\" says Mr. Henderson,[372] \"is incomplete\nwithout her cat, by rights a black one.\" In \"Macbeth\" (iv. 1) the first\nwitch says:\n\n \"Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd\"--\n\nit being a common superstition that the form most generally assumed by\nthe familiar spirits of witches was the cat. Thus, in another passage of\nthe same play (i. 1), the first witch says: \"I come, Graymalkin\"--the\nword otherwise spelled Grimalkin,[373] meaning a gray cat. Numerous\nstories are on record of witches having disguised themselves as cats,\nin order to carry out their fiendish designs. A woodman out working in\nthe forest has his dinner every day stolen by a cat. Exasperated at the\ncontinued repetition of the theft, he lies in wait for the aggressor,\nand succeeds in cutting off her paw, when lo! on his return home he\nfinds his wife minus a hand.[374] An honest Yorkshireman,[375] who bred\npigs, often lost the young ones. On applying to a certain wise man of\nStokesley, he was informed that they were bewitched by an old woman who\nlived near. The owner of the pigs, calling to mind that he had often\nseen a cat prowling about his yard, decided that this was the old woman\nin disguise. He watched for her, and, as soon as she made her\nappearance, flung at her a poker with all his might. The cat\ndisappeared, and, curiously enough, the poor old woman in question that\nnight fell and broke her leg. This was considered as conclusive that she\nwas the witch that had simulated the form of a cat. This notion is very\nprevalent on the Continent. It is said that witch-cats have a great\nhankering after beer.[376] Witches are adepts in the art of brewing, and\ntherefore fond of tasting what their neighbors brew. On these occasions\nthey always masquerade as cats, and what they steal they consume on the\nspot. There was a countryman whose beer was all drunk up by night\nwhenever he brewed, so that at last he resolved for once to sit up all\nnight and watch. As he was standing by his brewing pan, a number of cats\nmade their appearance, and calling to them, he said; \"Come, puss, puss,\ncome, warm you a bit.\" So in a ring they all sat round the fire as if to\nwarm themselves. After a time, he asked them \"if the water was hot.\"\n\"Just on the boil,\" said they; and as he spoke he dipped his\nlong-handled pail in the wort, and soused the whole company with it.\nThey all vanished at once, but on the following day his wife had a\nterribly scalded face, and then he knew who it was that had always drunk\nhis beer. This story is widely prevalent, and is current among the\nFlemish-speaking natives of Belgium. Again, a North German\ntradition[377] tells us of a peasant who had three beautiful large cats.\nA neighbor begged to have one of them, and obtained it. To accustom it\nto the place, he shut it up in the loft. At night, the cat, popping its\nhead through the window, said, \"What shall I bring to-night?\" \"Thou\nshalt bring mice,\" answered the man. The cat then set to work, and cast\nall it caught on the floor. Next morning the place was so full of dead\nmice that it was hardly possible to open the door, and the man was\nemployed the whole day in throwing them away by bushels. At night the\ncat again asked, \"What shall I bring to-night?\" \"Thou shalt bring rye,\"\nanswered the peasant. The cat was now busily employed in shooting down\nrye, so that in the morning the door could not be opened. The man then\ndiscovered that the cat was a witch, and carried it back to his\nneighbor. A similar tradition occurs in Scandinavian mythology.[378]\nSpranger[379] relates that a laborer, on one occasion, was attacked by\nthree young ladies in the form of cats, and that they were wounded by\nhim. On the following day they were found bleeding in their beds. In\nVernon,[380] about the year 1566, \"the witches and warlocks gathered in\ngreat multitudes under the shape of cats. Four or five men were attacked\nin a lone place by a number of these beasts. The men stood their ground,\nand succeeded in slaying one cat and wounding many others. Next day a\nnumber of wounded women were found in the town, and they gave the judge\nan accurate account of all the circumstances connected with their\nwounding.\" It is only natural, then, that Shakespeare, in his\ndescription of the witches in \"Macbeth,\" should have associated them\nwith the popular superstition which represents the cat as their agent--a\nnotion that no doubt originated in the classic story of Galanthis being\nturned into a cat, and becoming, through the compassion of Hecate, her\npriestess. From their supposed connection with witchcraft, cats were\nformerly often tormented by the ignorant vulgar. Thus it appears[381]\nthat, in days gone by, they (occasionally fictitious ones) were hung up\nin baskets and shot at with arrows. In some counties, too, they were\nenclosed, with a quantity of soot, in wooden bottles suspended on a\nline, and he who could beat out the bottom of the bottle as he ran under\nit, and yet escape its contents, was the hero of the sport.[382]\nShakespeare alludes to this practice in \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (i. 1),\nwhere Benedick says: \"Hang me in a bottle like a cat, and shoot at me.\"\n\n [372] \"Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,\" p. 267; Brand's \"Pop.\n Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. p. 7.\n\n [373] Malkin is a diminutive of \"Mary;\" \"Maukin,\" the same\n word, is still used in Scotland for a hare. \"Notes to Macbeth,\"\n by Clark and Wright, 1877, p. 75.\n\n [374] Sternberg's \"Dialect and Folk-Lore of Northamptonshire,\"\n 1851, p. 148.\n\n [375] Henderson's \"Folk-Lore of Northern Counties\" 1879, p. 206.\n\n [376] Kelly's \"Indo-European Folk-Lore,\" 1863, p. 238.\n\n [377] Thorpe's \"Northern Mythology,\" 1851, vol. iii. p. 32.\n\n [378] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 32; vol. iii. pp. 26-236.\n\n [379] See Baring-Gould's \"Book of Werewolves,\" 1869, p. 65.\n\n [380] Ibid., p. 66.\n\n [381] Dyce's \"Glossary to Shakespeare,\" p. 70.\n\n [382] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. p. 39; also\n Wright's \"Essays on the Superstitions of the Middle Ages,\"\n 1846.\n\nPercy, in his \"Reliques of Ancient English Poetry\" (1794, vol. i. p.\n155), says: \"It is still a diversion in Scotland to hang up a cat in a\nsmall cask or firkin, half filled with soot; and then a parcel of clowns\non horseback try to beat out the ends of it, in order to show their\ndexterity in escaping before the contents fall upon them.\"\n\nThis practice was once kept up at Kelso, in Scotland, according to\nEbenezer Lazarus, who, in his \"Description of Kelso\" (1789, p. 144), has\ngiven a graphic description of the whole ceremony. He says, \"This is a\nsport which was common in the last century at Kelso on the Tweed. A\nlarge concourse of men, women, and children assembled in a field about\nhalf a mile from the town, and a cat having been put into a barrel\nstuffed full of soot, was suspended on a crossbeam between two high\npoles. A certain number of the whipmen, or husbandmen, who took part in\nthis savage and unmanly amusement, then kept striking, as they rode to\nand fro on horseback, the barrel in which the unfortunate animal was\nconfined, until at last, under the heavy blows of their clubs and\nmallets, it broke, and allowed the cat to drop. The victim was then\nseized and tortured to death.\" He justly stigmatizes it, saying:\n\n \"The cat in the barrel exhibits such a farce,\n That he who can relish it is worse than an ass.\"\n\nCats, from their great powers of resistance, are said to have nine\nlives;[383] hence Mercutio, in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iii. 1), says: \"Good\nking of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives.\" Ben Jonson, in \"Every\nMan in His Humour\" (iii. 2), makes Edward Knowell say to Bobadil, \"'Twas\npity you had not ten; a cat's and your own.\" And in Gay's fable of the\n\"Old Woman and her Cats,\" one of these animals is introduced, upbraiding\nthe witch:\n\n \"'Tis infamy to serve a hag,\n Cats are thought imps, her broom a nag;\n And boys against our lives combine,\n Because 'tis said, your cats have nine.\"\n\n [383] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" vol. iii. p. 42.\n\nIn Marston's \"Dutch Courtezan\" we read:\n\n \"Why then, thou hast nine lives like a cat.\"\n\nAnd in Dekker's \"Strange Horse-Race\" (1613): \"When the grand Helcat had\ngotten these two furies with nine lives.\" This notion, it may be noted,\nis quite the reverse of the well-known saying, \"Care will kill a cat,\"\nmentioned in \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (v. 1), where Claudio says: \"What\nthough care killed a cat.\"\n\nFor some undiscovered reason a cat was formerly called Tybert or\nTybalt;[384] hence some of the insulting remarks of Mercutio, in \"Romeo\nand Juliet\" (iii. 1), who calls Tybalt \"rat-catcher\" and \"king of cats.\"\nIn the old romance of \"Hystorye of Reynard the Foxe\" (chap. vi.), we are\ntold how \"the king called for Sir Tibert, the cat, and said to him, Sir\nTibert, you shall go to Reynard, and summon him the second time.\"[385] A\npopular term for a wild cat was \"cat-o'-mountain,\" an expression[386]\nborrowed from the Spaniards, who call the wild cat \"gato-montes.\" In the\n\"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (ii. 2), Falstaff says of Pistol, \"Your\ncat-a-mountain looks.\"\n\n [384] Dyce's \"Glossary to Shakespeare,\" p. 466.\n\n [385] From Tibert, Tib was also a common name for a cat.\n\n [386] Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, p. 41.\n\nThe word cat was used as a term of contempt, as in \"The Tempest\" (ii. 1)\nand \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (iii. 2), where Lysander says, \"Hang\noff, thou cat.\" Once more, too, in \"Coriolanus\" (iv. 2), we find it in\nthe same sense:\n\n \"'Twas you incensed the rabble;\n Cats, that can judge as fitly of his worth,\n As I can of those mysteries which heaven\n Will not have earth to know.\"\n\nA gib, or a gib cat, is an old male cat[387]--gib being the contraction\nof Gilbert,[388] and is, says Nares, an expression exactly analogous to\nthat of jackass.[389] Tom-cat is now the usual term. The word was\ncertainly not bestowed upon a cat early in life, as is evident from the\nmelancholy character ascribed to it in Shakespeare's allusion in \"1\nHenry IV.\" (i. 2): \"I am as melancholy as a gib cat.\" Ray gives \"as\nmelancholy as a gib'd [a corruption of gib] cat.\" The term occurs again\nin \"Hamlet\" (iii. 4). It is improperly applied to a female by Beaumont\nand Fletcher, in the \"Scornful Lady\" (v. 1): \"Bring out the cat-hounds!\nI'll make you take a tree, whore; then with my tiller bring down your\ngib-ship, and then have you cased and hung up in the warren.\"\n\n [387] Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 183.\n\n [388] A gibbe (an old male cat), Macou, Cotgrave's \"French and\n English Dictionary.\"\n\n [389] \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 360.\n\n_Chameleon._ This animal was popularly believed to feed on air, a notion\nwhich Sir Thomas Browne[390] has carefully discussed. He has assigned,\namong other grounds for this vulgar opinion, its power of abstinence,\nand its faculty of self-inflation. It lives on insects, which it catches\nby its long, gluey tongue, and crushes between its jaws. It has been\nascertained by careful experiment that the chameleon can live without\neating for four months. It can inflate not only its lungs, but its whole\nbody, including even the feet and tail. In allusion to this supposed\ncharacteristic, Shakespeare makes Hamlet say (iii. 2), \"Of the\nchameleon's dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed; you cannot feed capons\nso;\" and in the \"Two Gentlemen of Verona\" (ii. 1) Speed says: \"Though\nthe chameleon, Love, can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by\nmy victuals, and would fain have meat.\" There is, too, a popular notion\nthat this animal undergoes frequent changes of color, according to that\nof the bodies near it. This, however, depends on the volition of the\nanimal, or the state of its feelings, on its good or bad health, and is\nsubordinate to climate, age, and sex.[391] In \"3 Henry VI.\" (iii. 2)\nGloster boasts:\n\n \"I can add colours to the chameleon,\n Change shapes, with Proteus, for advantages.\"\n\n [390] \"Vulgar Errors,\" bk. iii. p. 21, 1852; bk. i. p. 321,\n _note_.\n\n [391] Ovid (\"Metamorphoses,\" bk. xv. l. 411) speaks of its\n changes of color.\n\n_Cockatrice._ This imaginary creature, also called a basilisk, has been\nthe subject of extraordinary prejudice. It was absurdly said to proceed\nfrom the eggs of old cocks. It has been represented as having eight\nfeet, a crown on the head, and a hooked and recurved beak.[392] Pliny\nasserts that the basilisk had a voice so terrible that it struck terror\ninto all other species. Sir Thomas Browne,[393] however, distinguishes\nthe cockatrice from the ancient basilisk. He says, \"This of ours is\ngenerally described with legs, wings, a serpentine and winding tail, and\na crest or comb somewhat like a cock. But the basilisk of elder times\nwas a proper kind of serpent, not above three palms long, as some\naccount; and different from other serpents by advancing his head and\nsome white marks, or coronary spots upon the crown, as all authentic\nwriters have delivered.\" No other animal, perhaps, has given rise to so\nmany fabulous notions. Thus, it was supposed to have so deadly an eye as\nto kill by its very look, to which Shakespeare often alludes. In \"Romeo\nand Juliet\" (iii. 2), Juliet says:\n\n \"say thou but 'I,'\n And that bare vowel, 'I,' shall poison more\n Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.\"\n\n [392] Cuvier's \"Animal Kingdom,\" 1831, vol. ix. p. 226.\n\n [393] \"Vulgar Errors,\" bk. iii. p. 7.\n\nIn \"Richard III.\" (iv. 1) the Duchess exclaims:\n\n \"O my accursed womb, the bed of death!\n A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,\n Whose unavoided eye is murderous!\"\n\nIn \"Lucrece\" (l. 540) we read:\n\n \"Here with a cockatrice' dead-killing eye\n He rouseth up himself, and makes a pause.\"\n\nOnce more,[394] in \"Twelfth Night\" (iii. 4), Sir Toby Belch affirms:\n\"This will so fright them both that they will kill one another by the\nlook, like cockatrices.\" It has also been affirmed that this animal\ncould not exercise this faculty unless it first perceived the object of\nits vengeance; if first seen, it died. Dryden has alluded to this\nsuperstition:\n\n \"Mischiefs are like the cockatrice's eye,\n If they see first they kill, if seen, they die.\"\n\n [394] See \"Cymbeline,\" ii. 4; \"Winter's Tale,\" i. 2.\n\nCockatrice was a popular phrase for a loose woman, probably from the\nfascination of the eye.[395] It appears, too, that basilisk[396] was the\nname of a huge piece of ordnance carrying a ball of very great weight.\nIn the following passage in \"Henry V.\" (v. 2), there is no doubt a\ndouble allusion--to pieces of ordnance, and to the fabulous creature\nalready described:\n\n \"The fatal balls of murdering basilisks.\"\n\n [395] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p 173.\n\n [396] Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 29; see \"1 Henry IV.,\" ii. 3, \"of\n basilisks, of cannon, culverin.\"\n\n_Colt._ From its wild tricks the colt was formerly used to designate,\naccording to Johnson, \"a witless, heady, gay youngster.\" Portia mentions\nit with a quibble in \"The Merchant of Venice\" (i. 2), referring to the\nNeapolitan prince. \"Ay, that's a colt, indeed.\" The term \"to colt\"\nmeant to trick, or befool; as in the phrase in \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii. 2):\n\"What a plague mean ye to colt me thus?\" Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps[397]\nexplains the expression in \"Henry VIII.\" (i. 3), \"Your colt's tooth is\nnot cast yet,\" to denote a love of youthful pleasure. In \"Cymbeline\"\n(ii. 4) it is used in a coarser sense: \"She hath been colted by him.\"\n\n [397] \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare.\"\n\n_Crocodile._ According to fabulous accounts the crocodile was the most\ndeceitful of animals; its tears being proverbially fallacious. Thus\nOthello (iv. 1) says:\n\n \"O devil, devil!\n If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,\n Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.--\n Out of my sight!\"\n\nWe may also compare the words of the queen in \"2 Henry VI.\" (iii. 1):\n\n \"Henry my lord is cold in great affairs,\n Too full of foolish pity; and Gloster's show\n Beguiles him, as the mournful crocodile\n With sorrow snares relenting passengers.\"\n\nIt is said that this treacherous animal weeps over a man's head when it\nhas devoured the body, and will then eat up the head too. In Bullokar's\n\"Expositor,\" 1616, we read: \"Crocodile lachrym\u00e6, crocodiles teares, do\nsignify such teares as are feigned, and spent only with intent to\ndeceive or do harm.\" In Quarles's \"Emblems\" there is the following\nallusion:\n\n \"O what a crocodilian world is this,\n Compos'd of treachries and ensnaring wiles!\n She cloaths destruction in a formal kiss,\n And lodges death in her deceitful smiles.\"\n\nIn the above passage from \"Othello,\" Singer says there is, no doubt, a\nreference to the doctrine of equivocal generation, by which new animals\nwere supposed to be producible by new combinations of matter.[398]\n\n [398] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" 1875, vol. x. p. 118.\n\n_Deer._ In \"King Lear\" (iii. 4) Edgar uses deer for wild animals in\ngeneral:\n\n \"But mice, and rats, and such small deer,\n Have been Tom's food for seven long year.\"\n\nShakespeare frequently refers to the popular sport of hunting the\ndeer;[399] and by his apt allusions shows how thoroughly familiar he was\nwith the various amusements of his day.[400] In \"Winter's Tale\" (i. 2)\nLeontes speaks of \"the mort o' the deer:\" certain notes played on the\nhorn at the death of the deer, and requiring a deep-drawn breath.[401]\nIt was anciently, too, one of the customs of the chase for all to stain\ntheir hands in the blood of the deer as a trophy. Thus, in \"King John\"\n(ii. 1), the English herald declares to the men of Angiers how\n\n \"like a jolly troop of huntsmen, come\n Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,\n Dyed in the dying slaughter of their foes.\"\n\n [399] See Strutt's \"Sports and Pastimes,\" 1876, pp. 66, 75, 79,\n 80, 113, 117.\n\n [400] See \"As You Like It,\" iv. 2; \"All's Well That Ends Well,\"\n v. 2; \"Macbeth,\" iv. 3; \"1 Henry IV.,\" v. 4; \"1 Henry VI.,\" iv.\n 2; \"2 Henry VI.,\" v. 2; \"Titus Andronicus,\" iii. 1, etc.\n\n [401] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. viii. p. 421\n\nThe practice is again alluded to in \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (iii. 1):\n\n \"here thy hunters stand,\n Sign'd in thy spoil, and crimson'd in thy lethe.\"\n\nOld Turbervile gives us the details of this custom: \"Our order is, that\nthe prince, or chief, if so please them, do alight, and take assay of\nthe deer, with a sharp knife, the which is done in this manner--the deer\nbeing laid upon his back, the prince, chief, or such as they do appoint,\ncomes to it, and the chief huntsman, kneeling if it be a prince, doth\nhold the deer by the forefoot, whilst the prince, or chief, do cut a\nslit drawn along the brisket of the deer.\"\n\nIn \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (v. 2), where C\u00e6sar, speaking of Cleopatra's\ndeath, says:\n\n \"bravest at the last,\n She levell'd at our purposes, and, being royal,\n Took her own way\"--\n\nthere is possibly an allusion to the _hart royal_, which had the\nprivilege of roaming unmolested, and of taking its own way to its lair.\n\nShooting with the cross-bow at deer was an amusement of great ladies.\nBuildings with flat roofs, called stands, partly concealed by bushes,\nwere erected in the parks for the purpose. Hence the following dialogue\nin \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (iv. 1):\n\n \"_Princess._ Then forester, my friend, where is the bush\n That we must stand and play the murderer in?\n\n _Forester._ Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice;\n A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.\"\n\nAmong the hunting terms to which Shakespeare refers may be mentioned the\nfollowing:\n\n\"To draw\" meant to trace the steps of the game, as in \"Comedy of Errors\"\n(iv. 2):\n\n \"A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot well.\"\n\nThe term \"to run counter\" was to mistake the course of the game, or to\nturn and pursue the backward trail.\n\nThe \"recheat\" denoted certain notes sounded on the horn, properly and\nmore usually employed to recall the dogs from a wrong scent. It is used\nin \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (i. 1): \"I will have a recheat winded in my\nforehead.\" We may compare Drayton's \"Polyolbion\" (xiii.):\n\n \"Recheating with his horn, which then the hunter cheers.\"\n\nThe phrase \"to recover the wind of me,\" used by Hamlet (iii. 2), is\nborrowed from hunting, and means to get the animal pursued to run with\nthe wind, that it may not scent the toil or its pursuers. Again, when\nFalstaff, in \"2 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4), speaks of \"fat rascals,\" he alludes\nto the phrase of the forest--\"rascall,\" says Puttenham, \"being properly\nthe hunting term given to a young deer leane and out of season.\"\n\nThe phrase \"a hunts-up\" implied any song intended to arouse in the\nmorning--even a love song--the name having been derived from a tune or\nsong employed by early hunters.[402] The term occurs in \"Romeo and\nJuliet\" (iii. 5), where Juliet says to Romeo, speaking of the lark:\n\n \"Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,\n Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day.\"\n\n [402] Chappell's \"Popular Music of the Olden Time,\" 2d ed. vol.\n i. p. 61; see Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 432;\n see, too, Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 440.\n\nIn Drayton's \"Polyolbion\" (xiii.) it is used:\n\n \"No sooner doth the earth her flowery bosom brave,\n At such time as the year brings on the pleasant spring,\n But hunts-up to the morn the feather'd sylvans sing.\"\n\nIn Shakespeare's day it was customary to hunt as well after dinner as\nbefore, hence, in \"Timon of Athens\" (ii. 2), Timon says:\n\n \"So soon as dinner's done, we'll forth again.\"\n\nThe word \"embossed\" was applied to a deer when foaming at the mouth from\nfatigue. In \"Taming of the Shrew\" (Ind. scene 1) we read: \"the poor cur\nis embossed,\" and in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (iv. 13):\n\n \"the boar of Thessaly\n Was never so emboss'd.\"\n\nIt was usual to call a pack of hounds \"a cry,\" from the French _meute de\nchiens_. The term is humorously applied to any troop or company of\nplayers, as by Hamlet (iii. 2), who speaks of \"a fellowship in a cry of\nplayers.\" In \"Coriolanus\" (iv. 6) Menenius says,\n\n \"You have made\n Good work, you and your cry.\"\n\nAntony, in \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (iii. 1), alludes to the technical phrase to\n\"let slip a dog,\" employed in hunting the hart. This consisted in\nreleasing the hounds from the leash or _slip_ of leather by which they\nwere held in hand until it was judged proper to let them pursue the\nanimal chased.[403] In \"1 Henry IV.\" (i. 3) Northumberland tells\nHotspur:\n\n \"Before the game's afoot, thou still let'st slip.\"\n\n [403] See Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 401.\n\nIn \"Taming of the Shrew\" (v. 2) Tranio says:\n\n \"O, sir, Lucentio slipp'd me like his greyhound,\n Which runs himself, and catches for his master.\"\n\nA sportsman's saying, applied to hounds, occurs in \"2 Henry IV.\" (v. 3):\n\"a' will not out; he is true bred,\" serving to expound Gadshill's\nexpression, \"such as can hold in,\" \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii. 1).\n\nThe severity of the game laws under our early monarchs was very\nstringent; and a clause in the \"Forest Charter\"[404] grants \"to an\narchbishop, bishop, earl, or baron, when travelling through the royal\nforests, at the king's command, the privilege to kill one deer or two in\nthe sight of the forester, if he was at hand; if not, they were\ncommanded to cause a horn to be sounded, that it might not appear as if\nthey had intended to steal the game.\" In \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (v.\n5), Falstaff, using the terms of the forest, alludes to the perquisites\nof the keeper. Thus he speaks of the \"shoulders for the fellow of this\nwalk,\" _i. e._, the keeper.\n\n [404] See Strutt's \"Sports and Pastimes,\" 1876, p. 65.\n\nShakespeare has several pretty allusions to the tears of the deer, this\nanimal being said to possess a very large secretion of tears. Thus\nHamlet (iii. 2) says: \"let the strucken deer go weep;\" and in \"As You\nLike It\" (ii. 1) we read of the \"sobbing deer,\" and in the same scene\nthe first lord narrates how, at a certain spot,\n\n \"a poor sequester'd stag\n That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt\n Did come to languish; ...\n ... and the big round tears\n Coursed one another down his innocent nose\n In piteous chase.\"\n\nBartholom\u00e6us[405] says, that \"when the hart is arered, he fleethe to a\nryver or ponde, and roreth cryeth and wepeth when he is take.\"[406] It\nappears that there were various superstitions connected with the tears\nof the deer. Batman[407] tells us that \"when the hart is sick, and hath\neaten many serpents for his recoverie, he is brought unto so great a\nheate that he hasteth to the water, and there covereth his body unto the\nvery eares and eyes, at which time distilleth many tears from which the\n[Bezoar] stone is gendered.\"[408] Douce[409] quotes the following\npassage from the \"Noble Art of Venerie,\" in which the hart thus\naddresses the hunter:\n\n \"O cruell, be content, to take in worth my tears,\n Which growe to gumme, and fall from me: content thee with my heares,\n Content thee with my hornes, which every year I new,\n Since all these three make medicines, some sickness to eschew.\n My tears congeal'd to gumme, by peeces from me fall,\n And thee preserve from pestilence, in pomander or ball.\n Such wholesome tears shedde I, when thou pursewest me so.\"\n\n [405] \"De Proprietate Rerum,\" lib. xviii. c. 30.\n\n [406] Cf. Vergil's description of the wounded stag in \"\u00c6neid,\"\n bk. vii.\n\n [407] Commentary on Bartholom\u00e6us's \"De Proprietate Rerum.\"\n\n [408] The drops which fall from their eyes are not tears from\n the lachrymal glands, but an oily secretion from the inner\n angle of the eye close to the nose.--Brewer's \"Dictionary of\n Phrase and Fable,\" p. 217.\n\n [409] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 183.\n\n_Dog._ As the favorite of our domestic animals, the dog not unnaturally\npossesses an extensive history, besides entering largely into those\nsuperstitions which, more or less, are associated with every stage of\nhuman life. It is not surprising, therefore, that Shakespeare frequently\nspeaks of the dog, making it the subject of many of his illustrations.\nThus he has not omitted to mention the fatal significance of its howl,\nwhich is supposed either to foretell death or misfortune. In \"2 Henry\nVI.\" (i. 4) he makes Bolingbroke say:\n\n \"The time when screech-owls cry, and ban-dogs howl,[410]\n And spirits walk, and ghosts break up their graves.\"\n\n [410] These dogs were kept for baiting bears, when that\n amusement was in vogue, and \"from their terrific howling they\n are occasionally introduced to heighten the horror of the\n picture.\" Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 50.\n\nAnd, again, in \"3 Henry VI.\" (v. 6), King Henry, speaking of Gloster,\nsays:\n\n \"The owl shriek'd at thy birth,--an evil sign;\n The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;\n Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempests shook down trees.\"\n\nThe same superstition prevails in France and Germany,[411] and various\ncharms are resorted to for averting the ill-consequences supposed to\nattach to this sign of ill-omen. Several of these, too, are practised in\nour own country. Thus, in Staffordshire, when a dog howls, the following\nadvice is given: \"Take off your shoe from the left foot, and spit upon\nthe sole, place it on the ground bottom upwards, and your foot upon the\nplace you sat upon, which will not only preserve you from harm, but stop\nthe howling of the dog.\"[412] A similar remedy is recommended in\nNorfolk:[413] \"Pull off your left shoe, and turn it, and it will quiet\nhim. A dog won't howl three times after.\" We are indebted to antiquity\nfor this superstition, some of the earliest writers referring to it.\nThus, Pausanias relates how, previous to the destruction of the\nMessenians, the dogs pierced the air by raising a louder barking than\nusual; and it is on record how, before the sedition in Rome, about the\ndictatorship of Pompey, there was an extraordinary howling of dogs.\nVergil[414] (\"Georgics,\" lib. i. l. 470), speaking of the Roman\nmisfortunes, says:\n\n \"Obscen\u00e6que canes, importun\u00e6que volucres\n Signa dabant.\"\n\n [411] See Kelly's \"Indo-European Folk-Lore,\" p. 109.\n\n [412] Henderson's \"Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties,\" p. 48.\n\n [413] See \"English Folk-Lore,\" p. 101.\n\n [414] See Hardwick's \"Traditions, Superstitions, and\n Folk-Lore,\" p. 171.\n\nCapitolinus narrates, too, how the dogs, by their howling, presaged the\ndeath of Maximinus. The idea which associates the dog's howl with the\napproach of death is probably derived from a conception in Aryan\nmythology, which represents a dog as summoning the departing soul.\nIndeed, as Mr. Fiske[415] remarks, \"Throughout all Aryan mythology, the\nsouls of the dead are supposed to ride on the night-wind, with their\nhowling dogs, gathering into their throng the souls of those just dying\nas they pass by their houses.\"\n\n [415] \"Myths and Mythmakers,\" 1873, p. 36.\n\nAnother popular superstition--in all probability derived from the\nEgyptians--refers to the setting and rising of Sirius, or the dog-star,\nas infusing madness into the canine race. Hence the name of the\n\"dog-days\" was given by the Romans to the period between the 3d of July\nand the 11th of August, to which Shakespeare alludes in \"Henry VIII.\"\n(v. 3): \"the dog-days now reign.\" We may, too, compare the words of\nBenvolio, in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iii. 1):\n\n \"For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.\"\n\nIt is obvious, however, that this superstition is utterly groundless,\nfor not only does the star vary in its rising, but is later and later\nevery year. The term \"dog-day\" is still a common phrase, and it is\ndifficult to say whether it is from superstitious adherence to old\ncustom, or from a belief in the injurious effect of heat upon dogs, that\nthe magistrates, often unwisely, at this season of the year order them\nto be muzzled or tied up. It was the practice to put them to death; and\nBen Jonson, in his \"Bartholomew Fair,\" speaks of \"the dog-killer\" in\nthis month of August. Lord Bacon, too, in his \"Sylva Sylvarum,\" tells us\nthat \"it is a common experience that dogs know the dog-killer, when, as\nin times of infection, some petty fellow is sent out to kill them.\nAlthough they have never seen him before, yet they will all come forth\nand bark and fly at him.\"\n\nA \"curtal dog,\" to which allusion is made in \"Merry Wives of Windsor\"\n(ii. 1), by Pistol--\n\n \"Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs,\"\n\ndenoted \"originally the dog of an unqualified person, which, by the\nforest laws, must have its tail cut short, partly as a mark, and partly\nfrom a notion that the tail of a dog is necessary to him in running.\" In\nlater usage, _curtail dog_ means either a common dog, not meant for\nsport, or a dog that missed the game, which latter sense it has in the\npassage above.[416]\n\n [416] \"Nares's Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 218.\n\n_Dragon._ As the type and embodiment of the spirit of evil, the dragon\nhas been made the subject of an extensive legendary lore. The well-known\nmyth of St. George and the Dragon, which may be regarded as a grand\nallegory representing the hideous and powerful monster against whom the\nChristian soldier is called to fight, has exercised a remarkable\ninfluence for good in times past, over half-instructed people. It has\nbeen truly remarked that \"the dullest mind and hardest heart could not\nfail to learn from it something of the hatefulness of evil, the beauty\nof self-sacrifice, and the all-conquering might of truth.\" This graceful\nconception is alluded to by Shakespeare, in his \"King John\" (ii. 1),\nwhere, according to a long-established custom, it is made a subject for\nsign-painting:[417]\n\n \"St. George, that swinged the dragon, and e'er since,\n Sits on his horseback at mine hostess' door,\n Teach us some fence!\"\n\n [417] For the various versions of this myth consult\n Baring-Gould's \"Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,\" 1877, pp.\n 266-316.\n\nIn ancient mythology the task of drawing the chariot of night was\nassigned to dragons, on account of their supposed watchfulness. In\n\"Cymbeline\" (ii. 2) Iachimo, addressing them, says:\n\n \"Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawning\n May bare the raven's eye!\"[418]\n\n [418] Cf. \"Troilus and Cressida,\" v. 8; \"Midsummer-Night's\n Dream,\" iii. 2.\n\nMilton, in his \"Il Penseroso,\" mentions the dragon yoke of night, and in\nhis \"Comus\" (l. 130):\n\n \"the dragon womb\n Of Stygian darkness.\"\n\nIt may be noticed that the whole tribe of serpents sleep with their\neyes open, and so appear to exert a constant watchfulness.[419]\n\n [419] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. x. p. 363.\n\nIn devising loathsome ingredients for the witches' mess, Shakespeare\n(\"Macbeth,\" iv. 1) speaks of \"the scale of dragon,\" alluding to the\nhorror in which this mythical being was held. Referring, also, to the\nnumerous legends associated with its dread form, he mentions \"the spleen\nof fiery dragons\" (\"Richard III.,\" v. 3), \"dragon's wings\" (\"1 Henry\nVI.,\" i. 1), and (\"Pericles,\" i. 1), \"death-like dragons.\" Mr.\nConway[420] has admirably summed up the general views respecting this\nimaginary source of terror: \"Nearly all the dragon forms, whatever their\noriginal types and their region, are represented in the conventional\nmonster of the European stage, which meets the popular conception. The\ndragon is a masterpiece of the popular imagination, and it required many\ngenerations to give it artistic shape. Every Christmas he appears in\nsome London pantomime, with aspect similar to that which he has worn for\nmany ages. His body is partly green, with the memories of the sea and of\nslime, and partly brown or dark, with lingering shadow of storm clouds.\nThe lightning flames still in his red eyes, and flashes from his\nfire-breathing mouth. The thunder-bolt of Jove, the spear of Wodan, are\nin the barbed point of his tail. His huge wings--bat-like, spiked--sum up\nall the mythical life of extinct harpies and vampires. Spine of\ncrocodile is on his neck, tail of the serpent, and all the jagged ridges\nof rocks and sharp thorns of jungles bristle around him, while the ice\nof glaciers and brassy glitter of sunstrokes are in his scales. He is\nideal of all that is hard, obstructive, perilous, loathsome, horrible in\nnature; every detail of him has been seen through and vanquished by man,\nhere or there, but in selection and combination they rise again as\nprinciples, and conspire to form one great generalization of the forms\nof pain--the sum of every creature's worst.\"[421]\n\n [420] \"Demonology and Devil-Lore,\" 1880, vol. i. p. 383.\n\n [421] The dragon formerly constituted a part of the\n morris-dance.\n\n_Elephant._ According to a vulgar error, current in bygone times, the\nelephant was supposed to have no joints--a notion which is said to have\nbeen first recorded from tradition by Ctesias the Cnidian.[422] Sir\nThomas Browne has entered largely into this superstition, arguing, from\nreason, anatomy, and general analogy with other animals, the absurdity\nof the error. In \"Troilus and Cressida\" (ii. 3), Ulysses says: \"The\nelephant hath joints, but none for courtesy: his legs are legs for\nnecessity, not for flexure.\" Steevens quotes from \"The Dialogues of\nCreatures Moralized\"--a curious specimen of our early natural history--the\nfollowing: \"the olefawnte that bowyth not the kneys.\" In the play of\n\"All Fools,\" 1605, we read: \"I hope you are no elephant--you have\njoints.\" In a note to Sir Thomas Browne's Works,[423] we are told, \"it\nhas long been the custom for the exhibitors of itinerant collections of\nwild animals, when showing the elephant, to mention the story of its\nhaving no joints, and its consequent inability to kneel; and they never\nfail to think it necessary to demonstrate its untruth by causing the\nanimal to bend one of its fore-legs, and to kneel also.\"\n\n [422] Sir Thomas Browne's Works, 1852, vol. i. pp. 220-232.\n\n [423] Edited by Simon Wilkin, 1852, vol. i. p. 226.\n\nIn \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (ii. 1) the custom of seducing elephants into\npitfalls, lightly covered with hurdles and turf, on which a proper bait\nto tempt them was exposed, is alluded to.[424] Decius speaks of\nelephants being betrayed \"with holes.\"\n\n [424] See Pliny's \"Natural History,\" bk. viii.\n\n_Fox._ It appears that the term fox was a common expression for the old\nEnglish weapon, the broadsword of Jonson's days, as distinguished from\nthe small (foreign) sword. The name was given from the circumstance that\nAndrea Ferrara adopted a fox as the blade-mark of his weapons--a\npractice, since his time, adopted by other foreign sword-cutlers. Swords\nwith a running fox rudely engraved on the blades are still occasionally\nto be met with in the old curiosity shops of London.[425] Thus, in\n\"Henry V.\" (iv. 4), Pistol says:\n\n \"O Signieur Dew, thou diest on point of fox,\n Except, O signieur, thou do give to me\n Egregious ransom.\"\n\n [425] Staunton's \"Shakespeare,\" 1864, vol. ii. p. 367; Nares's\n \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 331.\n\nIn Ben Jonson's \"Bartholomew Fair\" (ii. 6) the expression occurs: \"What\nwould you have, sister, of a fellow that knows nothing but a\nbasket-hilt, and an old fox in it?\"\n\nThe tricks and artifices of a hunted fox were supposed to be very\nextraordinary; hence Falstaff makes use of this expression in \"1 Henry\nIV.\" (iii. 3): \"No more truth in thee than in a drawn fox.\"\n\n_Goat._ It is curious that the harmless goat should have had an evil\nname, and been associated with devil-lore. Thus, there is a common\nsuperstition in England and Scotland that it is never seen for\ntwenty-four hours together; and that once in this space it pays a visit\nto the devil, in order to have its beard combed. It was, formerly, too,\na popular notion that the devil appeared frequently in the shape of a\ngoat, which accounted for his horns and tail. Sir Thomas Browne observes\nthat the goat was the emblem of the sin-offering, and is the emblem of\nsinful men at the day of judgment. This may, perhaps, account for\nShakespeare's enumerating the \"gall of goat\" (\"Macbeth,\" iv. 1) among\nthe ingredients of the witches' caldron. His object seems to have been\nto include the most distasteful and ill-omened things imaginable--a\npractice shared, indeed, by other poets contemporary with him.\n\n_Hare._ This was formerly esteemed a melancholy animal, and its flesh\nwas supposed to engender melancholy in those who ate it. This idea was\nnot confined to our own country, but is mentioned by La Fontaine in one\nof his \"Fables\" (liv. ii. fab. 14):\n\n \"Dans un profond ennui ce lievre se plongeoit,\n Cet animal est triste, et la crainte le rounge;\"\n\nand later on he says: \"Le melancolique animal.\" Hence, in \"1 Henry IV.\"\n(i. 2), Falstaff is told by Prince Henry that he is as melancholy as a\nhare. This notion was not quite forgotten in Swift's time; for in his\n\"Polite Conversation,\" Lady Answerall, being asked to eat hare, replies:\n\"No, madam; they say 'tis melancholy meat.\" Mr. Staunton quotes the\nfollowing extract from Turbervile's book on Hunting and Falconry: \"The\nhare first taught us the use of the hearbe called wyld succory, which is\nvery excellent for those which are disposed to be melancholicke. She\nherself is one of the most melancholicke beasts that is, and to heale\nher own infirmitie, she goeth commonly to sit under that hearbe.\"\n\nThe old Greek epigram relating to the hare--\n\n \"Strike ye my body, now that life is fled;\n So hares insult the lion when he's dead,\"\n\n--is alluded to by the Bastard in \"King John\" (ii. 1):\n\n \"You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,\n Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard.\"\n\nA familiar expression among sportsmen for a hare is \"Wat,\" so called,\nperhaps, from its long ears or wattles. In \"Venus and Adonis\" the term\noccurs:\n\n \"By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,\n Stands on his hinder legs, with listening ear.\"\n\nIn Drayton's \"Polyolbion\" (xxiii.) we read:\n\n \"The man whose vacant mind prepares him to the sport,\n The finder sendeth out, to seek out nimble Wat,\n Which crosseth in the field, each furlong, every flat,\n Till he this pretty beast upon the form hath found.\"\n\n_Hedgehog._ The urchin or hedgehog, like the toad, for its solitariness,\nthe ugliness of its appearance, and from a popular belief that it sucked\nor poisoned the udders of cows, was adopted into the demonologic system;\nand its shape was sometimes supposed to be assumed by mischievous\nelves.[426] Hence, in \"The Tempest\" (i. 2), Prospero says:\n\n \"Urchins\n Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,\n All exercise on thee;\"\n\nand later on in the same play (ii. 2) Caliban speaks of being frighted\nwith \"urchin shows.\" In the witch scene in \"Macbeth\" (iv. 1) the\nhedge-pig is represented as one of the witches' familiars; and in the\n\"Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (ii. 2), in the incantation of the fairies,\n\"thorny hedgehogs\" are exorcised. For the use of urchins in similar\nassociations we may quote \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (iv. 4), \"like\nurchins, ouphes, and fairies;\" and \"Titus Andronicus\" (ii. 3), \"ten\nthousand swelling toads, as many urchins.\"[427] In the phrase still\ncurrent, of \"little urchin\" for a child, the idea of the fairy also\nremains. In various legends we find this animal holding a prominent\nplace. Thus, for example, it was in the form of a hedgehog[428] that the\ndevil is said to have made his attempt to let the sea in through the\nBrighton Downs, which was prevented by a light being brought, though the\nseriousness of the scheme is still attested in the Devil's Dyke. There\nis an ancient tradition that when the devil had smuggled himself into\nNoah's Ark he tried to sink it by boring a hole; but this scheme was\ndefeated, and the human race saved, by the hedgehog stuffing himself\ninto the hole. In the Brighton story, as Mr. Conway points out, the\ndevil would appear to have remembered his former failure in drowning\npeople, and to have appropriated the form which defeated him. In\n\"Richard III.\" (i. 2), the hedgehog is used as a term of reproach by\nLady Anne, when addressing Gloster.\n\n [426] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. ix. p. 75.\n\n [427] See Wright's Notes to \"The Tempest,\" 1875, p. 94.\n\n [428] Conway's \"Demonology and Devil-Lore,\" 1880, vol. i. p. 122.\n\n_Horse._ Although Shakespeare's allusions to the horse are most\nextensive, yet he has said little of the many widespread superstitions,\nlegends, and traditional tales that have been associated from the\nearliest times with this brave and intellectual animal. Indeed, even\nnowadays, both in our own country and abroad, many a fairy tale is told\nand credited by the peasantry in which the horse occupies a prominent\nplace. It seems to have been a common notion that, at night-time,\nfairies in their nocturnal revels played various pranks with horses,\noften entangling in a thousand knots their hair--a superstition to which\nwe referred in our chapter on Fairies, where Mercutio, in \"Romeo and\nJuliet\" (i. 4), says:\n\n \"This is that very Mab\n That plats the manes of horses in the night,\n And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,\n Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes.\"\n\nIn \"King Lear\" (ii. 3), Edgar says: \"I'll ... elf all my hair in knots.\"\n\nMr. Hunt, in his \"Popular Romances of the West of England\" (1871, p.\n87), tells us that, when a boy, he was on a visit at a farmhouse near\nFowey River, and well remembers the farmer, with much sorrow, telling\nthe party one morning at breakfast, how \"the piskie people had been\nriding Tom again.\" The mane was said to be knotted into fairy stirrups,\nand the farmer said he had no doubt that at least twenty small people\nhad sat upon the horse's neck. Warburton[429] considers that this\nsuperstition may have originated from the disease called \"Plica\nPolonica.\" Witches, too, have generally been supposed to harass the\nhorse, using it in various ways for their fiendish purposes. Thus, there\nare numerous local traditions in which the horse at night-time has been\nridden by the witches, and found in the morning in an almost prostrate\ncondition, bathed in sweat.\n\n [429] Warburton on \"Romeo and Juliet,\" i. 4.\n\nIt was a current notion that a horse-hair dropped into corrupted water\nwould soon become an animal. The fact, however, is that the hair moves\nlike a living thing because a number of animalcul\u00e6 cling to it.[430]\nThis ancient vulgar error is mentioned in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (i. 2):\n\n \"much is breeding,\n Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life,\n And not a serpent's poison.\"\n\n [430] Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 104.\n\nSteevens quotes from Churchyard's \"Discourse of Rebellion,\" 1570:\n\n \"Hit is of kinde much worse than horses heare,\n That lyes in donge, where on vyle serpents brede.\"\n\nDr. Lister, in the \"Philosophical Transactions,\" says that these\nanimated horse-hairs are real thread-worms. It was asserted that these\nworms moved like serpents, and were poisonous to swallow. Coleridge\ntells us it was a common experiment with boys in Cumberland and\nWestmoreland to lay a horse-hair in water, which, when removed after a\ntime, would twirl round the finger and sensibly compress it--having\nbecome the supporter of an immense number of small, slimy water-lice.\n\nA horse is said to have a \"cloud in his face\" when he has a dark-colored\nspot in his forehead between his eyes. This gives him a sour look, and,\nbeing supposed to indicate an ill-temper, is generally considered a\ngreat blemish. This notion is alluded to in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (iii.\n2), where Agrippa, speaking of C\u00e6sar, says:\n\n \"He has a cloud in's face,\"\n\nwhereupon Enobarbus adds:\n\n \"He were the worse for that, were he a horse;\n So is he, being a man.\"\n\nBurton, in his \"Anatomy of Melancholy,\" uses the phrase for the look of\na woman: \"Every lover admires his mistress, though she be very deformed\nof herselfe--thin, leane, chitty face, have clouds in her face,\" etc.\n\n\"To mose in the chine,\" a phrase we find in \"Taming of the Shrew\" (iii.\n2)--\"Possessed with the glanders, and like to mose in the chine\"--refers\nto a disorder in horses, also known as \"mourning in the chine.\"\n\nAlluding to the custom associated with horses, we may note that a\nstalking-horse, or stale, was either a real or artificial one, under\ncover of which the fowler approached towards and shot at his game. It is\nalluded to in \"As You Like It\" (v. 4) by the Duke, who says of\nTouchstone: \"He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the\npresentation of that he shoots his wit.\" In \"Much Ado About Nothing\"\n(ii. 3), Claudio says: \"Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits.\"[431] In\n\"Comedy of Errors\" (ii. 1), Adriana says: \"I am but his stale,\" upon\nwhich Malone remarks: \"Adriana undoubtedly means to compare herself to a\nstalking-horse, behind whom Antipholus shoots at such game as he\nselects.\" In \"Taming of the Shrew,\" Katharina says to her father (i. 1):\n\n \"is it your will\n To make a stale of me amongst these mates?\"\n\nwhich, says Singer, means \"make an object of mockery.\" So in \"3 Henry\nVI.\" (iii. 3), Warwick says:\n\n \"Had he none else to make a stale but me?\"\n\n [431] See Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 106;\n Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 830.\n\nThat it was also a hunting term might be shown, adds Dyce,[432] by\nquotations from various old writers. In the inventories of the wardrobe\nbelonging to King Henry VIII. we frequently find the allowance of\ncertain quantities of stuff for the purpose of making \"stalking-coats\nand stalking-hose for the use of his majesty.\"[433]\n\n [432] \"Glossary,\" p. 412.\n\n [433] See Strutt's \"Sports and Pastimes,\" p. 48.\n\nAgain, the forehorse of a team was generally gayly ornamented with tufts\nand ribbons and bells. Hence, in \"All's Well That Ends Well\" (ii. 1),\nBertram complains that, bedizened like one of these animals, he will\nhave to squire ladies at the court, instead of achieving honor in the\nwars--\n\n \"I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock,\n Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry,\n Till honour be bought up, and no sword worn\n But one to dance with.\"\n\nA familiar name for a common horse was \"Cut\"--either from its being\ndocked or gelded--a name occasionally applied to a man as a term of\ncontempt. In \"Twelfth Night\" (ii. 3), Sir Toby Belch says: \"Send for\nmoney, knight; if thou hast her not i' the end, call me cut.\" In \"1\nHenry IV.\" (ii. 1), the first carrier says: \"I prithee, Tom, beat Cut's\nsaddle.\" We may compare, too, what Falstaff says further on in the same\nplay (ii. 4): \"I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my\nface, call me horse.\" Hence, _call me cut_ is the same as _call me\nhorse_--both expressions having been used.\n\nIn Shakespeare's day a _race_ of horses was the term for what is now\ncalled a stud. So in \"Macbeth\" (ii. 4), Rosse says:\n\n \"And Duncan's horses--a thing most strange and certain--\n Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,\n Turn'd wild in nature.\"\n\nThe words \"minions of their race,\" according to Steevens, mean the\nfavorite horses on the race-ground.\n\n_Lion._ The traditions and stories of the darker ages abounded with\nexamples of the lion's generosity. \"Upon the supposition that these acts\nof clemency were true, Troilus, in the passage below, reasons not\nimproperly ('Troilus and Cressida,' v. 3) that to spare against reason,\nby mere instinct and pity, became rather a generous beast than a wise\nman:\"[434]\n\n \"Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you,\n Which better fits a lion than a man.\"\n\n [434] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" 1875, vol. vii. p. 277.\n\nIt is recorded by Pliny[435] that \"the lion alone of all wild animals is\ngentle to those that humble themselves before him, and will not touch\nany such upon their submission, but spareth what creature soever lieth\nprostrate before him.\" Hence Spenser's Una, attended by a lion; and\nPerceval's lion, in \"Morte d'Arthur\" (bk. xiv. c. 6). Bartholom\u00e6us says\nthe lion's \"mercie is known by many and oft ensamples: for they spare\nthem that lie on the ground.\" Shakespeare again alludes to this notion\nin \"As You Like It\" (iv. 3):\n\n \"for 'tis\n The royal disposition of that beast\n To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead.\"\n\n [435] \"Natural History,\" bk. viii. c. 19.\n\nIt was also supposed that the lion would not injure a royal prince.\nHence, in \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4) the Prince says: \"You are lions too, you\nran away upon instinct, you will not touch the true prince; no, fie!\"\nThe same notion is alluded to by Beaumont and Fletcher in \"The Mad\nLover\" (iv. 5):\n\n \"Fetch the Numidian lion I brought over;\n If she be sprung from royal blood, the lion\n He'll do you reverence, else--\n\n * * * * *\n\n He'll tear her all to pieces.\"\n\nAccording to some commentators there is an allusion in \"3 Henry VI.\" (i.\n3) to the practice of confining lions and keeping them without food that\nthey may devour criminals exposed to them:\n\n \"So looks the pent-up lion o'er the wretch\n That trembles under his devouring paws.\"\n\n_Mole._ The eyes of the mole are so extremely minute, and so perfectly\nhid in its hair, that our ancestors considered it blind--a vulgar error,\nto which reference is made by Caliban in \"The Tempest\" (iv. 1):\n\n \"Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole may not\n Hear a foot fall.\"\n\nAnd again by Pericles (i. 1):\n\n \"The blind mole casts\n Copp'd hills towards heaven.\"\n\nHence the expression \"blind as a mole.\" Alexander Ross[436] absurdly\nspeaks of the mole's eyes as only the \"forms of eyes,\" given by nature\n\"rather for ornament than for use; as wings are given to the ostrich,\nwhich never flies, and a long tail to the rat, which serves for no other\npurpose but to be catched sometimes by it.\" Sir Thomas Browne, however,\nin his \"Vulgar Errors\" (bk. iii. c. xviii.),[437] has, with his usual\nminuteness, disproved this idea, remarking \"that they have eyes in their\nhead is manifested unto any that wants them not in his own.\" A popular\nterm for the mole was the \"moldwarp\" or \"mouldiwarp,\"[438] so called\nfrom the Anglo-Saxon, denoting turning the mould. Thus, in \"1 Henry IV.\"\n(iii. 1) Hotspur says:\n\n \"sometime he angers me\n With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant.\"\n\n [436] \"Arcana Microcosmi,\" p. 151.\n\n [437] 1852, vol. i. pp. 312-315.\n\n [438] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 577; Singer's\n \"Shakespeare,\" vol. v. p. 77.\n\n_Mouse._ This word was formerly used as a term of endearment, from\neither sex to the other. In this sense it is used by Rosaline in \"Love's\nLabour's Lost\" (v. 2):\n\n \"What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?\"\n\nand again in \"Hamlet\" (iii. 4).\n\nSome doubt exists as to the exact meaning of \"Mouse-hunt,\" by Lady\nCapulet, in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iv. 4):\n\n \"Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time,\n But I will watch you from such watching now.\"\n\nAccording to some, the expression implies \"a hunter of gay women,\" mouse\nhaving been used in this signification.[439] Others are of opinion that\nthe stoat[440] is meant, the smallest of the weasel tribe, and others\nagain the polecat. Mr. Staunton[441] tells us that the mouse-hunt is the\nmarten, an animal of the weasel tribe which prowls about for its prey at\nnight, and is applied to any one of rakish propensities.\n\n [439] Halliwell-Phillipps's \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare,\"\n 1866, p. 331.\n\n [440] Forby's \"Vocabulary of East Anglia,\" vol. ii. p. 222.\n\n [441] See Staunton's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. i. p. 278.\n\nHolinshed, in his \"History of Scotland\" (1577, p. 181), quotes from the\nlaws of Kenneth II., King of Scotland: \"If a sowe eate her pigges, let\nhyr be stoned to death and buried, that no man eate of hyr fleshe.\" This\noffence is probably alluded to by Shakespeare in \"Macbeth\" (iv. 1),\nwhere the witch says:\n\n \"Pour in sow's blood, that hath eaten\n Her nine farrow.\"\n\n_Polecat_, or _Fitchew_. This animal is supposed to be very amorous; and\nhence its name, Mr. Steevens says, was often applied to ladies of easy\nor no virtue. In \"Othello\" (iv. 1) Cassio calls Bianca a \"fitchew,\" and\nin \"Troilus and Cressida\" (v. 1) Thersites alludes to it.[442]\n\n [442] Cf. \"King Lear,\" iv. 6.\n\n_Porcupine._ Another name for this animal was the porpentine, which\nspelling occurs in \"Hamlet\" (i. 5):\n\n \"Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.\"\n\nAnd again, in \"2 Henry VI.\" (iii. 1) York speaks of \"a sharp-quill'd\nporpentine.\" Ajax, too, in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (ii. 1), applies the\nterm to Thersites: \"do not, porpentine.\" In the above passages, however,\nand elsewhere, the word has been altered by editors to porcupine.\nAccording to a popular error, the porcupine could dart his quills. They\nare easily detached, very sharp, and slightly barbed, and may easily\nstick to a person's legs, when he is not aware that he is near enough to\ntouch them.[443]\n\n [443] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 673.\n\n_Rabbit._ In \"2 Henry IV.\" (ii. 2) this animal is used as a term of\nreproach, a sense in which it was known in Shakespeare's day. The phrase\n\"cony-catch,\" which occurs in \"Taming of the Shrew\" (v. 1)--\"Take heed,\nSignior Baptista, lest you be cony-catched in this business\"--implied the\nact of deceiving or cheating a simple person--the cony or rabbit being\nconsidered a foolish animal.[444] It has been shown, from Dekker's\n\"English Villanies,\" that the system of cheating was carried to a great\nlength in the early part of the seventeenth century, that a collective\nsociety of sharpers was called \"a warren,\" and their dupes\n\"rabbit-suckers,\" _i. e._, young rabbit or conies.[445] Shakespeare has\nonce used the term to express harmless roguery, in the \"Taming of the\nShrew\" (iv. 1). When Grumio will not answer his fellow-servants, except\nin a jesting way, Curtis says to him: \"Come, you are so full of\ncony-catching.\"\n\n [444] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 189.\n\n [445] See D'Israeli's \"Curiosities of Literature,\" vol. iii. p. 78.\n\n_Rat._ The fanciful idea that rats were commonly rhymed to death, in\nIreland, is said to have arisen from some metrical charm or incantation,\nused there for that purpose, to which there are constant allusions in\nold writers. In the \"Merchant of Venice\" (iv. 1) Shylock says:\n\n \"What if my house be troubled with a rat,\n And I be pleased to give ten thousand ducats\n To have it baned?\"\n\nAnd in \"As You Like It\" (iii. 2), Rosalind says: \"I was never so\nbe-rhymed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat, which I can\nhardly remember.\" We find it mentioned by Ben Jonson in the \"Poetaster\"\n(v. 1):\n\n \"Rhime them to death, as they do Irish rats,\n In drumming tunes.\"\n\n\"The reference, however, is generally referred, in Ireland,\" says Mr.\nMackay, \"to the supposed potency of the verses pronounced by the\nprofessional rhymers of Ireland, which, according to popular\nsuperstition, could not only drive rats to destruction, but could\nabsolutely turn a man's face to the back of his head.\"[446]\n\n [446] \"The strange phrase and the superstition that arose out\n of it seem to have been produced by a mistranslation, by the\n English-speaking population of a considerable portion of\n Ireland, of two Celtic or Gaelic words, _ran_, to _roar_, to\n shriek, to bellow, to make a great noise on a wind instrument;\n and _rann_, to versify, to rhyme. It is well known that rats\n are scared by any great and persistent noise in the house which\n they infest. The Saxon English, as well as Saxon Irish, of\n Shakespeare's time, confounding _rann_, a rhyme, with _ran_, a\n _roar_, fell into the error which led to the English phrase as\n used by Shakespeare.\"--_Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer_,\n 1882, vol. ii. p. 9. \"On Some Obscure Words and Celtic Phrases\n in Shakespeare,\" by Charles Mackay.\n\nSir W. Temple, in his \"Essay on Poetry,\" seems to derive the idea from\nthe Runic incantations, for, after speaking of them in various ways, he\nadds, \"and the proverb of rhyming rats to death, came, I suppose, from\nthe same root.\"\n\nAccording to a superstitious notion of considerable antiquity, rats\nleaving a ship are considered indicative of misfortune to a vessel,\nprobably from the same idea that crows will not build upon trees that\nare likely to fall. This idea is noticed by Shakespeare in \"The Tempest\"\n(i. 2), where Prospero, describing the vessel in which himself and\ndaughter had been placed, with the view to their certain destruction at\nsea, says:\n\n \"they hurried us aboard a bark,\n Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared\n A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,\n Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats\n Instinctively have quit it.\"\n\nThe _Shipping Gazette_ of April, 1869, contained a communication\nentitled, \"A Sailor's Notion about Rats,\" in which the following passage\noccurs: \"It is a well-authenticated fact that rats have often been known\nto leave ships in the harbor previous to their being lost at sea. Some\nof those wiseacres who want to convince us against the evidence of our\nsenses will call this superstition. As neither I have time, nor you\nspace, to cavil with such at present, I shall leave them alone in their\nglory.\" The fact, however, as Mr. Hardwick has pointed out in his\n\"Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-lore\" (1872, p. 251), that rats do\nsometimes migrate from one ship to another, or from one barn or\ncorn-stack to another, from various causes, ought to be quite sufficient\nto explain such a superstition. Indeed, a story is told of a cunning\nWelsh captain who wanted to get rid of rats that infested his ship, then\nlying in the Mersey, at Liverpool. Having found out that there was a\nvessel laden with cheese in the basin, and getting alongside of her\nabout dusk, he left all his hatches open, and waited till all the rats\nwere in his neighbor's ship, and then moved off.\n\n_Snail._ A common amusement among children consists in charming snails,\nin order to induce them to put out their horns--a couplet, such as the\nfollowing, being repeated on the occasion:\n\n \"Peer out, peer out, peer out of your hole,\n Or else I'll beat you as black as a coal.\"\n\nIn Scotland, it is regarded as a token of fine weather if the snail obey\nthe command and put out its horn:[447]\n\n \"Snailie, snailie, shoot out your horn,\n And tell us if it will be a bonnie day the morn.\"\n\n [447] See \"English Folk-Lore,\" 1878, p. 120.\n\nShakespeare alludes to snail-charming in the \"Merry Wives of Windsor\"\n(iv. 2), where Mrs. Page says of Mrs. Ford's husband, he \"so buffets\nhimself on the forehead, crying, _Peer out! peer out!_ that any madness\nI ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility, and patience, to this\nhis distemper he is in now.\" In \"Comedy of Errors\" (ii. 2), the snail is\nused to denote a lazy person.\n\n_Tiger._ It was an ancient belief that this animal roared and raged most\nfuriously in stormy and high winds--a piece of folk-lore alluded to in\n\"Troilus and Cressida\" (i. 3), by Nestor, who says:\n\n \"The herd hath more annoyance by the breese\n Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind\n Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,\n And flies fled under shade, why then, the thing of courage,\n As roused with rage, with rage doth sympathize.\"\n\n_Unicorn._ In \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (ii. 1) Decius tells how \"unicorns may be\nbetray'd with trees,\" alluding to their traditionary mode of capture.\nThey are reported to have been taken by one who, running behind a tree,\neluded the violent push the animal was making at him, so that his horn\nspent its force on the trunk, and stuck fast, detaining the animal till\nhe was despatched by the hunter.[448] In Topsell's \"History of Beasts\"\n(1658, p. 557), we read of the unicorn: \"He is an enemy to the lions,\nwherefore, as soon as ever a lion seeth a unicorn, he runneth to a tree\nfor succour, that so when the unicorn maketh force at him, he may not\nonly avoid his horn, but also destroy him; for the unicorn, in the\nswiftness of his course, runneth against the tree, wherein his sharp\nhorn sticketh fast, that when the lion seeth the unicorn fastened by the\nhorn, without all danger he falleth upon him and killeth him.\" With this\npassage we may compare the following from Spenser's \"Fairy Queen\" (bk.\nii. canto 5):\n\n \"Like as a lyon, whose imperiall power\n A prowd rebellious unicorn defyes,\n T' avoide the rash assault and wrathful stowre\n Of his fiers foe, him to a tree applyes,\n And when him ronning in full course he spyes,\n He slips aside: the whiles that furious beast\n His precious horne, sought of his enimyes\n Strikes in the stocke, ne thence can be releast,\n But to the mighty victor yields a bounteous feast.\"\n\n [448] See Brewer's \"Dictionary of Phrase and Fable,\" p. 922.\n\n_Weasel._ To meet a weasel was formerly considered a bad omen.[449] That\nmay be a tacit allusion to this superstition in \"Lucrece\" (l. 307):\n\n \"Night-wandering weasels shriek to see him there;\n They fright him, yet he still pursues his fear.\"\n\n [449] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. p. 283.\n\nIt appears that weasels were kept in houses, instead of cats, for the\npurpose of killing vermin. Ph\u00e6drus notices this their feline office in\nthe first and fourth fables of his fourth book. The supposed\nquarrelsomeness of this animal is spoken of by Pisanio in \"Cymbeline\"\n(iii. 4), who tells Imogen that she must be \"as quarrelous as the\nweasel;\" and in \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii. 3), Lady Percy says to Hotspur:\n\n \"A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen\n As you are toss'd with.\"\n\nThis character of the weasel is not, however, generally mentioned by\nnaturalists.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nPLANTS.\n\n\nThat Shakespeare possessed an extensive knowledge of the history and\nsuperstitions associated with flowers is evident, from even only a\nslight perusal of his plays. Apart from the extensive use which he has\nmade of these lovely objects of nature for the purpose of embellishing,\nor adding pathos to, passages here and there, he has also, with a master\nhand, interwoven many a little legend or superstition, thereby infusing\nan additional force into his writings. Thus we know with what effect he\nhas made use of the willow in \"Othello,\" in that touching passage where\nDesdemona (iv. 3), anticipating her death, relates how her mother had a\nmaid called Barbara:\n\n \"She was in love; and he she lov'd prov'd mad,\n And did forsake her; she had a song of willow,\n An old thing 'twas, but it expressed her fortune,\n And she died singing it: that song, to-night,\n Will not go from my mind.\"\n\nIn a similar manner Shakespeare has frequently introduced flowers with a\nwonderful aptness, as in the case of poor Ophelia. Those, however,\ndesirous of gaining a good insight into Shakespeare's knowledge of\nflowers, as illustrated by his plays, would do well to consult Mr.\nEllacombe's exhaustive work on the \"Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,\" a book\nto which we are much indebted in the following pages, as also to Mr.\nBeisly's \"Shakespeare's Garden.\"\n\n_Aconite._[450] This plant, from the deadly virulence of its juice,\nwhich, Mr. Turner says, \"is of all poysones the most hastie poysone,\"\nis compared by Shakespeare to gunpowder, as in \"2 Henry IV.\" (iv. 4):\n\n \"the united vessel of their blood,\n Mingled with venom of suggestion,\n As, force perforce, the age will pour it in,\n Shall never leak, though it do work as strong\n As aconitum, or rash gunpowder.\"\n\n [450] _Aconitum napellus_, Wolf's-bane or Monk's-hood.\n\nIt is, too, probably alluded to in the following passage in \"Romeo and\nJuliet\" (v. 1), where Romeo says:\n\n \"let me have\n A dram of poison; such soon-speeding gear\n As will disperse itself through all the veins,\n That the life-weary taker may fall dead;\n And that the trunk may be discharg'd of breath\n As violently, as hasty powder fir'd\n Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.\"\n\nAccording to Ovid, it derived its name from growing upon rock\n(Metamorphoses, bk. vii. l. 418):\n\n \"Qu\u00e6, quia nascuntur, dura vivacia caute,\n Agrestes aconita vocant.\"\n\nIt is probably derived from the Greek [Greek: akonitos], \"without a\nstruggle,\" in allusion to the intensity of its poisonous qualities.\nVergil[451] speaks of it, and tells us how the aconite deceives the\nwretched gatherers, because often mistaken for some harmless plant.[452]\nThe ancients fabled it as the invention of Hecate,[453] who caused the\nplant to spring from the foam of Cerberus, when Hercules dragged him\nfrom the gloomy regions of Pluto. Ovid pictures the stepdame as\npreparing a deadly potion of aconite (Metamorphoses, bk. i. l. 147):\n\n \"Lurida terribiles miscent aconita noverc\u00e6.\"\n\n [451] \"Miseros fallunt aconita legentis\" (Georgics, bk. ii. l. 152).\n\n [452] See Ellacombe's \"Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,\" 1878, pp. 7, 8.\n\n [453] Dr. Prior's \"Popular Names of British Plants,\" 1870, pp.\n 1, 2.\n\nIn hunting, the ancients poisoned their arrows with this venomous plant,\nas \"also when following their mortal brutal trade of slaughtering their\nfellow-creatures.\"[454] Numerous instances are on record of fatal\nresults through persons eating this plant. In the \"Philosophical\nTransactions\" (1732, vol. xxxvii.) we read of a man who was poisoned in\nthat year, by eating some of it in a salad, instead of celery. Dr.\nTurner mentions the case of some Frenchmen at Antwerp, who, eating the\nshoots of this plant for masterwort, all died, with the exception of\ntwo, in forty-eight hours. The aconitum is equally pernicious to\nanimals.\n\n [454] Phillips, \"Flora Historica,\" 1829, vol. ii. pp. 122, 128.\n\n_Anemone._ This favorite flower of early spring is probably alluded to\nin the following passage of \"Venus and Adonis:\"\n\n \"By this, the boy that by her side lay kill'd\n Was melted like a vapour from her sight;\n And in his blood, that on the ground lay spill'd,\n A purple flower sprung up, chequer'd with white,\n Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood\n Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.\"\n\nAccording to Bion, it is said to have sprung from the tears that Venus\nwept over the body of Adonis:\n\n \"Alas, the Paphian! fair Adonis slain!\n Tears plenteous as his blood she pours amain,\n But gentle flowers are born, and bloom around;\n From every drop that falls upon the ground\n Where streams his blood, there blushing springs the rose,\n And where a tear has dropp'd a wind-flower blows.\"\n\nOther classical writers make the anemone to be the flower of Adonis. Mr.\nEllacombe[455] says that although Shakespeare does not actually name the\nanemone, yet the evidence is in favor of this plant. The \"purple color,\"\nhe adds, is no objection, for purple in Shakespeare's time had a very\nwide signification, meaning almost any bright color, just as \"purpureus\"\nhad in Latin.[456]\n\n [455] \"Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,\" pp. 10, 11.\n\n [456] Phillips, \"Flora Historica,\" 1829, vol. i. p. 104.\n\n_Apple._ Although Shakespeare has so frequently introduced the apple\ninto his plays, yet he has abstained from alluding to the extensive\nfolk-lore associated with this favorite fruit. Indeed, beyond mentioning\nsome of the popular nicknames by which the apple was known in his day,\nlittle is said about it. The term apple was not originally confined to\nthe fruit now so called, but was a generic name applied to any fruit, as\nwe still speak of the love-apple, pine-apple, etc.[457] So when\nShakespeare (Sonnet xciii.) makes mention of Eve's apple, he simply\nmeans that it was some fruit that grew in Eden:\n\n \"How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,\n If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show.\"\n\n [457] Ellacombe's \"Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,\" p. 13.\n\n(_a_) The \"apple-John,\" called in France _deux-ann\u00e9es_ or _deux-ans_,\nbecause it will keep two years, and considered to be in perfection when\nshrivelled and withered,[458] is evidently spoken of in \"1 Henry IV.\"\n(iii. 3), where Falstaff says: \"My skin hangs about me like an old\nlady's loose gown; I am withered like an old apple-John.\" In \"2 Henry\nIV.\" (ii. 4) there is a further allusion:\n\n \"_1st Drawer._ What the devil hast thou brought there?\n apple-Johns? thou know'st Sir John cannot endure an\n apple-John.\n\n _2d Drawer._ Mass, thou sayest true. The prince once set a\n dish of apple-Johns before him, and told him there were five\n more Sir Johns, and, putting off his hat, said, 'I will now\n take my leave of these six dry, round, old, withered\n knights.'\"\n\n [458] Dyce's \"Glossary to Shakespeare,\" p. 15.\n\nThis apple, too, is well described by Phillips (\"Cider,\" bk. i.):\n\n \"Nor John Apple, whose wither'd rind, entrench'd\n By many a furrow, aptly represents\n Decrepit age.\"\n\nIn Ben Jonson's \"Bartholomew Fair\" (i. 1), where Littlewit encourages\nQuarlus to kiss his wife, he says: \"she may call you an apple-John if\nyou use this.\" Here apple-John[459] evidently means a procuring John,\nbesides the allusion to the fruit so called.[460]\n\n [459] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 29; probably\n synonymous with the term \"apple-Squire,\" which formerly\n signified a pimp.\n\n [460] Forby, in his \"Vocabulary of East Anglia,\" says of this\n apple, \"we retain the name, but whether we mean the same\n variety of fruit which was so called in Shakespeare's time, it\n is not possible to ascertain.\"\n\n(_b_) The \"bitter-sweet, or sweeting,\" to which Mercutio alludes in\n\"Romeo and Juliet\" (ii. 4): \"Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a\nmost sharp sauce;\" was apparently a favorite apple, which furnished many\nallusions to poets. Gower, in his \"Confessio Amantis\" (1554, fol. 174),\nspeaks of it:\n\n \"For all such time of love is lore\n And like unto the _bitter swete_,\n For though it thinke a man first sweete,\n He shall well felen atte laste\n That it is sower, and maie not laste.\"\n\nThe name is \"now given to an apple of no great value as a table fruit,\nbut good as a cider apple, and for use in silk dyeing.\"[461]\n\n [461] Ellacombe's \"Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,\" p. 16; Dyce's\n \"Glossary,\" p. 430; Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 81; Coles's\n \"Latin and English Dictionary.\" \"A bitter-suete\n [apple]--Amari-mellum.\"\n\n(_c_) The \"crab,\" roasted before the fire and put into ale, was a very\nfavorite indulgence, especially at Christmas, in days gone by, and is\nreferred to in the song of winter in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 2):\n\n \"When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl\n Then nightly sings the staring owl.\"\n\nThe beverage thus formed was called \"Lambs-wool,\" and generally\nconsisted of ale, nutmeg, sugar, toast, and roasted crabs, or apples. It\nformed the ingredient of the wassail-bowl;[462] and also of the gossip's\nbowl[463] alluded to in \"Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (ii. 1), where Puck\nsays:\n\n \"And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,\n In very likeness of a roasted crab,\n And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,\n And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.\"\n\n [462] See chapter xi., Customs connected with the Calendar.\n\n [463] See chapter on Customs connected with Birth and Baptism.\n\nIn Peele's \"Old Wives' Tale,\" it is said:\n\n \"Lay a crab in the fire to roast for lamb's wool.\"[464]\n\n [464] Edited by Dyce, 1861, p. 446. Many fanciful derivations\n for this word have been thought of, but it was no doubt named\n from its smoothness and softness, resembling the wool of lambs.\n\nAnd in Herrick's \"Poems:\"\n\n \"Now crowne the bowle\n With gentle lamb's wooll,\n Add sugar, and nutmegs, and ginger.\"\n\n(_d_) The \"codling,\" spoken of by Malvolio in \"Twelfth Night\" (i.\n5)--\"Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; as a\nsquash is before 'tis a peascod, or a codling when 'tis almost an\napple\"--is not the variety now so called, but was the popular term for an\nimmature apple, such as would require cooking to be eaten, being derived\nfrom \"coddle,\" to stew or boil lightly--hence it denoted a boiling apple,\nan apple for coddling or boiling.[465] Mr. Gifford[466] says that\ncodling was used by our old writers for that early state of vegetation\nwhen the fruit, after shaking off the blossom, began to assume a\nglobular and determinate form.\n\n [465] Dr. Prior's \"Popular Names of British Plants,\" 1870, p. 50.\n\n [466] Note on Jonson's Works, vol. iv. p. 24.\n\n(_e_) The \"leather-coat\" was the apple generally known as \"the golden\nrusseting.\"[467] Davy, in \"2 Henry IV.\" (v. 3), says: \"There is a dish\nof leather-coats for you.\"\n\n [467] Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 242.\n\n(_f_) The \"pippin\" was formerly a common term for an apple, to which\nreference is made in \"Hudibras Redivivus\" (1705):\n\n \"A goldsmith telling o'er his cash,\n A pipping-monger selling trash.\"\n\nIn Taylor's \"Workes\"[468] (1630) we read:\n\n \"Lord, who would take him for a pippin squire,\n That's so bedaub'd with lace and rich attire?\"\n\n [468] Quoted by Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 662.\n\nMr. Ellacombe[469] says the word \"pippin\" denoted an apple raised from\npips and not from grafts, and \"is now, and probably was in Shakespeare's\ntime, confined to the bright-colored long-keeping apples of which the\ngolden pippin is the type.\" Justice Shallow, in \"2 Henry IV.\" (v. 3),\nsays: \"Nay, you shall see my orchard, where, in an arbour, we will eat a\nlast year's pippin of my own graffing.\"\n\n [469] \"Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,\" p. 16.\n\n(_g_) The \"pomewater\" was a species of apple evidently of a juicy\nnature, and hence of high esteem in Shakespeare's time; for in \"Love's\nLabour's Lost\" (iv. 2) Holofernes says: \"The deer was, as you know,\n_sanguis_--in blood; ripe as the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel\nin the ear of _coelo_--the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth\nlike a crab on the face of _terra_--the soil, the land, the earth.\"\n\nParkinson[470] tells us the \"pomewater\" is an excellent, good, and great\nwhitish apple, full of sap or moisture, somewhat pleasant, sharp, but a\nlittle bitter withal; it will not last long, the winter's frost soon\ncausing it to rot and perish.\n\n [470] \"Theatrum Botanicum,\" 1640.\n\nIt appears that apples and caraways were formerly always eaten together;\nand it is said that they are still served up on particular days at\nTrinity College, Cambridge. This practice is probably alluded to by\nJustice Shallow, in the much-disputed passage in \"2 Henry IV.\" (v. 3),\nwhen he speaks of eating \"a last year's pippin, ... with a dish of\ncarraways.\" The phrase, too, seems further explained by the following\nquotations from Cogan's \"Haven of Health\" (1599). After stating the\nvirtues of the seed, and some of its uses, he says: \"For the same\npurpose _careway seeds_ are used to be made in comfits, and to be eaten\nwith apples, and surely very good for that purpose, for all such things\nas breed wind would be eaten with other things that break wind.\" Again,\nin his chapter on Apples, he says: \"Howbeit wee are wont to eat\ncarrawaies or biskets, or some other kind of comfits, or seeds together\nwith apples, thereby to breake winde ingendred by them, and surely this\nis a verie good way for students.\" Mr. Ellacombe,[471] however,\nconsiders that in \"the dish of carraways,\" mentioned by Justice Shallow,\nneither caraway seeds, nor cakes made of caraways, are meant, but the\ncaraway or caraway-russet apple. Most of the commentators are in favor\nof one of the former explanations. Mr. Dyce[472] reads caraways in the\nsense of comfits or confections made with caraway-seeds, and quotes from\nShadwell's \"Woman-Captain\" the following: \"The fruit, crab-apples,\nsweetings, and horse-plumbs; and for confections, a few carraways in a\nsmall sawcer, as if his worship's house had been a lousie inn.\"\n\n [471] \"Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,\" pp. 17, 37.\n\n [472] \"Glossary,\" pp. 65, 66.\n\n_Apricot._ This word, which is spelled by Shakespeare \"apricock,\" occurs\nin \"Richard II.\" (iii. 4), where the gardener says:\n\n \"Go, bind thou up yond dangling apricocks,\n Which, like unruly children, make their sire\n Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight.\"\n\nAnd in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (iii. 1) Titania gives directions:\n\n \"Be kind and courteous to this gentleman,\n\n * * * * *\n\n Feed him with apricocks, and dewberries.\"\n\nThe spelling \"apricock\"[473] is derived from the Latin _pr\u00e6cox_, or\n_pr\u00e6coquus_; and it was called \"the precocious tree,\" because it\nflowered and fruited earlier than the peach. The term \"apricock\" is\nstill in use in Northamptonshire.\n\n [473] See \"Notes and Queries,\" 2d series, bk. i. p. 420.\n\n_Aspen._ According to a medi\u00e6val legend, the perpetual motion of this\ntree dates from its having supplied the wood of the Cross, and that its\nleaves have trembled ever since at the recollection of their guilt. De\nQuincey, in his essay on \"Modern Superstition,\" says that this belief is\ncoextensive with Christendom. The following verses,[474] after telling\nhow other trees were passed by in the choice of wood for the Cross,\ndescribe the hewing down of the aspen, and the dragging of it from the\nforest to Calvary:\n\n \"On the morrow stood she, trembling\n At the awful weight she bore,\n When the sun in midnight blackness\n Darkened on Judea's shore.\n\n \"Still, when not a breeze is stirring,\n When the mist sleeps on the hill,\n And all other trees are moveless,\n Stands the aspen, trembling still.\"\n\n [474] See Henderson's \"Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,\" 1879,\n pp. 151, 152.\n\nThe Germans, says Mr. Henderson, have a theory of their own, embodied in\na little poem, which may be thus translated:\n\n \"Once, as our Saviour walked with men below,\n His path of mercy through a forest lay;\n And mark how all the drooping branches show,\n What homage best a silent tree may pay.\n\n \"Only the aspen stands erect and free,\n Scorning to join that voiceless worship pure;\n But see! He casts one look upon the tree,\n Struck to the heart she trembles evermore!\"\n\nAnother legend tells us[475] that the aspen was said to have been the\ntree on which Judas hanged himself after the betrayal of his Master, and\never since its leaves have trembled with shame. Shakespeare twice\nalludes to the trembling of the aspen. In \"Titus Andronicus\" (ii. 4)\nMarcus exclaims:\n\n \"O, had the monster seen those lily hands\n Tremble, like aspen leaves, upon a lute;\"\n\nand in \"2 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4) the hostess says: \"Feel, masters, how I\nshake. Yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen leaf.\"\n\n [475] Napier's \"Folk-Lore of West of Scotland,\" 1879, p. 124.\n\n_Bachelor's Buttons._ This was a name given to several flowers, and\nperhaps in Shakespeare's time was more loosely applied to any flower in\nbud. It is now usually understood to be a _double variety_ of\nranunculus; according to others, the _Lychnis sylvestris_; and in some\ncounties it is applied to the _Scabiosa succisa_.[476] According to\nGerarde, this plant was so called from the similitude of its flowers \"to\nthe jagged cloathe buttons, anciently worne in this kingdome.\" It was\nformerly supposed, by country people, to have some magical effect upon\nthe fortunes of lovers. Hence it was customary for young people to carry\nits flowers in their pockets, judging of their good or bad success in\nproportion as these retained or lost their freshness. It is to this sort\nof divination that Shakespeare probably refers in \"Merry Wives of\nWindsor\" (iii. 2), where he makes the hostess say, \"What say you to\nyoung Master Fenton? he capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he\nwrites verses, he speaks holiday, he smells April and May; he will carry\n't, he will carry 't; 'tis in his buttons; he will carry 't.\" Mr.\nWarter, in one of his notes in Southey's \"Commonplace Book\" (1851, 4th\nseries, p. 244), says that this practice was common in his time, in\nShropshire and Staffordshire. The term \"to wear bachelor's buttons\"\nseems to have grown into a phrase for being unmarried.[477]\n\n [476] Dr. Prior's \"Popular Names of British Plants,\" p. 13.\n\n [477] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 45.\n\n_Balm._ From very early times the balm, or balsam, has been valued for\nits curative properties, and, as such, is alluded to in \"Troilus and\nCressida\" (i. 1):\n\n \"But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,\n Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me\n The knife that made it.\"\n\nIn \"3 Henry VI.\" (iv. 8) King Henry says:[478]\n\n \"My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds.\"\n\n [478] See \"Richard III.,\" i. 2; \"Timon of Athens,\" iii. 5.\n\nAlcibiades, in \"Timon of Athens\" (iii. 5), says:\n\n \"Is this the balsam, that the usuring senate\n Pours into captains' wounds? Banishment!\"\n\nMacbeth, too, in the well-known passage ii. 2, introduces it:\n\n \"Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,\n The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,\n Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,\n Chief nourisher in life's feast.\"\n\nAs the oil of consecration[479] it is spoken of by King Richard\n(\"Richard II.,\" iii. 2):\n\n \"Not all the water in the rough rude sea\n Can wash the balm from an anointed king.\"\n\n [479] See \"2 Henry IV.,\" iv. 5.\n\nAnd again, in \"3 Henry VI.\" (iii. 1), King Henry, when in disguise,\nspeaks thus:\n\n \"Thy place is fill'd, thy sceptre wrung from thee,\n Thy balm wash'd off wherewith thou wast anointed:\n No bending knee will call thee C\u00e6sar now.\"\n\nThe origin of balsam, says Mr. Ellacombe,[480] \"was for a long time a\nsecret, but it is now known to have been the produce of several\ngum-bearing trees, especially the _Pistacia lentiscus_ and the\n_Balsamodendron Gileadense_, and now, as then, the name is not strictly\nconfined to the produce of any one plant.\"\n\n [480] \"Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,\" p. 22.\n\n_Barley._ The barley broth, of which the Constable, in \"Henry V.\" (iii.\n5), spoke so contemptuously as the food of English soldiers, was\nprobably beer,[481] which long before the time of Henry was so\ncelebrated that it gave its name to the plant (barley being simply the\nbeer-plant):\n\n \"Can sodden water,\n A drench for sur-rein'd jades, their barley broth,\n Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?\"\n\n [481] Ellacombe's \"Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,\" p. 23.\n\n_Bay-tree._ The withering and death of this tree were reckoned a\nprognostic of evil, both in ancient and modern times, a notion[482] to\nwhich Shakespeare refers in \"Richard II.\" (ii. 4):\n\n \"'Tis thought, the king is dead; we will not stay.\n The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd\"\n\n--having obtained it probably from Holinshed, who says: \"In this yeare,\nin a manner throughout all the realme of Englande, old baie trees\nwithered.\" Lupton, in his \"Syxt Booke of Notable Things,\" mentions this\nas a bad omen: \"Neyther falling-sickness, neyther devyll, wyll infest or\nhurt one in that place whereas a bay-tree is. The Romaynes call it the\nplant of the good angel.\"[483]\n\n [482] See Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 32.\n\n [483] See also Evelyn's \"Sylva,\" 1776, p. 396.\n\n_Camomile._ It was formerly imagined that this plant grew the more\nluxuriantly for being frequently trodden or pressed down; a notion\nalluded to in \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4) by Falstaff: \"For though the\ncamomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it grows, yet youth, the\nmore it is wasted, the sooner it wears.\" Nares[484] considers that the\nabove was evidently written in ridicule of the following passage, in a\nbook very fashionable in Shakespeare's day, Lyly's \"Euphues,\" of which\nit is a parody: \"Though the camomile, the more it is trodden and pressed\ndown, the more it spreadeth; yet the violet, the oftener it is handled\nand touched, the sooner it withereth and decayeth,\" etc.\n\n [484] \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 150; see Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 63.\n\n_Clover._ According to Johnson, the \"honey-stalks\" in the following\npassage (\"Titus Andronicus,\" iv. 4) are \"clover-flowers, which contain a\nsweet juice.\" It is not uncommon for cattle to overcharge themselves\nwith clover, and die, hence the allusion by Tamora:\n\n \"I will enchant the old Andronicus\n With words more sweet, and yet more dangerous,\n Than baits to fish, or honey-stalks to sheep.\"\n\n_Columbine._ This was anciently termed \"a thankless flower,\" and was\nalso emblematical of forsaken lovers. It is somewhat doubtful to what\nOphelia alludes in \"Hamlet\" (iv. 5), where she seems to address the\nking: \"There's fennel for you, and columbines.\" Perhaps she regarded it\nas symbolical of ingratitude.\n\n_Crow-flowers._ This name, which in Shakespeare's time was applied to\nthe \"ragged robin,\" is now used for the buttercup. It was one of the\nflowers that poor Ophelia wove into her garland (\"Hamlet,\" iv. 7):\n\n \"There with fantastic garlands did she come\n Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples.\"\n\n_Cuckoo-buds._ Commentators are uncertain to what flower Shakespeare\nrefers in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 2):\n\n \"When daisies pied and violets blue,\n And lady-smocks all silver-white,\n And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue\n Do paint the meadows with delight.\"\n\nMr. Miller, in his \"Gardener's Dictionary,\" says that the flower here\nalluded to is the _Ranunculus bulbosus_; but Mr. Beisly, in his\n\"Shakespeare's Garden,\" considers it to be the _Ranunculus ficaria_\n(lesser celandine), or pile-wort, as this flower appears earlier in\nspring, and is in bloom at the same time as the other flowers named in\nthe song. Mr. Swinfen Jervis, however, in his \"Dictionary of the\nLanguage of Shakespeare\" (1868), decides in favor of cowslips:[485] and\nDr. Prior suggests the buds of the crowfoot. At the present day the\nnickname cuckoo-bud is assigned to the meadow cress (_Cardamine\npratensis_).\n\n [485] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 212.\n\n_Cuckoo-flowers._ By this flower, Mr. Beisly[486] says, the ragged robin\nis meant, a well-known meadow and marsh plant, with rose-colored flowers\nand deeply-cut, narrow segments. It blossoms at the time the cuckoo\ncomes, hence one of its names. In \"King Lear\" (iv. 4) Cordelia narrates\nhow\n\n \"he was met even now\n As mad as the vex'd sea; singing aloud;\n Crown'd with rank fumiter, and furrow weeds,\n With burdocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,\n Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow\n In our sustaining corn.\"\n\n [486] \"Shakespeare's Garden,\" p. 143.\n\n_Cypress._ From the earliest times the cypress has had a mournful\nhistory, being associated with funerals and churchyards, and as such is\nstyled by Spenser \"cypress funereal.\"\n\nIn Quarles's \"Argalus and Parthenia\" (1726, bk. iii.) a knight is\nintroduced, whose\n\n \"horse was black as jet,\n His furniture was round about beset\n With branches slipt from the sad cypress tree.\"\n\nFormerly coffins were frequently made of cypress wood, a practice to\nwhich Shakespeare probably alludes in \"Twelfth Night\" (ii. 4), where the\nClown says: \"In sad cypress let me be laid.\" Some, however, prefer[487]\nunderstanding cypress to mean \"a shroud of cyprus or cypress\"--a fine,\ntransparent stuff, similar to crape, either white or black, but more\ncommonly the latter.[488] Douce[489] thinks that the expression \"laid\"\nseems more applicable to a coffin than to a shroud, and also adds that\nthe shroud is afterwards expressly mentioned by itself.\n\n [487] See \"Winter's Tale,\" iv. 4:\n\n \"Lawn as white as driven snow;\n Cyprus black as e'er was crow.\"\n\n Its transparency is alluded to in \"Twelfth Night,\" iii. 1:\n\n \"a cyprus, not a bosom,\n Hides my heart.\"\n\n [488] See Dyce's \"Glossary,\" 1872, p. 113.\n\n [489] Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, p. 56. See\n Mr. Gough's \"Introduction to Sepulchral Monuments,\" p. lxvi.;\n also Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 221.\n\n_Daffodil._ The daffodil of Shakespeare is the wild daffodil which grows\nso abundantly in many parts of England. Perdita, in \"Winter's Tale\" (iv.\n4), mentions a little piece of weather-lore, and tells us how\n\n \"daffodils,\n That come before the swallow dares, and take\n The winds of March with beauty.\"\n\nAnd Autolycus, in the same play (iv. 3), sings thus:\n\n \"When daffodils begin to peer,--\n With, heigh! the doxy over the dale,\n Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year.\"\n\n_Darnel._ This plant, like the cockle, was used in Shakespeare's day to\ndenote any hurtful weed. Newton,[490] in his \"Herbal to the Bible,\" says\nthat \"under the name of cockle and darnel is comprehended all vicious,\nnoisome, and unprofitable graine, encombring and hindering good corne.\"\nThus Cordelia, in \"King Lear\" (iv. 4), says:\n\n \"Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow\n In our sustaining corn.\"\n\n [490] See Dr. Prior's \"Popular Names of British Plants,\" 1870,\n p. 63.\n\nAccording to Gerarde, \"darnel hurteth the eyes, and maketh them dim, if\nit happen either in corne for breade or drinke.\" Hence, it is said,\noriginated the old proverb, \"lolio victitare\"--applied to such as were\ndim-sighted. Steevens considers that Pucelle, in the following passage\nfrom \"1 Henry VI.\" (iii. 2), alludes to this property of the\ndarnel--meaning to intimate that the corn she carried with her had\nproduced the same effect on the guards of Rouen, otherwise they would\nhave seen through her disguise and defeated her stratagem:\n\n \"Good morrow, gallants! want ye corn for bread?\n I think the Duke of Burgundy will fast,\n Before he'll buy again at such a rate:\n 'Twas full of darnel: do you like the taste?\"\n\n_Date._ This fruit of the palm-tree was once a common ingredient in all\nkinds of pastry, and some other dishes, and often supplied a pun for\ncomedy, as, for example, in \"All's Well That Ends Well\" (i. 1), where\nParolles says: \"Your date is better in your pie and your porridge, than\nin your cheek.\" And in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (i. 2): \"Ay, a minced man;\nand then to be baked with no date in the pie; for then the man's date's\nout.\"\n\n_Ebony._ The wood of this tree was regarded as the typical emblem of\ndarkness; the tree itself, however, was unknown in this country in\nShakespeare's time. It is mentioned in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (iv. 3):\n\n \"_King._ By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.\n\n _Biron._ Is ebony like her? O wood divine!\n A wife of such wood were felicity.\"\n\nIn the same play we read of \"the ebon-coloured ink\" (i. 1), and in\n\"Venus and Adonis\" (948) of \"Death's ebon dart.\"\n\n_Elder._ This plant, while surrounded by an extensive folk-lore, has\nfrom time immemorial possessed an evil reputation, and been regarded as\none of bad omen. According to a popular tradition \"Judas was hanged on\nan elder,\" a superstition mentioned by Biron in \"Love's Labour's Lost\"\n(v. 2); and also by Ben Jonson in \"Every Man Out of His Humour\" (iv. 4):\n\"He shall be your Judas, and you shall be his elder-tree to hang on.\" In\n\"Piers Plowman's Vision\" (ll. 593-596) we are told how\n\n \"Judas, he japed\n With jewen silver,\n And sithen on an eller\n Hanged hymselve.\"\n\nSo firmly rooted was this belief in days gone by that Sir John\nMandeville tells us in his Travels, which he wrote in 1364, that he was\nactually shown the identical tree at Jerusalem, \"And faste by is zit,\nthe tree of Elder that Judas henge himself upon, for despeyr that he\nhadde when he solde and betrayed oure Lord.\" This tradition no doubt, in\na great measure, helped to give it its bad fame, causing it to be spoken\nof as \"the stinking elder.\" Shakespeare makes it an emblem of grief. In\n\"Cymbeline\" (iv. 2) Arviragus says:\n\n \"Grow, patience!\n And let the stinking elder, grief, untwine\n His perishing root with the increasing vine!\"\n\nThe dwarf elder[491] (_Sambucus ebulus_) is said only to grow where\nblood has been shed either in battle or in murder. The Welsh call it\n\"Llysan gward gwyr,\" or \"plant of the blood of man.\" Shakespeare,\nperhaps, had this piece of folk-lore in mind when he represents\nBassianus, in \"Titus Andronicus\" (ii. 4), as killed at a pit beneath an\nelder-tree:\n\n \"This is the pit and this the elder tree.\"\n\n [491] \"Flower-Lore,\" p. 35.\n\n_Eringoes._ These were formerly said to be strong provocatives, and as\nsuch are mentioned by Falstaff in \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (v. 5): \"Let\nthe sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green Sleeves, hail\nkissing comfits, and snow eringoes.\" Mr. Ellacombe[492] thinks that in\nthis passage the globe artichoke is meant, \"which is a near ally of the\neryngium, and was a favorite dish in Shakespeare's time.\"\n\n [492] \"Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,\" p. 66.\n\n_Fennel._ This was generally considered as an inflammatory herb; and to\neat \"conger and fennel\" was \"to eat two high and hot things together,\"\nwhich was an act of libertinism.[493] Thus in \"2 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4)\nFalstaff says of Poins, he \"eats conger and fennel.\" Mr. Beisly\nstates[494] that fennel was used as a sauce with fish hard of digestion,\nbeing aromatic, and as the old writers term it, \"hot in the third\ndegree.\" One of the herbs distributed by poor Ophelia, in her\ndistraction, is fennel, which she offers either as a cordial or as an\nemblem of flattery: \"There's fennel for you, and columbines.\"\n\n [493] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 302; Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 159.\n\n [494] \"Shakspere's Garden,\" p. 158.\n\nMr. Staunton, however, considers that fennel here signifies _lust_,\nwhile Mr. Beisly thinks its reputed property of clearing the sight is\nalluded to. It is more probable that it denotes flattery; especially as,\nin Shakespeare's time, it was regarded as emblematical of flattery. In\nthis sense it is often quoted by old writers. In Greene's \"Quip for an\nUpstart Courtier,\" we read, \"Fennell I meane for flatterers.\" In \"Phyala\nLachrymarum\"[495] we find:\n\n \"Nor fennel-finkle bring for flattery,\n Begot of his, and fained courtesie.\"\n\n [495] Quoted in Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 303.\n\n_Fern._ According to a curious notion fern-seed was supposed to possess\nthe power of rendering persons invisible. Hence it was a most important\nobject of superstition, being gathered mystically, especially on\nMidsummer Eve. It was believed at one time to have neither flower nor\nseed; the seed, which lay on the back of the leaf, being so small as to\nescape the detection of the hasty observer. On this account, probably,\nproceeding on the fantastic doctrine of signatures, our ancestors\nderived the notion that those who could obtain and wear this invisible\nseed would be themselves invisible: a belief which is referred to in \"1\nHenry IV.\" (ii. 1):\n\n \"_Gadshill._ We have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk\n invisible.\n\n _Chamberlain._ Nay, by my faith, I think you are more\n beholding to the night, than to fern-seed, for your walking\n invisible.\"\n\nThis superstition is mentioned by many old writers; a proof of its\npopularity in times past. It is alluded to in Beaumont and Fletcher's\n\"Fair Maid of the Inn\" (i. 1):\n\n \"Did you think that you had Gyges' ring?\n Or the herb that gives invisibility?\"\n\nAgain, in Ben Jonson's \"New Inn\" (i. 1):\n\n \"I had\n No medicine, sir, to go invisible,\n No fern-seed in my pocket.\"\n\nAs recently as Addison's day, we are told in the _Tatler_ (No. 240) that\n\"it was impossible to walk the streets without having an advertisement\nthrust into your hand of a doctor who had arrived at the knowledge of\nthe green and red dragon, and had discovered the female fern-seed.\"[496]\n\n [496] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. i. pp. 314-316.\n\n_Fig._ Formerly the term fig served as a common expression of contempt,\nand was used to denote a thing of the least importance. Hence the\npopular phrase, \"not to care a fig for one;\" a sense in which it is\nsometimes used by Shakespeare, who makes Pistol say, in \"Merry Wives of\nWindsor\" (i. 3), \"a fico for the phrase!\" and in \"Henry V.\" (iii. 6)\nPistol exclaims, \"figo for thy friendship!\" In \"Othello\" (i. 3) Iago\nsays, \"Virtue! a fig!\"\n\nThe term \"to give or make the fig,\" as an expression of insult, has for\nmany ages been very prevalent among the nations of Europe, and,\naccording to Douce,[497] was known to the Romans. It consists in\nthrusting the thumb between two of the closed fingers, or into the\nmouth, a practice, as some say,[498] in allusion to a contemptuous\npunishment inflicted on the Milanese, by the Emperor Frederic\nBarbarossa, in 1162, when he took their city. This, however, is\naltogether improbable, the real origin, no doubt, being a coarse\nrepresentation of a disease, to which the name of _ficus_ or fig has\nalways been given.[499]\n\n [497] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" pp. 302-308.\n\n [498] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 305.\n\n [499] See Gifford's note on Jonson's Works, vol. i. p. 52;\n Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 161; Du Cange's \"Glossary;\" Connelly's\n \"Spanish and English Dictionary,\" 4to.\n\nThe \"fig of Spain,\" spoken of in \"Henry V.\" (iii. 6), may either allude\nto the poisoned fig employed in Spain as a secret way of destroying an\nobnoxious person, as in Webster's \"White Devil:\"[500]\n\n \"I do look now for a Spanish fig, or an Italian salad, daily;\"\n\nand in Shirley's \"Brothers:\"[501]\n\n \"I must poison him;\n One fig sends him to Erebus;\"\n\nor it may, as Mr. Dyce remarks,[502] simply denote contempt or insult in\nthe sense already mentioned.\n\n [500] Edited by Dyce, 1857, p. 30.\n\n [501] Edited by Gifford and Dyce, vol. i. p. 231.\n\n [502] \"Glossary,\" p. 161.\n\n_Flower-de-luce._ The common purple iris which adorns our gardens is now\ngenerally agreed upon as the fleur-de-luce, a corruption of fleur de\nLouis--being spelled either fleur-de-lys or fleur-de-lis. It derives its\nname from Louis VII., King of France, who chose this flower as his\nheraldic emblem when setting forth on his crusade to the Holy Land. It\nhad already been used by the other French kings, and by the emperors of\nConstantinople; but it is still a matter of dispute among antiquarians\nas to what it was originally intended to represent. Some say a flower,\nsome a toad, some a halbert-head. It is uncertain what plant is referred\nto by Shakespeare when he alludes to the flower-de-luce in the following\npassage[503] in \"2 Henry VI.\" (v. 1), where the Duke of York says:\n\n \"A sceptre shall it have,--have I a soul,--\n On which I'll toss the flower-de-luce of France.\"\n\n [503] See \"Winter's Tale,\" iv. 3; \"Henry V.,\" v. 2; \"1 Henry\n VI.,\" i. 1.\n\nIn \"1 Henry VI.\" (i. 2) Pucelle declares:\n\n \"I am prepared; here is my keen-edged sword,\n Deck'd with five flower-de-luces on each side.\"\n\nSome think the lily is meant, others the iris. For the lily theory, says\nMr. Ellacombe,[504] \"there are the facts that Shakespeare calls it one\nof the lilies, and that the other way of spelling is fleur-de-lys.\"\n\n [504] \"Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,\" p. 73.\n\nChaucer seems to connect it with the lily (\"Canterbury Tales,\" Prol.\n238):\n\n \"Her nekke was white as the flour-de-lis.\"\n\nOn the other hand, Spenser separates the lilies from the flower-de-luces\nin his \"Shepherd's Calendar;\" and Ben Jonson mentions \"rich carnations,\nflower-de-luces, lilies.\"\n\nThe fleur-de-lis was not always confined to royalty as a badge. Thus, in\nthe square of La Pucelle, in Rouen, there is a statue of Jeanne D'Arc\nwith fleurs-de-lis sculptured upon it, and an inscription as follows:\n\n \"The maiden's sword protects the royal crown;\n Beneath the maiden's sword the lilies safely blow.\"\n\nSt. Louis conferred upon the Chateaubriands the device of a\nfleur-de-lis, and the motto, \"Mon sang teint les banni\u00e8rs de France.\"\nWhen Edward III. claimed the crown of France, in the year 1340, he\nquartered the ancient shield of France with the lions of England. It\ndisappeared, however, from the English shield in the first year of the\npresent century.\n\n_Gillyflower._ This was the old name for the whole class of carnations,\npinks, and sweet-williams, from the French _girofle_, which is itself\ncorrupted from the Latin _caryophyllum_.[505] The streaked gillyflowers,\nsays Mr. Beisly,[506] noticed by Perdita in \"Winter's Tale\" (iv. 4)--\n\n \"the fairest flowers o' the season\n Are our carnations and streak'd gillyvors,\n Which some call nature's bastards\"--\n\n\"are produced by the flowers of one kind being impregnated by the pollen\nof another kind, and this art (or law) in nature Shakespeare alludes to\nin the delicate language used by Perdita, as well as to the practice of\nincreasing the plants by slips.\" Tusser, in his \"Five Hundred Points of\nGood Husbandry,\" says:\n\n \"The gilloflower also the skilful doe know,\n Doth look to be covered in frost and in snow.\"\n\n [505] \"Nares's Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 363.\n\n [506] \"Shakespeare's Garden,\" p. 82; see Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 184.\n\n_Harebell._ This flower, mentioned in \"Cymbeline\" (iv. 2), is no doubt\nanother name for the wild hyacinth.\n\nArviragus says of Imogen:\n\n \"thou shalt not lack\n The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor\n The azured harebell, like thy veins.\"\n\n_Hemlock._ In consequence of its bad and poisonous character, this plant\nwas considered an appropriate ingredient for witches' broth. In\n\"Macbeth\" (iv. 1) we read of\n\n \"Root of hemlock, digged i' the dark.\"\n\nIts scientific name, _conium_, is from the Greek word meaning cone or\ntop, whose whirling motion resembles the giddiness produced on the\nconstitution by its poisonous juice. It is by most persons supposed to\nbe the death-drink of the Greeks, and the one by which Socrates was put\nto death.\n\n_Herb of Grace_ or _Herb Grace_. A popular name in days gone by for rue.\nThe origin of the term is uncertain. Most probably it arose from the\nextreme bitterness of the plant, which, as it had always borne the name\n_rue_ (to be sorry for anything), was not unnaturally associated with\nrepentance. It was, therefore, the herb of repentance,[507] \"and this\nwas soon changed into 'herb of grace,' repentance being the chief sign\nof grace.\" The expression is several times used by Shakespeare. In\n\"Richard II.\" (iii. 4) the gardener narrates:\n\n \"Here did she fall a tear; here, in this place\n I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace:\n Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,\n In the remembrance of a weeping queen.\"\n\n [507] Ellacombe's \"Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,\" p. 204; Prior's\n \"Popular Names of British Plants,\" 1870, p. 111.\n\nIn \"Hamlet\" (iv. 5), Ophelia, when addressing the queen, says, \"There's\nrue for you; and here's some for me: we may call it herb-grace o'\nSundays: O, you must wear your rue with a difference.\"[508]\n\n [508] Cf. \"All's Well that Ends Well,\" iv. 5; \"Antony and\n Cleopatra,\" iv. 2; \"Romeo and Juliet,\" ii. 3, where Friar\n Laurence says:\n\n \"In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will.\"\n\nMalone observes that there is no ground for supposing that rue was\ncalled \"herb of grace\" from its being used in exorcisms in churches on\nSunday, a notion entertained by Jeremy Taylor, who says, referring to\nthe _Flagellum D\u00e6monum_, \"First, they (the Romish exorcisers) are to try\nthe devil by holy water, incense, sulphur, rue, which from thence, as we\nsuppose, came to be called 'herb of grace.'\"[509] Rue was also a common\nsubject of puns, from being the same word which signified sorrow or pity\n(see \"Richard II.,\" iii. 4, cited above).\n\n [509] \"A Dissuasive from Popery,\" pt. i. chap. ii. sec. 9; see\n Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 371.\n\n_Holy Thistle._ The Carduus Benedictus, called also \"blessed thistle,\"\nwas so named, like other plants which bear the specific name of\n\"blessed,\" from its supposed power of counteracting the effect of\npoison.[510] Cogan, in his \"Haven of Health,\" 1595, says, \"This herbe\nmay worthily be called _Benedictus_, or _Omnimorbia_, that is, a salve\nfor every sore, not known to physitians of old time, but lately revealed\nby the special providence of Almighty God.\" It is alluded to in \"Much\nAdo About Nothing\" (iii. 4):\n\n \"_Margaret._ Get you some of this distilled Carduus\n Benedictus, and lay it to your heart; it is the only thing for\n a qualm.\n\n _Hero._ There thou prickest her with a thistle.\n\n _Beatrice._ Benedictus! why Benedictus? you have some moral in\n this Benedictus.\n\n _Margaret._ Moral? no, by my troth, I have no moral meaning. I\n meant, plain holy-thistle.\"\n\n [510] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 464.\n\n_Insane Root._ There is much doubt as to what plant is meant by Banquo\nin \"Macbeth\" (i. 3):\n\n \"have we eaten on the insane root\n That takes the reason prisoner?\"\n\nThe origin of this passage is probably to be found in North's\n\"Plutarch,\" 1579 (\"Life of Antony,\" p. 990), where mention is made of a\nplant which \"made them out of their wits.\" Several plants have been\nsuggested--the hemlock, belladonna, mandrake, henbane, etc. Douce\nsupports the last, and cites the following passage:[511] \"Henbane ... is\ncalled insana, mad, for the use thereof is perillous; for if it be eate\nor dronke, it breedeth madness, or slow lykenesse of sleepe.\" Nares[512]\nquotes from Ben Jonson (\"Sejanus,\" iii. 2), in support of hemlock:\n\n \"well, read my charms,\n And may they lay that hold upon thy senses\n As thou hadst snufft up hemlock.\"\n\n [511] Batman's \"Upon Bartholom\u00e6us de Proprietate Rerum,\" lib.\n xvii. chap. 87.\n\n [512] \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 465.\n\n_Ivy._ It was formerly the general custom in England, as it is still in\nFrance and the Netherlands, to hang a bush of ivy at the door of a\nvintner.[513] Hence the allusion in \"As You Like It\" (v. 4, Epilogue),\nwhere Rosalind wittily remarks: \"If it be true that good wine needs no\nbush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue.\" This custom is\noften referred to by our old writers, as, for instance, in Nash's\n\"Summer's Last Will and Testament,\" 1600:\n\n \"Green ivy bushes at the vintner's doors.\"\n\nAnd in the \"Rival Friends,\" 1632:\n\n \"'Tis like the ivy bush unto a tavern.\"\n\n [513] See Hotten's \"History of Sign Boards.\"\n\nThis plant was no doubt chosen from its being sacred to Bacchus. The\npractice was observed at statute hirings, wakes, etc., by people who\nsold ale at no other time. The manner, says Mr. Singer,[514] in which\nthey were decorated appears from a passage in Florio's \"Italian\nDictionary,\" in _voce tremola_, \"Gold foile, or thin leaves of gold or\nsilver, namely, thinne plate, as our vintners adorn their bushes with.\"\nWe may compare the old sign of \"An owl in an ivy bush,\" which perhaps\ndenoted the union of wisdom or prudence with conviviality, with the\nphrase \"be merry and wise.\"\n\n [514] \"Shakespeare,\" vol. iii. p. 112.\n\n_Kecksies._ These are the dry, hollow stalks of hemlock. In \"Henry V.\"\n(v. 2) Burgundy makes use of the word:\n\n \"and nothing teems,\n But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,\n Losing both beauty and utility.\"\n\nIt has been suggested[515] that kecksies may be a mistaken form of the\nplural kex; and that kex may have been formed from keck, something so\ndry that the eater would keck at it, or be unable to swallow it. The\nword is probably derived from the Welsh \"cecys,\" which is applied to\nseveral plants of the umbelliferous kind. Dr. Prior,[516] however, says\nthat kecksies is from an old English word keek, or kike, retained in the\nnorthern counties in the sense of \"peep\" or \"spy.\"\n\n [515] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 482.\n\n [516] \"Popular Names of British Plants,\" 1879, p. 128.\n\n_Knotgrass._[517] The allusion to this plant in \"A Midsummer-Night's\nDream\" (iii. 2)--\n\n \"Get you gone, you dwarf!\n You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made;\n You bead, you acorn!\"--\n\nrefers to its supposed power of hindering the growth of any child or\nanimal, when taken in an infusion, a notion alluded to by Beaumont and\nFletcher (\"Coxcombe,\" ii. 2):\n\n \"We want a boy extremely for this function,\n Kept under for a year with milk and knot-grass.\"\n\n [517] _Polygonum aviculare._\n\nIn \"The Knight of the Burning Pestle\" (ii. 2) we read: \"The child's a\nfatherless child, and say they should put him into a strait pair of\ngaskins, 'twere worse than knot-grass; he would never grow after it.\"\n\n_Lady-smocks._ This plant is so called from the resemblance of its white\nflowers to little smocks hung out to dry (\"Love's Labour's Lost,\" v. 2),\nas they used to be at that season of the year especially\n\n \"When daisies pied, and violets blue,\n And lady-smocks all silver white,\n And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,\n Do paint the meadows with delight.\n\n * * * * *\n\n When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,\n\n * * * * *\n\n And maidens bleach their summer smocks.\"\n\nAccording to another explanation, the lady-smock is a corruption of \"Our\nLady's Smock,\" so called from its first flowering about Lady-tide. This\nplant has also been called cuckoo-flower, because, as Gerarde says, \"it\nflowers in April and May, when the cuckoo doth begin to sing her\npleasant notes without stammering.\"\n\n_Laurel._ From the very earliest times this classical plant has been\nregarded as symbolical of victory, and used for crowns. In \"Titus\nAndronicus\" (i. 1) Titus says:\n\n \"Cometh Andronicus, bound with laurel boughs.\"\n\nAnd in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (i. 3) the latter exclaims:\n\n \"upon your sword\n Sit laurelled victory.\"[518]\n\n [518] See \"3 Henry VI.,\" iv. 6; \"Troilus and Cressida,\" i. 3.\n\n_Leek._ The first of March is observed by the Welsh in honor of St.\nDavid, their patron saint, when, as a sign of their patriotism, they\nwear a leek. Much doubt exists as to the origin of this custom.\nAccording to the Welsh, it is because St. David ordered his Britons to\nplace leeks in their caps, that they might be distinguished in fight\nfrom their Saxon foes. Shakespeare, in \"Henry V.\" (iv. 7), alludes to\nthe custom when referring to the battle of Cressy. Fluellen says, \"If\nyour majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a\ngarden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps, which\nyour majesty know to this hour is an honourable badge of the service;\nand I do believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint\nTavy's day.\"[519] Dr. Owen Pughe[520] supposes the custom arose from the\npractice of every farmer contributing his leek to the common repast when\nthey met at the Cymmortha, an association by which they reciprocated\nassistance in ploughing the land. Anyhow, the subject is one involved in\ncomplete uncertainty, and the various explanations given are purely\nconjectural (see p. 303).\n\n [519] See \"Henry V.,\" iv. 1.\n\n [520] \"Cambrian Biography,\" 1803, p. 86; see Brand's \"Pop.\n Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. i. pp. 102-108.\n\n_Lily._ Although so many pretty legends and romantic superstitions have\nclustered round this sweet and favorite flower, yet they have escaped\nthe notice of Shakespeare, who, while attaching to it the choicest\nepithets, has simply made it the type of elegance and beauty, and the\nsymbol of purity and whiteness.\n\n_Long Purples._ This plant, mentioned by Shakespeare in \"Hamlet\" (iv. 7)\nas forming part of the nosegay of poor Ophelia, is generally considered\nto be the early purple orchis (_Orchis mascula_), which blossoms in\nApril or May. It grows in meadows and pastures, and is about ten inches\nhigh. Tennyson (\"A Dirge\") uses the name:\n\n \"Round thee blow, self-pleached deep,\n Bramble roses, faint and pale,\n And long purples of the dale.\"\n\nAnother term applied by Shakespeare to this flower was \"Dead Men's\nFingers,\" from the pale color and hand-like shape of the palmate tubers:\n\n \"Our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.\"\n\nIn \"Flowers from Stratford-on-Avon,\" it is said, \"there can be no doubt\nthat the wild arum is the plant alluded to by Shakespeare,\" but there\nseems no authority for this statement.\n\n_Love-in-Idleness_, or, with more accuracy, _Love-in-Idle_,[521] is one\nof the many nicknames of the pansy or heart's-ease--a term said to be\nstill in use in Warwickshire. It occurs in \"Midsummer-Night's Dream\"\n(ii. 1),[522] where Oberon says:\n\n \"Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:\n It fell upon a little western flower,\n Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,\n And maidens call it love-in-idleness.\"\n\n [521] See Dr. Prior's \"Popular Names of British Plants,\" 1870,\n p. 139.\n\n [522] Cf. \"Taming of the Shrew,\" i. 1.\n\nThe phrase literally signifies love in vain, or to no purpose, as Taylor\nalludes to it in the following couplet:\n\n \"When passions are let loose without a bridle,\n Then precious time is turned to _love and idle_.\"\n\nThat flowers, and pansies especially, were used as love-philters,[523]\nor for the object of casting a spell over people, in Shakespeare's day,\nis shown in the passage already quoted. where Puck and Oberon amuse\nthemselves at Titania's expense. Again, a further reference occurs (iv.\n1), where the fairy king removes the spell:\n\n \"But first I will release the fairy queen.\n Be as thou wast wont to be:\n See as thou wast wont to see:\n Dian's bud[524] o'er Cupid's flower[525]\n Hath such force and blessed power.\n Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.\"\n\n [523] Cf. what Egeus says (i. 1) when speaking of Lysander:\n\n \"This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child;\n Thou, thou Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes\n And interchanged love-tokens with my child.\"\n\n [524] Dian's bud is the bud of the _Agnus castus_, or chaste\n tree. \"The virtue this herbe is, that he will kepe man and\n woman chaste.\" \"Macer's Herbal,\" 1527.\n\n [525] Cupid's flower, another name for the pansy.\n\n\"It has been suggested,\" says Mr. Aldis Wright,[526] \"that the device\nemployed by Oberon to enchant Titania by anointing her eyelids with the\njuice of a flower, may have been borrowed by Shakespeare from the\nSpanish romance of 'Diana' by George of Montemayor. But apart from the\ndifficulty which arises from the fact that no English translation of\nthis romance is known before that published by Young in 1598, there is\nno necessity to suppose that Shakespeare was indebted to any one for\nwhat must have been a familiar element in all incantations at a time\nwhen a belief in witchcraft was common.\" Percy (\"Reliques,\" vol. iii.\nbk. 2) quotes a receipt by the celebrated astrologer, Dr. Dee, for \"an\nungent to anoynt under the eyelids, and upon the eyelids eveninge and\nmorninge, but especially when you call,\" that is, upon the fairies. It\nconsisted of a decoction of various flowers.\n\n [526] Notes to \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream,\" 1877. Preface, p. xx.\n\n_Mandragora_ or _Mandrake_. No plant, perhaps, has had, at different\ntimes, a greater share of folk-lore attributed to it than the mandrake;\npartly owing, probably, to the fancied resemblance of its root to the\nhuman figure, and the accidental circumstance of _man_ being the first\nsyllable of the word. An inferior degree of animal life was assigned to\nit; and it was commonly supposed that, when torn from the ground, it\nuttered groans of so pernicious a character, that the person who\ncommitted the violence either went mad or died. In \"2 Henry VI.\" (iii.\n2) Suffolk says:\n\n \"Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan,\n I would invent,\" etc.\n\nAnd Juliet (\"Romeo and Juliet,\" iv. 3) speaks of\n\n \"shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth,\n That living mortals, hearing them, run mad.\"\n\nTo escape this danger, it was recommended to tie one end of a string to\nthe plant and the other to a dog, upon whom the fatal groan would\ndischarge its whole malignity. The ancients, it appears, were equally\nsuperstitious with regard to this mysterious plant, and Columella, in\nhis directions for the site of gardens, says they may be formed where\n\n \"the mandrake's flowers\n Produce, whose root shows half a man, whose juice\n With madness strikes.\"\n\nPliny[527] informs us that those who dug up this plant paid particular\nattention to stand so that the wind was at their back; and, before they\nbegan to dig, they made three circles round the plant with the point of\nthe sword, and then, proceeding to the west, commenced digging it up. It\nseems to have been well known as an opiate in the time of Shakespeare,\nwho makes Iago say in \"Othello\" (iii. 3):\n\n \"Not poppy, nor mandragora,\n Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,\n Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep\n Which thou ow'dst yesterday.\"\n\n [527] \"Natural History,\" bk. xxv. chap. 94.\n\nIn \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (i. 5), the queen pathetically says:\n\n \"Give me to drink mandragora.\n\n _Char._ Why, madam?\n\n _Cleo._ That I might sleep out this great gap of time,\n My Antony is away.\"\n\nLyte, in his translation of \"Dodoens\" (1578), p. 438, tells us that\n\"the leaves and fruit be also dangerous, for they cause deadly sleepe,\nand peevish drowsiness, like opium.\" It was sometimes regarded as an\nemblem of incontinence, as in \"2 Henry IV.\" (iii. 2): \"yet lecherous as\na monkey, and the whores called him--mandrake.\" A very diminutive figure\nwas, too, often compared to a mandrake. In \"2 Henry IV.\" (i. 2),\nFalstaff says: \"Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my\ncap, than to wait at my heels.\" Tracing back the history of this plant\ninto far-distant times, it is generally believed that it is the same as\nthat which the ancient Hebrews called Dudain.[528] That these people\nheld it in the highest esteem in the days of Jacob is evident from its\nhaving been found by Reuben, who carried the plant to his mother; and\nthe inducement which tempted Leah to part with it proves the value then\nset upon this celebrated plant. According to a curious superstition,\nthis plant was thought to possess the properties of making childless\nwives become mothers, and hence, some suppose, Rachel became so desirous\nof possessing the mandrakes which Reuben had found. Among the many other\nitems of folk-lore associated with the mandrake, there is one which\ninforms us that \"it is perpetually watched over by Satan, and if it be\npulled up at certain holy times, and with certain invocations, the evil\nspirit will appear to do the bidding of the practitioner.\"[529] In\ncomparatively recent times, quacks and impostors counterfeited with the\nroot briony figures resembling parts of the human body, which were sold\nto the credulous as endued with specific virtues.[530] The Germans, too,\nequally superstitious, formed little idols of the roots of the mandrake,\nwhich were regularly dressed every day, and consulted as oracles--their\nrepute being such that they were manufactured in great numbers, and sold\nin cases. They were, also, imported into this country during the time of\nHenry VIII., it being pretended that they would, with the assistance of\nsome mystic words, increase whatever money was placed near them. In\norder, too, to enhance the value of these so-called miracle-workers, it\nwas said that the roots of this plant were produced from the flesh of\ncriminals which fell from the gibbet, and that it only grew in such a\nsituation.[531]\n\n [528] Phillips's \"Flora Historica,\" 1829, vol. i. pp. 324, 325;\n see Smith's \"Dictionary of the Bible,\" 1869, vol. ii. p. 1777.\n\n [529] \"Mystic Trees and Flowers,\" by M. D. Conway; _Fraser's\n Magazine_, 1870, vol. ii. p. 705.\n\n [530] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" 1875, vol. v. p. 153.\n\n [531] See Sir Thomas Browne's \"Vulgar Errors,\" 1852, vol. ii. p. 6.\n\n_Marigold._ This flower was a great favorite with our old writers, from\na curious notion that it always opened or shut its flowers at the sun's\nbidding; in allusion to which Perdita remarks, in \"Winter's Tale\" (iv.\n3):\n\n \"The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun,\n And with him rises weeping.\"\n\nIt was also said, but erroneously, to turn its flowers to the sun, a\nquality attributed to the sunflower (_Helianthus annuus_), and thus\ndescribed by Moore:\n\n \"The sunflower turns on her god when he sets\n The same look which she turn'd when he rose.\"\n\nA popular name for the marigold was \"mary-bud,\" mention of which we find\nin \"Cymbeline\" (ii. 3):\n\n \"winking Mary-buds begin\n To ope their golden eyes.\"\n\n_Medlar._ This fruit, which Shakespeare describes as only fit to be\neaten when rotten, is applied by Lucio to a woman of loose character, as\nin \"Measure for Measure\" (iv. 3): \"they would else have married me to\nthe rotten medlar.\"\n\nChaucer, in the \"Reeve's Prologue,\" applies the same name to it:\n\n \"That ilke fruit is ever lenger the wers,\n Till it be roten in mullok, or in stre.\n We olde men, I drede, so faren we,\n Till we be roten can we not be ripe.\"\n\n_Mistletoe._ This plant, which, from the earliest times, has been an\nobject of interest to naturalists, on account of its curious growth,\nderiving its subsistence entirely from the branch to which it annexes\nitself, has been the subject of widespread superstition. In \"Titus\nAndronicus\" (ii. 3), Tamora describes it in the graphic passage below as\nthe \"baleful mistletoe,\" an epithet which, as Mr. Douce observes, is\nextremely appropriate, either conformably to an ancient, but erroneous,\nopinion, that the berries of the mistletoe were poisonous, or on account\nof the use made of this plant by the Druids during their detestable\nhuman sacrifices.[532]\n\n \"_Demetrius._ How now, dear sovereign, and our gracious mother,\n Why doth your highness look so pale and wan?\n\n _Tamora._ Have I not reason, think you, to look pale?\n These two have 'tic'd me hither to this place:--\n A barren detested vale, you see, it is;\n The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,\n O'ercome with moss and baleful mistletoe:\n Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds,\n Unless the nightly owl, or fatal raven.\"\n\n [532] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 386.\n\n_Mushroom._ Besides his notice of the mushroom in the following\npassages, Shakespeare alludes to the fairy rings[533] which are formed\nby fungi, though, as Mr. Ellacombe[534] points out, he probably knew\nlittle of this. In \"The Tempest\" (v. 1), Prospero says of the fairies:\n\n \"you demi-puppets, that\n By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets make,\n Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pastime\n Is to make midnight mushrooms;\"\n\nthe allusion in this passage being to the superstition that sheep will\nnot eat the grass that grows on fairy rings.\n\n [533] See page 15.\n\n [534] \"Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,\" p. 131.\n\n_Mustard._ Tewksbury mustard, to which reference is made in \"2 Henry\nIV.\" (ii. 4), where Falstaff speaks of \"wit as thick as Tewksbury\nmustard,\" was formerly very famous. Shakespeare speaks only of its\nthickness, but others have celebrated its pungency. Coles, writing in\n1657, says: \"In Gloucestershire, about Teuxbury, they grind mustard and\nmake it into balls, which are brought to London, and other remote\nplaces, as being the best that the world affords.\"\n\n_Narcissus._ The old legend attached to this flower is mentioned by\nEmilia in \"The Two Noble Kinsmen\" (ii. 1):\n\n \"That was a fair boy certain, but a fool,\n To love himself; were there not maids enough?\"\n\n_Nutmeg._ A gilt nutmeg was formerly a common gift at Christmas and on\nother festive occasions, a notice of which occurs in \"Love's Labour's\nLost\" (v. 2), in the following dialogue:[535]\n\n \"_Armado._ 'The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,\n Gave Hector a gift,--'\n\n _Dumain._ A gilt nutmeg.\"\n\n [535] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 612.\n\n_Oak._ A crown of oak was considered by the Romans worthy of the highest\nemulation of statesmen and warriors. To him who had saved the life of a\nRoman soldier was given a crown of oak-leaves; one, indeed, which was\naccounted more honorable than any other. In \"Coriolanus\" (ii. 1),\nVolumnia says: \"he comes the third time home with the oaken garland.\"\nAnd again (i. 3): \"To a cruel war I sent him; from whence he returned,\nhis brows bound with oak.\" Montesquieu, indeed, said that it was with\ntwo or three hundred crowns of oak that Rome conquered the world.\nAlthough so much historical and legendary lore have clustered round the\noak, yet scarcely any mention is made of this by Shakespeare. The legend\nof Herne the Hunter, which seems to have been current at Windsor, is\nseveral times alluded to, as, for instance, in \"Merry Wives of Windsor\"\n(iv. 4):\n\n \"_Mrs. Page._ There is an old tale goes, that Herne the hunter,\n Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest,\n Doth all the winter time, at still midnight,\n Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns.\n\n * * * * *\n\n _Page._ ... there want not many, that do fear\n In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak.\"\n\nHerne's Oak, so long an object of much curiosity and enthusiasm, is now\nno more. According to one theory, the old tree was blown down August 31,\n1863; and a young oak was planted by her Majesty, September 12, 1863, to\nmark the spot where Herne's Oak stood.[536] Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps,\nhowever, tells us, \"the general opinion is that it was accidentally\ndestroyed in the year 1796, through an order of George III. to the\nbailiff Robinson, that all the unsightly trees in the vicinity of the\ncastle should be removed; an opinion confirmed by a well-established\nfact, that a person named Grantham, who contracted with the bailiff for\nthe removal of the trees, fell into disgrace with the king for having\nincluded the oak in his gatherings.\"[537]\n\n [536] See \"Windsor Guide,\" p. 5.\n\n [537] See \"Notes and Queries,\" 3d series, vol. xii. p. 160.\n\n_Olive._ This plant, ever famous from its association with the return of\nthe dove to the ark, has been considered typical of peace. It was as an\nemblem of peace that a garland of olive was given to Judith when she\nrestored peace to the Israelites by the death of Holofernes (Judith, xv.\n13). It was equally honored by Greeks and Romans. It is, too, in this\nsense that Shakespeare speaks of it when he makes Viola, in \"Twelfth\nNight\" (i. 5), say: \"I bring no overture of war, no taxation of homage;\nI hold the olive in my hand, my words are as full of peace as matter.\"\nIn Sonnet CVII. occurs the well-known line:[538]\n\n \"And peace proclaims olives of endless age.\"\n\n [538] See also \"3 Henry VI.,\" iv. 6; \"Timon of Athens,\" v. 4;\n \"Antony and Cleopatra,\" iv. 6; \"2 Henry IV.,\" iv. 4.\n\n_Palm._ As the symbol of victory, this was carried before the conqueror\nin triumphal processions. Its classical use is noticed by Shakespeare in\n\"Coriolanus\" (v. 3). Volumnia says:[539]\n\n \"And bear the palm, for having bravely shed\n Thy wife and children's blood.\"\n\n [539] See \"As You Like It,\" iii. 2; \"Timon of Athens,\" v. 1;\n cf. \"Henry VIII.,\" iv. 2.\n\nIn \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (i. 2), Cassius exclaims:\n\n \"Ye gods, it doth amaze me,\n A man of such a feeble temper should\n So get the start of the majestic world,\n And bear the palm alone.\"\n\nPilgrims were formerly called \"palmers,\" from the staff or bough of palm\nthey were wont to carry. So, in \"All's Well That Ends Well\" (iii. 5),\nHelena asks:\n\n \"Where do the palmers lodge, I do beseech you?\"\n\n_Pear._ In his few notices of the pear Shakespeare only mentions two by\nname, the warden and the poperin: the former was chiefly used for\nroasting or baking, and is mentioned by the clown in the \"Winter's Tale\"\n(iv. 3):\n\n \"I must have saffron, to colour the warden pies.\"\n\nHence Ben Jonson makes a pun upon Church-warden pies. According to some\nantiquarians, the name warden is from the Anglo-Saxon _wearden_, to\npreserve, as it keeps for a long time; but it is more probable that the\nword had its origin from the horticultural skill of the Cistercian monks\nof Wardon Abbey, in Bedfordshire, founded in the 12th century. Three\nwarden pears appeared on the armorial bearings of the abbey.[540] It is\nnoticeable that the warden pies of Shakespeare's day, colored with\nsaffron, have been replaced by stewed pears colored with cochineal.\n\n [540] See \"Arch\u00e6ological Journal,\" vol. v. p. 301.\n\nThe poperin pear was probably introduced from Flanders by the antiquary\nLeland, who was made rector of Popering by Henry VIII. It is alluded to\nby Mercutio in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (ii. 1), where he wishes that Romeo\nwere \"a poperin pear.\" In the old dramas there is much attempt at wit on\nthis pear.\n\n_Peas._ A practice called \"peascod wooing\" was formerly a common mode of\ndivination in love affairs. The cook, when shelling green peas, would,\nif she chanced to find a pod having nine, lay it on the lintel of the\nkitchen-door, and the first man who entered was supposed to be her\nfuture husband. Another way of divination by peascod consisted in the\nlover selecting one growing on the stem, snatching it away quickly, and\nif the good omen of the peas remaining in the husk were preserved, in\nthen presenting it to the lady of his choice. Touchstone, in \"As You\nLike It\" (ii. 4), alludes to this piece of popular suggestion: \"I\nremember the wooing of a peascod[541] instead of her.\" Gay, who has\ncarefully chronicled many a custom of his time, says, in his \"Fourth\nPastoral:\"\n\n \"As peascods once I pluck'd, I chanc'd to see,\n One that was closely fill'd with three times three,\n Which when I cropp'd I safely home convey'd,\n And o'er my door the spell in secret laid.\"\n\n [541] The cod was what we now call the pod.\n\nWe may quote, as a further illustration, the following stanza from\nBrowne's \"Pastorals\" (bk. ii. song 3):\n\n \"The peascod greene, oft with no little toyle,\n He'd seek for in the fattest, fertil'st soile,\n And rende it from the stalke to bring it to her,\n And in her bosom for acceptance wooe her.\"[542]\n\n [542] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. p. 99.\n\n_Plantain._ The leaves of this plant were carefully valued by our\nforefathers for their supposed efficacy in healing wounds, etc. It was\nalso considered as a preventive of poison; and to this supposed virtue\nwe find an allusion in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 2):\n\n \"_Benvolio._ Take thou some new infection to thy eye,\n And the rank poison of the old will die.\n\n _Romeo._ Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.\n\n _Benvolio._ For what, I pray thee?\n\n _Romeo._ For your broken shin.\"[543]\n\n [543] See \"Love's Labour's Lost,\" iii. 1.\n\nIn the \"Two Noble Kinsmen\" (i. 2) Palamon says:\n\n \"These poor slight sores\n Need not a plantain.\"\n\n_Poppy._ The plant referred to by Shakespeare in \"Othello\" (iii. 3) is\nthe opium poppy, well known in his day for its deadly qualities. It is\ndescribed by Spenser in the \"Fairy Queen\" (ii. 7, 52) as the\n\"dead-sleeping poppy,\" and Drayton (\"Nymphidia,\" v.) enumerates it among\nthe flowers that procure \"deadly sleeping.\"\n\n_Potato._ It is curious enough, says Nares,[544] to find that excellent\nroot, which now forms a regular portion of the daily nutriment of every\nindividual, and is the chief or entire support of multitudes in Ireland,\nspoken of continually as having some powerful effect upon the human\nframe, in exciting the desires and passions; yet this is the case in all\nthe writings contemporary with Shakespeare. Thus Falstaff, in \"Merry\nWives of Windsor\" (v. 5), says: \"Let the sky rain potatoes; let it\nthunder to the tune of 'Green Sleeves,' hail kissing comfits,\" etc. In\n\"Troilus and Cressida\" (v. 2), Thersites adds: \"How the devil luxury,\nwith his fat rump and potato finger, tickles these together.\"[545] It\nappears, too, that the medical writers of the times countenanced this\nfancy. Mr. Ellacombe[546] observes that the above passages are of\npeculiar interest, inasmuch as they contain almost the earliest notice\nof potatoes after their introduction into England.\n\n [544] \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 677.\n\n [545] See Beaumont and Fletcher, \"Elder Brother,\" iv. 4;\n Massinger, \"New Way to Pay Old Debts,\" ii. 2; Ben Jonson,\n \"Cynthia's Revels,\" ii. 1, etc.\n\n [546] \"Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,\" p. 173.\n\n_Primrose._ Although the early primrose has always been such a popular\nand favorite flower, yet it seems to have been associated with\nsadness,[547] or even worse than sadness; for, in the following\npassages, the \"primrose paths\" and \"primrose way\" are meant to be\nsuggestive of sinful pleasures. Thus, in \"Hamlet\" (i. 3), Ophelia says:\n\n \"like a puff'd and reckless libertine,\n Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,\n And recks not his own rede.\"\n\n [547] Ibid., p. 179.\n\nAnd in \"Macbeth\" (ii. 3), the Porter declares: \"I had thought to have\nlet in some of all professions, that go the primrose way to the\neverlasting bonfire.\" Curious to say, too, Shakespeare's only epithets\nfor this fair flower are, \"pale,\" \"faint,\" \"that die unmarried.\" Nearly\nall the poets of that time spoke of it in the same strain, with the\nexception of Ben Jonson and the two Fletchers.\n\n_Reed._ Among the uses to which the reed was formerly applied were the\nthatching of houses and the making of shepherds' pipes. The former is\nalluded to in the \"Tempest\" (v. 1):\n\n \"His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops\n From eaves of reeds;\"\n\nand the latter in \"Merchant of Venice\" (iii. 4), where Portia speaks of\n\"a reed voice.\" It has generally been regarded as the emblem of\nweakness, as in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (ii. 7): \"a reed that will do me\nno service.\"\n\n_Rose._ As might be expected, the rose is the flower most frequently\nmentioned by Shakespeare, a symbol, in many cases, of all that is fair\nand lovely. Thus, for instance, in \"Hamlet\" (iii. 4), Hamlet says:\n\n \"Such an act ... takes off the rose\n From the fair forehead of an innocent love,\n And sets a blister there.\"\n\nAnd Ophelia (iii. 1) describes Hamlet as,\n\n \"The expectancy and rose of the fair state.\"\n\nIn days gone by the rose entered largely into the customs and\nsuperstitions of most nations, and even nowadays there is an extensive\nfolk-lore associated with it.\n\nIt appears that, in Shakespeare's time, one of the fashions of the day\nwas the wearing of enormous roses on the shoes, of which full-length\nportraits afford striking examples.[548] Hamlet (iii. 2) speaks of \"two\nProvincial roses on my razed shoes;\" meaning, no doubt, rosettes of\nribbon in the shape of roses of Provins or Provence. Douce favors the\nformer, Warton the latter locality. In either case, it was a large\nrose. The Provence, or damask rose, was probably the better known.\nGerarde, in his \"Herbal,\" says that the damask rose is called by some\n_Rosa Provincialis_.[549] Mr. Fairholt[550] quotes, from \"Friar Bacon's\nProphecy\" (1604), the following, in allusion to this fashion:\n\n \"When roses in the gardens grew,\n And not in ribbons on a shoe:\n Now ribbon roses take such place\n That garden roses want their grace.\"\n\n [548] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" 1875, vol. ix. p. 227.\n\n [549] \"Notes to Hamlet,\" Clark and Wright, 1876, p. 179.\n\n [550] \"Costume in England,\" p. 238. At p. 579 the author gives\n several instances of the extravagances to which this fashion led.\n\nAgain, in \"King John\" (i. 1), where the Bastard alludes to the\nthree-farthing silver pieces of Queen Elizabeth, which were extremely\nthin, and had the profile of the sovereign, with a rose on the back of\nher head, there doubtless is a fuller reference to the court fashion of\nsticking roses in the ear:[551]\n\n \"my face so thin,\n That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose,\n Lest men should say, 'Look, where three-farthings goes.'\"\n\n [551] Some gallants had their ears bored, and wore their\n mistresses' silken shoe-strings in them. See Singer's \"Notes,\"\n vol. iv. p. 257.\n\nShakespeare also mentions the use of the rose in rose-cakes and\nrose-water, the former in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (v. 1), where Romeo speaks\nof \"old cakes of roses,\" the latter in \"Taming of the Shrew\" (Induction,\n1):\n\n \"Let one attend him with a silver basin\n Full of rose-water and bestrew'd with flowers.\"\n\nReferring to its historical lore, we may mention its famous connection\nwith the Wars of the Roses. In the fatal dispute in the Temple Gardens,\nSomerset, on the part of Lancaster, says (\"1 Henry VI.\" ii. 4):\n\n \"Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer,\n But dare maintain the party of the truth,\n Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.\"\n\nWarwick, on the part of York, replies:\n\n \"I love no colours, and, without all colour\n Of base insinuating flattery,\n I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet.\"\n\nThe trailing white dog-rose is commonly considered to have been the one\nchosen by the House of York. A writer, however, in the _Quarterly\nReview_ (vol. cxiv.) has shown that the white rose has a very ancient\ninterest for Englishmen, as, long before the brawl in the Temple\nGardens, the flower had been connected with one of the most ancient\nnames of our island. The elder Pliny, in discussing the etymology of the\nword Albion, suggests that the land may have been so named from the\nwhite roses which abounded in it. The York and Lancaster rose, with its\npale striped flowers, is a variety of the French rose known as _Rosa\nGallica_. It became famous when the two emblematical roses, in the\npersons of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York, at last brought peace and\nhappiness to the country which had been so long divided by internal\nwarfare. The canker-rose referred to by Shakespeare is the wild\ndog-rose, a name occasionally applied to the common red poppy.\n\n_Rosemary._ This plant was formerly in very high esteem, and was devoted\nto various uses. It was supposed to strengthen the memory; hence it was\nregarded as a symbol of remembrance, and on this account was often given\nto friends. Thus, in \"Hamlet\" (iv. 5), where Ophelia seems to be\naddressing Laertes, she says: \"There's rosemary, that's for\nremembrance.\" In the \"Winter's Tale\" (iv. 4) rosemary and rue are\nbeautifully put together:\n\n \"For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep\n Seeming and savour all the winter long:\n Grace and remembrance be to you both,\n And welcome to our shearing!\"\n\nBesides being used at weddings, it was also in request at funerals,\nprobably for its odor, and as a token of remembrance of the deceased.\nThus the Friar, in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iv. 5), says:\n\n \"Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary\n On this fair corse.\"\n\nThis practice is thus touchingly alluded to by Gay, in his \"Pastorals:\"\n\n \"To shew their love, the neighbours far and near\n Followed, with wistful look, the damsel's bier:\n Sprigg'd rosemary the lads and lasses bore,\n While dismally the parson walk'd before.\"\n\nRosemary, too, was one of the evergreens with which dishes were\nanciently garnished during the season of Christmas, an allusion to which\noccurs in \"Pericles\" (iv. 6): \"Marry, come up, my dish of chastity with\nrosemary and bays.\"\n\n_Rush._ Before the introduction of carpets, the floors of churches and\nhouses were strewed with rushes, a custom to which Shakespeare makes\nseveral allusions. In \"Taming of the Shrew\" (iv. 1), Grumio asks: \"Is\nsupper ready, the house trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept?\" and\nGlendower, in \"1 Henry IV.\" (iii. 1), says:\n\n \"She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down,\n And rest your gentle head upon her lap.\"\n\nAt the coronation of Henry V. (\"2 Henry IV.,\" v. 5), when the procession\nis coming, the grooms cry, \"More rushes! more rushes!\" which seems to\nhave been the usual cry for rushes to be scattered on a pavement or a\nplatform when a procession was approaching.[552] Again, in \"Richard II.\"\n(i. 3), the custom is further alluded to by John of Gaunt, who speaks of\n\"the presence strew'd,\" referring to the presence-chamber. So, too, in\n\"Cymbeline\" (ii. 2), Iachimo soliloquizes:\n\n \"Tarquin thus\n Did softly press the rushes, ere he waken'd\n The chastity he wounded.\"\n\n [552] Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 373.\n\nAnd in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 4), Romeo says:\n\n \"Let wantons, light of heart,\n Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels;\"\n\nan expression which Middleton has borrowed in his \"Blunt Master\nConstable,\" 1602:\n\n \"Bid him, whose heart no sorrow feels,\n Tickle the rushes with his wanton heels,\n I have too much lead at mine.\"\n\nIn the \"Two Noble Kinsmen\" (ii. 1) the Gaoler's Daughter is represented\ncarrying \"strewings\" for the two prisoners' chamber.\n\nRush-bearings were a sort of rural festival, when the parishioners\nbrought rushes to strew the church.[553]\n\n [553] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. pp. 13, 14.\n\nThe \"rush-ring\" appears to have been a kind of token for plighting of\ntroth among rustic lovers. It was afterwards vilely used, however, for\nmock-marriages, as appears from one of the Constitutions of Salisbury.\nIn \"All's Well that Ends Well\" (ii. 2) there seems a covert allusion to\nthe rush-ring: \"As Tib's rush for Tom's fore-finger.\" Spenser, in the\n\"Shepherd's Kalendar,\" speaks of\n\n \"The knotted rush-rings and gilt Rosemarie.\"\n\nDu Breul, in his \"Antiquities of Paris,\"[554] mentions the rush-ring as\n\"a kind of espousal used in France by such persons as meant to live\ntogether in a state of concubinage; but in England it was scarcely ever\npractised except by designing men, for the purpose of corrupting those\nyoung women to whom they pretended love.\"\n\n [554] Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, p. 194.\n\nThe \"rush candle,\" which, in times past, was found in nearly every\nhouse, and served as a night-light for the rich and candle for the poor,\nis mentioned in \"Taming of the Shrew\" (iv. 5):\n\n \"be it moon, or sun, or what you please:\n An if you please to call it a rush candle,\n Henceforth, I vow, it shall be so for me.\"\n\n_Saffron._ In the following passage (\"All's Well that Ends Well,\" iv.\n5) there seems to be an allusion[555] by Lafeu to the fashionable and\nfantastic custom of wearing yellow, and to that of coloring paste with\nsaffron: \"No, no, no, your son was misled with a snipt-taffeta fellow\nthere, whose villanous saffron would have made all the unbaked and\ndoughy youth of a nation in his colour.\"\n\n [555] Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 381.\n\n_Spear-grass._ This plant--perhaps the common reed--is noticed in \"1 Henry\nIV.\" (ii. 4) as used for tickling the nose and making it bleed. In\nLupton's \"Notable Things\" it is mentioned as part of a medical recipe:\n\"Whoever is tormented with sciatica or the hip-gout, let them take an\nherb called spear-grass, and stamp it, and lay a little thereof upon the\ngrief.\" Mr. Ellacombe[556] thinks that the plant alluded to is the\ncommon couch-grass (_Triticum repens_), which is still known in the\neastern counties as spear-grass.\n\n [556] \"Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,\" p. 319.\n\n_Stover._ This word, which is often found in the writings of\nShakespeare's day, denotes fodder and provision of all sorts for cattle.\nIn Cambridgeshire stover signifies hay made of coarse, rank grass, such\nas even cows will not eat while it is green. In \"The Tempest\" (iv. 1),\nIris says:\n\n \"Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,\n And flat meads thatch'd with stover, them to keep.\"\n\nAccording to Steevens, stover was used as a thatch for cart-lodges and\nother buildings that required but cheap coverings.\n\n_Strawberry._ Shakespeare's mention of the strawberry in connection with\nthe nettle, in \"Henry V.\" (i. 1),\n\n \"The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,\n And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best\n Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality,\"\n\ndeserves, says Mr. Ellacombe, a passing note. \"It was the common opinion\nin his day that plants were affected by the neighborhood of other plants\nto such an extent that they imbibed each others virtues and faults. Thus\nsweet flowers were planted near fruit-trees with the idea of improving\nthe flavor of the fruit, and evil-smelling trees, like the elder, were\ncarefully cleared away from fruit-trees, lest they should be tainted.\nBut the strawberry was supposed to be an exception to the rule, and was\nsaid to thrive in the midst of 'evil communications, without being\ncorrupted.'\"\n\n_Thorns._ The popular tradition, which represents the marks on the\nmoon[557] to be that of a man carrying a thorn-bush on his head, is\nalluded to in \"Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (v. 1), in the Prologue:\n\n \"This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn,\n Presenteth Moonshine.\"\n\n [557] See p. 68.\n\nLittle else is mentioned by Shakespeare with regard to thorns, save that\nthey are generally used by him as the emblems of desolation and trouble.\n\n_Violets._ An old superstition is alluded to by Shakespeare when he\nmakes Laertes wish that violets may spring from the grave of Ophelia\n(\"Hamlet,\" v. 1):\n\n \"Lay her i' the earth:\n And from her fair and unpolluted flesh\n May violets spring!\"\n\nan idea which occurs in Persius's \"Satires\" (i. 39):\n\n \"E tumulo fortunataque favilla\n Nascentur viol\u00e6.\"\n\nThe violet has generally been associated with early death. This, Mr.\nEllacombe considers,[558] \"may have arisen from a sort of pity for\nflowers that were only allowed to see the opening year, and were cut off\nbefore the first beauty of summer had come, and so were looked upon as\napt emblems of those who enjoyed the bright springtide of life, and no\nmore.\" Thus, the violet is one of the flowers which Marina carries to\nhang \"as a carpet on the grave\" in \"Pericles\" (iv. 1):\n\n \"the yellows, blues,\n The purple violets, and marigolds,\n Shall, as a carpet, hang upon thy grave,\n While summer days do last.\"\n\n [558] \"Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,\" p. 248.\n\nAgain, in that exquisite passage in the \"Winter's Tale\" (iv. 4), where\nPerdita enumerates the flowers of spring, she speaks of,\n\n \"violets, dim,\n But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,\n Or Cytherea's breath;\"\n\nupon which Mr. Singer[559] thus comments: \"The eyes of Juno were as\nremarkable as those of Pallas, and\n\n 'Of a beauty never yet\n Equalled in height of tincture.'\"\n\n [559] \"Shakespeare,\" vol. iv. p. 76.\n\nThe beauties of Greece and other Asiatic nations tinged their eyes of an\nobscure violet color, by means of some unguent, which was doubtless\nperfumed, like those for the hair, etc., mentioned by Athen\u00e6us.\n\n_Willow._ From time immemorial the willow has been regarded as the\nsymbol of sadness. Hence it was customary for those who were forsaken in\nlove to wear willow garlands, a practice to which Shakespeare makes\nseveral allusions. In \"Othello\" (iv. 3), Desdemona, anticipating her\ndeath, says:\n\n \"My mother had a maid call'd Barbara;\n She was in love; and he she lov'd prov'd mad,\n And did forsake her: she had a song of--Willow;\n An old thing 'twas, but it express'd her fortune,\n And she died singing it: that song, to-night,\n Will not go from my mind.\"\n\nThe following is the song:[560]\n\n \"The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,\n Sing all a green willow:\n Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,\n Sing willow, willow, willow:\n The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur'd her moans,\n Sing willow, willow, willow:\n Her salt tears fell from her, and soften'd the stones,\n Sing willow, willow, willow:\n Sing all a green willow must be my garland.\"\n\n [560] \"The old ballad on which Shakespeare formed this song is\n given in Percy's 'Reliques of Ancient Poetry' (1794, vol. i. p.\n 208), from a copy in the Pepysian collection. A different\n version of it may be seen in Chappell's 'Popular Music of the\n Olden Time' (2d edition, vol. i. p. 207). The original ditty is\n the lamentation of a lover for the inconstancy of his\n mistress.\"--Dyce's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. vii. p. 450.\n\nAnd further on Emilia says (v. 2):\n\n \"I will play the swan,\n And die in music.--[_Singing_] 'Willow, willow, willow.'\"\n\nAnd, again, Lorenzo, in \"Merchant of Venice\" (v. 1), narrates:\n\n \"In such a night\n Stood Dido, with a willow in her hand,\n Upon the wild sea-banks.\"\n\nIt was, too, in reference to this custom that Shakespeare, in \"Hamlet\"\n(iv. 7), represented poor Ophelia hanging her flowers on the \"willow\naslant a brook.\" \"This tree,\" says Douce,[561] \"might have been chosen\nas the symbol of sadness from the cxxxvii. Psalm (verse 2): 'We hanged\nour harps upon the willows;' or else from a coincidence between the\n_weeping_-willow and falling tears.\" Another reason has been assigned.\nThe _Agnus castus_ was supposed to promote chastity, and \"the willow\nbeing of a much like nature,\" says Swan, in his \"Speculum Mundi\" (1635),\n\"it is yet a custom that he which is deprived of his love must wear a\nwillow garland.\" Bona, the sister of the King of France, on receiving\nnews of Edward the Fourth's marriage with Elizabeth Grey, exclaimed,\n\n \"in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,\n I'll wear the willow garland for his sake.\"\n\n [561] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 105.\n\n_Wormwood._ The use of this plant in weaning infants is alluded to in\n\"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 3), by Juliet's nurse, in the following passage:\n\n \"For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,\n\n * * * * *\n\n When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple\n Of my dug, and felt it bitter, pretty fool.\"\n\n_Yew._ This tree, styled by Shakespeare \"the dismal yew\" (\"Titus\nAndronicus,\" ii. 3), apart from the many superstitions associated with\nit, has been very frequently planted in churchyards, besides being used\nat funerals. Paris, in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (v. 3), says:\n\n \"Under yond yew-trees lay thee all along,\n Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground;\n So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,\n Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,\n But thou shalt hear it.\"\n\nAlthough various reasons have been assigned for planting the yew-tree in\nchurchyards, it seems probable that the practice had a superstitious\norigin. As witches were supposed to exercise a powerful influence over\nthe winds, they were believed occasionally to exert their formidable\npower against religious edifices. Thus Macbeth says (iv. 1):\n\n \"Though you untie the winds, and let them fight\n Against the churches.\"\n\nTo counteract, therefore, this imaginary danger, our ancestors may have\nplanted the yew-tree in their churchyards, not only on account of its\nvitality as an evergreen, but as connected in some way, in heathen\ntimes, with the influence of evil powers.[562] In a statute made in the\nlatter part of Edward I.'s reign, to prevent rectors from cutting down\ntrees in churchyards, we find the following: \"Verum arbores ips\u00e6,\npropter ventorum impetus ne ecclesiis noceant, s\u00e6pe plantantur.\"[563]\n\n [562] Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 244.\n\n [563] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. pp. 255-266.\n\nThe custom of sticking yew in the shroud is alluded to in the following\nsong in \"Twelfth Night\" (ii. 4):\n\n \"My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,\n O, prepare it!\n My part of death, no one so true\n Did share it.\"\n\nThrough being reckoned poisonous, it is introduced in \"Macbeth\" (iv. 1)\nin connection with the witches:\n\n \"Gall of goat, and slips of yew,\n Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse.\"\n\n\"How much the splitting or tearing off of the slip had to do with magic\nwe learn from a piece of Slavonic folk-lore. It is unlucky to use for a\nbeam a branch or a tree broken by the wind. The devil, or storm-spirit,\nclaims it as his own, and, were it used, the evil spirit would haunt the\nhouse. It is a broken branch the witches choose; a sliver'd slip the\nwoodman will have none of.\"[564]\n\n [564] \"Notes and Queries,\" 5th series, vol. xii. p. 468.\n\nIts epithet, \"double-fatal\" (\"Richard II.,\" iii. 2), no doubt refers to\nthe poisonous quality of the leaves, and on account of its wood being\nemployed for instruments of death. Sir Stephen Scroop, when telling\nRichard of Bolingbroke's revolt, declares that\n\n \"Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows\n Of double-fatal yew against thy state.\"\n\nIt has been suggested that the poison intended by the Ghost in \"Hamlet\"\n(i. 5), when he speaks of the \"juice of cursed hebenon,\" is that of the\nyew, and is the same as Marlowe's \"juice of hebon\" (\"Jew of Malta,\" iii.\n4). The yew is called hebon by Spenser and by other writers of\nShakespeare's age; and, in its various forms of eben, eiben, hiben,\netc., this tree is so named in no less than five different European\nlanguages. From medical authorities, both of ancient and modern times,\nit would seem that the juice of the yew is a rapidly fatal poison; next,\nthat the symptoms attendant upon yew-poisoning correspond, in a very\nremarkable manner, with those which follow the bites of poisonous\nsnakes; and, lastly, that no other poison but the yew produces the\n\"lazar-like\" ulcerations on the body upon which Shakespeare, in this\npassage, lays so much stress.[565]\n\n [565] Extract of a paper read by Rev. W. A. Harrison, New\n Shakespeare Society, 12th May. 1882.\n\nAmong the other explanations of this passage is the well-known one which\nidentifies \"hebenon\" with henbane. Mr. Beisly suggests that nightshade\nmay be meant, while Nares considers that ebony is meant.[566]\n\n [566] See Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare;\" Nares's\n \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 412; Beisly's \"Shakespeare's Garden,\" p. 4.\n\nFrom certain ancient statutes it appears that every Englishman, while\narchery was practised, was obliged to keep in his house either a bow of\nyew or some other wood.[567]\n\n [567] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. iv. p. 427. See a paper in\n the \"Antiquary\" (1882, vol. vi. p. 13), by Mr. George Black, on\n the yew in Shakespearian folk-lore.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nINSECTS AND REPTILES.\n\n\nAs Dr. Johnson has truly remarked, Shakespeare is \"the poet of nature,\"\nfor \"his attention was not confined to the actions of men; he was an\nexact surveyor of the inanimate world; his descriptions have always some\npeculiarity, gathered by contemplating things as they really exist.\nWhether life or nature be his subject, Shakespeare shows plainly that he\nhas seen with his own eyes.\" So, too, he was in the habit of taking\nminute observation of the popular notions relating to natural history,\nso many of which he has introduced into his plays, using them to no\nsmall advantage. In numerous cases, also, the peculiarities of certain\nnatural objects have furnished the poet with many excellent metaphors.\nThus, in \"Richard II.\" (ii. 3), Bolingbroke speaks of \"the caterpillars\nof the commonwealth;\" and in \"2 Henry VI.\" (iii. 1) the Duke of York's\nreflection on the destruction of his hopes is,\n\n \"Thus are my blossoms blasted in the bud,\n And caterpillars eat my leaves away,\"\n\ntheir destructive powers being familiar.\n\n_Ant._ An ancient name for the ant is \"pismire,\" probably a Danish word,\nfrom _paid_ and _myre_, signifying such ants as live in hillocks. In \"1\nHenry IV.\" (i. 3) Hotspur says:\n\n \"Why, look you, I am whipp'd and scourg'd with rods,\n Nettled, and stung with pismires, when I hear\n Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke.\"\n\n_Blue-bottle._ This well-known insect has often been used as a term of\nreproach. Thus, in \"2 Henry IV.\" (v. 4), it furnishes an epithet applied\nby the abusive tongue of Doll Tearsheet to the beadle who had her in\ncustody. She reviles him as a \"blue-bottle rogue,\" a term, says Mr.\nPatterson,[568] \"evidently suggested by the similarity of the colors of\nhis costume to that of the insect.\"\n\n [568] \"Insects Mentioned by Shakespeare,\" 1841, p. 181.\n\n_Bots._ Our ancestors imagined that poverty or improper food engendered\nthese worms, or that they were the offspring of putrefaction. In \"1\nHenry IV.\" (ii. 1), one of the carriers says: \"Peas and beans are as\ndank here as a dog, and that is the next way to give poor jades the\nbots.\" And one of the misfortunes of the miserable nag of Petruchio\n(\"Taming of the Shrew,\" iii. 2), is that he is so \"begnawn with the\nbots.\"\n\n_Cricket._ The presence of crickets in a house has generally been\nregarded as a good omen, and said to prognosticate cheerfulness and\nplenty. Thus, Poins, in answer to the Prince's question in \"1 Henry IV.\"\n(ii. 4), \"Shall we be merry?\" replies, \"As merry as crickets.\" By many\nof our poets the cricket has been connected with cheerfulness and mirth.\nThus, in Milton, \"Il Penseroso\" desires to be\n\n \"Far from all resort of mirth,\n Save the cricket on the hearth.\"\n\nIt has not always, however, been regarded in the same light, for Gay, in\nhis \"Pastoral Dirge,\" among the rural prognostications of death, gives\nthe following:\n\n \"And shrilling crickets in the chimney cry'd.\"\n\nAnd in Dryden's \"OEdipus\" occurs the subjoined:\n\n \"Owls, ravens, crickets, seem the watch of death.\"\n\nLady Macbeth, also (\"Macbeth,\" ii. 2), in replying to the question of\nher husband after the murder of Duncan, says:\n\n \"I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry.\"\n\nIn \"Cymbeline\" (ii. 2), also, when Iachimo, at midnight, commences his\nsurvey of the chamber where Imogen lies sleeping, his first words refer\nto the chirping of crickets, rendered all the more audible by the\nrepose which at that moment prevailed throughout the palace:\n\n \"The crickets sing, and man's o'er-labour'd sense\n Repairs itself by rest.\"\n\nGilbert White, in his \"History of Selborne\" (1853, p. 174), remarks that\n\"it is the housewife's barometer, foretelling her when it will rain; and\nis prognostic, sometimes, she thinks, of ill or good luck, of the death\nof a near relation, or the approach of an absent lover. By being the\nconstant companion of her solitary home, it naturally becomes the object\nof her superstition.\"[569]\n\n [569] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. pp. 190, 191.\n\nIts supposed keen sense of hearing is referred to in the \"Winter's Tale\"\n(ii. 1) by Mamillius, who, on being asked by Hermione to tell a tale,\nreplies:\n\n \"I will tell it softly;\n Yond crickets shall not hear it.\"\n\n_Frog._ In the \"Two Noble Kinsmen\" (iii. 4), the Gaoler's Daughter says:\n\n \"Would I could find a fine frog! he would tell me\n News from all parts o' the world; then would I make\n A carack of a cockle-shell, and sail\n By east and north-east to the King of Pigmies,\n For he tells fortunes rarely.\"\n\nIn days gone by frogs were extensively used for the purpose of\ndivination.\n\n_Gad-fly._ A common name for this fly is the \"brize\" or \"breese,\"[570]\nan allusion to which occurs in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (i. 3), where\nNestor, speaking of the sufferings which cattle endure from this insect,\nsays:\n\n \"The herd hath more annoyance by the breese\n Than by the tiger.\"\n\n [570] See Patterson's \"Insects Mentioned by Shakespeare,\" 1841,\n pp. 104, 105.\n\nAnd in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (iii. 10) Shakespeare makes the excited\nScarus draw a comparison between the effect which this insect produces\non a herd of cattle and the abruptness and sudden frenzy of Cleopatra's\nretreat from the naval conflict:\n\n \"Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt,\n Whom leprosy o'ertake! i' the midst o' the fight,\n When vantage like a pair of twins appear'd,\n Both as the same, or rather ours the elder,--\n The breese upon her, like a cow in June,--\n Hoists sails, and flies.\"\n\nIt is said that the terror this insect causes in cattle proceeds solely\nfrom the alarm occasioned by \"a peculiar sound it emits while hovering\nfor the purpose of oviposition.\"[571]\n\n [571] \"Linn\u00e6an Transactions,\" vol. xv. p. 407; cf. Virgil's\n \"Georgics,\" iii. l. 148.\n\n_Lady-bird._ This is used in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 3) as a term of\nendearment. Lady Capulet having inquired after her daughter Juliet, the\nNurse replies:\n\n \"I bade her come. What, lamb! What, lady-bird!\n God forbid! Where's this girl? What, Juliet!\"\n\nMr. Staunton regards this passage as an exquisite touch of nature. \"The\nold nurse,\" he says, \"in her fond garrulity, uses 'lady-bird' as a term\nof endearment; but, recollecting its application to a female of loose\nmanners, checks herself--'God forbid!' her darling should prove such a\none.\" Mr. Dyce,[572] however, considers this explanation incorrect, and\ngives the subjoined note: \"The nurse says that she has already bid\nJuliet come; she then calls out, 'What, lamb! What, lady-bird!' and\nJuliet not yet making her appearance, she exclaims, 'God forbid! Where's\nthis girl?' The words 'God forbid' being properly an ellipsis of 'God\nforbid that any accident should keep her away,' but used here merely as\nan expression of impatience.\"\n\n [572] \"Glossary,\" 1876, p. 238.\n\n_Lizard._ It was a common superstition in the time of Shakespeare that\nlizards were venomous, a notion which probably originated in their\nsingular form. Hence the lizard's leg was thought a suitable ingredient\nfor the witches' caldron in \"Macbeth\" (iv. 1). Suffolk, in \"2 Henry VI.\"\n(iii. 2), refers to this idea:\n\n \"Their chiefest prospect murdering basilisks!\n Their softest touch as smart as lizards' stings.\"\n\nAgain, in \"3 Henry VI.\" (ii. 2), Queen Margaret speaks of\n\n \"venom toads, or lizards' dreadful stings.\"\n\nIn \"Troilus and Cressida\" (v. 1) it is classed with the toad and owl.\n\n_Moth._ This term, as Mr. Patterson remarks in his \"Insects Mentioned by\nShakespeare\" (1841, p. 164), does not awaken many pleasing associations.\nIn the minds of most people it stands for an insect either contemptible\nfrom its size and inertness, or positively obnoxious from its attacks on\nmany articles of clothing. Thus Shakespeare, he says, employs the\nexpression \"moth\" to denote something trifling or extremely minute. And\nin \"King John\" (iv. 1) we have the touching appeal of Prince Arthur to\nHubert, in which, for mote, he would substitute moth:\n\n \"_Arthur._ Is there no remedy?\n\n _Hubert._ None, but to lose your eyes.\n\n _Arthur._ O heaven!--that there were but a mote in yours,\n A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair,\n Any annoyance in that precious sense!\n Then, feeling what small things are boisterous there,\n Your vile intent must needs seem horrible.\"\n\nSee also \"Henry V.\" (iv. 1). In these two passages, however, the correct\nreading is probably \"mote.\"[573]\n\n [573] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 973.\n\n_Serpent._ A term used by our old writers to signify a serpent was \"a\nworm,\" which is still found in the north of England in the same sense.\nIt is used several times by Shakespeare; as, for instance, in \"Measure\nfor Measure\" (iii. 1), where the Duke, addressing Claudio, says:\n\n \"Thou'rt by no means valiant;\n For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork\n Of a poor worm.\"\n\nThis passage also illustrates an error very prevalent in days gone by,\nthat the forked tongue of the serpent tribe was their instrument of\noffence, without any thought of the teeth or fangs, which are its real\nweapons.[574] Again, the \"blind-worm\" or \"slow-worm\"--a little snake with\nvery small eyes, falsely supposed to be venomous--is spoken of in \"A\nMidsummer-Night's Dream\" (ii. 2), in that charming passage where the\nfairies are represented as singing to their queen, Titania:\n\n \"You spotted snakes, with double tongue,\n Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;\n Newts, and blind-worms, do no wrong,\n Come not near our fairy queen.\"\n\n [574] Cf. \"Macbeth\" (iii. 4):\n\n \"There the grown serpent lies: the worm, that's fled,\n Hath nature that in time will venom breed.\"\n\nIn \"Macbeth\" (iv. 1), among the ingredients of the witches' caldron are\n\n \"Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting.\"\n\nTo quote a further allusion, Shakespeare, in \"Timon of Athens\" (iv. 3),\nspeaks of\n\n \"The gilded newt and eyeless venom'd worm.\"\n\nMassinger employs the same term in his \"Parliament of Love\" (iv. 2):\n\n \"The sad father\n That sees his son stung by a snake to death,\n May, with more justice, stay his vengeful hand,\n And let the worm escape, than you vouchsafe him\n A minute to repent.\"[575]\n\n [575] Worm is used for serpent or viper, in the Geneva version\n of the New Testament, in Acts xxvii. 4, 5.\n\nThere was an old notion that the serpent caused death without pain, a\npopular fancy which Shakespeare has introduced in his \"Antony and\nCleopatra\" (v. 2):\n\n \"Hast thou the pretty worm of Nilus there,\n That kills and pains not?\"\n\nThe term \"worm\" was also occasionally used to signify a \"poor creature,\"\nas also was the word \"snake.\" Thus, in the \"Taming of the Shrew\" (v. 2),\nKatharina says:\n\n \"Come, come, you froward and unable worms!\n My mind hath been as big as one of yours,\n My heart as great, my reason, haply, more.\"\n\nSo, in \"As You Like It\" (iv. 3), Rosalind uses \"snake\" in the sense of\nreproach: \"Well, go your way to her, for I see love hath made thee a\ntame snake.\"\n\nThe serpent, as the emblem of ingratitude, is alluded to by King Lear\n(ii. 4), who, referring to his daughter, says how she\n\n \"struck me with her tongue,\n Most serpent-like, upon the very heart:--\n All the stor'd vengeances of heaven fall\n On her ingrateful top!\"\n\nAccording to a popular belief, still credited, a poisonous bite could be\ncured by the blood of the viper which darted the poison. Thus, in\n\"Richard II.\" (i. 1), Mowbray says:\n\n \"I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffled here,\n Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear,\n The which no balm can cure, but his heart-blood\n Which breath'd this poison.\"\n\nIn Cornwall it is still believed that the dead body of a serpent,\nbruised on the wound it has occasioned, is an infallible remedy for its\nbite.[576] Hence has originated the following rhyme:\n\n \"The beauteous adder hath a sting,\n Yet bears a balsam too.\"\n\n [576] See Hunt's \"Popular Romances of the West of England,\"\n 1871, p. 415; and Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. p. 270.\n\nThe old notion that the snake, in casting off its slough, or skin,\nannually, is supposed to regain new vigor and fresh youth, is alluded to\nby King Henry (\"Henry V.,\" iv. 1), who speaks of \"casted slough and\nfresh legerity\"--legerity meaning lightness, nimbleness. In \"Twelfth\nNight\" (ii. 5), in the letter which Malvolio finds, there is this\npassage: \"to inure thyself to what thou art like to be, cast thy humble\nslough and appear fresh.\" One of the most useful miracles which St.\nPatrick is reported to have performed was his driving the venomous\nreptiles out of Ireland, and forbidding them to return. This tradition\nis probably alluded to by King Richard (\"Richard II.,\" ii. 1):\n\n \"Now for our Irish wars:\n We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,\n Which live like venom, where no venom else,\n But only they, hath privilege to live.\"\n\nThe way, we are told, by which the saint performed this astounding feat\nof his supernatural power was by means of a drum. Even spiders, too,\nruns the legend, were included in this summary process of\nexcommunicating the serpent race. One of the customs, therefore,\nobserved on St. Patrick's day, is visiting Croagh Patrick. This sacred\nhill is situated in the county of Mayo, and is said to have been the\nspot chosen by St. Patrick for banishing the serpents and other noxious\nanimals into the sea.\n\nIn \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (ii. 1), where Brutus says,\n\n \"It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;\n And that craves wary walking.\"\n\nwe may compare the popular adage,\n\n \"March wind\n Wakes the ether (_i. e._, adder) and blooms the whin.\"[577]\n\n [577] Denham's \"Weather Proverbs,\" 1842.\n\n_Spider._ This little creature, which, in daily life, is seldom noticed\nexcept for its cobweb, the presence of which in a house generally\nbetokens neglect, has, however, an interesting history, being the\nsubject of many a curious legend and quaint superstition. Thus, it has\nnot escaped the all-pervading eye of Shakespeare, who has given us many\ncurious scraps of folk-lore concerning it. In days gone by the web of\nthe common house-spider was much in request for stopping the effusion of\nblood; and hence Bottom, in addressing one of his fairy attendants in \"A\nMidsummer-Night's Dream\" (iii. 1), says: \"I shall desire you of more\nacquaintance, good Master Cobweb: if I cut my finger, I shall make bold\nwith you.\"\n\nIts medicinal virtues, however, do not end here, for, in Sussex[578] it\nis used in cases of jaundice, many an old doctress prescribing \"a live\nspider rolled up in butter.\" It is stated, too, that the web is\nnarcotic, and has been administered internally in certain cases of\nfever, with success.[579] As a remedy for ague it has been considered\nmost efficacious. Some years ago a lady in the south of Ireland was\ncelebrated far and near for her cure of this disorder. Her remedy was a\nlarge house-spider taken alive, enveloped in treacle or preserve. Of\ncourse, the parties were carefully kept in ignorance of what the\nwonderful remedy was.[580]\n\n [578] \"Folk-Lore Record,\" 1878, vol. i. p. 45.\n\n [579] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" vol. iii. pp. 223, 287, 381.\n\n [580] See article on \"Spider-Lore,\" in _Graphic_, November 13, 1880.\n\nAccording to a universal belief, spiders were formerly considered highly\nvenomous, in allusion to which notion King Richard II. (iii. 2), in\nsaluting the \"dear earth\" on which he stands, after \"late tossing on the\nbreaking seas,\" accosts it thus:\n\n \"Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,\n Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense;\n But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,\n And heavy-gaited toads, lie in their way,\n Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet,\n Which with usurping steps do trample thee.\"\n\nAgain, Leontes, in the \"Winter's Tale\" (ii. 1), remarks:\n\n \"There may be in the cup\n A spider steep'd.\"\n\nIn \"Cymbeline\" (iv. 2) and \"Richard III.\" (i. 2) Shakespeare classes it\nwith adders and toads; and in the latter play (i. 3), when Queen\nMargaret is hurling imprecations on her enemies, she is turned from her\nencounter with Gloster by a remark made by Queen Elizabeth; and while a\npitying spirit seems for a minute to supplant her rage, she addresses\nher successor in these words:\n\n \"Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune!\n Why strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider,\n Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?\"\n\nIn another part of the same play (iv. 4) the epithet \"bottled\" is again\napplied in a similar manner by Queen Elizabeth:\n\n \"That bottled spider, that foul bunch-back'd toad!\"\n\nRitson, on these two passages, has the following remarks on the term,\nbottled spider: \"A large, bloated, glossy spider, supposed to contain\nvenom proportionate to its size.\"\n\nThe origin of the silvery threads of gossamer which are so frequently\nseen extending from bush to bush was formerly unknown. Spenser, for\ninstance, speaks of them as \"scorched dew;\" and Thomson, in his\n\"Autumn,\" mentions \"the filmy threads of dew evaporate;\" which probably,\nsays Mr. Patterson,[581] refers to the same object. The gossamer is now,\nhowever, known to be the production of a minute spider. It is twice\nmentioned by Shakespeare, but not in connection with the little being\nfrom which it originates. One of the passages is in \"Romeo and Juliet\"\n(ii. 6):\n\n \"A lover may bestride the gossamer\n That idles in the wanton summer air,\n And yet not fall; so light is vanity.\"\n\n [581] \"Insects Mentioned by Shakespeare,\" 1841, p. 220.\n\nThe other occurs in \"King Lear\" (iv. 6), where Edgar accosts his father,\nafter his supposed leap from that\n\n \"cliff, whose high and bending head\n Looks fearfully in the confined deep.\"\n\nHe says:\n\n \"Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,\n So many fathom down precipitating,\n Thou'dst shiver'd like an egg.\"\n\nIn each case it is expressive of extreme lightness. Nares, in his\n\"Glossary\" (vol. i. p. 378), considers that the term \"gossamer\"\noriginally came from the French _gossampine_, the cotton-tree, and is\nequivalent to cotton-wool. He says that it also means any light, downy\nmatter, such as the flying seeds of thistles and other plants, and, in\npoetry, is not unfrequently used to denote the long, floating cobwebs\nseen in fine weather. In the above passage from \"King Lear\" he thinks it\nhas the original sense, and in the one from \"Romeo and Juliet\" probably\nthe last. Some are of opinion that the word is derived from _goss_, the\ngorse or furze.[582] In Germany the popular belief attributes the\nmanufacture of the gossamer to the dwarfs and elves. Of King Oberon, it\nmay be remembered, we are told,\n\n \"A rich mantle he did wear,\n Made of tinsel gossamer,\n Bestarred over with a few\n Diamond drops of morning dew.\"\n\n [582] See Croker's \"Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South\n of Ireland,\" edited by T. Wright, 1862, p. 215.\n\nHogg, too, introduces it as a vehicle fit for the fairy bands, which he\ndescribes as\n\n \"sailing 'mid the golden air\n In skiffs of yielding gossamer.\"\n\n_Toad._ Among the vulgar errors of Shakespeare's day was the belief that\nthe head of the toad contained a stone possessing great medicinal\nvirtues. In \"As You Like It,\" (ii. 1), the Duke says:\n\n \"Sweet are the uses of adversity;\n Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,\n Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.\"\n\nLupton, in his \"One Thousand Notable Things,\" says that \"a toad-stone,\ncalled _Crepaudina_, touching any part envenomed by the bite of a rat,\nwasp, spider, or other venomous beast, ceases the pain and swelling\nthereof.\" In the Londesborough Collection is a silver ring of the\nfifteenth century, in which one of these stones is set.[583]\n\n [583] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" vol. ii. pp. 50-55; Douce's\n \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" pp. 181-183.\n\nIt was also generally believed that the toad was highly venomous--a\nnotion to which there are constant allusions in Shakespeare's plays; as,\nfor example, in the above passage, where it is spoken of as \"ugly and\nvenomous.\" In \"Richard III.\" (i. 2), Lady Anne says to Gloster:\n\n \"Never hung poison on a fouler toad.\"\n\nAnd, in another scene (i. 3), Queen Margaret speaks of \"this pois'nous\nbunch-back'd toad.\"\n\nOnce more, in \"Titus Andronicus\" (iv. 2), the Nurse describes Queen\nTamora's babe as being \"as loathsome as a toad.\" There is doubtless some\ntruth in this belief, as the following quotation from Mr. Frank\nBuckland's \"Curiosities of Natural History\" seems to show: \"Toads are\ngenerally reported to be poisonous; and this is perfectly true to a\ncertain extent. Like the lizards, they have glands in their skin which\nsecrete a white, highly acid fluid, and just behind the head are seen\ntwo eminences like split beans; if these be pressed, this acid fluid\nwill come out--only let the operator mind that it does not get into his\neyes, for it generally comes out with a jet. There are also other glands\ndispersed through the skin. A dog will never take a toad in his mouth,\nand the reason is that this glandular secretion burns his tongue and\nlips. It is also poisonous to the human subject. Mr. Blick, surgeon, of\nIslip, Oxfordshire,[584] tells me that a man once made a wager, when\nhalf drunk, in a village public-house, that he would bite a toad's head\noff; he did so, but in a few hours his lips, tongue, and throat began to\nswell in a most alarming way, and he was dangerously ill for some\ntime.\"\n\n [584] See \"Notes and Queries,\" 6th series, vol. v. pp. 32, 173:\n also, Gilbert White's \"Natural History of Selborne,\" letter xvii.\n\nOwing to the supposed highly venomous character of the toad,\n\"superstition,\" says Pennant,[585] \"gave it preternatural powers, and\nmade it a principal ingredient in the incantations of nocturnal hags.\"\nThus, in Macbeth (iv. 1), the witch says:\n\n \"Toad that under cold stone,\n Days and nights has thirty-one\n Swelter'd venom sleeping got,\n Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.\"\n\n [585] \"Zoology,\" 1766, vol. iii. p. 15.\n\nPennant adds that this was intended \"for a design of the first\nconsideration, that of raising and bringing before the eyes of Macbeth a\nhateful second-sight of the prosperity of Banquo's line. This shows the\nmighty power attributed to this animal by the dealers in the magic art.\"\n\nThe evil spirit, too, has been likened by one of our master bards to the\ntoad, as a semblance of all that is devilish and disgusting (\"Paradise\nLost,\" iv. 800):\n\n \"Him they found,\n Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve,\n Assaying with all his devilish art to reach\n The organs of her fancy.\"\n\nIn \"Macbeth\" (i. 1), the paddock or toad is made the name of a familiar\nspirit:\n\n \"Paddock[586] calls.--Anon!\"\n\n [586] Cf. \"Hamlet,\" iii. 4; here paddock is used for a toad.\n\n_Wasp._ So easily, we are told,[587] is the wrathful temperament of this\ninsect aroused, that extreme irascibility can scarcely be better\nexpressed than by the term \"waspish.\" It is in this sense that\nShakespeare has applied the epithet, \"her waspish-headed son,\" in the\n\"Tempest\" (iv. 1), where we are told that Cupid is resolved to be a boy\noutright. Again, in \"As You Like It\" (iv. 3), Silvius says:\n\n \"I know not the contents; but, as I guess\n By the stern brow and waspish action\n Which she did use as she was writing of it,\n It bears an angry tenor.\"\n\n [587] Patterson's \"Insects Mentioned by Shakespeare,\" 1841, p. 137.\n\nAgain, in the \"Taming of the Shrew\" (ii. 1), Petruchio addresses his\nintended spouse in language not highly complimentary:\n\n \"_Pet._ Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.\n\n _Kath._ If I be waspish, best beware my sting.\n\n _Pet._ My remedy is, then, to pluck it out.\"\n\nIn the celebrated scene in \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (iv. 3), in which the\nreconciliation between Brutus and Cassius is effected, the word is used\nin a similar sense:\n\n \"I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter,\n When you are waspish.\"[588]\n\n [588] Cf. \"Titus Andronicus,\" ii. 3; \"Henry VIII.,\" iii. 3.\n\n_Water-Fly._ This little insect, which, on a sunny day, may be seen\nalmost on every pool, dimpling the glassy surface of the water, is used\nas a term of reproach by Shakespeare. Thus, Hamlet (v. 2), speaking of\nOsric, asks Horatio, \"Dost know this water-fly?\" In \"Troilus and\nCressida\" (v. 1), Thersites exclaims: \"Ah, how the poor world is\npestered with such water-flies, diminutives of nature.\" Johnson says it\nis the proper emblem of a busy trifler, because it skips up and down\nupon the surface of the water without any apparent purpose.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nFOLK-MEDICINE.\n\n\nWithout discussing the extent of Shakespeare's technical medical\nknowledge, the following pages will suffice to show that he was fully\nacquainted with many of the popular notions prevalent in his day\nrespecting certain diseases and their cures. These, no doubt, he\ncollected partly from the literature of the period, with which he was so\nfully conversant, besides gathering a good deal of information on the\nsubject from daily observation. Anyhow, he has bequeathed to us some\ninteresting particulars relating to the folk-medicine of bygone times,\nwhich is of value, in so far as it helps to illustrate the history of\nmedicine in past years. In Shakespeare's day the condition of medical\nscience was very unlike that at the present day. As Mr. Goadby, in his\n\"England of Shakespeare\" (1881, p. 104), remarks, \"the man of science\nwas always more or less of an alchemist, and the students of medicine\nwere usually extensive dealers in charms and philtres.\" If a man wanted\nbleeding he went to a barber-surgeon, and when he required medicine he\nconsulted an apothecary; the shop of the latter being well described by\nRomeo (v. 1):\n\n \"And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,\n An alligator stuff'd, and other skins\n Of ill-shap'd fishes; and about his shelves\n A beggarly account of empty boxes,\n Green earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds,\n Remnants of pack-thread and old cakes of roses,\n Were thinly scattered, to make up a show.\"\n\nSuch a man was as ready \"to sell love-philtres to a maiden as narcotics\nto a friar.\"\n\n_Bleeding._ Various remedies were in use in Shakespeare's day to stop\nbleeding. Thus, a key, on account of the coldness of the metal of which\nit is composed, was often employed; hence the term \"key-cold\" became\nproverbial, and is referred to by many old writers. In \"Richard III.\"\n(i. 2), Lady Anne, speaking of the corpse of King Henry the Sixth, says\n\n \"Poor key-cold figure of a holy king.\"\n\nIn the \"Rape of Lucrece\" (l. 1774) the same expression is used:\n\n \"And then in key-cold Lucrece' bleeding stream\n He falls, and bathes the pale fear in his face.\"\n\nIn Beaumont and Fletcher's \"Wild Goose Chase\" (iv. 3) we read: \"For till\nthey be key-cold dead, there's no trusting of 'em.\"[589]\n\n [589] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 482; also, Brand's\n \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. p. 311; Henderson's \"Folk-Lore\n of Northern Counties,\" 1879, pp. 168, 169.\n\nAnother common remedy was the one alluded to in \"King Lear\" (iii. 7),\nwhere one of the servants says:\n\n \"I'll fetch some flax, and whites of eggs,\n To apply to his bleeding face.\"\n\nThis passage has been thought to be parodied in Ben Jonson's play, \"The\nCase is Altered\" (ii. 4): \"Go, get a white of an egg and a little flax,\nand close the breach of the head; it is the most conducible thing that\ncan be.\" Mr. Gifford, however, has shown the incorrectness of this\nassertion, pointing out that Jonson's play was written in 1599, some\nyears before \"King Lear\" appeared, while the allusion is \"to a method of\ncure common in Jonson's time to every barber-surgeon and old woman in\nthe kingdom.\"[590]\n\n [590] Aldis Wright's \"Notes to King Lear,\" 1877, p. 179.\n\nCobwebs are still used to stanch the bleeding from small wounds, and\nBottom's words seem to refer to this remedy of domestic surgery: \"I\nshall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master Cobweb; if I cut my\nfinger, I shall make bold with you.\"\n\nAnciently, says Mr. Singer, \"a superstitious belief was annexed to the\naccident of bleeding at the nose;\" hence, in the \"Merchant of Venice\"\n(ii. 5), Launcelot says: \"It was not for nothing that my nose fell\na-bleeding on Black Monday last.\" In days gone by, it was customary with\nour forefathers to be bled periodically, in spring and in autumn, in\nallusion to which custom King Richard refers (\"Richard II.,\" i. 1), when\nhe says to his uncle:\n\n \"Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.\"\n\nHence the almanacs of the time generally gave particular seasons as the\nmost beneficial for bleeding. The forty-seventh aphorism of Hippocrates\n(sect. 6) is, that \"persons who are benefited by venesection or purging\nshould be bled or purged in the spring.\"\n\n_Blindness._ The exact meaning of the term \"sand-blind,\" which occurs in\nthe \"Merchant of Venice\" (ii. 2), is somewhat obscure:\n\n \"_Launcelot._ O heavens, this is my true-begotten father! who,\n being more than sand-blind, high gravel blind, knows me not.\n\n * * * * *\n\n _Gobbo._ Alack, sir, I am sand-blind, I know you not.\"\n\nIt probably means very dim-sighted,[591] and in Nares's \"Glossary\"[592]\nit is thus explained: \"Having an imperfect sight, as if there was sand\nin the eye.\" The expression is used by Beaumont and Fletcher in \"Love's\nCure\" (ii. 1): \"Why, signors, and my honest neighbours, will you impute\nthat as a neglect of my friends, which is an imperfection in me? I have\nbeen _sand-blind_ from my infancy.\" The term was probably one in vulgar\nuse.[593]\n\n [591] Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 381; cf. the word \"Berlu\u00e9,\n pur-blinded, made sand-blind,\" Cotgrave's \"Fr. and Eng. Dict.\"\n\n [592] Vol. ii. p. 765.\n\n [593] Bucknill's \"Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,\" p. 93.\n\n_Blister._ In the following passage of \"Timon of Athens\" (v. 1), Timon\nappears to refer to the old superstition that a lie produces a blister\non the tongue, though, in the malice of his rage, he imprecates the\nminor punishment on truth, and the old surgery of cauterization on\nfalsehood:[594]\n\n \"Thou sun, that comfort'st, burn!--Speak, and be hang'd;\n For each true word, a blister! and each false\n Be as a caut'rizing to the root o' the tongue,\n Consuming it with speaking!\"\n\n [594] Bucknill's \"Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,\" p. 258.\n\nWe may also compare the passage in \"Winter's Tale\" (ii. 2), where\nPaulina declares:\n\n \"If I prove honey-mouth'd, let my tongue blister,\n And never to my red-look'd anger be\n The trumpet any more.\"[595]\n\n [595] Cf., too, \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 2):\n\n \"A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart,\n That put Armado's page out of his part.\"\n\n_Bone-ache._ This was a nickname, in bygone years, for the _Lues\nvenerea_, an allusion to which we find in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (ii.\n3), where Thersites speaks of \"the bone-ache\" as \"the curse dependent on\nthose that war for a placket.\" Another name for this disease was the\n\"brenning or burning,\" a notice of which we find in \"King Lear\" (iv. 6).\n\n_Bruise._ A favorite remedy in days past for bruises was parmaceti, a\ncorruption of spermaceti, in allusion to which Hotspur, in \"1 Henry IV.\"\n(i. 3), speaks of it as \"the sovereign'st thing on earth for an inward\nbruise.\" So, too, in Sir T. Overbury's \"Characters,\" 1616 [\"An Ordinarie\nFencer\"]: \"His wounds are seldom skin-deepe; for an _inward bruise_,\nlambstones and sweetbreads are his only spermaceti.\" A well-known plant\ncalled the \"Shepherd's Purse\" has been popularly nicknamed the \"Poor\nMan's Parmacetti,\" being a joke on the Latin word _bursa_, a purse,\nwhich, to a poor man, is always the best remedy for his bruises.[596] In\n\"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 2), a plantain-leaf is pronounced to be an\nexcellent cure \"for your broken shin.\" Plantain-water was a remedy in\ncommon use with the old surgeons.[597]\n\n [596] Dr. Prior's \"Popular Names of British Plants,\" 1870, p. 185.\n\n [597] \"The Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,\" 1860, p. 78.\n\n_Bubukle._ According to Johnson, this denoted \"a red pimple.\" Nares\nsays it is \"a corrupt word for a carbuncle, or something like;\" and Mr.\nHalliwell-Phillipps, in his \"Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial\nWords,\" defines it as a botch or imposthume. It occurs in \"Henry V.\"\n(iii. 6), where Fluellen describes Bardolph's face as \"all bubukles.\"\n\n_Burn._ The notion of one heat driving out another gave rise to the\nold-fashioned custom of placing a burned part near the fire to drive out\nthe fire--a practice, says Dr. Bucknill,[598] certainly not without\nbenefit, acting on the same principle as the application of turpentine\nand other stimulants to recent burns. This was one of the many instances\nof the ancient homoeopathic doctrine, that what hurts will also\ncure.[599] Thus, in \"King John\" (iii. 1), Pandulph speaks of it:\n\n \"And falsehood falsehood cures; as fire cools fire\n Within the scorched veins of one new burn'd.\"\n\n [598] \"The Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,\" 1860, p. 65.\n\n [599] See Tylor's \"Primitive Culture,\" vol. i. p. 761.\n\nAgain, in the \"Two Gentlemen of Verona\" (ii. 4), Proteus tells how:\n\n \"Even as one heat another heat expels,\n Or as one nail by strength drives out another,\n So the remembrance of my former love\n Is by a newer object quite forgotten.\"\n\nWe may also compare the words of Mowbray in \"Richard II.\" (i. 1), where\na similar idea is contained:\n\n \"I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffled here;\n Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear,\n The which no balm can cure, but his heart-blood\n Which breath'd this poison.\"\n\nOnce more, in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 2), Benvolio relates how\n\n \"one fire burns out another's burning,\n One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish;\n Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;\n One desperate grief cures with another's languish.\"\n\n_Cataract._ One of the popular names for this disease of the eye was\nthe \"web and the pin.\" Markham, in his \"Cheap and Good Husbandry\" (bk.\ni. chap. 37), thus describes it in horses: \"But for the wart, pearle,\npin, or web, which are evils grown in or upon the eye, to take them off,\ntake the juyce of the herb betin and wash the eye therewith, it will\nweare the spots away.\" Florio (\"Ital. Dict.\") gives the following:\n\"Cataratta is a dimnesse of sight occasioned by humores hardened in the\neies, called a cataract or a pin and a web.\" Shakespeare uses the term\nin the \"Winter's Tale\" (i. 2), where Leontes speaks of\n\n \"all eyes blind\n With the pin and web, but theirs;\"\n\nand in \"King Lear\" (iii. 4), alluding to \"the foul fiend\nFlibbertigibbet,\" says, \"he gives the web and the pin.\"[600] Acerbi, in\nhis \"Travels\" (vol. ii. p. 290), has given the Lapland method of cure\nfor this disease. In a fragment of an old medical treatise it is thus\ndescribed: \"Another sykenes ther byth of _yezen; on a webbe_, a nother a\nwem, that hydyth the myddel of the yezen; and this hes to maners, other\nwhilys he is white and thynne, and other whilys he is thykke, as whenne\nthe obtalmye ne is noght clene yhelyd up, bote the rote abydyth stylle.\nOther whilys the webbe is noght white but rede, other blake.\"[601] In\nthe Statute of the 34 and 35 of Henry VIII. a pin and web in the eye is\nrecited among the \"customable diseases,\" which honest persons, not being\nsurgeons, might treat with herbs, roots, and waters, with the knowledge\nof whose nature God had endowed them.\n\n [600] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. pp. 660, 661; Dyce's\n \"Glossary,\" p. 322.\n\n [601] Quoted in Singer's \"Shakespeare.\"\n\n_Chilblains._ These are probably alluded to by the Fool in \"King Lear\"\n(i. 5): \"If a man's brains were in's heels, were't not in danger of\nkibes?\" Hamlet, too, says (v. 1): \"the age is grown so picked, that the\ntoe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his\nkibe.\"\n\n_Deformity._ It was an old prejudice, which is not quite extinct, that\nthose who are defective or deformed are marked by nature as prone to\nmischief. Thus, in \"Richard III.\" (i. 3), Margaret says of Richard, Duke\nof Gloster:\n\n \"Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog!\n Thou that was seal'd in thy nativity\n The slave of nature, and the son of hell.\"\n\nShe calls him _hog_, in allusion to his cognizance, which was a boar. A\npopular expression in Shakespeare's day for a deformed person was a\n\"stigmatic.\" It denoted any one who had been _stigmatized_, or burned\nwith an iron, as an ignominious punishment, and hence was employed to\nrepresent a person on whom nature has set a mark of deformity. Thus, in\n\"3 Henry VI.\" (ii. 2), Queen Margaret says:\n\n \"But thou art neither like thy sire, nor dam;\n But like a foul misshapen stigmatic\n Mark'd by the destinies to be avoided,\n As venom toads, or lizards' dreadful stings.\"\n\nAgain, in \"2 Henry VI.\" (v. 1), young Clifford says to Richard:\n\n \"Foul stigmatic, that's more than thou canst tell.\"\n\nWe may note, too, how, in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (v. 1), mothers'\nmarks and congenital forms are deprecated by Oberon from the issue of\nthe happy lovers:\n\n \"And the blots of Nature's hand\n Shall not in their issue stand;\n Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,\n Nor mark prodigious, such as are\n Despised in nativity,\n Shall upon their children be.\"[602]\n\n [602] Cf. \"King John\" (iii. 1), where Constance gives a\n catalogue of congenital defects.\n\nIndeed, constant allusions are to be met with in our old writers\nrelating to this subject, showing how strong were the feelings of our\nforefathers on the point. But, to give one further instance of this\nsuperstition given by Shakespeare, we may quote the words of King John\n(iv. 2), with reference to Hubert and his supposed murder of Prince\nArthur:\n\n \"A fellow by the hand of Nature mark'd,\n Quoted, and sign'd, to do a deed of shame,\n This murder had not come into my mind.\"\n\nThis adaptation of the mind to the deformity of the body concurs, too,\nwith Bacon's theory: \"Deformed persons are commonly even with nature;\nfor, as nature hath done ill by them, so do they by nature, being void\nof natural affection, and so they have their revenge on nature.\"\n\n_Drowning._ The old superstition[603] of its being dangerous to save a\nperson from drowning is supposed, says Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, to be\nalluded to in \"Twelfth Night.\" It was owing to the belief that the\nperson saved would, sooner or later, injure the man who saved him. Thus,\nin Sir Walter Scott's \"Pirate,\" Bryce, the pedler, warns the hero not to\nattempt to resuscitate an inanimate form which the waves had washed\nashore on the mainland of Shetland. \"'Are you mad,' exclaimed the\npedler, 'you that have lived sae lang in Zetland, to risk the saving of\na drowning man? Wot ye not if ye bring him to life again he will do you\nsome capital injury?'\"\n\n [603] \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare,\" p. 150. See \"Notes and\n Queries\" for superstitions connected with drowning, 5th series,\n vol. ix. pp. 111, 218, 478, 516; vol. x. pp. 38, 276; vol. xi.\n pp. 119, 278.\n\n_Epilepsy._ A popular name for this terrible malady was the\n\"falling-sickness,\" because, when attacked with one of these fits, the\npatient falls suddenly to the ground. In \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (i. 2) it is\nthus mentioned in the following dialogue:\n\n \"_Cassius._ But, soft, I pray you: what, did C\u00e6sar swoon?\n\n _Casca._ He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at mouth,\n and was speechless.\n\n _Brutus._ 'Tis very like; he hath the falling-sickness.\n\n _Cassius._ No, C\u00e6sar hath it not; but you, and I,\n And honest Casca, we have the falling-sickness.\"\n\n_Fistula._ At the present day a fistula means an abscess external to the\nrectum, but in Shakespeare's day it was used in a more general\nsignification for a burrowing abscess in any situation.[604] The play of\n\"All's Well that Ends Well\" has a special interest, because, as Dr.\nBucknill says, its very plot may be said to be medical. \"The orphan\ndaughter of a physician cures the king of a fistula by means of a secret\nremedy left to her as a great treasure by her father. The royal reward\nis the choice of a husband among the nobles of the court, and 'thereby\nhangs the tale.'\" The story is taken from the tale of Gilletta of\nNarbonne, in the \"Decameron\" of Boccaccio. It came to Shakespeare\nthrough the medium of Painter's \"Palace of Pleasure,\" and is to be found\nin the first volume, which was printed as early as 1566.[605] The story\nis thus introduced by Shakespeare in the following dialogue (i. 1),\nwhere the Countess of Rousillon is represented as inquiring:\n\n \"What hope is there of his majesty's amendment?\n\n _Laf._ He hath abandoned his physicians, madam; under whose\n practices he hath persecuted time with hope; and finds no\n other advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by\n time.\n\n _Count._ This young gentlewoman had a father--O, that 'had!'\n how sad a passage 'tis!--whose skill was almost as great as his\n honesty; had it stretched so far, would have made nature\n immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. Would,\n for the king's sake, he were living! I think it would be the\n death of the king's disease.\n\n _Laf._ How called you the man you speak of, madam?\n\n _Count._ He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his\n great right to be so; Gerard de Narbon.\n\n _Laf._ He was excellent, indeed, madam; the king very lately\n spoke of him admiringly and mourningly; he was skilful enough\n to have lived still, if knowledge could be set up against\n mortality.\n\n _Ber._ What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?\n\n _Laf._ A fistula, my lord.\"\n\n [604] Dr. Bucknill's \"Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,\" p. 95.\n\n [605] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. iii. p. 225.\n\nThe account given of Helena's secret remedy and the king's reason for\nrejecting it give, says Dr. Bucknill, an excellent idea of the state of\nopinion with regard to the practice of physic in Shakespeare's time.\n\n_Fit._ Formerly the term \"rapture\" was synonymous with a fit or trance.\nThe word is used by Brutus in \"Coriolanus\" (ii. 1):\n\n \"your prattling nurse\n Into a rapture lets her baby cry\n While she chats him.\"\n\nSteevens quotes from the \"Hospital for London's Follies\" (1602), where\nGossip Luce says: \"Your darling will weep itself into a rapture, if you\ntake not good heed.\"[606]\n\n [606] See Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. vii. p. 347.\n\n_Gold._ It was a long-prevailing opinion that a solution of gold had\ngreat medicinal virtues, and that the incorruptibility of the metal\nmight be communicated to a body impregnated with it. Thus, in \"2 Henry\nIV.\" (iv. 4), Prince Henry, in the course of his address to his father,\nsays:\n\n \"Coming to look on you, thinking you dead,\n And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,\n I spake unto this crown, as having sense,\n And thus upbraided it: 'The care on thee depending\n Hath fed upon the body of my father;\n Therefore, thou, best of gold, art worst of gold;\n Other, less fine in carat, is more precious,\n Preserving life in medicine potable.'\"\n\nPotable gold was one of the panaceas of ancient quacks. In John Wight's\ntranslation of the \"Secretes of Alexis\" is a receipt \"to dissolve and\nreducte golde into a potable licour, which conserveth the youth and\nhealthe of a man, and will heale every disease that is thought\nincurable, in the space of seven daies at the furthest.\" The receipt,\nhowever, is a highly complicated one, the gold being acted upon by juice\nof lemons, honey, common salt, and _aqua vit\u00e6_, and distillation\nfrequently repeated from a \"urinall of glass\"--as the oftener it is\ndistilled the better it is. \"Thus doyng,\" it is said, \"ye shall have a\nright naturall, and perfecte potable golde, whereof somewhat taken alone\nevery monthe once or twice, or at least with the said licour, whereof we\nhave spoken in the second chapter of this boke, is very excellent to\npreserve a man's youthe and healthe, and to heale in a fewe daies any\ndisease rooted in a man, and thought incurable. The said golde will also\nbe good and profitable for diverse other operations and effectes: as\ngood wittes and diligent searchers of the secretes of nature may easily\njudge.\" A further allusion to gold as a medicine is probably made in\n\"All's Well that Ends Well\" (v. 3), where the King says to Bertram:\n\n \"Plutus himself,\n That knows the tinct and multiplying medicine,\n Hath not in nature's mystery more science,\n Than I have in this ring.\"\n\nChaucer, too, in his sarcastic excuse for the doctor's avarice, refers\nto this old belief:\n\n \"And yet he was but esy of despence:\n He kept that he wan in the pestilence.\n For gold in physic is a cordial;\n Therefore he loved it in special.\"\n\nOnce more, in Sir Kenelm Digby's \"Receipts\" (1674), we are told that the\ngold is to be calcined with three salts, ground with sulphur, burned in\na reverberatory furnace with sulphur twelve times, then digested with\nspirit of wine \"which will be tincted very yellow, of which, few drops\nfor a dose in a fit vehicle hath wrought great effects.\"\n\nThe term \"grand liquor\" is also used by Shakespeare for the _aurum\npotabile_ of the alchemist, as in \"Tempest\" (v. 1):\n\n \"Where should they\n Find this grand liquor that hath gilded them?\"\n\n_Good Year._ This is evidently a corruption of _gouj\u00e8re_, a disease\nderived from the French _gouge_, a common camp-follower, and probably\nalludes to the _Morbus Gallicus_. Thus, in \"King Lear\" (v. 3), we read:\n\n \"The good-years shall devour them, flesh and fell,\n Ere they shall make us weep.\"\n\nWith the corruption, however, of the spelling, the word lost in time its\nreal meaning, and it is, consequently, found in passages where a sense\nopposite to the true one is intended.[607] It was often used in\nexclamations, as in \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (i. 4): \"We must give folks\nleave to prate: what, the good-jear!\" In \"Troilus and Cressida\" (v. 1),\nThersites, by the \"rotten diseases of the south,\" probably meant the\n_Morbus Gallicus_.\n\n [607] Wright's \"Notes to King Lear\" (1877), p. 196.\n\n_Handkerchief._ It was formerly a common practice in England for those\nwho were sick to wear a kerchief on their heads, and still continues at\nthe present day among the common people in many places. Thus, in \"Julius\nC\u00e6sar\" (ii. 1), we find the following allusion:\n\n \"O, what a time have you chose out, brave Caius,\n To wear a kerchief! Would you were not sick!\"\n\n\"If,\" says Fuller, \"this county [Cheshire] hath bred no writers in that\nfaculty [physic], the wonder is the less, if it be true what I read,\nthat if any here be sick, they make him a posset and tye a kerchief on\nhis head, and if that will not mend him, then God be merciful to\nhim.\"[608]\n\n [608] \"Worthies of England\" (1662), p. 180.\n\n_Hysteria._ This disorder, which, in Shakespeare's day, we are told, was\nknown as \"the mother,\" or _Hysterica passio_, was not considered\npeculiar to women only. It is probable that, when the poet wrote the\nfollowing lines in \"King Lear\" (ii. 4), where he makes the king say,\n\n \"O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!\n _Hysterica passio!_ down, thou climbing sorrow,\n Thy element's below!--Where is this daughter?\"\n\nhe had in view the subjoined passages from Harsnet's \"Declaration of\nPopish Impostures\" (1603), a work which, it has been suggested,[609] \"he\nmay have consulted in order to furnish out his character of Tom of\nBedlam with demoniacal gibberish.\" The first occurs at p. 25: \"Ma.\nMaynie had a spice of the _hysterica passio_, as it seems, from his\nyouth; hee himselfe termes it the moother (as you may see in his\nconfessione).\" Master Richard Mainy, who was persuaded by the priests\nthat he was possessed of the devil, deposes as follows (p. 263): \"The\ndisease I speake of was a spice of the mother, wherewith I had been\ntroubled (as is before mentioned) before my going into Fraunce. Whether\nI doe rightly terme it the _mother_ or no I know not.\" Dr. Jordan, in\n1603, published \"A Briefe Discourse of a Disease called the Suffocation\nof the Mother.\"\n\n [609] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" pp. 384, 385; Wright's \"Notes to\n King Lear,\" pp. 154, 155.\n\n_Infection._ According to an old but erroneous belief, infection\ncommunicated to another left the infector free; in allusion to which\nTimon (\"Timon of Athens,\" iv. 3) says:\n\n \"I will not kiss thee; then the rot returns\n To thine own lips again.\"\n\nAmong other notions prevalent in days gone by was the general\ncontagiousness of disease, to which an allusion seems to be made in \"A\nMidsummer-Night's Dream\" (i. 1), where Helena says:\n\n \"Sickness is catching: O, were favour so,\n Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go.\"\n\nMalone considers that Shakespeare, in the following passage in \"Venus\nand Adonis,\" alludes to a practice of his day, when it was customary, in\ntime of the plague, to strew the rooms of every house with rue and other\nstrong-smelling herbs, to prevent infection:\n\n \"Long may they kiss each other, for this cure!\n O, never let their crimson liveries wear!\n And as they last, their verdure still endure,\n To drive infection from the dangerous year!\"\n\nAgain, the contagiousness of pestilence is thus alluded to by Beatrice\nin \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (i. 1): \"O Lord, he will hang upon him like\na disease: he is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs\npresently mad.\" The belief, too, that the poison of pestilence dwells in\nthe air, is spoken of in \"Timon of Athens\" (iv. 3):\n\n \"When Jove\n Will o'er some high-viced city hang his poison\n In the sick air.\"\n\nAnd, again, in \"Richard II.\" (i. 3):\n\n \"Devouring pestilence hangs in our air.\"\n\nIt is alluded to, also, in \"Twelfth Night\" (i. 1), where the Duke says:\n\n \"O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,\n Methought she purged the air of pestilence.\"\n\nWhile on this subject, we may quote the following dialogue from the same\nplay (ii. 3), which, as Dr. Bucknill[610] remarks, \"involves the idea\nthat contagion is bound up with something appealing to the sense of\nsmell, a mellifluous voice being miscalled contagious; unless one could\napply one organ to the functions of another, and thus admit contagion,\nnot through its usual portal, the nose:\"\n\n \"_Sir Andrew._ A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight.\n\n _Sir Toby._ A contagious breath.\n\n _Sir Andrew._ Very sweet and contagious, i' faith.\n\n _Sir Toby._ To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion.\"\n\n [610] \"Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,\" p. 121.\n\n_Insanity._ That is a common idea that the symptoms of madness are\nincreased by the full moon. Shakespeare mentions this popular fallacy in\n\"Othello\" (v. 2), where he tells us that the moon makes men insane when\nshe comes nearer the earth than she was wont.[611]\n\n [611] See p. 73.\n\nMusic as a cure for madness is, perhaps, referred to in \"King Lear\" (iv.\n7), where the physician of the king says: \"Louder the music there.\"[612]\nMr. Singer, however, has this note: \"Shakespeare considered soft music\nfavorable to sleep. Lear, we may suppose, had been thus composed to\nrest; and now the physician desires louder music to be played, for the\npurpose of waking him.\"\n\n [612] Halliwell-Phillipps's \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare\"\n (1866), p. 333.\n\nSo, in \"Richard II.\" (v. 5), the king says:\n\n \"This music mads me: let it sound no more;\n For though it have holp madmen to their wits,\n In me, it seems, it will make wise men mad.\"\n\nThe power of music as a medical agency has been recognized from the\nearliest times, and in mental cases has often been highly\nefficacious.[613] Referring to music as inducing sleep, we may quote the\ntouching passage in \"2 Henry IV.\" (iv. 5), where the king says:\n\n \"Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends;\n Unless some dull and favourable hand\n Will whisper music to my weary spirit.\n\n _Warwick._ Call for the music in the other room.\"\n\n [613] \"A Book of Musical Anecdote,\" by F. Crowest (1878), vol.\n ii. pp. 251, 252.\n\nAriel, in \"The Tempest\" (ii. 1), enters playing _solemn music_ to\nproduce this effect.\n\nA mad-house seems formerly to have been designated a \"dark house.\"\nHence, in \"Twelfth Night\" (iii. 4), the reason for putting Malvolio into\na dark room was, to make him believe that he was mad. In the following\nact (iv. 2) he says: \"Good Sir Topas, do not think I am mad; they have\nlaid me here in hideous darkness;\" and further on (v. 1) he asks,\n\n \"Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd,\n Kept in a dark house?\"\n\nIn \"As You Like It\" (iii. 2), Rosalind says that \"Love is merely a\nmadness, and ... deserves as well a dark-house and a whip as madmen do.\"\n\nThe expression \"horn-mad,\" _i. e._, quite mad, occurs in the \"Comedy of\nErrors\" (ii. 1): \"Why, mistress, sure my master is horn-mad.\" And,\nagain, in \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (i. 4), Mistress Quickly says, \"If he\nhad found the young man, he would have been horn-mad.\"\n\nMadness in cattle was supposed to arise from a distemper in the\ninternal substance of their horns, and furious or mad cattle had their\nhorns bound with straw.\n\n_King's Evil._ This was a common name in years gone by for scrofula,\nbecause the sovereigns of England were supposed to possess the power of\ncuring it, \"without other medicine, save only by handling and prayer.\"\nThis custom of \"touching for the king's evil\" is alluded to in \"Macbeth\"\n(iv. 3), where the following dialogue is introduced:\n\n \"_Malcolm._ Comes the king forth, I pray you?\n\n _Doctor._ Ay, sir; there are a crew of wretched souls\n That stay his cure; their malady convinces\n The great assay of art; but, at his touch--\n Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand----\n They presently amend.\n\n _Malcolm._ I thank you, doctor.\n\n _Macduff._ What's the disease he means?\n\n _Malcolm._ 'Tis call'd the evil:\n A most miraculous work in this good king;\n Which often, since my here-remain in England,\n I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,\n Himself best knows: but strangely-visited people,\n All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,\n The mere despair of surgery, he cures;\n Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,\n Put on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken,\n To the succeeding royalty he leaves\n The healing benediction. With this strange virtue\n He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy;\n And sundry blessings hang about his throne,\n That speak him full of grace.\"\n\nThis reference, which has nothing to do with the progress of the drama,\nis introduced, obviously, in compliment to King James, who fancied\nhimself endowed with the Confessor's powers.[614] The poet found\nauthority for the passage in Holinshed (vol. i. p. 279): \"As hath bin\nthought, he was enspired with the gift of prophecie, and also to haue\nhadde the gift of healing infirmities and diseases. Namely, he vsed to\nhelp those that were vexed with the disease, commonly called the kyngs\neuill, and left that vertue as it were a portion of inheritance vnto his\nsuccessors the kyngs of this realme.\" Edward's miraculous powers were\nbelieved in, we are told, by his contemporaries, or at least soon after\nhis death, and were expressly recognized by Pope Alexander III., who\ncanonized him. In Plot's \"Oxfordshire\" (chap. x. sec. 125) there is an\naccount, accompanied with a drawing, of the touch-piece supposed to have\nbeen given by this monarch. James I.'s practice of touching for the evil\nis frequently mentioned in Nichols's \"Progresses.\" Charles I., when at\nYork, touched seventy persons in one day. Indeed, few are aware to what\nan extent this superstition once prevailed. In the course of twenty\nyears, between 1660 and 1682, no less than 92,107 persons were touched\nfor this disease. The first English monarch who refused to touch for the\nking's evil was William III., but the practice was resumed by Queen\nAnne, who officially announced, in the _London Gazette_, March 12, 1712,\nher royal intention to receive patients afflicted with the malady in\nquestion. It was probably about that time that Johnson was touched by\nher majesty, upon the recommendation of the celebrated physician Sir\nJohn Floyer, of Lichfield. King George I. put an end to this practice,\nwhich is said to have originated with Edward the Confessor, in\n1058.[615] The custom was also observed by French kings; and on Easter\nSunday, 1686, Louis XIV. is said to have touched 1600 persons.\n\n [614] See Beckett's \"Free and Impartial Enquiry into the\n Antiquity and Efficacy of Touching for the King's Evil,\" 1722.\n\n [615] See \"Notes and Queries,\" 1861, 2d series, vol. xi. p. 71;\n Burns's \"History of Parish Registers,\" 1862, pp. 179, 180;\n Pettigrew's \"Superstitions Connected with Medicine and\n Surgery,\" 1844, pp. 117-154.\n\n_Lethargy._ This is frequently confounded by medical men of former\ntimes, and by Shakespeare himself, with apoplexy. The term occurs in the\nlist of diseases quoted by Thersites in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (v.\n1).[616]\n\n [616] Bucknill's \"Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,\" p. 235.\n\n_Leprosy._ This was, in years gone by, used to denote the _lues\nvenerea_, as in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (iii. 8):\n\n \"Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt,--\n Whom leprosy o'ertake!\n\n * * * * *\n\n Hoists sails and flies.\"\n\n_Leech._ The old medical term for a leech is a \"blood-sucker,\" and a\nknot would be an appropriate term for a number of clustering leeches.\nSo, in \"Richard III.\" (iii. 3), Grey, being led to the block, says of\nRichard's minions:\n\n \"A knot you are of damned blood-suckers.\"\n\nIn \"2 Henry VI.\" (iii. 2) mention is made by Warwick of the\n\"blood-sucker of sleeping men,\" which, says Dr. Bucknill, appears to\nmean the vampire-bat.\n\n_Measles._ This word originally signified leprosy, although in modern\ntimes used for a very different disorder. Its derivation is the old\nFrench word _meseau_, or _mesel_, a leper. Thus, Cotgrave has \"Meseau, a\nmeselled, scurvy, leaporous, lazarous person.\" Distempered or scurvied\nhogs are still said to be measled. It is in this sense that it is used\nin \"Coriolanus\" (iii. 1):\n\n \"As for my country I have shed my blood,\n Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs\n Coin words till their decay, against those measles,\n Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought\n The very way to catch them.\"\n\n_Pleurisy._ This denotes a plethora, or redundancy of blood, and was so\nused, probably, from an erroneous idea that the word was derived from\n_plus pluris_. It is employed by Shakespeare in \"Hamlet\" (iv. 7):\n\n \"For goodness, growing to a plurisy,\n Dies in his own too-much.\"\n\nIn the \"Two Noble Kinsmen\" (v. 1) there is a similar phrase:\n\n \"that heal'st with blood\n The earth when it is sick, and cur'st the world\n O' the plurisy of people.\"\n\nThe word is frequently used by writers contemporary with Shakespeare.\nThus, for instance, Massinger, in \"The Picture\" (iv. 2), says:\n\n \"A plurisy of ill blood you must let out\n By labour.\"\n\n_Mummy._ This was a preparation for magical purposes, made from dead\nbodies, and was used as a medicine both long before and long after\nShakespeare's day. Its virtues seem to have been chiefly imaginary, and\neven the traffic in it fraudulent.[617] The preparation of mummy is said\nto have been first brought into use in medicine by a Jewish physician,\nwho wrote that flesh thus embalmed was good for the cure of divers\ndiseases, and particularly bruises, to prevent the blood's gathering and\ncoagulating. It has, however, long been known that no use whatever can\nbe derived from it in medicine, and \"that all which is sold in the\nshops, whether brought from Venice or Lyons, or even directly from the\nLevant by Alexandria, is factitious, the work of certain Jews, who\ncounterfeit it by drying carcasses in ovens, after having prepared them\nwith powder of myrrh, caballine aloes, Jewish pitch, and other coarse or\nunwholesome drugs.\"[618] Shakespeare speaks of this preparation. Thus\nOthello (iii. 4), referring to the handkerchief which he had given to\nDesdemona, relates how:\n\n \"it was dyed in mummy which the skilful\n Conserv'd of maidens' hearts.\"\n\n [617] See Pettigrew's \"History of Mummies,\" 1834; also Gannal,\n \"Trait\u00e9 d'Embaumement,\" 1838.\n\n [618] Rees's \"Encyclop\u00e6dia,\" 1829, vol. xxiv.\n\nAnd, in \"Macbeth\" (iv. 1), the \"witches' mummy\" forms one of the\ningredients of the boiling caldron. Webster, in \"The White Devil\" (1857,\np. 5), speaks of it:\n\n \"Your followers\n Have swallow'd you like mummia, and, being sick,\n With such unnatural and horrid physic,\n Vomit you up i' the kennel.\"\n\nSir Thomas Browne, in his interesting \"Fragment on Mummies,\" tells us\nthat Francis I. always carried mummy[619] with him as a panacea against\nall disorders. Some used it for epilepsy, some for gout, some used it as\na styptic. He further adds: \"The common opinion of the virtues of mummy\nbred great consumption thereof, and princes and great men contended for\nthis strange panacea, wherein Jews dealt largely, manufacturing mummies\nfrom dead carcasses, and giving them the names of kings, while specifics\nwere compounded from crosses and gibbets leavings.\"\n\n [619] Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, in his \"Handbook Index to\n Shakespeare,\" 1866, p. 332, calls it a balsamic liquid.\n\n_Nightmare._ There are various charms practised, in this and other\ncountries, for the prevention of nightmare, many of which are\nexceedingly quaint. In days gone by it appears that St. Vitalis, whose\nname has been corrupted into St. Withold, was invoked; and, by way of\nillustration, Theobald quotes from the old play of \"King John\"[620] the\nfollowing:\n\n \"Sweet S. Withold, of thy lenitie, defend us from extremitie.\"\n\n [620] \"Six Old Plays,\" ed. Nichols, p. 256, quoted by Mr. Aldis\n Wright, in his \"Notes to King Lear,\" 1877, p. 170.\n\nShakespeare, alluding to the nightmare, in his \"King Lear\" (iii. 4),\nrefers to the same saint, and gives us a curious old charm:\n\n \"Saint Withold footed thrice the old [wold];\n He met the night-mare, and her nine-fold;\n Bid her alight\n And her troth plight,\n And, aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!\"\n\nFor what purpose, as Mr. Singer[621] has pointed out, the incubus is\nenjoined to \"plight her troth,\" will appear from a charm against the\nnightmare, in Reginald Scot's \"Discovery of Witchcraft,\" which occurs,\nwith slight variation, in Fletcher's \"Monsieur Thomas\" (iv. 6):\n\n \"St. George, St. George, our lady's knight,\n He walks by day, so does he by night,\n And when he had her found,\n He her beat and her bound,\n Until to him her troth she plight,\n She would not stir from him that night.\"\n\n [621] \"Shakespeare,\" vol. ix. p. 413.\n\n_Paralysis._ An old term for chronic paralysis was \"cold palsies,\"\nwhich is used by Thersites in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (v. 1).[622]\n\n [622] Bucknill's \"Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,\" p. 235.\n\n_Philosopher's Stone._ This was supposed, by its touch, to convert base\nmetal into gold. It is noticed by Shakespeare in \"Antony and Cleopatra\"\n(i. 5):\n\n \"_Alexas._ Sovereign of Egypt, hail!\n\n _Cleopatra._ How much unlike art thou Mark Antony!\n Yet, coming from him, that great medicine hath\n With his tinct gilded thee.\"\n\nThe alchemists call the matter, whatever it may be, says Johnson, by\nwhich they perform transmutation, a medicine. Thus, Chapman, in his\n\"Shadow of Night\" (1594): \"O, then, thou _great elixir_ of all\ntreasures;\" on which passage he has the following note: \"The\nphilosopher's stone, or _philosophica medicina_, is called the _great\nelixir_.\" Another reference occurs in \"Timon of Athens\" (ii. 2), where\nthe Fool, in reply to the question of Varro's Servant, \"What is a\nwhoremaster, fool?\" answers, \"A fool in good clothes, and something like\nthee. 'Tis a spirit: sometime 't appears like a lord; sometime like a\nlawyer; sometime like a philosopher, with two stones moe than's\nartificial one,\" etc.; a passage which Johnson explains as meaning \"more\nthan the philosopher's stone,\" or twice the value of a philosopher's\nstone; though, as Farmer observes, \"Gower has a chapter, in his\n'Confessio Amantis,' of the three stones that philosophers made.\"\nSinger,[623] in his note on the philosopher's stone, says that Sir\nThomas Smith was one of those who lost considerable sums in seeking of\nit. Sir Richard Steele was one of the last eminent men who entertained\nhopes of being successful in this pursuit. His laboratory was at\nPoplar.[624]\n\n [623] \"Shakespeare,\" 1875, vol. iii. p. 284.\n\n [624] See Pettigrew's \"Medical Superstitions,\" pp. 13, 14.\n\n_Pimple._ In the Midland Counties, a common name for a pimple, which, by\nrubbing, is made to smart, or _rubbed to sense_, is \"a quat.\" The word\noccurs in \"Othello\" (v. 1), where Roderigo is so called by Iago:\n\n \"I have rubb'd this young quat almost to the sense,\n And he grows angry.\"\n\n--Roderigo being called a quat by the same mode of speech as a low fellow\nis now called a _scab_. It occurs in Langham's \"Garden of Health,\" p.\n153: \"The leaves [of coleworts] laid to by themselves, or bruised with\nbarley meale, are good for the inflammations, and soft swellings,\nburnings, impostumes, and cholerick sores or quats,\" etc.\n\n_Plague._ \"Tokens,\" or \"God's tokens,\" were the terms for those spots on\nthe body which denoted the infection of the plague. In \"Love's Labour's\nLost\" (v. 2), Biron says:\n\n \"For the Lord's tokens on you do I see;\"\n\nand in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (iii. 10) there is another allusion:\n\n \"_Enobarbus._ How appears the fight?\n\n _Scarus._ On our side like the token'd pestilence,\n Where death is sure.\"\n\nIn \"Troilus and Cressida\" (ii. 3), Ulysses says of Achilles:\n\n \"He is so plaguy proud that the death tokens of it\n Cry--'No recovery.'\"\n\nKing Lear, too, it would seem, compares Goneril (ii. 4) to these fatal\nsigns, when he calls her \"a plague sore.\" When the _tokens_ had appeared\non any of the inhabitants, the house was shut up, and \"Lord have mercy\nupon us\" written or printed upon the door. Hence Biron, in \"Love's\nLabour's Lost\" (v. 2), says:\n\n \"Write, 'Lord have mercy on us,' on those three;\n They are infected, in their hearts it lies;\n They have the plague, and caught it of your eyes.\"\n\nThe \"red pestilence,\" referred to by Volumnia in \"Coriolanus\" (iv. 1),\nprobably alludes to the cutaneous eruptions common in the plague:\n\n \"Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,\n And occupations perish!\"\n\nIn \"The Tempest\" (i. 2), Caliban says to Prospero, \"The red plague rid\nyou.\"\n\n_Poison._ According to a vulgar error prevalent in days gone by, poison\nwas supposed to swell the body, an allusion to which occurs in \"Julius\nC\u00e6sar\" (iv. 3), where, in the quarrel between Brutus and Cassius, the\nformer declares:\n\n \"You shall digest the venom of your spleen,\n Though it do split you.\"\n\nWe may also compare the following passage in \"2 Henry IV.\" (iv. 4),\nwhere the king says:\n\n \"Learn this, Thomas,\n And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends;\n A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in,\n That the united vessel of their blood,\n Mingled with venom of suggestion--\n As, force perforce, the age will pour it in--\n Shall never leak, though it do work as strong\n As aconitum, or rash gunpowder.\"\n\nIn \"King John,\" Hubert, when describing the effect of the poison upon\nthe monk (v. 6), narrates how his \"bowels suddenly burst out.\" This\npassage also contains a reference to the popular custom prevalent in the\nolden days, of great persons having their food tasted by those who were\nsupposed to have made themselves acquainted with its wholesomeness. This\npractice, however, could not always afford security when the taster was\nready to sacrifice his own life, as in the present case:[625]\n\n \"_Hubert._ The king, I fear, is poison'd by a monk:\n I left him almost speechless....\n\n _Bastard._ How did he take it? who did taste to him?\n\n _Hubert._ A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain.\"\n\n [625] Bucknill's \"Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,\" p. 136.\n\nThe natives of Africa have been supposed to be possessed of the secret\nhow to temper poisons with such art as not to operate till several\nyears after they were administered. Their drugs were then as certain in\ntheir effect as subtle in their preparation.[626] Thus, in \"The Tempest\"\n(iii. 3), Gonzalo says:\n\n \"All three of them are desperate: their great guilt,\n Like poison given to work a great time after,\n Now 'gins to bite the spirits.\"\n\n [626] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. i. p. 65.\n\nThe belief in slow poisoning was general in bygone times, although no\nbetter founded on fact, remarks Dr. Bucknill,[627] than the notion that\npersons burst with poison, or that narcotics could, like an alarum\nclock, be set for a certain number of hours. So, in \"Cymbeline\" (v. 5),\nCornelius relates to the king the queen's confession:\n\n \"She did confess, she had\n For you a mortal mineral; which, being took,\n Should by the minute feed on life, and, lingering,\n By inches waste you.\"\n\n [627] \"Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,\" p. 226.\n\n_Pomander._ This was either a composition of various perfumes wrought in\nthe shape of a ball or other form, and worn in the pocket or hung about\nthe neck, and even sometimes suspended to the wrist; or a case for\ncontaining such a mixture of perfumes. It was used as an amulet against\nthe plague or other infections, as well as for an article of luxury.\nThere is an allusion to its use in the \"Winter's Tale\" (iv. 3), by\nAutolycus, who enumerates it among all his trumpery that he had sold.\nThe following recipe for making a pomander we find in an old play:[628]\n\"Your only way to make a pomander is this: take an ounce of the purest\ngarden mould, cleans'd and steep'd seven days in change of motherless\nrose-water. Then take the best labdanum, benjoin, with storaxes,\nambergris, civet, and musk. Incorporate them together, and work them\ninto what form you please. This, if your breath be not too valiant, will\nmake you smell as sweet as any lady's dog.\"\n\n [628] Quoted in Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 671.\n\n_Rheumatism._ In Shakespeare's day this was used in a far wider sense\nthan nowadays, including, in addition to what is now understood by the\nterm, distillations from the head, catarrhs, etc. Malone quotes from the\n\"Sidney Memorials\" (vol. i. p. 94), where the health of Sir Henry Sidney\nis described: \"He hath verie much distempored divers parts of his bodie;\nas namelie, his heade, his stomack, &c., and thereby is always subject\nto distillacions, coughes, and other rumatick diseases.\" Among the many\nsuperstitions relating to the moon,[629] one is mentioned in \"A\nMidsummer-Night's Dream\" (ii. 1), where Titania tells how the moon,\n\n \"Pale in her anger, washes all the air,\n That rheumatic diseases do abound.\"\n\n [629] See p. 74.\n\nThe word \"rheumatic\" was also formerly used in the sense of choleric or\npeevish, as in \"2 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4), where the Hostess says: \"You two\nnever meet but you fall to some discord: you are both, in good troth, as\nrheumatic as two dry toasts.\" Again, in \"Henry V.\" (ii. 3), the Hostess\nsays of Falstaff: \"A' did in some sort, indeed, handle women; but then\nhe was rheumatic,[630] and talked of the whore of Babylon.\"\n\n [630] Malone suggests that the hostess may mean \"then he was\n lunatic.\"\n\n_Serpigo._ This appears to have been a term extensively used by old\nmedical authors for any creeping skin disease, being especially applied\nto that known as the _herpes circinatus_. The expression occurs in\n\"Measure for Measure\" (iii. 1), being coupled by the Duke with \"the\ngout\" and the \"rheum.\" In \"Troilus and Cressida\" (ii. 3), Thersites\nsays: \"Now, the dry serpigo on the subject.\"\n\n_Sickness._ Sickness of stomach, which the slightest disgust is apt to\nprovoke, is still expressed by the term \"queasy;\" hence the word denoted\n_delicate_, _unsettled_; as in \"King Lear\" (ii. 1), where it is used by\nEdmund:\n\n \"I have one thing, of a queasy question,\n Which I must act.\"\n\nSo Ben Jonson employs it in \"Sejanus\" (i. 1):\n\n \"These times are rather queasy to be touched.\"\n\n_Sigh._ It was a prevalent notion that sighs impair the strength and\nwear out the animal powers. Thus, in \"2 Henry VI.\" (iii. 2), Queen\nMargaret speaks of \"blood-drinking sighs.\" We may, too, compare the\nwords of Oberon in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (iii. 2), who refers to\n\"sighs of love, that cost the fresh blood dear.\" In \"3 Henry VI.\" (iv.\n4), Queen Elizabeth says:\n\n \"for this I draw in many a tear,\n And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs.\"\n\nOnce more, in \"Hamlet\" (iv. 7), the King mentions the \"spendthrift sigh,\nthat hurts by easing.\" Fenton, in his \"Tragical Discourses\" (1579),\nalludes to this notion in the following words: \"Your scorching sighes\nthat have already drayned your body of his wholesome humoures.\"\n\nIt was also an ancient belief that sorrow consumed the blood and\nshortened life. Hence Romeo tells Juliet (iii. 5):\n\n \"And trust me, love, in my eye so do you:\n Dry sorrow drinks our blood.\"\n\n_Small-pox._ Such a terrible plague was this disease in the days of our\nancestors, that its name was used as an imprecation. Thus, in \"Love's\nLabour's Lost\" (v. 2), the Princess says: \"A pox of that jest.\"\n\n_Saliva._ The color of the spittle was, with the medical men of olden\ntimes, an important point of diagnosis. Thus, in \"2 Henry IV.\" (i. 2),\nFalstaff exclaims against fighting on a hot day, and wishes he may\n\"never spit white again,\" should it so happen.[631]\n\n [631] Bucknill's \"Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,\" p. 150.\n\n_Sterility._ The charm against sterility referred to by C\u00e6sar in \"Julius\nC\u00e6sar\" (i. 2) is copied from Plutarch, who, in his description of the\nfestival Lupercalia, tells us how \"noble young men run naked through the\ncity, striking in sport whom they meet in the way with leather thongs,\"\nwhich blows were commonly believed to have the wonderful effect\nattributed to them by C\u00e6sar:\n\n \"The barren, touched in this holy chase,\n Shake off their sterile curse.\"\n\n_Suicide._ Cominius, in \"Coriolanus\" (i. 9), arguing against Marcius's\noverstrained modesty, refers to the manner in which suicide was thought\npreventable in olden times:\n\n \"If 'gainst yourself you be incens'd, we'll put you,\n Like one that means his proper harm, in manacles,\n Then reason safely with you.\"\n\n_Toothache._ It was formerly a common superstition--and one, too, not\nconfined to our own country--that toothache was caused by a little worm,\nhaving the form of an eel, which gradually gnawed a hole in the tooth.\nIn \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (iii. 2), Shakespeare speaks of this curious\nbelief:\n\n \"_Don Pedro._ What! sigh for the toothache?\n\n _Leonato._ Where is but a humour, or a worm.\"\n\nThis notion was, some years ago, prevalent in Derbyshire,[632] where\nthere was an odd way of extracting, as it was thought, the worm. A small\nquantity of a mixture, consisting of dry and powdered herbs, was placed\nin some small vessel, into which a live coal from the fire was dropped.\nThe patient then held his or her open mouth over the vessel, and inhaled\nthe smoke as long as it could be borne. The cup was then taken away, and\nin its place a glass of water was put before the patient. Into this\nglass the person breathed hard for a few moments, when it was supposed\nthe grub or worm could be seen in the water. In Orkney, too, toothache\ngoes by the name of \"the worm,\" and, as a remedy, the following charm,\ncalled \"wormy lines,\" is written on a piece of paper, and worn as an\namulet, by the person affected, in some part of his dress:\n\n \"Peter sat on a marble stone weeping;\n Christ came past, and said, 'What aileth thee, Peter?'\n 'O my Lord, my God, my tooth doth ache.'\n 'Arise, O Peter! go thy way; thy tooth shall ache no more.'\"\n\n [632] See \"English Folk-Lore,\" p. 156.\n\nThis notion is still current in Germany, and is mentioned by Thorpe, in\nhis \"Northern Mythology\" (vol. iii. p. 167), who quotes a North German\nincantation, beginning,\n\n \"Pear tree, I complain to thee;\n Three worms sting me.\"\n\nIt is found, too, even in China and New Zealand,[633] the following\ncharm being used in the latter country:\n\n \"An eel, a spiny back\n True indeed, indeed: true in sooth, in sooth.\n You must eat the head\n Of said spiny back.\"\n\n [633] See Shortland's \"Traditions and Superstitions of the\n New-Zealanders,\" 1856, p. 131.\n\nA writer in the _Athen\u00e6um_ (Jan. 28, 1860), speaking of the Rev. R. H.\nCobbold's \"Pictures of the Chinese, Drawn by Themselves,\" says: \"The\nfirst portrait is that of a quack doctress, who pretends to cure\ntoothache by extracting a maggot--the cause of the disorder. This is\ndone--or, rather, pretended to be done--by simply placing a bright steel\npin on the part affected, and tapping the pin with a piece of wood. Mr.\nCobbold compares the operation to procuring worms for fishing by working\na spade backwards and forwards in the ground. He and a friend submitted\nto the process, but in a very short time compelled the doctress to\ndesist, by the excessive precautions they took against imposition.\" We\nmay further note that John of Gatisden, one of the oldest medical\nauthors, attributes decay of the teeth to \"a humour or a worm.\" In his\n\"Rosa Anglica\"[634] he says: \"Si vermes sint in dentibus, Rx semen porri,\nseu lusquiami contere et misce cum cera, pone super carbones, et fumus\nrecipiatur per embotum, quoniam sanat. Solum etiam semen lusquiami valet\ncoctum in aqua calida, supra quam aquam patiens palatum apertum si\ntenuerit, cadent vermes evidenter vel in illam aquam, vel in aliam qu\u00e6\nibi fuerit ibi posita. De myrrha et aloe ponantur in dentem, ubi est\nvermis: semen caulis, et absinthium, per se vermes interficit.\"\n\n [634] Liber Secundus--\"De Febribus,\" p. 923, ed. 1595.\n\n_Tub-fast._ In years past \"the discipline of sweating in a heated tub\nfor a considerable time, accompanied with strict abstinence, was thought\nnecessary for the cure of venereal taint.\"[635] Thus, in \"Timon of\nAthens\" (iv. 3), Timon says to Timandra:\n\n \"Be a whore still! they love thee not that use thee;\n Give them diseases, leaving with thee their lust.\n Make use of thy salt hours: season the slaves\n For tubs and baths: bring down rose-cheeked youth\n To the tub-fast, and the diet.\"\n\n [635] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 906.\n\nAs beef, too, was usually salted down in a tub, the one process was\njocularly compared to the other. So, in \"Measure for Measure\" (iii. 2),\nPompey, when asked by Lucio about his mistress, replies, \"Troth, sir,\nshe hath eaten up all her beef, and she is herself in the tub.\" Again,\nin \"Henry V.\" (ii. 1), Pistol speaks of \"the powdering-tub of infamy.\"\n\n_Vinegar._ In Shakespeare's day this seems to have been termed \"eisel\"\n(from A. S. _aisel_), being esteemed highly efficacious in preventing\nthe communication of the plague and other contagious diseases. In this\nsense it has been used by Shakespeare in Sonnet cxi.:\n\n \"like a willing patient, I will drink\n Potions of eisel, 'gainst my strong infection.\"\n\nIn a MS. Herbal in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, occurs\n\"acetorum, ance vynegre or aysel.\" The word occurs again in \"Hamlet\"\n(v. 1), where Laertes is challenged by Hamlet:\n\n \"Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?\"\n\nThe word woo't, in the northern counties, is the common contraction of\n_wouldst thou_, which is the reading of the old copies. In former years\nit was the fashion with gallants to do some extravagant feat, as a proof\nof their love, in honor of their mistresses, and, among others, the\nswallowing of some nauseous potion was one of the most frequent. Hence,\nin the above passage, some bitter potion is evidently meant, which it\nwas a penance to drink. Some are of opinion that _wormwood_ is alluded\nto; and Mr. Singer thinks it probable that \"the propoma called\nabsinthites, a nauseously bitter medicament then much in use, may have\nbeen in the poet's mind, to drink up a quantity of which would be an\nextreme pass of amorous demonstration.\" It has been suggested by a\ncorrespondent of \"Notes and Queries,\"[636] that the reference in this\npassage from \"Hamlet\" is to a Lake Esyl, which figures in Scandinavian\nlegends. Messrs. Wright and Clark, however, in their \"Notes to Hamlet\"\n(1876, p. 218), say that they have consulted Mr. Magnusson on this\npoint, and he writes as follows: \"No such lake as Esyl is known to Norse\nmythology and folk-lore.\" Steevens supposes it to be the river\nYssell.[637]\n\n [636] See 4th series, vol. x. pp. 108, 150, 229, 282, 356.\n\n [637] See Dyce's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. vii. p. 239.\n\n_Water-casting._ The fanciful notion of recognizing diseases by the mere\ninspection of the urine was denounced years ago, by an old statute of\nthe College of Physicians, as belonging to tricksters and impostors, and\nany member of the college was forbidden to give advice by this so-called\n\"water-casting\" without he also saw the patient. The statute of the\ncollege runs as follows: \"Statuimus, et ordinamus, ut nemo, sive socius,\nsive candidatus, sive permissus consilii quidquam impertiat\nveteratoriis, et impostoribus, super urinarum nuda inspectione, nisi\nsimul ad \u00e6grum vocetur, ut ibidem, pro re nat\u00fb, idonea medicamenta ab\nhonesto aliquo pharmacopoea componenda pr\u00e6scribat.\" An allusion to this\nvulgar error occurs in the \"Two Gentlemen of Verona\" (ii. 1), where,\nafter Speed has given to Valentine his amusing description of a lover,\nin which, among other signs, are \"to walk alone, like one that had the\npestilence,\" and \"to fast, like one that takes diet,\" the following\nquibble takes place upon the within and the without of the symptoms:\n\n \"_Valentine._ Are all these things perceived in me?\n\n _Speed._ They are all perceived without ye.\n\n _Valentine._ Without me? they cannot.\n\n _Speed._ Without you? nay, that's certain; for, without you\n were so simple, none else would: but you are so without these\n follies, that these follies are within you, and shine through\n you like the water in an urinal, that not an eye that sees you\n but is a physician to comment on your malady.\"\n\nThis singular pretence, says Dr. Bucknill,[638] is \"alleged to have\narisen, like the barber surgery, from the ecclesiastical interdicts upon\nthe medical vocations of the clergy. Priests and monks, being unable to\nvisit their former patients, are said first to have resorted to the\nexpedient of divining the malady, and directing the treatment upon\nsimple inspection of the urine. However this may be, the practice is of\nvery ancient date.\" Numerous references to this piece of medical\nquackery occur in many of our old writers, most of whom condemn it in\nvery strong terms. Thus Forestus, in his \"Medical Politics,\" speaks of\nit as being, in his opinion, a practice altogether evil, and expresses\nan earnest desire that medical men would combine to repress it.\nShakespeare gives a further allusion to it in the passage where he makes\nMacbeth (v. 3) say:\n\n \"If thou couldst, doctor, cast\n The water of my land, find her disease,\n And purge it to a sound and pristine health,\n I would applaud thee to the very echo.\"\n\n [638] \"The Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,\" 1860, pp. 1-64.\n\nAnd in \"2 Henry IV\" (i. 2) Falstaff asks the page, \"What says the doctor\nto my water?\" and, once more, in \"Twelfth Night\" (iii. 4), Fabian,\nalluding to Malvolio, says, \"Carry his water to the wise woman.\"\n\nIt seems probable, too, that, in the \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (ii. 3),\nthe term \"mock-water,\" employed by the host to the French Dr. Caius,\nrefers to the mockery of judging of diseases by the water or\nurine--\"mock-water,\" in this passage, being equivalent to \"you pretending\nwater-doctor!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nCUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH THE CALENDAR.\n\n\nIn years gone by the anniversaries connected with the calendar were kept\nup with an amount of enthusiasm and merry-making quite unknown at the\npresent day. Thus, for instance, Shakespeare tells us, with regard to\nthe May-day observance, that it was looked forward to so eagerly as to\nrender it impossible to make the people sleep on this festive occasion.\nDuring the present century the popular celebrations of the festivals\nhave been gradually on the decline, and nearly every year marks the\ndisuse of some local custom. Shakespeare has not omitted to give a good\nmany scattered allusions to the old superstitions and popular usages\nassociated with the festivals of the year, some of which still survive\nin our midst.\n\nAlluding to the revels, there can be no doubt that Shakespeare was\nindebted to the revel-books for some of his plots. Thus, in \"The\nTempest\" (iv. 1), Prospero remarks to Ferdinand and Miranda, after Iris,\nCeres, and Juno have appeared, and the dance of the nymphs is over:\n\n \"You do look, my son, in a mov'd sort,\n As if you were dismay'd; be cheerful, sir.\n Our revels now are ended. These our actors,\n As I foretold you, were all spirits, and\n Are melted into air, into thin air:\n And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,\n The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,\n The solemn temples, the great globe itself,\n Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,\n And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,\n Leave not a rack behind.\"\n\nIt has been inferred that Shakespeare was present at Kenilworth, in\n1575, when Elizabeth was so grandly entertained there. Lakes and seas\nare represented in the masque. Triton, in the likeness of a mermaid,\ncame towards the queen, says George Gascoigne, and \"Arion appeared,\nsitting on a dolphin's back.\" In the dialogue in \"A Midsummer-Night's\nDream,\" between Oberon and Puck (ii. 1), there seems a direct allusion\nto this event:\n\n \"_Oberon._ My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou remember'st\n Since once I sat upon a promontory,\n And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back\n Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,\n That the rude sea grew civil at her song,\n And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,\n To hear the sea-maid's music.\n\n _Puck._ I remember.\"\n\nThen, too, there were the \"Children of the Revels,\" a company who\nperformed at Blackfriars Theatre. In \"Hamlet\" (ii. 2), Shakespeare\nalludes to these \"children-players.\"[639] Rosencrantz says, in the\nconversation preceding the entry of the players, in reply to Hamlet's\ninquiry whether the actors have suffered through the result of the late\ninhibition, evidently referring to the plague, \"Nay, their endeavour\nkeeps in the wonted pace; but there is, sir, an aery of children, little\neyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically\nclapped for 't; these are now the fashion; and so berattle the common\nstages--so they call them--that many wearing rapiers are afraid of\ngoose-quills, and dare scarce come thither.\"\n\n [639] \"The England of Shakespeare,\" E. Goadby, 1881, p. 153.\n\n_Twelfth-Day._ There can be no doubt that the title of Shakespeare's\nplay, \"Twelfth Night,\" took its origin in the festivities associated\nwith this festival. The season has, from time immemorial, been one of\nmerriment, \"the more decided from being the proper close of the\nfestivities of Christmas, when games of chance were traditionally rife,\nand the sport of sudden and casual elevation gave the tone of the time.\nOf like tone is the play, and to this,\"[640] says Mr. Lloyd, \"it\napparently owes its title.\" The play, it appears, was probably\noriginally acted at the barristers' feast at the Middle Temple, on\nFebruary 2, 1601-2, as Manningham tells us in his \"Diary\" (Camden\nSociety, 1868, ed. J. Bruce, p. 18). It is worthy of note that the\nfestive doings of the Inns of Court, in days gone by, at Christmas-tide\nwere conducted on the most extravagant scale.[641] In addition to the\nmerry disports of the Lord of Misrule, there were various revels. The\nChristmas masque at Gray's Inn, in 1594, was on a magnificent scale.\n\n [640] \"Critical Essays on the Plays of Shakespeare,\" 1875, p.\n 145; see Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. iii. pp. 347, 348.\n\n [641] See \"British Popular Customs,\" p. 473.\n\n_St. Valentine's Day_ (Feb. 14). Whatever may be the historical origin\nof this festival, whether heathen or Christian, there can be no doubt of\nits antiquity. According to an old tradition, to which Chaucer refers,\nbirds choose their mates on this day; and hence, in \"A Midsummer-Night's\nDream\" (iv. 1), Theseus asks:\n\n \"Good morrow, friends. St. Valentine is past:\n Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?\"\n\nFrom this notion, it has been suggested, arose the once popular practice\nof choosing valentines, and also the common belief that the first two\nsingle persons who meet in the morning of St. Valentine's day have a\ngreat chance of becoming wed to each other. This superstition is alluded\nto in Ophelia's song in \"Hamlet\" (iv. 5):\n\n \"To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,\n All in the morning betime,\n And I a maid at your window,\n To be your valentine.\"\n\nThere seems every probability that St. Valentine's day, with its many\ncustoms, has come down to us from the Romans, but was fathered upon St.\nValentine in the earlier ages of the Church in order to Christianize\nit.[642] In France St. Valentine's was a movable feast, celebrated on\nthe first Sunday in Lent, which was called the _jour des brandons_,\nbecause the boys carried about lighted torches on that day.\n\n [642] \"Notes and Queries,\" 6th series, vol. i. p. 129.\n\n_Shrove-Tuesday._ This day was formerly devoted to feasting and\nmerriment of every kind, but whence originated the custom of eating\npancakes is still a matter of uncertainty. The practice is alluded to in\n\"All's Well that Ends Well\" (ii. 2), where the clown speaks of \"a\npancake for Shrove-Tuesday.\"[643] In \"Pericles\" (ii. 1) they are termed\n\"flap-jacks,\" a term used by Taylor, the Water-Poet, in his \"Jack-a-Lent\nWorkes\" (1630, vol. i. p. 115): \"Until at last by the skill of the cooke\nit is transformed into the form of a flap-jack, which in our translation\nis called a pancake.\" Shrovetide was, in times gone by, a season of such\nmirth that _shroving_, or _to shrove_, signified to be merry. Hence, in\n\"2 Henry IV.\" (v. 3), Justice Silence says:\n\n \"Be merry, be merry, my wife has all;\n For women are shrews, both short and tall;\n 'Tis merry in hall, when beards wag all,\n And welcome merry shrove-tide.\n Be merry, be merry.\"\n\n [643] Cf. \"As You Like It\" (i. 2). Touchstone alludes to a\n \"certain knight, that swore by his honour they were good\n pancakes.\"\n\nIt was a holiday and a day of license for apprentices, laboring persons,\nand others.[644]\n\n [644] See Hone's \"Every Day Book,\" 1836, vol. i. p. 258; \"Book\n of Days,\" vol. i. p. 239; see, also, Dekker's \"Seven Deadly\n Sins,\" 1606, p. 35; \"British Popular Customs,\" pp. 62-91.\n\n_Lent._ This season was at one time marked by a custom now fallen into\ndisuse. A figure, made up of straw and cast-off clothes, was drawn or\ncarried through the streets amid much noise and merriment; after which\nit was either burned, shot at, or thrown down a chimney. This image was\ncalled a \"Jack-a-Lent,\" and was, according to some, intended to\nrepresent Judas Iscariot. It occurs twice in the \"Merry Wives of\nWindsor;\" once merely as a jocular appellation (iii. 3), where Mrs. Page\nsays to Robin, \"You little Jack-a-Lent, have you been true to us?\" and\nonce (v. 5) as a butt, or object of satire and attack, Falstaff\nremarking, \"How wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent, when 'tis upon ill\nemployment!\" It is alluded to by Ben Jonson in his \"Tale of a Tub\" (iv.\n2):\n\n \"Thou cam'st but half a thing into the world,\n And wast made up of patches, parings, shreds;\n Thou, that when last thou wert put out of service,\n Travell'd to Hamstead Heath on an Ash Wednesday,\n Where thou didst stand six weeks the Jack of Lent,\n For boys to hurl three throws a penny at thee,\n To make thee a purse.\"\n\nElderton, in a ballad called \"Lenton Stuff,\" in a MS. in the Ashmolean\nMuseum, thus concludes his account of Lent:[645]\n\n \"When Jakke a' Lent comes justlynge in,\n With the hedpeece of a herynge,\n And saythe, repent yowe of yower syn,\n For shame, syrs, leve yowre swerynge:\n And to Palme Sonday doethe he ryde,\n With sprots and herryngs by his syde,\n And makes an end of Lenton tyde!\"[646]\n\n [645] \"Notes and Queries,\" 1st series, vol. xii. p. 297.\n\n [646] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 443; Brand's \"Pop.\n Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. i. p. 101. Taylor, the Water-Poet, has a\n tract entitled \"_Jack-a-Lent_, his Beginning and Entertainment,\n with the mad Prankes of Gentlemen-Usher, Shrove Tuesday.\"\n\nIn the reign of Elizabeth butchers were strictly enjoined not to sell\nfleshmeat in Lent, not with a religious view, but for the double\npurpose[647] of diminishing the consumption of fleshmeat during that\nperiod, and so making it more plentiful during the rest of the year, and\nof encouraging the fisheries and augmenting the number of seamen.\nButchers, however, who had an interest at court frequently obtained a\ndispensation to kill a certain number of beasts a week during Lent; of\nwhich indulgence the wants of invalids, who could not subsist without\nanimal food, was made the pretence. It is to this practice that Cade\nrefers in \"2 Henry VI.\" (iv. 3), where he tells Dick, the butcher of\nAshford: \"Therefore, thus will I reward thee,--the Lent shall be as long\nagain as it is; and thou shalt have a license to kill for a hundred\nlacking one.\"\n\n [647] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. vi. p. 219.\n\nIn \"2 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4), Falstaff mentions an indictment against\nHostess Quickly, \"for suffering flesh to be eaten in thy house, contrary\nto the law; for the which I think thou wilt howl.\" Whereupon she\nreplies, \"All victuallers do so: what's a joint of mutton or two in a\nwhole Lent?\"\n\nThe sparing fare in olden days, during Lent, is indirectly referred to\nby Rosencrantz in \"Hamlet\" (ii. 2): \"To think, my lord, if you delight\nnot in man, what lenten entertainment the players shall receive.\" We may\ncompare, too, Maria's words in \"Twelfth Night\" (i. 5), where she speaks\nof a good lenten answer, _i. e._, short.\n\nBy a scrap of proverbial rhyme quoted by Mercutio in \"Romeo and Juliet\"\n(ii. 4), and the speech introducing it, it appears that a stale hare\nmight be used to make a pie in Lent; he says:\n\n \"No hare, sir: unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie, that is\n something stale and hoar ere it be spent.\n\n An old hare hoar,\n And an old hare hoar,\n Is very good meat in Lent,\" etc.\n\n_Scambling days._ The days so called were Mondays and Saturdays in Lent,\nwhen no regular meals were provided, and our great families scambled.\nThere may possibly be an indirect allusion to this custom in \"Henry V.\"\n(v. 2), where Shakespeare makes King Henry say: \"If ever thou beest\nmine, Kate, as I have a saving faith within me tells me thou shalt, I\nget thee with scambling.\" In the old household book of the fifth Earl of\nNorthumberland there is a particular section appointing the order of\nservice for these days, and so regulating the licentious contentions of\nthem. We may, also, compare another passage in the same play (i. 1),\nwhere the Archbishop of Canterbury speaks of \"the scambling and unquiet\ntime.\"\n\n_Good Friday._ Beyond the bare allusion to this day, Shakespeare makes\nno reference to the many observances formerly associated with it. In\n\"King John\" (i. 1) he makes Philip the Bastard say to Lady\nFaulconbridge:\n\n \"Madam, I was not old Sir Robert's son:\n Sir Robert might have eat his part in me\n Upon Good Friday, and ne'er broke his fast.\"\n\nAnd, in \"1 Henry IV.\" (i. 2), Poins inquires: \"Jack, how agrees the\ndevil and thee about thy soul, that thou soldest him on Good Friday\nlast, for a cup of Madeira and a cold capon's leg?\"\n\n_Easter._ According to a popular superstition, it is considered unlucky\nto omit wearing new clothes on Easter Day, to which Shakespeare no doubt\nalludes in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iii. 1), when he makes Mercutio ask\nBenvolio whether he did \"not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new\ndoublet before Easter.\" In East Yorkshire, on Easter Eve, young folks go\nto the nearest market-town to buy some new article of dress or personal\nadornment to wear for the first time on Easter Day, as otherwise they\nbelieve that birds--notably rooks or \"crakes\"--will spoil their\nclothes.[648] In \"Poor Robin's Almanac\" we are told:\n\n \"At Easter let your clothes be new,\n Or else be sure you will it rue.\"\n\n [648] \"Notes and Queries,\" 4th series, vol. v. p. 595.\n\nSome think that the custom of \"clacking\" at Easter--which is not quite\nobsolete in some counties--is incidentally alluded to in \"Measure for\nMeasure\" (iii. 2) by Lucio: \"his use was, to put a ducat in her\nclack-dish.\"[649] The clack or clap dish was a wooden dish with a\nmovable cover, formerly carried by beggars, which they clacked and\nclattered to show that it was empty. In this they received the alms.\nLepers and other paupers deemed infectious originally used it, that the\nsound might give warning not to approach too near, and alms be given\nwithout touching the person.\n\n [649] See Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. i. p. 362; Nares's\n \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 164: Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol.\n iii. p. 94.\n\nA popular name for Easter Monday was Black Monday, so called, says\nStow, because \"in the 34th of Edward III. (1360), the 14th of April, and\nthe morrow after Easter Day, King Edward, with his host, lay before the\ncity of Paris; which day was full dark of mist and hail, and so bitter\ncold, that many men died on their horses' backs with the cold. Wherefore\nunto this day it hath been call'd the Blacke Monday.\" Thus, in the\n\"Merchant of Venice\" (ii. 5), Launcelot says, \"it was not for nothing\nthat my nose fell a-bleeding on Black Monday last at six o'clock i' the\nmorning.\"\n\n_St. David's Day_ (March 1). This day is observed by the Welsh in honor\nof St. David, their patron saint, when, as a sign of their patriotism,\nthey wear a leek. Much doubt exists as to the origin of this custom.\nAccording to the Welsh, it is because St. David ordered his Britons to\nplace leeks in their caps, that they might be distinguished from their\nSaxon foes. Shakespeare introduces the custom into his play of \"Henry\nV.\" (iv. 7), where Fluellen, addressing the monarch, says:\n\n \"Your grandfather of famous memory, an't please your majesty,\n and your great uncle Edward the Plack Prince of Wales, as I\n have read in the chronicles, fought a most prave pattle here\n in France.\n\n _K. Henry._ They did, Fluellen.\n\n _Flu._ Your majesty says very true: if your majesties is\n remembered of it, the Welshmen did goot service in a garden\n where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps;\n which, your majesty know, to this hour is an honourable padge\n of the service; and I do pelieve, your majesty takes no scorn\n to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy's day.\"\n\nIt has been justly pointed out, however, that this allusion by Fluellen\nto the Welsh having worn the leek in battle under the Black Prince is\nnot, as some writers suppose, wholly decisive of its having originated\nin the fields of Cressy, but rather shows that when Shakespeare wrote\nWelshmen wore leeks.[650] In the same play, too (iv. 1), the\nwell-remembered Fluellen's enforcement of Pistol to eat the leek he had\nridiculed further establishes the wearing as a usage. Pistol says:\n\n \"Tell him I'll knock his leek about his pate\n Upon Saint Davy's day.\"\n\n [650] See Hone's \"Every Day Book,\" vol. i. p. 318; \"British\n Popular Customs,\" pp. 110-113.\n\nIn days gone by this day was observed by royalty; and in 1695 we read\nhow William III. wore a leek on St. David's Day, \"presented to him by\nhis sergeant, Porter, who hath as perquisites all the wearing apparel\nhis majestie had on that day, even to his sword.\" It appears that\nformerly, among other customs, a Welshman was burned in effigy upon \"St.\nTavy's Day,\" an allusion to which occurs in \"Poor Robin's Almanack\" for\n1757:\n\n \"But it would make a stranger laugh,\n To see th' English hang poor Taff:\n A pair of breeches and a coat,\n Hat, shoes, and stockings, and what not,\n Are stuffed with hay, to represent\n The Cambrian hero thereby meant.\"\n\n_St. Patrick's Day_ (March 17). Shakespeare, in \"Hamlet\" (i. 5), makes\nthe Danish prince swear by St. Patrick, on which Warburton remarks that\nthe whole northern world had their learning from Ireland.[651] As Mr.\nSinger[652] observes, however, it is more probable that the poet seized\nthe first popular imprecation that came to his mind, without regarding\nwhether it suited the country or character of the person to whom he gave\nit. Some, again, have supposed that there is a reference here to St.\nPatrick's purgatory, but this does not seem probable.\n\n [651] St. Patrick rids Ireland of snakes; see p. 257.\n\n [652] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" 1870, vol. ix. p. 168.\n\n_St. George's Day_ (April 23). St. George, the guardian saint of\nEngland, is often alluded to by Shakespeare. His festival, which was\nformerly celebrated by feasts of cities and corporations, is now almost\npassed over without notice. Thus, Bedford, in \"1 Henry VI.\" (i. 1),\nspeaks of keeping \"our great Saint George's feast withal.\" \"God and St.\nGeorge\" was once a common battle-cry, several references to which occur\nin Shakespeare's plays. Thus, in \"Henry V.\" (iii. 1), the king says to\nhis soldiers:[653]\n\n \"Cry, God for Harry, England, and Saint George.\"\n\n [653] Cf. \"Henry V.,\" v. 2; \"3 Henry VI.,\" ii. 1, 2; \"Taming of\n the Shrew,\" ii. 1; \"Richard II.,\" i. 3.\n\nAgain, in \"1 Henry VI.\" (iv. 2), Talbot says:\n\n \"God and Saint George, Talbot and England's right,\n Prosper our colours in this dangerous fight!\"\n\nThe following injunction, from an old act of war, concerning the use of\nSt. George's name in onsets, is curious: \"Item, that all souldiers\nentering into battaile, assault, skirmish, or other faction of armes,\nshall have for their common crye and word, _St. George, forward_, or,\n_Upon them, St. George_, whereby the souldier is much comforted, and the\nenemie dismaied, by calling to minde the ancient valour of England, with\nwhich that name has so often been victorious.\"[654]\n\n [654] Cited by Warton in a note on \"Richard III.,\" v. 3.\n\nThe combat of this saint on horseback with a dragon has been very long\nestablished as a subject for sign-painting. In \"King John\" (ii. 1)\nPhilip says:\n\n \"Saint George, that swing'd the dragon, and e'er since\n Sits on his horseback at mine hostess' door.\"\n\nIt is still a very favorite sign. In London alone[655] there are said to\nbe no less than sixty-six public-houses and taverns with the sign of St.\nGeorge and the Dragon, not counting beer-houses and coffee-houses.\n\n [655] Hotten's \"History of Sign-boards,\" 1866, 3d ed., p. 287.\n\n_May Day._ The festival of May day has, from the earliest times, been\nmost popular in this country, on account of its association with the\njoyous season of spring. It was formerly celebrated with far greater\nenthusiasm than nowadays, for Bourne tells us how the young people were\nin the habit of rising a little after midnight and walking to some\nneighboring wood, accompanied with music and the blowing of horns, where\nthey broke down branches from the trees, which, decorated with nosegays\nand garlands of flowers, were brought home soon after sunrise, and\nplaced at their doors and windows. Shakespeare, alluding to this\npractice, informs us how eagerly it was looked forward to, and that it\nwas impossible to make the people sleep on May morning. Thus, in \"Henry\nVIII.\" (v. 4), it is said:\n\n \"Pray, sir, be patient: 'tis as much impossible--\n Unless we sweep 'em from the door with cannons--\n To scatter 'em, as 'tis to make 'em sleep\n On May-day morning.\"\n\nAgain, in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (i. 1), Lysander, speaking of\nthese May-day observances, says to Hermia:\n\n \"If thou lov'st me, then,\n Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;\n And in the wood, a league without the town,\n Where I did meet thee once with Helena,\n To do observance to a morn of May,\n There will I stay for thee.\"\n\nAnd Theseus says (iv. 1):\n\n \"No doubt they rose up early to observe\n The rite of May.\"[656]\n\n [656] Cf. \"Twelfth Night\" (iii. 4): \"More matter for a May morning.\"\n\nIn the \"Two Noble Kinsmen\" (ii. 3), one of the four countrymen asks: \"Do\nwe all hold against the Maying?\"\n\nIn Chaucer's \"Court of Love\" we read that early on May day \"Fourth goth\nal the Court, both most and lest, to fetche the flowris fresh and\nblome.\" In the reign of Henry VIII. it is on record that the heads of\nthe corporation of London went out into the high grounds of Kent to\ngather the May, and were met on Shooter's Hill by the king and his\nqueen, Katherine of Arragon, as they were coming from the palace of\nGreenwich. Until within a comparatively recent period, this custom still\nlingered in some of the counties. Thus, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the\nfollowing doggerel was sung:\n\n \"Rise up, maidens, fie for shame!\n For I've been four long miles from hame,\n I've been gathering my garlands gay,\n Rise up, fair maidens, and take in your May.\"\n\nMany of the ballads sung nowadays, in country places, by the village\nchildren, on May morning, as they carry their garlands from door to\ndoor, undoubtedly refer to the old practice of going a-Maying, although\nfallen into disuse.\n\nIn olden times nearly every village had its May-pole, around which,\ndecorated with wreaths of flowers, ribbons, and flags, our merry\nancestors danced from morning till night. The earliest representation of\nan English May-pole is that published in the \"Variorum Shakespeare,\" and\ndepicted on a window at Betley, in Staffordshire, then the property of\nMr. Tollet, and which he was disposed to think as old as the time of\nHenry VIII. The pole is planted in a mound of earth, and has affixed to\nit St. George's red-cross banner and a white pennon or streamer with a\nforked end. The shaft of the pole is painted in a diagonal line of black\ncolors upon a yellow ground, a characteristic decoration of all these\nancient May-poles, as alluded to by Shakespeare in \"A Midsummer-Night's\nDream\" (iii. 2), where it gives point to Hermia's allusion to her rival\nHelena as \"a painted May-pole.\"[657] The popularity of the May-pole in\nformer centuries is shown by the fact that one of our London parishes,\nSt. Andrew Undershaft, derives its name from the May-pole which overhung\nits steeple, a reference to which we find made by Geoffrey Chaucer, who,\nspeaking of a vain boaster, says:\n\n \"Right well aloft, and high ye bear your head,\n As ye would bear the great shaft of Cornhill.\"\n\n [657] \"Book of Days,\" vol. i. p. 575; see \"British Popular\n Customs,\" pp. 228-230, 249.\n\nLondon, indeed, had several May-poles, one of which stood in Basing\nLane, near St. Paul's Cathedral. It was a large fir pole, forty feet\nhigh and fifteen inches in diameter, and fabled to be the justing staff\nof Gerard the Giant. Only a few, however, of the old May-poles remain\nscattered here and there throughout the country. One still supports a\nweathercock in the churchyard at Pendleton, Manchester; and in\nDerbyshire, a few years ago, several were to be seen standing on some of\nthe village greens. The rhymes made use of as the people danced round\nthe May-pole varied according to the locality, and oftentimes combined a\ncurious mixture of the jocose and sacred.\n\nAnother feature of the May-day festivities was the morris-dance, the\nprincipal characters of which generally were Robin Hood, Maid Marian,\nScarlet, Stokesley, Little John, the Hobby-horse, the Bavian or Fool,\nTom the Piper, with his pipe and tabor. The number of characters varied\nmuch at different times and places. In \"All's Well that Ends Well\" (ii.\n2), the clown says: \"As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney\n... a morris for May-day.\"[658]\n\n [658] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" vol. i. pp. 247-270; \"Book of\n Days,\" vol. i. pp. 630-633.\n\nIn \"2 Henry VI.\" (iii. 1) the Duke of York says of Cade:\n\n \"I have seen\n Him caper upright, like a wild Morisco,\n Shaking the bloody darts, as he his bells.\"\n\nIn the \"Two Noble Kinsmen\" (iii. 5) Gerrold, the schoolmaster, thus\ndescribes to King Theseus the morris-dance:\n\n \"If you but favour, our country pastime made is.\n We are a few of those collected here,\n That ruder tongues distinguish villagers;\n And, to say verity and not to fable,\n We are a merry rout, or else a rable,\n Or company, or, by a figure, choris,\n That 'fore thy dignity will dance a morris.\n And I, that am the rectifier of all,\n By title _P\u00e6dagogus_, that let fall\n The birch upon the breeches of the small ones,\n And humble with a ferula the tall ones,\n Do here present this machine, or this frame:\n And, dainty duke, whose doughty dismal fame,\n From Dis to D\u00e6dalus, from post to pillar,\n Is blown abroad, help me, thy poor well willer,\n And, with thy twinkling eyes, look right and straight\n Upon this mighty _morr_--of mickle weight--\n _Is_--now comes in, which being glu'd together\n Makes _morris_, and the cause that we came hether,\n The body of our sport, of no small study.\n I first appear, though rude, and raw, and muddy,\n To speak, before thy noble grace, this tenner;\n At whose great feet I offer up my penner:\n The next, the Lord of May and Lady bright,\n The chambermaid and serving-man, by night\n That seek out silent hanging: then mine host\n And his fat spouse, that welcomes to their cost\n The galled traveller, and with a beck'ning,\n Inform the tapster to inflame the reck'ning:\n Then the beast-eating clown, and next the fool,\n The bavian, with long tail and eke long tool;\n _Cum multis aliis_ that make a dance:\n Say 'Ay,' and all shall presently advance.\"\n\nAmong the scattered allusions to the characters of this dance may be\nnoticed that in \"1 Henry IV.\" (iii. 3): \"and for womanhood, Maid Marian\nmay be the deputy's wife of the ward to thee\"--the allusion being to \"the\ndegraded Maid Marian of the later morris-dance, more male than\nfemale.\"[659]\n\n [659] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 550.\n\nThe \"hobby-horse,\" another personage of the morris-dance on May day, was\noccasionally omitted, and appears to have given rise to a popular\nballad, a line of which is given by \"Hamlet\" (iii. 2):\n\n \"For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot.\"\n\nThis is quoted again in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (iii. 1). The hobby-horse\nwas formed by a pasteboard horse's head, and a light frame made of\nwicker-work to join the hinder parts. This was fastened round the body\nof a man, and covered with a foot-cloth which nearly reached the ground,\nand concealed the legs of the performer, who displayed his antic\nequestrian skill, and performed various juggling tricks, to the\namusement of the bystanders. In Sir Walter Scott's \"Monastery\" there is\na spirited description of the hobby-horse.\n\nThe term \"hobby-horse\" was applied to a loose woman, and in the\n\"Winter's Tale\" (i. 2) it is so used by Leontes, who says to Camillo:\n\n \"Then say\n My wife's a hobby-horse; deserves a name\n As rank as any flax-wench, that puts to\n Before her troth-plight.\"\n\nIn \"Othello\" (iv. 1), Bianca, speaking of Desdemona's handkerchief, says\nto Cassio: \"This is some minx's token, and I must take out the work!\nThere, give it your hobby-horse.\" It seems also to have denoted a silly\nfellow, as in \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (iii. 2), where it is so used by\nBenedick.\n\nAnother character was Friar Tuck, the chaplain of Robin Hood, and as\nsuch is noticed in the \"Two Gentlemen of Verona\" (iv. 1), where one of\nthe outlaws swears:\n\n \"By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar.\"\n\nHe is also represented by Tollet as a Franciscan friar in the full\nclerical tonsure, for, as he adds, \"When the parish priests were\ninhibited by the diocesan to assist in the May games, the Franciscans\nmight give attendance, as being exempted from episcopal\njurisdiction.\"[660]\n\n [660] See Drake's \"Shakespeare and his Times,\" 1817, vol. i. p. 163.\n\nIt was no uncommon occurrence for metrical interludes of a comic\nspecies, and founded on the achievements of the outlaw Robin Hood, to be\nperformed after the morris, on the May-pole green. Mr. Drake thinks that\nthese interludes are alluded to in \"Twelfth Night\" (iii. 4), where\nFabian exclaims, on the approach of Sir Andrew Aguecheek with his\nchallenge, \"More matter for a May morning.\"\n\n_Whitsuntide._ Apart from its observance as a religious festival,\nWhitsuntide was, in times past, celebrated with much ceremony. In the\nCatholic times of England it was usual to dramatize the descent of the\nHoly Ghost, which this festival commemorates--a custom which we find\nalluded to in Barnaby Googe's translation of _Naogeorgus_:\n\n \"On Whit-Sunday white pigeons tame in strings from heaven flie,\n And one that framed is of wood still hangeth in the skie,\n Thou seest how they with idols play, and teach the people too:\n None otherwise than little girls with puppets used to do.\"\n\nThis custom appears to have been carried to an extravagant height in\nSpain, for Mr. Fosbroke[661] tells us that the gift of the Holy Ghost\nwas represented by \"thunder from engines which did much damage.\" Water,\noak leaves, burning torches, wafers, and cakes were thrown down from the\nchurch roof; pigeons and small birds, with cakes tied to their legs,\nwere let loose; and a long censer was swung up and down. In our own\ncountry, many costly pageants were exhibited at this season. Thus, at\nChester, the Whitsun Mysteries were acted during the Monday, Tuesday,\nand Wednesday in Whitsun week. The performers were carried from one\nplace to another by means of a scaffold--a huge and ponderous machine\nmounted on wheels, gayly decorated with flags, and divided into two\ncompartments--the upper of which formed the stage, and the lower,\ndefended from vulgar curiosity by coarse canvas draperies, answered the\npurposes of a green-room. To each craft in the city a separate mystery\nwas allotted. Thus, the drapers exhibited the \"Creation,\" the tanners\ntook the \"Fall of Lucifer,\" the water-carriers of the Dee acted the\n\"Deluge,\" etc. The production, too, of these pageants was extremely\ncostly; indeed, each one has been set down at fifteen or twenty pounds\nsterling. An allusion to this custom is made in the \"Two Gentlemen of\nVerona\" (iv. 4), where Julia says:\n\n \"At Pentecost,\n When all our pageants of delight were play'd,\n Our youth got me to play the woman's part,\n And I was trimm'd in Madam Julia's gown.\"\n\n [661] \"Encyclop\u00e6dia of Antiquities,\" 1843, vol. ii. p. 653.\n\nThe morris-dance, too, was formerly a common accompaniment to the\nWhitsun ales, a practice which is still kept up in many parts of the\ncountry. In \"Henry V.\" (ii. 4), the Dauphin thus alludes to it:\n\n \"I say, 'tis meet we all go forth,\n To view the sick and feeble parts of France:\n And let us do it with no show of fear;\n No, with no more than if we heard that England\n Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance.\"\n\nAnd once more, in the \"Winter's Tale\" (iv. 4), Perdita says to Florizel:\n\n \"Methinks I play as I have seen them do\n In Whitsun pastorals.\"\n\nA custom formerly kept up in connection with Whitsuntide was the\n\"Whitsun ale.\" Ale was so prevalent a drink among us in olden times as\nto become a part of the name of various festal meetings, as Leet ale,\nLamb ale, Bride ale (bridal), and, as we see, Whitsun ale. Thus our\nancestors were in the habit of holding parochial meetings every\nWhitsuntide, usually in some barn near the church, consisting of a kind\nof picnic, as each parishioner brought what victuals he could spare. The\nale, which had been brewed pretty strong for the occasion, was sold by\nthe churchwardens, and from its profits a fund arose for the repair of\nthe church.[662] These meetings are referred to by Shakespeare in\n\"Pericles\" (i. 1):\n\n \"It hath been sung at festivals,\n On ember-eves and holy-ales.\"\n\n [662] See \"British Popular Customs,\" p. 278; Brand's \"Pop.\n Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. i. p. 276.\n\nIn the \"Two Gentlemen of Verona\" (ii. 5), when Launce tells Speed, \"thou\nhast not so much charity in thee as to go to the ale with a Christian,\"\nthese words have been explained to mean the rural festival so named,\nthough, as Mr. Dyce remarks (\"Glossary,\" p. 10), the previous words of\nLaunce, \"go with me to the ale-house,\" show this explanation to be\nwrong.\n\nIn the old miracle-plays performed at this and other seasons Herod was a\nfavorite personage, and was generally represented as a tyrant of a very\noverbearing, violent character. Thus Hamlet says (iii. 2): \"O, it\noffends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a\npassion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings;\nwho, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable\ndumb-shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'er-doing\nTermagant; it out-herods Herod.\" On this account Alexas mentions him as\nthe most daring character when he tells Cleopatra (\"Antony and\nCleopatra,\" iii. 3):\n\n \"Good majesty,\n Herod of Jewry dare not look upon you\n But when you are well pleas'd.\"\n\nIn the \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (ii. 1), Mrs. Page speaks of him in the\nsame signification: \"What a Herod of Jewry is this!\"\n\nMr. Dyce, in his \"Glossary\" (p. 207), has this note: \"If the reader\nwishes to know what a swaggering, uproarious tyrant Herod was\nrepresented to be in those old dramatic performances, let him turn to\n'Magnus Herodes' in 'The Towneley Mysteries,' p. 140, ed. Surtees\nSociety; to 'King Herod' in the 'Coventry Mysteries,' p. 188, ed.\nShakespeare Society; and to 'The Slaughter of the Innocents' in 'The\nChester Plays,' vol. i. p. 172, ed. Shakespeare Society.\"\n\nLike Herod, Termagant[663] was a hectoring tyrant of the miracle-plays,\nand as such is mentioned by Hamlet in the passage quoted above. Hence,\nin course of time, the word was used as an adjective, in the sense of\nviolent, as in \"1 Henry IV.\" (v. 4), \"that hot termagant Scot.\" Hall\nmentions him in his first satire:\n\n \"Nor fright the reader with the Pagan vaunt\n Of mighty Mahound and great Termagaunt.\"\n\n [663] According to the crusaders and the old romance writers a\n Saracen deity. See Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. ix. p. 214.\n\nWhile speaking of the old mysteries or miracle-plays we may also here\nrefer to the \"moralities,\" a class of religious plays in which\nallegorical personifications of the virtues and vices were introduced as\n_dramatis person\u00e6_. These personages at first only took part in the play\nalong with the Scriptural or legendary characters, but afterwards\nentirely superseded them. They continued in fashion till the time of\nQueen Elizabeth. Several allusions are given by Shakespeare to these\nmoral plays. Thus, in \"Twelfth Night\" (iv. 1), the clown sings:\n\n \"I am gone, sir,\n And anon, sir,\n I'll be with you again\n In a trice,\n Like to the old Vice,\n Your need to sustain;\n\n Who, with dagger of lath,\n In his rage and his wrath,\n Cries, Ah, ha! to the devil,\" etc.\n\nAgain, in \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4), Prince Henry speaks of \"that reverend\nVice, that grey Iniquity;\" and in \"2 Henry IV.\" (iii. 2), Falstaff says,\n\"now is this Vice's dagger become a squire.\"\n\nAgain, further allusions occur in \"Richard III.\" (iii. 1). Gloster says:\n\n \"Thus, like the formal Vice, Iniquity,\n I moralize two meanings in one word.\"\n\nAnd once more, Hamlet (iii. 4), speaks of \"a Vice of kings,\" \"a king of\nshreds and patches.\"\n\nAccording to Nares, \"Vice\" had the name sometimes of one vice, sometimes\nof another, but most commonly of _Iniquity_, or Vice itself. He was\ngrotesquely dressed in a cap with ass's ears, a long coat, and a dagger\nof lath. One of his chief employments was to make sport with the devil,\nleaping on his back, and belaboring him with his dagger of lath, till he\nmade him roar. The devil, however, always carried him off in the end. He\nwas, in short, the buffoon of the morality, and was succeeded in his\noffice by the clown, whom we see in Shakespeare and others.[664]\n\n [664] See Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 482.\n\nAgain, there may be a further allusion to the moralities in \"King Lear\"\n(ii. 2), where Kent says to Oswald, \"take Vanity, the puppet's, part,\nagainst the royalty of her father.\"\n\nThen, too, there were the \"pageants\"--shows which were usually performed\nin the highways of our towns, and assimilated in some degree to the\nmiracle-plays, but were of a more mixed character, being partly drawn\nfrom profane history. According to Strutt, they were more frequent in\nLondon, being required at stated periods, such as the setting of the\nMidsummer Watch, and the Lord Mayor's Show.[665] Among the allusions to\nthese shows given by Shakespeare, we may quote one in \"Richard III.\"\n(iv. 4), where Queen Margaret speaks of\n\n \"The flattering index of a direful pageant\"\n\n--the pageants displayed on public occasions being generally preceded by\na brief account of the order in which the characters were to walk. These\nindexes were distributed among the spectators, that they might\nunderstand the meaning of such allegorical representations as were\nusually exhibited. In the \"Merchant of Venice\" (i. 1), Salarino calls\nargosies \"the pageants of the sea,\" in allusion, says Douce,[666] \"to\nthose enormous machines, in the shapes of castles, dragons, ships,\ngiants, etc., that were drawn about the streets in the ancient shows or\npageants, and which often constituted the most important part of them.\"\nAgain, in \"As You Like It\" (iii. 4), Corin says:\n\n \"If you will see a pageant truly play'd,\n Between the pale complexion of true love\n And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain,\n Go hence a little, and I shall conduct you,\n If you will mark it.\"\n\n [665] \"Sports and Pastimes,\" 1876, pp. 25-28; see Warton's\n \"History of English Poetry,\" vol. ii. p. 202.\n\n [666] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 154.\n\nAnd in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (iv. 14), Antony speaks of \"black\nvesper's pageants.\"\n\nThe nine worthies, originally comprising Joshua, David, Judas Maccab\u00e6us,\nHector, Alexander, Julius C\u00e6sar, Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of\nBouillon, appear from a very early period to have been introduced\noccasionally in the shows and pageants of our ancestors. Thus, in\n\"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 2), the pageant of the nine worthies is\nintroduced. As Shakespeare, however, introduces Hercules and Pompey\namong his presence of worthies, we may infer that the characters were\nsometimes varied to suit the circumstances of the period, or the taste\nof the auditory. A MS. preserved in the library of Trinity College,\nDublin, mentions the \"Six Worthies\" having been played before the Lord\nDeputy Sussex in 1557.[667]\n\n [667] Staunton's \"Shakespeare,\" 1864, vol. i. pp. 147, 148.\n\nAnother feature of the Whitsun merry-makings were the Cotswold games,\nwhich were generally on the Thursday in Whitsun week, in the vicinity of\nChipping Campden. They were instituted by an attorney of\nBurton-on-the-Heath, in Warwickshire, named Robert Dover, and, like the\nOlympic games of the ancients, consisted of most kinds of manly sports,\nsuch as wrestling, leaping, pitching the bar, handling the pike,\ndancing, and hunting. Ben Jonson, Drayton, and other poets of that age\nwrote verses on this festivity, which, in 1636, were collected into one\nvolume, and published under the name of \"Annalia Dubrensia.\"[668] In the\n\"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (i. 1), Slender asks Page, \"How does your\nfallow greyhound, sir? I heard say, he was outrun on Cotsall.\" And in \"2\nHenry IV.\"[669] (iii. 2), Shallow, by distinguishing Will Squele as \"a\nCotswold man,\" meant to imply that he was well versed in manly\nexercises, and consequently of a daring spirit and athletic\nconstitution. A sheep was jocularly called a \"Cotsold,\" or \"Cotswold\nlion,\" from the extensive pastures in that part of Gloucestershire.\n\n [668] See \"Book of Days,\" vol. i. p. 712.\n\n [669] See Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. v. p. 206.\n\nWhile speaking of Whitsuntide festivities, we may refer to the \"roasted\nManningtree ox with the pudding in his belly,\" to which Prince Henry\nalludes in \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4). It appears that Manningtree, in Essex,\nformerly enjoyed the privilege of fairs, by the tenure of exhibiting a\ncertain number of Stage Plays yearly. There were, also, great\nfestivities there, and much good eating, at Whitsun ales and other\ntimes. Hence, it seems that roasting an ox whole was not uncommon on\nsuch occasions. The pudding spoken of by Prince Henry often accompanied\nthe ox, as we find in a ballad written in 1658:[670]\n\n \"Just so the people stare\n At an ox in the fair\n Roasted whole with a pudding in 's belly.\"\n\n [670] See Nichol's \"Collection of Poems,\" 1780, vol. iii. p. 204.\n\n_Sheep-shearing Time_ commences as soon as the warm weather is so far\nsettled that the sheep may, without danger, lay aside their winter\nclothing; the following tokens being laid down by Dyer, in his \"Fleece\"\n(bk. i), to mark out the proper time:[671]\n\n \"If verdant elder spreads\n Her silver flowers; if humble daisies yield\n To yellow crowfoot and luxuriant grass\n Gay shearing-time approaches.\"\n\n [671] See Knight's \"Life of Shakespeare,\" 1845, p. 71; Howitt's\n \"Pictorial Calendar of the Seasons,\" 1854, pp. 254-267.\n\nOur ancestors, who took advantage of every natural holiday, to keep it\nlong and gladly, celebrated the time of sheep-shearing by a feast\nexclusively rural. Drayton,[672] the countryman of Shakespeare, has\ngraphically described this festive scene, the Vale of Evesham being the\nlocality of the sheep-shearing which he has pictured so pleasantly:\n\n \"The shepherd king,\n Whose flock hath chanc'd that year the earliest lamb to bring,\n In his gay baldric sits at his low, grassy board,\n With flawns, curds, clouted cream, and country dainties stored;\n And whilst the bag-pipe plays, each lusty, jocund swain\n Quaffs syllabubs in cans, to all upon the plain,\n And to their country girls, whose nosegays they do wear;\n Some roundelays do sing; the rest the burthen bear.\"\n\n [672] \"Polyolbion,\" song 14; see Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849,\n vol. ii. p. 34; Timbs's \"A Garland for the Year,\" pp. 74, 75.\n\nIn the \"Winter's Tale,\" one of the most delicious scenes (iv. 4) is that\nof the sheep-shearing, in which we have the more poetical\n\"shepherd-queen.\" Mr. Furnivall,[673] in his introduction to this play,\njustly remarks: \"How happily it brings Shakespeare before us, mixing\nwith his Stratford neighbors at their sheep-shearing and country sports,\nenjoying the vagabond pedler's gammon and talk, delighting in the sweet\nWarwickshire maidens, and buying them 'fairings,' telling goblin stories\nto the boys, 'There was a man dwelt in a churchyard,' opening his heart\nafresh to all the innocent mirth, and the beauty of nature around him.\"\nThe expense attaching to these festivities appears to have afforded\nmatter of complaint. Thus, the clown asks, \"What am I to buy for our\nsheep-shearing feast?\" and then proceeds to enumerate various things\nwhich he will have to purchase. In Tusser's \"Five Hundred Points of\nHusbandry\" this festival is described under \"The Ploughman's\nFeast-days:\"\n\n \"Wife, make us a dinner, spare flesh neither corne,\n Make wafers and cakes, for our sheep must be shorne;\n At sheepe-shearing, neighbours none other things crave,\n But good cheere and welcome like neighbours to have.\"\n\n [673] Introduction to the \"Leopold Shakespeare,\" p. xci.\n\n_Midsummer Eve_ appears to have been regarded as a period when the\nimagination ran riot, and many a curious superstition was associated\nwith this season. Thus, people gathered on this night the rose, St.\nJohn's wort, vervain, trefoil, and rue, all of which were supposed to\nhave magical properties. They set the orpine in clay upon pieces of\nslate or potsherd in their houses, calling it a \"Midsummer man.\" As the\nstalk was found next morning to incline to the right or left, the\nanxious maiden knew whether her lover would prove true to her or not.\nYoung men sought, also, for pieces of coal, but, in reality, certain\nhard, black, dead roots, often found under the living mugwort, designing\nto place these under their pillows, that they might dream of\nthemselves.[674] It was also supposed that any person fasting on\nMidsummer-eve, and sitting in the church-porch, would at midnight see\nthe spirits of those persons of that parish who would die that year come\nand knock at the church-door, in the order and succession in which they\nwould die. Midsummer was formerly thought to be a season productive of\nmadness. Thus, Malvolio's strange conduct is described by Olivia in\n\"Twelfth Night\" (iii. 4) as \"A very midsummer madness.\" And, hence, \"A\nMidsummer-Night's Dream\" is no inappropriate title for \"the series of\nwild incongruities of which the play consists.\"[675] The Low-Dutch have\na proverb that, when men have passed a troublesome night, and could not\nsleep, \"they have passed St. John Baptist's night\"--that is, they have\nnot taken any sleep, but watched all night. Heywood seems to allude to a\nsimilar notion when he says:\n\n \"As mad as a March hare: where madness compares,\n Are not midsummer hares as mad as March hares?\"\n\n [674] \"Book of Days,\" vol. i. p. 816; see Brand's \"Pop.\n Antiq.,\" vol. i. p. 314; Soane's \"Book of the Months.\"\n\n [675] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. i. pp. 336, 337.\n\nA proverbial phrase, too, to signify that a person was mad, was, \"'Tis\nmidsummer moon with you\"--hot weather being supposed to affect the brain.\n\n_Dog-days._ A popular superstition--in all probability derived from the\nEgyptians--referred to the rising and setting of Sirius, or the Dog-star,\nas infusing madness into the canine race. Consequently, the name of\n\"Dog-days\" was given by the Romans to the period between the 3d of July\nand 11th of August, to which Shakespeare alludes in \"Henry VIII.\" (v.\n3), \"the dog-days now reign.\" It is obvious that the notion is utterly\ngroundless, for not only does the star vary in its rising, but is later\nand later every year. According to the Roman belief, \"at the rising of\nthe Dog-star the seas boil, the wines ferment in the cellars, and\nstanding waters are set in motion; the dogs, also, go mad, and the\nsturgeon is blasted.\" The term Dog-days is still a common phrase, and it\nis difficult to say whether it is from superstitious adherence to old\ncustom or from a belief of the injurious effect of heat upon the canine\nrace that the magistrates, often unwisely, at this season of the year\norder them to be muzzled or tied up.\n\n_Lammas-day_ (August 1). According to some antiquarians, Lammas is a\ncorruption of loaf-mass, as our ancestors made an offering of bread from\nnew wheat on this day. Others derive it from lamb-mass, because the\ntenants who held lands under the Cathedral Church of York were bound by\ntheir tenure to bring a live lamb into the church at high mass.[676] It\nappears to have been a popular day in times past, and is mentioned in\nthe following dialogue in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 3), where the Nurse\ninquires:\n\n \"How long is it now\n To Lammas-tide?\n\n _Lady Capulet._ A fortnight, and odd days.\n\n _Nurse._ Even or odd, of all days in the year,\n Come Lammas-eve at night, shall she be fourteen?\"\n\n [676] See \"British Popular Customs,\" pp. 347-351.\n\nIn Neale's \"Essays on Liturgiology\" (2d. ed., p. 526), the Welsh\nequivalent for Lammas-day is given as \"dydd degwm wyn,\" lamb-tithing\nday.\n\n_St. Charity_ (August 1). This saint is found in the Martyrology on the\n1st of August: \"Rom\u00e6 passio Sanctaram Virginum Fidei, Spei, et\nCharitatis, qu\u00e6 sub Hadriano principe martyri\u00e6 coronam adept\u00e6\nsunt.\"[677] She is alluded to by Ophelia, in her song in \"Hamlet\" (iv.\n5):\n\n \"By Gis,[678] and by Saint Charity,\n Alack, and fie for shame!\" etc.\n\n [677] Douglas's \"Criterion,\" p. 68, cited by Ritson; see\n Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 475.\n\n [678] This is, perhaps, a corrupt abbreviation of \"By Jesus.\"\n Some would read \"By Cis,\" and understand by it \"St. Cicely.\"\n\nIn the \"Faire Maide of Bristowe\" (1605) we find a similar allusion:\n\n \"Now, by Saint Charity, if I were judge,\n A halter were the least should hamper him.\"\n\n_St. Bartholomew's Day_ (August 24). The anniversary of this festival\nwas formerly signalized by the holding of the great Smithfield Fair, the\nonly real fair held within the city of London. One of the chief\nattractions of Bartholomew Fair were roasted pigs. They were sold\n\"piping hot, in booths and on stalls, and ostentatiously displayed to\nexcite the appetite of passengers.\" Hence, a \"Bartholomew pig\" became a\npopular subject of allusion. Falstaff, in \"2 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4), in\ncoaxing ridicule of his enormous figure, is playfully called, by his\nfavorite Doll: \"Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig.\" Dr.\nJohnson, however, thought that paste pigs were meant in this passage;\nbut this is improbable, as the true Bartholomew pigs were real roasted\npigs, as may be seen from Ben Jonson's play of \"Bartholomew Fair\" (i.\n6), where Ursula, the pig-woman, is an important personage.[679] Gay,\ntoo, speaks of the pig-dressers: \"Like Bartholomew Fair pig-dressers,\nwho look like the dams, as well as the cooks, of what they roasted.\" A\nfurther allusion to this season is found in \"Henry V,\" (v. 2), where\nBurgundy tells how \"maids, well-summered and warm kept, are like flies\nat Bartholomew-tide, blind, though they have their eyes; and then they\nwill endure handling, which before would not abide looking on.\"\n\n [679] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 57; Morley's \"Memoirs\n of Bartholomew Fair,\" 1859.\n\n_Harvest Home._ The ceremonies which graced the ingathering of the\nharvest in bygone times have gradually disappeared, and at the present\nday only remnants of the old usages which once prevailed are still\npreserved. Shakespeare, who has chronicled so many of our old customs,\nand seems to have had a special delight in illustrating his writings\nwith these characteristics of our social life, has given several\ninteresting allusions to the observances which, in his day, graced the\nharvest-field. Thus, in Warwickshire, the laborers, at their\nharvest-home, appointed a judge to try misdemeanors committed during\nharvest, and those who were sentenced to punishment were placed on a\nbench and beaten with a pair of boots. Hence the ceremony was called\n\"giving them the boots.\" It has been suggested that this custom is\nalluded to in the \"Two Gentlemen of Verona\" (i. 1), where Shakespeare\nmakes Proteus, parrying Valentine's raillery, say, \"nay, give me not the\nboots.\"\n\nIn Northamptonshire, when any one misconducted himself in the field\nduring harvest, he was subjected to a mock-trial at the harvest-home\nfeast, and condemned to be booted, a description of which we find in the\nintroduction to Clare's \"Village Minstrel:\" \"A long form is placed in\nthe kitchen, upon which the boys who have worked well sit, as a terror\nand disgrace to the rest, in a bent posture, with their hands laid on\neach other's backs, forming a bridge for the 'hogs' (as the truant boys\nare called) to pass over; while a strong chap stands on each side with a\nboot-legging, soundly strapping them as they scuffle over the bridge,\nwhich is done as fast as their ingenuity can carry them.\" Some, however,\nthink the allusion in the \"Two Gentlemen of Verona\" is to the diabolical\ntorture of the boot. Not a great while before this play was written, it\nhad been inflicted, says Douce,[680] in the presence of King James, on\none Dr. Fian, a supposed wizard, who was charged with raising the storms\nthat the king encountered in his return from Denmark. The unfortunate\nman was afterwards burned. This horrible torture, we are told,[681]\nconsisted in the leg and knee of the criminal being enclosed within a\ntight iron boot or case, wedges of iron being then driven in with a\nmallet between the knee and the iron boot. Sir Walter Scott, in \"Old\nMortality,\" has given a description of Macbriar undergoing this\npunishment. At a later period \"the boot\" signified, according to\nNares,[682] an instrument for tightening the leg or hand, and was used\nas a cure for the gout, and called a \"bootikins.\" The phrase \"to give\nthe boots\" seems to have been a proverbial expression, signifying \"Don't\nmake a laughing-stock of me; don't play upon me.\"\n\n [680] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 21.\n\n [681] Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 47; Douce has given a\n representation of this instrument of torture from Milloeus's\n \"Praxis Criminis Persequendi,\" Paris, 1541.\n\n [682] \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 95.\n\nIn the \"Merchant of Venice\" (v. 1), where Lorenzo says:\n\n \"Come, ho! and wake Diana with a hymn:\n With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,\n And draw her home with music,\"\n\nwe have, doubtless, an allusion to the \"Hock Cart\" of the old\nharvest-home. This was the cart which carried the last corn away from\nthe harvest-field,[683] and was generally profusely decorated, and\naccompanied by music, old and young shouting at the top of their voices\na doggerel after the following fashion:\n\n \"We have ploughed, we have sowed,\n We have reaped, we have mowed,\n We have brought home every load,\n Hip, hip, hip! harvest home.\"[684]\n\n [683] Cf. \"1 Henry IV.\" (i. 3):\n\n \"His chin, new reap'd,\n Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home.\"\n\n [684] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. pp. 16-33.\n\nIn \"Poor Robin's Almanack\" for August, 1676, we read:\n\n \"Hoacky is brought home with hallowing,\n Boys with plumb-cake the cart following.\"\n\n_Holyrood Day_ (September 14). This festival,[685] called also\nHoly-Cross Day, was instituted by the Romish Church, on account of the\nrecovery of a large piece of the supposed cross by the Emperor\nHeraclius, after it had been taken away, on the plundering of Jerusalem,\nby Chosroes, king of Persia. Among the customs associated with this day\nwas one of going a-nutting, alluded to in the old play of \"Grim, the\nCollier of Croydon\" (ii. 1):\n\n \"To morrow is Holy-rood day,\n When all a-nutting take their way.\"\n\n [685] See \"British Popular Customs,\" pp. 372, 373. In\n Lincolnshire this day is called \"Hally-Loo Day.\"\n\nShakespeare mentions this festival in \"1 Henry IV.\" (i. 1), where he\nrepresents the Earl of Westmoreland relating how,\n\n \"On Holy-rood day, the gallant Hotspur there,\n Young Harry Percy and brave Archibald,\n That ever-valiant and approved Scot,\n At Holmedon met.\"\n\n_St. Lambert's Day_ (September 17). This saint, whose original name was\nLandebert, but contracted into Lambert, was a native of Maestricht, in\nthe seventh century, and was assassinated early in the eighth.[686] His\nfestival is alluded to in \"Richard II.\" (i. 1), where the king says:\n\n \"Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,\n At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day.\"\n\n [686] See Butler's \"Lives of the Saints.\"\n\n_Michaelmas_ (September 29). In the \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (i. 1),\nthis festival is alluded to by Simple, who, in answer to Slender,\nwhether he had \"the Book of riddles\" about him, replies: \"Why, did you\nnot lend it to Alice Shortcake upon All-hallowmas last, a fortnight\nafore Michaelmas,\"--this doubtless being an intended blunder.\n\nIn \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4), Francis says: \"Let me see--about Michaelmas\nnext I shall be.\"\n\n_St. Etheldreda_, or _Audry_, commemorated in the Romish Calendar on the\n23d of June, but in the English Calendar on the 17th of October, was\ndaughter of Annas, King of the East Angles. She founded the convent and\nchurch of Ely, on the spot where the cathedral was subsequently\nerected. Formerly, at Ely, a fair was annually held, called in her\nmemory St. Audry's Fair, at which much cheap lace was sold to the poorer\nclasses, which at first went by the name of St. Audry's lace, but in\ntime was corrupted into \"tawdry lace.\" Shakespeare makes an allusion to\nthis lace in the \"Winter's Tale\" (iv. 4), where Mopsa says: \"Come, you\npromised me a tawdry lace, and a pair of sweet gloves;\" although in his\ntime the expression rather meant a rustic necklace.[687] An old English\nhistorian makes St. Audry die of a swelling in her throat, which she\nconsidered as a particular judgment for having been in her youth\naddicted to wearing fine necklaces.[688]\n\n [687] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 868; Brady's \"Clavis\n Calendaria.\"\n\n [688] Nich. Harpsfield, \"Hist. Eccl. Anglicana,\" p. 86.\n\n_St. Crispin's Day_ (October 25) has for centuries been a red-letter day\nin the calendar of the shoemakers, being the festival of their patron\nsaint. According to tradition, the brothers Crispin and Crispinian,\nnatives of Rome, having become converted to Christianity, travelled to\nSoissons, in France, in order to preach the gospel. Being desirous,\nhowever, of rendering themselves independent, they earned their daily\nbread by making shoes, with which, it is said, they furnished the poor,\nat an extremely low price. When the governor of the town discovered that\nthey maintained the Christian faith, and also tried to make proselytes\nof the inhabitants, he ordered them to be beheaded. From this time the\nshoemakers have chosen them for their tutelary saints. Shakespeare has\nperpetuated the memory of this festival by the speech which he has given\nto Henry V. (iv. 3), before the battle of Agincourt:\n\n \"This day is call'd the feast of Crispian:\n He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,\n Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,\n And rouse him at the name of Crispian.\n He that shall live this day, and see old age,\n Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,\n And say, 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'\"\n\nSt. Dennis has been adopted as the patron saint of France (October 9),\nin the same manner as the English have chosen St. George. The\nguardianship of the two countries is thus expressed in the chorus to the\nold ballad:\n\n \"St. George he was for England,\n St. Denis was for France,\n Singing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.\"\n\nKing Henry (\"Henry V.,\" v. 2) says to Princess Katherine: \"Shall not\nthou and I, between Saint Dennis and Saint George, compound a boy, half\nFrench, half English,\" etc. In \"1 Henry VI.\" (iii. 2), Charles says:\n\n \"Saint Dennis bless this happy stratagem,\n And once again we'll sleep secure in Rouen.\"\n\n_Hallowmas_ (November 1) is one of the names for the feast of\nAll-hallows, that is, All-Saints. Shakespeare alludes to a custom\nrelative to this day, some traces of which are still to be found in\nStaffordshire, Cheshire, and other counties. The poor people go from\nparish to parish _a-souling_, as they term it, that is, begging, in a\ncertain lamentable tone, for soul-cakes, at the same time singing a song\nwhich they call the souler's song. This practice is, no doubt, a remnant\nof the Popish ceremony of praying for departed souls, especially those\nof friends, on the ensuing day, November 2, the feast of All-Souls.[689]\nThe following is a specimen of the doggerel sung on these occasions:\n\n \"Soul! soul! for a soul-cake;\n Pray, good mistress, for a soul-cake.\n One for Peter, and two for Paul,\n Three for them who made us all.\n\n Soul! soul! for an apple or two:\n If you've got no apples, pears will do.\n Up with your kettle, and down with your pan,\n Give me a good big one, and I'll be gone.\n Soul! soul! for a soul-cake, etc.\n\n An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry,\n Is a very good thing to make us merry.\"\n\n [689] See \"British Popular Customs,\" p. 404.\n\nIn the \"Two Gentlemen of Verona\" (ii. 1), Speed thus speaks of this\npractice: \"To watch, like one that fears robbing; to speak puling,[690]\nlike a beggar at Hallowmas.\"\n\n [690] Puling, or singing small, as Bailey explains the word.\n\nThe season of Hallowmas, having been frequently mild, has been, from\ntime immemorial, proverbially called \"All-hallown summer,\" _i. e._, late\nsummer. Thus, in \"1 Henry IV.\" (i. 2), Prince Henry, likening Falstaff,\nwith his old age and young passions, to this November summer, addresses\nhim: \"Farewell, thou latter spring! Farewell, All-hallown summer.\"[691]\nIn some parts of Germany there is a proverb, \"All-Saints' Day brings the\nsecond summer;\" and in Sweden there is often about this time a\ncontinuance of warm, still weather, which is called \"the All-Saints'\nrest.\"\n\n [691] See Swainson's \"Weather-Lore,\" 1873, pp. 141-143.\n\nThere is another reference to this festival in \"Richard II.\" (v. 1),\nwhere the king says of his wife:\n\n \"She came adorned hither like sweet May,\n Sent back like Hallowmas or short'st of day.\"\n\n_All-Souls' Day_ (November 2)--which is set apart by the Roman Catholic\nChurch for a solemn service for the repose of the dead--was formerly\nobserved in this country, and among the many customs celebrated in its\nhonor were ringing the passing bell, making soul-cakes, blessing beans,\netc.[692] In \"Richard III.\" (v. 1), Buckingham, when led to execution,\nsays:\n\n \"This is All-Souls' day, fellows, is it not?\n\n _Sheriff._ It is, my lord.\n\n _Buckingham._ Why, then, All-Souls' day is my body's doomsday.\"\n\n [692] See \"British Popular Customs,\" p. 409.\n\n_Lord Mayor's Day_ (November 9). A custom which was in days gone by\nobserved at the inauguration dinner was that of the Lord Mayor's fool\nleaping, clothes and all, into a large bowl of custard. It is alluded to\nin \"All's Well that Ends Well\" (ii. 5), by Lafeu: \"You have made shift\nto run into't, boots and spurs and all, like him that leaped into the\ncustard.\" Ben Jonson, in his \"Devil's an Ass\" (i. 1), thus refers to\nit:\n\n \"He may, perchance, in tail of a sheriff's dinner,\n Skip with a rime o' the table, from new nothing,\n And take his almain leap into a custard,\n Shall make my lady mayoress and her sisters,\n Laugh all their hoods over their shoulders.\"\n\n_St. Martin's Day_ (November 11). The mild weather about this time has\ngiven rise to numerous proverbs; one of the well-known ones being \"St.\nMartin's little summer,\" an allusion to which we find in \"1 Henry VI.\"\n(i. 2), where Joan of Arc says:\n\n \"Expect Saint Martin's summer, halcyon days.\"\n\nwhich Johnson paraphrases thus: \"Expect prosperity after misfortune,\nlike fair weather at Martlemas, after winter has begun.\" As an\nillustration, too, of this passage, we may quote from the _Times_,\nOctober 6, 1864: \"It was one of those rare but lovely exceptions to a\ncold season, called in the Mediterranean St. Martin's summer.\"\n\nA corruption of Martinmas is Martlemas. Falstaff is jocularly so called\nby Poins, in \"2 Henry IV.\" (ii. 2), as being in the decline, as the year\nis at this season: \"And how doth the martlemas, your master?\"\n\nThis was the customary time for hanging up provisions to dry, which had\nbeen salted for winter use.\n\n_St. Nicholas_ (December 6). This saint was deemed the patron of\nchildren in general, but more particularly of all schoolboys, among whom\nhis festival used to be a very great holiday. Various reasons have been\nassigned for his having been chosen as the patron of children--either\nbecause the legend makes him to have been a bishop while yet a boy, or\nfrom his having restored three young scholars to life who had been\ncruelly murdered,[693] or, again, on account of his early abstinence\nwhen a boy. In the \"Two Gentlemen of Verona\" (iii. 1) he is alluded to\nin this capacity:\n\n \"_Speed._ Come, fool, come; try me in thy paper.\n\n _Launce._ There; and Saint Nicholas be thy speed.\"\n\n [693] See Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 25; \"The\n Church of Our Fathers,\" by D. Rock, 1853, vol. iii. p. 215;\n _Gent. Mag._, 1777, vol. xliii. p. 158; see Nares's \"Glossary,\"\n vol. ii. pp. 601, 602; Brady's \"Clavis Calendaria.\"\n\nNicholas's clerks was, and still is, a cant term for highwaymen and\nrobbers; but though the expression is very common, its origin is a\nmatter of uncertainty. In \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii. 1) it is thus alluded to:\n\n \"_Gadshill._ Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas'\n clerks, I'll give thee this neck.\n\n _Chamberlain._ No. I'll none of it: I pr'thee, keep that for\n the hangman: for I know thou worshippest Saint Nicholas as\n truly as a man of falsehood may.\"\n\n_Christmas._ Among the observances associated with this season, to which\nShakespeare alludes, we may mention the Christmas Carol, a reference to\nwhich is probably made in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (ii. 1), by\nTitania:\n\n \"No night is now with hymn or carol blest.\"\n\nHamlet (ii. 2) quotes two lines from a popular ballad, entitled the\n\"Song of Jephthah's Daughter,\" and adds: \"The first row of the pious\nchanson will show you more.\"[694]\n\n [694] Drake's \"Shakespeare and his Times,\" vol. i. p. 198.\n\nIn days gone by, the custom of carol-singing was most popular, and\nWarton, in his \"History of English Poetry,\" notices a license granted in\n1562 to John Tysdale for printing \"Certayne goodly carowles to be songe\nto the glory of God;\" and again \"Crestenmas Carowles auctorisshed by my\nlord of London.\"[695]\n\n [695] See Sandy's \"Christmastide, its History, Festivities, and\n Carols;\" also _Athen\u00e6um_, Dec. 20, 1856.\n\nIn the \"Taming of the Shrew\" (Ind., sc. 2) Sly asks whether \"a\ncomonty[696] is not a Christmas gambold.\" Formerly the sports and\nmerry-makings at this season were on a most extensive scale, being\npresided over by the Lord of Misrule.[697] Again, in \"Love's Labour's\nLost\" (v. 2), Biron speaks of \"a Christmas comedy.\"\n\n [696] His blunder for comedy.\n\n [697] See \"British Popular Customs,\" 1876, pp. 459, 463;\n Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 943; \"Antiquarian Repertory,\"\n vol. i. p. 218.\n\nAs we have noticed, too, in our chapter on Plants, a gilt nutmeg was\nformerly a common gift at Christmas, and on other festive occasions, to\nwhich an allusion is probably made in the same scene. Formerly, at this\nseason, the head of the house assembled his family around a bowl of\nspiced ale, from which he drank their healths, then passed it to the\nrest, that they might drink too. The word that passed among them was the\nancient Saxon phrase _wass hael_[698], _i. e._, to your health. Hence\nthis came to be recognized as the wassail or wassel bowl; and was the\naccompaniment to festivity of every kind throughout the year. Thus\nHamlet (i. 4) says:\n\n \"The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,\n Keeps wassail.\"\n\n [698] This was a deep draught to the health of any one, in\n which it was customary to empty the glass or vessel.\n\nAnd in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 2), Biron speaks of:\n\n \"wakes and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs.\"\n\nIn \"Macbeth\" (i. 7), it is used by Lady Macbeth in the sense of\nintemperance, who, speaking of Duncan's two chamberlains, says:\n\n \"Will I with wine and wassail so convince,\n That memory, the warder of the brain,\n Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason\n A limbeck only.\"\n\nIn \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (i. 4), C\u00e6sar advises Antony to live more\ntemperately, and to leave his \"lascivious wassails.\"[699]\n\n [699] See Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, pp. 441-449.\n\nIn the same way, a \"wassail candle\" denoted a large candle lighted up at\na festival, a reference to which occurs in \"2 Henry IV.\" (i. 2):\n\n \"_Chief-Justice._ You are as a candle, the better part burnt out.\n\n _Falstaff._ A wassail candle, my lord; all tallow.\"\n\nA custom which formerly prevailed at Christmas, and has not yet died\nout, was for mummers to go from house to house, attired in grotesque\nattire, performing all kinds of odd antics.[700] Their performances,\nhowever, were not confined to this season. Thus, in \"Coriolanus\" (ii. 1)\nMenenius speaks of making \"faces like mummers.\"\n\n [700] See \"British Popular Customs,\" pp. 461, 469, 478, 480.\n\n_Cakes and Ale._ It was formerly customary on holidays and saints' days\nto make cakes in honor of the day. In \"Twelfth Night\" (ii. 3), Sir Toby\nsays: \"Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no\nmore cakes and ale?\" To which the Clown replies: \"Yes, by Saint Anne;\nand ginger shall be hot i' the mouth too.\"\n\n_Wakes._ In days gone by, the church wake was an important institution,\nand was made the occasion for a thorough holiday. Each church, when\nconsecrated, was dedicated to a saint, and on the anniversary of that\nday was kept the wake. In many places there was a second wake on the\nbirthday of the saint. At such seasons, the floor of the church was\nstrewed with rushes and flowers, and in the churchyard tents were\nerected, to supply cakes and ale for the use of the merrymakers on the\nfollowing day, which was kept as a holiday. They are still kept up in\nmany parishes, but in a very different manner.[701] In \"King Lear\" (iii.\n6), Edgar says: \"Come, march to wakes and fairs, and market towns.\" We\nmay also compare \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 2) and \"Winter's Tale\" (iv.\n2). In \"Hamlet\" (i. 4) it is used in the sense of revel.\n\n [701] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. i. pp. 1-15.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nBIRTH AND BAPTISM.\n\n\nAs every period of human life has its peculiar rites and ceremonies, its\ncustoms and superstitions, so has that ever all-eventful hour which\nheralds the birth of a fresh actor upon the world's great stage. From\nthe cradle to the grave, through all the successive epochs of man's\nexistence, we find a series of traditional beliefs and popular notions,\nwhich have been handed down to us from the far-distant past. Although,\nindeed, these have lost much of their meaning in the lapse of years, yet\nin many cases they are survivals of primitive culture, and embody the\nconceptions of the ancestors of the human race. Many of these have been\nrecorded by Shakespeare, who, acting upon the great principle of\npresenting his audience with matters familiar to them, has given\nnumerous illustrations of the manners and superstitions of his own\ncountry, as they existed in his day. Thus, in \"Richard III.\" (iii. 1),\nwhen he represents the Duke of Gloster saying,\n\n \"So wise so young, they say, do never live long,\"\n\nhe alludes to the old superstition, still deeply rooted in the minds of\nthe lower orders, that a clever child never lives long. In Bright's\n\"Treatise of Melancholy\" (1586, p. 52), we read: \"I have knowne children\nlanguishing of the splene, obstructed and altered in temper, talke with\ngravity and wisdom surpassing those tender years, and their judgments\ncarrying a marvellous imitation of the wisdome of the ancient, having\nafter a sort attained that by disease, which others have by course of\nyeares; whereof I take it the proverb ariseth, that 'they be of shorte\nlife who are of wit so pregnant.'\" There are sundry superstitious\nnotions relating to the teething of children prevalent in our own and\nother countries. In \"3 Henry VI.\" (v. 6), the Duke of Gloster, alluding\nto the peculiarities connected with his, birth, relates how\n\n \"The midwife wonder'd; and the women cried\n 'O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!'\n And so I was; which plainly signified\n That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.\"\n\nIt is still believed, for instance, in many places, that if a child's\nfirst tooth appears in the upper jaw it is an omen of its dying in\ninfancy; and when the teeth come early it is regarded as an indication\nthat there will soon be another baby. In Sussex there is a dislike to\nthrowing away the cast teeth of children, from a notion that, should\nthey be found and gnawed by any animal, the child's new tooth would be\nexactly like the animal's that had bitten the old one. In Durham, when\nthe first teeth come out the cavities must be filled with salt, and each\ntooth burned, while the following words are repeated:\n\n \"Fire, fire, burn bone,\n God send me my tooth again.\"\n\nIn the above passage, then, Shakespeare simply makes the Duke of Gloster\nrefer to that extensive folk-lore associated with human birth, showing\nhow careful an observer he was in noticing the whims and oddities of his\ncountrymen.\n\nAgain, one of the foremost dangers supposed to hover round the new-born\ninfant was the propensity of witches and fairies to steal the most\nbeautiful and well-favored children, and to leave in their places such\nas were ugly and stupid. These were usually called \"changelings.\"\nShakespeare alludes to this notion in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (ii.\n1), where Puck says:\n\n \"Because that she, as her attendant, hath\n A lovely boy, stol'n from an Indian king;\n She never had so sweet a changeling.\"\n\nAnd further on, in the same scene, Oberon says:\n\n \"I do but beg a little changeling boy,\n To be my henchman.\"\n\nAs a fairy is, in each case, the speaker, the changeling in this case\ndenotes the child taken by them. So, too, in the \"Winter's Tale\" (iii.\n3), in the passage where the Shepherd relates: \"it was told me, I should\nbe rich by the fairies; this is some changeling:--open't.\" As the child\nhere found was a beautiful one, the changeling must naturally mean the\nchild stolen by the fairies, especially as the gold left with it is\nconjectured to be fairy gold. The usual signification, however, of the\nterm _changeling_ is thus marked by Spenser (\"Fairy Queen,\" I. x. 65).\n\n \"From thence a faery thee unweeting reft,\n There as thou slepst in tender swadling band,\n And her base elfin brood there for thee left:\n Such men do chaungelings call, so chaunged by faeries theft.\"\n\nOccasionally fairies played pranks with new-born children by exchanging\nthem. To this notion King Henry refers (\"1 Henry IV.\" i. 1) when,\nspeaking of Hotspur compared with his own profligate son, he exclaims:\n\n \"O that it could be prov'd\n That some night-tripping fairy had exchang'd\n In cradle-clothes our children where they lay,\n And call'd mine Percy, his Plantagenet!\"\n\nTo induce the fairies to restore the stolen child, it was customary in\nIreland either to put the one supposed of being a changeling on a hot\nshovel, or to torment it in some other way. It seems that, in Denmark,\nthe mother heats the oven, and places the changeling on the peel,\npretending to put it in, or whips it severely with a rod, or throws it\ninto the water. In the Western Isles of Scotland idiots are supposed to\nbe the fairies' changelings, and, in order to regain the lost child,\nparents have recourse to the following device. They place the changeling\non the beach, below high-water mark, when the tide is out, and pay no\nheed to its screams, believing that the fairies, rather than suffer\ntheir offspring to be drowned by the rising water, will convey it away,\nand restore the child they had stolen. The sign that this has been done\nis the cessation of the child's screaming. The most effectual\npreservative, however, against fairy influence, is supposed to be\nbaptism; and hence, among the superstitious, this rite is performed as\nsoon as possible.\n\nA form of superstition very common in days gone by was the supposed\ninfluence of the \"Evil eye,\" being designated by the terms \"o'erlooked,\"\n\"forelooked,\" or \"eye-bitten,\" certain persons being thought to possess\nthe power of inflicting injury by merely looking on those whom they\nwished to harm. Even the new-born child was not exempt from this danger,\nand various charms were practised to avert it. In the \"Merry Wives of\nWindsor\" (v. 5), Pistol says of Falstaff:\n\n \"Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd, even in thy birth.\"\n\nThis piece of folk-lore may be traced back to the time of the Romans,\nand, in the late Professor Conington's translation of the \"Satires of\nPersius,\" it is thus spoken of: \"Look here! a grandmother or a\nsuperstitious aunt has taken baby from his cradle, and is charming his\nforehead against mischief by the joint action of her middle-finger and\nher purifying spittle; for she knows right well how to check the evil\neye.\"[702] Is is again alluded to in the \"Merchant of Venice\" (iii. 2),\nwhere Portia, expressing to Bassanio her feelings of regard, declares:\n\n \"Beshrew your eyes,\n They have o'erlook'd me, and divided me;\n One half of me is yours, the other half yours;\"\n\nand in \"Titus Andronicus\" (ii. 1), Aaron speaks of Tamora as:\n\n \"faster bound to Aaron's charming eyes\n Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus.\"\n\n [702] See Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 383;\n Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. pp. 44-46, 326.\n\nThis superstition, however, is not yet obsolete, but lingers on in many\ncountry places.\n\nWe may also compare a similar phrase made use of by Cleopatra (\"Antony\nand Cleopatra,\" iii. 7), in answer to Enobarbus:\n\n \"Thou hast forspoke my being in these wars,\"\n\nthe word _forespeak_ having anciently had the meaning of charm or\nbewitch, like _forbid_ in \"Macbeth\" (i. 3):\n\n \"He shall live a man forbid.\"[703]\n\n [703] See Napier's \"Folk-Lore of West of Scotland,\" 1879, pp.\n 34-40; Keightley's \"Fairy Mythology;\" Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\"\n 1849, vol. iii. pp. 73, 74.\n\nAmong the numerous customs associated with the birth of a child may be\nmentioned the practice of giving presents at the announcement of this\nimportant event. In \"Henry VIII.\" (v. 1), on the old lady's making known\nto the king the happy tidings of the birth of a princess, he says to\nLovell:\n\n \"Give her an hundred marks. I'll to the queen.\"\n\nThe old lady, however, resents what she considers a paltry sum:\n\n \"An hundred marks! By this light, I'll ha' more.\n An ordinary groom is for such payment.\n I will have more, or scold it out of him.\"\n\nIt was an ancient custom--one which is not quite out of use--for the\nsponsors at christenings to offer silver or gilt spoons as a present to\nthe child. These were called \"apostle spoons,\" because the extremity of\nthe handle was formed into the figure of one or other of the apostles.\nSuch as were opulent and generous gave the whole twelve; those who were\nmoderately rich or liberal escaped at the expense of the four\nevangelists, or even sometimes contented themselves with presenting one\nspoon only, which exhibited the figure of any saint, in honor of whom\nthe child received its name. In \"Henry VIII.\" (v. 2) it is in allusion\nto this custom that, when Cranmer professes to be unworthy of being a\nsponsor to the young princess, Shakespeare makes the king reply:\n\n \"Come, come, my lord, you'd spare your spoons.\"\n\nA story is related of Shakespeare promising spoons to one of Ben\nJonson's children, in a collection of anecdotes entitled \"Merry Passages\nand Jests,\" compiled by Sir Nicholas L'Estrange (MSS. Harl. 6395):\n\"Shakespeare was godfather to one of Ben Jonson's children, and after\nthe christ'ning, being in a deepe study, Jonson came to cheere him up,\nand ask't him why he was so melancholy. 'No faith, Ben (sayes he), not\nI; but I have been considering a great while what should be the fittest\ngift for me to bestow upon my godchild, and I have resolv'd at last.' 'I\npr'y thee, what?' sayes he. 'I' faith, Ben, I'le e'en give him a douzen\ngood Latin spoones, and thou shalt translate them.'\" \"Shakespeare,\" says\nMr. Thoms,[704] \"willing to show his wit, if not his wealth, gave a\ndozen spoons, not of silver, but of latten, a name formerly used to\nsignify a mixed metal resembling brass, as being the most appropriate\ngift to the child of a father so learned.\" In Middleton's \"Chaste Maid\nof Cheapside,\" 1620:\n\n \"_2 Gossip._ What has he given her? What is it, gossip?\n\n _3 Gossip._ A fair, high-standing cup, and two great 'postle\n spoons, one of them gilt.\"\n\n [704] \"Anecdotes and Traditions,\" 1839, p. 3.\n\nAnd Beaumont and Fletcher, in the \"Noble Gentleman\" (v. 1):\n\n \"I'll be a gossip, Beaufort,\n I have an odd apostle spoon.\"\n\nThe gossip's feast, held in honor of those who were associated in the\nfestivities of a christening, was a very ancient English custom, and is\nfrequently mentioned by dramatists of the Elizabethan age. The term\ngossip or godsip, a Saxon word signifying _cognata ex parte dei_, or\ngodmother, is well defined by Richard Verstegan, in his \"Restitution of\nDecayed Intelligence.\" He says: \"Our Christian ancestors, understanding\na spiritual affinity to grow between the parents and such as undertooke\nfor the child at baptism, called each other by the name of _godsib_,\nwhich is as much as to say that they were _sib_ together, that is, of\n_kin_ together through God. And the childe, in like manner, called such\nhis godfathers or godmothers.\"\n\nAs might be expected, it is often alluded to by Shakespeare. Thus, in\nthe \"Comedy of Errors\" (v. 1), we read:\n\n \"_Abbess._ Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail\n Of you, my sons: and till this present hour\n My heavy burthen ne'er delivered.\n The duke, my husband, and my children both,\n And you the calendars of their nativity,\n Go to a gossip's feast, and go with me;\n After so long grief, such festivity!\n\n _Duke._ With all my heart I'll gossip at this feast.\"\n\nAnd again, in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (ii. 1), the mischievous Puck\nsays:\n\n \"sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,\n In very likeness of a roasted crab;\n And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,\n And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.\"\n\nAnd, once more, we find Capulet, in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iii. 5), saying\nto the Nurse:\n\n \"Peace, you mumbling fool!\n Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl;\n For here we need it not.\"\n\nReferring to entertainments at christenings, we find the following in\nthe \"Batchelor's Banquet,\" 1603 (attributed to Dekker): \"What cost and\ntrouble it will be to have all things fine against the Christening Day;\nwhat store of sugar, biskets, comphets, and caraways, marmalet, and\nmarchpane, with all kinds of sweet-suckers and superfluous banqueting\nstuff, with a hundred other odd and needless trifles, which at that time\nmust fill the pockets of dainty dames,\" by which it appears the ladies\nnot only ate what they pleased, but pocketed likewise. Upon this and the\nfalling-off of the custom of giving \"apostle spoons\" at the christening,\nwe read in \"Shipman's Gossip,\" 1666:\n\n \"Especially since gossips now\n Eat more at christenings than bestow.\n Formerly when they us'd to troul\n Gilt bowls of sack, they gave the bowl;\n Two spoons at least; an use ill kept;\n 'Tis well now if our own be left.\"\n\nStrype tells us that, in 1559, the son of Sir Thomas Chamberlayne was\nbaptized at St. Benet's Church, Paul's Wharf, when \"the Church was hung\nwith cloth of arras, and after the christening were brought wafers,\ncomfits, and divers banqueting dishes, and hypocras and Muscadine wine,\nto entertain the guests.\"\n\nIn \"Henry VIII.\" (v. 4), the Porter says: \"Do you look for ale and cakes\nhere, you rude rascals?\"\n\nA term formerly in use for the name given at baptism was \"Christendom,\"\nan allusion to which we find in \"All's Well that Ends Well\" (i. 1),\nwhere Helena says:\n\n \"with a world\n Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms\n That blinking Cupid gossips,\"\n\nthe meaning evidently being, a number of pretty, fond, adopted\nappellations or Christian names to which blind Cupid stands godfather.\nThe expression is often used for baptism by old writers; and Singer[705]\nquotes from \"King John\" (iv. 1):\n\n \"By my christendom,\n So I were out of prison, and kept sheep,\n I should be as merry as the day is long.\"\n\n [705] \"Shakespeare,\" 1875, vol. iv. p. 314.\n\nSteevens observes that, in the Puritanical times, it was usual to\nchristen children with the names of moral and religious virtues--a\npractice to which allusion seems to be made in \"The Tempest\" (ii. 1) by\nAntonio:\n\n \"Temperance was a delicate wench.\"\n\nSo Taylor, the Water-Poet, in his description of a strumpet, says:\n\n \"Though bad they be, they will not bate an ace,\n To be call'd Prudence, Temperance, Faith, or Grace.\"\n\nIn days gone by a \"chrisom\" or \"christom child\" was one who had recently\nbeen baptized, and died within the month of birth, the term having\noriginated in the \"face-cloth, or piece of linen, put upon the head of a\nchild newly baptized.\" The word was formed from the chrism, that is, the\nanointing, which formed a part of baptism before the Reformation. Thus,\nin \"Henry V.\" (ii. 3), the hostess, Mrs. Quickly, means \"chrisom child\"\nin the following passage, where she speaks of Falstaff's death: \"'A made\na finer end, and went away an it had been any christom child.\" In a\nbeautiful passage of Bishop Taylor's \"Holy Dying\" (chap. i. sec. 2),\nthis custom is thus spoken of: \"Every morning creeps out of a dark\ncloud, leaving behind it an ignorance and silence deep as midnight, and\nundiscerned as are the phantoms that made a chrisom child to smile.\"\nReferring to the use of the chrisom-cloth in connection with baptism, it\nappears that, after the usual immersion in water, the priest made a\ncross on the child's head with oil, after which the chrisom was put on,\nthe priest asking at the same time the infant's name, and saying,\n\"Receive this white, pure, and holy vestment, which thou shalt wear\nbefore the tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ, that thou mayest inherit\neternal life. Amen.\" It was to be worn seven days; but after the\nReformation, however, the use of oil was omitted, and the chrisom was\nworn by the child till the mother's churching, when it was returned to\nthe church. If the child died before the churching, it was buried in the\nchrisom, and hence it may be that the child itself was called a chrisom\nor chrisomer.[706] Thus, it will be seen that Dame Quickly simply\ncompares the manner of Falstaff's death to that of a young infant. In\nregisters and bills of mortality we find infants alluded to under the\nterm \"Chrisoms.\" Burn, in his \"History of Parish Registers\" (1862, p.\n127), gives the subjoined entry from a register of Westminster Abbey:\n\"The Princess Ann's child a chrissome bu. in ye vault, Oct. 22, 1687.\"\n\n [706] Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1859, pp. 299,\n 300; Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 160; see Brand's \"Pop.\n Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. pp. 84, 85.\n\nIn Graunt's \"Bills of Mortality,\" cited in Johnson's Dictionary, we\nread: \"When the convulsions were but were but few, the number of\nchrisoms and infants was greater.\" The \"bearing-cloth\" was the mantle\nwhich generally covered the child when it was carried to the font. It is\nnoticed in the \"Winter's Tale\" (iii. 3), by the Shepherd, who, on the\ndiscovery of Perdita, says to the Clown: \"Here's a sight for thee: look\nthee, a bearing-cloth for a squire's child! Look thee here; take up,\ntake up, boy: open't.\" In Stow's \"Chronicle\" (1631, p. 1039), we are\ntold that about this time it was not customary \"for godfathers and\ngodmothers generally to give plate at the baptisme of children, but only\nto give 'christening shirts,' with little bands and cuffs, wrought\neither with silk or blue thread. The best of them, for chief persons,\nwere edged with a small lace of black silk and gold, the highest price\nof which, for great men's children, was seldom above a noble, and the\ncommon sort, two, three, or four, and six shillings a piece.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nMARRIAGE.\n\n\nThe style of courtship which prevailed in Shakespeare's time, and the\nnumerous customs associated with the marriage ceremony, may be\naccurately drawn from the many allusions interspersed through his plays.\nFrom these, it would seem that the mode of love-making was much the same\namong all classes, often lacking that polish and refined expression\nwhich are distinguishing characteristics nowadays. As Mr. Drake\nremarks,[707] the amatory dialogues of Hamlet, Hotspur, and Henry V. are\nnot more refined than those which occur between Master Fenton and Anne\nPage, in the \"Merry Wives of Windsor,\" between Lorenzo and Jessica, in\nthe \"Merchant of Venice,\" and between Orlando and Rosalind, in \"As You\nLike It.\" These last, which may be considered as instances taken from\nthe middle class of life, together with a few drawn from the lower rank\nof rural manners, such as the courtship of Touchstone and Audrey, and of\nSilvius and Phoebe, in \"As You Like It,\" are good illustrations of this\nsubject, although it must be added that, in point of fancy, sentiment,\nand simplicity, the most pleasing love-scenes in Shakespeare are those\nof Romeo and Juliet and of Florizel and Perdita.\n\n [707] \"Shakespeare and His Times,\" 1817, vol. i. p. 220.\n\nThe ancient ceremony of betrothing seems still to have been in full use\nin Shakespeare's day. Indeed, he gives us several interesting passages\nupon the subject of troth-plight. Thus, in \"Measure for Measure\" (iii.\n1), we learn that the unhappiness of the poor, dejected Mariana was\ncaused by a violation of the troth-plight:\n\n \"_Duke._ She should this Angelo have married; was affianced to\n her by oath, and the nuptial appointed: between which time of\n the contract, and limit of the solemnity, her brother\n Frederick was wrecked at sea, having in that perished vessel\n the dowry of his sister. But mark how heavily this befell to\n the poor gentlewoman: there she lost a noble and renowned\n brother, in his love toward her ever most kind and natural;\n with him, the portion and sinew of her fortune, her\n marriage-dowry; with both, her combinate husband, this\n well-seeming Angelo.\n\n _Isabella._ Can this be so? Did Angelo so leave her?\n\n _Duke._ Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them with\n his comfort; swallowed his vows whole, pretending in her\n discoveries of dishonour; in few, bestowed her on her own\n lamentation, which she yet wears for his sake; and he, a\n marble to her tears, is washed with them, but relents not.\"\n\nIt is evident that Angelo and Mariana were bound by oath; the nuptial\nwas appointed; there was a prescribed time between the contract and the\nperformance of the solemnity of the Church. The lady, however, having\nlost her dowry, the contract was violated by her \"combinate\" or\naffianced husband--the oath, no doubt, having been tendered by a minister\nof the Church, in the presence of witnesses. In \"Twelfth Night\" (iv. 3)\nwe have a minute description of such a ceremonial; for, when Olivia is\nhastily espoused to Sebastian, she says:\n\n \"Now go with me and with this holy man\n Into the chantry by: there, before him,\n And underneath that consecrated roof,\n Plight me the full assurance of your faith;\n That my most jealous and too doubtful soul\n May live at peace. He shall conceal it,\n Whiles you are willing it shall come to note:\n What time we will our celebration keep\n According to my birth.\"\n\nThis, then, was a private ceremony before a single witness, who would\nconceal it till the proper period of the public ceremonial. Olivia,\nfancying that she has thus espoused the page, repeatedly calls him\n\"husband;\" and, being rejected, she summons the priest to declare (v.\n1):\n\n \"what thou dost know\n Hath newly pass'd between this youth and me.\"\n\nThe priest answers:\n\n \"A contract of eternal bond of love,\n Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands,\n Attested by the holy close of lips,\n Strengthen'd by interchangement of your rings;\n And all the ceremony of this compact\n Seal'd in my function, by my testimony:\n Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave\n I have travell'd but two hours.\"\n\nAgain, in the \"Winter's Tale\" (iv. 4), which contains many a perfect\npicture of real rustic life, it appears that, occasionally, the\ntroth-plight was exchanged without the presence of a priest; but that\nwitnesses were essential to the ceremony:\n\n \"_Florizel._ ... O, hear me breathe my life\n Before this ancient sir, who, it should seem,\n Hath sometime lov'd: I take thy hand, this hand,\n As soft as dove's down and as white as it,\n Or Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd snow, that's bolted\n By the northern blasts twice o'er.\n\n _Polixenes._ What follows this?--\n How prettily the young swain seems to wash\n The hand, was fair before!--I have put you out:--\n But, to your protestation; let me hear\n What you profess.\n\n _Florizel._ Do, and be witness to't.\n\n _Polixenes._ And this my neighbour too?\n\n _Florizel._ And he, and more\n Than he, and men; the earth, the heavens, and all;\n That, were I crown'd the most imperial monarch,\n Thereof most worthy; were I the fairest youth\n That ever made eye swerve; had force and knowledge\n More than was ever man's, I would not prize them\n Without her love; for her employ them all;\n Commend them, and condemn them, to her service,\n Or to their own perdition.\n\n _Polixenes._ Fairly offer'd.\n\n _Camillo._ This shows a sound affection.\n\n _Shepherd._ But, my daughter,\n Say you the like to him?\n\n _Perdita._ I cannot speak\n So well, nothing so well; no, nor mean better:\n By the pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out\n The purity of his.\n\n _Shepherd._ Take hands, a bargain!\n And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to't:\n I give my daughter to him, and will make\n Her portion equal his.[708]\n\n _Florizel._ O, that must be\n I' the virtue of your daughter: one being dead,\n I shall have more than you can dream of yet;\n Enough then for your wonder. But, come on,\n Contract us 'fore these witnesses.\n\n _Shepherd._ Come, your hand;\n And, daughter, yours.\"\n\n [708] On entering into any contract, or plighting of troth, the\n clapping of the hands together set the seal, as in the\n \"Winter's Tale\" (i. 2), where Leontes says:\n\n \"Ere I could make thee open thy white hand,\n And clap thyself my love; then didst thou utter\n _I am yours forever_.\"\n\n So, too, in \"The Tempest\" (iii. 1):\n\n \"_Miranda._ My husband, then?\n\n _Ferdinand._ Ay, with a heart as willing\n As bondage e'er of freedom: here's my hand.\n\n _Miranda._ And mine, with my heart in't.\"\n\n And in the old play of \"Ram Alley,\" by Barry (1611), we read,\n \"Come, clap hands, a match.\" The custom is not yet disused in\n common life.\n\nTo the argument of Polixenes, that the father of Florizel ought to know\nof his proceeding, the young man answers:\n\n \"Come, come, he must not.\n Mark our contract.\"\n\nAnd then the father, discovering himself, exclaims:\n\n \"Mark your divorce, young sir.\"\n\nHere, then, as Mr. Knight remarks,[709] in the publicity of a village\nfestival, the hand of the loved one is solemnly taken by her lover, who\nbreathes his love before the ancient stranger who is accidentally\npresent. The stranger is called to be a witness to the protestation, and\nso is the neighbor who has come with him. The maiden is called upon by\nher father to speak, and then the old man adds:\n\n \"Take hands, a bargain!\"\n\n [709] \"The Stratford Shakespeare,\" 1854, vol. i p. 70.\n\nThe friends are to bear witness to it:\n\n \"I give my daughter to him, and will make\n Her portion equal his.\"\n\nThe impatient lover then again exclaims:\n\n \"Contract us 'fore these witnesses.\"\n\nThe shepherd takes the hands of the youth and the maiden. Again the\nlover exclaims:\n\n \"Mark our contract.\"\n\nThe ceremony is left incomplete, for the princely father discovers\nhimself with:\n\n \"Mark your divorce, young sir.\"\n\nIt appears, therefore, that espousals before witnesses were considered\nas constituting a valid marriage, if followed up within a limited time\nby the marriage of the Church. However much the Reformed Church might\nhave endeavored to abrogate this practice, it was unquestionably the\nancient habit of the people.[710] It was derived from the Roman law, and\nstill prevails in the Lutheran Church.\n\n [710] Knight's \"Stratford Shakespeare,\" p. 73.\n\nBesides exchanging kisses,[711] accompanied with vows of everlasting\naffection, and whispering lovers' reassurances of fidelity, it was\ncustomary to interchange rings. In Shakespeare's plays, however,\nespousals are made with and without the use of the ring. Thus, in the\ncase of Ferdinand and Miranda, we read of their joining hands only\n(\"Tempest,\" iii. 1):\n\n \"_Ferdinand._ Ay, with a heart as willing\n As bondage e'er of freedom; here's my hand.\n\n _Miranda._ An mine, with my heart in't; and now farewell,\n Till half an hour hence.\"\n\n [711] Cf. \"King John\" (ii. 2):\n\n \"_King Philip._ Young princes, close your hands.\n\n _Austria._ And your lips too; for, I am well assured,\n That I did so, when I was first assured.\"\n\nIn the passage already quoted from \"Twelfth Night\" (v. 1) there seems to\nhave been a mutual interchange of rings.\n\nSome, indeed, considered that a betrothal was not complete unless each\nspouse gave the other a circlet. Lady Anne, in \"Richard III.\" (i. 2), is\nmade to share in this misconception:\n\n \"_Gloster._ Vouchsafe to wear this ring.\n\n _Anne._ To take, is not to give.\n\n _Gloster._ Look, how my ring encompasseth thy finger,\n Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart:\n Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.\"\n\nIn \"Two Gentlemen of Verona\" (ii. 2) we read:\n\n \"_Julia._ Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake (_giving a ring_).\n\n _Proteus._ Why, then, we'll make exchange: here, take you this.\n\n _Julia._ And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.\"\n\nA joint, or gimmal, ring was anciently a common token among lovers, an\nallusion to which is made by Emilia, in \"Othello\" (iv. 3): \"I would not\ndo such a thing for a joint-ring.\" Their nature will be best understood\nby a passage in Dryden's \"Don Sebastian\" (1690, act v.):\n\n \"A curious artist wrought them,\n With joints so close, as not to be perceiv'd;\n Yet are they both each other's counterpart,\n ... and in the midst,\n A heart, divided in two halves, was plac'd.\"\n\nThey were generally made of two or three hoops, so chased and engraved\nthat, when fastened together by a single rivet, the whole three formed\none design, the usual device being a hand. When an engagement was\ncontracted, the ring was taken apart, each spouse taking a division,\nand the third one being presented to the principal witness of the\ncontract.[712] Hence such a ring was known as a \"Sponsalium Annulis,\" to\nwhich Herrick thus refers:\n\n \"Thou sent'st me a true-love knot, but I\n Returned a ring of jimmals, to imply\n Thy love hath one knot, mine a triple tye.\"\n\n [712] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 363; \"Arch\u00e6ologia,\"\n vol. xiv. p. 7; Jones's \"Finger Ring Lore,\" 1877, pp. 313-318.\n\nThe term is used by the Duke of Anjou, in \"1 Henry VI.\" (i. 2):\n\n \"I think, by some odd gimmors or device,\n Their arms are set like clocks, still to strike on;\n Else ne'er could they hold out so as they do.\"\n\nAgain, in \"Henry V.\" (iv. 2), Grandpr\u00e9 tells how,\n\n \"in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit\n Lies foul with chew'd grass, still and motionless.\"\n\nMost readers of the \"Merchant of Venice\" remember the mirthful use which\nShakespeare makes of lovers' rings. Portia says (iii. 2), when giving\nher wealth and self to Bassanio:\n\n \"I give them with this ring;\n Which when you part from, lose, or give away,\n Let it presage the ruin of your love.\"\n\nThe last act, too, gives several particulars about lovers' rings, which,\nin Elizabethan England,[713] often had posies engraved on them, and were\nworn by men on the left hand. Gratiano, for example, says:\n\n \"About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring\n That she did give me; whose posy was\n For all the world like cutlers' poetry\n Upon a knife, 'Love me and leave me not.'\"\n\n [713] See Jeaffreson's \"Brides and Bridals,\" 1873, vol. i. pp.\n 77, 78.\n\nAgain Bassanio exclaims:\n\n \"Why, I were best to cut my left hand off,\n And swear I lost the ring defending it.\"\n\nIn \"Taming of the Shrew\" Shakespeare gives numerous allusions to the\ncustoms of his day connected with courtship and marriage. Indeed, in the\nsecond act (sc. 2) we have a perfect betrothal scene:\n\n \"_Petruchio._ Give me thy hand, Kate: I will unto Venice,\n To buy apparel 'gainst the wedding-day.--\n Provide the feast, father, and bid the guests;\n I will be sure my Katharine shall be fine.\n\n _Baptista._ I know not what to say: but give me your hands;\n God send you joy, Petruchio! 'tis a match.\n\n _Gremio. Tranio._ Amen, say we; we will be witnesses.\n\n _Petruchio._ Father, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu;\n I will to Venice; Sunday comes apace.\n We will have rings, and things, and fine array;\n And, kiss me, Kate, we will be married o' Sunday.\"\n\nAlthough Katharina is only his spouse, and Baptista not yet his\nfather-in-law, Petruchio, in accordance with fashion, calls her \"wife\"\nand him \"father.\" The spouses of old times used to term one another\n\"husband\" and \"wife,\" for, as they argued, they were as good as husband\nand wife.\n\nFormerly there was a kind of betrothal or marriage contract prevalent\namong the low orders called \"hand-fasting,\" or \"hand-festing,\" said to\nhave been much in use among the Danes, and which is mentioned by Ray in\nhis \"Glossary of Northumbrian Words.\" It simply means hand-fastening or\nbinding. In \"Cymbeline\" (i. 5) the phrase is used in its secondary sense\nby the Queen, who, speaking of Pisanio, declares that he is\n\n \"A sly and constant knave,\n Not to be shak'd; the agent for his master,\n And the remembrancer of her, to hold\n The hand-fast to her lord.\"\n\nIn the \"Christian State of Matrimony,\" 1543, we find the following\nillustration of this custom: \"Yet in this thing almost must I warn every\nreasonable and honest person to beware that in the contracting of\nmarriage they dissemble not, nor set forth any lie. Every man, likewise,\nmust esteem the person to whom he is 'handfasted' none otherwise than\nfor his own spouse; though as yet it be not done in the church, nor in\nthe street. After the handfasting and making of the contract, the\nchurch-going and wedding should not be deferred too long.\" The author\nthen goes on to rebuke a custom \"that at the handfasting there is made a\ngreat feast and superfluous banquet.\" Sir John Sinclair, in the\n\"Statistical account of Scotland\" (1794, vol. xii. p. 615), tells us\nthat at a fair annually held at Eskdalemuir, Dumfriesshire, \"it was the\ncustom for the unmarried persons of both sexes to choose a companion\naccording to their liking, with whom they were to live till that time\nnext year. This was called 'handfasting,' or hand-in-fist. If they were\npleased with each other at that time then they continued together for\nlife; if not, they separated, and were free to make another choice as at\nthe first.\"\n\nShakespeare has given us numerous illustrations of the marriage customs\nof our forefathers, many of which are interesting as relics of the past,\nowing to their having long ago fallen into disuse. The fashion of\nintroducing a bowl of wine into the church at a wedding, which is\nalluded to in the \"Taming of the Shrew\" (iii. 2), to be drunk by the\nbride and bridegroom and persons present, immediately after the marriage\nceremony, is very ancient. Gremio relates how Petruchio\n\n \"stamp'd and swore,\n As if the vicar meant to cozen him.\n But after many ceremonies done,\n He calls for wine:--'A health!' quoth he, as if\n He had been aboard, carousing to his mates\n After a storm:--quaff'd off the muscadel,\n And threw the sops[714] all in the sexton's face;\n Having no other reason\n But that his beard grew thin and hungerly,\n And seem'd to ask him sops as he was drinking.\"\n\n [714] Sops in wine.\n\nIt existed even among our Gothic ancestors, and is mentioned in the\nordinances of the household of Henry VII., \"For the Marriage of a\nPrincess:--'Then pottes of ipocrice to be ready, and to be put into\ncupps with soppe, and to be borne to the estates, and to take a soppe\nand drinke.'\" It was also practised at the magnificent marriage of Queen\nMary and Philip, in Winchester Cathedral, and at the marriage of the\nElector Palatine to the daughter of James I., in 1612-13. Indeed, it\nappears to have been the practice at most marriages. In Jonson's\n\"Magnetic Lady\" it is called a \"knitting cup;\" in Middleton's \"No Wit\nlike a Woman's,\" the \"contracting cup.\" In Robert Armin's comedy of \"The\nHistory of the Two Maids of More Clacke,\" 1609, the play begins with:\n\n \"_Enter a maid strewing flowers, and a serving-man perfuming the door._\n\n _Maid._ Strew, strew.\n\n _Man._ The muscadine stays for the bride at church:\n The priest and Hymen's ceremonies tend\n To make them man and wife.\"\n\nAgain, in Beaumont and Fletcher's \"Scornful Lady\" (i. 1), the custom is\nreferred to:[715]\n\n \"If my wedding-smock were on,\n Were the gloves bought and given, the license come,\n Were the rosemary branches dipp'd, and all\n The hippocras and cakes eat and drunk off.\"\n\n [715] See \"Brand's Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. pp. 136, 139.\n\nWe find it enjoined in the Hereford missal. By the Sarum missal it is\ndirected that the sops immersed in this wine, as well as the liquor\nitself, and the cup that contained it, should be blessed by the priest.\nThe beverage used on this occasion was to be drunk by the bride and\nbridegroom and the rest of the company.\n\nThe nuptial kiss in the church was anciently part of the marriage\nceremony, as appears from a rubric in one of the Salisbury missals. In\nthe \"Taming of the Shrew,\" Shakespeare has made an excellent use of this\ncustom, where he relates how Petruchio (iii. 2)\n\n \"took the bride about the neck\n And kiss'd her lips with such a clamorous smack\n That, at the parting, all the church did echo.\"\n\nAgain, in \"Richard II.\" (v. 1), where the Duke of Northumberland\nannounces to the king that he is to be sent to Pomfret, and his wife to\nbe banished to France, the king exclaims:\n\n \"Doubly divorc'd!--Bad men, ye violate\n A twofold marriage,--'twixt my crown and me,\n And then, betwixt me and my married wife.--\n Let me unkiss the oath twixt thee and me;\n And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made.\"\n\nMarston, too, in his \"Insatiate Countess,\" mentions it:\n\n \"The kisse thou gav'st me in the church, here take.\"\n\nThe practice is still kept up among the poor; and Brand[716] says it is\n\"still customary among persons of middling rank as well as the vulgar,\nin most parts of England, for the young men present at the marriage\nceremony to salute the bride, one by one, the moment it is concluded.\"\n\n [716] \"Pop. Antiq.,\" vol. ii. p. 140.\n\nMusic was the universal accompaniment of weddings in olden times.[717]\nThe allusions to wedding music that may be found in the works of\nShakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other Elizabethan dramatists, testify, as\nMr. Jeaffreson points out, that, in the opinion of their contemporaries,\na wedding without the braying of trumpets and beating of drums and\nclashing of cymbals was a poor affair. In \"As You Like It\" (v. 4), Hymen\nsays:\n\n \"Whiles a wedlock-hymn we sing.\"\n\n [717] \"Brides and Bridals,\" 1873, vol. i. p. 252.\n\nAnd in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iv. 5), Capulet says:\n\n \"Our wedding cheer, to a sad burial feast;\n Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change.\"\n\nIt seems to have been customary for the bride at her wedding to wear her\nhair unbraided and hanging loose over her shoulders. There may be an\nallusion to this custom in \"King John\" (iii. 1), where Constance says:\n\n \"O Lewis, stand fast! the devil tempts thee here\n In likeness of a new untrimmed bride.\"\n\nAt the celebration of her marriage with the Palatine, Elizabeth Stuart\nwore \"her hair dishevelled and hanging down her shoulders.\" Heywood\nspeaks of this practice in the following graphic words:\n\n \"At length the blushing bride comes, with her hair\n Dishevelled 'bout her shoulders.\"\n\nIt has been suggested that the bride's veil, which of late years has\nbecome one of the most conspicuous features of her costume, may be\nnothing more than a milliner's substitute, which in old time concealed\nnot a few of the bride's personal attractions, and covered her face when\nshe knelt at the altar. Mr. Jeaffreson[718] thinks it may be ascribed to\nthe Hebrew ceremony; or has come from the East, where veils have been\nworn from time immemorial. Some, again, connect it with the yellow veil\nwhich was worn by the Roman brides. Strange, too, as it may appear, it\nis nevertheless certain that knives and daggers were formerly part of\nthe customary accoutrements of brides. Thus, Shakespeare, in the old\nquarto, 1597, makes Juliet wear a knife at the friar's cell, and when\nshe is about to take the potion. This custom, however, is easily\naccounted for, when we consider that women anciently wore a knife\nsuspended from their girdle. Many allusions to this practice occur in\nold writers.[719] In Dekker's \"Match Me in London,\" 1631, a bride says\nto her jealous husband:\n\n \"See, at my girdle hang my wedding knives!\n With those dispatch me.\"\n\n [718] \"Brides and Bridals,\" vol. i. p. 177.\n\n [719] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. pp. 131-133.\n\nIn the \"Witch of Edmonton,\" 1658, Somerton says:\n\n \"But see, the bridegroom and bride come; the new\n Pair of Sheffield knives fitted both to one sheath.\"\n\nAmong other wedding customs alluded to by Shakespeare we may mention\none referred to in \"Taming of the Shrew\" (ii. 1), where Katharina,\nspeaking of Bianca, says to her father:\n\n \"She is your treasure, she must have a husband:\n I must dance bare-foot on her wedding-day,\n And, for your love to her, lead apes in hell,\"\n\nit being a popular notion that unless the elder sisters danced barefoot\nat the marriage of a younger one, they would inevitably become old\nmaids, and be condemned \"to lead apes in hell.\" The expression \"to lead\napes in hell,\" applied above to old maids, has given rise to much\ndiscussion, and the phrase has not yet been satisfactorily explained.\nSteevens suggests that it might be considered an act of posthumous\nretribution for women who refused to bear children to be condemned to\nthe care of apes in leading-strings after death. Malone says that \"to\nlead apes\" was in Shakespeare's time one of the employments of a\nbear-ward, who often carried about one of these animals with his bear.\nNares explains the expression by reference to the word ape as denoting a\nfool, it probably meaning that those coquettes who made fools of men,\nand led them about without real intention of marriage, would have them\nstill to lead against their will hereafter. In \"Much Ado About Nothing\"\n(ii. 1), Beatrice says: \"therefore I will even take sixpence in earnest\nof the bear-ward, and lead his apes into hell.\" Douce[720] tells us that\nhomicides and adulterers were in ancient times compelled, by way of\npunishment, to lead an ape by the neck, with their mouths affixed in a\nvery unseemly manner to the animal's tail.\n\n [720] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 203.\n\nIn accordance with an old custom, the bride, on the wedding-night, had\nto dance with every guest, and play the amiable, however much against\nher own wishes. In \"Henry VIII.\" (v. 2), there seems to be an allusion\nto this practice, where the king says:\n\n \"I had thought,\n They had parted so much honesty among them,\n At least, good manners, as not thus to suffer\n A man of his place, and so near our favour,\n To dance attendance on their lordships' pleasures.\"\n\nIn the \"Christian State of Matrimony\" (1543) we read thus: \"Then must\nthe poor bryde kepe foote with a dauncers, and refuse none, how scabbed,\nfoule, droncken, rude, and shameless soever he be.\"\n\nAs in our own time, so, too, formerly, flowers entered largely into the\nmarriage festivities. Most readers will at once call to mind that\ntouching scene in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iv. 5), where Capulet says,\nreferring to Juliet's supposed untimely death:\n\n \"Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse.\"\n\nIt seems, too, in days gone by to have been customary to deck the bridal\nbed with flowers, various allusions to which are given by Shakespeare.\nThus, in \"Hamlet\" (v. 1), the queen, speaking of poor Ophelia, says:\n\n \"I hop'd thou should'st have been my Hamlet's wife;\n I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid.\"\n\nIn \"The Tempest\" (iv. 1) we may compare the words of Prospero, who,\nalluding to the marriage of his daughter Miranda with Ferdinand, by way\nof warning, cautions them lest\n\n \"barren hate,\n Sour-ey'd disdain and discord shall bestrew\n The union of your bed with weeds so loathly\n That you shall hate it both.\"\n\nIn the Papal times no new-married couple could go to bed together till\nthe bridal-bed had been blessed--this being considered one of the most\nimportant of the marriage ceremonies. \"On the evening of the\nwedding-day,\" says Mr. Jeaffreson,[721] \"when the married couple sat in\nstate in the bridal-bed, before the exclusion of the guests, who\nassembled to commend them yet again to Heaven's keeping, one or more\npriests, attended by acolytes swinging to and fro lighted censers,\nappeared in the crowded chamber to bless the couch, its occupants, and\nthe truckle-bed, and fumigate the room with hallowing incense.\" In \"A\nMidsummer-Night's Dream\" (v. 1), Oberon says:\n\n \"Now, until the break of day,\n Through this house each fairy stray.\n To the best bride-bed will we,\n Which by us shall blessed be;\n And the issue there create\n Ever shall be fortunate.\"\n\n [721] \"Brides and Bridals,\" vol. i. p. 98; see Brand's \"Pop.\n Antiq.,\" vol. ii. p. 175.\n\nSteevens, in illustration of this custom, quotes from Chaucer's \"The\nMerchant's Tale\" (ed. Tyrwhitt), line 9693:\n\n \"And when the bed was with the preest yblessed.\"\n\nThe formula for this curious ceremony is thus given in the Manual for\nthe use of Salisbury: \"Nocte vero sequente cum sponsus et sponsa ad\nlectum pervenerint, accedat sacerdos et benedicat thalamum, dicens.\nBenedic, Domine, thalamum istum et omnes habitantes in eo; ut in tua\npace consistant, et in tua voluntate permaneant: et in tuo amore vivant\net senescant et multiplicentur in longitudine dierum. Per Dominum.--Item\nbenedictio super lectum. Benedic, Domine, hoc cubiculum, respice, quinon\ndormis neque dormitas. Qui custodis Israel, custodi famulos tuos in hoc\nlecto quiescentes ab omnibus fantasmaticis demonum illusionibus. Custodi\neos vigilantes ut in preceptis tuis meditentur dormientes, et te per\nsoporem sentiant; ut hic et ubique depensionis tu\u00e6 muniantur auxilio.\nPer Dominum.--Deinde fiat benedictio super eos in lecto tantum cum\noremus. Benedicat Deus corpora vestra et animas vestras; et det super\neos benedictionem sicut benedixit Abraham, Isaac, et Jacob, Amen. His\nperactis aspergat eos aqua benedicta, et sic discedat et dimittat eos in\npace.\"[722]\n\n [722] See Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" pp. 123, 124.\n\nIn the French romance of Melusine, the bishop who marries her to\nRaymondin blesses the nuptial-bed. The ceremony is there presented in a\nvery ancient cut, of which Douce has given a copy. The good prelate is\nsprinkling the parties with holy water. It appears that, occasionally,\nduring the benediction, the married couple only sat on the bed; but\nthey generally received a portion of the consecrated bread and wine. It\nis recorded in France, that, on frequent occasions, the priest was\nimproperly detained till midnight, while the wedding guests rioted in\nthe luxuries of the table, and made use of language that was extremely\noffensive to the clergy. It was therefore ordained, in the year 1577,\nthat the ceremony of blessing the nuptial-bed should for the future be\nperformed in the day-time, or at least before supper, and in the\npresence of the bride and bridegroom, and of their nearest relations\nonly.\n\nOn the morning after the celebration of the marriage, it was formerly\ncustomary for friends to serenade a newly married couple, or to greet\nthem with a morning song to bid them good-morrow. In \"Othello\" (iii. 1)\nthis custom is referred to by Cassio, who, speaking of Othello and\nDesdemona, says to the musicians:\n\n \"Masters, play here; I will content your pains:\n Something that's brief; and bid, 'Good morrow, general.'\"\n\nAccording to Cotgrave, the morning-song to a newly married woman was\ncalled the \"hunt's up.\" It has been suggested that this may be alluded\nto by Juliet (iii. 5), who, when urging Romeo to make his escape, tells\nhim:\n\n \"Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes;\n O, now I would they had chang'd voices too!\n Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,\n Hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day.\n O, now be gone.\"\n\nIn olden times torches were used at weddings--a practice, indeed, dating\nas far back as the time of the Romans. From the following lines in\nHerrick's \"Hesperides,\" it has been suggested that the custom once\nexisted in this country:\n\n \"_Upon a maid that dyed the day she was marryed._\n\n That morne which saw me made a bride,\n The ev'ning witnest that I dy'd.\n Those holy lights, wherewith they guide\n Unto the bed the bashful bride,\n Serv'd but as tapers for to burne\n And light my reliques to their urne.\n This epitaph which here you see,\n Supply'd the Epithalamie.\"[723]\n\n [723] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. p. 159.\n\nShakespeare alludes to this custom in \"1 Henry VI.\" (iii. 2), where Joan\nof Arc, thrusting out a burning torch on the top of the tower at Rouen,\nexclaims:\n\n \"Behold, this is the happy wedding torch,\n That joineth Rouen unto her countrymen.\"\n\nIn \"The Tempest,\" too (iv. 1), Iris says:\n\n \"no bed-right shall be paid\n Till Hymen's torch be lighted.\"\n\nAccording to a Roman marriage custom, the bride, on her entry into her\nhusband's house, was prohibited from treading over his threshold, and\nlest she should even so much as touch it, she was always lifted over it.\nShakespeare seems inadvertently to have overlooked this usage in\n\"Coriolanus\" (iv. 5), where he represents Aufidius as saying:\n\n \"I lov'd the maid I married; never man\n Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here,\n Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart,\n Than when I first my wedded mistress saw\n Bestride my threshold.\"\n\nLucan in his \"Pharsalia\" (lib. ii. 1. 359), says:\n\n \"Translata vetuit contingere limina planta.\"\n\nOnce more, Sunday appears to have been a popular day for marriages; the\nbrides of the Elizabethan dramas being usually represented as married on\nSundays. In the \"Taming of the Shrew\" (ii. 1), Petruchio, after telling\nhis future father-in-law \"that upon Sunday is the wedding-day,\" and\nlaughing at Katharina's petulant exclamation, \"I'll see thee hanged on\nSunday first,\" says:\n\n \"Father, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu;\n I will to Venice; Sunday comes apace:--\n We will have rings, and things, and fine array;\n And, kiss me, Kate, we will be married o' Sunday.\"\n\nThus Mr. Jeaffreson, speaking of this custom in his \"Brides and\nBridals,\" rightly remarks: \"A fashionable wedding, celebrated on the\nLord's Day in London, or any part of England, would nowadays be\ndenounced by religious people of all Christian parties. But in our\nfeudal times, and long after the Reformation, Sunday was of all days of\nthe week the favorite one for marriages. Long after the theatres had\nbeen closed on Sundays, the day of rest was the chief day for weddings\nwith Londoners of every social class.\"\n\nLove-charms have from the earliest times been much in request among the\ncredulous, anxious to gain an insight into their matrimonial\nprospects.[724] In the \"Merchant of Venice\" (v. 1), we have an allusion\nto the practice of kneeling and praying at wayside crosses for a happy\nmarriage, in the passage where Stephano tells how his mistress\n\n \"doth stray about\n By holy crosses, where she kneels and prays\n For happy wedlock hours.\"\n\n [724] See \"Merry Wives of Windsor,\" iv. 2.\n\nThe use of love-potions by a despairing lover, to secure the affections\nof another, was a superstitious practice much resorted to in olden\ntimes.[725] This mode of enchantment, too, was formerly often employed\nin our own country, and Gay, in his \"Shepherd's Week,\" relates how\nHobnelia was guilty of this questionable practice:\n\n \"As I was wont, I trudged, last market-day,\n To town with new-laid eggs, preserved in hay.\n I made my market long before 'twas night;\n My purse grew heavy, and my basket light.\n Straight to the 'pothecary's shop I went,\n And in love-powder all my money spent.\n Behap what will, next Sunday after prayers,\n When to the ale-house Lubberkin repairs,\n These golden flies into his mug I'll throw,\n And soon the swain with fervent love shall glow.\"\n\n [725] See Potter's \"Antiquities of Greece;\" Brand's \"Pop.\n Antiq.,\" vol. iii. p. 306.\n\nIn the \"Character of a Quack Astrologer,\" 1673, quoted by Brand, we are\ntold how \"he trappans a young heiress to run away with a footman, by\npersuading a young girl 'tis her destiny; and sells the old and ugly\nphiltres and love-powder to procure them sweethearts.\" Shakespeare has\nrepresented Othello as accused of winning Desdemona \"by conjuration and\nmighty magic.\" Thus Brabantio (i. 2) says:\n\n \"thou hast practised on her with foul charms;\n Abus'd her delicate youth with drugs, or minerals,\n That weaken motion.\"\n\nAnd in the following scene he further repeats the same charge against\nOthello:\n\n \"She is abus'd, stol'n from me, and corrupted\n By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;\n For nature so preposterously to err,\n Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense,\n Sans witchcraft could not.\"\n\nOthello, however, in proving that he had won Desdemona only by honorable\nmeans, addressing the Duke, replies:\n\n \"by your gracious patience,\n I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver\n Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms,\n What conjuration, and what mighty magic,--\n For such proceeding I am charg'd withal,--\n I won his daughter.\"\n\nIt may have escaped the poet's notice that, by the Venetian law, the\ngiving love-potions was held highly criminal, as appears in the code\n\"Della Promission del Malefico,\" cap. xvii., \"Del Maleficii et\nHerbarie.\"\n\nA further allusion to this practice occurs in \"A Midsummer-Night's\nDream\" (ii. 1). where Puck and Oberon amuse themselves at Titania's\nexpense.[726]\n\n [726] See page 227.\n\nAn expression common in Shakespeare's day for any one born out of\nwedlock is mentioned by the Bastard in \"King John\" (i. 1):\n\n \"In at the window, or else o'er the hatch.\"\n\nThe old saying also that \"Hanging and wiving go by destiny\" is quoted by\nNerissa in the \"Merchant of Venice\" (ii. 9). In \"Much Ado About Nothing\"\n(ii. 1), Don Pedro makes use of an old popular phrase in asking Claudio:\n\"When mean you to go to church?\" referring to his marriage.\n\nA solemn and even melancholy air was often affected by the beaux of\nQueen Elizabeth's time, as a refined mark of gentility, a most sad and\npathetic allusion to which custom is made by Arthur in \"King John\" (iv.\n1):\n\n \"Methinks, nobody should be sad but I:\n Yet, I remember, when I was in France,\n Young gentlemen would be as sad as night,\n Only for wantonness.\"[727]\n\n [727] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 563.\n\nThere are frequent references to this fashion in our old writers. Thus,\nin Ben Jonson's \"Every Man in His Humor\" (i. 3), we read: \"Why, I do\nthink of it; and I will be more proud, and melancholy, and gentlemanlike\nthan I have been, I'll insure you.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nDEATH AND BURIAL.\n\n\nFrom a very early period there has been a belief in the existence of a\npower of prophecy at that period which precedes death. It took its\norigin in the assumed fact that the soul becomes divine in the same\nratio as its connection with the body is loosened. It has been urged in\nsupport of this theory that at the hour of death the soul is, as it\nwere, on the confines of two worlds, and may possibly at the same moment\npossess a power which is both prospective and retrospective.\nShakespeare, in \"Richard II.\" (ii. 1), makes the dying Gaunt exclaim,\nalluding to his nephew, the young and self-willed king:\n\n \"Methinks I am a prophet new inspir'd,\n And thus, expiring, do foretell of him.\"\n\nAgain, the brave Percy, in \"1 Henry IV.\" (v. 4), when in the agonies of\ndeath, expresses the same idea:\n\n \"O, I could prophesy,\n But that the earthy and cold hand of death\n Lies on my tongue.\"\n\nWe may also compare what Nerissa says of Portia's father in \"Merchant of\nVenice\" (i. 2), \"Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men, at their\ndeath, have good inspirations.\"\n\nCurious to say, this notion may be traced up to the time of Homer. Thus\nPatroclus prophesies the death of Hector (\"Iliad,\" [Greek: p]. 852):\n\"You yourself are not destined to live long, for even now death is\ndrawing nigh unto you, and a violent fate awaits you--about to be slain\nin fight by the hands of Achilles.\" Aristotle tells us that the soul,\nwhen on the point of death, foretells things about to happen. Others\nhave sought for the foundation of this belief in the 49th chapter of\nGenesis: \"And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves\ntogether, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last\ndays.... And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he\ngathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was\ngathered unto his people.\" Whether, however, we accept this origin or\nnot, at any rate it is very certain that the notion in question has\nexisted from the earliest times, being alluded to also by Socrates,\nXenophon, and Diodorus Siculus. It still lingers on in Lancashire and\nother parts of England.\n\nAmong other omens of death may be mentioned high spirits, which have\nbeen supposed to presage impending death. Thus, in \"Romeo and Juliet\"\n(v. 3), Romeo exclaims:\n\n \"How oft, when men are at the point of death,\n Have they been merry! which their keepers call\n A lightning before death.\"\n\nThis idea is noticed by Ray, who inserts it as a proverb, \"It's a\nlightening before death;\" and adds this note: \"This is generally\nobserved of sick persons, that a little before they die their pains\nleave them, and their understanding and memory return to them--as a\ncandle just before it goes out gives a great blaze.\" It was also a\nsuperstitious notion that unusual mirth was a forerunner of adversity.\nThus, in the last act of \"Romeo and Juliet\" (sc. 1) Romeo comes on,\nsaying:\n\n \"If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,\n My dreams presage some joyful news at hand:\n My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne;\n And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit\n Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.\"\n\nImmediately, however, a messenger enters to announce Juliet's death.\n\nIn \"Richard III.\" (iii. 2), Hastings is represented as rising in the\nmorning in unusually high spirits. Stanley says:\n\n \"The lords at Pomfret, when they rode from London,\n Were jocund, and suppos'd their state was sure,\n And they, indeed, had no cause to mistrust;\n But yet, you see, how soon the day o'ercast.\"\n\nThis idea, it may be noted, runs throughout the whole scene. Before\ndinner-time, Hastings was beheaded.\n\nOnce more, in \"2 Henry IV.\" (iv. 2), the same notion is alluded to in\nthe following dialogue:\n\n \"_Westmoreland._ Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray.\n\n _Mowbray._ You wish me health in very happy season;\n For I am, on the sudden, something ill.\n\n _Archbishop._ Against ill chances men are ever merry;\n But heaviness foreruns the good event.\n\n _Westmoreland._ Therefore be merry, coz; since sudden sorrow\n Serves to say thus, 'Some good thing comes to-morrow.'\n\n _Archbishop._ Believe me, I am passing light in spirit.\n\n _Mowbray._ So much the worse, if your own rule be true.\"\n\nTytler, in his \"History of Scotland,\" thus speaks of the death of King\nJames I.: \"On this fatal evening (Feb. 20, 1437), the revels of the\ncourt were kept up to a late hour. The prince himself appears to have\nbeen in unusually gay and cheerful spirits. He even jested, if we may\nbelieve the contemporary manuscript, about a prophecy which had declared\nthat a king that year should be slain.\" Shelley strongly entertained\nthis superstition: \"During all the time he spent in Leghorn, he was in\nbrilliant spirits, to him a sure prognostic of coming evil.\"\n\nAgain, it is a very common opinion that death announces its approach by\ncertain mysterious noises, a notion, indeed, which may be traced up to\nthe time of the Romans, who believed that the genius of death announced\nhis approach by some supernatural warning. In \"Troilus and Cressida\"\n(iv. 4), Troilus says:\n\n \"Hark! you are call'd: some say, the Genius so\n Cries 'Come!' to him that instantly must die.\"\n\nThis superstition was frequently made use of by writers of bygone times,\nand often served to embellish, with touching pathos, their poetic\nsentiment. Thus Flatman, in some pretty lines, has embodied this\nthought:\n\n \"My soul, just now about to take her flight,\n Into the regions of eternal night,\n Methinks I hear some gentle spirit say,\n Be not fearful, come away.\"\n\nPope speaks in the same strain:\n\n \"Hark! they whisper, angels say,\n Sister spirit, come away.\"\n\nShakespeare, too, further alludes to this idea in \"Macbeth\" (ii. 3),\nwhere, it may be remembered, Lennox graphically describes how, on the\nawful night in which Duncan is so basely murdered:\n\n \"Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,\n Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death;\n And prophesying, with accents terrible,\n Of dire combustion, and confus'd events,\n New hatch'd to the woful time.\"\n\nAs in Shakespeare's day, so, too, at the present time, there is perhaps\nno superstition so deeply rooted in the minds of many people as the\nbelief in what are popularly termed \"death-warnings.\" Modern folk-lore\nholds either that a knocking or rumbling in the floor is an omen of a\ndeath about to happen, or that dying persons themselves announce their\ndissolution to their friends in such strange sounds.[728] Many families\nare supposed to have particular warnings, such as the appearance of a\nbird, the figure of a tall woman, etc. Such, moreover, are not confined\nto our own country, but in a variety of forms are found on the\nContinent. According to another belief, it was generally supposed that\nwhen a man was on his death-bed the devil or his agents tried to seize\nhis soul, if it should happen that he died without receiving the\nsacrament of the Eucharist, or without confessing his sins. Hence, in \"2\nHenry VI.\" (iii. 3), the king says:\n\n \"O, beat away the busy meddling fiend\n That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul,\n And from his bosom purge this black despair.\"\n\n [728] Tylor's \"Primitive Culture,\" 1873, vol. i. p. 145.\n\nIn the old Office books of the Church, these \"busy meddling fiends\" are\noften represented with great anxiety besieging the dying man; but on the\napproach of the priest and his attendants, they are shown to display\nsymptoms of despair at their impending discomfiture. Douce[729] quotes\nfrom an ancient manuscript book of devotion, written in the reign of\nHenry VI., the following prayer to St. George: \"Judge for me whan the\nmoste hedyous and damnable dragons of helle shall be redy to take my\npoore soule and engloute it in to theyr infernall belyes.\"\n\n [729] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1829, pp. 324-326.\n\nSome think that the \"passing-bell,\" which was formerly tolled for a\nperson who was dying, was intended to drive away the evil spirit that\nmight be hovering about to seize the soul of the deceased. Its object,\nhowever, was probably to bespeak the prayers of the faithful, and to\nserve as a solemn warning to the living. Shakespeare has given several\ntouching allusions to it. Thus, in Sonnet lxxi. he says:\n\n \"No longer mourn for me when I am dead,\n Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell\n Give warning to the world that I am fled\n From this vile world.\"\n\nIn \"2 Henry IV.\" (i. 1), Northumberland speaks in the same strain:\n\n \"Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news\n Hath but a losing office: and his tongue\n Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,\n Remember'd knolling a departing friend.\"\n\nWe may quote a further allusion in \"Venus and Adonis\" (l. 701):\n\n \"And now his grief may be compared well\n To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell.\"\n\nIn a statute passed during the reign of Henry VIII., it is ordered \"that\nclarks are to ring no more than the passing bell for poare people, nor\nless for an honest householder, and he be a citizen; nor for children,\nmaydes, journeymen, apprentices, day-labourers, or any other poare\nperson.\" In 1662, the Bishop of Worcester[730] asks, in his visitation\ncharge: \"Doth the parish clerk or sexton take care to admonish the\nliving, by tolling of a passing-bell, of any that are dying, thereby to\nmeditate of their own deaths, and to commend the other's weak condition\nto the mercy of God?\" It was, also, called the \"soul-bell,\" upon which\nBishop Hall remarks: \"We call it the soul-bell because it signifies the\ndeparture of the soul, not because it helps the passage of the soul.\"\nRay, in his \"Collection of Proverbs,\" has the following couplet:\n\n \"When thou dost hear a toll or knell\n Then think upon thy passing-bell.\"\n\n [730] \"Annals of Worcester,\" 1845.\n\nIt was formerly customary to draw away the pillow from under the heads\nof dying persons, so as to accelerate their departure--an allusion to\nwhich we find in \"Timon of Athens\" (iv. 3), where Timon says:\n\n \"Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads.\"\n\nThis, no doubt, originated in the notion that a person cannot die\nhappily on a bed made of pigeons' feathers. Grose says: \"It is\nimpossible for a person to die whilst resting on a pillow stuffed with\nthe feathers of a dove; but that he will struggle with death in the most\nexquisite torture. The pillows of dying persons are therefore frequently\ntaken away when they appear in great agonies, lest they may have\npigeon's feathers in them.\" Indeed, in Lancashire, this practice is\ncarried to such an extent that some will not allow dying persons to lie\non a feather bed, because they hold that it very much increases their\npain and suffering, and actually retards their departure.[731]\n\n [731] Harland and Wilkinson's \"Lancashire Folk-Lore,\" 1869, p.\n 268; see \"English Folk-Lore,\" 1878, pp. 99, 100; also \"Notes\n and Queries,\" 1st series, vol. iv. p. 133.\n\nThe departure of the human soul from this world, and its journey to its\nuntried future, have become interwoven with an extensive network of\nsuperstitions, varying more or less in every country and tribe.\nShakespeare has alluded to the numerous destinations of the disembodied\nspirit, enumerating the many ideas prevalent in his time on the subject.\nIn \"Measure for Measure\" (iii. 1), Claudio thus speaks:\n\n \"Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;\n To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;\n This sensible warm motion to become\n A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit\n To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside\n In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;\n To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,\n And blown with restless violence round about\n The pendent world.\"[732]\n\n [732] Cf. Milton's \"Paradise Lost,\" v. 595-683.\n\nWe may compare also the powerful language of Othello (v. 2):\n\n \"This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,\n And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl!\n Even like thy chastity.--\n O cursed, cursed slave! Whip me, ye devils,\n From the possession of this heavenly sight!\n Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur!\n Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!\n O Desdemona! Desdemona! dead!\"\n\nDouce[733] says that in the former passage it is difficult to decide\nwhether Shakespeare is alluding to the pains of hell or purgatory. Both\npassages are obscure, and have given rise to much criticism. It seems\nprobable, however, that while partly referring to the notions of the\ntime, relating to departed souls, Shakespeare has in a great measure\nincorporated the ideas of what he had read in books of Catholic\ndivinity. The passages quoted above remind us of the legend of St.\nPatrick's purgatory, where mention is made of a lake of ice and snow\ninto which persons were plunged up to their necks; and of the\ndescription of hell given in the \"Shepherd's Calendar:\"\n\n \"a great froste in a water rounes\n And after a bytter wynde comes\n Which gothe through the soules with eyre;\n Fends with pokes pulle theyr flesshe ysondre,\n They fight and curse, and eche on other wonder.\"\n\n [733] See \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, pp. 82, 83.\n\nWe cannot here enter, however, into the mass of mystic details\nrespecting \"the soul's dread journey[734] by caverns and rocky paths and\nweary plains, over steep and slippery mountains, by frail bank or giddy\nbridge, across gulfs or rushing rivers, abiding the fierce onset of the\nsoul-destroyer or the doom of the stern guardian of the other world.\"\nFew subjects, indeed, have afforded greater scope for the imagination\nthan the hereafter of the human soul, and hence, as might be expected,\nnumerous myths have been invented in most countries to account for its\nmysterious departure in the hour of death, from the world of living men\nto its unseen, unknown home in the distant land of spirits.\n\n [734] Tylor's \"Primitive Culture,\" vol. ii. p. 46.\n\nShakespeare several times uses the word \"limbo\" in a general\nsignification for hell, as in \"Titus Andronicus\" (iii. 1):\n\n \"As far from help as limbo is from bliss.\"\n\nAnd in \"All's Well that Ends Well\" (v. 3), Parolles says: \"for, indeed,\nhe was mad for her, and talked of Satan, and of limbo, and of furies,\nand I know not what.\" In \"Henry VIII.\" (v. 4), \"in Limbo Patrum\" is\njocularly put for a prison; and, again, in \"Comedy of Errors\" (iv. 2),\n\"he's in Tartar limbo.\" \"According to the schoolmen, _Limbus Patrum_ was\nthe place, bordering on hell, where the souls of the patriarchs and\nsaints of the Old Testament remained till the death of Christ, who,\ndescending into hell, set them free.\"[735]\n\n [735] Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 246.\n\nOne of the punishments invented of old for the covetous and avaricious,\nin hell, was to have melted gold poured down their throats, to which\nallusion is made by Flaminius, in \"Timon of Athens\" (iii. 1), who,\ndenouncing Lucullus for his mean insincerity towards his friend Timon,\nexclaims, on rejecting the bribe offered him to tell his master that he\nhad not seen him:\n\n \"May these add to the number that may scald thee!\n Let molten coin be thy damnation.\"\n\nIn the \"Shepherd's Calendar,\" Lazarus declares himself to have seen\ncovetous men and women in hell dipped in caldrons of molten lead. Malone\nquotes the following from an old black-letter ballad of \"The Dead Man's\nSong:\"\n\n \"Ladles full of melted gold\n Were poured down their throats.\"\n\nCrassus was so punished by the Parthians.[736]\n\n [736] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" 1875, vol. viii. p. 291.\n\nThere is possibly a further allusion to this imaginary punishment in\n\"Antony and Cleopatra\" (ii. 5), where Cleopatra says to the messenger:\n\n \"But, sirrah, mark, we use\n To say, the dead are well: bring it to that,\n The gold I give thee will I melt, and pour\n Down thy ill-uttering throat.\"\n\nAccording to a well-known superstition among sailors, it is considered\nhighly unlucky to keep a corpse on board, in case of a death at sea.\nThus, in \"Pericles\" (iii. 1), this piece of folk-lore is alluded to:\n\n \"_1 Sailor._ Sir, your queen must overboard; the sea works\n high, the wind is loud, and will not lie till the ship be\n cleared of the dead.\n\n _Pericles._ That's your superstition.\n\n _1 Sailor._ Pardon us, sir; with us at sea it hath been still\n observed; and we are strong in custom. Therefore briefly yield\n her; for she must overboard straight.\"\n\nIt was also a popular opinion that death is delayed until the ebb of the\ntide--a superstition to which Mrs. Quickly refers in \"Henry V.\" (ii. 3);\nspeaking of Falstaff's death, she says: \"'A made a finer end, and went\naway, an it had been any christom child; 'a parted even just between\ntwelve and one, even at the turning o' the tide.\" Hence, in cases of\nsickness, many pretended that they could foretell the hour of the soul's\ndeparture. It may be remembered how Mr. Peggotty explained to David\nCopperfield, by poor Barkis's bedside, that \"people can't die along the\ncoast except when the tide's pretty nigh out. They can't be born unless\nit's pretty nigh in--not properly born till flood. He's a-going out with\nthe tide--he's a-going out with the tide. It's ebb at half arter three,\nslack-water half an hour. If he lives till it turns he'll hold his own\ntill past the flood, and go out with the next tide.\" Mr. Henderson[737]\nquotes from the parish register of Heslidon, near Hartlepool, the\nsubjoined extracts of old date, in which the state of the tide at the\ntime of death is mentioned:\n\n \"The xith daye of Maye, A.D. 1595, at vi. of ye clocke in the\n morninge, being full water, Mr. Henrye Mitford, of Hoolam, died\n at Newcastel, and was buried the xvith daie, being Sondaie, at\n evening prayer, the hired preacher maid ye sermon.\"\n\n \"The xviith daie of Maie, at xii. of ye clock at noon, being\n lowe water, Mrs. Barbara Mitford died, and was buried the\n xviiith daie of Maie, at ix. of the clocke. Mr. Holsworth maid\n ye sermon.\"\n\n [737] \"Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,\" 1880, p. 58.\n\nAccording to Mr. Henderson, this belief is common along the east coast\nof England, from Northumberland to Kent. It has been suggested that\nthere may be \"some slight foundation for this belief in the change of\ntemperature which undoubtedly takes place on the change of tide, and\nwhich may act on the flickering spark of life, extinguishing it as the\nebbing sea recedes.\"\n\nWe may compare, too, the following passage in \"2 Henry IV.\" (iv. 4),\nwhere Clarence, speaking of the approaching death of the king, says:\n\n \"The river hath thrice flow'd, no ebb between;\n And the old folk, time's doting chronicles,\n Say it did so a little time before\n That our great grandsire, Edward, sick'd and died.\"\n\nThis was an historical fact, having happened on October 12, 1411.\n\nThe prayers of the Church, which are used for the recovery of the sick,\nwere, in the olden time, also supposed to have a morbific influence, to\nwhich Gloster attributes the death of the king in \"1 Henry VI.\" (i. 1):\n\n \"The church! where is it? Had not churchmen pray'd,\n His thread of life had not so soon decay'd.\"\n\nOnce more, the custom of closing the eyes at the moment of death is\ntouchingly referred to in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (v. 2), where Charmian\nmay be supposed to close Cleopatra's eyes:\n\n \"Downy windows, close;\n And golden Phoebus never be beheld\n Of eyes again so royal.\"\n\nPassing on from that solemn moment in human life when the soul takes its\nflight from the fragile tenement of clay that contained it during its\nearthly existence, we find that, even among the lowest savages, there\nhas generally been a certain respect paid to the dead body; and,\nconsequently, various superstitious rites have, from time to time, been\nassociated with its burial, which has been so appropriately termed \"the\nlast act.\" While occasionally speaking of death, Shakespeare has not\nonly pictured its solemnity in the most powerful and glowing language,\nbut, as opportunity allowed, given us a slight insight into those\ncustoms that formerly prevailed in connection with the committal of the\nbody to its final resting-place in the grave. At the present day, when\nthere is an ever-growing tendency to discard and forget, as irrational\nand foolish, the customs of bygone years, it is interesting to find\nchronicled, for all future time, in the immortal pages of our\nillustrious poet, those superstitious rites and social usages which may\nbe said to have been most intimately identified with the age to which\nthey belonged. One custom, perhaps, that will always retain its old\nhold among us--so long as we continue to bury the remains of our departed\nones--is the scattering of flowers on their graves; a practice, indeed,\nwhich may be traced up to pagan times. It is frequently mentioned by\nShakespeare in some of his superb passages; as, for instance, in\n\"Cymbeline\" (iv. 2), where Arviragus says:\n\n \"With fairest flowers,\n Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,\n I'll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack\n The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor\n The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor\n The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,\n Out-sweeten'd not thy breath.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none,\n To winter-ground thy corse.\"\n\nIn \"Hamlet\" (iv. 5), the poor, bewildered Ophelia sings:\n\n \"Larded with sweet flowers;\n Which bewept to the grave did go\n With true-love showers.\"\n\nThen, further on (v. 1), there is the affecting flower-strewing scene,\nwhere the Queen, standing over the grave of Ophelia, bids her a long\nfarewell:\n\n \"Sweets to the sweet: farewell!\n I hop'd thou should'st have been my Hamlet's wife;\n I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,\n And not have strew'd thy grave.\"\n\nIn \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iv. 5), Capulet says:\n\n \"Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse.\"\n\nAnd further on (v. 3) the Page says:\n\n \"He came with flowers to strew his lady's grave.\"[738]\n\n [738] Cf. \"Winter's Tale,\" iv. 4.\n\nOnce more, in \"Pericles\" (iv. 1), Marina is introduced, entering with a\nbasket of flowers, uttering these sad words:\n\n \"No, I will rob Tellus of her weed,\n To strew thy green with flowers; the yellows, blues,\n The purple violets, and marigolds,\n Shall, as a carpet, hang upon thy grave,\n While summer days do last.\"\n\nFlowers, which so soon droop and wither, are, indeed, sweet emblems of\nthat brief life which is the portion of mankind in this world, while, at\nthe same time, their exquisite beauty is a further type of the glory\nthat awaits the redeemed hereafter, when, like fair flowers, they shall\nburst forth in unspeakable grandeur on the resurrection morn. There is a\npretty custom observed in South Wales on Palm Sunday, of spreading fresh\nflowers upon the graves of friends and relatives, the day being called\nFlowering Sunday.\n\nThe practice of decorating the corpse is mentioned by many old writers.\nIn \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iv. 5), Friar Laurence says:\n\n \"Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary\n On this fair corse; and, as the custom is,\n In all her best array bear her to church.\"\n\nQueen Katharine, in \"Henry VIII.\" (iv. 2), directs:\n\n \"When I am dead, good wench,\n Let me be us'd with honour: strew me over\n With maiden flowers.\"\n\nIt was formerly customary, in various parts of England, to have a\ngarland of flowers and sweet herbs carried before a maiden's coffin, and\nafterwards to suspend it in the church. In allusion to this practice,\nthe Priest, in \"Hamlet\" (v. 1), says:\n\n \"Yet here she is allow'd her virgin crants,\n Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home\n Of bell and burial.\"\n\n--crants[739] meaning garlands. It may be noted that no other instance\nhas been found of this word in English. These garlands are thus\ndescribed by Gay:\n\n \"To her sweet mem'ry flow'ry garlands strung,\n On her now empty seat aloft were hung.\"\n\n [739] The word in German is _kranz_, in other Teutonic dialects\n _krants_, _krans_, and _crance_--the latter being Lowland\n Scotch--and having _cransies_ for plural. Clark and Wright's\n \"Hamlet,\" 1876, p. 216.\n\nNichols, in his \"History of Lancashire\" (vol. ii. pt. i. p. 382),\nspeaking of Waltham, in Framland Hundred, says: \"In this church, under\nevery arch, a garland is suspended, one of which is customarily placed\nthere whenever any young unmarried woman dies.\" Brand[740] tells us he\nsaw in the churches of Wolsingham and Stanhope, in the county of Durham,\nspecimens of these garlands; the form of a woman's glove, cut in white\npaper, being hung in the centre of each of them.\n\n [740] \"Pop. Antiq.\" vol. ii. p. 303.\n\nThe funerals of knights and persons of rank were, in Shakespeare's day,\nperformed with great ceremony and ostentation. Sir John Hawkins observes\nthat \"the sword, the helmet, the gauntlets, spurs, and tabard are still\nhung over the grave of every knight.\" In \"Hamlet\" (iv. 5), Laertes\nspeaks of this custom:\n\n \"His means of death, his obscure burial,--\n No trophy, sword, nor hatchment, o'er his bones,\n No noble rite, nor formal ostentation,--\n Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,\n That I must call't in question.\"\n\nAgain, in \"2 Henry VI.\" (iv. 10), Iden says:\n\n \"Is't Cade that I have slain, that monstrous traitor?\n Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed,\n And hang thee o'er my tomb when I am dead.\"\n\nThe custom of bearing the dead body in its ordinary habiliments, and\nwith the face uncovered--a practice referred to in \"Romeo and Juliet\"\n(iv. 1)--appears to have been peculiar to Italy:\n\n \"Then, as the manner of our country is,\n In thy best robes uncover'd on the bier,\n Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault\n Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.\"\n\nIn Coryat's \"Crudities\" (1776, vol. ii. p. 27) the practice is thus\ndescribed: \"The burials are so strange, both in Venice and all other\ncities, towns, and parishes of Italy, that they differ not only from\nEngland, but from all other nations whatever in Christendom. For they\ncarry the corse to church with the face, hands, and feet all naked, and\nwearing the same apparel that the person wore lately before he died, or\nthat which he craved to be buried in; which apparel is interred together\nwith the body.\"[741] Singer[742] says that Shakespeare no doubt had seen\nthis custom particularly described in the \"Tragicall History of Romeus\nand Juliet:\"\n\n \"Another use there is, that, whosoever dies,\n Borne to the church, with open face, upon the bier he lies,\n In wonted weed attir'd, not wrapt in winding sheet.\"\n\n [741] See Staunton's \"Shakespeare,\" 1864, vol. i. p. 305.\n\n [742] \"Shakespeare,\" 1875, vol. ix. pp. 209, 210.\n\nHe alludes to it again in Ophelia's song, in \"Hamlet\" (iv. 5):\n\n \"They bore him barefac'd on the bier.\"\n\nIt was, in bygone times, customary to bury the Danish kings in their\narmor; hence the remark of Hamlet (i. 4), when addressing the Ghost:\n\n \"What may this mean,\n That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel,\n Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,\n Making night hideous?\"\n\nShakespeare was probably guilty of an anachronism in \"Coriolanus\" (v. 6)\nwhen he makes one of the lords say:\n\n \"Bear from hence his body,\n And mourn you for him: let him be regarded\n As the most noble corse that ever herald\n Did follow to his urn,\"\n\nthe allusion being to the public funeral of English princes, at the\nconclusion of which a herald proclaimed the style of the deceased.\n\nWe may compare what Queen Katharine says in \"Henry VIII.\" (iv. 2):\n\n \"After my death I wish no other herald,\n No other speaker of my living actions,\n To keep my honour from corruption,\n But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.\"\n\nIt seems to have been the fashion, as far back as the thirteenth\ncentury, to ornament the tombs of eminent persons with figures and\ninscriptions on plates of brass; hence, in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (i.\n1), the King says:\n\n \"Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,\n Live register'd upon our brazen tombs.\"\n\nIn \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (v. 1), Leonato, speaking of his daughter's\ndeath, says:\n\n \"Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb,\n And sing it to her bones: sing it to-night.\"\n\nAnd also in a previous scene (iv. 1) this graceful custom is noticed:\n\n \"Maintain a mourning ostentation,\n And on your family's old monument\n Hang mournful epitaphs.\"\n\nIt was also the custom, in years gone by, on the death of an eminent\nperson, for his friends to compose short laudatory verses, epitaphs,\netc., and to affix them to the hearse or grave with pins, wax, paste,\netc. Thus, in \"Henry V.\" (i. 2), King Henry declares:\n\n \"Either our history shall with full mouth\n Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave,\n Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,\n Not worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph,\"\n\nmeaning, says Gifford, \"I will either have my full history recorded with\nglory, or lie in an undisturbed grave; not merely without an\ninscription sculptured in stone, but unworshipped, unhonoured, even by a\nwaxen epitaph.\"[743]\n\n [743] Notes on \"Jonson's Works,\" vol. ix. p. 58.\n\nWe may also compare what Lucius says in \"Titus Andronicus\" (i. 1):\n\n \"There lie thy bones, sweet Mutius, with thy friends,\n Till we with trophies do adorn thy tomb!\"\n\nThe custom was still general when Shakespeare lived; many fine and\ninteresting examples existing in the old Cathedral of St. Paul's, and\nother churches of London, down to the time of the great fire, in the\nform of pensil-tables of wood and metal, painted or engraved with\npoetical memorials, suspended against the columns and walls.\n\n\"Feasts of the Dead,\" which have prevailed in this and other countries\nfrom the earliest times, are, according to some antiquarians, supposed\nto have been borrowed from the _c\u00e6na feralis_ of the Romans--an offering,\nconsisting of milk, honey, wine, olives, and strewed flowers, to the\nghost of the deceased. In a variety of forms this custom has prevailed\namong most nations--the idea being that the spirits of the dead feed on\nthe viands set before them; hence the rite in question embraced the\nnotion of a sacrifice. In Christian times, however, these funeral\nofferings have passed into commemorative banquets, under which form they\nstill exist among us. In allusion to these feasts, Hamlet (i. 2),\nspeaking of his mother's marriage, says:\n\n \"The funeral bak'd meats\n Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.\"\n\nAgain, in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iv. 5), Capulet narrates how:\n\n \"All things that we ordained festival,\n Turn from their office to black funeral:\n Our instruments, to melancholy bells;\n Our wedding cheer, to a sad burial feast.\"\n\nMr. Tylor,[744] in discussing the origin of funeral feasts, and in\ntracing their origin back to the savage and barbaric times of the\ninstitution of feast of departed souls, says we may find a lingering\nsurvival of this old rite in the doles of bread and drink given to the\npoor at funerals, and \"soul-mass cakes,\" which peasant girls beg for at\nfarmhouses, with the traditional formula,\n\n \"Soul, soul, for a soul cake,\n Pray you, mistress, a soul cake.\"[745]\n\n [744] \"Primitive Culture,\" vol. ii. p. 43.\n\n [745] See \"British Popular Customs,\" p. 404; Brand's \"Pop.\n Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. pp. 237, 246; Douce's \"Illustrations of\n Shakespeare,\" 1839, p. 439.\n\nIn the North of England the funeral feast is called an \"arval,\" and the\nloaves that are sometimes distributed among the poor are termed \"arval\nbread.\"\n\nAmong other funeral customs mentioned by Shakespeare, may be mentioned\nhis allusion to the burial service. Originally, before the reign of\nEdward VI., it was the practice for the priest to throw earth on the\nbody in the form of a cross, and then to sprinkle it with holy water.\nThus, in the \"Winter's Tale\" (iv. 4), the Shepherd says:\n\n \"Some hangman must put on my shroud, and lay me\n Where no priest shovels in dust,\"\n\nimplying, \"I must be buried as a common malefactor, out of the pale of\nconsecrated ground, and without the usual rites of the dead\"--a whimsical\nanachronism, as Mr. Douce[746] points out, when it is considered that\nthe old Shepherd was a pagan, a worshipper of Jupiter and Apollo.\n\n [746] See Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, p. 222.\n\nIn \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (i. 3), we find an allusion to the\nlachrymatory vials filled with tears which the Romans were in the habit\nof placing in the tomb of a departed friend. Cleopatra sorrowfully\nexclaims:\n\n \"O most false love!\n Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill\n With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see,\n In Fulvia's death, how mine receiv'd shall be.\"\n\nThis is another interesting instance of Shakespeare's knowledge of the\nmanners of distant ages, showing how varied and extensive his knowledge\nwas, and his skill in applying it whenever occasion required.\n\nThe winding or shrouding sheet, in which the body was wrapped previous\nto its burial, is alluded to in \"Hamlet\" (v. 1), in the song of the\nclown:\n\n \"A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,\n For and a shrouding sheet:\n O, a pit of clay for to be made\n For such a guest is meet.\"\n\nAgain, in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (v. 1), Puck says:\n\n \"the screech-owl, screeching loud,\n Puts the wretch that lies in woe\n In remembrance of a shroud.\"\n\nOphelia speaks of the shroud as white as the mountain snow (\"Hamlet,\"\niv. 5). The following song, too, in \"Twelfth Night\" (ii. 4), mentions\nthe custom of sticking yew in the shroud:\n\n \"Come away, come away, death,\n And in sad cypress let me be laid;\n Fly away, fly away, breath:\n I am slain by a fair cruel maid.\n My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,\n O prepare it!\n My part of death, no one so true\n Did share it!\"\n\nTo quote two further illustrations. Desdemona (\"Othello,\" iv. 2) says to\nEmilia: \"Lay on my bed my wedding-sheets,\" and when in the following\nscene Emilia answers:\n\n \"I have laid those sheets you bade me on the bed,\"\n\nDesdemona adds:\n\n \"If I do die before thee, pr'thee, shroud me\n In one of those same sheets\"\n\n--a wish, indeed, which her cruel fate so speedily caused to be realized.\nAnd in \"3 Henry VI.\" (i. 1) we have King Henry's powerful words:\n\n \"Think'st thou, that I will leave my kingly throne,\n Wherein my grandsire and my father sat?\n No: first shall war unpeople this my realm;\n Ay, and their colours,--often borne in France,\n And now in England, to our heart's great sorrow,--\n Shall be my winding-sheet.\"\n\nThe custom, still prevalent, of carrying the dead to the grave with\nmusic--a practice which existed in the primitive church--to denote that\nthey have ended their spiritual warfare, and are become conquerors,\nformerly existed very generally in this country.[747] In \"Cymbeline\"\n(iv. 2), Arviragus says:\n\n \"And let us, Polydore, though now our voices\n Have got the mannish crack, sing him to the ground,\n As once our mother; use like note and words,\n Save that Euriphile must be Fidele.\"\n\n [747] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol ii. pp. 267-270.\n\nThe tolling of bells at funerals is referred to in \"Hamlet\" (v. 1),\nwhere the priest says of Ophelia:\n\n \"she is allow'd her virgin crants,\n Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home\n Of bell and burial.\"\n\nIt has been a current opinion for centuries that places of burial are\nhaunted with spectres and apparitions--a notion, indeed, that prevailed\nas far back as the times of heathenism. Ovid speaks of ghosts coming out\nof their sepulchres and wandering about: and Vergil, quoting the popular\nopinion of his time, tells us how Moeris could call the ghosts out of\ntheir sepulchres (\"Bucol.\" viii. 98):\n\n \"Moerim, s\u00e6pe animas imis excire sepulchris,\n Atque satas alio vidi traducere messis.\"\n\nIndeed, the idea of the ghost remaining near the corpse is of world-wide\nprevalence; and as Mr. Tylor[748] points out, \"through all the changes\nof religious thought from first to last, in the course of human history,\nthe hovering ghosts of the dead make the midnight burial-ground a place\nwhere men's flesh creeps with terror.\" In \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\"\n(v. 1), Puck declares:\n\n \"Now it is the time of night,\n That the graves, all gaping wide,\n Every one lets forth his sprite,\n In the church-way paths to glide.\"\n\n [748] \"Primitive Culture,\" vol. ii. p. 30.\n\nIn the same play, too (iii. 2), Puck, speaking of \"Aurora's harbinger,\"\nsays:\n\n \"At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,\n Troop home to churchyards: damned spirits all,\n That in cross-ways and floods have burial,\n Already to their wormy beds are gone;\n For fear lest day should look their shames upon.\"\n\nIn this passage two curious superstitions are described; the ghosts of\nself-murderers, who are buried in cross-roads, and of those who have\nbeen drowned at sea, being said to wander for a hundred years, owing to\nthe rites of sepulture having never been properly bestowed on their\nbodies.\n\nWe may further compare Hamlet's words (iii. 2):\n\n \"'Tis now the very witching time of night,\n When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out\n Contagion to this world.\"\n\nFrom the earliest period much importance has been attached to the\nposition of the grave, the popular direction being from east to west,\nthat from north to south being regarded as not only dishonorable, but\nunlucky. Thus, in \"Cymbeline\" (iv. 2), Guiderius, when arranging about\nthe apparently dead body of Imogen, disguised in man's apparel, says:\n\n \"Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to the east;\n My father had a reason for't.\"\n\nIndeed, the famous antiquary Hearne had such precise views in this\nmatter that he left orders for his grave to be made straight by a\ncompass, due east and west. This custom was practised by the ancient\nGreeks, and thus, as Mr. Tylor points out,[749] it is not to late and\nisolated fancy, but to the carrying on of ancient and widespread solar\nideas, that we trace the well-known legend that the body of Christ was\nlaid with the head towards the west, thus looking eastward, and the\nChristian usage of digging graves east and west, which prevailed through\nmedi\u00e6val times, and is not yet forgotten. The rule of laying the head to\nthe west, and its meaning that the dead shall rise looking towards the\neast, are perfectly stated in the following passage from an\necclesiastical treatise of the 16th century:[750] \"Debet autem quis sic\nsepeliri ut capite ad occidentem posito, pedes dirigat ad Orientem, in\nquo quasi ipsa positione orat: et innuit quod promptus est, ut de occasu\nfestinet ad ortum: de mundo ad seculum.\"[751]\n\n [749] \"Primitive Culture,\" 1873, vol. ii. p. 423.\n\n [750] Durandus, \"De Officio Mortuorum,\" lib. vii. chap. 35-39.\n\n [751] Dr. Johnson thought the words of the clown in \"Hamlet\"\n (v. 1), \"make her grave straight,\" meant, \"make her grave from\n east to west, in a direct line parallel to the church.\" This\n interpretation seems improbable, as the word straight in the\n sense of immediately occurs frequently in Shakespeare's plays.\n\nWithin old monuments and receptacles for the dead perpetual lamps were\nsupposed to be lighted up, an allusion to which is made by Pericles\n(iii. 1), who, deploring the untimely death of Thaisa at sea, and the\nsuperstitious demand made by the sailors that her corpse should be\nthrown overboard, says:\n\n \"Nor have I time\n To give thee hallow'd to thy grave, but straight\n Must cast thee, scarcely coffin'd, in the ooze;\n Where, for a monument upon thy bones,\n And aye-remaining lamps, the belching whale\n And humming water must o'erwhelm thy corpse,\n Lying with simple shells.\"\n\nAgain, in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (iii. 2), we find a further reference\nin the words of Troilus:\n\n \"O, that I thought it could be in a woman,\n To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love.\"\n\nPope, too, in his \"Eloisa to Abelard,\" has a similar allusion (l. 261,\n262):\n\n \"Ah, hopeless lasting flames, like those that burn\n To light the dead, and warm th' unfruitful urn!\"\n\nD'Israeli, in his \"Curiosities of Literature,\" thus explains this\nsuperstition: \"It has happened frequently that inquisitive men,\nexamining with a flambeau ancient sepulchres which have just been\nopened, the fat and gross vapors engendered by the corruption of dead\nbodies kindled as the flambeau approached them, to the great\nastonishment of the spectators, who frequently cried out 'A miracle!'\nThis sudden inflammation, although very natural, has given room to\nbelieve that these flames proceeded from _perpetual lamps_, which some\nhave thought were placed in the tombs of the ancients, and which, they\nsaid, were extinguished at the moment that these tombs opened, and were\npenetrated by the exterior air.\" Mr. Dennis, however, in his \"Cities and\nCemeteries of Etruria\" (1878, vol. ii. p. 404), says that the use of\nsepulchral lamps by the ancients is well known, and gave rise to the\nabove superstition. Sometimes lamps were kept burning in sepulchres long\nafter the interment, as in the case of the Ephesian widow described by\nPetronius (\"Satyr,\" c. 13), who replaced the lamp placed in her\nhusband's tomb.\n\nA common expression formerly applied to the dead occurs in the \"Winter's\nTale\" (v. 1), where Dion asks:\n\n \"What were more holy,\n Than to rejoice the former queen is well?\"\n\nSo in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (ii. 5):\n\n \"_Messenger._ First, madam, he is well.\n\n _Cleopatra._ Why, there's more gold.\n But, sirrah, mark, we use\n To say, the dead are well.\"[752]\n\n [752] See Malone's note, Variorum edition, xiv. 400.\n\nLastly, commentators have differed as to the meaning of the words of\nJulia in the \"Two Gentlemen of Verona\" (i. 2):\n\n \"I see you have a month's mind to them.\"\n\nDouce says she refers to the mind or remembrance days of our popish\nancestors; persons in their wills having often directed that in a month,\nor at some other specific time, some solemn office, as a mass or a\ndirge, should be performed for the repose of their souls. Thus Ray\nquotes a proverb: \"To have a month's mind to a thing,\" and mentions the\nabove custom. For a further and not improbable solution of this\ndifficulty, the reader may consult Dyce's \"Glossary\" (p. 277).\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nRINGS AND PRECIOUS STONES.\n\n\nFrom a very early period, rings and precious stones have held a\nprominent place in the traditionary lore, customs, and superstitions of\nmost nations. Thus, rings have been supposed \"to protect from evil\nfascinations of every kind, against the evil eye, the influence of\ndemons, and dangers of every possible character: though it was not\nsimply in the rings themselves that the supposed virtues existed, but in\nthe materials of which they were composed--in some particular precious\nstones that were set in them as charms or talismans, in some device or\ninscription on the stone, or some magical letters engraved on the\ncircumference of the ring.\"[753] Rings, too, in days gone by, had a\nsymbolical importance. Thus, it was anciently the custom for every\nmonarch to have a ring, the temporary possession of which invested the\nholder with the same authority as the owner himself could exercise.\nThus, in \"Henry VIII.\" (v. 1), we have the king's ring given to Cranmer,\nand presented by him (sc. 2), as a security against the machinations of\nGardiner and others of the council, who were plotting to destroy him.\nThus the king says:\n\n \"If entreaties\n Will render you no remedy, this ring\n Deliver them, and your appeal to us\n There make before them.\"\n\n [753] Jones's \"Finger-Ring Lore,\" 1877, p. 91.\n\nThis custom, too, was not confined to royalty, for in \"Richard II.\" (ii.\n2), the Duke of York gives this order to his servant:\n\n \"Sirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloster;\n Bid her send me presently a thousand pound:--\n Hold, take my ring.\"\n\nThere is an interesting relic of the same custom still kept up at\nWinchester College.[754] When the captain of the school petitions the\nhead-master for a holiday, and obtains it, he receives from him a ring,\nin token of the indulgence granted, which he wears during the holiday,\nand returns to the head-master when it is over. The inscription upon the\nring was, formerly, \"Potentiam fero, geroque.\" It is now \"Commendat\nrarior usus\" (Juvenal, \"Sat.\" xi. 208).\n\n [754] Wordsworth's \"Shakespeare and the Bible,\" 1880, p. 283.\n\n_Token Rings_ date from very early times. Edward I., in 1297, presented\nMargaret, his fourth daughter, with a golden pyx, in which he deposited\na ring, as a token of his unfailing love.\n\nIn \"Richard III.\" (i. 2) when Gloster brings his hasty wooing to a\nconclusion, he gives the Lady Anne a ring, saying:\n\n \"Look, how my ring encompasseth thy finger,\n Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart;\n Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.\"\n\nIn \"Cymbeline\" (i. 1) Imogen gives Posthumus a ring when they part, and\nhe presents her with a bracelet in exchange:\n\n \"Look here, love;\n This diamond was my mother's; take it, heart;\n But keep it till you woo another wife,\n When Imogen is dead.\n\n _Posthumus._ How! how! another?--\n You gentle gods, give me but this I have,\n And sear up my embracements from a next\n With bonds of death! Remain, remain thou here,\n (_Putting on the ring_)\n While sense can keep it on.\"\n\nYet he afterwards gives it up to Iachimo (ii. 4)--upon a false\nrepresentation--to test his wife's honor:\n\n \"Here, take this too;\n It is a basilisk unto mine eye,\n Kills me to look on't.\"\n\nThe exchange of rings, a solemn mode of private contract between lovers,\nwe have already referred to in the chapter on Marriage, a practice\nalluded to in the \"Two Gentlemen of Verona\" (ii. 2), where Julia gives\nProteus a ring, saying:\n\n \"Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake;\"\n\nand he replies:\n\n \"Why, then we'll make exchange: here, take you this.\"\n\n_Death's-head rings._ Rings engraved with skulls and skeletons were not\nnecessarily mourning rings, but were also worn by persons who affected\ngravity; and, curious to say, by the procuresses of Elizabeth's time.\nBiron, in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 2), refers to \"a death's face in a\nring;\" and we may quote Falstaff's words in \"2 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4):\n\"Peace, good Doll! do not speak like a death's head; do not bid me\nremember mine end.\" We may compare the following from \"The Chances\" (i.\n5), by Beaumont and Fletcher:\n\n \"As they keep deaths' heads in rings,\n To cry 'memento' to me.\"\n\nAccording to Mr. Fairholt, \"the skull and skeleton decorations for rings\nfirst came into favor and fashion at the obsequious court of France,\nwhen Diana of Poictiers became the mistress of Henry II. At that time\nshe was a widow, and in mourning, so black and white became fashionable\ncolors; jewels were formed like funeral memorials; golden ornaments,\nshaped like coffins, holding enamelled skeletons, hung from the neck;\nwatches, made to fit in little silver skulls, were attached to the\nwaists of the denizens of a court that alternately indulged in profanity\nor piety, but who mourned for show.\"[755]\n\n [755] See Jones's \"Finger-Ring Lore,\" 1877, p. 372.\n\n_Posy-rings_ were formerly much used, it having been customary to\ninscribe a motto or \"posy\" within the hoop of the betrothal ring. Thus,\nin the \"Merchant of Venice\" (v. 1), Gratiano, when asked by Portia the\nreason of his quarrel with Nerissa, answers:\n\n \"About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring\n That she did give me; whose posy was\n For all the world like cutlers' poetry\n Upon a knife, 'Love me, and leave me not.'\"\n\nIn \"As You Like It\" (iii. 2), Jaques tells Orlando, \"You are full of\npretty answers. Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and\nconned them out of rings?\"\n\nAgain, \"Hamlet\" (iii. 2) asks:\n\n \"Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?\"\n\nMany of our old writers allude to the posy-rings. Thus Herrick, in his\n\"Hesperides,\" says:\n\n \"What posies for our wedding rings,\n What gloves we'll give, and ribbonings.\"\n\nHenry VIII. gave Anne of Cleves a ring with the following posy: \"God\nsend me well to kepe;\" a most unpropitious alliance, as the king\nexpressed his dislike to her soon after the marriage.\n\n_Thumb-rings._ These were generally broad gold rings worn on the thumb\nby important personages. Thus Falstaff (\"1 Henry IV.\" ii. 4) bragged\nthat, in his earlier years, he had been so slender in figure as to\n\"creep into an alderman's thumb-ring;\" and a ring thus worn--probably as\nmore conspicuous--appears to have been considered as appropriate to the\ncustomary attire of a civic dignitary at a much later period. A\ncharacter in the Lord Mayor's Show, in 1664, is described as \"habited\nlike a grave citizen--gold girdle, and gloves hung thereon, rings on his\nfingers, and a seal ring on his thumb.\"[756] Chaucer, in his \"Squire's\nTale,\" says of the rider of the brazen horse who advanced into the\nhall, Cambuscan, that \"upon his thumb he had of gold a ring.\" In \"Romeo\nand Juliet\" (i. 4), Mercutio speaks of the\n\n \"agate stone\n On the forefinger of an alderman.\"\n\n [756] See Jones's \"Finger-Ring Lore,\" 1877, p. 88.\n\nIt has been suggested that Shakespeare, in the following passage,\nalludes to the annual celebration, at Venice, of the wedding of the Doge\nwith the Adriatic, when he makes Othello say (i. 2):\n\n \"But that I love the gentle Desdemona,\n I would not my unhoused free condition\n Put into circumscription and confine\n For the sea's worth.\"\n\nThis custom, it is said, was instituted by Pope Alexander III., who gave\nthe Doge a gold ring from his own finger, in token of the victory by the\nVenetian fleet, at Istria, over Frederick Barbarossa, in defence of the\nPope's quarrel. When his holiness gave the ring, he desired the Doge to\nthrow a similar ring into the sea every year on Ascension Day, in\ncommemoration of the event.\n\n_Agate._ This stone was frequently cut to represent the human form, and\nwas occasionally worn in the hat by gallants. In \"2 Henry IV.\" (i. 2)\nFalstaff says: \"I was never manned with an agate till now\"--meaning,\naccording to Johnson, \"had an agate for my man,\" was waited on by an\nagate.\n\n_Carbuncle._ The supernatural lustre of this gem[757] is supposed to be\ndescribed in \"Titus Andronicus\" (ii. 3), where, speaking of the ring on\nthe finger of Bassianus, Martius says:\n\n \"Upon his bloody finger he doth wear\n A precious ring, that lightens all the hole,\n Which, like a taper in some monument,\n Doth shine upon the dead man's earthy cheeks,\n And shows the ragged entrails of the pit.\"\n\n [757] See Sir Thomas Browne's \"Vulgar Errors.\"\n\nIn Drayton's \"Muses' Elysium\" (\"Nymphal.\" ix.) it is thus eulogized:\n\n \"That admired mighty stone,\n The carbuncle that's named,\n Which from it such a flaming light\n And radiancy ejecteth,\n That in the very darkest night\n The eye to it directeth.\"\n\nMilton, speaking of the cobra, says:\n\n \"His head\n Crested aloof, and carbuncle his eyes.\"\n\nJohn Norton,[758] an alchemist in the reign of Edward IV., wrote a poem\nentitled the \"Ordinal,\" or a manual of the chemical art. One of his\nprojects, we are told, was a bridge of gold over the Thames, crowned\nwith pinnacles of gold, which, being studded with carbuncles, would\ndiffuse a blaze of light in the dark. Among the other references to it\ngiven by Shakespeare may be mentioned one in \"Henry VIII.\" (ii. 3),\nwhere the Princess Elizabeth is spoken of as\n\n \"a gem\n To lighten all this isle.\"\n\n [758] Jones's \"Precious Stones,\" 1880, p. 62.\n\nAnd Hamlet (ii. 2) uses the phrase, \"With eyes like carbuncles.\"\n\n_Chrysolite._ This stone was supposed to possess peculiar virtues, and,\naccording to Simon Maiolus, in his \"Dierum Caniculares\" (1615-19),\nThetel the Jew, who wrote a book, \"De Sculpturiis,\" mentions one\nnaturally in the form of a woman, which was potent against fascination\nof all kinds. \"Othello\" (v. 2) thus alludes to this stone in reference\nto his wife:\n\n \"Nay, had she been true,\n If heaven would make me such another world\n Of one entire and perfect chrysolite,\n I'd not have sold her for it.\"\n\n_Pearls._ The Eastern custom of powdering sovereigns at their coronation\nwith gold-dust and seed-pearl is alluded to in \"Antony and\nCleopatra\"[759] (ii. 5):\n\n \"I'll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail\n Rich pearls upon thee.\"\n\n [759] See Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. x. p. 213.\n\nSo Milton (\"Paradise Lost,\" ii. 4):\n\n \"The gorgeous East, with liberal hand,\n Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold.\"\n\nAgain, to swallow a pearl in a draught seems to have been common to\nroyal and mercantile prodigality. In \"Hamlet\" (v. 2) the King says:\n\n \"The king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath;\n And in the cup an union[760] shall he throw.\"\n\n [760] A union is a precious pearl, remarkable for its size.\n\nFurther on Hamlet himself asks, tauntingly:\n\n \"Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,\n Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?\"\n\nMalone, as an illustration of this custom, quotes from the second part\nof Heywood's \"If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody:\"\n\n \"Here sixteen thousand pound at one clap goes\n Instead of sugar. Gresham drinks this pearl\n Unto the queen, his mistress.\"\n\nIn former times powdered pearls were considered invaluable for stomach\ncomplaints; and Rondeletius tells us that they were supposed to possess\nan exhilarating quality: \"Uniones qu\u00e6 a conchis, et valde cordiales\nsunt.\"\n\nMuch mystery was, in bygone days, thought to hang over the origin of\npearls, and, according to the poetic Orientals,[761] \"Every year, on the\nsixteenth day of the month Nisan, the pearl oysters rise to the sea and\nopen their shells, in order to receive the rain which falls at that\ntime, and the drops thus caught become pearls.\" Thus, in \"Richard III.\"\n(iv. 4) the king says:\n\n \"The liquid drops of tears that you have shed\n Shall come again, transform'd to orient pearl,\n Advantaging their loan with interest\n Of ten times double gain of happiness.\"\n\n [761] See Jones's \"History and Mystery of Precious Stones,\" p. 116.\n\nMoore, in one of his Melodies, notices this pretty notion:\n\n \"And precious the tear as that rain from the sky\n Which turns into pearls as it falls in the sea.\"\n\n_Turquoise._ This stone was probably more esteemed for its secret\nvirtues than from any commercial value, the turquoise, turkise, or\nturkey-stone, having from a remote period been supposed to possess\ntalismanic properties. Thus, in the \"Merchant of Venice\" (iii. 1),\nShylock says: \"It was my turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a\nbachelor: I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.\" Mr.\nDyce[762] says that Shylock valued his turquoise, \"not only as being the\ngift of Leah, but on account of the imaginary virtues ascribed to it:\nwhich was supposed to become pale or to brighten according as the health\nof the wearer was bad or good.\" Thus, Ben Jonson, in \"Sejanus\" (i. 1),\nalludes to its wonderful properties:\n\n \"And true as turkoise in the dear lord's ring,\n Look well or ill with him.\"\n\n [762] \"Glossary,\" p. 465.\n\nFenton, in his \"Certain Secret Wonders of Nature\" (1569), thus describes\nit: \"The turkeys doth move when there is any evil prepared to him that\nweareth it.\" There were numerous other magical properties ascribed to\nthe turquoise. Thus, it was supposed to lose its color entirely at the\ndeath of its owner, but to recover it when placed upon the finger of a\nnew and healthy possessor. It was also said that whoever wore a turquoise,\nso that either it or its setting touched the skin, might fall from any\nheight, the stone attracting to itself the whole force of the blow. With\nthe Germans, the turquoise is still the gem appropriated to the ring,\nthe \"gage d'amour,\" presented by the lover on the acceptance of his\nsuit, the permanence of its color being believed to depend upon the\nconstancy of his affection.[763]\n\n [763] See C. W. King on \"Precious Stones,\" 1867, p. 267.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\nSPORTS AND PASTIMES.\n\n\nVery many of the old sports and pastimes in popular use in Shakespeare's\nday have long ago not only been laid aside, but, in the course of years,\nhave become entirely forgotten. This is to be regretted, as a great\nnumber of these capital diversions were admirably suited both for in and\nout of doors, the simplicity which marked them being one of their\ndistinguishing charms. That Shakespeare, too, took an interest in these\ngood old sources of recreation, may be gathered from the frequent\nreference which he has made to them; his mention of some childish game\neven serving occasionally as an illustration in a passage characterized\nby its force and vigor.\n\n_Archery._ In Shakespeare's day this was a very popular diversion, and\nthe \"Knights of Prince Arthur's Round Table\" was a society of archers\ninstituted by Henry VIII., and encouraged in the reign of\nElizabeth.[764] Fitzstephen, who wrote in the reign of Henry II.,\nnotices it among the summer pastimes of the London youth; and the\nrepeated statutes, from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century,\nenforcing the use of the bow, generally ordered the leisure time upon\nholidays to be passed in its exercise.[765] Shakespeare seems to have\nbeen intimately acquainted with the numerous terms connected with\narchery, many of which we find scattered throughout his plays. Thus, in\n\"Love's Labour's Lost\" (iv. 1), Maria uses the expression, \"Wide o' the\nbow hand,\" a term which signified a good deal to the left of the mark.\n\n [764] See Drake's \"Shakespeare and His Times,\" vol. ii. pp.\n 178-181.\n\n [765] Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1870, vol. ii. p. 290.\n\nThe \"clout\" was the nail or pin of the target, and \"from the passages,\"\nsays Dyce,[766] \"which I happen to recollect in our early writers, I\nshould say that the clout, or pin, stood in the centre of the inner\ncircle of the butts, which circle, being painted white, was called the\nwhite; that, to 'hit the white' was a considerable feat, but that to\n'hit or cleave the clout or pin' was a much greater one, though, no\ndoubt, the expressions were occasionally used to signify the same thing,\nviz., to hit the mark.\" In \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (iv. 1), Costard says\nof Boyet:\n\n \"Indeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout;\"\n\nand, in \"2 Henry IV.\" (iii. 2), Shallow says of old Double: \"He would\nhave clapped i' the clout at twelve score\"--that is, he would have hit\nthe clout at twelve-score yards. And \"King Lear\" (iv. 6) employs the\nphrase \"i' the clout, i' the clout: hewgh!\"\n\n [766] \"Glossary,\" p. 84.\n\nIn \"Romeo and Juliet\" (ii. 4), where Mercutio relates how Romeo is \"shot\nthorough the ear with a love-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with\nthe blind bow-boy's butt-shaft,\" the metaphor, of course, is from\narchery.\n\nThe term \"loose\" was the technical one for the discharging of an arrow,\nand occurs in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 2).\n\nAccording to Capell,[767] the words of Bottom, in \"A Midsummer-Night's\nDream\" (i. 2), \"hold, or cut bow-strings,\" were a proverbial phrase, and\nalluded to archery. \"When a party was made at butts, assurance of\nmeeting was given in the words of that phrase, the sense of the person\nusing them being that he would 'hold' or keep promise, or they might\n'cut his bow-strings,' demolish him for an archer.\" Whether, adds Dyce,\n\"this be the true explanation of the phrase, I am unable to determine.\"\n\n [767] \"Glossary,\" p. 210.\n\n_All hid, all hid._ Biron, in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (iv. 3), no doubt\nmeans the game well-known as hide-and-seek, \"All hid, all hid; an old\ninfant play.\" The following note, however, in Cotgrave's \"French and\nEnglish Dictionary,\" has been adduced to show that he may possibly mean\nblind-man's-buff: \"Clignemasset. The childish play called Hodman-blind\n[_i. e._, blind-man's-buff], Harrie-racket, or Are you all hid.\"\n\n_Backgammon._ The old name for this game was \"Tables,\" as in \"Love's\nLabour's Lost\" (v. 2):\n\n \"This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice\n That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice.\"\n\nAn interesting history of this game will be found in Strutt's \"Sports\nand Pastimes\" (1876, pp. 419-421).\n\n_Barley-break._ This game, called also the \"Last Couple in Hell,\" which\nis alluded to in the \"Two Noble Kinsmen,\" (iv. 3), was played by six\npeople, three of each sex, who were coupled by lot.[768] A piece of\nground was then chosen, and divided into three compartments, of which\nthe middle one was called hell. It was the object of the couple\ncondemned to this division to catch the others, who advanced from the\ntwo extremities; in which case a change of situation took place, and\nhell was filled by the couple who were excluded by preoccupation from\nthe other places. This catching, however, was not so easy, as, by the\nrules of the game, the middle couple were not to separate before they\nhad succeeded, while the others might break hands whenever they found\nthemselves hard pressed. When all had been taken in turn, the last\ncouple were said \"to be in hell,\" and the game ended.\n\n [768] From Gifford's Note on Massinger's Works, 1813, vol. i.\n p. 104.\n\nThe game was frequently mentioned by old writers, and appears to have\nbeen very popular. From Herrick's Poems, it is seen that the couples in\ntheir confinement occasionally solaced themselves by kisses:\n\n \"_Barley-break; or, Last in Hell._\n\n \"We two are last in hell; what may we fear,\n To be tormented, or kept pris'ners here?\n Alas, if kissing be of plagues the worst,\n We'll wish in hell we had been last and first.\"\n\nIn Scotland it was called barla-breikis, and was, says Jamieson,\n\"generally played by young people in a corn-yard, hence its name,\nbarla-bracks, about the stacks.\"[769] The term \"hell,\" says Nares,[770]\n\"was indiscreet, and must have produced many profane allusions, besides\nfamiliarizing what ought always to preserve its due effect of awe upon\nthe mind.\" Both its names are alluded to in the following passage in\nShirley's \"Bird in a Cage:\"\n\n \"Shall's to barlibreak?\n I was in hell last; 'tis little less to be in a petticoat sometimes.\"\n\n [769] See Jamieson's \"Scottish Dictionary,\" 1879, vol. i. p. 122.\n\n [770] \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 57.\n\n_Base._ This was a rustic game, known also as \"Prison base\" or \"Prison\nbars.\" It is mentioned in \"Cymbeline\" (v. 3) by Posthumus:\n\n \"Lads more like to run\n The country base, than to commit such slaughter.\"\n\nAnd in \"Two Gentlemen of Verona\" (i. 2) by Lucetta:\n\n \"Indeed, I bid the base for Proteus.\"[771]\n\n [771] Ibid. vol. i. p. 58.\n\nThe success of this pastime depended upon the agility of the candidates,\nand their skill in running. Early in the reign of Edward III. it is\nspoken of as a childish amusement, and was prohibited to be played in\nthe avenues of the palace at Westminster during the session of\nParliament, because of the interruption it occasioned to the members and\nothers in passing to and fro as their business required. It was also\nplayed by men, and especially in Cheshire and other adjoining counties,\nwhere it seems to have been in high repute among all classes. Strutt\nthus describes the game:[772] \"The performance of this pastime requires\ntwo parties of equal number, each of them having a base or home to\nthemselves, at the distance of about twenty or thirty yards. The players\nthen on either side, taking hold of hands, extend themselves in length,\nand opposite to each other, as far as they conveniently can, always\nremembering that one of them must touch the base. When any one of them\nquits the hand of his fellow and runs into the field, which is called\ngiving the chase, he is immediately followed by one of his opponents. He\nis again followed by a second from the former side, and he by a second\nopponent, and so on alternately until as many are out as choose to run,\nevery one pursuing the man he first followed, and no other; and if he\novertake him near enough to touch him, his party claims one towards\ntheir game, and both return home. They then run forth again and again in\nlike manner until the number is completed that decides the victory. This\nnumber is optional, and rarely exceeds twenty.\"\n\n [772] \"Sports and Pastimes,\" 1876, p. 143.\n\nThe phrase to \"bid the base,\" means to run fast, challenging another to\npursue. It occurs again in \"Venus and Adonis:\"\n\n \"To bid the wind a base he now prepares.\"\n\nIn Spenser's \"Fairy Queen\" (bk. v. canto 8), we read:\n\n \"So ran they all as they had been at base,\n They being chased that did others chase.\"\n\n_Bat-fowling._ This sport, which is noticed in \"The Tempest\" (ii. 1) by\nSebastian, was common in days gone by. It is minutely described in\nMarkham's \"Hunger's Prevention\" (1600), which is quoted by Dyce.[773]\nThe term \"bat-fowling,\" however, had another signification, says Mr.\nHarting,[774] in Shakespeare's day, and it may have been in this\nsecondary sense that it is used in \"The Tempest,\" being a slang word for\na particular mode of cheating. Bat-fowling was practised about dusk,\nwhen the rogue pretended to have dropped a ring or a jewel at the door\nof some well-furnished shop, and, going in, asked the apprentice of the\nhouse to light his candle to look for it. After some peering about the\nbat-fowler would drop the candle as if by accident. \"Now, I pray you,\ngood young man,\" he would say, \"do so much as light the candle again.\"\nWhile the boy was away the rogue plundered the shop, and having stolen\neverything he could find stole himself away.\n\n [773] \"Glossary,\" pp. 29, 30.\n\n [774] See Harting's \"Ornithology of Shakespeare,\" p. 156;\n Strutt's \"Sports and Pastimes,\" 1876, p. 98. A simple mode of\n bat-fowling, by means of a large clap-net and a lantern, and\n called bird-batting, is alluded to in Fielding's \"Joseph\n Andrews\" (bk. ii. chap. x.). Drake thinks that it is to a\n stratagem of this kind Shakespeare alludes when he paints\n Buckingham exclaiming (\"Henry VIII.\" i. 1):\n\n \"The net has fall'n upon me; I shall perish\n Under device and practice.\"\n\n_Billiards._ Shakespeare is guilty of an anachronism in \"Antony and\nCleopatra\" (ii. 5), where he makes Cleopatra say: \"Let's to\nbilliards\"--the game being unknown to the ancients. The modern manner of\nplaying at billiards differs from that formerly in use. At the\ncommencement of the last century,[775] the billiard-table was square,\nhaving only three pockets for the balls to run in, situated on one of\nthe sides--that is, at each corner, and the third between them. About the\nmiddle of the table a small arch of iron was placed, and at a little\ndistance from it an upright cone called a king. At certain periods of\nthe game it was necessary for the balls to be driven through the one and\nround the other, without knocking either of them down, which was not\neasily effected, because they were not fastened to the table.\n\n [775] Strutt's \"Sports and Pastimes,\" 1876, p. 396.\n\n_Bone-ace._ This old game, popularly called \"One-and-Thirty,\" is alluded\nto by Grumio in \"Taming of the Shrew\" (i. 2): \"Well, was it fit for a\nservant to use his master so; being, perhaps, for aught I see,\ntwo-and-thirty--a pip out.\"[776] It was very like the French game of\n\"Vingt-un,\" only a longer reckoning. Strutt[777] says that \"perhaps\nBone-ace is the same as the game called Ace of Hearts, prohibited with\nall lotteries by cards and dice, An. 12 Geor. II., Cap. 38, sect. 2.\" It\nis mentioned in Massinger's \"Fatal Dowry\" (ii. 2): \"You think, because\nyou served my lady's mother, [you] are thirty-two years old, which is a\npip out, you know.\"\n\n [776] A pip is a spot upon a card.\n\n [777] \"Sports and Pastimes,\" 1876, p. 436.\n\nThe phrase \"to be two-and-thirty,\" a pip out, was an old cant term\napplied to a person who was intoxicated.\n\n_Bo-peep._ This nursery amusement, which consisted in peeping from\nbehind something, and crying \"Bo!\" is referred to by the Fool in \"King\nLear\" (i. 4): \"That such a king should play bo-peep.\" In Sherwood's\nDictionary it is defined, \"Jeu d'enfant; ou (plustost) des nourrices aux\npetits enfans; se cachans le visage et puis se monstrant.\" Minsheu's\nderivation of bo-peep, from the noise which chickens make when they come\nout of the shell, is, says Douce,[778] more whimsical than just.\n\n [778] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 405.\n\n_Bowls._ Frequent allusions occur to this game, which seems to have been\na popular pastime in olden times. The small ball, now called the jack,\nat which the players aim, was sometimes termed the \"mistress.\" In\n\"Troilus and Cressida\" (iii. 2), Pandarus says: \"So, so; rub[779] on,\nand kiss the mistress.\" A bowl that kisses the jack, or mistress, is in\nthe most advantageous position; hence \"to kiss the jack\" served to\ndenote a state of great advantage. Thus, in \"Cymbeline\" (ii. 1), Cloten\nexclaims, \"Was there ever man had such luck! when I kissed the jack,\nupon an up-cast to be hit away! I had a hundred pound on't.\" There is\nanother allusion to this game, according to Staunton, in \"King John\"\n(ii. 1): \"on the outward eye of fickle France\"--the aperture on one side\nwhich contains the bias or weight that inclines the bowl in running from\na direct course, being sometimes called the eye.\n\n [779] Rub is still a term at the game, expressive of the\n movement of the balls. Cf. \"King Lear\" (ii. 2), and \"Love's\n Labour's Lost\" (iv. 1), where Boyet, speaking of the game,\n says: \"I fear too much rubbing.\"\n\nA further reference to this game occurs in the following dialogue in\n\"Richard II.\" (iii. 4):\n\n \"_Queen._ What sport shall we devise here in this garden,\n To drive away the heavy thought of care?\n\n _1 Lady._ Madam, we'll play at bowls.\n\n _Queen._'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs,\n And that my fortune runs against the bias\"\n\n--the _bias_, as stated above, being a weight inserted in one side of a\nbowl, in order to give it a particular inclination in bowling. \"To run\nagainst the bias,\" therefore, became a proverb. Thus, to quote another\ninstance, in the \"Taming of the Shrew\" (iv. 5) Petruchio says:\n\n \"Well, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run,\n And not unluckily against the bias.\"\n\nAnd in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (iv. 5), the term \"bias-cheek\" is used to\ndenote a cheek swelling out like the bias of a bowl.[780]\n\n [780] Halliwell-Phillipps' \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare,\" p. 43.\n\n_Cards._ Some of the old terms connected with card-playing are curious,\na few of which are alluded to by Shakespeare. Thus, in \"King Lear\" (v.\n1), Edmund says:\n\n \"And hardly shall I carry out my side,\"\n\nalluding to the card table, where to carry out a side meant to carry out\nthe game with your partner successfully. So, \"to set up a side\" was to\nbecome partners in the game; \"to pull or pluck down a side\" was to lose\nit.[781]\n\n [781] Staunton's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. iii. p. 592.\n\nA lurch at cards denoted an easy victory. So, in \"Coriolanus\" (ii. 2),\nCominius says: \"he lurch'd all swords of the garland,\" meaning, as\nMalone says, that Coriolanus gained from all other warriors the wreath\nof victory, with ease, and incontestable superiority.\n\nA pack of cards was formerly termed \"a deck of cards,\" as in \"3 Henry\nVI.\" (v. 1):\n\n \"The king was slily finger'd from the deck.\"\n\nAgain, \"to vie\" was also a term at cards, and meant particularly to\nincrease the stakes, and generally to challenge any one to a contention,\nbet, wager, etc. So, Cleopatra (v. 2), says:\n\n \"nature wants stuff\n To vie strange forms with fancy.\"\n\n_Cherry-pit._ This consisted in throwing cherry stones into a little\nhole--a game, says Nares, still practised with dumps or money.[782] In\n\"Twelfth Night\" (iii. 4), Sir Toby alludes to it: \"What, man! 'tis not\nfor gravity to play at cherry-pit with Satan.\" Nash, in his \"Pierce\nPennilesse,\" speaking of the disfigurement of ladies' faces by painting,\nsays: \"You may play at cherry-pit in the dint of their cheeks.\"\n\n [782] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" vol. ii. p. 409.\n\n_Chess._ As might be expected, several allusions occur in Shakespeare's\nplays to this popular game. In \"The Tempest\" (v. 1), Ferdinand and\nMiranda are represented playing at it; and in \"King John\" (ii. 1),\nElinor says:\n\n \"That thou mayst be a queen, and check the world!\"\n\nIn the \"Taming of the Shrew\" (i. 1), Katharina asks:\n\n \"I pray you, sir, is it your will\n To make a stale[783] of me amongst these mates?\"\n\nalluding, as Douce[784] suggests, to the chess term of _stale-mate_,\nwhich is used when the game is ended by the king being alone and\nunchecked, and then forced into a situation from which he is unable to\nmove without going into check. This is a dishonorable termination to the\nadversary, who thereby loses the game. Thus, in Bacon's Twelfth Essay:\n\"They stand still like a stale at chess, where it is no mate, but yet\nthe game cannot stir.\"\n\n [783] She means, \"Do you intend to make a mockery of me among\n these companions?\"\n\n [784] \"Illustrations of Shakspeare,\" p. 20.\n\n_Dice._ Among the notices of this game, may be quoted that in \"Henry V.\"\n(iv. prologue):\n\n \"The confident and over-lusty French\n Do the low-rated English play at dice.\"\n\nEdgar, in \"King Lear\" (iii. 4), says: \"Wine loved I deeply, dice\ndearly.\" Pistol, in \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (i. 3), gives a double\nallusion:\n\n \"Let vultures gripe thy guts!--for gourd and fullam holds,\n And high and low beguiles the rich and poor.\"\n\n\"Gourds\" were false dice, with a secret cavity scooped out like a\ngourd. \"Fullams\" were also false dice, \"loaded with metal on one side,\nso as better to produce high throws, or to turn up low numbers, as was\nrequired, and were hence named 'high men' or 'low men,' also 'high\nfullams' and 'low fullams.'\"[785] It has been suggested that dice were\ntermed _fullams_ either because Fulham was the resort of sharpers, or\nbecause they were principally manufactured there.\n\n [785] Gifford's note on Jonson's Works, vol. ii. p. 3.\n\n_Dun is in the mire._ This is a Christmas sport, which Gifford[786]\ndescribes as follows: \"A log of wood is brought into the midst of the\nroom: this is _Dun_ (the cart-horse), and a cry is raised that he is\nstuck in the mire. Two of the company advance, either with or without\nropes, to draw him out. After repeated attempts, they find themselves\nunable to do it, and call for more assistance. The game continues till\nall the company take part in it, when Dun is extricated. Much merriment\nis occasioned from the awkward efforts of the rustics to lift the log,\nand from sundry arch contrivances to let the ends of it fall on one\nanother's toes.\" Thus, in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 4), Mercutio says:\n\n \"If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire.\"\n\n [786] Ibid., vol. vii. p. 283.\n\nBeaumont and Fletcher, also, in the \"Woman Hater\" (iv. 3), allude to\nthis game:\n\n \"Dun's in the mire, get out again how he can.\"\n\n_Fast and Loose._ This was a cheating game, much practised in\nShakespeare's day, whereby gypsies and other vagrants beguiled the\ncommon people of their money: and hence was very often to be seen at\nfairs. Its other name was \"pricking at the belt or girdle;\" and it is\nthus described by Sir J. Hawkins: \"A leathern belt was made up into a\nnumber of intricate folds, and placed edgewise upon a table. One of the\nfolds was made to resemble the middle of the girdle, so that whoever\ncould thrust a skewer into it would think he held it fast to the table;\nwhereas, when he has so done, the person with whom he plays may take\nhold of both ends, and draw it away.\" In \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (iv.\n12), Antony says:\n\n \"Like a right gypsy, hath, at fast and loose,\n Beguil'd me to the very heart of loss.\"\n\nThe drift of this game seems to have been to encourage wagers whether\nthe belt was fast or loose, which the juggler could easily make it at\nhis option. It is constantly alluded to by old writers, and is thus\ndescribed in Drayton's \"Moon-calf:\"\n\n \"He like a gypsy oftentimes would go,\n All kinds of gibberish he hath learn'd to know,\n And with a stick, a short string, and a noose,\n Would show the people tricks at fast and loose.\"\n\n_Fencing._ In years gone by, there were three degrees in fencing, a\nmaster's, a provost's, and a scholar's.[787] To each of these a prize\nwas played, with various weapons, in some open place or square. In\n\"Titus Andronicus\" (i. 1), this practice is alluded to by Saturninus:\n\n \"So, Bassianus, you have play'd your prize.\"\n\n [787] See Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 35.\n\nIn the \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (i. 1), Slender says: \"I bruised my shin\nth' other day with playing at sword and dagger with a master of fence,\"\n_i. e._, with one who had taken his master's degree in the science.\n\nAmong the numerous allusions to fencing quoted by Shakespeare may be\nmentioned the following: \"Venue or veney\" was a fencing term, meaning an\nattack or hit. It is used in the \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (i. 1), by\nSlender, who relates how he bruised his shin \"with playing at sword and\ndagger with a master of fence; three veneys for a dish of stewed\nprunes.\" It is used metaphorically in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 1), for\na brisk attack, by Armado: \"A sweet touch, a quick venue of wit! snip,\nsnap, quick and home!\"[788] The Italian term \"Stoccado\" or \"Stoccata,\"\nabbreviated also into \"Stock,\" seems to have had a similar\nsignification. In \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iii. 1), Mercutio, drawing his\nsword, says:\n\n \"Alla stoccata carries it away.\"\n\n [788] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 919.\n\nIn the \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (ii. 1), it is used by Shallow: \"In\nthese times you stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and I know\nnot what.\" Again, \"Montant,\" an abbreviation of Montanto, denoted an\nupright blow or thrust, and occurs also in the \"Merry Wives of Windsor\"\n(ii. 3), where the Host tells Caius that he, with the others, has come\n--\"to see thee pass thy punto, thy stock, thy reverse, thy distance, thy\nmontant.\" Hence, in \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (i. 1), Beatrice jocularly\ncalls Benedick \"Signior Montanto,\" meaning to imply that he was a great\nfencer. Of the other old fencing terms quoted in the passage above, it\nappears that \"passado\" implied a pass or motion forwards. It occurs in\n\"Romeo and Juliet\" (ii. 4), where Mercutio speaks of the \"immortal\npassado! the punto reverso!\" Again, in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (i. 2),\nArmado says of Cupid that \"The passado he respects not, the duello he\nregards not.\" The \"punto reverso\" was a backhanded thrust or stroke, and\nthe term \"distance\" was the space between the antagonists.\n\nShakespeare has also alluded to other fencing terms, such as the \"foin,\"\na thrust, which is used by the Host in the \"Merry Wives of Windsor\"\n(iii. 2), and in \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (v. 1), where Antonio says, in\nhis heated conversation with Leonato:\n\n \"Sir boy, I'll whip you from your foining fence;\n Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will.\"\n\nThe term \"traverse\" denoted a posture of opposition, and is used by the\nHost in the \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (ii. 3). A \"bout,\" too, is another\nfencing term, to which the King refers in \"Hamlet\" (iv. 7):\n\n \"When in your motion you are hot and dry--\n As make your bouts more violent to that end.\"\n\n_Filliping the Toad._ This is a common and cruel diversion of boys. They\nlay a board, two or three feet long, at right angles over a transverse\npiece two or three inches thick, then, placing the toad at one end of\nthe board, the other end is struck by a bat or large stick, which throws\nthe poor toad forty or fifty feet perpendicularly from the earth; and\nthe fall generally kills it. In \"2 Henry IV.\" (i. 2), Falstaff says: \"If\nI do, fillip me with a three-man beetle.\"[789]\n\n [789] A three-man beetle is a heavy implement, with three\n handles, used in driving piles, etc., which required three men\n to lift it.\n\n_Flap-dragon._[790] This pastime was much in use in days gone by. A\nsmall combustible body was set on fire, and put afloat in a glass of\nliquor. The courage of the toper was tried in the attempt to toss off\nthe glass in such a manner as to prevent the flap-dragon doing\nmischief--raisins in hot brandy being the usual flap-dragons. Shakespeare\nseveral times mentions this custom, as in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 1)\nwhere Costard says: \"Thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.\" And\nin \"2 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4), he makes Falstaff say: \"and drinks off\ncandles' ends for flap-dragons.\"[791]\n\n [790] A correspondent of \"Notes and Queries,\" 2d series, vol.\n vii. p. 277, suggests as a derivation the German _schnapps_,\n spirit, and _drache_, dragon, and that it is equivalent to\n spirit-fire.\n\n [791] Cf. \"Winter's Tale\" (iii. 3): \"But to make an end of the\n ship,--to see how the sea flap-dragoned it.\"\n\nIt appears that formerly gallants used to vie with each other in\ndrinking off flap-dragons to the health of their mistresses--which were\nsometimes even candles' ends, swimming in brandy or other strong\nspirits, whence, when on fire, they were snatched by the mouth and\nswallowed;[792] an allusion to which occurs in the passage above. As\ncandles' ends made the most formidable flap-dragon, the greatest merit\nwas ascribed to the heroism of swallowing them. Ben Jonson, in \"The\nMasque of the Moon\" (1838, p. 616, ed. Gifford), says: \"But none that\nwill hang themselves for love, or eat candles' ends, etc., as the\nsublunary lovers do.\"\n\n [792] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 131.\n\n_Football._ An allusion to this once highly popular game occurs in\n\"Comedy of Errors\" (ii. 1). Dromio of Ephesus asks:\n\n \"Am I so round with you as you with me,\n That like a football you do spurn me thus?\n\n * * * * *\n\n If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.\"\n\nIn \"King Lear\" (i. 4), Kent calls Oswald \"a base football player.\"\n\nAccording to Strutt,[793] it does not appear among the popular exercises\nbefore the reign of Edward III.; and then, in 1349, it was prohibited by\na public edict because it impeded the progress of archery. The danger,\nhowever, attending this pastime occasioned James I. to say: \"From this\nCourt I debarre all rough and violent exercises, as the football, meeter\nfor laming than making able the users thereof.\"\n\n [793] \"Sports and Pastimes,\" pp. 168, 169.\n\nOccasionally the rustic boys made use of a blown bladder, without the\ncovering of leather, by way of a football, putting beans and horse-beans\ninside, which made a rattling noise as it was kicked about. Barclay, in\nhis \"Ship of Fools\" (1508) thus graphically describes it:\n\n \"Howe in the winter, when men kill the fat swine,\n They get the bladder and blow it great and thin,\n With many beans or peason put within:\n It ratleth, soundeth, and shineth clere and fayre,\n While it is thrown and caste up in the ayre,\n Eche one contendeth and hath a great delite\n With foote and with hande the bladder for to smite;\n If it fall to grounde, they lifte it up agayne,\n This wise to labour they count it for no payne.\"\n\nShrovetide was the great season for football matches;[794] and at a\ncomparatively recent period it was played in Derby, Nottingham,\nKingston-upon-Thames, etc.\n\n [794] See \"British Popular Customs,\" 1876, pp. 78, 83, 87, 401.\n\n_Gleek._ According to Drake,[795] this game is alluded to twice by\nShakespeare--in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (iii. 1):\n\n \"Nay, I can gleek upon occasion.\"\n\n [795] \"Shakespeare and his Times,\" vol. ii. p. 170; see Douce's\n \"Illustrations of Shakspeare,\" pp. 118, 435.\n\nAnd in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iv. 5):\n\n \"_1 Musician._ What will you give us?\n\n _Peter._ No money, on my faith, but the gleek.\"\n\nDouce, however, considers that the word _gleek_ was simply used to\nexpress a stronger sort of joke, a scoffing; and that the phrase \"to\ngive the gleek\" merely denoted to pass a jest upon, or to make a person\nappear ridiculous.\n\n_Handy-dandy._ A very old game among children. A child hides something\nin his hand, and makes his playfellow guess in which hand it is. If the\nlatter guess rightly, he wins the article, if wrongly, he loses an\nequivalent.[796] Sometimes, says Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, \"the game is\nplayed by a sort of sleight-of-hand, changing the article rapidly from\none hand into the other, so that the looker-on is often deceived, and\ninduced to name the hand into which it is apparently thrown.\" This is\nwhat Shakespeare alludes to by \"change places\" in \"King Lear\" (iv. 6):\n\"see how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine ear:\nchange places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the\nthief?\"[797]\n\n [796] Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 199.\n\n [797] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. p. 420.\n\n_Hide-fox and all after._ A children's game, considered by many to be\nidentical with hide-and-seek. It is mentioned by Hamlet (iv. 2). Some\ncommentators think that the term \"kid-fox,\" in \"Much Ado About Nothing\"\n(ii. 3), may have been a technical term in the game of \"hide-fox.\" Some\neditions have printed it \"hid-fox.\" Claudio says:\n\n \"O, very well, my lord: the music ended,\n We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth.\"\n\n_Hoodman-blind._ The childish sport now called blindman's buff was known\nby various names, such as hood-wink, blind-hob, etc. It was termed\n\"hoodman-blind,\" because the players formerly were blinded with their\nhoods,[798] and under this designation it is mentioned by Hamlet (iii.\n4):\n\n \"What devil was't\n That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?\"\n\n [798] See Strutt's \"Sports and Pastimes,\" pp. 499, 500; Brand's\n \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. pp. 397, 398.\n\nIn Scotland this game was called \"belly-blind;\" and Gay, in his\n\"Shepherd's Week\" (i. 96), says, concerning it:\n\n \"As once I play'd at blindman's buff, it hapt\n About my eyes the towel thick was wrapt,\n I miss'd the swains, and seiz'd on Blouzelind.\n True speaks that ancient proverb, 'Love is blind.'\"\n\nThe term \"hoodman\" occurs in \"All's Well that Ends Well\" (iv. 3). The\nFirst Lord says: \"Hoodman comes!\" and no doubt there is an allusion to\nthe game in the same play (iii. 6), \"we will bind and hoodwink him;\" and\nin \"Macbeth\" (iv. 3) Macduff says: \"the time you may so hoodwink.\" There\nmay also have been a reference to falconry--the hawks being hooded in the\nintervals of sport. Thus, in Latham's \"Falconry\" (1615), \"to hood\" is\nthe term used for the blinding, \"to unhood\" for the unblinding.\n\n_Horse-racing._ That this diversion was in Shakespeare's day\noccasionally practised in the spirit of the modern turf is evident from\n\"Cymbeline\" (iii. 2):\n\n \"I have heard of riding wagers,\n Where horses have been nimbler than the sands\n That run i' the clock's behalf.\"\n\nBurton,[799] too, who wrote at the close of the Shakespearian era,\nmentions the ruinous consequences of this recreation: \"Horse races are\ndesports of great men, and good in themselves, though many gentlemen by\nsuch means gallop quite out of their fortunes.\"\n\n [799] \"Anatomy of Melancholy;\" Drake's \"Shakespeare and His\n Times,\" vol. ii. p. 298.\n\n_Leap-frog._ One boy stoops down with his hands upon his knees, and\nothers leap over him, every one of them running forward and stooping in\nhis turn. It is mentioned by Shakespeare in \"Henry V.\" (v. 2), where he\nmakes the king say, \"If I could win a lady at leap-frog, or by vaulting\ninto my saddle with my armour on my back, ... I should quickly leap into\na wife.\" Ben Jonson, in his comedy of \"Bartholomew Fair,\" speaks of \"a\nleappe frogge chance note.\"\n\n_Laugh-and-lie-down_ (more properly laugh-and-lay-down) was a game at\ncards, to which there is an allusion in the \"Two Noble Kinsmen\" (ii. 1):\n\n \"_Emilia._ I could laugh now.\n\n _Waiting-woman._ I could lie down, I'm sure.\"\n\n_Loggat._ The game so called resembles bowls, but with notable\ndifferences.[800] First, it is played, not on a green, but on a floor\nstrewed with ashes. The jack is a wheel of _lignum vit\u00e6_, or other hard\nwood, nine inches in diameter, and three or four inches thick. The\nloggat, made of apple-wood, is a truncated cone, twenty-six or\ntwenty-seven inches in length, tapering from a girth of eight and a half\nto nine inches at one end to three and a half or four inches at the\nother. Each player has three loggats, which he throws, holding lightly\nthe thin end. The object is to lie as near the jack as possible. Hamlet\nspeaks of this game (v. 1): \"Did these bones cost no more the breeding,\nbut to play at loggats with 'em?\" comparing, perhaps, the skull to the\njack at which the bones were thrown. In Ben Jonson's \"Tale of a Tub\"\n(iv. 5) we read:\n\n \"Now are they tossing of his legs and arms,\n Like loggats at a pear-tree.\"\n\n [800] Clark and Wright's \"Notes to Hamlet,\" 1876, pp. 212, 213.\n\nSir Thomas Hanmer makes the game the same as nine-pins or skittles. He\nsays: \"It is one of the unlawful games enumerated in the Thirty-third\nstatute of Henry VIII.;[801] it is the same which is now called\nkittle-pins, in which the boys often make use of bones instead of\nwooden pins, throwing at them with another bone instead of bowling.\"\n\n [801] See Strutt's \"Sports and Pastimes,\" p. 365; Nares's\n \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 522.\n\n_Marbles._ It has been suggested that there is an allusion to this\npastime in \"Measure for Measure\" (i. 3):\n\n \"Believe not that the dribbling dart of love\n Can pierce a complete bosom.\"\n\n--dribbling being a term used in the game of marbles for shooting slowly\nalong the ground, in contradistinction to _plumping_, which is elevating\nthe hand so that the marble does not touch the ground till it reaches\nthe object of its aim.[802] According to others, a dribbler was a term\nin archery expressive of contempt.[803]\n\n [802] Baker's \"Northamptonshire Glossary,\" 1854, vol. i. p. 198.\n\n [803] See Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 134.\n\n_Muss._ This was a phrase for a scramble, when any small objects were\nthrown down, to be taken by those who could seize them. In \"Antony and\nCleopatra\" (iii. 13), Antony says:\n\n \"Like boys unto a muss, kings would start forth.\"\n\nThe word is used by Dryden, in the Prologue to the \"Widow Ranter:\"\n\n \"Bauble and cap no sooner are thrown down\n But there's a muss of more than half the town.\"\n\n_Nine-Men's-Morris._ This rustic game, which is still extant in some\nparts of England, was sometimes called \"the nine men's merrils,\" from\n_merelles_, or _mereaux_, an ancient French word for the jettons or\ncounters with which it was played.[804] The other term, _morris_, is\nprobably a corruption suggested by the sort of dance which, in the\nprogress of the game, the counters performed. Some consider[805] that it\nwas identical with the game known as \"Nine-holes,\"[806] mentioned by\nHerrick in his \"Hesperides:\"\n\n \"Raspe playes at nine-holes, and 'tis known he gets\n Many a tester by his game, and bets.\"\n\n [804] Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 144.\n\n [805] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 605.\n\n [806] See Strutt's \"Sports and Pastimes,\" 1876, pp. 368, 369.\n\nCotgrave speaks of \"Le jeu des merelles,\" the boyish game called\n\"merills,\" or \"five pennie morris,\" played here most commonly with\nstones, but in France with pawns or men made on purpose, and termed\n\"merelles.\" It was also called \"peg morris,\" as is evidenced by Clare,\nwho, in his \"Rural Muse,\" speaking of the shepherd boy, says:\n\n \"Oft we may track his haunts, where he hath been\n To spend the leisure which his toils bestow,\n By nine-peg morris nicked upon the green.\"\n\nThe game is fully described by James, in the \"Variorum Shakespeare,\" as\nfollows: \"In that part of Warwickshire where Shakespeare was educated,\nand the neighbouring parts of Northamptonshire, the shepherds and other\nboys dig up the turf with their knives to represent a sort of imperfect\nchessboard. It consists of a square, sometimes only a foot diameter,\nsometimes three or four yards. Within this is another square, every side\nof which is parallel to the external square; and these squares are\njoined by lines drawn from each corner of both squares, and the middle\nof each line. One party or player has wooden pegs, the other stones,\nwhich they move in such a manner as to take up each other's men, as they\nare called, and the area of the inner square is called the pound, in\nwhich the men taken up are impounded. These figures are, by the country\npeople, called _nine-men's-morris_, or _merrils_; and are so called\nbecause each party has nine men. These figures are always cut upon the\ngreen turf or leys, as they are called, or upon the grass at the end of\nploughed lands, and in rainy seasons never fail to be choked up with\nmud.\" This verifies the allusion made by Shakespeare in \"A\nMidsummer-Night's Dream\" (ii. 1):\n\n \"The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud;\n And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,\n For lack of tread are undistinguishable.\"\n\nThis game was also transferred to a board, and continues a fireside\nrecreation of the agricultural laborer. It is often called by the name\nof \"Mill,\" or \"Shepherd's Mill.\"[807]\n\n [807] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. pp. 429, 432.\n\n_Noddy._ Some doubt exists as to what game at cards was signified by\nthis term. It has been suggested that cribbage is meant. Mr. Singer\nthinks it bore some resemblance to the more recent game of \"Beat the\nKnave out of Doors,\" which is mentioned together with \"Ruff and new\ncoat\" in Heywood's play of \"A Woman Killed with Kindness.\" The game is\nprobably alluded to in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (i. 2), in the following\ndialogue:\n\n \"_Pandarus._ When comes Troilus?--I'll show you Troilus anon:\n if he see me, you shall see him nod at me.\n\n _Cressida._ Will he give you the nod?\n\n _Pandarus._ You shall see.\n\n _Cressida._ If he do, the rich shall have more.\"[808]\n\n [808] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 606.\n\nThe term \"noddy\" was also applied to a fool, because, says Minsheu, he\nnods when he should speak. In this sense it occurs in \"Two Gentlemen of\nVerona\" (i. 1):\n\n \"_Speed._ You mistook, sir: I say, she did nod; and you ask\n me, if she did nod; and I say, 'Ay.'\n\n _Proteus._ And that set together is noddy.\"\n\n_Novem Quinque._ A game of dice, so called from its principal throws\nbeing five and nine. It is alluded to in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 2)\nby Biron, who speaks of it simply as \"novem.\"\n\n_Parish-top._ Formerly a top was kept for public exercise in a parish--a\ncustom to which the old writers often refer. Thus, in \"Twelfth Night\"\n(i. 3), Sir Toby Belch says: \"He's a coward, and a coystril, that will\nnot drink to my niece till his brains turn o' the toe like a\nparish-top.\" On which passage Mr. Steevens says: \"A large top was kept\nin every village, to be whipped in frosty weather, that the peasants\nmight be kept warm by exercise, and out of mischief while they could not\nwork.\" Beaumont and Fletcher, in \"Thierry and Theodoret\" (ii. 3), speak\nof the practice:\n\n \"I'll hazard\n My life upon it, that a body of twelve\n Should scourge him hither like a parish top,\n And make him dance before you.\"\n\nAnd in their \"Night Walker\" (i. 3) they mention the \"town-top.\" Evelyn,\nenumerating the uses of willow-wood, speaks of \"great town-topps.\" Mr.\nKnight[809] remarks that the custom which existed in the time of\nElizabeth, and probably long before, of a large top being provided for\nthe amusement of the peasants in frosty weather, presents a curious\nillustration of the mitigating influences of social kindness in an age\nof penal legislation.\n\n [809] \"Pictorial Shakespeare,\" vol. ii. p. 145.\n\n_Primero._ In Shakespeare's time this was a very fashionable game at\ncards, and hence is frequently alluded to by him. It was known under the\nvarious designations of _Primero_, _Prime_, and _Primavista_; and,\naccording to Strutt,[810] has been reckoned among the most ancient games\nof cards known to have been played in England. Shakespeare speaks of\nHenry VIII. (v. 1) playing at primero with the Duke of Suffolk, and\nmakes Falstaff exclaim, in \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (iv. 5), \"I never\nprospered since I forswore myself at primero.\" That it was the court\ngame is shown in a very curious picture described by Mr. Barrington, in\nthe \"Arch\u00e6ologia\" (vol. viii. p. 132), which represents Lord Burleigh\nplaying at this pastime with three other noblemen. Primero continued to\nbe the most fashionable game throughout the reigns of Henry VIII.,\nEdward VI., Mary, Elizabeth, and James I.[811] In the Earl of\nNorthumberland's letters about the Gunpowder-plot we find that Josceline\nPercy was playing at primero on Sunday, when his uncle, the conspirator,\ncalled on him at Essex House; and in the Sydney Papers there is an\naccount of a quarrel between Lord Southampton and one Ambrose\nWilloughby, on account of the former persisting to play at primero in\nthe presence-chamber after the queen had retired to rest. The manner of\nplaying was thus: Each player had four cards dealt to him one by one;\nthe seven was the highest card in point of number that he could avail\nhimself of, which counted for twenty-one; the six counted for sixteen,\nthe five for fifteen, and the ace for the same; but the two, the three,\nand the four for their respective points only.\n\n [810] \"Sports and Pastimes.\"\n\n [811] Smith's \"Festivals, Games, and Amusements,\" 1831, p. 320.\n\nThere may be further allusions to this game in \"Taming of the Shrew\"\n(ii. 1), where Tranio says:\n\n \"A vengeance on your crafty, wither'd hide!\n Yet I have faced it with a card of ten\"\n\n--the phrase \"to face it with a card of ten\" being derived, as some\nsuggest, possibly from primero, wherein the standing boldly on a ten was\noften successful. \"To face\" meant, as it still does, to attack by\nimpudence of face. In \"1 Henry VI.\" (v. 3) Suffolk speaks of a \"cooling\ncard,\" which Nares considers is borrowed from primero--a card so decisive\nas to cool the courage of the adversary. Gifford objects to this\nexplanation, and says a \"cooling-card\" is, literally, a _bolus_. There\ncan be no doubt, however, that, metaphorically, the term was used to\ndenote something which damped or overwhelmed the hopes of an expectant.\nThus, in Fletcher's \"Island Princess\" (i. 3), Piniero says:\n\n \"These hot youths\n I fear will find a cooling-card.\"\n\n_Push-pin_ was a foolish sport, consisting in nothing more than pushing\none pin across another. Biron, in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (iv. 3), speaks\nof Nestor playing \"at push-pin with the boys.\"\n\n_Quintain._ This was a figure set up for tilters to run at, in mock\nresemblance of a tournament, and is alluded to in \"As You Like It\" (i.\n2) by Orlando, who says:\n\n \"My better parts\n Are all thrown down, and that which here stands up\n Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block.\"\n\nIt cannot be better or more minutely described than in the words of Mr.\nStrutt:[812] \"Tilting or combating at the quintain is a military\nexercise of high antiquity, and antecedent, I doubt not, to the jousts\nand tournaments. The quintain originally was nothing more than the trunk\nof a tree or post set up for the practice of the tyros in chivalry.\nAfterwards a staff or spear was fixed in the earth, and a shield being\nhung upon it, was the mark to strike at. The dexterity of the performer\nconsisted in smiting the shield in such a manner as to break the\nligatures and bear it to the ground. In process of time this diversion\nwas improved, and instead of a staff and the shield, the resemblance of\na human figure carved in wood was introduced. To render the appearance\nof this figure more formidable, it was generally made in the likeness of\na Turk or a Saracen, armed at all points, bearing a shield upon his left\narm, and brandishing a club or a sabre with his right. The quintain thus\nfashioned was placed upon a pivot, and so contrived as to move round\nwith facility. In running at this figure, it was necessary for the\nhorseman to direct his lance with great adroitness, and make his stroke\nupon the forehead between the eyes, or upon the nose; for if he struck\nwide of those parts, especially upon the shield, the quintain turned\nabout with much velocity, and, in case he was not exceedingly careful,\nwould give him a severe blow upon the back with the wooden sabre held in\nthe right hand, which was considered as highly disgraceful to the\nperformer, while it excited the laughter and ridicule of the\nspectators.\"[813] In Ben Jonson's \"Underwoods\" it is thus humorously\nmentioned:\n\n \"Go, Captain Stub, lead on, and show\n What horse you come on, by the blow\n You give Sir Quintain, and the cuff\n You 'scape o' the sandbags counterbuff.\"\n\n [812] \"Sports and Pastimes,\" 1876, p. 182.\n\n [813] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 713.\n\n_Quoits._ This game derived its origin, according to Strutt,[814] from\nthe ancient discus, and with us, at the present day, it is a circular\nplate of iron perforated in the middle, not always of one size, but\nlarger or smaller, to suit the strength or conveniency of the several\ncandidates. It is referred to in \"2 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4), by Falstaff, who\nassigns as one of the reasons why Prince Henry loves Poins: \"Because\ntheir legs are both of a bigness, and 'a plays at quoits well.\"\n\n [814] \"Sports and Pastimes,\" p. 141.\n\nFormerly, in the country, the rustics, not having the round perforated\nquoits to play with, used horse-shoes; and in many places the quoit\nitself, to this day, is called a shoe.\n\n_Running for the ring._ This, according to Staunton, was the name of a\nsport, a ring having been one of the prizes formerly given in wrestling\nand running matches. Thus, in the \"Taming of the Shrew\" (i. 1),\nHortensio says: \"He that runs fastest gets the ring.\"\n\n_Running the figure of eight._ Steevens says that this game is alluded\nto by Shakespeare in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (ii. 1), where Titania\nspeaks of the \"quaint mazes in the wanton green.\" Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps,\nin referring to this passage, says: \"Several mazes of the kind here\nalluded to are still preserved, having been kept up from time immemorial.\nOn the top of Catherine Hill, Winchester, the usual play-place of the\nschool, was a very perplexed and winding path, running in a very small\nspace over a great deal of ground, called a \"miz-maze.\" The senior boys\nobliged the juniors to tread it, to prevent the figure from being lost,\nand I believe it is still retained.\"[815]\n\n [815] See Milner's \"History of Winchester,\" vol. ii. p. 155.\n\n_See-Saw._ Another name for this childish sport is that given by\nFalstaff in \"2 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4), where he calls it \"riding the wild\nmare.\" Gay thus describes this well-known game:\n\n \"Across the fallen oak the plank I laid,\n And myself pois'd against the tott'ring maid;\n High leap'd the plank, adown Buxonia fell.\"\n\n_Shove-Groat._ The object of this game was to shake or push pieces of\nmoney on a board to reach certain marks. It is alluded to in \"2 Henry\nIV.\" (ii. 4), where Falstaff says: \"Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a\nshove-groat shilling;\" or, in other words, Bardolph was to quoit Pistol\ndown-stairs as quickly as the smooth shilling--the shove-groat--flies\nalong the board. In a statute of 33 Henry VIII., shove-groat is called a\nnew game, and was probably originally played with the silver groat. The\nbroad shilling of Edward VI. came afterwards to be used in this game,\nwhich was, no doubt, the same as shovel-board, with the exception that\nthe latter was on a larger scale. Master Slender, in the \"Merry Wives of\nWindsor\" (i. 1), had his pocket picked of \"two Edward shovel-boards,\nthat cost me two shilling and two pence a-piece.\" Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps,\nin describing the game in his \"Archaic Dictionary,\" says that \"a shilling\nor other smooth coin was placed on the extreme edge of the shovel-board,\nand propelled towards a mark by a smart stroke with the palm of the\nhand.\" It is mentioned under various names, according to the coin\nemployed, as shove-groat,[816] etc. The game of shove-halfpenny is\nmentioned in the _Times_ of April 25, 1845, as then played by the lower\norders. According to Strutt, it \"was analogous to the modern pastime\ncalled Justice Jervis, or Jarvis, which is confined to common\npot-houses.\"\n\n [816] According to Douce, \"Illustrations of Shakespeare\" (1839,\n p. 280), it was known as \"slide-groat,\" \"slide-board,\"\n \"slide-thrift,\" and \"slip-thrift.\" See Strutt's \"Sports and\n Pastimes,\" 1876, pp. 16, 394, 398; Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii.\n p. 791; Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. p. 441.\n\n_Snowballs._ These are alluded to in \"Pericles\" (iv. 6), and in the\n\"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (iii. 5).\n\n_Span-counter._ In this boyish game one throws a counter, or piece of\nmoney, which the other wins, if he can throw another so as to hit it, or\nlie within a span of it. In \"2 Henry VI.\" (iv. 2), Cade says: \"Tell the\nking from me, that, for his father's sake, Henry the Fifth, in whose\ntime boys went to span-counter for French crowns, I am content he shall\nreign.\" It is called in France \"tapper;\" and in Swift's time was played\nwith farthings, as he calls it \"span-farthing.\"[817]\n\n [817] See Strutt's \"Sports and Pastimes,\" 1876, p. 491.\n\n_Stool-ball._ This game, alluded to in the \"Two Noble Kinsmen\" (v. 2),\nwas formerly popular among young women, and occasionally was played by\npersons of both sexes indiscriminately, as the following lines, from a\nsong written by Durfey for his play of \"Don Quixote,\" acted at Dorset\nGardens, in 1694, show:[818]\n\n \"Down in a vale on a summer's day,\n All the lads and lasses met to be merry;\n A match for kisses at stool-ball to play,\n And for cakes, and ale, and sider, and perry.\n\n _Chorus_--Come all, great, small, short, tall, away to stool-ball.\"\n\n [818] Quoted by Strutt, \"Sports and Pastimes,\" p. 166.\n\nStrutt informs us that this game, as played in the north, \"consists in\nsimply setting a stool upon the ground, and one of the players takes his\nplace before it, while his antagonist, standing at a distance, tosses a\nball with the intention of striking the stool; and this is the business\nof the former to prevent by beating it away with the hand, reckoning one\nto the game for every stroke of the ball; if, on the contrary, it should\nbe missed by the hand and touch the stool, the players change places.\nThe conqueror is he who strikes the ball most times before it touches\nthe stool.\"\n\n_Tennis._ According to a story told by the old annalists, one of the\nmost interesting historical events in connection with this game happened\nwhen Henry V. was meditating war against France. \"The Dolphin,\" says\nHall in his \"Chronicle,\" \"thynkyng King Henry to be given still to such\nplaies and lyght folies as he exercised and used before the tyme that he\nwas exalted to the Croune, sent to hym a tunne of tennis balles to plaie\nwith, as who saied that he had better skill of tennis than of warre.\" On\nthe foundation of this incident, as told by Holinshed, Shakespeare has\nconstructed his fine scene of the French Ambassadors' audience in \"Henry\nV.\" (i. 2). As soon as the first Ambassador has given the Dauphin's\nmessage and insulting gift, the English king speaks thus:\n\n \"We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;\n His present and your pains we thank you for:\n When we have match'd our rackets to these balls,\n We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set\n Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.\n Tell him, he hath made a match with such a wrangler\n That all the courts of France will be disturb'd\n With chases.\"\n\nIn \"Hamlet\" (ii. 1), Polonius speaks of this pastime, and alludes to\n\"falling out at tennis.\" In the sixteenth century tennis-courts were\ncommon in England, and the establishment of such places was countenanced\nby the example of royalty. It is evident that Henry VII. was a\ntennis-player. In a MS. register of his expenditures, made in the\nthirteenth year of his reign, this entry occurs: \"Item, for the king's\nloss at tennis, twelvepence; for the loss of balls, threepence.\" Stow,\nin his \"Survey of London,\" tells us that among the additions that King\nHenry VIII. made to Whitehall, were \"divers fair tennis-courts,\nbowling-allies, and a cock-pit.\" Charles II. frequently diverted himself\nwith playing at tennis, and had a particular kind of dress made for that\npurpose. Pericles, when he is shipwrecked and cast upon the coast of\nPentapolis, addresses himself and the three fishermen whom he chances to\nmeet thus (\"Pericles,\" ii. 1):\n\n \"A man whom both the waters and the wind,\n In that vast tennis-court, have made the ball\n For them to play upon, entreats you pity him.\"\n\nIn \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (iii. 2), Claudio, referring to Benedick,\nsays: \"the old ornament of his cheek hath already stuffed\ntennis-balls;\"[819] and in \"Henry V.\" (iii. 7), the Dauphin says his\nhorse \"bounds from the earth as if his entrails were hairs.\" Again,\n\"bandy\" was originally a term at tennis, to which Juliet refers in\n\"Romeo and Juliet\" (ii. 5), when speaking of her Nurse:\n\n \"Had she affections, and warm youthful blood,\n She'd be as swift in motion as a ball;\n My words would bandy her to my sweet love,\n And his to me.\"\n\n [819] In \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 2), the Princess speaks of\n \"a set of wit well play'd;\" upon which Mr. Singer\n (\"Shakespeare,\" vol. ii. p. 263) adds that \"a set is a term at\n tennis for a game.\"\n\nAlso, King Lear (i. 4) says to Oswald: \"Do you bandy looks with me, you\nrascal?\"\n\n_Tick-tack._ This was a sort of backgammon, and is alluded to by Lucio\nin \"Measure for Measure\" (i. 2) who, referring to Claudio's unpleasant\npredicament, says: \"I would be sorry should be thus foolishly lost at a\ngame of tick-tack.\" In Weaver's \"Lusty Juventus,\" Hipocrisye, seeing\nLusty Juventus kiss Abhominable Lyuing, says:\n\n \"What a hurly burly is here!\n Smicke smacke, and all thys gere!\n You well [will] to _tycke take_, I fere,\n If thou had tyme.\"[820]\n\n [820] Quoted by Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 449; see Brand's \"Pop.\n Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. ii. p. 445.\n\n\"Jouer au tric-trac\" is used, too, in France in a wanton sense.\n\n_Tray-trip._ This was probably a game at cards, played with dice as well\nas with cards, the success in which chiefly depended upon the throwing\nof treys. Thus, in a satire called \"Machivell's Dog\" (1617):\n\n \"But, leaving cardes, lets go to dice a while,\n To passage, treitrippe, hazarde, or mumchance.\"\n\nIn \"Twelfth Night\" (ii. 5). Sir Toby Belch asks: \"Shall I play my\nfreedom at tray-trip, and become thy bond-slave?\" It may be remembered,\ntoo, that in \"The Scornful Lady\" of Beaumont and Fletcher (ii. 1), the\nChaplain complains that the Butler had broken his head, and being asked\nthe reason, says, for\n\n \"Reproving him at tra-trip, sir, for swearing.\"\n\nSome are of opinion that it resembled the game of hopscotch, or\nScotch-hop; but this, says Nares,[821] \"seems to rest merely upon\nunauthorized conjecture.\"\n\n [821] \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 896.\n\n_Troll-my-dame._ The game of Troll-madam, still familiar as Bagatelle,\nwas borrowed from the French (_Trou-madame_). One of its names was\nPigeon-holes, because played on a board, at one end of which were a\nnumber of arches, like pigeon-holes, into which small balls had to be\nbowled. In \"Winter's Tale\" (iv. 2), it is mentioned by Autolycus, who,\nin answer to the Clown, says that the manner of fellow that robbed him\nwas one that he had \"known to go about with troll-my-dames.\" Cotgrave\ndeclares it as \"the game called Trunkes, or the Hole.\"\n\n_Trump._ This was probably the _triumfo_ of the Italians, and the\n_triomphe_ of the French--being perhaps of equal antiquity in England\nwith _primero_. At the latter end of the sixteenth century it was very\ncommon among the inferior classes. There is, no doubt, a particular\nallusion to this game in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (iv. 14), where Antony\nsays:\n\n \"the queen--\n Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine;\n Which, whilst it was mine, had annex'd unto't\n A million more, now lost--she, Eros, has\n Pack'd cards with C\u00e6sar, and false-play'd my glory\n Unto an enemy's triumph.\"\n\nThe poet meant to say, that Cleopatra, by collusion, played the great\ngame they were engaged in falsely, so as to sacrifice Antony's fame to\nthat of his enemy. There is an equivoque between _trump_ and _triumph_.\nThe game in question bore a very strong resemblance to our modern\nwhist--the only points of dissimilarity being that more or less than four\npersons might play at trump; that all the cards were not dealt out; and\nthat the dealer had the privilege of discarding some, and taking others\nin from the stock. In Eliot's \"Fruits for the French,\" 1593, it is\ncalled \"a very common ale-house game in England.\"\n\n_Wrestling._ Of the many allusions that are given by Shakespeare to this\npastime, we may quote the phrase \"to catch on the hip,\" made use of by\nShylock in the \"Merchant of Venice\" (i. 3), who, speaking of Antonio,\nsays,\n\n \"If I can catch him once upon the hip,\n I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him\"\n\n--the meaning being, \"to have at an entire advantage.\"[822] The\nexpression occurs again in \"Othello\" (ii. 1), where Iago says:\n\n \"I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip.\"\n\n [822] Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 208.\n\nNares,[823] however, considers the phrase was derived from hunting;\nbecause, \"when the animal pursued is seized upon the hip, it is finally\ndisabled from flight.\"\n\n [823] \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 421.\n\nIn \"As You Like It\" (ii. 3), where Adam speaks of the \"bonny priser of\nthe humorous duke,\" Singer considers that a _priser_ was the phrase for\na wrestler, a _prise_ being a term in that sport for a grappling or hold\ntaken.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\n\nDANCES.\n\n\nWe are indebted to Shakespeare for having bequeathed to us many\ninteresting allusions to some of the old dances in use in his day, but\nwhich have long ago passed into oblivion. As will be seen, these were of\na very diverse character, but, as has been remarked, were well suited to\nthe merry doings of our forefathers; and although in some cases they\njustly merited censure for their extravagant nature, yet the greater\npart of these sources of diversion were harmless. Indeed, no more\npleasing picture can be imagined than that of a rustic sheep-shearing\ngathering in the olden times, when, the work over, the peasantry joined\ntogether in some simple dance, each one vieing with his neighbor to\nperform his part with as much grace as possible.\n\n_Antic._ This was a grotesque dance. In \"Macbeth\" (iv. 1), the witch,\nperceiving how Macbeth is affected by the horrible apparitions which he\nhas seen, says to her sisters:\n\n \"Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprites,\n And show the best of our delights.\n I'll charm the air to give a sound,\n While you perform your antic round.\"\n\nTo quote another instance, Armado, in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 1),\nsays:\n\n \"We will have, if this fadge not, an antique.\"\n\n_Bergomask Dance._ According to Sir Thomas Hanmer, this was a dance\nafter the manner of the peasants of Bergomasco, a county in Italy\nbelonging to the Venetians. All the buffoons in Italy affected to\nimitate the ridiculous jargon of that people, and from thence it became\ncustomary to mimic also their manner of dancing. In \"A Midsummer-Night's\nDream\" (v. 1), Bottom asks Theseus whether he would like \"to hear a\nBergomask dance,\" between two of their company.\n\n_Brawl._ This was a kind of dance. It appears that several persons\nunited hands in a circle, and gave one another continual shakes, the\nsteps changing with the tune. With this dance balls were usually\nopened.[824] Kissing was occasionally introduced. In \"Love's Labour's\nLost\" (iii. 1), Moth asks his master: \"Will you win your love with a\nFrench brawl.\"\n\n [824] Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 134.\n\n_Canary._ This was the name of a sprightly dance, the music to which\nconsisted of two strains with eight bars in each; an allusion to which\nis made by Moth in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (iii. 1), who speaks of\njigging off a tune at the tongue's end, and canarying to it with the\nfeet. And in \"All's Well that End's Well\" (ii. 1), Lafeu tells the king\nthat he has seen a medicine\n\n \"that's able to breathe life into a stone,\n Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary\n With spritely fire and motion.\"\n\nThis dance is said to have originated in the Canary Islands, an opinion,\nhowever, which has, says Dyce, been disputed.[825]\n\n [825] See Chappell's \"Popular Music of the Olden Time,\" 2d\n edition, vol. i. p. 368; Dyce's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 63.\n\n_Cinque-pace._ This was so named from its steps being regulated by the\nnumber five:\n\n \"Five was the number of the music's feet,\n Which still the dance did with five paces meet.\"[826]\n\n [826] Quoted by Nares from Sir John Davies on \"Dancing.\" Mr.\n Dyce, \"Glossary,\" p. 81, says that Nares wrongly confounded\n this with the \"gallard.\"\n\nIn \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (ii. 1), Shakespeare makes Beatrice make a\nquibble upon the term; for after comparing wooing, wedding, and\nrepenting to a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace, she says:\n\"then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the\ncinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.\" A further\nreference occurs in \"Twelfth Night\" (i. 3), by Sir Toby Belch, who calls\nit a \"sink-a-pace.\"\n\n_Coranto._ An allusion to this dance, which appears to have been of a\nvery lively and rapid character, is made in \"Henry V.\" (iii. 5), where\nthe Duke of Bourbon describes it as the \"swift coranto;\" and in \"All's\nWell that Ends Well\" (ii. 3) Lafeu refers to it. A further notice of it\noccurs in \"Twelfth Night\" (i. 3), in the passage where Sir Toby Belch\nspeaks of \"coming home in a coranto.\"\n\n_Fading._ Malone quotes a passage from \"Sportive Wit,\" 1666, which\nimplies that this was a rustic dance:\n\n \"The courtiers scorn us country clowns,\n We country clowns do scorn the court;\n We can be as merry upon the downs\n As you at midnight with all your sport,\n With a _fading_, with a _fading_.\"\n\nIt would appear, also, from a letter appended to Boswell's edition of\nMalone, that it was an Irish dance, and that it was practised, upon\nrejoicing occasions, as recently as 1803, the date of the letter:\n\n\"This dance is still practised on rejoicing occasions in many parts of\nIreland; a king and queen are chosen from amongst the young persons who\nare the best dancers; the queen carries a garland composed of two hoops\nplaced at right angles, and fastened to a handle; the hoops are covered\nwith flowers and ribbons; you have seen it, I dare say, with the\nMay-maids. Frequently in the course of the dance the king and queen lift\nup their joined hands as high as they can, she still holding the garland\nin the other. The most remote couple from the king and queen first pass\nunder; all the rest of the line linked together follow in succession.\nWhen the last has passed, the king and queen suddenly face about and\nfront their companions; this is often repeated during the dance, and the\nvarious undulations are pretty enough, resembling the movements of a\nserpent. The dancers on the first of May visit such newly wedded pairs\nof a certain rank as have been married since last May-day in the\nneighborhood, who commonly bestow on them a stuffed ball richly decked\nwith gold and silver lace, and accompanied with a present in money, to\nregale themselves after the dance. This dance is practised when the\nbonfires are lighted up, the queen hailing the return of summer in a\npopular Irish song beginning:\n\n 'We lead on summer--see! she follows in our train.'\"\n\nIn the \"Winter's Tale\" (iv. 4), Shakespeare seems to allude to this\ndance where he makes the servant, speaking of the pedler, say: \"he has\nthe prettiest love songs for maids; so without bawdry, which is strange;\nwith such delicate burdens of 'dildos' and 'fadings.'\" Some\ncommentators,[827] however, consider that only the song is meant.\n\n [827] See Knight's \"Pictorial Shakespeare,\" vol. ii. p. 375;\n Dyce's \"Glossary,\" 1836, p. 152; \"British Popular Customs,\"\n 1876, pp. 276, 277. See also Chappell's \"Popular Music of the\n Olden Time,\" 2d edition, vol. i. p. 235; Nares's \"Glossary,\"\n vol. i. p. 292.\n\n_Hay._ Douce[828] says this dance was borrowed by us from the French,\nand is classed among the \"brawls\" in Thoinot Arbeau's \"Orchesographie\"\n(1588). In \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 1), Dull says: \"I will play on\ntabor to the Worthies, and let them dance their hay.\"\n\n [828] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 146.\n\n_Jig._ Besides meaning a merry, sprightly dance, a jig also implied a\ncoarse sort of comic entertainment, in which sense it is probably used\nby Hamlet (ii. 2): \"He's for a jig or a tale of bawdry.\" \"It seems,\"\nsays Mr. Collier,[829] \"to have been a ludicrous composition in rhyme,\nsung, or said, by the clown, and accompanied by dancing and playing upon\nthe pipe and tabor.\"[830] an instance of which perhaps occurs in the\nClown's song at the close of \"Twelfth Night:\"\n\n \"When that I was and a little tiny boy.\"\n\n [829] \"History of English Dramatic Poetry,\" vol. iii. p. 380;\n see Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 229; Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p.\n 450; Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. ix. pp. 198, 219.\n\n [830] \"Hamlet:\" iii. 2: \"your only jig-maker.\"\n\nFletcher, in the Prologue to the \"Fair Maid of the Inn,\" says:\n\n \"A jig should be clapt at, and every rhyme\n Praised and applauded by a clamorous chime.\"\n\nAmong the allusions to this dance we may quote one in \"Much Ado About\nNothing\" (ii. 1), where Beatrice compares wooing to a Scotch jig; and\nanother in \"Twelfth Night\" (i. 3), where Sir Toby Belch says, his \"very\nwalk should be a jig.\"\n\n_Lavolta._ According to Florio, the lavolta is a kind of turning French\ndance, in which the man turns the woman round several times, and then\nassists her in making a high spring or _cabriole_. It is thus described\nby Sir John Davies:\n\n \"Yet is there one the most delightful kind.\n A loftie jumping, or a leaping round,\n Where arme in arme two dauncers are entwined,\n And whirle themselves, with strict embracements bound;\n And still their feet an anapest do sound,\n An anapest is all their musicks song,\n Whose first two feet are short, and third is long.\"\n\nDouce,[831] however, considers it to be of Italian origin, and says, \"It\npassed from Italy into Provence and the rest of France, and thence into\nEngland.\" Scot, too, in his \"Discovery of Witchcraft,\" thus speaks of\nit: \"He saith, that these night-walking, or rather night-dancing,\nwitches, brought out of Italie into France that dance which is called\n_la Volta_.\" Shakespeare, in his \"Henry V.\" (iii. 5), makes the Duke of\nBourbon allude to it:\n\n \"They bid us to the English dancing-schools,\n And teach lavoltas high, and swift corantos.\"\n\n [831] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 301; see Nares's\n \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 498.\n\nAgain, in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (iv. 4), Troilus says:\n\n \"I cannot sing,\n Nor heel the high lavolt.\"\n\n_Light o' Love._ This was an old dance tune, and was a proverbial\nexpression for levity, especially in love matters.[832] In \"Much Ado\nAbout Nothing\" (iii. 4), Margaret says: \"Clap's into 'Light o' love;'\nthat goes without a burden; do you sing it, and I'll dance it;\" to which\nBeatrice answers: \"Yea, light o' love, with your heels.\"\n\n [832] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 510.\n\nIn \"Two Gentlemen of Verona\" (i. 2), it is alluded to:\n\n \"_Julia._ Best sing it to the tune of 'Light o' love.'\n\n _Lucetta._ It is too heavy for so light a tune.\"\n\nIn the \"Two Noble Kinsmen\" (v. 2), we read:\n\n \"He'll dance the morris twenty mile an hour.\n And gallops to the tune of 'Light o' love.'\"\n\nAnd in Beaumont and Fletcher's \"Chances\" (i. 3), Frederic says: \"Sure he\nhas encounter'd some light-o'-love or other.\"\n\n_Pavan._ This was a grave and majestic dance, in which the gentlemen\nwore their caps, swords, and mantles, and the ladies their long robes\nand trains. The dancers stepped round the room and then crossed in the\nmiddle, trailing their garments on the ground, \"the motion whereof,\"\nsays Sir J. Hawkins, \"resembled that of a peacock's tail.\" It is alluded\nto in \"Twelfth Night\" (v. 1) by Sir Toby: \"A passy-measures pavin,\"\nalthough the reading of this passage is uncertain, the editors of the\n\"Globe\" edition substituting _panyn_.\n\nIt has been conjectured that the \"passy-measure galliard,\" and the\n\"passy-measure pavan\" were only two different measures of the same\ndance, from the Italian _passamezzo_.[833]\n\n [833] See Dyce, vol. iii. p. 412, _note_ 121.\n\n_Roundel._ This was also called the \"round,\" a dance of a circular kind,\nand is probably referred to by Titania in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\"\n(ii. 2), where she says to her train:[834]\n\n \"Come now, a roundel and a fairy song.\"\n\n [834] Roundel also meant a song. Mr. Dyce considers the dance\n is here meant.\n\nBen Jonson, in the \"Tale of a Tub,\"[835] seems to call the rings, which\nsuch fairy dances are supposed to make, _roundels_.\n\n \"I'll have no roundels, I, in the queen's paths.\"\n\n [835] See Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. ii. p. 333.\n\n_Satyrs' Dance._ A dance of satyrs was a not uncommon entertainment in\nShakespeare's day, or even at an earlier period.[836] It was not\nconfined to England, and has been rendered memorable by the fearful\naccident with which it was accompanied at the Court of France in 1392, a\ngraphic description of which has been recorded by Froissart. In the\n\"Winter's Tale\" (iv. 4), the satyrs' dance is alluded to by the Servant,\nwho says: \"Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three\nneat-herds, three swine-herds, that have made themselves all men of\nhair; they call themselves Saltiers: and they have a dance which the\nwenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are not in't.\" In\na book of songs composed by Thomas Ravenscroft and others, in the time\nof Shakespeare, we find one[837] called the \"Satyres' daunce.\" It is for\nfour voices, and is as follows:\n\n \"Round a round, a rounda, keepe your ring\n To the glorious sunne we sing.\n Hoe, hoe!\n\n He that weares the flaming rayes,\n And the imperiall crowne of bayes,\n Him with shoutes and songs we praise.\n Hoe, hoe!\n\n That in his bountee would vouchsafe to grace\n The humble sylvanes and their shaggy race.\"\n\n [836] See Knight's \"Pictorial Shakespeare,\" vol. ii. p. 384;\n Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. iv. p. 85; Boswell's\n \"Shakespeare,\" vol. xiv. p. 371.\n\n [837] See Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 222.\n\n_Sword-dance._ In olden times there were several kinds of sword-dances,\nmost of which afforded opportunities for the display of skill. In\n\"Antony and Cleopatra\" (iii. 11), there seems to be an allusion to this\ncustom, where Antony, speaking of C\u00e6sar, says:[838]\n\n \"he, at Philippi, kept\n His sword e'en like a dancer.\"\n\n [838] See Strutt's \"Sports and Pastimes,\" 1876, pp. 300, 301;\n Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 193.\n\nAnd in \"All's Well that Ends Well\" (ii. 1), where Bertram, lamenting\nthat he is kept from the wars, adds:\n\n \"I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock,\n Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry,\n Till honour be bought up, and no sword worn\n But one to dance with.\"\n\nIn \"Titus Andronicus\" (ii. 1), too, Demetrius says to Chiron:\n\n \"Why, boy, although our mother, unadvis'd\n Gave you a dancing-rapier by your side.\"\n\n_Tread a Measure_, to which the King refers in \"Love's Labour's Lost\"\n(v. 2), when he tells Boyet to tell Rosaline\n\n \"we have measur'd many miles,\n To tread a measure with her on this grass,\"\n\nwas a grave solemn dance, with slow and measured steps, like the minuet.\nAs it was of so solemn a nature, it was performed[839] at public\nentertainments in the Inns of Court, and it was \"not unusual, nor\nthought inconsistent, for the first characters in the law to bear a part\nin treading a measure.\"\n\n [839] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. ii. p. 269; Sir Christopher\n Hatton was famous for it.\n\n_Trip and Go_ was the name of a favorite morris-dance, and appears, says\nMr. Chappell, in his \"Popular Music of the Olden Times,\" etc. (2d\nedition, vol. i. p. 131), to have become a proverbial expression. It is\nused in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (iv. 2).\n\n_Up-spring._ From the following passage, in Chapman's \"Alphonsus,\nEmperor of Germany,\" it would seem that this was a German dance:\n\n \"We Germans have no changes in our dances;\n An almain and an up-spring, that is all.\"\n\nKarl Elze,[840] who, a few years ago, reprinted Chapman's \"Alphonsus\" at\nLeipsic, says that the word \"up-spring\" \"is the 'H\u00fcpfauf,' the last and\nwildest dance at the old German merry-makings. No epithet could there be\nmore appropriate to this drunken dance than Shakespeare's _swaggering_\"\nin \"Hamlet\" (i. 4):\n\n \"The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,\n Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels.\"\n\n [840] Quoted in Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 476.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.\n\nPUNISHMENTS.\n\n\nShakespeare has not omitted to notice many of the punishments which were\nin use in years gone by; the scattered allusions to these being\ninteresting in so far as they serve to illustrate the domestic manners\nand customs of our forefathers. Happily, however, these cruel tortures,\nwhich darken the pages of history, have long ago passed into oblivion;\nand at the present day it is difficult to believe that such barbarous\npractices could ever have been tolerated in any civilized country. The\nhorrible punishment of \"boiling to death,\" is mentioned in \"Twelfth\nNight\" (ii. 5), where Fabian says: \"If I lose a scruple of this sport,\nlet me be boiled to death with melancholy.\" In \"Winter's Tale\" (iii. 2),\nPaulina inquires:\n\n \"What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?\n What wheels? racks? fires? What flaying? boiling\n In leads or oils? What old or newer torture\n Must I receive?\"\n\nThere seems to be an indirect allusion to this punishment in \"The Two\nNoble Kinsmen\" (iv. 3), where the Gaoler's Daughter in her madness\nspeaks of those who \"are mad, or hang, or drown themselves, being put\ninto a caldron of lead and usurer's grease, and there boiling like a\ngammon of bacon that will never be enough.\"\n\nThe practice of holding burning basins before the eyes of captives, to\ndestroy their eyesight, is probably alluded to by Macbeth (iv. 1), in\nthe passage where the apparitions are presented to him by the witches:\n\n \"Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo; down!\n Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs.\"[841]\n\n [841] Halliwell-Phillipps's \"Index to Shakespeare,\" p. 36.\n\nIn \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (ii. 4), soaking in brine as a punishment is\nreferred to by Cleopatra, who says to the messenger:\n\n \"Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stew'd in brine,\n Smarting in lingering pickle.\"\n\nDrowning by the tide, a method of punishing criminals, is probably\nnoticed in \"The Tempest\" (i. 1), by Antonio:\n\n \"We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.\n This wide-chapp'd rascal--would thou might'st lie drowning\n The washing of ten tides!\"\n\n_Baffle._ This was formerly a punishment of infamy inflicted on recreant\nknights, one part of which consisted in hanging them up by the heels, to\nwhich Falstaff probably refers in \"1 Henry IV.\" (i. 2), where he says to\nthe prince, \"call me villain, and baffle me.\" And, further on (ii. 4):\n\"if thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically, both in word and\nmatter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit-sucker, or a poulter's\nhare.\"[842] In \"2 Henry IV.\" (i. 2), the Chief Justice tells Falstaff\nthat \"to punish him by the heels would amend the attention of his ears.\"\nAnd in \"All's Well that Ends Well\" (iv. 3), where the lord relates how\nParolles has \"sat in the stocks all night,\" Bertram says: \"his heels\nhave deserved it, in usurping his spurs so long.\"\n\n [842] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 46.\n\nSpenser, in his \"Fairy Queen\" (vi. 7), thus describes this mode of\npunishment:\n\n \"And after all, for greater infamie\n He by the heels him hung upon a tree,\n And baffl'd so, that all which passed by\n The picture of his punishment might see.\"\n\nThe appropriate term, too, for chopping off the spurs of a knight when\nhe was to be degraded, was \"hack\"--a custom to which, it has been\nsuggested, Mrs. Page alludes in the \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (ii.\n1):[843] \"What?--Sir Alice Ford! These knights will hack, and so thou\nshouldst not alter the article of thy gentry.\"[844]\n\n [843] Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, in his \"Handbook Index to the\n Works of Shakespeare\" (1866, p. 231), suggests this meaning.\n\n [844] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 397.\n\nMr. Dyce,[845] however, says the most probable meaning of this obscure\npassage is, that there is an allusion to the extravagant number of\nknights created by King James, and that _hack_ is equivalent to \"become\ncheap or vulgar.\"\n\n [845] Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 197.\n\nIt appears, too, that in days gone by the arms, etc., of traitors and\nrebels might be defaced. Thus, in \"Richard II.\" (ii. 3), Berkeley tells\nBolingbroke:\n\n \"Mistake me not, my lord; 'tis not my meaning\n To raze one title of your honour out.\"\n\nUpon which passage we may quote from Camden's \"Remains\" (1605, p. 186):\n\"How the names of them, which for capital crimes against majestie, were\nerased out of the public records, tables, and registers, or forbidden to\nbe borne by their posteritie, when their memory was damned, I could show\nat large.\" In the following act (iii. 1) Bolingbroke further relates how\nhis enemies had:\n\n \"Dispark'd my parks, and fell'd my forest woods,\n From mine own windows torn my household coat,\n Raz'd out my impress, leaving me no sign.\"\n\n_Bilboes._ These were a kind of stocks or fetters used at sea to confine\nprisoners, of which Hamlet speaks to Horatio (v. 2):\n\n \"Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,\n That would not let me sleep: methought I lay\n Worse than the mutines in the bilboes.\"\n\nThis punishment is thus described by Steevens: \"The _bilboes_ is a bar\nof iron with fetters annexed to it, by which mutinous or disorderly\nsailors were anciently linked together. The word is derived from Bilboa,\na place in Spain where instruments of steel were fabricated in the\nutmost perfection. To understand Shakespeare's allusion completely, it\nshould be known that, as these fetters connect the legs of the offenders\nvery close together, their attempts to rest must be as fruitless as\nthose of Hamlet, in whose mind 'there was a kind of fighting that would\nnot let him sleep.' Every motion of one must disturb his partner in\nconfinement. The _bilboes_ are still shown in the Tower of London, among\nthe other spoils of the Spanish Armada.\"[846]\n\n [846] Bilbo was also a rapier or sword; thus, in \"Merry Wives\n of Windsor\" (iii. 5), Falstaff says to Ford: \"I suffered the\n pangs of three several deaths: first, an intolerable fright, to\n be detected ... next, to be compassed, like a good bilbo ...\n hilt to point,\" etc.\n\n_Brand._--The branding of criminals is indirectly alluded to in \"2 Henry\nVI.\" (v. 2), by Young Clifford, who calls the Duke of Richmond a \"foul\nstigmatick,\" which properly meant \"a person who had been branded with a\nhot iron for some crime, one notably defamed for naughtiness.\" The\npractice was abolished by law in the year 1822.\n\nThe practice, too, of making persons convicted of perjury wear papers,\nwhile undergoing punishment, descriptive of their offence, is spoken of\nin \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (iv. 3), where Biron says of Longaville:\n\n \"Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.\"\n\nHolinshed relates how Wolsey \"so punished a perjure with open punishment\nand open paper-wearing that in his time it was disused.\"\n\n_Breech._ This old term to whip or punish as a school-boy is noticed in\nthe \"Taming of the Shrew\" (iii. 1):\n\n \"I am no breeching scholar in the schools;\n I'll not be tied to hours nor 'pointed times\"\n\n--breeching being equivalent to \"liable to be whipped.\"\n\nIn \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (iv. 1), Sir Hugh Evans tells the boy page:\n\"If you forget your 'quies,' your 'qu\u00e6s,' and your 'quods,' you must be\npreeches\" (breeched).\n\n_Crown._ A burning crown, as the punishment of regicides or other\ncriminals, is probably alluded to by Anne in \"Richard III.\" (iv. 1):\n\n \"O, would to God that the inclusive verge\n Of golden metal, that must round my brow,\n Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brain!\"\n\nMr. Singer,[847] in a note on this passage, quotes from Chettle's\n\"Tragedy of Hoffman\" (1631), where this punishment is introduced:\n\n \"Fix on thy master's head my burning crown.\"\n\nAnd again:\n\n \"Was adjudg'd\n To have his head sear'd with a burning crown.\"\n\n [847] \"Shakespeare,\" vol. vi. p. 485; see \"Boswell's Life of\n Johnson,\" vol. ii. p. 6.\n\nThe Earl of Athol, who was executed for the murder of James I. of\nScotland, was, before his death, crowned with a hot iron. In some of the\nmonkish accounts of a place of future torments, a burning crown is\nappropriated to those who deprived any lawful monarch of his kingdom.\n\n_Pillory._ This old mode of punishment is referred to by Launce in the\n\"Two Gentlemen of Verona\" (iv. 4), where he speaks of having \"stood on\nthe pillory.\" In \"Taming of the Shrew\" (ii. 1), Hortensio, when he tells\nBaptista how he had been struck by Katharina because \"I did but tell her\nshe mistook her frets,\" adds:\n\n \"she struck me on the head,\n And through the instrument my pate made way;\n And there I stood amazed for a while,\n As on a pillory, looking through the lute.\"\n\nIt has been suggested that there may be an allusion to the pillory in\n\"Measure for Measure\" (v. 1), where Lucio says to the duke, disguised in\nhis friar's hood: \"you must be hooded, must you? show your knave's\nvisage, with a pox to you! show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an\nhour!\" The alleged crime was not capital, and suspension in the pillory\nfor an hour was all that the speaker intended.[848]\n\n [848] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 661; see Douce's\n \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, pp. 90, 91, 109; Brand's\n \"Pop. Antiq.,\" vol. iii. p. 111.\n\n_Press._ Several allusions occur to this species of torture, applied to\ncontumacious felons. It was also, says Malone, \"formerly inflicted on\nthose persons who, being indicted, refused to plead. In consequence of\ntheir silence, they were pressed to death by a heavy weight laid upon\nthe stomach.\" In \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (iii. 1), Hero says of\nBeatrice:\n\n \"she would laugh me\n Out of myself, press me to death with wit.\"\n\nIn \"Richard II.\" (iii. 4) the Queen exclaims:\n\n \"O, I am press'd to death, through want of speaking!\"\n\nAnd in \"Measure for Measure\" (v. 1), Lucio tells the Duke that,\n\"Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping, and hanging.\"\n\nIn the \"Perfect Account of the Daily Intelligence\" (April 16th, 1651),\nwe find it recorded: \"Mond., April 14th. This Session, at the Old\nBailey, were four men pressed to death that were all in one robbery,\nand, out of obstinacy and contempt of the Court, stood mute, and refused\nto plead.\" This punishment was not abolished until by statute 12 George\nIII. c. 20.\n\n_Rack._ According to Mr. Blackstone, this \"was utterly unknown to the\nlaw of England; though once, when the Dukes of Exeter and Suffolk, and\nother ministers of Henry VI., had laid a design to introduce the civil\nlaw into this kingdom as a rule of government, for the beginning thereof\nthey erected a rack of torture, which was called, in derision, the Duke\nof Exeter's daughter; and still remains in the Tower of London, where it\nwas occasionally used as an engine of state, not of law, more than once\nin the reign of Queen Elizabeth. But when, upon the assassination of\nVilliers, Duke of Buckingham, it was proposed, in the Privy Council, to\nput the assassin to the rack, in order to discover his accomplices, the\njudges (being consulted) declared unanimously, to their own honor and\nthe honor of the English law, that no such proceeding was allowable by\nthe law of England.\" Mr. Hallam observes that, though the English law\nnever recognized the use of torture, yet there were many instances of\nits employment in the reign of Elizabeth and James; and, among others,\nin the case of the Gunpowder Plot. He further adds, in the latter part\nof the reign of Elizabeth \"the rack seldom stood idle in the Tower.\" Of\nthe many allusions to this torture may be mentioned Sebastian's word in\n\"Twelfth Night\" (v. 1):\n\n \"Antonio! O my dear Antonio!\n How have the hours rack'd and tortured me,\n Since I have lost thee.\"\n\nIn \"Measure for Measure\" (v. 1), Escalus orders the \"unreverend and\nunhallow'd friar\" (the Duke disguised) to be taken to the rack:\n\n \"Take him hence; to the rack with him!--We'll touse you\n Joint by joint.\"\n\nThe engine, which sometimes meant the rack, is spoken of in \"King Lear\"\n(i. 4):\n\n \"Which, like an engine, wrench'd my frame of nature\n From the fix'd place.\"[849]\n\n\n [849] It also meant a warlike engine, as in \"Coriolanus,\" v. 4:\n \"When he walks, he moves like an engine, and the ground shrinks\n before his treading;\" so, also, in \"Troilus and Cressida,\" ii. 3.\n\nSo, in Beaumont and Fletcher's \"Night Walker\" (iv. 5):\n\n \"Their souls shot through with adders, torn on engines.\"\n\nOnce more, in \"Measure for Measure\" (ii. 1), where Escalus tells how\n\n \"Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none\"\n\n\n--a passage which Mr. Dyce would thus read:\n\n \"Some run from brakes of vice.\"\n\nIt has been suggested that there is an allusion to \"engines of torture,\"\nalthough, owing to the many significations of the word \"brake,\" its\nmeaning here has been much disputed.[850]\n\n [850] See Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 49; Halliwell-Phillipps's\n \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare,\" p. 56; Nares's \"Glossary,\"\n vol. i. p. 104.\n\n_Stocks._ This old-fashioned mode of punishment is the subject of\nfrequent allusion by Shakespeare. Thus, Launce, in the \"Two Gentlemen of\nVerona\" (iv. 4), says: \"I have sat in the stocks for puddings he hath\nstolen.\" In \"All's Well that Ends Well\" (iv. 3), Bertram says: \"Come,\nbring forth this counterfeit module, has deceived me, like a\ndouble-meaning prophesier.\" Whereupon one of the French lords adds:\n\"Bring him forth: has sat i' the stocks all night, poor gallant knave.\"\nVolumnia says of Coriolanus (v. 3):\n\n \"There's no man in the world\n More bound to's mother; yet here he lets me prate\n Like one i' the stocks.\"\n\nAgain, in the \"Comedy of Errors\" (iii. 1), Luce speaks of \"a pair of\nstocks in the town,\" and in \"King Lear\" (ii. 2), Cornwall, referring to\nKent, says:\n\n \"Fetch forth the stocks!--\n You stubborn ancient knave.\"\n\nIt would seem that formerly, in great houses, as in some colleges, there\nwere movable stocks for the correction of the servants. Putting a person\nin the stocks, too, was an exhibition familiar to the ancient stage. In\n\"Hick Scorner,\"[851] printed in the reign of Henry VIII., Pity is placed\nin the stocks, and left there until he is freed \"by Perseverance and\nContemplacyon.\"\n\n [851] It is reprinted in Hawkins's \"English Drama,\" 1773.\n\n_Strappado._ This was a military punishment, by which the unfortunate\nsufferer was cruelly tortured in the following way: a rope being\nfastened under his arms, he was drawn up by a pulley to the top of a\nhigh beam, and then suddenly let down with a jerk. The result usually\nwas a dislocation of the shoulder-blade. In \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4), it is\nreferred to by Falstaff, who tells Poins: \"were I at the strappado, or\nall the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion.\" At\nParis, says Douce,[852] \"there was a spot called _l'estrapade_, in the\nFaubourg St. Jacques, where soldiers received this punishment. The\nmachine, whence the place took its name, remained fixed like a perpetual\ngallows.\" The term is probably derived from the Italian _strappare_, to\npull or draw with violence.\n\n [852] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" pp. 263. 264; see Dyce's\n \"Glossary,\" p. 423.\n\n_Toss in a Sieve._ This punishment, according to Cotgrave, was inflicted\n\"on such as committed gross absurdities.\" In \"1 Henry VI.\" (i. 3),\nGloster says to the Bishop of Winchester:\n\n \"I'll canvass thee in thy broad cardinal's hat,\n If thou proceed in this thy insolence.\"\n\nIt is alluded to in Davenant's \"Cruel Brother\" (1630):\n\n \"I'll sift and winow him in an old hat.\"\n\n_Wheel._ The punishment of the wheel was not known at Rome, but we read\nof Mettius Tuffetius being torn asunder by _quadrig\u00e6_ driven in opposite\ndirections. As Shakespeare, remarks Malone, \"has coupled this species of\npunishment with another that certainly was unknown to ancient Rome, it\nis highly probable that he was not apprised of the story of Mettius\nTuffetius, and that in this, as in various other instances, the practice\nof his own times was in his thoughts, for in 1594 John Chastel had been\nthus executed in France for attempting to assassinate Henry IV.\"\n\nCoriolanus (iii. 2) says:\n\n \"Let them pull all about mine ears, present me\n Death on the wheel, or at wild horses' heels.\"\n\n_Whipping._ Three centuries ago this mode of punishment was carried to a\ncruel extent. By an act passed in the 2d year of Henry VIII., vagrants\nwere to be carried to some market-town, or other place, and there tied\nto the end of a cart, naked, and beaten with whips throughout such\nmarket-town, or other place, till the body should be bloody by reason of\nsuch whipping. The punishment was afterwards slightly mitigated, for, by\na statute passed in 39th of Elizabeth's reign, vagrants \"were only to be\nstripped naked from the middle upwards, and whipped till the body should\nbe bloody.\" The stocks were often so constructed as to serve both for\nstocks and whipping-posts.[853] Among the numerous references to this\npunishment by Shakespeare, we may quote \"2 Henry IV.\" (v. 4), where the\nbeadle says of Hostess Quickly: \"The constables have delivered her over\nto me, and she shall have whipping-cheer enough, I warrant her.\" In the\n\"Taming of the Shrew\" (i. 1), Gremio says, speaking of Katharina, \"I had\nas lief take her dowry with this condition,--to be whipped at the\nhigh-cross every morning,\" in allusion to what Hortensio had just said:\n\"why, man, there be good fellows in the world, an a man could light on\nthem, would take her with all faults, and money enough.\" In \"2 Henry\nVI.\" (ii. 1), Gloster orders Simpcox and his wife to\n\n \"be whipped through every market-town,\n Till they come to Berwick, from whence they came.\"\n\n [853] See \"Book of Days,\" vol. i. pp. 598, 599.\n\n_Wisp._ This was a punishment for a scold.[854] It appears that \"a wisp,\nor small twist of straw or hay, was often applied as a mark of\nopprobrium to an immodest woman, a scold, or similar offender; even,\ntherefore, the showing it to a woman, was considered a grievous\naffront.\" In \"3 Henry VI.\" (ii. 2) Edward says of Queen Margaret:\n\n \"A wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns,\n To make this shameless callat[855] know herself.\"\n\n [854] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 965.\n\n [855] \"Callat,\" an immodest woman, also applied to a scold. Cf.\n \"Winter's Tale,\" ii. 3:\n\n \"A callat\n Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband,\n And now baits me.\"\n\nA wisp, adds Nares, seems to have been the badge of the scolding woman\nin the ceremony of Skimmington;[856] an allusion to which is given in a\n\"Dialogue between John and Jone, striving who shall wear the breeches,\"\nin the \"Pleasures of Poetry,\" cited by Malone:\n\n \"Good, gentle Jone, with-holde thy handes,\n This once let me entreat thee,\n And make me promise never more,\n That thou shalt mind to beat me.\n For fear thou wear the wispe, good wife,\n And make our neighbours ride.\"\n\n [856] Skimmington was a burlesque ceremony in ridicule of a man\n beaten by his wife. See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" vol. ii. pp.\n 191, 192.\n\nIn Nash's \"Pierce Pennilesse\" (1593) there is also an amusing allusion\nto it: \"Why, thou errant butter-whore, thou cotquean and scrattop of\nscolds, wilt thou never leave afflicting a dead carcasse? continually\nread the rhetorick lecture of Ramme-alley? a wispe, a wispe, you\nkitchen-stuffe wrangler.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX.\n\nPROVERBS.\n\n\nIn the present chapter are collected together the chief proverbs either\nquoted or alluded to by Shakespeare. Many of these are familiar to most\nreaders, but have gained an additional interest by reason of their\nconnection with the poet's writings. At the same time, it may be noted\nthat very many of Shakespeare's pithy sayings have, since his day,\npassed into proverbs, and have taken their place in this class of\nliterature. It is curious to notice, as Mrs. Cowden-Clarke remarks,[857]\nhow \"Shakespeare has paraphrased some of our commonest proverbs in his\nown choice and elegant diction.\" Thus, \"Make hay while the sun shines\"\nbecomes\n\n \"The sun shines hot; and if we use delay,\n Cold biting winter mars our hoped-for hay,\"\n\na statement which applies to numerous other proverbial sayings.\n\n [857] \"Shakespeare Proverbs,\" 1858.\n\n\"A black man is a jewel in a fair woman's eyes.\" In the \"Two Gentlemen\nof Verona\" (v. 2), the following passage is an amusing illustration of\nthe above:\n\n \"_Thurio._ What says she to my face?\n\n _Proteus._ She says it is a fair one.\n\n _Thurio._ Nay then, the wanton lies; my face is black.\n\n _Proteus._ But pearls are fair; and the old saying is,\n Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes.\"\n\nIn \"Titus Andronicus\" (v. 1) there is a further allusion to this\nproverb, where Lucius says of Aaron,\n\n \"This is the pearl that pleas'd your empress' eye.\"\n\n\"A beggar marries a wife and lice.\" So in \"King Lear\" (iii. 2), Song:\n\n \"The cod-piece that will house,\n Before the head has any,\n The head and he shall louse;\n So beggars marry many.\"\n\nThus it is also said: \"A beggar payeth a benefit with a louse.\"\n\n\"A cunning knave needs no broker.\" This old proverb is quoted by Hume,\nin \"2 Henry VI.\" (i. 2):\n\n \"A crafty knave does need no broker.\"\n\n\"A curst cur must be tied short.\" With this proverb we may compare what\nSir Toby says in \"Twelfth Night\" (iii. 2), to Sir Andrew: \"Go, write it\nin a martial hand; be curst and brief.\"\n\n\"A drop hollows the stone,\" or \"many drops pierce the stone.\" We may\ncompare \"3 Henry VI.\" (iii. 2), \"much rain wears the marble,\" and also\nthe messenger's words (ii. 1), when he relates how \"the noble Duke of\nYork was slain:\"\n\n \"Environed he was with many foes;\n And stood against them, as the hope of Troy\n Against the Greeks, that would have enter'd Troy.\n But Hercules himself must yield to odds;\n And many strokes, though with a little axe,\n Hew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak.\"\n\n\"A finger in every pie.\" So, in \"Henry VIII.\" (i. 1), Buckingham says of\nWolsey:\n\n \"no man's pie is freed\n From his ambitious finger.\"\n\nTo the same purport is the following proverb:[858] \"He had a finger in\nthe pie when he burnt his nail off.\"\n\n [858] Bohn's \"Handbook of Proverbs,\" p. 159.\n\n\"A fool's bolt is soon shot.\" Quoted by Duke of Orleans in \"Henry V.\"\n(iii. 7). With this we may compare the French: \"De fol juge breve\nsentence.\"[859]\n\n [859] Ibid. p. 94.\n\n\"A friend at court is as good as a penny in the purse.\" So, in \"2 Henry\nIV.\" (v. 1), Shallow says: \"a friend i' the court is better than a penny\nin purse.\" The French equivalent of this saying is: \"Bon fait avoir ami\nen cour, car le proc\u00e8s en est plus court.\"\n\n\"A little pot's soon hot.\" Grumio, in \"Taming of the Shrew\" (iv. 1),\nuses this familiar proverb: \"were not I a little pot, and soon hot, my\nvery lips might freeze to my teeth,\" etc.\n\n\"A pox of the devil\" (\"Henry V.,\" iii. 7).\n\n\"A smoky chimney and a scolding wife are two bad companions.\" There are\nvarious versions of this proverb. Ray gives the following: \"Smoke,\nraining into the house, and a scolding wife, will make a man run out of\ndoors.\"\n\nHotspur, in \"1 Henry IV.\" (iii. 1), says of Glendower:\n\n \"O, he's as tedious\n As a tired horse, a railing wife;\n Worse than a smoky house.\"\n\n\"A snake lies hidden in the grass.\" This, as Mr. Green[860] remarks, is\nno unfrequent proverb, and the idea is often made use of by Shakespeare.\nThus, in \"2 Henry VI.\" (iii. 1), Margaret declares to the attendant\nnobles:\n\n \"Henry my lord is cold in great affairs,\n Too full of foolish pity: and Gloster's show\n Beguiles him, as the mournful crocodile\n With sorrow snares relenting passengers,\n Or as the snake, roll'd in a flowering bank,\n With shining checker'd slough, doth sting a child,\n That for the beauty thinks it excellent.\"\n\n [860] \"Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers,\" 1870, p. 341.\n\nLady Macbeth (i. 5) tells her husband:\n\n \"look like the innocent flower,\n But be the serpent under't.\"\n\nJuliet (\"Romeo and Juliet,\" iii. 2) speaks of:\n\n \"Serpent heart, hid with a flowering face.\"\n\n\"A staff is quickly found to beat a dog.\" Other versions of this proverb\nare: \"It is easy to find a stick to beat a dog;\" \"It is easy to find a\nstone to throw at a dog.\"[861] So, in \"2 Henry VI.\" (iii. 1), Gloster\nsays:\n\n \"I shall not want false witness to condemn me,\n Nor store of treasons to augment my guilt;\n The ancient proverb will be well effected,--\n A staff is quickly found to beat a dog.\"\n\n [861] See Kelly's \"Proverbs of All Nations,\" 1870, p. 157.\n\n\"A wise man may live anywhere.\" In \"Richard II.\" (i. 3), John of Gaunt\nsays:\n\n \"All places that the eye of heaven visits,\n Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.\"\n\n\"A woman conceals what she does not know.\" Hence Hotspur says to his\nwife, in \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii. 3):\n\n \"Constant you are,\n But yet a woman: and for secrecy,\n No lady closer; for I well believe\n Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know,--\n And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate.\"\n\n\"All men are not alike\" (\"Much Ado About Nothing,\" iii. 5).[862]\n\n [862] Halliwell-Phillipps's \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare,\" p.\n 390, under Proverbs.\n\n\"All's Well that Ends Well.\"\n\n\"As lean as a rake.\" So in \"Coriolanus\" (i. 1), one of the citizens\nsays: \"Let us revenge this with our pikes, ere we become rakes.\" So\nSpenser, in his \"Fairy Queen\" (bk. ii. can. 11):\n\n \"His body leane and meagre as a rake.\"\n\nThis proverb is found in Chaucer's \"Canterbury Tales\" (i. 289):\n\n \"Al so lene was his hors as is a rake.\"\n\n\"As thin as a whipping-post\" is another proverb of the same kind.\n\n\"As mad as a March hare\" (\"The Two Noble Kinsmen,\" iii. 5). We may\ncompare the expression \"hare-brained:\" \"1 Henry IV.\" (v. 2).\n\n\"As sound as a bell.\" So in \"Much Ado about Nothing\" (iii. 2), Don Pedro\nsays of Benedick: \"He hath a heart as sound as a bell.\"\n\n\"As the bell clinketh, so the fool thinketh.\" This proverb is indirectly\nalluded to in \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (iii. 2), in the previous\npassage, where Don Pedro says of Benedick that \"He hath a heart as sound\nas a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart thinks, his\ntongue speaks.\"\n\nAnother form of the same proverb is: \"As the fool thinks, the bell\ntinks.\"[863]\n\n [863] See Kelly's \"Proverbs of All Nations,\" p. 91.\n\n\"As true as steel.\" This popular adage is quoted in \"Troilus and\nCressida\" (iii. 2):\n\n \"As true as steel, as plantage to the moon.\"\n\nWe may also compare the proverb: \"As true as the dial to the sun.\"\n\n\"At hand, quoth pick-purse\" (\"1 Henry IV.,\" ii. 1). This proverbial\nsaying arose, says Malone, from the pickpurse always seizing the prey\nnearest him.\n\n\"Ay, tell me that and unyoke\" (\"Hamlet,\" v. 1). This was a common adage\nfor giving over or ceasing to do a thing; a metaphor derived from the\nunyoking of oxen at the end of their labor.\n\n\"Baccare, quoth Mortimer to his sow.\" With this Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps\ncompares Gremio's words in the \"Taming of the Shrew\" (ii. 1):\n\n \"Saving your tale, Petruchio, I pray,\n Let us, that are poor petitioners, speak too:\n Baccare! you are marvellous forward.\"\n\nMr. Dyce (\"Glossary,\" p. 23) says the word signifies \"go back,\" and\ncites one of John Heywood's epigrams upon it:\n\n \"Backare, quoth Mortimer to his sow;\n Went that sowe backe at that bidding, trow you.\"\n\n\"Barnes are blessings\" (\"All's Well that Ends Well,\" i. 3).\n\n\"Base is the slave that pays\" (\"Henry V.,\" ii. 1).[864]\n\n [864] Halliwell-Phillipps's \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare,\" p. 391.\n\n\"Bastards are born lucky.\" This proverb is alluded to in \"King John\" (i.\n1), by the Bastard, who says:\n\n \"Brother, adieu; good fortune come to thee!\n For thou wast got i' the way of honesty.\"\n\nPhilip wishes his brother good fortune, because Robert was not a\nbastard.\n\n\"Beggars mounted run their horses to death.\"[865] Quoted by York in \"3\nHenry VI.\" (i. 4). We may also compare the proverb: \"Set a beggar on\nhorseback, he'll ride to the devil.\"\n\n [865] See Bohn's \"Handbook of Proverbs,\" p. 326.\n\n\"Begone when the sport is at the best.\" Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps quotes\nBenvolio's words in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 5):\n\n \"Away, be gone; the sport is at the best.\"\n\nTo the same effect are Romeo's words (i. 4):\n\n \"The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.\"\n\n\"Be off while your shoes are good.\" This popular phrase, still in use,\nseems alluded to by Katharina in \"Taming of the Shrew\" (iii. 2), who\nsays to Petruchio:\n\n \"You may be jogging whiles your boots are green.\"\n\n\"Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.\" Quoted by the clown in\n\"Twelfth Night\" (i. 5).\n\n\"Better fed than taught.\" This old saying may be alluded to in \"All's\nWell that Ends Well\" (ii. 2) by the clown, \"I will show myself highly\nfed and lowly taught;\" and again (ii. 4) by Parolles:\n\n \"A good knave, i' faith, and well fed.\"\n\n\"Blessing of your heart, you brew good ale.\" Quoted by Launce as a\nproverb in the \"Two Gentlemen of Verona\" (iii. 1).\n\n\"Blush like a black dog.\" This saying is referred to in \"Titus\nAndronicus\" (v. 1):\n\n \"_1 Goth._ What, canst thou say all this, and never blush?\n\n _Aaron._ Ay, like a black dog, as the saying is.\"\n\n\"Bought and sold\" (\"Troilus and Cressida,\" ii. 1). A proverbial phrase\napplied to any one entrapped or made a victim by treachery or\nmismanagement. It is found again in the \"Comedy of Errors\" (iii. 1); in\n\"King John\" (v. 4); and in \"Richard III.\" (v. 3).\n\n\"Bring your hand to the buttery-bar, and let it drink\" (\"Twelfth Night,\"\ni. 3). Mr. Dyce quotes the following explanation of this passage,\nalthough he does not answer for its correctness: \"This is a proverbial\nphrase among forward abigails, to ask at once for a kiss and a present.\nSir Andrew's slowness of comprehension in this particular gave her a\njust suspicion, at once, of his frigidity and avarice.\" The buttery-bar\nmeans the place in palaces and in great houses whence provisions were\ndispensed; and it is still to be seen in most of our colleges.\n\n\"Brag's a good dog, but Hold-fast is a better.\" This proverb is alluded\nto in \"Henry V.\" (ii. 3), by Pistol:\n\n \"Hold-fast is the only dog, my duck.\"[866]\n\n [866] See Bohn's \"Handbook of Proverbs,\" p. 333; Kelly's\n \"Proverbs of all Nations,\" 1870, p. 173.\n\n\"Bush natural, more hair than wit.\" Ray's Proverbs. So in \"Two Gentlemen\nof Verona\" (iii. 1), it is said, \"She hath more hair than wit.\"\n\n\"By chance but not by truth\"[867] (\"King John,\" i. 1).\n\n [867] Halliwell-Phillipps's \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare,\" p. 391.\n\n\"Care will kill a cat; yet there's no living without it.\" So in \"Much\nAdo About Nothing\" (v. 1), Claudio says to Don Pedro: \"What though care\nkilled a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care.\"\n\n\"Come cut and long-tail\" (\"Merry Wives of Windsor,\" iii. 4). This\nproverb means, \"Let any come that may, good or bad;\" and was, no doubt,\nsays Staunton, originally applied to dogs or horses.\n\n\"Comparisons are odious.\" So, in \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (iii. 5),\nDogberry tells Verges: \"Comparisons are odorous.\"\n\n\"Confess and be hanged.\" This well-known proverb is probably alluded to\nin the \"Merchant of Venice\" (iii. 2):\n\n \"_Bassanio._ Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth.\n\n _Portia._ Well then, confess, and live.\"\n\nWe may also refer to what Othello says (iv. 1): \"To confess, and be\nhanged for his labour; first, to be hanged, and then to confess. I\ntremble at it.\"\n\nIn \"Timon of Athens\" (i. 2), Apemantus says: \"Ho, ho, confess'd it!\nhang'd it, have you not?\"\n\n\"Cry him, and have him.\" So Rosalind says, in \"As You Like It\" (i. 3),\n\"If I could cry 'hem' and have him.\"\n\n\"Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint-stool\" (\"King Lear,\" iii. 6). It\nis given by Ray in his \"Proverbs\" (1768); see also \"Taming of the Shrew\"\n(ii. 1).\n\n\"Cucullus non facit monachum.\" So in \"Henry VIII.\" (iii. 1), Queen\nKatherine says:\n\n \"All hoods make not monks.\"\n\nChaucer thus alludes to this proverb:\n\n \"Habite ne maketh monk ne feere;\n But a clean life and devotion\n Maketh gode men of religion.\"\n\n\"Dead as a door-nail.\" So, in \"2 Henry VI.\" (iv. 10), Cade says to Iden:\n\"I have eat no meat these five days; yet, come thou and thy five men,\nand if I do not leave you all as dead as a door-nail, I pray God I may\nnever eat grass more.\"\n\nWe may compare the term, \"dead as a herring,\" which Caius uses in the\n\"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (ii. 3), \"By gar, de herring is no dead, so as\nI vill kill him.\"\n\n\"Death will have his day\" (\"Richard II.,\" iii. 2).\n\n\"Delays are dangerous.\" In \"1 Henry VI.\" (iii. 2), Reignier says:\n\n \"Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.\"\n\n\"Diluculo surgere,\" etc. (\"Twelfth Night,\" ii. 3).\n\n\"Dogs must eat.\" This, with several other proverbs, is quoted by Agrippa\nin \"Coriolanus\" (i. 1).\n\n\"Dun's the mouse\" (\"Romeo and Juliet,\" i. 4). This was a proverbial\nsaying, of which no satisfactory explanation has yet been given. Nares\nthinks it was \"frequently employed with no other intent than that of\nquibbling on the word _done_.\" Ray has, \"as dun as a mouse.\" Mercutio\nsays: \"Tut, dun's the mouse, the constable's own word.\"\n\n\"Empty vessels give the greatest sound.\" Quoted in \"Henry V.\" (iv. 4).\n\n\"Every dog hath his day, and every man his hour.\" This old adage seems\nalluded to by Hamlet (v. 1):[868]\n\n \"The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.\"\n\n [868] Bohn's \"Handbook of Proverbs,\" p. 86.\n\n\"Every man at forty is either a fool or a physician.\"[869] This popular\nproverb is probably referred to in \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (iii. 4), by\nMistress Quickly, who tells Fenton how she had recommended him as a\nsuitor for Mr. Page's daughter instead of Doctor Caius: \"This is my\ndoing, now: 'Nay,' said I, 'will you cast away your child on a fool, and\na physician? look on Master Fenton:'--this is my doing.\"\n\n [869] Ray gives another form: \"Every man is either a fool or a\n physician after thirty years of age;\" see Bohn's \"Handbook of\n Proverbs,\" 1857, p. 27.\n\n\"Familiarity breeds contempt.\" So, in the \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (i.\n1), Slender says: \"I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt.\"\n\n\"Fast bind, fast find.\" In \"Merchant of Venice\" (ii. 5), Shylock says:\n\n \"Well, Jessica, go in:\n Perhaps I will return immediately:\n Do as I bid you; shut doors after you;\n Fast bind, fast find;\n A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.\"\n\n\"Finis coronat opus.\" A translation of this Latin proverb is given by\nHelena in \"All's Well that Ends Well\" (iv. 4):\n\n \"Still the fine's the crown.\"\n\nIn \"2 Henry VI.\" (v. 2), also, Clifford's expiring words are: \"La fin\ncouronne les oeuvres.\" We still have the expression _to crown_, in the\nsense of _to finish_ or _make perfect_. Mr. Douce[870] remarks that\n\"_coronidem imponere_ is a metaphor well known to the ancients, and\nsupposed to have originated from the practice of finishing buildings by\nplacing a crown at the top as an ornament; and for this reason the words\n_crown_, _top_, and _head_ are become synonymous in most languages.\nThere is reason for believing that the ancients placed a crescent at the\nbeginning, and a crown, or some ornament that resembled it, at the end\nof their books.\" In \"Troilus and Cressida\" (iv. 5), Hector says:\n\n \"The fall of every Phrygian stone will cost\n A drop of Grecian blood: the end crowns all;\n And that old common arbitrator, Time,\n Will one day end it.\"\n\n [870] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 199.\n\nPrince Henry (\"2 Henry IV.,\" ii. 2), in reply to Poins, gives another\nturn to the proverb: \"By this hand, thou think'st me as far in the\ndevil's book as thou and Falstaff, for obduracy and persistency: let the\nend try the man.\"[871]\n\n [871] See Green's \"Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers,\" 1870,\n pp. 319, 323.\n\n\"Fly pride, says the peacock.\" This is quoted by Dromio of Syracuse, in\n\"The Comedy of Errors\" (iv. 3).[872]\n\n [872] Halliwell-Phillipps's \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare,\" p. 391.\n\n\"Friends may meet, but mountains never greet.\" This is ironically\nalluded to in \"As You Like It\" (iii. 2), by Celia: \"It is a hard matter\nfor friends to meet; but mountains may be removed with earthquakes, and\nso encounter.\"\n\n\"Give the devil his due.\" In \"Henry V.\" (iii. 7) it is quoted by the\nDuke of Orleans.\n\n\"God sends fools fortune.\" It is to this version of the Latin adage,\n\"Fortuna favet fatuis\" (\"Fortune favors fools\"), that Touchstone alludes\nin his reply to Jaques, in \"As You Like It\" (ii. 7):\n\n \"'No, sir,' quoth he,\n 'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune.'\"\n\nUnder different forms, the same proverb is found on the Continent. The\nSpanish say, \"The mother of God appears to fools;\" and the German one is\nthis, \"Fortune and women are fond of fools.\"[873]\n\n [873] Kelly's \"Proverbs of All Nations,\" 1872, p. 52.\n\n\"God sends not corn for the rich only.\" This is quoted by Marcius in\n\"Coriolanus\" (i. 1).\n\n\"Good goose, do not bite.\" This proverb is used in \"Romeo and Juliet\"\n(ii. 4):\n\n \"_Mercutio._ I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.\n\n _Romeo._ Nay, good goose, bite not.\"\n\n\"Good liquor will make a cat speak.\" So, in the \"Tempest\" (ii. 2),\nStephano says: \"Come on your ways: open your mouth; here is that which\nwill give language to you, cat; open your mouth.\"\n\n\"Good wine needs no bush.\" This old proverb, which is quoted by\nShakespeare in \"As You Like It\" (v. 4, \"Epilogue\")--\"If it be true that\ngood wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no\nepilogue\"--refers to the custom of hanging up a bunch of twigs, or a wisp\nof hay, at a roadside inn, as a sign that drink may be had within. This\npractice, \"which still lingers in the cider-making counties of the west\nof England, and prevails more generally in France, is derived from the\nRomans, among whom a bunch of ivy was used as the sign of a wine-shop.\"\nThey were also in the habit of saying, \"Vendible wine needs no ivy hung\nup.\" The Spanish have a proverb, \"Good wine needs no crier.\"[874]\n\n [874] Ibid., 1870, pp. 175, 176.\n\n\"Greatest clerks not the wisest men.\" Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, in his\n\"Handbook Index to Shakespeare\" (p. 391), quotes the following passage\nin \"Twelfth Night\" (iv. 2), where Maria tells the clown to personate Sir\nTopas, the curate: \"I am not tall enough to become the function well,\nnor lean enough to be thought a good student; but to be said an honest\nman and a good housekeeper goes as fairly as to say a careful man and a\ngreat scholar.\"\n\n\"Happy man be his dole\" (\"Taming of the Shrew,\" i. 1; \"1 Henry IV.,\" ii.\n2). Ray has it, \"Happy man, happy dole;\" or, \"Happy man by his dole.\"\n\n\"Happy the bride on whom the sun shines.\" Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, in\nhis \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare\" (p. 392), quotes, as an illustration\nof this popular proverb, the following passage in \"Twelfth Night\" (iv.\n3), where Olivia and Sebastian, having made \"a contract of eternal bond\nof love,\" the former says:\n\n \"and heavens so shine,\n That they may fairly note this act of mine!\"\n\n\"Happy the child whose father went to the devil.\"[875] So, in \"3 Henry\nVI.\" (ii. 2), King Henry asks, interrogatively:\n\n \"And happy always was it for that son,\n Whose father, for his hoarding, went to hell?\"\n\n [875] See Bohn's \"Handbook of Proverbs,\" p. 100; Kelly's\n \"Proverbs of All Nations,\" p. 187.\n\nThe Portuguese say, \"Alas for the son whose father goes to heaven.\"\n\n\"Hares pull dead lions by the beard.\" In \"King John\" (ii. 1), the\nBastard says to Austria:\n\n \"You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,\n Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard.\"\n\n\"Have is have, however men do catch.\" Quoted by the Bastard in \"King\nJohn\" (i. 1).\n\n\"Heaven's above all.\" In \"Richard II.\" (iii. 3) York tells Bolingbroke:\n\n \"Take not, good cousin, further than you should,\n Lest you mistake: the heavens are o'er our heads.\"\n\nSo, too, in \"Othello\" (ii. 3), Cassio says: \"Heaven's above all.\"[876]\n\n [876] Halliwell-Phillipps's \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare,\" p. 392.\n\n\"He is a poor cook who cannot lick his own fingers.\" Under a variety of\nforms, this proverb is found in different countries. The Italians say,\n\"He who manages other people's wealth does not go supperless to bed.\"\nThe Dutch, too, say, \"All officers are greasy,\" that is, something\nsticks to them.[877] In \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iv. 2) the saying is thus\nalluded to:\n\n \"_Capulet._ Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.\n\n _2 Servant._ You shall have none ill, sir; for I'll try if\n they can lick their fingers.\n\n _Capulet._ How canst thou try them so?\n\n _2 Servant._ Marry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his\n own fingers: therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes\n not with me.\"\n\n [877] See Kelly's \"Proverbs of All Nations,\" 1870, pp. 196, 197.\n\n\"He's mad, that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's health, a\nboy's love, or a whore's oath\" (\"King Lear,\" iii. 6).[878]\n\n [878] Halliwell-Phillipps's \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare,\" p. 392.\n\n\"Heroum filii nox\u00e6.\" It is a common notion that a father above the\ncommon rate of men has usually a son below it. Hence, in \"The Tempest\"\n(i. 2), Shakespeare probably alludes to this Latin proverb:\n\n \"My trust,\n Like a good parent, did beget of him\n A falsehood, in its contrary as great\n As my trust was.\"\n\n\"He knows not a hawk from a handsaw.\" Hamlet says (ii. 2): \"When the\nwind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.\"\n\n\"He may hang himself in his own garters.\" So, Falstaff (\"1 Henry IV.\"\nii. 2) says: \"Go, hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters.\"\n\n\"He that is born to be hanged will never be drowned.\" In \"The Tempest\"\n(i. 1), Gonzalo says of the Boatswain: \"I have great comfort from this\nfellow: methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is\nperfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging! make the rope of\nhis destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage! If he be not\nborn to be hanged, our case is miserable.\" The Italians say, \"He that is\nto die by the gallows may dance on the river.\"\n\n\"He that dies pays all debts\" (\"The Tempest,\" iii. 2).\n\n\"He who eats with the devil hath need of a long spoon.\" This is referred\nto by Stephano, in \"The Tempest\" (ii. 2): \"This is a devil, and no\nmonster: I will leave him; I have no long spoon.\" Again, in the \"Comedy\nof Errors\" (iv. 3), Dromio of Syracuse says: \"He must have a long spoon\nthat must eat with the devil.\"\n\nThe old adage, which tells how\n\n \"He that will not when he may,\n When he will he shall have nay,\"\n\nis quoted in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (ii. 7) by Menas:\n\n \"Who seeks, and will not take, when once 'tis offer'd,\n Shall never find it more.\"\n\n\"Hold hook and line\" (\"2 Henry IV.,\" ii. 4). This, says Dyce, is a sort\nof cant proverbial expression, which sometimes occurs in our early\nwriters (\"Glossary,\" p. 210).\n\n\"Hold, or cut bow-strings\"[879] (\"A Midsummer-Night's Dream,\" i. 2).\n\n [879] See page 394.\n\n\"Honest as the skin between his brows\" (\"Much Ado About Nothing,\" iii.\n5).[880]\n\n [880] \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare,\" p. 392.\n\n\"Hunger will break through stone-walls.\" This is quoted by Marcius in\n\"Coriolanus\" (i. 1), who, in reply to Agrippa's question, \"What says the\nother troop?\" replies:\n\n \"They are dissolved: hang 'em!\n They said they were an-hungry; sigh'd forth proverbs,--\n That hunger broke stone-walls,\" etc.\n\nAccording to an old Suffolk proverb,[881] \"Hunger will break through\nstone-walls, or anything, except Suffolk cheese.\"\n\n [881] Bohn's \"Handbook of Proverbs,\" 1857, p. 409.\n\n\"I scorn that with my heels\" (\"Much Ado About Nothing,\" iii. 4). A not\nuncommon proverbial expression. It is again referred to, in the\n\"Merchant of Venice\" (ii. 2), by Launcelot: \"do not run; scorn running\nwith thy heels.\" Dyce thinks it is alluded to in \"Venus and Adonis:\"\n\n \"Beating his kind embracements with her heels.\"\n\n\"If you are wise, keep yourself warm.\" This proverb is probably alluded\nto in the \"Taming of the Shrew\" (ii. 1):\n\n \"_Petruchio._ Am I not wise?\n\n _Katharina_. Yes; keep you warm.\"\n\nSo, in \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (i. 1): \"that if he have wit enough to\nkeep himself warm.\"\n\n\"I fear no colours\" (\"Twelfth Night,\" i. 5).\n\n\"Ill-gotten goods never prosper.\" This proverb is referred to by King\nHenry (\"3 Henry VI.,\" ii. 2):\n\n \"Clifford, tell me, didst thou never hear\n That things ill got had ever bad success?\"\n\n\"Illotis manibus tractare sacra.\" Falstaff, in \"1 Henry IV.\" (iii. 3),\nsays: \"Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou dost, and do it with\nunwashed hands too.\"\n\n\"Ill will never said well.\" This is quoted by Duke of Orleans in \"Henry\nV.\" (iii. 7).\n\n\"In at the window, or else o'er the hatch\" (\"King John,\" i. 1). Applied\nto illegitimate children. Staunton has this note: \"Woe worth the time\nthat ever a gave suck to a child that came in at the window!\" (\"The\nFamily of Love,\" 1608). So, also, in \"The Witches of Lancashire,\" by\nHeywood and Broome, 1634: \"It appears you came in at the window.\" \"I\nwould not have you think I scorn my grannam's cat to leap over the\nhatch.\"\n\n\"It is a foul bird which defiles its own nest.\" This seems alluded to\nin \"As You Like It\" (iv. 1) where Celia says to Rosalind: \"You have\nsimply misused our sex in your love-prate: we must have your doublet and\nhose plucked over your head, and show the world what the bird hath done\nto her own nest.\"\n\n\"It is a poor dog that is not worth the whistling.\" So Goneril, in \"King\nLear\" (iv. 2): \"I have been worth the whistle.\"\n\n\"It is a wise child that knows its own father.\" In the \"Merchant of\nVenice\" (ii. 2), Launcelot has the converse of this: \"It is a wise\nfather that knows his own child.\"\n\n\"It is an ill wind that blows nobody good.\" So, in \"3 Henry VI.\" (ii.\n5), we read:\n\n \"Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.\"\n\nAnd, in \"2 Henry IV.\" (v. 3), when Falstaff asks Pistol \"What wind blew\nyou hither?\" the latter replies: \"Not the ill wind which blows no man to\ngood.\"\n\n\"It is easy to steal a shive from a cut loaf.\" In \"Titus Andronicus\"\n(ii. 1), Demetrius refers to this proverb. Ray has, \"'Tis safe taking a\nshive out of a cut loaf.\"\n\n\"It's a dear collop that's cut out of my own flesh.\" Mr.\nHalliwell-Phillipps thinks there may be possibly an allusion to this\nproverb in \"1 Henry VI.\" (v. 4), where the Shepherd says of La Pucelle:\n\n \"God knows, thou art a collop of my flesh.\"\n\n\"I will make a shaft or a bolt of it.\" In the \"Merry Wives of Windsor\"\n(iii. 4) this proverb is used by Slender.[882] Ray gives \"to make a bolt\nor a shaft of a thing.\" This is equivalent to, \"I will either make a\ngood or a bad thing of it: I will take the risk.\"\n\n [882] A shaft is an arrow for the longbow, a bolt is for the\n crossbow. Kelly's \"Proverbs of All Nations,\" p. 155.\n\n\"It is like a barber's chair\" (\"All's Well that Ends Well,\" ii. 2).\n\nThe following passage, in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (iii. 2):\n\n \"Jack shall have Jill;\n Nought shall go ill;\n The man shall have his mare again,\n And all shall be well,\"\n\nrefers to the popular proverb of olden times, says Staunton, signifying\n\"all ended happily.\" So, too, Biron says, in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v.\n2):\n\n \"Our wooing doth not end like an old play;\n Jack hath not Jill.\"\n\nIt occurs in Skelton's poem \"Magnyfycence\" (Dyce, ed. i. p. 234): \"Jack\nshall have Gyl;\" and in Heywood's \"Dialogue\" (Sig. F. 3, 1598):\n\n \"Come, chat at hame, all is well, Jack shall have Gill.\"\n\n\"Kindness will creep where it cannot go.\" Thus, in the \"Two Gentlemen of\nVerona\" (iv. 2), Proteus tells Thurio how\n\n \"love\n Will creep in service where it cannot go.\"\n\nThere is a Scotch proverb, \"Kindness will creep whar it mauna gang.\"\n\n\"Let the world slide\" (\"Taming of the Shrew,\" Induction, sc. i.).\n\n\"Let them laugh that win.\" Othello says (iv. 1):\n\n \"So, so, so, so:--they laugh that win.\"\n\nOn the other hand, the French say, \"Marchand qui perd ne peut rire.\"\n\n\"Like will to like, as the devil said to the collier.\" With this we may\ncompare the following passage in \"Twelfth Night\" (iii. 4): \"What, man!\n'tis not for gravity to play at cherry-pit with Satan: hang him, foul\ncollier!\"--collier having been, in Shakespeare's day, a term of the\nhighest reproach.\n\n\"Losers have leave to talk.\" Titus Andronicus (iii. 1) says:\n\n \"Then give me leave, for losers will have leave\n To ease their stomachs with their bitter tongues.\"\n\n\"Maids say nay, and take.\" So Julia, in the \"Two Gentlemen of Verona\"\n(i. 2), says:\n\n \"Since maids, in modesty, say 'No' to that\n Which they would have the profferer construe 'Ay.'\"\n\nIn \"The Passionate Pilgrim\" we read:\n\n \"Have you not heard it said full oft,\n A woman's nay doth stand for nought?\"\n\n\"Make hay while the sun shines.\" King Edward, in \"3 Henry VI.\" (iv. 8),\nalludes to this proverb:\n\n \"The sun shines hot; and, if we use delay,\n Cold, biting winter mars our hop'd-for hay.\"\n\nThe above proverb is peculiar to England, and, as Trench remarks, could\nhave its birth only under such variable skies as ours.\n\n\"Many talk of Robin Hood that never shot in his bow.\" So, in \"2 Henry\nIV.\" (iii. 2), Justice Shallow, says Falstaff, \"talks as familiarly of\nJohn o' Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him; and I'll be sworn\na' never saw him but once in the Tilt-yard,--and then he burst his head,\nfor crowding among the marshal's men.\"\n\n\"Marriage and hanging go by destiny.\"[883] This proverb is the popular\ncreed respecting marriage, and, under a variety of forms, is found in\ndifferent countries. Thus, in \"Merchant of Venice\" (ii. 9), Nerissa\nsays:\n\n \"The ancient saying is no heresy,--\n Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.\"\n\n [883] \"But now consider the old proverbe to be true, yt saieth\n that marriage is destinie.\"--Hall's \"Chronicles.\"\n\nAgain, in \"All's Well that Ends Well\" (i. 3) the Clown says:\n\n \"For I the ballad will repeat,\n Which men full true shall find;\n Your marriage comes by destiny,\n Your cuckoo sings by kind.\"\n\nWe may compare the well-known proverb, \"Marriages are made in heaven,\"\nand the French version, \"Les mariages sont \u00e9crits dans le ciel.\"\n\n\"Marriage as bad as hanging.\" In \"Twelfth Night\" (i. 5), the Clown says:\n\"Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.\"\n\n\"Marry trap\" (\"Merry Wives of Windsor,\" i. 1). This, says Nares, \"is\napparently a kind of proverbial exclamation, as much as to say, 'By\nMary, you are caught.'\"\n\n\"Meat was made for mouths.\" Quoted in \"Coriolanus\" (i. 1).\n\n\"Misfortunes seldom come alone.\" This proverb is beautifully alluded to\nby the King in \"Hamlet\" (iv. 5):\n\n \"When sorrows come, they come not single spies,\n But in battalions.\"\n\nThe French say:[884] \"Malheur ne vient jamais seul.\"\n\n [884] See Bohn's \"Handbook of Proverbs,\" p. 116.\n\n\"More hair than wit\" (\"Two Gentlemen of Verona,\" iii. 2). A well-known\nold English proverb.\n\n\"Mortuo leoni et lepores insultant.\" This proverb is alluded to by the\nBastard in \"King John\" (ii. 1), who says to the Archduke of Austria:\n\n \"You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,\n Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard.\"\n\n\"Much water goes by the mill the miller knows not of.\" This adage is\nquoted in \"Titus Andronicus\" (ii. 1), by Demetrius:\n\n \"more water glideth by the mill\n Than wots the miller of.\"\n\n\"My cake is dough\" (\"Taming of the Shrew,\" v. 1). An obsolete proverb,\nrepeated on the loss of hope or expectation: the allusion being to the\nold-fashioned way of baking cakes at the embers, when it may have been\noccasionally the case for a cake to be burned on one side and dough on\nthe other. In a former scene (i. 1) Gremio says: \"our cake's dough on\nboth sides.\" Staunton quotes from \"The Case is Altered,\" 1609:\n\n \"Steward, your cake is dough, as well as mine.\"\n\n\"Murder will out.\" So, in the \"Merchant of Venice\" (ii. 2), Launcelot\nsays: \"Murder cannot be hid long,--a man's son may; but, in the end,\ntruth will out.\"\n\n\"Near or far off, well won is still well shot\" (\"King John,\" i. 1).\n\n\"Needs must when the devil drives.\" In \"All's Well that Ends Well\" (i.\n3), the Clown tells the Countess: \"I am driven on by the flesh; and he\nmust needs go, that the devil drives.\"\n\n\"Neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring.\"[885] Falstaff says of\nthe Hostess in \"1 Henry IV.\" (iii. 3): \"Why, she's neither fish nor\nflesh; a man knows not where to have her.\"\n\n [885] See Bohn's \"Handbook of Proverbs,\" pp. 160, 251.\n\n\"One nail drives out another.\" In \"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 2), Benvolio\nsays:\n\n \"Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning,\n One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish;\n Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;\n One desperate grief cures with another's languish:\n Take thou some new infection to thy eye,\n And the rank poison of the old will die.\"\n\nThe allusion, of course, is to homoeopathy. The Italians say, \"Poison\nquells poison.\"\n\n\"Old men are twice children;\" or, as they say in Scotland, \"Auld men are\ntwice bairns.\" We may compare the Greek [Greek: Dis paides oi gerontes].\nThe proverb occurs in \"Hamlet\" (ii. 2): \"An old man is twice a child.\"\n\n\"Out of God's blessing into the warm sun.\" So Kent says in \"King Lear\"\n(ii. 2):\n\n \"Good king, that must approve the common saw,--\n Thou out of heaven's benediction com'st\n To the warm sun.\"\n\n\"Patience perforce is a medicine for a mad dog.\" This proverb is\nprobably alluded to by Tybalt in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 5):\n\n \"Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting,\n Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.\"\n\nAnd again, in \"Richard III.\" (i. 1):\n\n \"_Gloster._ Meantime, have patience.\n\n _Clarence._ I must perforce: farewell.\"\n\n\"Pitch and Pay\" (\"Henry V.,\" ii. 3). This is a proverbial expression\nequivalent to \"Pay down at once.\"[886] It probably originated from\npitching goods in a market, and paying immediately for their standing.\nTusser, in his \"Description of Norwich,\" calls it:\n\n \"A city trim,\n Where strangers well may seem to dwell,\n That pitch and pay, or keep their day.\"\n\n [886] See Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 323.\n\n\"Pitchers have ears.\" Baptista quotes this proverb in the \"Taming of the\nShrew\" (iv. 4):\n\n \"Pitchers have ears, and I have many servants.\"\n\nAccording to another old proverb: \"Small pitchers have great ears.\"\n\n\"Poor and proud! fy, fy.\" Olivia, in \"Twelfth Night\" (iii. 1), says:\n\n \"O world, how apt the poor are to be proud!\"\n\n\"Praise in departing\" (\"The Tempest,\" iii. 3). The meaning is: \"Do not\npraise your entertainment too soon, lest you should have reason to\nretract your commendation.\" Staunton quotes from \"The Paradise of Dainty\nDevises,\" 1596:\n\n \"A good beginning oft we see, but seldome standing at one stay.\n For few do like the meane degree, then praise at parting some men say.\"\n\n\"Pray God, my girdle break\"[887] (\"1 Henry IV.,\" iii. 3).\n\n [887] Halliwell-Phillipps's \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare,\" p. 393.\n\n\"Put your finger in the fire and say it was your fortune.\" An excellent\nillustration of this proverb is given by Edmund in \"King Lear\" (i. 2):\n\"This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in\nfortune, we make guilty of our disasters, the sun, the moon, and the\nstars: as if we were villains on necessity; fools, by heavenly\ncompulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance;\ndrunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary\ninfluence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: an\nadmirable evasion,\" etc.\n\n\"Respice finem, respice furem.\" It has been suggested that Shakespeare\n(\"Comedy of Errors,\" iv. 4) may have met with these words in a popular\npamphlet of his time, by George Buchanan, entitled \"Cham\u00e6leon Redivivus;\nor, Nathaniel's Character Reversed\"--a satire against the Laird of\nLidingstone, 1570, which concludes with the following words, \"Respice\nfinem, respice furem.\"\n\n\"Seldom comes the better.\" In \"Richard III.\" (ii. 3), one of the\ncitizens says:\n\n \"Ill news, by'r lady; seldom comes the better:\n I fear, I fear, 'twill prove a troublous world\"\n\n--a proverbial saying of great antiquity. Mr. Douce[888] cites an account\nof its origin from a MS. collection of stories in Latin, compiled about\nthe time of Henry III.\n\n [888] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 333.\n\n\"Service is no inheritance.\" So, in \"All's Well that Ends Well\" (i. 3),\nthe Clown says: \"Service is no heritage.\"\n\n\"Sit thee down, sorrow\" (\"Love's Labour's Lost,\" i. 1).\n\n\"Sit at the stern.\" A proverbial phrase meaning to have the management\nof public affairs. So, in \"1 Henry VI.\" (i. 1), Winchester says:\n\n \"The king from Eltham I intend to steal,\n And sit at chiefest stern of public weal.\"\n\n\"She has the mends in her own hands.\" This proverbial phrase is of\nfrequent occurrence in our old writers, and probably signifies, \"It is\nher own fault;\" or, \"The remedy lies with herself.\" It is used by\nPandarus in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (i. 1). Burton, in his \"Anatomy of\nMelancholy,\" writes: \"And if men will be jealous in such cases, the\nmends is in their own hands, they must thank themselves.\"\n\n\"Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace\" (\"Richard III.,\"\nii. 4).\n\n\"So wise so young, do ne'er live long\" (\"Richard III.,\" iii. 1).[889]\n\n [889] See page 332.\n\n\"So like you, 'tis the worse.\" This is quoted as an old proverb by\nPaulina in the \"Winter's Tale\" (ii. 3).\n\n\"Something about, a little from the right\" (\"King John,\" i. 1).\n\n\"Sowed cockle, reap no corn\" (\"Love's Labour's Lost,\" iv. 3).\n\n\"Speak by the card\" (\"Hamlet,\" v. 1). A merchant's expression,\nequivalent to \"be as precise as a map or book.\" The card is the document\nin writing containing the agreement made between a merchant and the\ncaptain of a vessel. Sometimes the owner binds himself, ship, tackle,\nand furniture, for due performance, and the captain is bound to declare\nthe cargo committed to him in good condition. Hence, \"to speak by the\ncard\" is to speak according to the indentures or written instructions.\n\n\"Still swine eat all the draff\" (\"Merry Wives of Windsor,\" iv. 2). Ray\ngives: \"The still sow eats up all the draught.\"\n\n\"Still waters run deep.\" So in \"2 Henry VI.\" (iii. 1), Suffolk says:\n\n \"Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.\"\n\n\"Strike sail.\" A proverbial phrase to acknowledge one's self beaten. In\n\"3 Henry VI.\" (iii. 3), it occurs:\n\n \"now Margaret\n Must strike her sail and learn awhile to serve,\n Where kings command.\"\n\nWhen a ship, in fight, or on meeting another ship, lets down her\ntopsails at least half-mast high, she is said to strike, that is, to\nsubmit or pay respect to the other.[890]\n\n [890] Brewer's \"Dictionary of Phrase and Fable,\" p. 860.\n\n\"Strike while the iron is hot.\" Poins probably alludes to this proverb\nin \"2 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4): \"My lord, he will drive you out of your\nrevenge, and turn all to a merriment, if you take not the heat.\"\n\nAgain, in \"King Lear\" (i. 1), Goneril adds: \"We must do something, and\ni' the heat.\"\n\n\"Take all, pay all\" (\"Merry Wives of Windsor,\" ii. 2). Ray gives another\nversion of this proverb: \"Take all, and pay the baker.\"\n\n\"Tell the truth and shame the devil.\" In \"1 Henry IV.\" (iii. 1), Hotspur\ntells Glendower:\n\n \"I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil\n By telling truth: tell truth, and shame the devil.\"\n\n\"That was laid on with a trowel.\"[891] This proverb, which is quoted by\nRay, is used by Celia in \"As You Like It\" (i. 2). Thus we say, when any\none bespatters another with gross flattery, that he lays it on with a\ntrowel.\n\n [891] Ray's \"Proverbs\" (Bohn's Edition), 1857, p. 76.\n\n\"The cat loves fish, but she's loath to wet her feet.\" It is to this\nproverb that Lady Macbeth alludes when she upbraids her husband for his\nirresolution (\"Macbeth,\" i. 7):\n\n \"Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'\n Like the poor cat i' the adage.\"\n\nThere are various forms of this proverb. Thus, according to the rhyme:\n\n \"Fain would the cat fish eat,\n But she's loath to wet her feet.\"\n\nThe French version is \"Le chat aime le poisson mais il n'aime pas \u00e0\nmouiller la patte\"--so that it would seem Shakespeare borrowed from the\nFrench.\n\n\"The devil rides on a fiddlestick\" (\"1 Henry IV.,\" ii. 4).\n\n\"The galled jade will wince.\" So Hamlet says (iii. 2), \"let the galled\njade wince, our withers are unwrung.\"\n\n\"The grace o' God is gear enough.\" This is the Scotch form of the\nproverb which Launcelot Gobbo speaks of as being well parted between\nBassanio and Shylock, in the \"Merchant of Venice\" (ii. 2): \"The old\nproverb is very well parted between my master Shylock and you, sir; you\nhave the grace of God, sir, and he hath enough.\"\n\n\"The Mayor of Northampton opens oysters with his dagger.\" This proverb\nis alluded to by Pistol in \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (ii. 2), when he\nsays:\n\n \"Why, then the world's mine oyster,\n Which I with sword will open.\"\n\nNorthampton being some eighty miles from the sea, oysters were so stale\nbefore they reached the town (before railroads, or even coaches, were\nknown), that the \"Mayor would be loath to bring them near his nose.\"\n\n\"The more haste the worse speed.\" In \"Romeo and Juliet\" (ii. 6), Friar\nLaurence says:\n\n \"These violent delights have violent ends\n And in their triumph die; like fire and powder,\n Which, as they kiss, consume: the sweetest honey\n Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,\n And in the taste confounds the appetite:\n Therefore, love moderately; long love doth so;\n Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.\"\n\nThe proverb thus alluded to seems to be derived from the Latin adage,\n\"Festinatio tarda est.\" It defeats its own purpose by the blunders and\nimperfect work it occasions.[892] Hence the French say: \"He that goes\ntoo hastily along often stumbles on a fair road.\"\n\n [892] Kelly's \"Proverbs of All Nations,\" p. 80.\n\n\"There is flattery in friendship\"--used by the Constable of France in\n\"Henry V.\" (iii. 7); the usual form of this proverb being: \"There is\nfalsehood in friendship.\"\n\n\"There was but one way\" (\"Henry V.,\" ii. 3). \"This,\" says Dyce, \"is a\nkind of proverbial expression for death.\" (\"Glossary,\" p. 494.)\n\n\"The weakest goes to the wall.\" This is quoted by Gregory in \"Romeo and\nJuliet\" (i. 1), whereupon Sampson adds: \"Women, being the weaker\nvessels, are ever thrust to the wall: therefore, I will push Montague's\nmen from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall.\"\n\n\"There went but a pair of shears between them\" (\"Measure for Measure,\"\ni. 2). That is, \"We are both of the same piece.\"\n\n\"The world goes on wheels.\" This proverbial expression occurs in \"Antony\nand Cleopatra\" (ii. 7); and Taylor, the Water-Poet, has made it the\nsubject of one of his pamphlets: \"The worlde runnes on wheeles, or,\noddes betwixt carts and coaches.\"\n\n\"Three women and a goose make a market.\" This proverb is alluded to in\n\"Love's Labour's Lost\" (iii. 1):\n\n \"thus came your argument in;\n Then the boy's fat _l'envoy_, the goose that you bought;\n And he ended the market.\"\n\nThe following lines in \"1 Henry VI.\" (i. 6),\n\n \"Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens\n That one day bloom'd, and fruitful were the next,\"\n\nallude to the _Adonis horti_, which were nothing but portable earthen\npots, with some lettuce or fennel growing in them. On his yearly\nfestival every woman carried one of them in honor of Adonis, because\nVenus had once laid him in a lettuce bed. The next day they were thrown\naway. The proverb seems to have been used always in a bad sense, for\nthings which make a fair show for a few days and then wither away. The\nDauphin is here made to apply it as an encomium. There is a good account\nof it in Erasmus's \"Adagia;\" but the idea may have been taken from the\n\"Fairy Queen,\" bk. iii. cant. 6, st. 42 (Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" 1875,\nvol. vi. p. 32).\n\n\"To clip the anvil of my sword.\" \"This expression, in 'Coriolanus' (iv.\n5) is very difficult to be explained,\" says Mr. Green, \"unless we regard\nit as a proverb, denoting the breaking of the weapon and the laying\naside of enmity. Aufidius makes use of it in his welcome to the banished\nCoriolanus.\"\n\n \"here I clip\n The anvil of my sword; and do contest\n As hotly and as nobly with thy love,\n As ever in ambitious strength I did\n Contend against thy valour.\"\n\n\"To have a month's mind to a thing.\" Ray's \"Proverbs.\" So, in the \"Two\nGentlemen of Verona\" (i. 2), Julia says:\n\n \"I see you have a month's mind to them.\"[893]\n\n [893] See page 385.\n\n\"'Tis merry in hall when beards wag all.\"[894] This is quoted by Silence\nin \"2 Henry IV.\" (v. 3):\n\n \"Be merry, be merry, my wife has all;\n For women are shrews, both short and tall;\n 'Tis merry in hall when beards wag all,\n And welcome merry shrove-tide.\n Be merry, be merry.\"\n\n [894] See Bohn's \"Handbook of Proverbs,\" p. 115.\n\n\"To have one in the wind.\" This is one of Camden's proverbial sentences.\nIn \"All's Well that Ends Well\" (iii. 6), Bertram says:\n\n \"I spoke with her but once,\n And found her wondrous cold; but I sent to her,\n By this same coxcomb that we have i' the wind,\n Tokens and letters which she did re-send.\"\n\n\"To hold a candle to the devil\"--that is, \"to aid or countenance that\nwhich is wrong.\" Thus, in the \"Merchant of Venice\" (ii. 6), Jessica\nsays:\n\n \"What, must I hold a candle to my shames?\"\n\n--the allusion being to the practice of the Roman Catholics who burn\ncandles before the image of a favorite saint, carry them in funeral\nprocessions, and place them on their altars.\n\n\"To the dark house\" (\"All's Well that Ends Well,\" ii. 3). A house which\nis the seat of gloom and discontent.\n\n\"Truth should be silent.\" Enobarbus, in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (ii. 2),\nsays: \"That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.\"\n\n\"To take mine ease in mine inn.\" A proverbial phrase used by Falstaff in\n\"1 Henry IV.\" (iii. 3), implying, says Mr. Drake, \"a degree of comfort\nwhich has always been the peculiar attribute of an English house of\npublic entertainment.\"[895]\n\n [895] \"Shakespeare and his Times,\" vol. i. p. 216.\n\n\"Twice away says stay\" (\"Twelfth Night,\" v. 1). Malone thinks this\nproverb is alluded to by the Clown: \"conclusions to be as kisses, if\nyour four negatives make your two affirmatives, why, then, the worse for\nmy friends and the better for my foes;\" and quotes Marlowe's \"Last\nDominion,\" where the Queen says to the Moor:\n\n \"Come, let's kisse.\n\n _Moor._ Away, away.\n\n _Queen._ No, no, sayes I, and twice away sayes stay.\"\n\n\"Trust not a horse's heel.\" In \"King Lear\" (iii. 6) the Fool says, \"he's\nmad that trusts a horse's health.\" Malone would read \"heels.\"\n\n\"Two may keep counsel, putting one away.\" So Aaron, in \"Titus\nAndronicus\" (iv. 2), says:\n\n \"Two may keep counsel, when the third's away.\"\n\n\"Ungirt, unblest.\" Falstaff alludes to the old adage, in \"1 Henry IV.\"\n(iii. 3). \"I pray God my girdle break.\" Malone quotes from an ancient\nballad:\n\n \"Ungirt, unblest, the proverbe sayes;\n And they to prove it right,\n Have got a fashion now adayes,\n That's odious to the sight;\n Like Frenchmen, all on points they stand,\n No girdles now they wear.\"\n\n\"Walls have ears.\" So, in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (v. 1), Thisbe is\nmade to say:\n\n \"O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,\n For parting my fair Pyramus and me.\"\n\n\"Wedding and ill-wintering tame both man and beast.\" Thus, in \"Taming of\nthe Shrew\" (iv. 1), Grumio says: \"Winter tames man, woman, and beast;\nfor it hath tamed my old master, and my new mistress, and myself.\" We\nmay also compare the Spanish adage: \"You will marry and grow tame.\"\n\n\"We steal as in a castle\" (\"1 Henry IV.,\" ii. 1). This, says Steevens,\nwas once a proverbial phrase.\n\n\"What can't be cured must be endured.\" With this popular adage may be\ncompared the following: \"Past cure is still past care,\" in \"Love's\nLabour's Lost\" (v. 2). So in \"Richard II.\" (ii. 3), the Duke of York\nsays:\n\n \"Things past redress are now with me past care.\"\n\nAgain, in \"Macbeth\" (iii. 2) Lady Macbeth says:\n\n \"Things without all remedy\n Should be without regard: what's done is done.\"\n\n\"What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine\" (\"Measure for\nMeasure,\" v. 1).\n\n\"When things come to the worst they'll mend.\" The truth of this popular\nadage is thus exemplified by Pandulph in \"King John\" (iii. 4):\n\n \"Before the curing of a strong disease,\n Even in the instant of repair and health,\n The fit is strongest; evils that take leave,\n On their departure most of all show evil.\"\n\nOf course it is equivalent to the proverb, \"When the night's darkest the\nday's nearest.\"\n\n\"When? can you tell?\" (\"Comedy of Errors,\" iii. 1). This proverbial\nquery, often met with in old writers, and perhaps alluded to just before\nin this scene, when Dromio of Syracuse says: \"Right, sir; I'll tell you\nwhen, an you'll tell me wherefore;\" occurs again in \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii.\n1): \"Ay, when? canst tell?\"\n\n\"When two men ride the same horse one must ride behind.\" So in \"Much Ado\nAbout Nothing\" (iii. 5) Dogberry says: \"An two men ride of a horse, one\nmust ride behind.\"[896] With this may be compared the Spanish adage, \"He\nwho rides behind does not saddle when he will.\"\n\n [896] See Kelly's \"Proverbs of All Nations,\" p. 49.\n\n\"While the grass grows, the steed starves.\" This is alluded to by Hamlet\n(iii. 2): \"Ay, sir, but 'while the grass grows,' the proverb is\nsomething musty.\" See Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 499.\n\n\"Who dares not stir by day must walk by night\" (\"King John,\" i. 1).\n\n\"Who goes to Westminster for a wife, to St. Paul's for a man, and to\nSmithfield for a horse, may meet with a queane, a knave, and a jade.\"\nThis proverb, often quoted by old writers, is alluded to in \"2 Henry\nIV.\" (i. 2):\n\n \"_Falstaff._ Where's Bardolph?\n\n _Page._ He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse.\n\n _Falstaff._ I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse\n in Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I\n were manned, horsed, and wived.\"\n\n\"Wit, whither wilt?\" This was a proverbial expression not unfrequent in\nShakespeare's day. It is used by Orlando in \"As You Like It\" (iv. 1): \"A\nman that had a wife with such a wit, he might say--'Wit, whither wilt?'\"\n\n\"Will you take eggs for money?\" This was a proverbial phrase, quoted by\nLeontes in the \"Winter's Tale\" (i. 2), for putting up with an affront,\nor being cajoled or imposed upon.\n\n\"Words are but wind, but blows unkind.\" In \"Comedy of Errors\" (iii. 1),\nDromio of Ephesus uses the first part of this popular adage.\n\n\"Worth a Jew's eye.\" Launcelot, in the \"Merchant of Venice\" (ii. 5),\nsays:\n\n \"There will come a Christian by,\n Will be worth a Jewess' eye.\"\n\nAccording to tradition, the proverb arose from the custom of torturing\nJews to extort money from them. It is simply, however, a corruption of\nthe Italian _gi\u00f3ia_ (a jewel).\n\n\"You'll never be burned for a witch.\" This proverb, which was applied to\na silly person, is probably referred to in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (i. 2)\nby Charmian, when he says to the soothsayer:\n\n \"Out, fool; I forgive thee for a witch.\"\n\n\"Young ravens must have food\" (\"Merry Wives of Windsor,\" i. 3).[897] Ray\nhas \"Small birds must have meat.\"\n\n [897] \"Handbook Index to Shakespeare,\" p. 395.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX.\n\nTHE HUMAN BODY.\n\n\nIt would be difficult to enumerate the manifold forms of superstition\nwhich have, in most countries, in the course of past centuries,\nclustered round the human body. Many of these, too, may still be found\nscattered, here and there, throughout our own country, one of the most\ndeep-rooted being palmistry, several allusions to which are made by\nShakespeare.\n\nAccording to a popular belief current in years past, a trembling of the\nbody was supposed to be an indication of demoniacal possession. Thus, in\nthe \"Comedy of Errors\" (iv. 4) the Courtezan says of Antipholus of\nEphesus:\n\n \"Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy!\"\n\nand Pinch adds:\n\n \"I charge thee, Satan, hous'd within this man,\n To yield possession to my holy prayers,\n And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight;\n I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven!\"\n\nIn \"The Tempest\" (ii. 2), Caliban says to Stephano, \"Thou dost me yet\nbut little hurt; thou wilt anon, I know it by thy trembling.\"\n\nIt was formerly supposed that our bodies consisted of the four\nelements--fire, air, earth, and water, and that all diseases arose from\nderangement in the due proportion of these elements. Thus, in Antony's\neulogium on Brutus, in \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (v. 5), this theory is alluded to:\n\n \"His life was gentle, and the elements\n So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up,\n And say to all the world, 'This was a man!'\"\n\nIn \"Twelfth Night\" (ii. 3) it is also noticed:\n\n \"_Sir Toby._ Do not our lives consist of the four elements?\n\n _Sir Andrew._ 'Faith, so they say; but I think, it rather\n consists of eating and drinking.\n\n _Sir Toby._ Thou art a scholar; let us therefore eat and\n drink. Marian, I say!--a stoop of wine!\"\n\nIn \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (v. 2), Shakespeare makes the latter say:\n\n \"I am fire, and air, my other elements\n I give to baser life.\"\n\nThis theory is the subject, too, of Sonnets xliv. and xlv., and is set\nforth at large in its connection with physic in Sir Philip Sidney's\n\"Arcadia:\"\n\n \"O elements, by whose (men say) contention,\n Our bodies be in living power maintained,\n Was this man's death the fruit of your dissension?\n O physic's power, which (some say) hath restrained\n Approach of death, alas, thou keepest meagerly,\n When once one is for Atropos distrained.\n Great be physicians' brags, but aide is beggarly\n When rooted moisture fails, or groweth drie;\n They leave off all, and say, death comes too eagerly.\n They are but words therefore that men doe buy\n Of any, since God Esculapius ceased.\"\n\nThis notion was substantially adopted by Galen, and embraced by the\nphysicians of the olden times.[898]\n\n [898] See Bucknill's \"Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,\" p. 120.\n\n_Blood._ In old phraseology this word was popularly used for disposition\nor temperament. In \"Timon of Athens\" (iv. 2), Flavius says:\n\n \"Strange, unusual blood,\n When man's worst sin is, he does too much good!\"\n\nIn the opening passage of \"Cymbeline\" it occurs in the same sense:\n\n \"You do not meet a man but frowns: our bloods\n No more obey the heavens, than our courtiers\n Still seem as does the king,\"\n\nthe meaning evidently being that \"our dispositions no longer obey the\ninfluences of heaven; they are courtiers, and still seem to resemble the\ndisposition the king is in.\"\n\nAgain, in \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (ii. 3): \"wisdom and blood combating\nin so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one, that blood hath the\nvictory.\"\n\nOnce more, in \"King Lear\" (iv. 2), the Duke of Albany says to Goneril:\n\n \"Were't my fitness\n To let these hands obey my blood,\n They are apt enough to dislocate and tear\n Thy flesh and bones.\"\n\nAgain, the phrase \"to be in blood\" was a term of the chase, meaning, to\nbe in good condition, to be vigorous. In \"1 Henry VI.\" (iv. 2), Talbot\nexclaims:\n\n \"If we be English deer, be, then, in blood;\n Not rascal-like, to fall down with a pinch\"\n\n--the expression being put in opposition to \"rascal,\" which was the term\nfor the deer when lean and out of condition. In \"Love's Labour's Lost\"\n(iv. 2), Holofernes says: \"The deer was, as you know, _sanguis_,--in\nblood.\"\n\nThe notion that the blood may be thickened by emotional influences is\nmentioned by Polixenes in the \"Winter's Tale\" (i. 2), where he speaks of\n\"thoughts that would thick my blood.\" In King John's temptation of\nHubert to murder Arthur (iii. 3), it is thus referred to:\n\n \"Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,\n Had bak'd thy blood and made it heavy, thick,\n Which else runs tickling up and down the veins.\"\n\nRed blood was considered a traditionary sign of courage. Hence, in the\n\"Merchant of Venice\" (ii. 1), the Prince of Morocco, when addressing\nhimself to Portia, and urging his claims for her hand, says:\n\n \"Bring me the fairest creature northward born,\n Where Phoebus' fire scarce thaws the icicles,\n And let us make incision for your love,[899]\n To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine.\"\n\n [899] Mr. Singer, in a note on this passage, says, \"It was\n customary, in the East, for lovers to testify the violence of\n their passion by cutting themselves in the sight of their\n mistresses; and the fashion seems to have been adopted here as\n a mark of gallantry in Shakespeare's time, when young men\n frequently stabbed their arms with daggers, and, mingling the\n blood with wine, drank it off to the healths of their\n mistresses.\"--Vol. ii. p. 417.\n\nAgain, in the same play, cowards are said to \"have livers as white as\nmilk,\" and an effeminate man is termed a \"milk-sop.\" Macbeth, too (v.\n3), calls one of his frighted soldiers a \"lily-liver'd boy.\" And in\n\"King Lear\" (ii. 2), the Earl of Kent makes use of the same phrase. In\nillustration of this notion Mr. Douce[900] quotes from Bartholomew\nGlantville, who says: \"Reed clothes have been layed upon deed men in\nremembrance of theyr hardynes and boldnes, whyle they were in theyr\nbloudde.\"\n\n [900] \"Illustrations of Shakspeare,\" 1839, p. 156.\n\nThe absence of blood in the liver as the supposed property of a coward,\noriginated, says Dr. Bucknill,[901] in the old theory of the circulation\nof the blood, which explains Sir Toby's remarks on his dupe, in \"Twelfth\nNight\" (iii. 2): \"For Andrew, if he were opened, and you find so much\nblood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat the rest of\nthe anatomy.\"\n\n [901] \"Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,\" p. 124.\n\nWe may quote here a notion referred to in \"Lucrece\" (1744-50), that,\never since the sad death of Lucrece, corrupted blood has watery\nparticles:\n\n \"About the mourning and congealed face\n Of that black blood a watery rigol goes,\n Which seems to weep upon the tainted place:\n And ever since, as pitying Lucrece' woes,\n Corrupted blood some watery token shows;\n And blood untainted still doth red abide,\n Blushing at that which is so putrefied.\"\n\n_Brain._ By old anatomists the brain was divided into three ventricles,\nin the hindermost of which they placed the memory. That this division\nwas not unknown to Shakespeare is apparent from \"Love's Labour's Lost\"\n(iv. 2), where Holofernes says: \"A foolish extravagant spirit, full of\nforms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions,\nrevolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of memory.\" Again, Lady\nMacbeth (i. 7), speaking of Duncan's two chamberlains, says:\n\n \"Will I with wine and wassail so convince,\n That memory, the warder of the brain,\n Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason\n A limbeck only.\"\n\nThe \"third ventricle is the cerebellum, by which the brain is connected\nwith the spinal marrow and the rest of the body; the memory is posted in\nthe cerebellum, like a warder or sentinel, to warn the reason against\nattack. Thus, when the memory is converted by intoxication into a mere\nfume,[902] then it fills the brain itself--the receipt or receptacle of\nreason, which thus becomes like an alembic, or cap of a still.\"[903]\n\n [902] Cf. \"Tempest,\" v. 1:\n\n \"the ignorant fumes that mantle\n Their clearer reason.\"\n\n [903] Clark and Wright's \"Notes to Macbeth,\" 1877, p. 101.\n\nA popular nickname, in former times, for the skull, was \"brain-pan;\" to\nwhich Cade, in \"2 Henry VI.\" (iv. 10) refers: \"many a time, but for a\nsallet, my brain-pan had been cleft with a brown bill.\" The phrase \"to\nbeat out the brains\" is used by Shakespeare metaphorically in the sense\nof defeat or destroy; just as nowadays we popularly speak of knocking a\nscheme on the head. In \"Measure for Measure\" (v. 1), the Duke,\naddressing Isabella, tells her:\n\n \"O most kind maid,\n It was the swift celerity of his death,\n Which I did think with slower foot came on,\n That brain'd my purpose.\"\n\nThe expression \"to bear a brain,\" which is used by the Nurse in \"Romeo\nand Juliet\" (i. 3),\n\n \"Nay, I do bear a brain,\"\n\ndenoted \"much mental capacity either of attention, ingenuity, or\nremembrance.\"[904] Thus, in Marston's \"Dutch Courtezan\" (1605), we read:\n\n \"My silly husband, alas! knows nothing of it, 'tis\n I that must beare a braine for all.\"\n\n [904] Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. viii. p. 123.\n\nThe notion of the brain as the seat of the soul is mentioned by Prince\nHenry, who, referring to King John (v. 7), says:\n\n \"his pure brain,\n Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house,\n Doth, by the idle comments that it makes,\n Foretell the ending of mortality.\"\n\n_Ear._ According to a well-known superstition, much credited in days\ngone by, and still extensively believed, a tingling of the right ear is\nconsidered lucky, being supposed to denote that a friend is speaking\nwell of one, whereas a tingling of the left is said to imply the\nopposite. This notion, however, varies in different localities, as in\nsome places it is the tingling of the left ear which denotes the friend,\nand the tingling of the right ear the enemy. In \"Much Ado About Nothing\"\n(iii. 1), Beatrice asks Ursula and Hero, who had been talking of her:\n\n \"What fire is in mine ears?\"\n\nthe reference, no doubt, being to this popular fancy. Sir Thomas\nBrowne[905] ascribes the idea to the belief in guardian angels, who\ntouch the right or left ear according as the conversation is favorable\nor not to the person.\n\n [905] \"Vulgar Errors,\" book v. chap. 23 (Bohn's edition, 1852,\n vol. ii. p. 82).\n\nIn Shakespeare's day it was customary for young gallants to wear a long\nlock of hair dangling by the ear, known as a \"love-lock.\" Hence, in\n\"Much Ado About Nothing\" (iii. 3), the Watch identifies one of his\ndelinquents: \"I know him; a' wears a lock.\"[906]\n\n [906] Prynne attacked the fashion in his \"Unloveliness of\n Love-locks.\"\n\nAgain, further on (v. 1), Dogberry gives another allusion to this\npractice: \"He wears a key in his ear, and a lock hanging by it.\"\n\nAn expression of endearment current in years gone by was \"to bite the\near.\" In \"Romeo and Juliet\" (ii. 4), Mercutio says:\n\n \"I will bite thee by the ear for that jest,\"\n\na passage which is explained in Nares (\"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 81) by the\nfollowing one from Ben Jonson's \"Alchemist\" (ii. 3):\n\n \"_Mammon._ Th' hast witch'd me, rogue; take, go.\n\n _Face._ Your jack, and all, sir.\n\n _Mammon._ Slave, I could bite thine ear.... Away, thou dost\n not care for me!\"\n\nGifford, in his notes on Jonson's \"Works\" (vol. ii. p. 184), says the\nodd mode of expressing pleasure by biting the ear seems \"to be taken\nfrom the practice of animals, who, in a playful mood, bite each other's\nears.\"\n\nWhile speaking of the ear, it may be noted that the so-called want of\near for music has been regarded as a sign of an austere disposition.\nThus C\u00e6sar says of Cassius (\"Julius C\u00e6sar,\" i. 2):\n\n \"He hears no music\n Seldom he smiles.\"\n\nThere is, too, the well-known passage in the \"Merchant of Venice\" (v.\n1):\n\n \"The man that hath no music in himself,\n Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,\n Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.\"\n\nAccording to the Italian proverb: \"Whom God loves not, that man loves\nnot music.\"[907]\n\n [907] See Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" pp. 165, 166.\n\n_Elbow._ According to a popular belief, the itching of the elbow denoted\nan approaching change of some kind or other.[908] Thus, in \"1 Henry IV.\"\n(v. 1), the king speaks of\n\n \"Fickle changelings, and poor discontents,\n Which gape, and rub the elbow, at the news\n Of hurlyburly innovation.\"\n\n [908] Ibid. p. 273.\n\nWith this idea we may compare similar ones connected with other parts of\nthe body. Thus, in \"Macbeth\" (iv. 1), one of the witches exclaims:\n\n \"By the pricking of my thumbs,\n Something wicked this way comes.\"\n\nAgain, in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (ii. 1), Ajax says: \"My fingers\nitch,\"[909] and an itching palm was said to be an indication that the\nperson would shortly receive money. Hence, it denoted a hand ready to\nreceive bribes. Thus, in \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (iv. 3), Brutus says to Cassius:\n\n \"Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself\n Are much condemn'd to have an itching palm;\n To sell and mart your offices for gold\n To undeservers.\"\n\n [909] See \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iii. 5), where Capulet says, \"My\n fingers itch,\" denoting anxiety.\n\nSo, in \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (ii. 3), Shallow says: \"If I see a sword\nout, my finger itches to make one.\"\n\nAgain, in \"Othello\" (iv. 3), poor Desdemona says to Emilia:\n\n \"Mine eyes do itch;\n Doth that bode weeping?\"\n\nGrose alludes to this superstition, and says: \"When the right eye\nitches, the party affected will shortly cry; if the left, they will\nlaugh.\" The itching of the eye, as an omen, is spoken of by Theocritus,\nwho says:\n\n \"My right eye itches now, and I will see my love.\"\n\n_Eyes._ A good deal of curious folk-lore has, at one time or another,\nclustered round the eye; and the well-known superstition known as the\n\"evil eye\" has already been described in the chapter on Birth and\nBaptism. Blueness above the eye was, in days gone by, considered a sign\nof love, and as such is alluded to by Rosalind in \"As You Like It\"\n(iii. 2), where she enumerates the marks of love to Orlando: \"A lean\ncheek, which you have not; a blue eye, and sunken, which you have not.\"\n\nThe term \"baby in the eye\" was sportively applied by our forefathers to\nthe miniature reflection of himself which a person may see in the pupil\nof another's eye. In \"Timon of Athens\" (i. 2), one of the lords says:\n\n \"Joy had the like conception in our eyes,\n And, at that instant, like a babe sprung up,\"\n\nan allusion probably being made to this whimsical notion. It is often\nreferred to by old writers, as, for instance, by Drayton, in his\n\"Ideas:\"\n\n \"But O, see, see! we need enquire no further,\n Upon your lips the scarlet drops are found,\n And, in your eye, the boy that did the murder.\"[910]\n\n [910] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 44.\n\nWe may compare the expression, \"to look babies in the eyes,\" a common\namusement of lovers in days gone by. In Beaumont and Fletcher's \"Loyal\nSubject\" (iii. 2), Theodore asks:\n\n \"Can ye look babies, sisters,\n In the young gallants' eyes, and twirl their band-strings?\"\n\nAnd once more, to quote from Massinger's \"Renegado\" (ii. 4), where\nDonusa says:\n\n \"When a young lady wrings you by the hand, thus,\n Or with an amorous touch presses your foot;\n Looks babies in your eyes, plays with your locks,\" etc.\n\nAnother old term for the eyes was \"crystal,\" which is used by Pistol to\nhis wife, Mrs. Quickly, in \"Henry V.\" (ii. 3):\n\n \"Therefore, _caveto_ be thy counsellor.\n Go, clear thy crystals;\"\n\nthat is, dry thine eyes.\n\nIn \"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 2), the phrase is employed by Benvolio:\n\n \"Tut! you saw her fair, none else being by,\n Herself pois'd with herself in either eye:\n But in that crystal scales let there be weigh'd\n Your lady's love against some other maid.\"\n\nIt also occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher's \"Double Marriage\" (v. 3),\nwhere Juliana exclaims:\n\n \"Sleep you, sweet glasses!\n An everlasting slumber crown those crystals.\"\n\nThe expression \"wall-eyed\" denotes, says Dyce (\"Glossary,\" p. 486),\n\"eyes with a white or pale-gray iris--glaring-eyed.\" It is used by Lucius\nin \"Titus Andronicus\" (v. 1):\n\n \"Say, wall-ey'd slave, whither wouldst thou convey\n This growing image of thy fiend-like face?\"\n\nIn \"King John\" (iv. 3), Salisbury speaks of \"wall-eyed wrath.\"\n\nBrockett, in his \"Glossary of North Country Words,\" says: \"In those\nparts of the north with which I am best acquainted, persons are said to\nbe _wall-eyed_ when the white of the eye is very large and to one side;\non the borders 'sic folks' are considered lucky. The term is also\noccasionally applied to horses with similar eyes, though its wider\ngeneral acceptation seems to be when the iris of the eye is white, or of\na very pale color. A _wall-eyed_ horse sees perfectly well.\"\n\n_Face._ A common expression \"to play the hypocrite,\" or feign, was \"to\nface.\" So, in \"1 Henry VI.\" (v. 3), Suffolk declares how:\n\n \"Fair Margaret knows\n That Suffolk doth not flatter, face, or feign.\"\n\nHence the name of one of the characters in Ben Jonson's \"Alchemist.\" So,\nin the \"Taming of the Shrew\" (ii. 1):\n\n \"Yet I have faced it with a card of ten.\"\n\nThe phrase, also, \"to face me down,\" implied insisting upon anything in\nopposition. So, in the \"Comedy of Errors\" (iii. 1), Antipholus of\nEphesus says:\n\n \"But here's a villain that would face me down\n He met me on the mart.\"\n\n_Feet._ Stumbling has from the earliest period been considered\nominous.[911] Thus, Cicero mentions it among the superstitions of his\nday; and numerous instances of this unlucky act have been handed down\nfrom bygone times. We are told by Ovid how Myrrha, on her way to\nCinyra's chamber, stumbled thrice, but was not deterred by the omen from\nan unnatural and fatal crime; and Tibullus (lib. I., eleg. iii. 20),\nrefers to it:\n\n \"O! quoties ingressus iter, mihi tristia dixi,\n Offensum in porta signa dedisse pedem.\"\n\n [911] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. p. 249;\n Jones's \"Credulities Past and Present,\" pp. 529-531; \"Notes and\n Queries,\" 5th series, vol. viii. p. 201.\n\nThis superstition is alluded to by Shakespeare, who, in \"3 Henry VI.\"\n(iv. 7), makes Gloster say:\n\n \"For many men that stumble at the threshold\n Are well foretold that danger lurks within.\"\n\nIn \"Richard III.\" (iii. 4), Hastings relates:[912]\n\n \"Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble,\n And started when he look'd upon the Tower,\n As loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.\"\n\n [912] The following is from Holinshed, who copies Sir Thomas\n More: \"In riding toward the Tower the same morning in which he\n (Hastings) was beheaded his horse twice or thrice stumbled with\n him, almost to the falling; which thing, albeit each man wot\n well daily happeneth to them to whome no such mischance is\n toward; yet hath it beene of an olde rite and custome observed\n as a token oftentimes notablie foregoing some great\n misfortune.\"\n\nIn the same way, stumbling at a grave has been regarded as equally\nunlucky; and in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (v. 3), Friar Laurence says:\n\n \"how oft to-night\n Have my old feet stumbled at graves.\"\n\n_Hair._ From time immemorial there has been a strong antipathy to red\nhair, which originated, according to some antiquarians, in a tradition\nthat Judas had hair of this color. One reason, it may be, why the\ndislike to it arose, was that this color was considered ugly and\nunfashionable, and on this account a person with red hair would soon be\nregarded with contempt. It has been conjectured, too, that the odium\ntook its rise from the aversion to the red-haired Danes. In \"As You Like\nIt\" (iii. 4), Rosalind, when speaking of Orlando, refers to this\nnotion:[913] \"His very hair is of the dissembling colour,\" whereupon\nCelia replies: \"Something browner than Judas's.\"\n\n [913] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 127; Dyce's\n \"Glossary,\" pp. 61, 230.\n\nYellow hair, too, was in years gone by regarded with ill-favor, and\nesteemed a deformity. In ancient pictures and tapestries both Cain and\nJudas are represented with yellow beards, in allusion to which Simple,\nin the \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (i. 4), when interrogated, says of his\nmaster: \"He hath but a little wee face, with a little yellow beard--a\nCain-coloured beard.\"[914]\n\n [914] The quartos of 1602 read \"a kane-coloured beard.\"\n\nIn speaking of beards, it may be noted that formerly they gave rise to\nvarious customs. Thus, in Shakespeare's day, dyeing beards was a\nfashionable custom, and so Bottom, in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (i.\n2), is perplexed as to what beard he should wear when acting before the\nduke. He says: \"I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard,\nyour orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your\nFrench-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.\"[915]\n\n [915] See Jaques's Description of the Seven Ages in \"As You\n Like It,\" (ii. 6).\n\nTo mutilate a beard in any way was considered an irreparable outrage, a\npractice to which Hamlet refers (ii. 2):\n\n \"Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?\n Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?\"\n\nAnd in \"King Lear\" (iii. 7), Gloster exclaims:\n\n \"By the kind gods, 'tis most ignobly done\n To pluck me by the beard.\"\n\nStroking the beard before a person spoke was preparatory to favor. Hence\nin \"Troilus and Cressida\" (i. 3), Ulysses, when describing how Achilles\nasks Patroclus to imitate certain of their chiefs, represents him as\nsaying:\n\n \"'Now play me Nestor; hem, and stroke thy beard,\n As he, being drest to some oration.'\"\n\nAgain, the phrase \"to beard\" meant to oppose face to face in a hostile\nmanner. Thus, in \"1 Henry IV.\" (iv. 1), Douglas declares:\n\n \"No man so potent breathes upon the ground,\n But I will beard him.\"\n\nAnd in \"1 Henry VI.\" (i. 3), the Bishop of Winchester says to Gloster:\n\n \"Do what thou dar'st; I'll beard thee to thy face.\"\n\nIt seems also to have been customary to swear by the beard, an allusion\nto which is made by Touchstone in \"As You Like It\" (i. 2): \"stroke your\nchins, and swear by your beards that I am a knave.\"\n\nWe may also compare what Nestor says in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (iv. 5):\n\n \"By this white beard, I'd fight with thee to-morrow.\"\n\nOur ancestors paid great attention to the shape of their beards, certain\ncuts being appropriated to certain professions and ranks. In \"Henry V.\"\n(iii. 6), Gower speaks of \"a beard of the general's cut.\" As Mr.\nStaunton remarks, \"Not the least odd among the fantastic fashions of our\nforefathers was the custom of distinguishing certain professions and\nclasses by the cut of the beard; thus we hear, _inter alia_, of the\nbishop's beard, the judge's beard, the soldier's beard, the citizen's\nbeard, and even the clown's beard.\" Randle Holme tells us, \"The broad or\ncathedral beard [is] so-called because bishops or gown-men of the church\nanciently did wear such beards.\" By the military man, the cut adopted\nwas known as the stiletto or spade. The beard of the citizen was usually\nworn round, as Mrs. Quickly describes it in \"Merry Wives of Windsor\"\n(i. 4), \"like a glover's paring-knife.\" The clown's beard was left bushy\nor untrimmed. Malone quotes from an old ballad entitled \"Le Prince d'\nAmour,\" 1660:\n\n \"Next the clown doth out-rush\n With the beard of the bush.\"\n\nAccording to an old superstition, much hair on the head has been\nsupposed to indicate an absence of intellect, a notion referred to by\nAntipholus of Syracuse, in the \"Comedy of Errors\" (ii. 2): \"there's many\na man hath more hair than wit.\" In the \"Two Gentlemen of Verona\" (iii.\n1), the same proverbial sentence is mentioned by Speed. Malone quotes\nthe following lines upon Suckling's \"Aglaura,\" as an illustration of\nthis saying:[916]\n\n \"This great voluminous pamphlet may be said\n To be like one that hath more hair than head;\n More excrement than body: trees which sprout\n With broadest leaves have still the smallest fruit.\"\n\n [916] \"Parnassus Biceps,\" 1656.\n\nSteevens gives an example from \"Florio:\" \"A tisty-tosty wag-feather,\nmore haire than wit.\"\n\nExcessive fear has been said to cause the hair to stand on end: an\ninstance of which Shakespeare records in \"Hamlet\" (iii. 4), in that\ncelebrated passage where the Queen, being at a loss to understand her\nson's strange appearance during his conversation with the Ghost, which\nis invisible to her, says:\n\n \"And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,\n Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,\n Starts up, and stands on end.\"\n\nA further instance occurs in \"The Tempest\" (i. 2), where Ariel,\ndescribing the shipwreck, graphically relates how\n\n \"All, but mariners,\n Plunged in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel,\n Then all a-fire with me: the king's son, Ferdinand,\n With hair up-staring--then like reeds, not hair--\n Was the first man that leap'd.\"\n\nAgain, Macbeth says (i. 3):\n\n \"why do I yield to that suggestion\n Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair?\"\n\nAnd further on he says (v. 5):\n\n \"The time has been, my senses would have cool'd\n To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair\n Would at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir\n As life were in't.\"\n\nIn \"2 Henry VI.\" (iii. 2) it is referred to by Suffolk as a sign of\nmadness:\n\n \"My hair be fix'd on end, as one distract.\"\n\nAnd, once more, in \"Richard III.\" (i. 3), Hastings declares:\n\n \"My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.\"\n\nAnother popular notion mentioned by Shakespeare is, that sudden fright\nor great sorrow will cause the hair to turn white. In \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii.\n4), Falstaff, in his speech to Prince Henry, tells him: \"thy father's\nbeard is turned white with the news.\"\n\nAmong the many instances recorded to establish the truth of this idea,\nit is said that the hair and beard of the Duke of Brunswick whitened in\ntwenty-four hours upon his hearing that his father had been mortally\nwounded in the battle of Auerstadt. Marie Antoinette, the unfortunate\nqueen of Louis XVI., found her hair suddenly changed by her troubles;\nand a similar change happened to Charles I., when he attempted to escape\nfrom Carisbrooke Castle. Mr. Timbs, in his \"Doctors and Patients\" (1876,\np. 201), says that \"chemists have discovered that hair contains an oil,\na mucous substance, iron, oxide of manganese, phosphate and carbonate of\niron, flint, and a large proportion of sulphur. White hair contains also\nphosphate of magnesia, and its oil is nearly colourless. When hair\nbecomes suddenly white from terror, it is probably owing to the sulphur\nabsorbing the oil, as in the operation of whitening woollen cloths.\"\n\nHair was formerly used metaphorically for the color, complexion, or\nnature of a thing. In \"1 Henry IV.\" (iv. 1), Worcester says:\n\n \"I would your father had been here,\n The quality and hair of our attempt\n Brooks no division.\"\n\nIn Beaumont and Fletcher's \"Nice Valour\" it is so used:\n\n \"A lady of my hair cannot want pitying.\"\n\n_Hands._ Various superstitions have, at different times, clustered round\nthe hand. Thus, in palmistry, a moist one is said to denote an amorous\nconstitution. In \"Othello\" (iii. 4) we have the following allusion to\nthis popular notion:\n\n \"_Othello._ Give me your hand. This hand is moist, my lady.\n\n _Desdemona._ It yet has felt no age, nor known no sorrow.\n\n _Othello._ This argues fruitfulness, and liberal heart.\"\n\nAgain, in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (i. 2), Iras says: \"There's a palm\npresages chastity;\" whereupon Charmian adds: \"If an oily palm be not a\nfruitful prognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear.\" And, in the\n\"Comedy of Errors\" (iii. 2), Dromio of Syracuse speaks of barrenness as\n\"hard in the palm of the hand.\"\n\nA dry hand, however, has been supposed to denote age and debility. In \"2\nHenry IV.\" (i. 2) the Lord Chief Justice enumerates this among the\ncharacteristics of such a constitution.[917]\n\n [917] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. p. 179.\n\nIn the \"Merchant of Venice\" (ii. 2), Launcelot, referring to the\nlanguage of palmistry, calls the hand \"the table,\" meaning thereby the\nwhole collection of lines on the skin within the hand: \"Well, if any man\nin Italy have a fairer table, which doth offer to swear upon a book, I\nshall have good fortune.\" He then alludes to one of the lines in the\nhand, known as the \"line of life:\" \"Go to, here's a simple line of\nlife.\"\n\nIn the \"Two Noble Kinsmen\" (iii. 5) palmistry is further mentioned:\n\n \"_Gaoler's Daughter._ Give me your hand.\n\n _Gerrold._ Why?\n\n _Gaoler's Daughter._ I can tell your fortune.\"\n\nIt was once supposed that little worms were bred in the fingers of idle\nservants. To this notion Mercutio refers in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 4),\nwhere, in his description of Queen Mab, he says:\n\n \"Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat,\n Not half so big as a round little worm\n Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid.\"\n\nThis notion is alluded to by John Banister, a famous surgeon in\nShakespeare's day, in his \"Compendious Chyrurgerie\" (1585, p. 465): \"We\ncommonly call them worms, which many women, sitting in the sunshine, can\ncunningly picke out with needles, and are most common in the handes.\"\n\nA popular term formerly in use for the nails on the ten fingers was the\n\"ten commandments,\" which, says Nares,[918] \"doubtless led to the\nswearing by them, as by the real commandments.\" Thus, in \"2 Henry VI.\"\n(i. 3), the Duchess of Gloster says to the queen:\n\n \"Could I come near your beauty with my nails\n I'd set my ten commandments in your face.\"\n\n [918] \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 871.\n\nIn the same way the fingers were also called the \"ten bones,\" as a\nlittle further on in the same play, where Peter swears \"by these ten\nbones.\"\n\nThe phrase \"of his hands\" was equivalent to \"of his inches, or of his\nsize, a hand being the measure of four inches.\" So, in the \"Merry Wives\nof Windsor\" (i. 4), Simple says: \"Ay, forsooth: but he is as tall a man\nof his hands as any is between this and his head,\" \"the expression being\nused probably for the sake of a jocular equivocation in the word tall,\nwhich meant either bold or high.\"[919]\n\n [919] Ibid. vol. i. p. 402.\n\nAgain, in the \"Winter's Tale\" (v. 2), the Clown tells the Shepherd:\n\"I'll swear to the prince, thou art a tall fellow of thy hands, and that\nthou wilt not be drunk; but I know thou art no tall fellow of thy hands,\nand that thou wilt be drunk; but I'll swear it, and I would thou wouldst\nbe a tall fellow of thy hands.\"\n\nA proverbial phrase for being tall from necessity was \"to blow the\nnail.\" In \"3 Henry VI.\" (ii. 5) the king says:\n\n \"When dying clouds contend with growing light,\n What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,\n Can neither call it perfect day, nor night.\"\n\nIt occurs in the song at the end of \"Love's Labour's Lost:\"\n\n \"And Dick the shepherd blows his nail.\"\n\n\"To bite the thumb\" at a person implied an insult; hence, in \"Romeo and\nJuliet\" (i. 1), Sampson says: \"I will bite my thumb at them; which is a\ndisgrace to them, if they bear it.\"\n\nThe thumb, in this action, we are told, \"represented a fig, and the\nwhole was equivalent to a _fig_ for you.\"[920] Decker, in his \"Dead\nTerm\" (1608), speaking of the various groups that daily frequented St.\nPaul's Church, says: \"What swearing is there, what shouldering, what\njustling, what jeering, what byting of thumbs, to beget quarrels?\"\n\n [920] See page 218.\n\n_Hare-lip._ A cleft lip, so called from its supposed resemblance to the\nupper lip of a hare. It was popularly believed to be the mischievous act\nof an elf or malicious fairy. So, in \"King Lear\" (iii. 4), Edgar says of\nGloster: \"This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he ... squints the\neye, and makes the hare-lip.\" In \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (v. 2),\nOberon, in blessing the bridal-bed of Theseus and Hippolyta, says:\n\n \"Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,\n\n * * * * *\n\n Shall upon their children be.\"\n\nThe expression \"hang the lip\" meant to drop the lip in sullenness or\ncontempt. Thus, in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (iii. 1), Helen explains why\nher brother Troilus is not abroad by saying: \"He hangs the lip at\nsomething.\" We may compare, too, the words in \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4): \"a\nfoolish hanging of thy nether lip.\"\n\n_Head._ According to the old writers on physiognomy, a round head\ndenoted foolishness, a notion to which reference is made in \"Antony and\nCleopatra\" (iii. 3), in the following dialogue, where Cleopatra,\ninquiring about Octavia, says to the Messenger:\n\n \"Bear'st thou her face in mind? Is't long, or round?\n\n _Messenger._ Round, even to faultiness.\n\n _Cleopatra._ For the most part, too, they are foolish that are so.\"\n\nIn Hill's \"Pleasant History,\" etc. (1613), we read: \"The head very\nround, to be forgetful and foolish.\" Again: \"The head long, to be\nprudent and wary.\"\n\n_Heart._ The term \"broken heart,\" as commonly applied to death from\nexcessive grief, is not a vulgar error, but may arise from violent\nmuscular exertion or strong mental emotions. In \"Macbeth\" (iv. 3),\nMalcolm says:\n\n \"The grief, that does not speak,\n Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.\"\n\nWe may compare, too, Queen Margaret's words to Buckingham, in \"Richard\nIII.\" (i. 3), where she prophesies how Gloster\n\n \"Shall split thy very heart with sorrow.\"\n\nMr. Timbs, in his \"Mysteries of Life, Death, and Futurity\" (1861, p.\n149), has given the following note on the subject: \"This affection was,\nit is believed, first described by Harvey; but since his day several\ncases have been observed. Morgagni has recorded a few examples: among\nthem, that of George II., who died suddenly of this disease in 1760;\nand, what is very curious, Morgagni himself fell a victim to the same\nmalady. Dr. Elliotson, in his Lumleyan Lectures on Diseases of the\nHeart, in 1839, stated that he had only seen one instance; but in the\n'Cyclop\u00e6dia of Practical Medicine' Dr. Townsend gives a table of\ntwenty-five cases, collected from various authors.\"\n\nIn olden times the heart was esteemed the seat of the understanding.\nHence, in \"Coriolanus\" (i. 1), the Citizen speaks of \"the counsellor\nheart.\" With the ancients, also, the heart was considered the seat of\ncourage, to which Shakespeare refers in \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (ii. 2):\n\n \"_Servant._ Plucking the entrails of an offering forth,\n They could not find a heart within the beast.\n\n _C\u00e6sar._ The gods do this in shame of cowardice:\n C\u00e6sar should be a beast without a heart,\n If he should stay at home to-day for fear.\"\n\n_Liver._ By a popular notion, the liver was anciently supposed to be the\nseat of love, a superstition to which Shakespeare frequently alludes.\nThus, in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (iv. 3), Biron, after listening to\nLongaville's sonnet, remarks:\n\n \"This is the liver vein, which makes flesh a deity,\n A green goose, a goddess; pure, pure idolatry.\"\n\nIn \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (iv. 1), Friar Francis says:\n\n \"If ever love had interest in his liver.\"\n\nAgain, in \"As You Like It\" (iii. 2), Rosalind, professing to be able to\ncure love, which, he says, is \"merely a madness,\" says to Orlando, \"will\nI take upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep's heart,\nthat there shall not be one spot of love in't.\" In \"Twelfth Night\" (ii.\n4), the Duke, speaking of women's love, says:\n\n \"Their love may be call'd appetite,\n No motion of the liver, but the palate,\" etc.\n\nAnd Fabian (ii. 5), alluding to Olivia's supposed letter to Malvolio,\nsays: \"This wins him, liver and all.\"\n\nOnce more, in \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (ii. 1), Pistol alludes to the\nliver as being the inspirer of amorous passions, for, speaking of\nFalstaff, he refers to his loving Ford's wife \"with liver burning\nhot.\"[921] Douce says, \"there is some reason for thinking that this\nsuperstition was borrowed from the Arabian physicians, or at least\nadopted by them; for, in the Turkish tales, an amorous tailor is made to\naddress his wife by the titles of 'thou corner of my liver, and soul of\nmy love;' and, in another place, the King of Syria, who had sustained a\ntemporary privation of his mistress, is said to have had 'his liver,\nwhich had been burnt up by the loss of her, cooled and refreshed at the\nsight of her.'\"[922] According to an old Latin distich:\n\n \"Cor sapit, pulmo loquitur, fel commoret iras\n Splen ridere facit, cogit amare jecur.\"\n\n [921] Cf. \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (i. 2):\n\n \"_Soothsayer._ You shall be more beloving, than belov'd.\n\n _Charmian._ I had rather heat my liver with drinking.\"\n\n [922] \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" 1839, pp. 38, 39.\n\nBartholom\u00e6us, in his \"De Proprietatibus Rerum\" (lib. v. 39), informs us\nthat \"the liver is the place of voluptuousness and lyking of the flesh.\"\n\n_Moles._ These have, from time immemorial, been regarded as ominous, and\nspecial attention has been paid by the superstitious to their position\non the body.[923] In \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (v. 1), a mole on a\nchild is spoken of by Oberon as a bad omen, who, speaking of the three\ncouples who had lately been married, says:\n\n \"And the blots of Nature's hand\n Shall not in their issue stand;\n Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,\n Nor mark prodigious, such as are\n Despised in nativity,\n Shall upon their children be.\"\n\n [923] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. pp. 252-255.\n\nIachimo (\"Cymbeline,\" ii. 2) represents Imogen as having\n\n \"On her left breast\n A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops\n I' the bottom of a cowslip.\"\n\nAnd we may also compare the words of Cymbeline (v. 5):\n\n \"Guiderius had\n Upon his neck a mole, a sanguine star;\n It was a mark of wonder.\"\n\n_Spleen._ This was once supposed to be the cause of laughter, a notion\nprobably referred to by Isabella in \"Measure for Measure\" (ii. 2),\nwhere, telling how the angels weep over the follies of men, she adds:\n\n \"who, with our spleens,\n Would all themselves laugh mortal.\"\n\nIn \"Taming of the Shrew\" (Induction, sc. i.), the Lord says:\n\n \"haply my presence\n May well abate the over-merry spleen,\n Which otherwise would grow into extremes.\"\n\nAnd Maria says to Sir Toby, in \"Twelfth Night\" (iii. 2): \"If you desire\nthe spleen, and will laugh yourselves into stitches, follow me.\"\n\n_Wits._ With our early writers, the five senses were usually called the\n\"five wits.\" So, in \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (i. 1), Beatrice says: \"In\nour last conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the\nwhole man governed with one.\" In Sonnet cxli., Shakespeare makes a\ndistinction between wits and senses:\n\n \"But my five wits, nor my five senses can\n Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee.\"\n\nThe five wits, says Staunton, are \"common wit, imagination, fantasy,\nestimation, memory.\" Johnson says, the \"wits seem to have been reckoned\nfive, by analogy to the five senses, or the five inlets of ideas.\" In\n\"King Lear\" (iii. 4) we find the expression, \"Bless thy five wits.\"\n\nAccording to a curious fancy, eating beef was supposed to impair the\nintellect, to which notion Shakespeare has several allusions. Thus, in\n\"Twelfth Night\" (i. 3), Sir Andrew says: \"Methinks sometimes I have no\nmore wit than a Christian, or an ordinary man has: but I am a great\neater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.\" In \"Troilus and\nCressida\" (ii. 1), Thersites says to Ajax: \"The plague of Greece upon\nthee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI.\n\nFISHES.\n\n\nAlthough it has been suggested that Shakespeare found but little\nrecreation in fishing,[924] rather considering, as he makes Ursula say,\nin \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (iii. 1):\n\n \"The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish\n Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,\n And greedily devour the treacherous bait,\"\n\nand that it would be difficult to illustrate a work on angling with\nquotations from his writings, the Rev. H. N. Ellacombe, in his\ninteresting papers[925] on \"Shakespeare as an Angler,\" has not only\nshown the strong probability that he was a lover of this sport, but\nfurther adds, that \"he may be claimed as the first English poet that\nwrote of angling with any freedom; and there can be little doubt that he\nwould not have done so if the subject had not been very familiar to\nhim--so familiar, that he could scarcely write without dropping the\nlittle hints and unconscious expressions which prove that the subject\nwas not only familiar, but full of pleasant memories to him.\" His\nallusions, however, to the folk-lore associated with fishes are very\nfew; but the two or three popular notions and proverbial sayings which\nhe has quoted in connection with them help to embellish this part of our\nsubject.\n\n [924] See Harting's \"Ornithology of Shakespeare,\" 1871, p. 3.\n\n [925] \"The Antiquary,\" 1881, vol. iv. p. 193.\n\n_Carp._ This fish was, proverbially, the most cunning of fishes, and so\n\"Polonius's comparison of his own worldly-wise deceit to the craft\nrequired for catching a carp\" is most apt (\"Hamlet,\" ii. 1):[926]\n\n \"See you now;\n Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth.\"\n\n [926] Ibid.\n\nThis notion is founded on fact, the brain of the carp being six times as\nlarge as the average brain of other fishes.\n\n_Cockle._ The badge of a pilgrim was, formerly, a cockle-shell, which\nwas worn usually in the front of the hat. \"The habit,\" we are told,[927]\n\"being sacred, this served as a protection, and therefore was often\nassumed as a disguise.\" The _escalop_ was sometimes used, and either of\nthem was considered as an emblem of the pilgrim's intention to go beyond\nthe sea. Thus, in Ophelia's ballad (\"Hamlet,\" iv. 5, song), the lover is\nto be known:\n\n \"By his cockle hat and staff,\n And his sandal shoon.\"\n\n [927] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 175.\n\nIn Peele's \"Old Wives' Tale,\" 1595, we read, \"I will give thee a\npalmer's staff of ivory, and a scallop-shell of beaten gold.\" Nares,\ntoo, quotes from Green's \"Never Too Late\" an account of the pilgrim's\ndress:\n\n \"A hat of straw, like to a swain,\n Shelter for the sun and rain,\n With a scallop-shell before.\"\n\n_Cuttle._ A foul-mouthed fellow was so called, says Mr.\nHalliwell-Phillipps,[928] because this fish is said to throw out of its\nmouth, upon certain occasions, an inky and black juice that fouls the\nwater; and, as an illustration of its use in this sense, he quotes Doll\nTearsheet's words to Pistol, \"2 Henry IV.\" ii. 4: \"By this wine, I'll\nthrust my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with\nme.\" Dyce says that the context would seem to imply that the term is\nequivalent to \"culter, swaggerer, bully.\"[929]\n\n [928] \"Handbook Index to the Works of Shakespeare,\" 1866, p. 119.\n\n [929] See a note in Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 112.\n\n_Gudgeon._ This being the bait for many of the larger fish, \"to swallow\na gudgeon\" was sometimes used for to be caught or deceived. More\ncommonly, however, the allusion is to the ease with which the gudgeon\nitself is caught, as in the \"Merchant of Venice\" (i. 1), where Gratiano\nsays:\n\n \"But fish not, with this melancholy bait,\n For this fool-gudgeon.\"\n\n_Gurnet._ The phrase \"soused gurnet\" was formerly a well-known term of\nreproach, in allusion to which Falstaff, in \"1 Henry IV.\" (iv. 2), says,\n\"If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet.\" The gurnet,\nof which there are several species, was probably thought a very coarse\nand vulgar dish when soused or pickled.\n\n_Loach._ A small fish, known also as \"the groundling.\" The allusion to\nit by one of the carriers, in \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii. 1), who says, \"Your\nchamber-lie breeds fleas like a loach,\" has much puzzled the\ncommentators. It appears, however, from a passage in Holland's\ntranslation of Pliny's \"Natural History\" (bk. ix. c. xlvii.), that\nanciently fishes were supposed to be infested with fleas: \"Last of all\nsome fishes there be which of themselves are given to breed fleas and\nlice; among which the chalcis, a kind of turgot, is one.\" Malone\nsuggests that the passage may mean, \"breeds fleas as fast as a loach\nbreeds loaches;\" this fish being reckoned a peculiarly prolific one. It\nseems probable, however, that the carrier alludes to one of those\nfanciful notions which make up a great part of natural history among the\ncommon people.[930] At the present day there is a fisherman's fancy on\nthe Norfolk coast that fish and fleas come together. \"Lawk, sir!\" said\nan old fellow, near Cromer, to a correspondent of \"Notes and Queries\"\n(Oct. 7th, 1865), \"times is as you may look in my flannel-shirt, and\nscarce see a flea, and then there ain't but a very few herrin's; but\ntimes that'll be right alive with 'em, and then there's sartin to be a\nsight o' fish.\"\n\n [930] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 518.\n\nMr. Houghton, writing in the _Academy_ (May 27th, 1882) thinks that in\nthe above passage the small river loach (_Cobitis barbatula_) is the\nfish intended. He says, \"At certain times of the year, chiefly during\nthe summer months, almost all fresh-water fish are liable to be\ninfested with some kind of Epizoa. There are two kinds of parasitic\ncreatures which are most commonly seen on various fish caught in the\nrivers and ponds of this country; and these are the _Argulus foliaccus_,\na crustacean, and the _Piscicola piscium_, a small, cylindrical kind of\nleech.\"\n\n_Mermaids._ From the earliest ages mermaids have had a legendary\nexistence--the sirens of the ancients evidently belonging to the same\nremarkable family. The orthodox mermaid is half woman, half fish, the\nfishy half being sometimes depicted as _doubly_-tailed. Shakespeare\nfrequently makes his characters talk about mermaids, as in the \"Comedy\nof Errors\" (iii. 2), where Antipholus of Syracuse says:\n\n \"O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,\n To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears;\n Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote:\n Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,\n And as a bed I'll take them and there lie,\n And, in that glorious supposition, think\n He gains by death, that hath such means to die.\"\n\nAnd, again, further on, he adds:\n\n \"I'll stop mine ears against the mermaid's song.\"\n\nStaunton considers that in these passages the allusion is obviously to\nthe long-current opinion that the siren, or mermaid, decoyed mortals to\ndestruction by the witchery of her songs. This superstition has been\ncharmingly illustrated by Leyden, in his poem, \"The Mermaid\" (see\nScott's \"Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,\" vol. iv. p. 294):\n\n \"Thus, all to soothe the chieftain's woe,\n Far from the maid he loved so dear,\n The song arose, so soft and slow,\n He seem'd her parting sigh to hear.\n\n * * * * *\n\n That sea-maid's form of pearly light\n Was whiter than the downy spray,\n And round her bosom, heaving bright,\n Her glossy, yellow ringlets play.\n\n Borne on a foaming, crested wave,\n She reached amain the bounding prow,\n Then, clasping fast the chieftain brave,\n She, plunging, sought the deep below.\"\n\nThis tradition gave rise to a curious custom in the Isle of Man, which,\nin Waldron's time, was observed on the 24th of December, though\nafterwards on St. Stephen's Day. It is said that, once upon a time, a\nfairy of uncommon beauty exerted such undue influence over the male\npopulation that she induced, by the enchantment of her sweet voice,\nnumbers to follow her footsteps, till, by degrees, she led them into the\nsea, where they perished. This barbarous exercise of power had continued\nfor a great length of time, till it was apprehended that the island\nwould be exhausted of its defenders. Fortunately, however, a\nknight-errant sprang up, who discovered a means of counteracting the\ncharms used by this siren--even laying a plot for her destruction, which\nshe only escaped by taking the form of a wren. Although she evaded\ninstant annihilation, a spell was cast upon her, by which she was\ncondemned, on every succeeding New Year's Day, to reanimate the same\nform, with the definite sentence that she must ultimately perish by\nhuman hand. Hence, on the specified anniversary, every effort was made\nto extirpate the fairy; and the poor wrens were pursued, pelted, fired\nat, and destroyed without mercy, their feathers being preserved as a\ncharm against shipwreck for one year. At the present day there is no\nparticular time for pursuing the wren; it is captured by boys alone, who\nkeep up the old custom chiefly for amusement. On St. Stephen's Day, a\nband of boys go from door to door with a wren suspended by the legs, in\nthe centre of two hoops crossing each other at right angles, decorated\nwith evergreens and ribbons, singing lines called \"Hunt the Wren.\"[931]\n\n [931] See \"British Popular Customs,\" pp. 494, 495.\n\nIn \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (ii. 1), Oberon speaks of hearing \"a\nmermaid on a dolphin's back;\" and in \"Hamlet,\" the Queen, referring to\nOphelia's death, says (iv. 7):\n\n \"Her clothes spread wide;\n And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up.\"\n\nIn two other passages Shakespeare alludes to this legendary creature.\nThus, in \"3 Henry VI.\" (iii. 2) Gloster boasts that he will \"drown more\nsailors than the mermaid shall,\" and in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (ii. 2),\nEnobarbus relates how\n\n \"Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,\n So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes,\n And made their bends adornings: at the helm\n A seeming mermaid steers.\"\n\nIn all these cases Shakespeare,[932] as was his wont, made his\ncharacters say what they were likely to think, in their several\npositions and periods of life. It has been suggested,[933] however, that\nthe idea of the mermaid, in some of the passages just quoted, seems more\napplicable to the siren, especially in \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream,\"\nwhere the \"mermaid on a dolphin's back\" could not easily have been so\nplaced, had she had a fish-like tail instead of legs.\n\n [932] See \"Book of Days,\" vol. ii. pp. 612-614.\n\n [933] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 565; see Brand's \"Pop.\n Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. pp. 411-414.\n\nNotices of mermaids are scattered abundantly in books of bygone times.\nMermen and mermaids, men of the sea, and women of the sea, having been\nas \"stoutly believed in as the great sea-serpent, and on very much the\nsame kind of evidence.\" Holinshed gives a detailed account of a merman\ncaught at Orford, in Suffolk, in the reign of King John. He was kept\nalive on raw meal and fish for six months, but at last \"gledde\nsecretelye to the sea, and was neuer after seene nor heard off.\" Even in\nmodern times we are told how, every now and then, a mermaid has made her\nappearance. Thus, in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (Jan., 1747), we read:\n\"It is reported from the north of Scotland that some time this month a\nsea creature, known by the name of mermaid, which has the shape of a\nhuman body from the trunk upwards, but below is wholly fish, was\ncarried some miles up the water of D\u00e9vron.\" In 1824 a mermaid or merman\nmade its appearance, when, as the papers of that day inform us, \"upwards\nof 150 distinguished fashionables\" went to see it.\n\nThe \"Mermaid\" was a famous tavern, situated in Bread Street.[934] As\nearly as the fifteenth century, we are told it was one of the haunts of\nthe pleasure-seeking Sir John Howard, whose trusty steward records, anno\n1464: \"Paid for wyn at the Mermayd in Bred Street, for my mastyr and Syr\nNicholas Latimer, xd. ob.\" In 1603 Sir Walter Raleigh established a\nLiterary Club in this house, among its members being Shakespeare, Ben\nJonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Selden, Carew, Martin, Donne, etc. It is\noften alluded to by Beaumont and Fletcher.\n\n [934] \"History of Sign-boards,\" 1866, p. 226.\n\n_Minnow._ This little fish, from its insignificant character, is used by\n\"Coriolanus\" (iii. 1) as a term of contempt: \"Hear you this Triton of\nthe minnows?\" and, again, in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (i. 1), it occurs:\n\"'that base minnow of thy mirth.'\"\n\n_Pike._ An old name for this fish was _luce_. In the \"Merry Wives of\nWindsor\" (i. 1) we are told that \"The luce is the fresh fish.\" There can\nbe no doubt, too, that there is in this passage an allusion to the\narmorial bearings of Shakespeare's old enemy, Sir Thomas Lucy. Among the\nvarious instances of the use of this term we may quote Isaac Walton, who\nsays: \"The mighty luce or pike is taken to be the tyrant, as the salmon\nis the king, of the fresh waters.\" Stow, in his \"Survey of London,\"\ndescribes a procession of the Fishmongers' Company in 1298, as having\nhorses painted like _sea-luce_: \"Then four salmons of silver on foure\nhorses, and after them sixe and fortie armed knightes riding on horses\nmade like _luces of the sea_.\"\n\n_Porpoise._ According to sailors, the playing of porpoises round a ship\nis a certain prognostic of a violent gale of wind; hence the allusion in\n\"Pericles\" (ii. 1), where one of the fishermen says, speaking of the\nstorm: \"Nay, master, said not I as much, when I saw the porpus, how he\nbounced and tumbled?\" Thus, too, in the \"Canterbury Guests, or a Bargain\nBroken,\" by Ravenscroft, we read: \"My heart begins to leap and play,\nlike a porpice before a storm.\" And a further reference occurs in\nWilsford's \"Nature's Secrets:\" \"Porpoises, or sea-hogs, when observed to\nsport and chase one another about ships, expect then some stormy\nweather.\"\n\n_Sea-monster._ The reference in \"King Lear\" (i. 4), to the\n\"sea-monster\"--\n\n \"Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,\n More hideous, when thou show'st thee in a child,\n Than the sea-monster!\"--\n\nis generally supposed to be the hippopotamus, which, according to Upton,\nwas the hieroglyphical symbol of impiety and ingratitude.[935]\nSandys[936] gives a picture said to be portrayed in the porch of the\ntemple of Minerva, at Sais, in which is the figure of a river-horse,\ndenoting \"murder, impudence, violence, and injustice; for they say that\nhe killeth his sire and ravisheth his own dam.\" His account is, no\ndoubt, taken from Plutarch's \"Isis and Osiris;\" and Shakespeare may have\nread it in Holland's translation (p. 1300), but why he should call the\nriver-horse a \"sea-monster\" is not very clear. It is more likely,\nhowever, that the whale is meant.[937]\n\n [935] Wright's \"Notes to King Lear,\" 1877, p. 133.\n\n [936] \"Travels,\" 1673, p. 105.\n\n [937] Cf. \"King Lear,\" iv. 2; \"Troilus and Cressida,\" v. 5;\n \"All's Well that End's Well,\" iv. 3.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII.\n\nSUNDRY SUPERSTITIONS.\n\n\n_Almanacs._ In Shakespeare's day these were published under this title:\n\"An Almanack and Prognostication made for the year of our Lord God,\n1595.\" So, in the \"Winter's Tale\" (iv. 3), Autolycus says: \"the hottest\nday prognostication proclaims;\" that is, the hottest day foretold in the\nalmanac. In Sonnet xiv. the prognostications in almanacs are also\nnoticed:\n\n \"Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck;\n And yet methinks I have astronomy,\n But not to tell of good or evil luck,\n Of plagues, of dearths, or season's quality;\n Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,\n Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind:\n Or say with princes if it shall go well,\n By oft predict that I in heaven find.\"\n\nIn \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (i. 2) Enobarbus says: \"They are greater\nstorms and tempests than almanacs can report;\" and in \"2 Henry IV.\" (ii.\n4), Prince Henry says: \"Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! what\nsays the almanac to that?\"\n\n_Amulets._ A belief in the efficacy of an amulet or charm to ward off\ndiseases and to avert contagion has prevailed from a very early period.\nThe use of amulets was common among the Greeks and Romans, whose amulets\nwere principally formed of gems, crowns of pearls, necklaces of coral,\nshells, etc. The amulet of modern times has been of the most varied\nkinds; objects being selected either from the animal, vegetable, or\nmineral kingdom, pieces of old rags or garments, scraps of writing in\nlegible or illegible characters, in fact, of anything to which any\nsuperstitious property has been considered to belong.[938] This form of\nsuperstition is noticed in \"1 Henry VI.\" (v. 3), in the scene laid at\nAngiers, where La Pucelle exclaims:\n\n \"The regent conquers, and the Frenchmen fly.\n Now help, ye charming spells and periapts\"\n\n--periapts being charms which were worn as preservatives against diseases\nor mischief. Thus Cotgrave[939] explains the word as \"a medicine hanged\nabout any part of the bodie.\"\n\n [938] Pettigrew's \"Medical Superstitions,\" p. 48.\n\n [939] \"French and English Dictionary;\" see Dyce's \"Glossary to\n Shakespeare,\" p. 316; Nares describes it as \"a bandage, tied on\n for magical purposes, from [Greek: periapt\u00f4];\" see Brand's \"Pop.\n Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. pp. 324-326; Douce's \"Illustrations of\n Shakespeare,\" 1839, pp. 305-307.\n\n_Ceremonies._ These, says Malone, were \"omens or signs deduced from\nsacrifices or other ceremonial rites.\" Thus, in \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (ii. 1),\nCassius says of C\u00e6sar, that--\n\n \"he is superstitious grown of late,\n Quite from the main opinion he held once\n Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies.\"\n\nAnd in the next scene Calpurnia adds:\n\n \"C\u00e6sar, I never stood on ceremonies,\n Yet now they fright me.\"\n\n_Charms._ These, as Mr. Pettigrew[940] has pointed out, differ little\nfrom amulets, the difference consisting in the manner in which they are\nused rather than in their nature. Thus, whereas the amulet was to be\nsuspended on the person when employed, the charm was not necessarily\nsubjected to such a method of application. In days gone by, and even at\nthe present day, in country districts, so universal has been the use of\nthis source of supposed magical power that there is scarcely a disease\nfor which a charm has not been given. It is not only to diseases of body\nand mind that the superstitious practice has been directed; having been\nin popular request to avert evil, and to counteract supposed malignant\ninfluences. As might be expected, Shakespeare has given various\nallusions to this usage, as, for example, in \"Cymbeline\" (v. 3), where\nPosthumus says:\n\n \"To day, how many would have given their honours\n To have sav'd their carcases! took heel to do't,\n And yet died too! I, in mine own woe charm'd,\n Could not find death where I did hear him groan,\n Nor feel him where he struck\"\n\n--this passage referring to the notion of certain charms being powerful\nenough to keep men unhurt in battle.\n\n [940] \"Medical Superstitions,\" p. 55.\n\nOthello (iii. 4), speaking of the handkerchief which he had given to\nDesdemona, relates:\n\n \"That handkerchief\n Did an Egyptian to my mother give;\n She was a charmer, and could almost read\n The thoughts of people.\"\n\nAnd in the same play (i. 1), Brabantio asks:\n\n \"Is there not charms,\n By which the property of youth and maidhood\n May be abus'd?\"\n\nAgain, in \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (iii. 2), Benedick, who is\nrepresented as having the toothache, after listening to the banter of\nhis comrades, replies: \"Yet is this no charm for the toothache.\"\n\nPerfect silence seems to have been regarded as indispensable for the\nsuccess of any charm; and Pliny informs us that \"favete linguis\" was the\nusual exclamation employed on such an occasion. From this circumstance\nit has been suggested that the well-known phrase \"to charm a tongue\" may\nhave originated. Thus we have the following dialogue in \"Othello\" (v.\n2):\n\n \"_Iago._ Go to, charm your tongue.\n\n _Emilia._ I will not charm my tongue; I am bound to speak.\"\n\nThus, on the appearance, amid thunder, of the first apparition to\nMacbeth, after the witches have performed certain charms (iv. 1),\nShakespeare introduces the following dialogue:\n\n \"_Macbeth._ Tell me, thou unknown power--\n\n _First Witch._ He knows thy thought:\n Hear his speech, but say thou nought.\"\n\nAgain, in \"The Tempest\" (iv. 1), Prospero says:\n\n \"hush, and be mute,\n Or else our spell is marr'd.\"\n\n_Metrical Charms._ There was a superstition long prevalent that life\nmight be taken away by metrical charms.[941] Reginald Scot, in his\n\"Discovery of Witchcraft\" (1584), says: \"The Irishmen addict themselves,\netc.; yea, they will not sticke to affirme that they can _rime_ a man to\ndeath.\" In \"1 Henry VI.\" (i. 1), the Duke of Exeter, referring to the\nlamented death of Henry V., says:\n\n \"Shall we think the subtle-witted French\n Conjurers and sorcerers, that, afraid of him,\n By magic verses have contrived his end?\"\n\n [941] See, under _Rat_, a similar superstition noticed.\n\nThese \"magic verses,\" to which the death of Henry V. is here attributed,\nwere not required to be uttered in his presence; their deadly energy\nexisting solely in the words of the imprecation and the malevolence of\nthe reciter, which were supposed to render them effectual at any\ndistance.\n\nAgain, the alphabet was called the Christ-cross-row; either because a\ncross was prefixed to the alphabet in the old primers, or, more\nprobably, from a superstitious custom of writing the alphabet in the\nform of a cross by way of a charm. In \"Richard III.\" (i. 1), Clarence\nrelates how King Edward--\n\n \"Hearkens after prophecies and dreams;\n And from the cross-row plucks the letter G.\"\n\n_Dreams._ These, considered as prognostics of good or evil, are\nfrequently introduced by Shakespeare. In \"Troilus and Cressida\" (v. 3),\nAndromache exclaims:\n\n \"My dreams will, sure, prove ominous to the day.\"\n\nWhile Romeo (\"Romeo and Juliet,\" v. 1) declares:\n\n \"My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.\"\n\nIt is chiefly as precursors of misfortune that the poet has availed\nhimself of their supposed influence as omens of future fate. Thus, there\nare few passages in his dramas more terrific than the dreams of Richard\nIII. and Clarence; the latter especially, as Mr. Drake says,[942] \"is\nreplete with the most fearful imagery, and makes the blood run chill\nwith horror.\"\n\n [942] \"Shakespeare and his Times,\" p. 355.\n\nDreaming of certain things has generally been supposed to be ominous\neither of good or ill luck;[943] and at the present day the credulous\npay oftentimes no small attention to their dreams, should these happen\nto have referred to what they consider unlucky things. In the same way\nShylock, in the \"Merchant of Venice\" (ii. 5), is a victim to much\nsuperstitious dread:\n\n \"Jessica, my girl,\n Look to my house. I am right loath to go:\n There is some ill a brewing towards my rest,\n For I did dream of money-bags to-night.\"\n\n [943] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. pp. 127-141.\n\nIn \"Julius C\u00e6sar,\" dreaming of banquet is supposed to presage\nmisfortune.\n\nIt was also supposed that malicious spirits took advantage of sleep to\ntorment their victims;[944] hence Macbeth (ii. 1) exclaims:\n\n \"Merciful powers,\n Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature\n Gives way to in repose!\"[945]\n\n [944] See p. 283.\n\n [945] See Malone's \"Variorum Shakespeare,\" 1821, vol. ii. p. 90.\n\n_Duels._ The death of the vanquished person was always considered a\ncertain evidence of his guilt. Thus, in \"2 Henry VI.\" (ii. 3), King\nHenry, speaking of the death of Horner in the duel with Peter,\nsays:[946]\n\n \"Go, take hence that traitor from our sight;\n For, by his death, we do perceive his guilt:\n And God in justice hath reveal'd to us\n The truth and innocence of this poor fellow,\n Which he had thought to have murder'd wrongfully.--\n Come, fellow, follow us for thy reward.\"\n\n [946] See Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. vi. p. 167.\n\nWe may also compare what Arcite says to Palamon in the \"Two Noble\nKinsmen\" (iii. 6):\n\n \"If I fall, curse me, and say I was a coward;\n For none but such dare die in these just trials.\"\n\nAmong the customs connected with duelling, it appears that, according to\nan old law, knights were to fight with the lance and the sword, as those\nof inferior rank fought with an ebon staff or baton, to the farther end\nof which was fixed a bag crammed hard with sand.[947] Thus Shakespeare,\nin \"2 Henry VI.\" (ii. 3), represents Horner entering \"bearing his staff\nwith a sand-bag fastened to it.\" Butler, in his \"Hudibras,\" alludes to\nthis custom:\n\n \"Engag'd with money-bags, as bold\n As men with sand-bags did of old.\"\n\n [947] See Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 765.\n\nSteevens adds that \"a passage in St. Chrysostom very clearly proves the\ngreat antiquity of this practice.\"\n\n_Fortune-tellers._ A common method of fortune-tellers, in pretending to\ntell future events, was by means of a beryl or glass. In an extract from\nthe \"Penal Laws against Witches,\" it is said, \"they do answer either by\nvoice, or else set before their eyes, in glasses, chrystal stones, etc.,\nthe pictures or images of the persons or things sought for.\" It is to\nthis kind of juggling prophecy that Angelo, in \"Measure for Measure\"\n(ii. 2), refers, when he tells how the law--\n\n \"like a prophet,\n Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils,\n Either new, or by remissness new-conceiv'd.\"\n\nAgain, Macbeth (iv. 1), when \"a show of eight kings\" is presented to\nhim, exclaims, after witnessing the seventh:\n\n \"I'll see no more:--\n And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass,\n Which shows me many more.\"\n\nSpenser[948] has given a circumstantial account of the glass which\nMerlin made for King Ryence. A mirror of the same kind was presented to\nCambuscan, in the \"Squier's Tale\" of Chaucer; and we are also told how\n\"a certain philosopher did the like to Pompey, the which showed him in a\nglass the order of his enemies' march.\"[949] Brand, in his \"Popular\nAntiquities,\"[950] gives several interesting accounts of this method of\nfortune-telling; and quotes the following from Vallancey's \"Collectanea\nde Rebus Hibernicis:\" \"In the Highlands of Scotland, a large chrystal,\nof a figure somewhat oval, was kept by the priests to work charms by;\nwater poured upon it at this day is given to cattle against diseases;\nthese stones are now preserved by the oldest and most superstitious in\nthe country; they were once common in Ireland.\"\n\n [948] \"Fairy Queen,\" bk. iii. c. 2; see Singer's \"Shakespeare,\"\n vol. ix. p. 82.\n\n [949] Boisteau's \"Theatrum Mundi,\" translated by John Alday (1574).\n\n [950] 1849, vol. iii. pp. 60, 61.\n\nFurther allusions to fortune-tellers occur in \"Comedy of Errors\" (v. 1),\nand \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (iv. 2).\n\nIt appears, too, that the trade of fortune-telling was, in Shakespeare's\nday, as now, exercised by the wandering hordes of gypsies. In \"Antony\nand Cleopatra\" (iv. 12), the Roman complains that Cleopatra\n\n \"Like a right gipsy, hath, at fast and loose,\n Beguil'd me to the very heart of loss.\"\n\n_Giants._ The belief in giants and other monsters was much credited in\nolden times, and, \"among the legends of nearly every race or tribe, few\nare more universal than those relating to giants or men of colossal size\nand superhuman power.\"[951] That such stories were current in\nShakespeare's day, is attested by the fact that the poet makes Othello\n(i. 3), in his eloquent defence before the Senate of Venice, when\nexplaining his method of courtship, allude to\n\n \"the Cannibals that each other eat,\n The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads\n Do grow beneath their shoulders.\"\n\n [951] See Hardwick's \"Traditions, Superstitions, and\n Folk-Lore,\" 1872, pp. 197, 224.\n\nIn \"The Tempest\" (iii. 3), Gonzalo relates how--\n\n \"When we were boys,\n Who would believe that there were mountaineers\n Dew-lapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at 'em\n Wallets of flesh? or that there were such men,\n Whose heads stood in their breasts?\"\n\nAnd after the appearance of Prospero's magic repast, Sebastian says:\n\n \"Now I will believe\n That there are unicorns; that in Arabia\n There is one tree, the phoenix' throne; one phoenix\n At this hour reigning there.\"\n\nAmong the numerous references to giants by Shakespeare, we may quote the\nfollowing. In \"2 Henry VI.\" (ii. 3), Horner says: \"Peter, have at thee\nwith a downright blow [as Bevis of Southampton fell upon\nAscapart].\"[952]\n\n [952] The addition in brackets is rejected by the editors of\n the Globe edition.\n\nAscapart, according to the legend, was \"ful thyrty fote longe,\" and was\nconquered by Sir Bevis of Southampton.\n\nIn \"Cymbeline\" (iii 3), Belarius says:\n\n \"the gates of monarchs\n Are arch'd so high, that giants may jet through\n And keep their impious turbans on, without\n Good morrow to the sun.\"\n\nIn the \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (ii. 1), Mrs. Page says: \"I had rather\nbe a giantess, and lie under Mount Pelion.\"[953]\n\n [953] Cf. \"Measure for Measure,\" ii. 2, iii. 1; \"Much Ado About\n Nothing,\" v. 1; \"Loves Labour's Lost,\" iii. 1.\n\n_Lucky Days._ From the most remote period certain days have been\nsupposed to be just as lucky as others are the reverse, a notion which\nis not confined to any one country. In Shakespeare's day great attention\nwas paid to this superstitious fancy, which is probably alluded to in\nthe \"Winter's Tale\" (iii. 3), where the Shepherd says to the Clown,\n\"'Tis a lucky day, boy; and we'll do good deeds on't.\"\n\nIn \"King John\" (iii. 1) Constance exclaims:\n\n \"What hath this day deserv'd? what hath it done,\n That it in golden letters should be set\n Among the high tides in the calendar?\n Nay, rather turn this day out of the week,\n This day of shame, oppression, perjury:\n Or, if it must stand still, let wives with child\n Pray that their burthens may not fall this day,\n Lest that their hopes prodigiously be cross'd:\n But on this day let seamen fear no wreck;\n No bargains break that are not this day made:\n This day, all things begun come to ill end,\n Yea, faith itself to hollow falsehood change!\"\n\nAgain, Macbeth (iv. 1) says:\n\n \"Let this pernicious hour\n Stand aye accursed in the calendar!\"\n\nIn the old almanacs the days supposed to be favorable or unfavorable are\nenumerated, allusion to which occurs in Webster's \"Duchess of Malfy,\"\n1623:\n\n \"By the almanack, I think,\n To choose good days and shun the critical.\"\n\nAt the present day this superstition still retains its hold on the\npopular mind, and in the transactions of life exerts an important\ninfluence.[954]\n\n [954] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1879, vol. i. pp. 44-51;\n Jones's \"Credulities Past and Present,\" pp. 493-507; Hampson's\n \"OEvi Medii Kalendarium,\" vol. i. p. 210; see an article on \"Day\n Fatality\" in John Aubrey's \"Miscellanies.\"\n\n_Magic._ The system of magic, which holds such a prominent place in \"The\nTempest,\" was formerly an article in the popular creed, and as such is\nfrequently noticed by the writers of Shakespeare's time. Thus, in\ndescribing Prospero, Shakespeare has given him several of the adjuncts,\nbesides the costume, of the popular magician, much virtue being inherent\nin his very garments. So Prospero, when addressing his daughter (i. 2),\nsays:\n\n \"Lend thy hand,\n And pluck my magic garment from me.--So;\n Lie there, my art.\"\n\nA similar importance is assigned to his staff, for he tells Ferdinand\n(i. 2):\n\n \"I can here disarm thee with this stick,\n And make thy weapon drop.\"\n\nAnd when he abjures the practice of magic, one of the requisites is \"to\nbreak his staff,\" and to (v. 1)\n\n \"Bury it certain fathoms in the earth.\"\n\nThe more immediate instruments of power were books, by means of which\nspells were usually performed. Hence, in the old romances, the sorcerer\nis always furnished with a book, by reading certain parts of which he is\nenabled to summon to his aid what demons or spirits he has occasion to\nemploy. When he is deprived of his book his power ceases. Malone quotes,\nin illustration of this notion, Caliban's words in \"The Tempest\" (iii.\n2):\n\n \"Remember,\n First to possess his books; for without them\n He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not\n One spirit to command.\"\n\nProspero, too, declares (iii. 1):\n\n \"I'll to my book;\n For yet, ere supper time, must I perform\n Much business appertaining.\"\n\nAnd on his relinquishing his art he says that:\n\n \"Deeper than did ever plummet sound\n I'll drown my book.\"\n\nThose who practise nocturnal sorcery are styled, in \"Troilus and\nCressida\" (iv. 2), \"venomous wights.\"\n\n_Merlin's Prophecies._ In Shakespeare's day there was an extensive\nbelief in strange and absurd prophecies, which were eagerly caught up\nand repeated by one person to another. This form of superstition is\nalluded to in \"1 Henry IV.\" (iii. 1), where, after Owen Glendower has\nbeen descanting on the \"omens and portents dire\" which heralded his\nnativity, and Hotspur's unbelieving and taunting replies to the\nchieftain's assertions, the poet makes Hotspur, on Mortimer's saying,\n\n \"Fie, cousin Percy! how you cross my father!\"\n\nthus reply:\n\n \"I cannot choose: sometime he angers me,\n With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant,\n Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies;\n And of a dragon and a finless fish.\"\n\nIn \"King Lear\" (iii. 2) the Fool says\n\n \"I'll speak a prophecy ere I go:\n When priests are more in word than matter;\n When brewers mar their malt with water;\n When nobles are their tailors' tutors;\n No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors;\n When every case in law is right;\n No squire in debt, nor no poor knight;\n When slanders do not live in tongues.\n Nor cutpurses come not to throngs;\n When usurers tell their gold i' the field;\n And bawds and whores do churches build;--\n Then shall the realm of Albion\n Come to great confusion:\n Then comes the time, who lives to see't,\n That going shall be us'd with feet.\n This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time.\"\n\nThis witty satire was probably against the prophecies attributed to\nMerlin, which were then prevalent among the people.[955]\n\n [955] See Kelly's \"Notices Illustrative of the Drama and Other\n Amusements at Leicester,\" 1865, pp. 116, 118.\n\nFormerly, too, prophecies of apparent impossibilities were common in\nScotland; such as the removal of one place to another. So in \"Macbeth\"\n(iv. 1), the apparition says:\n\n \"Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be, until\n Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill\n Shall come against him.\"\n\n_Portents and Prodigies._ In years gone the belief in supernatural\noccurrences was a common article of faith; and our ancestors made use of\nevery opportunity to prove the truth of this superstitious belief. The\nmost usual monitions of this kind were, \"lamentings heard in the air;\nshakings and tremblings of the earth; sudden gloom at noon-day; the\nappearance of meteors; the shooting of stars; eclipses of the sun and\nmoon; the moon of a bloody hue; the shrieking of owls; the croaking of\nravens; the shrilling of crickets; night-howlings of dogs; the\ndeath-watch; the chattering of pies; wild neighing of horses; blood\ndropping from the nose; winding-sheets; strange and fearful noises,\netc.,\" many of which Shakespeare has used, introducing them as the\nprecursors of murder, sudden death, disasters, and superhuman\nevents.[956] Thus in \"Richard II.\" (ii. 4), the following prodigies are\nselected as the forerunners of the death or fall of kings:\n\n \"'Tis thought, the king is dead: we will not stay.\n The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd,\n And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;\n The pale-fac'd moon looks bloody on the earth,\n And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;\n Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap,\n The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,\n The other to enjoy by rage and war:\n These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.\"\n\n [956] Drake's \"Shakespeare and his Times,\" p. 352.\n\nPrevious to the assassination of Julius C\u00e6sar, we are told, in \"Hamlet\"\n(i. 1), how:\n\n \"In the most high and palmy state of Rome,\n A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,\n The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead\n Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;\n As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,\n Disasters in the sun; and the moist star,\n Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,\n Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.\"\n\nMore appalling still are the circumstances which preceded and\naccompanied the murder of Duncan (\"Macbeth,\" ii. 3). We may also compare\nthe omens which marked the births of Owen Glendower and Richard III.\nIndeed, the supposed sympathy of the elements with human joy or sorrow\nor suffering is evidently a very ancient superstition; and this presumed\nsensitiveness, not only of the elements, but of animated nature, to the\nperpetration of deeds of darkness and blood by perverted nature, has in\nall ages been extensively believed. It is again beautifully illustrated\nin the lines where Shakespeare makes Lenox, on the morning following the\nmurder of Duncan by his host (\"Macbeth,\" ii. 3), give the following\nnarrative:\n\n \"The night has been unruly; where we lay,\n Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,\n Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death;\n And prophesying with accents terrible\n Of dire combustion, and confus'd events,\n New hatch'd to the woeful time: the obscure bird\n Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth\n Was feverous and did shake.\"\n\nThis idea is further illustrated in the dialogue which follows, between\nRoss and an old man:\n\n \"_Old Man._ Threescore and ten I can remember well:\n Within the volume of which time I have seen\n Hours dreadful, and things strange: but this sore night\n Hath trifled former knowings.\n\n _Ross._ Ah, good father,\n Thou seest, the heavens, as troubled with man's act,\n Threaten his bloody stage: by the clock, 'tis day,\n And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp:\n Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame,\n That darkness does the face of earth entomb,\n When living light should kiss it?\"\n\n_Supernatural Authority of Kings._ The belief in the supernatural\nauthority of monarchs is but a remnant of the long-supposed \"divine\nright\" of kings to govern, which resulted from a conviction that they\ncould trace their pedigrees back to the deities themselves.[957] Thus\nShakespeare even puts into the mouth of the murderer and usurper\nClaudius, King of Denmark, the following sentence:\n\n \"Let him go, Gertrude: do not fear our person:\n There's such divinity doth hedge a king,\n That treason can but peep to what it would,\n Acts little of his will.\"\n\n [957] \"Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-Lore,\" p. 81.\n\nThis notion is by no means confined to either civilized or\nsemi-civilized nations. It is, says Mr. Hardwick, \"a universal feeling\namong savage tribes.\" The ignorant serf of Russia believed, and, indeed,\nyet believes, that if the deity were to die the emperor would succeed to\nhis power and authority.\n\n_Sympathetic Indications._ According to a very old tradition the wounds\nof a murdered person were supposed to bleed afresh at the approach or\ntouch of the murderer. This effect, though impossible, remarks\nNares,[958] except it were by miracle, was firmly believed, and almost\nuniversally, for a very long period. Poets, therefore, were fully\njustified in their use of it. Thus Shakespeare, in \"Richard III.\" (i. 2)\nmakes Lady Anne, speaking of Richard, Duke of Gloster, say:\n\n \"O, gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry's wounds\n Open their congeal'd mouths, and bleed afresh!--\n Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity;\n For 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood\n From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells;\n Thy deed, inhuman and unnatural,\n Provokes this deluge most unnatural.\"\n\n [958] \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 974.\n\nStow alludes to this circumstance in his \"Annals\" (p. 424). He says the\nking's body \"was brought to St. Paul's in an open coffin, barefaced,\nwhere he bled; thence he was carried to the Blackfriars, and there\nbled.\" Matthew Paris also states that after Henry II.'s death his son\nRichard came to view the body--\"Quo superveniente, confestim erupit\nsanguis ex naribus regis mortui; ac si indignaretur spiritus in adventue\nejus, qui ejusdem mortis causa esse credebatur, ut videretur sanguis\nclamare ad Deum.\"[959] In the \"Athenian Oracle\" (i. 106), this supposed\nphenomenon is thus accounted for: \"The blood is congealed in the body\nfor two or three days, and then becomes liquid again, in its tendency to\ncorruption. The air being heated by many persons coming about the body,\nis the same thing to it as motion is. 'Tis observed that dead bodies\nwill bleed in a concourse of people, when murderers are absent, as well\nas present, yet legislators have thought fit to authorize it, and use\nthis trial as an argument, at least to frighten, though 'tis no\nconclusive one to condemn them.\" Among other allusions to this\nsuperstition may be mentioned one by King James in his \"D\u00e6monology,\"\nwhere we read: \"In a secret murder, if the dead carkasse be at any time\nthereafter handled by the murderer, it will gush out of blood, as if the\nblood were crying to heaven for revenge of the murderer.\" It is spoken\nof also in a note to chapter v. of the \"Fair Maid of Perth,\" that this\nbleeding of a corpse was urged as an evidence of guilt in the High Court\nof Justiciary at Edinburgh as late as the year 1668. An interesting\nsurvival of this curious notion exists in Durham, where, says Mr.\nHenderson,[960] \"touching of the corpse by those who come to look at it\nis still expected by the poor on the part of those who come to their\nhouse while a dead body is lying in it, in token that they wished no ill\nto the departed, and were in peace and amity with him.\"\n\n [959] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. pp. 229-231.\n\n [960] \"Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,\" 1849, p. 57.\n\nWe may also compare the following passage, where Macbeth (iii. 4),\nspeaking of the Ghost, says:\n\n \"It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood:\n Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;\n Augurs and understood relations have\n By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth\n The secret'st man of blood.\"\n\nShakespeare perhaps alludes to some story in which the stones covering\nthe corpse of a murdered man were said to have moved of themselves, and\nso revealed the secret. The idea of trees speaking probably refers to\nthe story of the tree which revealed to \u00c6neas the murder of Polydorus\n(Verg., \"\u00c6neid,\" iii. 22, 599). Indeed, in days gone by, this\nsuperstition was carried to such an extent that we are told, in\nD'Israeli's \"Curiosities of Literature,\" \"by the side of the bier, if\nthe slightest change was observable in the eyes, the mouth, feet, or\nhands of the corpse, the murderer was conjectured to be present, and\nmany an innocent spectator must have suffered death. This practice forms\na rich picture in the imagination of our old writers; and their\nhistories and ballads are labored into pathos by dwelling on this\nphenomenon.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII.\n\nMISCELLANEOUS CUSTOMS, ETC.\n\n\n_Badge of Poverty._ In the reign of William III., those who received\nparish relief had to wear a badge. It was the letter P, with the initial\nof the parish to which they belonged, in red or blue cloth, on the\nshoulder of the right sleeve. In \"2 Henry VI.\" (v. 1) Clifford says:\n\n \"Might I but know thee by thy household badge.\"\n\n_Bedfellow._ A proof of the simplicity of manners in olden times is\nevidenced by the fact that it was customary for men, even of the highest\nrank, to sleep together. In \"Henry V.\" (ii. 2) Exeter says:\n\n \"Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,\n Whom he hath dull'd and cloy'd with gracious favours.\"\n\n\"This unseemly custom,\" says Malone, \"continued common till the middle\nof the last century, if not later.\" Beaumont and Fletcher, in the\n\"Coxcomb\" (i. 1), thus refer to it:\n\n \"Must we, that have so long time been as one,\n Seen cities, countries, kingdoms, and their wonders,\n Been bedfellows, and in our various journey\n Mixt all our observations.\"\n\nIn the same way, letters from noblemen to each other often began with\nthe appellation _bedfellow_.[961]\n\n [961] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 68.\n\n_Curfew Bell_, which is generally supposed to be of Norman origin, is\nstill rung in some of our old country villages, although it has long\nlost its significance. It seems to have been as important to ghosts as\nto living men, it being their signal for walking, a license which\napparently lasted till the first cock. Fairies, too, and other spirits,\nwere under the same regulations; and hence Prospero, in \"The Tempest\"\n(v. 1), says of his elves that they\n\n \"rejoice\n To hear the solemn curfew.\"\n\nIn \"King Lear\" (iii. 4) we find the fiend Flibbertigibbet obeying the\nsame rule, for Edgar says: \"This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet; he\nbegins at curfew, and walks till the first cock.\"\n\nIn \"Measure for Measure\" (iv. 2) we find another allusion:\n\n \"_Duke._ The best and wholesom'st spirits of the night\n Envelope you, good provost! Who call'd here of late?\n\n _Provost._ None, since the curfew rung.\"\n\nAnd, once more, in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iv. 4), Capulet says:\n\n \"Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crow'd,\n The curfew bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock.\"[962]\n\n [962] See Brand's \"Pop. Antiq.,\" 1849, vol. iii. pp. 220-225;\n also, Harland and Wilkinson's \"Lancashire Folk-Lore,\" 1867, p. 44.\n\n_Sacring Bell._ This was a bell which rang for processions and other\nholy ceremonies.[963] It is mentioned in \"Henry VIII.\" (iii. 2), by the\nEarl of Surrey:\n\n \"I'll startle you\n Worse than the sacring bell.\"\n\n [963] Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 379.\n\nIt is rung in the Romish Church to give notice that the \"Host\" is\napproaching, and is now called \"Sanctus bell,\" from the words \"Sanctus,\nSanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth,\" pronounced by the priest.\n\nOn the graphic passage where Macbeth (ii. 1) says:\n\n \"The bell invites me.\n Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell\n That summons thee to heaven or to hell\"--\n\nMalone has this note: \"Thus Raleigh, speaking of love, in England's\n'Helicon' (1600):\n\n \"'It is perhaps that sauncing bell\n That toules all into heaven or hell.'\"\n\n_Sauncing_ being probably a mistake for sacring or saint's bell,\noriginally, perhaps, written \"saintis bell.\" In \"Hudibras\" we find:\n\n \"The old saintis bell that rings all in.\"\n\n_Carpet-knights._ These were knights dubbed at court by mere favor, and\nnot on the field of battle, for their military exploits. In \"Twelfth\nNight\" (iii. 4), Sir Toby defines one of them thus: \"He is knight,\ndubbed with unhatched rapier, and on carpet consideration.\"\n\nA \"trencher knight\" was probably synonymous, as in \"Love's Labour's\nLost\" (v. 2):\n\n \"Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick.\"\n\nThese carpet-knights were sometimes called \"knights of the green\ncloth.\"[964]\n\n [964] See Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" pp. 65, 66.\n\n_Chair Days._ Days of old age and infirmity. So, in \"2 Henry VI.\" (v.\n2), young Clifford, on seeing his dead father, says:\n\n \"Wast thou ordain'd, dear father,\n To lose thy youth in peace, and to achieve\n The silver livery of advised age,\n And, in thy reverence, and thy chair-days, thus\n To die in ruffian battle?\"\n\n_Chivalry._ The expression \"sworn brothers,\" which Shakespeare several\ntimes employs, refers to the \"fratres jurati,\" who, in the days of\nchivalry, mutually bound themselves by oath to share each other's\nfortune. Thus, Falstaff says of Shallow, in \"2 Henry IV.\" (iii. 2): \"He\ntalks as familiarly of John o' Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to\nhim.\" In \"Henry V.\" (ii. 1), Bardolph says: \"we'll be all three sworn\nbrothers to France.\" In course of time it was used in a laxer sense, to\ndenote intimacy, as in \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (i. 1), where Beatrice\nsays of Benedick, that \"He hath every month a new sworn brother.\"[965]\n\n [965] We may compare, too, what Coriolanus says (ii. 3): \"I\n will, sir, flatter my sworn brother, the people.\"\n\nAccording to the laws of chivalry, a person of superior birth might not\nbe challenged by an inferior; or, if challenged, might refuse combat, a\nreference to which seems to be made by Cleopatra (\"Antony and\nCleopatra,\" ii. 4):\n\n \"I will not hurt him.--\n These hands do lack nobility, that they strike\n A meaner than myself.\"\n\nAgain, in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (v. 4), the same practice is alluded to\nby Hector, who asks Thersites:\n\n \"What art thou, Greek? art thou for Hector's match?\n Art thou of blood and honour?\"\n\nSinger quotes from \"Melville's Memoirs\" (1735, p. 165): \"The Laird of\nGrange offered to fight Bothwell, who answered that he was not his\nequal. The like answer made he to Tullibardine. Then my Lord Lindsay\noffered to fight him, which he could not well refuse; but his heart\nfailed him, and he grew cold on the business.\"\n\n_Clubs._ According to Malone, it was once a common custom, on the\nbreaking-out of a fray, to call out \"Clubs, clubs!\" to part the\ncombatants. Thus, in \"1 Henry VI.\" (i. 3), the Mayor declares:\n\n \"I'll call for clubs, if you will not away.\"\n\nIn \"Titus Andronicus\" (ii. 1), Aaron says:\n\n \"Clubs, clubs! these lovers will not keep the peace.\"\n\n\"Clubs,\" too, \"was originally the popular cry to call forth the London\napprentices, who employed their clubs for the preservation of the public\npeace. Sometimes, however, they used those weapons to raise a\ndisturbance, as they are described doing in the following passage in\n'Henry VIII.' (v. 4): 'I miss'd the meteor once, and hit that woman; who\ncried out 'Clubs!' when I might see from far some forty truncheoners\ndraw to her succour, which were the hope o' the Strand, where she was\nquartered.'\"[966]\n\n [966] Cf. \"Romeo and Juliet,\" i. 1; \"As You Like It,\" v. 2.\n\n_Color-Lore._ Green eyes have been praised by poets of nearly every\nland,[967] and, according to Armado, in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (i. 2),\n\"Green, indeed, is the colour of lovers.\"\n\n [967] See Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. viii. p. 204.\n\nIn \"A Midsummer-Night's Dream\" (v. 1), Thisbe laments:\n\n \"Lovers, make moan:\n His eyes were green as leeks.\"\n\nThe Nurse, in her description of Romeo's rival (\"Romeo and Juliet,\" iii.\n5), says:\n\n \"An eagle, madam,\n Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye\n As Paris hath.\"\n\nIn the \"Two Noble Kinsmen\" (v. 1), Emilia, praying to Diana, says:\n\n \"O vouchsafe,\n With that thy rare green eye--which never yet\n Beheld thing maculate--look on thy virgin.\"\n\nThe words of Armado have been variously explained as alluding to green\neyes--Spanish writers being peculiarly enthusiastic in this praise--to the\nwillow worn by unsuccessful lovers, and to their melancholy.[968] It has\nalso been suggested[969] that, as green is the color most suggestive of\nfreshness and spring-time, it may have been considered the most\nappropriate lover's badge. At the same time, however, it is curious\nthat, as green has been regarded as an ominous color, it should be\nconnected with lovers, for, as an old couplet remarks:\n\n \"Those dressed in blue\n Have lovers true;\n In green and white,\n Forsaken quite.\"[970]\n\n [968] See Douce's \"Illustrations of Shakespeare,\" p. 133.\n\n [969] See an article by Mr. Black, in _Antiquary_, 1881, vol. iii.\n\n [970] See Henderson's \"Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties,\" pp.\n 34, 35.\n\nIn \"Merchant of Venice\" (iii. 2), \"green-eyed jealousy,\" and in\n\"Othello\" (iii. 3), its equivalent, \"green-eyed monster,\" are\nexpressions used by Shakespeare.\n\n_Yellow_ is an epithet often, too, applied to jealousy, by the old\nwriters. In the \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" (i. 3), Nym says he will\npossess Ford \"with yellowness.\" In \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (ii. 1)\nBeatrice describes the Count as \"civil as an orange, and something of\nthat jealous complexion.\" In \"Twelfth Night\" (ii. 4), Viola tells the\nDuke how her father's daughter loved a man, but never told her love:\n\n \"She pin'd in thought,\n And with a green and yellow melancholy\n She sat like patience on a monument.\"\n\n_Dinner Customs._ In days gone by there was but one salt-cellar on the\ntable, which was a large piece of plate, generally much ornamented. The\ntables being long, the salt was commonly placed about the middle, and\nserved as a kind of boundary to the different quality of the guests\ninvited. Those of distinction were ranked above; the space below being\nassigned to the dependants, inferior relations of the master of the\nhouse, etc.[971] Shakespeare would seem to allude to this custom in the\n\"Winter's Tale\" (i. 2), where Leontes says:\n\n \"lower messes,\n Perchance, are to this business purblind?\"\n\n [971] Gifford's note on \"Massinger's Works,\" 1813, vol. i. p.\n 170; see Dyce's \"Glossary to Shakespeare,\" pp. 269, 380.\n\nUpon which passage Steevens adds, \"Leontes comprehends inferiority of\nunderstanding in the idea of inferiority of rank.\" Ben Jonson, speaking\nof the characteristics of an insolent coxcomb, remarks: \"His fashion is\nnot to take knowledge of him that is beneath him in clothes. He never\ndrinks below the salt.\"\n\n_Ordinary._ This was a public dinner, where each paid his share, an\nallusion to which custom is made by Enobarbus, in \"Antony and Cleopatra\"\n(ii. 2), who, speaking of Antony, says:\n\n \"Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast,\n And, for his ordinary, pays his heart\n For what his eyes eat only.\"\n\nAgain, in \"All's Well that Ends Well\" (ii. 3), Lafeu says: \"I did think\nthee, for two ordinaries, to be a pretty wise fellow; thou didst make\ntolerable vent of thy travel.\"\n\nThe \"ordinary\" also denoted the lounging-place of the men of the town,\nand the fantastic gallants who herded together. They were, says the\nauthor of \"Curiosities of Literature\" (vol. iii. p. 82), \"the exchange\nfor news, the echoing-places for all sorts of town talk; there they\nmight hear of the last new play and poem, and the last fresh widow\nsighing for some knight to make her a lady; these resorts were attended\nalso to save charges of housekeeping.\"\n\n_Drinking Customs._ Shakespeare has given several allusions to the old\ncustoms associated with drinking, which have always varied in different\ncountries. At the present day many of the drinking customs still\nobserved are very curious, especially those kept up at the universities\nand inns-of-court.\n\n_Alms-drink_ was a phrase in use, says Warburton, among good fellows, to\nsignify that liquor of another's share which his companion drank to ease\nhim. So, in \"Antony and Cleopatra\" (ii. 7) one of the servants says of\nLepidus: \"They have made him drink alms-drink.\"\n\n_By-drinkings._ This was a phrase for drinkings between meals, and is\nused by the Hostess in \"1 Henry IV.\" (iii. 3), who says to Falstaff:\n\"You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet, and by-drinkings.\"\n\n_Hooped Pots._ In olden times drinking-pots were made with hoops, so\nthat, when two or more drank from the same tankard, no one should drink\nmore than his share. There were generally three hoops to the pots:\nhence, in \"2 Henry VI.\" (iv. 2), Cade says: \"The three-hooped pot shall\nhave ten hoops.\" In Nash's \"Pierce Pennilesse\" we read: \"I believe\nhoopes on quart pots were invented that every man should take his hoope,\nand no more.\"\n\nThe phrases \"to do a man right\" and \"to do him reason\" were, in years\ngone by, the common expressions in pledging healths; he who drank a\nbumper expected that a bumper should be drunk to his toast. To this\npractice alludes the scrap of a song which Silence sings in \"2 Henry\nIV.\" (v. 3):\n\n \"Do me right,\n And dub me knight:\n Samingo.\"\n\nHe who drank, too, a bumper on his knee to the health of his mistress\nwas dubbed a knight for the evening. The word Samingo is either a\ncorruption of, or an intended blunder for, San Domingo, but why this\nsaint should be the patron of topers is uncertain.\n\n_Rouse._ According to Gifford,[972] a _rouse_ was a large glass in which\na health was given, the drinking of which, by the rest of the company,\nformed a carouse. Hamlet (i. 4) says:\n\n \"The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse.\"\n\n [972] See Dyce, vol. iv. p. 395.\n\nThe word occurs again in the following act (1), where Polonius uses the\nphrase \"o'ertook in's rouse;\" and in the sense of a bumper, or glass of\nliquor, in \"Othello\" (ii. 3), \"they have given me a rouse already.\"\n\n_Sheer Ale._ This term, which is used in the \"Taming of the Shrew\"\n(Induction, sc. 2), by Sly--\"Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of\nWincot, if she know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence on the\nscore for sheer ale\"--according to some expositors, means \"ale alone,\nnothing but ale,\" rather than \"unmixed ale.\"\n\n_Sneak-cup._ This phrase, which is used by Falstaff in \"1 Henry IV.\"\n(iii. 3)--\"the prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup\"--was used to denote one who\nbalked his glass.\n\n_Earnest Money._ It was, in olden times, customary to ratify an\nagreement by a bent coin. In \"Henry VIII.\" (ii. 3), the old lady\nremarks:\n\n \"Tis strange: a three-pence bow'd would hire me,\n Old as I am, to queen it.\"\n\nThere were, however, no threepences so early as the reign of Henry VIII.\n\n_Exclamations._ \"Charity, for the Lord's sake!\" was the form of\nejaculatory supplication used by imprisoned debtors to the passers-by.\nSo, in Davies's \"Epigrams\" (1611):\n\n \"Good, gentle writers, 'for the Lord's sake, for the Lord's sake,'\n Like Ludgate prisoner, lo, I, begging, make\n My mone.\"\n\nIn \"Measure for Measure\" (iv. 3), the phrase is alluded to by Pompey:\n\"all great doers in our trade, and are now 'for the Lord's sake.'\"\n\n\"Cry Budget.\" A watchword. Thus Slender says to Shallow, in the \"Merry\nWives of Windsor\" (v. 2); \"We have a nay-word, how to know one another:\nI come to her in white, and cry 'mum;' she cries 'budget;' and by that\nwe know one another.\"\n\n\"God save the mark.\" \"Romeo and Juliet\" (iii. 2). This exclamation has\nhitherto baffled the research of every commentator. It occurs again in\n\"1 Henry IV.\" (i. 3); and in the \"Merchant of Venice\" (ii. 2) and in\n\"Othello\" (i. 1), we have \"God bless the mark.\" In the quarto, 1597,\ninstead of \"God save the mark\" in the first passage quoted, we have \"God\nsave the sample,\" an expression equally obscure.[973]\n\n [973] Staunton's \"Shakespeare,\" vol i. p. 257.\n\n_Halidom._ This exclamation was used, says Minsheu,[974] by old\ncountrymen, by manner of swearing. In \"Two Gentlemen of Verona\" (iv. 2),\nthe Hostess says: \"By my halidom, I was fast asleep;\" the probable\nderivation being _holy_, with the termination _dome._\n\n [974] \"Guide into Tongues,\" 1607.\n\n_Hall! Hall!_ An exclamation formerly used, to make a clear space in a\ncrowd, for any particular purpose, was \"_A hall, a hall_.\" So, in \"Romeo\nand Juliet\" (i. 5), Capulet says:\n\n \"Come, musicians, play.--\n A hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls.\"\n\n_Hay._ This is equivalent to \"you have it,\" an exclamation in fencing,\nwhen a thrust or hit is received by the antagonist. In \"Romeo and\nJuliet\" (ii. 4), Mercutio speaks of \"the punto reverso! the hay!\"\n\n_Hold._ To cry _hold!_ when persons were fighting, was an authoritative\nway of separating them, according to the old military law. So Macbeth,\nin his struggle with Macduff, says:\n\n \"And damn'd be he that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'\"\n\nWe may compare Lady Macbeth's words (i. 5):\n\n \"Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,\n To cry, 'Hold, hold!'\"\n\n\"I' the name of me.\" A vulgar exclamation formerly in use. So in the\n\"Winter's Tale\" (iv. 2) it is used by the Clown.\n\n\"_O ho, O ho!_\" This savage exclamation was, says Steevens, constantly\nappropriated by the writers of our ancient mysteries and moralities to\nthe devil. In \"The Tempest\" (i. 2), Caliban, when rebuked by Prospero\nfor seeking \"to violate the honor of my child,\" replies:\n\n \"O ho, O ho! would it had been done!\n Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else\n This isle with Calibans.\"\n\n_Push._ An exclamation equivalent to _pish_.[975] It is used by Leonato\nin \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (v. 1):\n\n \"And made a push at chance and sufferance;\"\n\nand again, in \"Timon of Athens\" (iii. 6), where one of the lords says:\n\"Push! did you see my cap?\"\n\n [975] See Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 343.\n\n_Rivo_ was an exclamation often used in Bacchanalian revels, but its\norigin is uncertain. It occurs in \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4): \"'Rivo!' says\nthe drunkard.\" Gifford suggests that it is \"corrupted, perhaps, from the\nSpanish _rio_, which is figuratively used for a large quantity of\nliquor,\" a derivation, however, which Mr. Dyce does not think probable.\n\n_Sneck-up._ This was an exclamation of contempt, equivalent to \"go and\nhang yourself.\"[976] It is used by Sir Toby in \"Twelfth Night\" (ii. 3),\nin reply to Malvolio's rebuke: \"We did keep time, sir, in our catches.\nSneck up!\"\n\n [976] Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 402.\n\n_So-ho._ This is the cry of sportsmen when the hare is found in her\nseat.\n\n_Spy._ \"I spy\" is the usual exclamation at a well-known childish game\ncalled \"Hie spy, hie!\"[977]\n\n [977] Ibid., vol. vi. p. 45.\n\n_Tailor._ Johnson explains the following words of Puck in \"A\nMidsummer-Night's Dream\" (ii. 1) thus:\n\n \"The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,\n Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;\n Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,\n And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough.\"\n\n\"The custom of crying tailor at a sudden fall backwards, I think I\nremember to have observed. He that slips beside his chair, falls as a\ntailor squats upon his board.\" Mr. Dyce,[978] however, adds, \"it may be\ndoubted if this explains the text.\"\n\n [978] Ibid., p. 43.\n\n_Tilly-vally._ An exclamation of contempt, the etymology of which is\nuncertain. According to Douce it is a hunting phrase borrowed from the\nFrench. Singer says it is equivalent to _fiddle-faddle_. It occurs in\n\"Twelfth Night\" (ii. 3), being used by Sir Toby: \"Am not I\nconsanguineous? am I not of her blood? Tilly-vally, lady!\"\n\nIn \"2 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4), the Hostess corrupts it to _tilly-fally_:\n\"Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne'er tell me: your ancient swaggerer comes not\nin my doors.\"\n\nAs a further illustration of the use of this word, Singer quotes a\nconversation between Sir Thomas More and his wife, given in Roper's\nLife: \"Is not this house, quoth he, as nigh heaven as my own? To whom\nshe, after her accustomed homely fashion, not liking such talk,\nanswered, Tylle-valle, Tylle-valle.\"\n\n_Westward, ho._ This was one of the exclamations of the watermen who\nplied on the Thames, and is used by Viola in \"Twelfth Night\" (iii. 1).\nDyce[979] quotes from Peel's \"Edward I.\" to illustrate the use of this\nword:\n\n \"_Queen Elinor._ Ay, good woman, conduct me to the court,\n That there I may bewail my sinful life,\n And call to God to save my wretched soul.\n [_A cry of 'Westward, ho!'_\n Woman, what noise is this I hear?\n\n _Potter's Wife._ An like your grace, it is the watermen that call for\n passengers to go westward now.\"\n\n [979] \"Glossary,\" p. 497; see Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 952.\n\nDekker took the exclamation \"Westward, ho!\" for the title of a comedy;\nand Jonson, Chapman, and Marston adopted that of \"Eastward, ho!\" for one\njointly written by them a few years afterwards.\n\n_Fools._ Mr. Douce, in his essay \"On the Clowns and Fools of\nShakespeare,\" has made a ninefold division of English fools, according\nto quality or place of employment, as the domestic fool, the city or\ncorporation fool, the tavern fool, the fool of the mysteries and\nmoralities. The last is generally called the \"vice,\" and is the original\nof the stage clowns so common among the dramatists of the time of\nElizabeth, and who embody so much of the wit of Shakespeare.\n\nA very palpable distinction is that which distinguishes between such\ncreatures as were chosen to excite to laughter from some deformity of\nmind or body, and such as were chosen for a certain alertness of mind\nand power of repartee--or, briefly, butts and wits. The dress of the\nregular court fool of the middle ages was not altogether a rigid\nuniform, but seems to have changed from time to time. The head was\nshaved, the coat was motley, and the breeches tight, with, generally,\none leg different in color from the other. The head was covered with a\ngarment resembling a monk's cowl, which fell over the breast and\nshoulders, and often bore asses' ears, and was crested with a coxcomb,\nwhile bells hung from various parts of the attire. The fool's bauble was\na short staff bearing a ridiculous head, to which was sometimes\nattached an inflated bladder, by which sham castigations were inflicted;\na long petticoat was also occasionally worn, but seems to have belonged\nrather to the idiots than the wits. The fool's business was to amuse his\nmaster, to excite his laughter by sharp contrast, to prevent the\nover-oppression of state affairs, and, in harmony with a well-known\nphysiological precept, by his liveliness at meals to assist his lord's\ndigestion.[980]\n\n [980] \"Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica,\" 1879, vol. ix. p. 366; see\n Doran's \"History of Court Fools,\" 1858.\n\nThe custom of shaving and nicking the head of a fool is very old. There\nis a penalty of ten shillings, in one of Alfred's Ecclesiastical Laws,\nif one opprobriously shave a common man like a fool; and Malone cites a\npassage from \"The Choice of Change,\" etc., by S. R. Gent, 4to,\n1598--\"Three things used by monks, which provoke other men to laugh at\ntheir follies: 1. They are shaven and notched on the head like fooles.\"\n\nIn the \"Comedy of Errors\" (v. 1), the servant says:\n\n \"My master preaches patience to him, and the while\n His man with scissors nicks him like a fool.\"\n\n_Forfeits._ In order to enforce some kind of regularity in barbers'\nshops, which were once places of great resort for the idle, certain laws\nwere usually made, the breaking of which was to be punished by forfeits.\nRules of this kind, however, were as often laughed at as obeyed. So, in\n\"Measure for Measure\" (v. 1):\n\n \"laws for all faults,\n But faults so countenanc'd, that the strong statutes\n Stand like the forfeits in a barber's shop,\n As much in mock as mark.\"\n\n_Gambling._ It was once customary for a person when going abroad \"to put\nout\" a sum of money on condition of receiving good interest for it on\nhis return home; if he never returned the deposit was forfeited. Hence\nsuch a one was called \"a putter-out.\" It is to this practice that\nreference is made in the following passage (\"The Tempest,\" iii. 3):\n\n \"or that there were such men\n Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find\n Each putter-out of five for one will bring us\n Good warrant of.\"\n\nMalone quotes from Moryson's \"Itinerary\" (1617, pt. i. p. 198): \"This\ncustom of giving out money upon these adventures was first used in court\nand noblemen;\" a practice which \"banker-outs, stage-players, and men of\nbase condition had drawn into contempt,\" by undertaking journeys merely\nfor gain upon their return. In Ben Jonson's \"Every Man Out of His\nHumour\" (ii. 3) the custom is thus alluded to: \"I do intend, this year\nof jubilee coming on, to travel; and because I will not altogether go\nupon expence, I am determined to put forth some five thousand pound, to\nbe paid me _five for one_, upon the return of my wife, myself, and my\ndog, from the Turk's court at Constantinople. If all, or either of us,\nmiscarry in the journey, 'tis gone; if we be successful, why then there\nwill be five and twenty thousand pound to entertain time with.\"\n\n_Garters._ It was the regular amorous etiquette in the reign of\nElizabeth,[981] \"for a man, professing himself deeply in love, to assume\ncertain outward marks of negligence in his dress, as if too much\noccupied by his passion to attend to such trifles, or driven by\ndespondency to a forgetfulness of all outward appearance.\" His \"garters,\nin particular, were not to be tied up.\" In \"As You Like It\" (iii. 2),\nthis custom is described by Rosalind, who tells Orlando: \"There is none\nof my uncle's marks upon you: he taught me how to know a man in love;\n... your hose should be ungarter'd, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve\nunbuttoned, your shoe untied, and every thing about you demonstrating a\ncareless desolation.\" Another fashion which seems to have been common\namong the beaux of Queen Elizabeth's reign, was that of wearing garters\nacross about the knees, an allusion to which we find in \"Twelfth Night\"\n(ii. 5), in the letter which Malvolio reads: \"Remember who commended thy\nyellow stockings, and wished to see thee ever cross-gartered.\" Douce\nquotes from the old comedy of \"The Two Angrie Women of Abingdon\" (1599),\nwhere a servingman is thus described:\n\n \"Hee's a fine neate fellow,\n A spruce slave, I warrant ye, he'ele have\n His cruell garters crosse about the knee.\"\n\n [981] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 350.\n\nIn days gone by, when garters were worn in sight, the upper classes wore\nvery expensive ones, but the lower orders worsted galloon ones. Prince\nHenry calls Poins (\"1 Henry IV.,\" ii. 4) a \"caddis garter,\" meaning a\nman of mean rank.\n\n_Gaudy Days._ Feast-days in the colleges of our universities are so\ncalled, as they were formerly at the inns-of-court. In \"Antony and\nCleopatra\" (iii. 13), Antony says:\n\n \"come,\n Let's have one other gaudy night: call to me\n All my sad captains; fill our bowls once more;\n Let's mock the midnight bell.\"\n\nThey were so called, says Blount, \"from _gaudium_, because, to say\ntruth, they are days of joy, as bringing good cheer to the hungry\nstudents.\"\n\n_Glove._ As an article of dress the glove held a conspicuous place in\nmany of our old customs and ceremonies. Thus, it was often worn in the\nhat as a favor, and as a mark to be challenged by an enemy, as is\nillustrated by the following dialogue in \"Henry V.\" (iv. 1):\n\n \"_King Henry._ Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it\n in my bonnet: then, if ever thou darest acknowledge it, I will\n make it my quarrel.\n\n _Williams._ Here's my glove: give me another of thine.\n\n _King Henry._ There.\n\n _Williams._ This will I also wear in my cap: if ever thou come\n to me and say, after to-morrow, 'This is my glove,' by this\n hand, I will take thee a box on the ear.\n\n _King Henry._ If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.\n\n _Williams._ Thou darest as well be hanged.\"\n\nAgain, in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (v. 2), Diomedes, taking the glove from\nCressida, says:\n\n \"To-morrow will I wear it on my helm,\n And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it.\"\n\nAnd in \"Richard II.\" (v. 3), Percy narrates how Prince Henry boasted\nthat--\n\n \"he would unto the stews,\n And from the common'st creature pluck a glove,\n And wear it as a favour; and with that\n He would unhorse the lustiest challenger.\"\n\nThe glove was also worn in the hat as the memorial of a friend, and in\nthe \"Merchant of Venice\" (iv. 1), Portia, in her assumed character, asks\nBassanio for his gloves, which she says she will wear for his sake:\n\n \"Give me your gloves, I'll wear them for your sake.\"\n\nWhen the fashion of thus wearing gloves declined, \"it fell into the\nhands of coxcombical and dissolute servants.\"[982] Thus Edgar, in \"King\nLear\" (iii. 4), being asked by Lear what he had been, replies: \"A\nserving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled my hair; wore gloves\nin my cap.\"\n\n [982] Nares's \"Glossary,\" vol. i. p. 371.\n\nTo throw the glove, as the signal of a challenge, is alluded to by\nTroilus (iv. 4), who tells Cressida:\n\n \"For I will throw my glove to Death himself,\n That's there's no maculation in thy heart\"\n\n--the meaning being, says Johnson: \"I will challenge Death himself in\ndefence of thy fidelity.\"\n\nThe glove then thrown down was popularly called \"a gage,\"[983] from the\nFrench, signifying a pledge, and in \"Richard II.\" (iv. 1), it is so\ntermed by Aumerle:\n\n \"There is my gage, the manual seal of death,\n That marks thee out for hell.\"\n\n [983] The verb \"to gage,\" or \"to pledge,\" occurs in \"Merchant\n of Venice,\" i. 1:\n\n \"but my chief care\n Is, to come fairly off from the great debts\n Wherein my time, something too prodigal,\n Hath left me gaged.\"\n\n Cf. \"1 Henry IV.,\" i. 3.\n\nIn the same play it is also called \"honor's pawn.\" Thus Bolingbroke (i.\n1) says to Mowbray:\n\n \"Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,\n Disclaiming here the kindred of the king;\n And lay aside my high blood's royalty,\n Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.\n If guilty dread hath left thee so much strength\n As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop.\"\n\nAnd further on (iv. 1), one of the lords employs the same phrase:\n\n \"There is my honour's pawn;\n Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'st.\"\n\nIt is difficult to discover why the glove was recognized as the sign of\ndefiance. Brand[984] suggests that the custom of dropping or sending the\nglove, \"as the signal of a challenge, may have been derived from the\ncircumstance of its being the cover of the hand, and therefore put for\nthe hand itself. The giving of the hand is well known to intimate that\nthe person who does so will not deceive, but stand to his agreement. _To\nshake hands upon it_ would not be very delicate in an agreement to\nfight, and, therefore, gloves may possibly have been deputed as\nsubstitutes.\"\n\n [984] \"Pop. Antiq.,\" vol. ii. p. 127.\n\nAgain, the glove was often thrown down as a pledge, as in \"Timon of\nAthens\" (v. 4), where the senator says to Alcibiades:\n\n \"Throw thy glove,\n Or any token of thine honour else,\n That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress,\n And not as our confusion.\"\n\nWhereupon Alcibiades answers: \"Then there's my glove.\" In \"King Lear\"\n(v. 2), Albany thus speaks:\n\n \"Thou art arm'd, Gloster:--let the trumpet sound:\n If none appear to prove, upon thy person,\n Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons,\n There is my pledge; [_Throwing down a glove_] I'll prove it on\n thy heart.\"\n\nIn \"Troilus and Cressida\" (iv. 5), Hector further alludes to this\npractice:\n\n \"Your quondam wife swears still by Venus' glove:\n She's well, but bade me not commend her to you.\"\n\nScented gloves were formerly given away as presents. In \"Winter's Tale\"\nthe custom is referred to by Mopsa, who says to the Clown (iv. 4):\n\"Come, you promised me a tawdry lace, and a pair of sweet gloves;\" and\nAutolycus is introduced singing:\n\n \"Gloves as sweet as damask roses.\"\n\nIn \"Much Ado About Nothing\" (iii. 4), Hero says: \"These gloves the count\nsent me; they are an excellent perfume.\" Trinity College, Oxford, not\nungrateful to its founder and his spouse, has many entries, after the\ndate of 1556, in the Bursar's books, \"pro fumigatis chirothecis,\" for\nperfumed gloves.\n\n_Kiss._ In years past, a kiss was the recognized fee of a lady's\npartner, and as such is noticed in \"Henry VIII.\" (i. 4):\n\n \"I were unmannerly to take you out,\n And not to kiss you.\"\n\nIn \"The Tempest\" (i. 2) it is alluded to in Ariel's song:\n\n \"Come unto these yellow sands,\n And then take hands:\n Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd,\n The wild waves whist,\n Foot it featly here and there,\n And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.\"\n\nThere is probably a veiled allusion to the same ceremony in \"Winter's\nTale\" (iv. 4), where, at the dance of shepherds and shepherdesses, the\nfollowing dialogue occurs:\n\n \"_Clown._ Come on, strike up!\n\n _Dorcas._ Mopsa must be your mistress: marry, garlic,\n To mend her kissing with.\n\n _Mopsa._ Now, in good time!\n\n _Clown._ Not a word, a word; we stand upon our manners.\n Come, strike up!\"\n\nIn an old treatise entitled the \"Use and Abuse of Dancing and\nMinstrelsie\" we read:\n\n \"But some reply, what fools will daunce,\n If that when daunce is doon,\n He may not have at ladyes lips,\n That which in daunce he doon.\"\n\nThe practice of saluting ladies with a kiss was once very general, and\nin the \"Merry Wives of Windsor\" to kiss the hostess is indirectly spoken\nof as a common courtesy of the day.\n\nIn \"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 5) a further instance occurs, where Romeo\nkisses Juliet at Capulet's entertainment; and, in \"Henry VIII.\" (i. 4),\nLord Sands is represented as kissing Anne Bullen, next to whom he sits\nat supper.\n\nThe celebrated \"kissing comfits\" were sugar-plums, once extensively used\nby fashionable persons to make the breath sweet. Falstaff, in the \"Merry\nWives of Windsor\" (v. 5), when embracing Mrs. Ford, says: \"Let it\nthunder to the tune of 'Green Sleeves,' hail kissing comfits, and snow\neringoes.\"\n\nIn \"Measure for Measure\" (iv. 1, song) kisses are referred to as \"seals\nof love.\" A Judas kiss was a kiss of treachery. Thus, in \"3 Henry VI.\"\n(v. 7), Gloster says:\n\n \"so Judas kiss'd his master,\n And cried 'All hail!' when-as he meant all harm.\"\n\n_Lace Songs._ These were jingling rhymes, sung by young girls while\nengaged at their lace-pillows. A practice alluded to by the Duke in\n\"Twelfth Night\" (ii. 4):\n\n \"O, fellow, come, the song we had last night.--\n Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain;\n The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,\n And the free maids that weave their thread with bones\n Do use to chant it.\"\n\nMiss Baker, in her \"Northamptonshire Glossary\" (1854, vol. i. p. 378).\nsays, \"The movement of the bobbins is timed by the modulation of the\ntune, which excites them to regularity and cheerfulness; and it is a\npleasing sight to see them, in warm, sunny weather, seated outside their\ncottage doors, or seeking the shade of a neighboring tree; where, in\ncheerful groups, they unite in singing their rude and simple rhymes. The\nfollowing is a specimen of one of these ditties, most descriptive of the\noccupation:\n\n \"'Nineteen long lines, bring over my down,\n The faster I work it, I'll shorten my score,\n But if I do play, it'll stick to a stay,\n So heigh ho! little fingers, and twank it away.'\"\n\n_Letters._ The word Emmanuel was formerly prefixed, probably from\nfeelings of piety, to letters and public deeds. So in \"2 Henry VI.\" (iv.\n2) there is the following allusion to it:\n\n \"_Cade._ What is thy name?\n\n _Clerk._ Emmanuel.\n\n _Dick._ They use to write it on the top of letters.\"\n\nStaunton says: \"We can refer to one MS. alone, in the British Museum\n(Ad. MSS. 19, 400), which contains no less than fourteen private\nepistles headed 'Emanewell,' or 'Jesus Immanuel.'\"\n\nAnother superscription of a letter in years gone by was \"to the bosom\"\nof a lady. Thus Hamlet (ii. 2) says in his letter to Ophelia:\n\n \"In her excellent white bosom, these.\"\n\nAnd in the \"Two Gentlemen of Verona\" (iii. 1), Proteus says:\n\n \"Thy letters may be here, though thou art hence;\n Which, being writ to me, shall be deliver'd\n Even in the milk-white bosom of thy love.\"\n\nThis custom seems to have originated in the circumstance of women having\na pocket in the forepart of their stays, in which, according to\nSteevens, \"they carried not only love-letters and love-tokens, but even\ntheir money and materials for needlework.\"\n\n_Livery._ The phrase \"sue my livery,\" which occurs in the following\nspeech of Bolingbroke (\"Richard II.\" ii. 3),\n\n \"I am denied to sue my livery here,\n And yet my letters-patents give me leave;\n My father's goods are all distrain'd, and sold,\n And these, and all, are all amiss employ'd,\"\n\nis thus explained by Malone: \"On the death of every person who held by\nknight's service, the escheator of the court in which he died summoned a\njury, who inquired what estate he died seized of, and of what age his\nnext heir was. If he was under age, he became a ward of the king's; but\nif he was found to be of full age, he then had a right to sue out a writ\nof _ouster le main_, that is, his livery, that the king's hand might be\ntaken off, and the land delivered to him.\" York (\"Richard II.,\" ii. 1)\nalso says:\n\n \"If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,\n Call in the letters-patents that he hath\n By his attorneys-general to sue\n His livery.\"\n\n_Love-Day._ This denoted a day of amity or reconciliation; an expression\nwhich is used by Saturninus in \"Titus Andronicus\" (i. 1):\n\n \"You are my guest, Lavinia, and your friends.--\n This day shall be a love-day, Tamora.\"\n\nMILITARY LORE. _Fleshment._ This is a military term; a young soldier\nbeing said to _flesh_ his sword the first time he draws blood with it.\nIn \"King Lear\" (ii. 2), Oswald relates how Kent\n\n \"in the fleshment of this dread exploit,\n Drew on me here again,\"\n\nupon which passage Singer (vol. ix. p. 377) has this note: \"Fleshment,\ntherefore, is here metaphorically applied to the first act which Kent,\nin his new capacity, had performed for his master; and, at the same\ntime, in a sarcastic sense, as though he had esteemed it an heroic\nexploit to trip a man behind, who was actually falling.\" The phrase\noccurs again in \"1 Henry IV.\" (v. 4), where Prince Henry tells his\nbrother:\n\n \"Come, brother John, full bravely hast thou flesh'd\n Thy maiden sword.\"\n\n_Swearing by the Sword._ According to Nares,[985] \"the singular mixture\nof religious and military fanaticism which arose from the Crusades gave\nrise to the custom of taking a solemn oath upon a sword. In a plain,\nunenriched sword, the separation between the blade and the hilt was\nusually a straight transverse bar, which, suggesting the idea of a\ncross, added to the devotion which every true knight felt for his\nfavorite weapon, and evidently led to this practice.\" Hamlet makes\nHoratio swear that he will never divulge having seen the Ghost (i. 5):\n\n \"Never to speak of this that you have seen,\n Swear by my sword.\"\n\n [985] \"Glossary,\" vol. ii. p. 858; see Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 431.\n\nIn the \"Winter's Tale\" (ii. 3), Leonato says:\n\n \"Swear by this sword\n Thou wilt perform my bidding.\"\n\nThe cross of the sword is also mentioned to illustrate the true bearing\nof the oath. Hence, in \"1 Henry IV.\" (ii. 4), Falstaff says jestingly of\nGlendower, that he \"swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of\na Welsh hook.\"[986] On account of the practice of swearing by a sword,\nor, rather, by the cross or upper end of it, the name of _Jesus_ was\nsometimes inscribed on the handle or some other part.\n\n [986] A Welsh hook was a sort of bill, hooked at the end, and\n with a long handle. See Dyce's \"Glossary,\" p. 497; and Singer's\n \"Shakespeare,\" vol. ix. p. 168.\n\n_Mining Terms._ According to Mr. Collier, the phrase \"truepenny\" is a\nmining term current in the north of England, signifying a particular\nindication in the soil, of the direction in which ore is to be found.\nThus Hamlet (i. 5) says\n\n \"Ah, ha, boy! say'st thou so? art thou there, truepenny?\"\n\nwhen making Horatio and Marcellus again swear that they will not divulge\nhaving seen the ghost.\n\n_Patrons._ The custom of clergymen praying for their patrons, in what is\ncalled the bidding prayer, seems alluded to by Kent in \"King Lear\" (i.\n1):\n\n \"Royal Lear,\n Whom I have ever honour'd as my king,\n Lov'd as my father, as my master follow'd,\n As my great patron thought on in my prayers.\"\n\n_Sagittary._ This was a monster, half man, half beast, described as a\nterrible archer; neighing like a horse, and with its eyes of fire\nstriking men dead as if with lightning. In \"Troilus and Cressida\" (v.\n5), Agamemnon says:\n\n \"The dreadful Sagittary\n Appals our numbers.\"\n\nHence any deadly shot was called a sagittary. In \"Othello\" (i. I) the\nbarrack is so named from the figure of an archer over the door.\n\n_Salad Days._ Days of green youth and inexperience. Cleopatra says (i.\n5):\n\n \"My salad days,\n When I was green in judgment:--cold in blood.\"\n\n_Salt._ The salt of youth is that vigor and strong passion which then\npredominates. The term is several times used by Shakespeare for strong\namorous passion. Iago, in \"Othello\" (iii. 3), refers to it as \"hot as\nmonkeys, as salt as wolves in pride.\" In \"Measure for Measure\" (v. I),\nthe Duke calls Angelo's base passion his \"salt imagination,\" because he\nsupposed his victim to be Isabella, and not his betrothed wife, whom he\nwas forced by the Duke to marry.[987]\n\n [987] Brewer's \"Dictionary of Phrase and Fable,\" p. 782.\n\n_Salutations._ God-den was used by our forefathers as soon as noon was\npast, after which time \"good-morrow\" or \"good-day\" was esteemed\nimproper; the phrase \"God ye good den\" being a contraction of \"God give\nyou a good evening.\" This fully appears from the following passage in\n\"Romeo and Juliet\" (ii. 4):\n\n \"_Nurse._ God ye good morrow, gentlemen.\n\n _Mercutio._ God ye good den, fair gentlewoman.\"\n\nUpon being thus corrected, the Nurse asks, \"Is it good den?\" to which\nMercutio replies, \"'Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of the\ndial is now upon the prick of noon.\"\n\nA further corruption of the same phrase was \"God dig-you-den,\" as used\nby Costard in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (iv. 1): \"God dig-you-den all!\"\nShakespeare uses it several times, as in \"Titus Andronicus\" (iv. 4),\nwhere the Clown says: \"God and Saint Stephen give you good den;\" and in\n\"King John\" (i. 1) we have \"Good-den, Sir Richard!\"\n\nAnother old popular salutation was \"good even and twenty\" (\"Merry Wives\nof Windsor,\" ii. 1), equivalent to \"twenty good-evenings.\" Mr.\nHalliwell-Phillipps quotes a similar phrase from Elliot's \"Fruits of the\nFrench\" (1593), \"God night, and a thousand to everybody.\"\n\nWe may also compare the phrase \"good deed\" in \"Winter's Tale\" (i. 2)--a\nspecies of asseveration, as \"in very deed.\"\n\n_Servants Customs._ The old custom of the servants of great families\ntaking an oath of fidelity on their entrance into office--as is still the\ncase with those of the sovereign--is alluded to by Posthumus in\n\"Cymbeline\" (ii. 4), where, speaking of Imogen's servants, he says:\n\n \"Her attendants are\n All sworn and honourable.\"[988]\n\n [988] See Percy's \"Northumberland Household Book,\" p. 49.\n\nGold chains were formerly worn by persons of rank and dignity, and by\nrich merchants--a fashion which descended to upper servants in great\nhouses--and by stewards as badges of office. These chains were usually\ncleaned by being rubbed with crumbs. Hence, in \"Twelfth Night\" (ii. 3),\nSir Toby says to the Clown:\n\n \"Go, sir, rub your chain with crumbs.\"\n\nIn days gone by, too, it was customary for the servants of the nobility,\nparticularly the gentleman-usher, to attend bare-headed. In the\nprocession to the trial in \"Henry VIII.\" (ii. 4), one of the persons\nenumerated is a gentleman-usher \"bare-headed.\" On grand occasions,\ncoachmen, also, drove bare-headed, a practice alluded to in Beaumont and\nFletcher's \"Woman-Hater\" (iii. 2):\n\n \"Or a pleated lock, or a bareheaded coachman,\n This sits like a sign where great ladies are\n To be sold within.\"\n\n_Sheriffs' Post._ At the doors of sheriffs were usually set up\nornamental posts, on which royal and civic proclamations were fixed. So,\nin \"Twelfth Night\" (i. 5), Malvolio says: \"He'll stand at your door like\na sheriff's post.\" \"A pair of mayors' posts,\" says Staunton, \"are still\nstanding in Norwich, which, from the initials T. P., and the date 159,\nare conjectured to have belonged to Thomas Pettys, who was mayor of that\ncity in 1592.\"\n\n_Shoeing-Horn._ This, from its convenient use in drawing on a tight\nshoe, was applied in a jocular metaphor to other subservient and\ntractable assistants. Thus Thersites, in \"Troilus and Cressida\" (v. 1),\nin his railing mood gives this name to Menelaus, whom he calls \"a\nthrifty shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his brother's [Agamemnon]\nleg.\"\n\nIt was also employed as a contemptuous name for danglers on young women.\n\nIn the same way \"shoe-tye\" became a characteristic name for a traveller,\na term used by Shakespeare in \"Measure for Measure\" (iv. 3), \"Master\nForthright the tilter, and brave Master Shoe-tie, the great traveller.\"\n\n_A Solemn Supper._ In Shakespeare's day this was a phrase for a feast or\nbanquet given on any important occasion, such as a birth, marriage, etc.\nMacbeth says (iii. 1):\n\n \"To-night we hold a solemn supper, sir,\n And I'll request your presence.\"\n\nHowel, in a letter to Sir T. Hawke, 1636, says: \"I was invited\nyesternight to a _solemne supper_ by B. J. [Ben Jonson], where you were\ndeeply remembered.\"\n\nSo, in \"Romeo and Juliet\" (i. 5), Tybalt says:\n\n \"What! dares the slave\n Come hither, cover'd with an antic face,\n To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?\"\n\nAnd in \"All's Well that Ends Well\" (ii. 3), the King, on the conclusion\nof the contract between Helena and Bertram, says:\n\n \"The solemn feast\n Shall more attend upon the coming space,\n Expecting absent friends.\"\n\n_Statute Caps._ These were woollen caps enforced by Statute 13\nElizabeth, which, says Strype, in his \"Annals\" (vol. ii. p. 74), was\n\"for continuance of making and wearing woollen caps in behalf of the\ntrade of cappers; providing that all above the age of six years\n(excepting the nobility and some others) should on Sabbath-days and\nholy-days wear caps of wool, knit thicked, and drest in England, upon\npenalty of ten groats.\" Thus, in \"Love's Labour's Lost\" (v. 2), Rosaline\nsays:\n\n \"Well, better wits have worn plain statute-caps.\"\n\nJonson considered that the statute caps alluded to were those worn by\nthe members of the universities.\n\n_Theatrical Lore._ At the conclusion of a play, or of the epilogue, it\nwas formerly customary for the actors to kneel down on the stage, and\npray for the sovereign, nobility, clergy, and sometimes for the commons.\nSo, in the epilogue to \"2 Henry IV.,\" the dancer says: \"My tongue is\nweary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night; and so kneel\ndown before you:--but, indeed, to pray for the queen.\" Collier, in his\n\"History of English Dramatic Poetry\" (vol. iii. p. 445), tells us that\nthis practice continued in the commencement of the 17th century.\n\n_Tournaments._ In \"Coriolanus\" (ii. 1) Shakespeare attributes some of\nthe customs of his own times to a people who were wholly unacquainted\nwith them. In the following passage we have an exact description of what\noccurred at tiltings and tournaments when a combatant had distinguished\nhimself:\n\n \"Matrons flung gloves,\n Ladies and maids their scarfs and handkerchers,\n Upon him as he pass'd: the nobles bended,\n As to Jove's statue; and the commons made\n A shower and thunder with their caps and shouts:\n never saw the like.\"[989]\n\n [989] See Singer's \"Shakespeare,\" vol. vii. p. 350.\n\nAn allusion to the mock tournaments, in which the combatants were armed\nwith rushes in place of spears, is used in \"Othello\" (v. 2):\n\n \"Man but a rush against Othello's breast.\"\n\n_Trumpet._ In olden times it was the fashion for persons of distinction,\nwhen visiting, to be accompanied by a trumpeter, who announced their\napproach by a flourish of his trumpet. It is to this custom,\nStaunton[990] thinks, that Lorenzo refers in the \"Merchant of Venice\"\n(v. 1), where he tells Portia:\n\n \"Your husband is at hand; I hear his trumpet.\"\n\n [990] \"Shakespeare,\" 1864, vol. i. p. 61.\n\nWAR-CRY. \"_God and Saint George!_\"--the common cry of the English soldier\nwhen he charged the enemy. \"Richard III.\" (v. 3). The author of the \"Old\nArte of Warre,\" printed in the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign,\nformally enjoins the use of this cry among his military laws (p. 84):\n\"Item. That all souldiers entring into battaile, assaulte, skirmishe, or\nother faction of armes, shall have for their common cry-word, 'Saint\nGeorge, forward, or upon them, Saint George!' whereby the souldier is\nmuch comforted to minde the ancient valour of England, which with that\nname has been so often victorious; and therefore he who upon any\nsinister zeale shall maliciously omit so fortunate a name, shall be\nseverely punished for his obstinate, erroneous heart and perverse mind.\"\n\n\"_Havoc!_\" To cry \"havoc\" appears to have been a signal for\nindiscriminate slaughter. The expression occurs in \"King John\" (ii. 1):\n\"Cry havoc, kings!\" In \"Coriolanus\" Menenius says (iii. 1):\n\n \"Do not cry havoc, where you should but hunt\n With modest warrant.\"\n\nAnd in \"Julius C\u00e6sar\" (iii. 1):\n\n \"Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war.\"\n\n\"_Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill him!_\" This was the ancient cry of the\nEnglish troops when they charged the enemy. It occurs where the\nconspirators kill Coriolanus (v. 6).\n\n_Leet-Ale._ This was the dinner provided for the jury and customary\ntenants at the court-leet of a manor, or \"view of frank-pledge,\"\nformerly held once or twice a year, before the steward of the leet.[991]\nTo this court Shakespeare alludes in the \"Taming of the Shrew\" (i. 2),\nwhere the servant tells Sly that in his dream he would \"rail upon the\nhostess of the house,\" and threaten to \"present her at the leet.\"\n\n [991] See page 312.\n\nAubrey, in his MS. History of Wiltshire, 1678, tells us, too, how \"in\nthe Easter holidays was the Clerk's ale for his private benefit, and the\nsolace of the neighbourhood.\"\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\nAconite, its deadly poison, 201.\n\n_Adonis horti_, 469.\n\nAgate, applied to a diminutive person, 12, 390.\n\nAgue, spider a cure for, 258.\n\nAir, drizzling dew, 90.\n\nAll hid, all hid, children's game, 395.\n\nAll-Saints' Day, 326.\n\nAll-Souls' Day, 327.\n\nAlmanacs, 505.\n\nAlms-drink, 527.\n\nAlphabet, called Christ-cross-row, 508.\n\nAmaimon, name of evil spirit, 60.\n\nAmulets, 505.\n\nAnemone, legend relating to, 203.\n\nAnt, 250.\n\nAntic, a dance, 424.\n\nApe, term of contempt or endearment, 161;\n leading of, in hell, 161.\n\nApostle-spoons, 336, 337.\n\nApple, 203, 204.\n\nApple-John, name of apple, 204.\n\nApple-squire, 204, note.\n\nApricock or apricot, 208.\n\nArchery, 394.\n\nAriel, fairy so called, 83, 162.\n\nAroint thee, meaning of, 41.\n\nAspen, supplied wood of Cross, 208;\n trembling of, 209.\n\nAss, 161.\n\nAstrology, 80-82.\n\nAudry's (St.) Day, 324;\n lace, 325.\n\n\nBaby-in-the-eye, 483.\n\nBachelor's buttons, 209.\n\nBackgammon, 396.\n\nBadge of Poverty, 521.\n\nBaffle, old punishment, 434.\n\nBagatelle, 422.\n\nBakie bird, name of bat, 163.\n\nBalm, curative properties of, 210;\n as oil of consecration, 211.\n\nBandy, term at tennis, 420.\n\nBarbason, evil spirit, 60.\n\nBarbers' forfeits, 533.\n\nBarefoot, dancing, 354.\n\nBarla-breikis, 396.\n\nBarley-break, 396.\n\nBarley broth, 211.\n\nBarnacle goose, 97.\n\nBartholomew's (St.) Day, 321.\n\nBartholomew Fair, 321;\n pigs 321.\n\nBase, old game, 397.\n\nBasilisk, 174.\n\nBasins, burning, held before the eyes, 433.\n\nBat, superstitions relating to, 162.\n\nBat-fowling, 398.\n\nBate, term in falconry, 125, note.\n\nBay-tree, ominous, 211.\n\nBear, folk-lore of, 163;\n caught by mirrors, 164;\n baiting, 164.\n\nBeard, characteristic of a witch, 29;\n customs associated with, 486;\n mutilation of, considered an outrage, 486;\n stroking of, preparatory to a favor, 486;\n swearing by, 487;\n shape of, 487.\n\nBeauty, characteristic of fairies, 10.\n\nBedfellow, custom of having, 521.\n\nBeef, supposed to impair intellect, 496.\n\nBeetle, old name for, 100.\n\nBelemnite, 92.\n\nBell, tolling of, at funerals, 381;\n curfew, 85, 521.\n\nBelly-blind, old game, 409.\n\nBergomask, dance, 424.\n\nBetrothing customs, 342-350.\n\nBid the base, 398.\n\nBilboes, punishment, 435.\n\nBilliards, 399.\n\nBird-batting, 398, note.\n\nBirding, term of hawking, 128.\n\nBirth and baptism, 332-341.\n\nBiting of thumb, as an insult, 492.\n\nBitter-sweeting, apple so called, 205.\n\nBlackbird, 100.\n\nBlack Monday, 302, 303.\n\nBleeding, custom of, in spring, 266;\n cures for, 264, 265.\n\nBlessed thistle, 222.\n\nBlindness, 266.\n\nBlind-worm, 255.\n\nBlister, superstition relating to, 266.\n\nBlood, thickened by emotional influences, 477;\n phrases connected with, 476, 477.\n\nBlood-drinking sighs, 289.\n\nBlood-sucker, name for leech, 281.\n\nBlue-bottle, insect so called, 250.\n\nBoar-hunting, 166.\n\nBody, trembling of, 475.\n\nBoiling to death, old punishment, 433.\n\nBone-ace, old game, 399.\n\nBone-ache, 267.\n\nBoots, to give the, harvest custom, 322.\n\nBots, 251.\n\nBrain, notions relating to, 478.\n\nBrain-pan, name for skull, 479.\n\nBrand, old punishment, 436.\n\nBrawl, old dance, 425.\n\nBreech, term for whipping, 436.\n\nBreese, 252.\n\nBridal-bed, blessing of, 355;\n decorating with flowers, 355.\n\nBridal couple serenaded, 357.\n\nBride-ale, 312.\n\nBride's veil, 353;\n hair loose at wedding ceremony, 352.\n\nBrine, soaking in, old punishment, 434.\n\nBruise, remedies for, 268.\n\nBubukle, name for pimple, 268.\n\nBull-baiting, 168.\n\nBullfinch, 101, note.\n\nBully-rook, term of reproach, 153.\n\nBurn, remedy for, 268.\n\nBuzzard, 100.\n\nBy-drinkings, 527.\n\n\nCakes and ale at festivals, 331.\n\nCamomile, 212.\n\nCanary, old dance, 425.\n\nCandles of the night, stars so called, 83.\n\nCarbuncle, supernatural qualities of, 390.\n\nCards, playing, 401.\n\nCarnations, 220.\n\nCarp, most cunning of fishes, 497.\n\nCarraways, 207.\n\nCastor and Pollux, meteors so called, 83.\n\nCat, familiar of witches, 168-171;\n said to have nine lives, 172;\n used as a term of contempt, 173.\n\nCataract, 268, 269.\n\nCattle, destroyed by witches, 39.\n\nCeremonies, omens from sacrifices, 506.\n\nChaffinch, 100.\n\nChallenge, glove sent as a, 537.\n\nChameleon, said to feed on air, 173;\n changes color, 174.\n\nChangelings, 11, 24, 333, 334.\n\nCharity, St., 320.\n\nCharles's wain, 80.\n\nCharms, 506.\n\nCheck, term in hawking, 123.\n\nCherry-pit, old game, 401.\n\nCherry-tree, in connection with cuckoo-rhyme, 111.\n\nChess, 402.\n\nChester mysteries, 311.\n\nChewet, meaning of term, 101.\n\nChilblains, 269.\n\nChildren of the revels, 297.\n\nChrist-cross-row, name for alphabet, 508.\n\nChristening day, 338.\n\nChristenings, entertainments at, 338.\n\nChristmas, customs at, 329;\n carol, 329;\n eve, cock-crow on, 103;\n gambol, 329;\n wassail-bowl at, 330;\n candle, 330;\n mummers, 331;\n nutmeg, gift at, 233.\n\nChristom child, 340.\n\nChrysolite, supernatural virtues of, 391.\n\nCicely, St., 321, note.\n\nCinders of the elements, stars so called, 83.\n\nCinque-pace, old dance, 425.\n\nClacking at Easter, 302.\n\nClare's (St.) fire, meteor so called, 83.\n\nClosing eye of the dead, 372.\n\nClouds, weather-lore of, 96.\n\nCloud-in-the-face, term applied to a horse, 191.\n\nClover-flowers, 212.\n\nCobwebs, used for stanching blood, 265.\n\nCock, crows on Christmas Eve, 103;\n spirits disappear at cock-crow, 48.\n\nCock-a-hoop, applied to a reckless person, 107.\n\nCockatrice, superstitions relating to, 174, 175;\n applied to a loose woman, 175.\n\nCock-boat, 108, note.\n\nCock-chafer, old name for, 100.\n\nCock-fighting, 105.\n\nCockle, badge of pilgrims, 498.\n\nCock-light, 160.\n\nCock's-body, 106.\n\nCock-shut time, name for twilight, 159.\n\nCock's-passion, 106.\n\nCoddling, apple so called, 206.\n\nCold palsies, 284.\n\nColt, its metaphorical use, 175;\n pixey, 6.\n\nColumbine, a thankless flower, 212.\n\nComets, considered ominous, 89.\n\nCony-catch, term for cheating, 196.\n\nCooling-card, 415.\n\nCoranto, old dance, 426.\n\nCormorant, 108.\n\nCorpse, unlucky to keep on board, 370.\n\nCotswold games, 316.\n\nCouch-glass, 243.\n\n\"Coventry Mysteries,\" 313.\n\nCrab, name of apple, 205.\n\nCrants, name for garlands, 374.\n\nCricket, a good omen; 251;\n unlucky, 516.\n\nCrispin's (St.) Day, 325.\n\nCrocodile, tears of, 176;\n said to be deceitful, 176.\n\nCross, wood of, 208.\n\nCross-bow, shooting with, 178.\n\nCross-road, ghosts of suicides haunt, 382.\n\nCrow, bird of ill-omen, 108.\n\nCrow-flowers, 212.\n\nCrowfoot, 213.\n\nCrow-keeper, 109.\n\nCrown, burning, placed on criminals, 436, 437.\n\nCry, applied to pack of hounds, 179.\n\nCry Budget, a watchword, 529.\n\nCrystal, old term for the eye, 483.\n\nCuckold, 113.\n\nCuckoo, superstitions connected with, 110-113.\n\nCuckoo-buds, 213.\n\nCuckoo-flowers, 213.\n\nCuerpo-Santo, meteor so called, 84.\n\nCurfew-bell, 85.\n\nCurtal dog, 183.\n\nCut, name for a horse, 192.\n\nCuttle, a foul-mouthed person so called, 498.\n\nCypress, 213, 214.\n\n\nDaffodil, weather-lore of, 214.\n\nDances, 424-432.\n\nDancing, ascribed to fairies, 18.\n\nDark-house, term for a mad-house, 50, 278.\n\nDarnel, 215.\n\nDate, 215.\n\nDavid's (St.) Day, 226, 303.\n\nDead, burying of, in their ordinary dress, 375, 376;\n feasts of the, 378;\n tombs of, ornamented, 377;\n cannot die on pigeons' feathers, 367;\n closing eyes of, 372;\n decorated with flowers, 373.\n\nDead men's fingers, orchis so called, 227.\n\nDeath and burial customs, 362-385.\n\nDeath, prophecy at point of, 362;\n high spirits presage impending, 363;\n warnings at time of, 364, 365;\n watch, 516;\n delayed until ebb of tide, 370;\n devil seizes soul at, 365.\n\nDeath's-head rings, 388.\n\nDeer, hunting customs relating to, 177-181;\n shooting with cross-bow, 178;\n tears of, 180.\n\nDeformed children, 78.\n\nDeformity, superstitions connected with, 269, 270.\n\nDemoniacal possession, 475.\n\nDemonology, 52-61.\n\nDennis, St., patron saint of France, 326.\n\nDevil, cloven foot of, 57.\n\nDevil's Dyke, myth of, 189.\n\nDew, its supposed virtues, 90;\n curious notions respecting, 63.\n\nDice, 402.\n\nDisedge, term in falconry, 127.\n\nDivine right of kings, 512.\n\nDog, its howl ominous, 181, 516;\n rides with ghosts, 49;\n days, 183, 319;\n killer, 183.\n\nDomestic fowl, 113.\n\nDove, customs associated with, 113-115;\n Mahomet's, 115;\n of Venus, 115.\n\nDragon, type of evil, 184;\n draws chariot of night, 184;\n folk-lore of, 185.\n\nDreams, prognostics of good and evil, 508;\n malicious spirits torment their victims in, 509.\n\nDribble, term in archery, 411.\n\nDrowning, dangerous to save a person from, 271.\n\nDuck, to swim like a, 116.\n\nDuck-hunting, 115.\n\nDuels, 509.\n\nDun is in the mire, Christmas game, 403.\n\nDwarf elder, superstition connected with, 216.\n\n\nEagle, gazes on the sun, 116;\n its great age, 117;\n bird of good omen, 118;\n selected for Roman standard, 118.\n\nEar, tingling of, 480;\n biting of, expression of endearment, 481;\n want of, for music, 481.\n\nEarnest-money, 528.\n\nEarthquakes, cause of, 93;\n ominous, 93, 516.\n\nEaster morning, dancing of sun on, 63;\n clacking at, 302;\n new clothes worn on, 302;\n Monday, 302, 303.\n\nEbb of tide, death delayed until, 370.\n\nEbony, emblem of darkness, 215.\n\nEclipses, savage notions respecting, 71;\n unlucky, 72, 516;\n a bad omen, 65.\n\nEels, roused by thunder, 93.\n\nEggs in moonshine, 78;\n witches sail in, 35.\n\nEisel, name for vinegar, 292.\n\nElberich, 14.\n\nElbow, itching of, 481.\n\nElder, tree on which Judas hanged himself, 216;\n plant of bad omen, 216.\n\nElements, the four, 475.\n\nElephant, said to have no joints, 186;\n capture of, 186.\n\nElf-fire, 87, note;\n elf-locks, 190.\n\nElfin-grey, 17.\n\nElmo's (St.) stars, 84.\n\nElves, 9.\n\nEmbossed, applied to deer, 179.\n\nEmmew, a term in falconry, 128.\n\nEngine, name for the rack, 439.\n\nEpilepsy, 271, 283.\n\nEquinox, weather-lore of, 93.\n\nEringoes, 217.\n\nEtheldreda's (St.) Day, 324.\n\nEvil spirits, assume various forms, 53;\n a dead friend, 55.\n\nExclamations, 529-531.\n\nExorcism of spirits, 44.\n\nEyas-musket, name for a young sparrow-hawk, 154.\n\nEye, closing of, at death, 372;\n bitten, 335;\n blueness of, 482;\n the evil, 335, 482.\n\n\nFace, to play the hypocrite, 484.\n\nFading, a dance, 426.\n\nFairies, assume various forms, 12;\n attentive to youthful dead, 22;\n beauty of, 10;\n fond of cleanliness, 18;\n diminutiveness of, 12;\n dislike irreligious people, 18;\n dress of, 17;\n enrich their favorites, 21;\n exchange children, 24;\n expeditious in their actions, 21;\n fatal to speak to, 21;\n fond of dancing and music, 17, 18;\n haunts of, 15;\n immortality of, 11;\n kind to mortals, 20;\n malignant, 22;\n mischievous, 23;\n perpetual youth of, 11;\n vanish at will, 12.\n\nFairy revels, 18.\n\nFairy-rings, 15, 16, 232.\n\nFalcon-gentle, species of hawk, 158.\n\nFalling-sickness, 271.\n\nFast and loose, a cheating game, 403.\n\nFeet, stumbling of, unlucky, 454.\n\nFencing, 404.\n\nFennel, an inflammatory herb, 217.\n\nFern-seed, renders invisible, 217, 218.\n\n_Feux follets_, name for will-o'-the-wisp, 88.\n\nFever, spider a cure for, 258.\n\nFiery dragon, 85.\n\nFiery Trigon, 79.\n\nFig, phrases connected with, 218, 219.\n\nFilliping the toad, game of boys, 406.\n\nFinch-egg, 101.\n\nFinger, itching of, 482.\n\nFinger-stone, 92.\n\nFire-drake, 84, 85.\n\nFistula, 271, 272.\n\nFit, 272, 273.\n\nFitchew, 196.\n\nFlagellation, treatment for persons possessed, 56.\n\nFlap-dragon, 406.\n\nFlap-jacks, name for pancakes, 299.\n\nFlaws, sudden gusts of wind, 95.\n\nFleas, loach said to breed, 499.\n\nFleshment, military term, 541.\n\nFleur-de-lys, 219.\n\nFlibbertigibbet, a fiend, name also for _ignis fatuus_, 6, 61, 85, 269.\n\nFlitter-mouse, term for the bat, 163.\n\nFlower-de-luce, 219.\n\nFlowers, carried on a maiden's coffin, 374;\n for decorating corpses, 374;\n on graves, 373;\n at weddings, 355.\n\nFlowering Sunday, 374.\n\nFly, form of an evil spirit, 54.\n\nFolk-medicine, 264-295.\n\nFools, 532.\n\nFootball, 407.\n\nForelooked, term for evil eye, 335.\n\nForfeits, 533.\n\nFortune-tellers, 510.\n\nFox, hunting of, 187;\n a weapon so called, 186.\n\nFrateretto, fiend so called, 61.\n\nFriar's lantern, name for _ignis fatuus_, 87, note.\n\nFrogs used for divination, 252.\n\nFullams, false dice, 403.\n\nFuneral rites, supposed necessity for, 46, 382.\n\n\nGad-fly, 252.\n\nGage, a glove so called, 536, note.\n\nGall of goat, used by witches, 187.\n\nGalliard, dance, 425, note.\n\nGambling, 533.\n\nGame laws, 180.\n\nGarters, 534.\n\nGaudy days, 535.\n\nGeorge (St.) and dragon, myth of, 184.\n\nGeorge's (St.) Day, 304.\n\nGiants, belief in, 512.\n\nGib cat, 173.\n\nGillyflower, 221.\n\nGimmal-ring, 347.\n\nGleek, old game, 408.\n\nGlove, worn as a favor, 536;\n memorial of a friend, 536;\n signal of a challenge, 536;\n a pledge, 537;\n scented, 538.\n\nGlow-worm, superstition relating to, 138.\n\nGoat, superstition relating to, 187.\n\n\"God save the mark,\" exclamation, 529.\n\nGod's tokens, plague-spots, 285.\n\nGold, melted, poured down the throat, 369;\n chains, worn by persons of rank, 544;\n medicinal virtues of, 273.\n\nGolden-russeting, name of an apple, 206.\n\nGoldfinch, 119.\n\nGood Friday, 301.\n\nGood Lubber, name of a spirit, 8.\n\nGood year, corruption of _gouj\u00e8re_, 274.\n\nGoose, emblem of cowardice, 119;\n terms connected with, 118, 119.\n\nGossamer, notions relating to, 259.\n\nGossip's bowl, 205.\n\nGourds, false dice, 402.\n\nGout, 288.\n\nGrand liquor, the _aurum potabile_ of alchemists, 274.\n\nGrave, position of, 382;\n yards, haunted by spectres, 381, 382.\n\nGudgeon, 498.\n\nGuinea-hen, 113.\n\nGull, term for a fool, 120;\n used for a trick or imposition, 120.\n\nGull-catcher, applied to sharpers, 120;\n groper, 120.\n\nGurnet, term of reproach, 499.\n\n\nHabundia, Mab, perhaps, a contraction of, 4.\n\nHack, punishment of knight, 434.\n\nHag-seed, 40.\n\nHaggard, term in hawking, 122.\n\nHair, antipathy to red and yellow, 485;\n much, denotes want of intellect, 462, 488;\n stands on end through fear, 488;\n turns white through sorrow and fear, 489;\n used metaphorically, 490;\n bride's, dishevelled at wedding, ceremony, 352, 353.\n\nHalcyon days, 131.\n\nHalidom, meaning of, 529.\n\nHallowmas, 326.\n\nHand, palmistry of, 490;\n worms bred in fingers of idle servants, 491;\n terms associated with, 491, 492.\n\nHare, a melancholy animal, 187;\n proverb relating to, 462.\n\nHarebell, 221.\n\nHare-lip, supposed to be work of fairy, 492.\n\nHairie-racket, old game, 396.\n\nHart royal, 178.\n\nHavoc, to cry, 514.\n\nHawk, catching game with, 121-126;\n to seel a, 127;\n training of, 126;\n to imp a, 128.\n\nHay, old dance, 427;\n exclamation, 529.\n\nHead, shape of, 493.\n\nHeart, seat of understanding, 493, 494;\n courage, 494;\n death from broken, 493.\n\nHeart's-ease, nickname of, 227;\n used for love-philtres, 227.\n\nHecate, 35.\n\nHedgehog, said to suck udders of cows, 188;\n familiar of witches, 189;\n legends connected with, 188, 189;\n a term of reproach, 189.\n\nHelen's (St.) fire, meteor so called, 83.\n\nHelme's (St.) the, 83.\n\nHemlock, its poisonous character, 221;\n supposed to be death-drink of Greeks, 221;\n nickname for, 223.\n\nHenbane, 223.\n\nHerb of Grace, 221, 222.\n\nHerm's (St.) the, meteor, 83.\n\nHerne's oak, 233, 234.\n\nHeron, used in hawking, 129.\n\nHid, or hide fox, game so called, 408.\n\nHigh spirits a bad omen, 363.\n\nHippopotamus, 504.\n\nHob-and-his-lanthorn, 87, note.\n\nHobany's lanthorn, 87, note.\n\nHobbididance, evil spirit so called, 61.\n\nHobgoblin, 7.\n\nHobby-horse, character in morris-dance, 309;\n applied to a loose woman, 310.\n\nHock cart, at harvest-home, 323.\n\nHold, term in fighting, 530.\n\nHoly-Cross Day, 324.\n\nHolyrood Day, 324.\n\nHoly thistle, 222.\n\nHoney-dew, 91.\n\nHoney-stalks, name for clover-flowers, 212.\n\nHoodman-blind, 408, 409.\n\nHorn-mad, 278.\n\nHorses, fairies play pranks with, 190;\n witches harass, 190;\n terms connected with, 191;\n forehorse of a team decorated, 192;\n hair, notion respecting, 190;\n racing, 409.\n\nHum-buz, name for cockchafer, 100.\n\nHunting customs, 178, 179.\n\nHunt's-up, morning song to a newly-married couple, 179, 357.\n\nHysteria, 275.\n\n\nIdiots, said to be fairies' children, 334.\n\nImp, to, term in falconry, 128.\n\nIncubi, class of devils, 78.\n\nInfection, notions respecting, 276.\n\nIniquity, character in old miracle-plays, 314.\n\nInsane root, 223.\n\nInsanity, influenced by moon, 73, 277.\n\nIrreligious persons, fairies dislike, 18.\n\nIvy, hung at door of a vintner, 223.\n\n\nJack-a-lantern, 87.\n\nJack-a-Lent, 299.\n\nJackdaw, 102.\n\nJacket-a-wad, 87, note.\n\nJane Shore, 27, 37.\n\nJaundice, spider a cure for, 258.\n\nJay, applied to loose woman, 130.\n\nJesses, trappings of hawks, 126.\n\nJesus, inscribed on letters, 540.\n\nJews, torturing of, 474.\n\nJew's eye, 473.\n\nJig, an old dance, 427.\n\nJoan of Arc, 26.\n\nJoan in-the wad, 87, note.\n\nJohn (St.) Baptist's night, 319.\n\nJohn's (St.) wort, divination by, 318.\n\nJudas, hanged himself on an elder, 216;\n kiss, 539.\n\nJustice Jarvis, old pastime, 418.\n\n\nKecksies, stalks of hemlock, 224.\n\nKestrel, applied to hawk, 130.\n\nKey cold, meaning of, 265.\n\nKid fox, game, 408.\n\nKingfisher, weather lore of, 131;\n hung up in cottages, 131.\n\nKings, supernatural authority of, 517.\n\nKing's evil, 279.\n\nKiss, at betrothal, 346;\n at marriage ceremony, 351;\n fee of lady's partner, 538;\n saluting ladies with, 539.\n\nKissing comfits, 539.\n\nKit-with-the-candle-stick, 87.\n\nKite, bird of ill-omen, 131;\n curious notion respecting, 132.\n\nKnotgrass, hinders growth, 225.\n\n\nLace songs, 539.\n\nLachrymatory vials, 379.\n\nLady-bird, term of endearment, 253.\n\nLady-smocks, 225.\n\nLamb ale, 312.\n\nLamb-mass, 320.\n\nLambert's (St.) Day, 324.\n\nLamb's-wool, 205.\n\nLammas Day, 320.\n\nLamps, perpetual, 383.\n\nLapwing, an eccentric bird, 132;\n symbol of insincerity, 133;\n draws pursuers from its nest, 133.\n\nLark, changes eyes with toad, 134;\n song of, 135;\n mode of capturing, 134.\n\nLaudatory verses, affixed to tomb, 377.\n\nLaugh-and-lie-down, game at cards, 410.\n\nLaurel, symbol of victory, 225.\n\nLavolta, French dance, 428.\n\nLeap-frog, 409.\n\nLeather-coat, name of apple, 206.\n\nLeech, 281.\n\nLeek, on St. David's Day, 226, 303.\n\nLeet ale, 312, 548.\n\nLent, Jack-a-lent made at, 299;\n fleshmeat not sold during, 300.\n\nLeprosy, 280.\n\nLethargy, confounded with apoplexy, 280.\n\nLetters, Emmanuel prefixed to, 540.\n\nLight-o'-love, tune of dance, 429.\n\nLightning, persons struck by, accounted holy, 92.\n\nLily, 226.\n\nLion, supposed generosity of, 193;\n will not injure a royal prince, 194;\n kept without food, 194.\n\nLiver, seat of love, 494;\n absence of blood in, 478.\n\nLivery, to sue one's, 541\n\nLizard, said to be venomous, 253;\n used by witches, 254.\n\nLoach breeds fleas, 499.\n\nLoaf mass, 320.\n\nLob of spirit, 1, 5, 8.\n\nLob's pound, 8.\n\nLoggat, game so called, 410.\n\nLong purples, name of orchis, 226.\n\nLoose, term in archery, 395.\n\nLord Mayor's Day, 327;\n show, 315;\n fool, 327.\n\nLove charms 359.\n\nLove-day, 541.\n\nLove-in-idleness, 227.\n\nLove-lock, 480.\n\nLove philtres, 227, 264, 359.\n\nLovers, eccentricities of, 361, 406, 478, note, 534.\n\nLucky days, 512.\n\n\nMab, fairy queen, 4, 5, 24.\n\nMagpie, regarded as mysterious bird, 135;\n claims for averting ill-luck of seeing, 136;\n nicknamed magot-pie, 135.\n\nMagic, system of, 482;\n verses, 508.\n\nMahu, prince of darkness, 61.\n\nMahomet's dove, 115.\n\nMan in the moon, 68, 244.\n\nMandrake, resemblance of, to human figure, 228;\n watched over by Satan, 230;\n its groans, 228;\n superstitions relating to, 229-231.\n\nManningtree ox, 317.\n\nMarbles, 411.\n\nMarigold, opens its flowers at sun's bidding, 230.\n\nMarriage, 342-361;\n ceremony mostly on Sunday, 358, 359.\n\nMartin, unlucky to molest a, 136;\n builds near human habitations, 136.\n\nMartin's (St.) Day, 328;\n summer, 131.\n\nMartlemas, 328.\n\nMary-bud, name for marigold, 231.\n\nMankin, used for hare, 168, note.\n\nMay-day observances, 305.\n\nMaying, going a, 307.\n\nMay-pole, 307.\n\nMeadow cress, 213.\n\nMeasles, 281.\n\nMedlar, applied to woman of loose character, 231.\n\nMerlin, 511;\n prophecies of, 515.\n\nMermaid, 500-503.\n\nMeteors, regarded as ominous, 88, 516;\n names for, 83.\n\nMetrical charms, 508.\n\nMichaelmas, 324.\n\nMidsummer Eve, 218, 318;\n man, 318;\n watch, 315.\n\nMilitary lore, 541.\n\nMill, name for nine-men's-morris, 413.\n\nMines, guarded by evil spirits, 59;\n truepenny, mining term, 542.\n\nMinnow, term of contempt, 503.\n\nMiracle-plays, 313.\n\nMirror, bears surprised by, 164.\n\nMistletoe, notions respecting, 231, 232.\n\nMock-water, 295.\n\nMoist star, name for moon, 74.\n\nMoldwarp, term for mole, 195.\n\nMole said to be blind, 194.\n\nMoles on body ominous, 495.\n\nMoon, adoration of, 69;\n eclipse of, 71;\n man in the, 68, 69, 244;\n sanguine color of, 73, 516;\n paleness of, 73;\n weather-lore of, 76-78;\n insane persons affected by, 73;\n swearing by, 70;\n enchantment of, 71;\n invocation of, 70;\n inconstancy of, 70;\n horns of, 77;\n moisture of, 74;\n influence over agricultural affairs, 75;\n waxing and waning of, 76;\n affected by witchcraft, 71.\n\nMoon-calf, 77.\n\nMoralities, 314.\n\nMorris-dance, 186, note, 308, 311, 431.\n\nMoth, a fairy, 9;\n insect, 254.\n\nMother, name for hysteria, 275.\n\nMother of all humors, the moon, 74.\n\nMouse, term of endearment, 195.\n\nMouse-hunt, 195.\n\nMummy, 282.\n\nMurdered persons bleed at approach of murderer, 486.\n\nMushroom, superstitions relating to, 232.\n\nMusic, ascribed to fairies, 17;\n as a medical agency, 278;\n cure for madness, 277;\n at funerals, 381;\n weddings, 352;\n of the spheres, 80.\n\nMuss, a scramble, 411.\n\nMustard, 232;\n mustard-seed, a fairy, 9.\n\n\nNarcissus, legend concerning, 233.\n\nNegro, form of evil spirit, 53.\n\nNicholas's (St.) Day, 328;\n patron of children, 328;\n clerks, cant term for highwaymen, 329.\n\nNight crow, 150;\n heron, 150;\n raven, 150.\n\nNightingale, sings with breast on thorn, 137;\n evil spirits assume form of, 54;\n story of, and glow-worm, 138.\n\nNightmare, charms for, 283.\n\nNine-holes, old game, 411.\n\nNine-men's-morris, rustic game, 411.\n\nNine Worthies, the, 316.\n\nNoddy, game at cards, 413.\n\nNose, bleeding of, unlucky, 266, 516.\n\n_Novem quinque_, game of dice, 413.\n\nNumbers, odd, 40.\n\nNuptial kiss, 351.\n\nNutmeg, gift at Christmas, 233.\n\n\nO ho! exclamation, 530.\n\nOak, crown of, a mark of honor, 233;\n Herne's, 233.\n\nOberon, king of fairyland, 2, 3.\n\nObidicut, evil spirit, 61.\n\nOdd numbers, 40.\n\nOlive, emblem of peace, 234.\n\nOne-and-thirty, old game, 399.\n\nOsprey, fascinating influence of, 138.\n\nOstrich, extraordinary digestion of, 138, 139.\n\nOtnit, German story of, 3, 14.\n\nOuphe, name for fairy, 9, 17.\n\nOur Lady's smock, 225.\n\nOusel, name for blackbird, 100.\n\nOwl, bird of ill-omen, 139;\n legend concerning, 142.\n\nOwlet's wing used by witches, 141.\n\nOysters, proverb relating to, 468.\n\n\nPaddock, term for toad, 144, 262.\n\nPageants, 315.\n\nPalm, symbol of victory, 234.\n\nPalmers, name for pilgrims, 235.\n\nPalmistry, 475, 490.\n\nParalysis, 284.\n\nParish-top, 413.\n\nParrot, restless before rain, 143;\n taught unlucky words, 143.\n\nPartridge, 133.\n\nPassing-bell, 366.\n\nPatrick (St.) drives reptiles from Ireland, 257;\n his festival, 304;\n purgatory, 304, 368.\n\nPatrons, praying for, 543.\n\nPavan, a dance, 429.\n\nPeacock, its proverbial use, 143.\n\nPeajock, peacock so called, 144.\n\nPear, 235.\n\nPearls, swallowing of, 392;\n powdered, thrown over sovereigns, 391;\n medicinal properties of, 392;\n legendary origin of, 392.\n\nPeas-blossom, name of fairy, 9.\n\nPeascod wooing, 235.\n\nPeg-a-lantern, 87, note.\n\nPeg-morris, game so called, 412.\n\nPelican, feeds young ones with her blood, 144;\n hatched dead, 145.\n\nPeriapts, 506.\n\nPheasant, 145.\n\nPhilip, name for sparrow, 154.\n\nPhilomel, term for nightingale, 138.\n\nPhilosopher's stone, 284.\n\nPhoenix, rises from its own ashes, 145.\n\nPigeon, feathers of, unlucky, 367;\n used as carrier, 146;\n constancy of, 147.\n\nPike, old name for, 503.\n\nPilgrims, 235.\n\nPillory, mode of punishment, 437.\n\nPiskey, Devonshire name for fairy, 6.\n\nPismire, name for ant, 250.\n\nPixy, name for fairy, 6.\n\nPixy-led, misled by fairies, 8.\n\nPlanets, 78;\n influence of, 79;\n irregular motion of, 78.\n\nPlantain, its medicinal use, 76, 236;\n water, 268.\n\nPleurisy, 281.\n\nPlica Polonica, 190.\n\nPluck a crow, 110.\n\nPlucking geese, a boy's sport, 119.\n\nPoake-ledden, 8.\n\nPoison, vulgar error relating to, 286.\n\nPolecat, 196.\n\nPomander, 287.\n\nPomewater, name of apple, 207.\n\nPooka, 6.\n\nPoor man's parmacetti, 267.\n\nPoperin, name for pear, 235.\n\nPopinjay, name for parrot, 143.\n\nPoppy, deadly qualities of, 237.\n\nPorcupine darts his quills, 196.\n\nPorpoise, weather-lore of, 503.\n\nPortents, belief in, 516.\n\nPosy rings, 388, 389.\n\nPotato, 237.\n\nPoverty, badge of, 521.\n\nPrayers, of Church, morbific influence of, 372;\n witches say backwards, 40, 41.\n\nPress, old torture, 438.\n\nPrimavista, game at cards, 414.\n\nPrimero, 414.\n\nPrimrose, 237.\n\nPriser, term for a wrestler, 423.\n\nPrison bars or base, rustic game, 397.\n\nProphecy, at death, 362.\n\nProud tailor, name for goldfinch, 119.\n\nProverbs, 444-474.\n\nPuck, name of fairy, 5-8, 11, 87.\n\nPunishments, 433-443.\n\nPush, exclamation, 498;\n pin, game, 415.\n\nPuttock, name for kite, 132.\n\n\nQuails, 148;\n fighting, 148.\n\nQuarry, term in falconry, 124.\n\nQuintam, 415.\n\nQuoits, 416.\n\n\nRabbit, 196;\n suckers, 196.\n\nRace of horses, term for a stud, 193.\n\nRack, torture of, 438.\n\nRacking clouds, 96.\n\nRagged-robin, 213.\n\nRainbow, 91.\n\nRapture, name for trance, 272, 273.\n\nRat, rhymed to death, 197;\n leaving a ship, ominous, 198.\n\nRaven, bird of ill-omen, 149;\n supposed longevity of, 149;\n deserts its young, 151;\n feathers, used by witches, 151.\n\nRed blood, sign of courage, 477.\n\nRed pestilence, 285.\n\nReed, for shepherds' pipes, 238.\n\nRere-mouse, name for bat, 162.\n\nRheumatism, 288.\n\nRhyne toll, old manorial custom, 167.\n\nRings, symbolical use, 386;\n exchange in marriage contracts, 346;\n death's-head, 388;\n running for the, 417;\n rush, 242;\n posy, 388;\n token, 387;\n thumb, 389.\n\nRivo, an exclamation, 530.\n\nRobin Goodfellow, 5-7, 86.\n\nRobin Hood, 310.\n\nRobin Redbreast covers dead bodies with leaves, 152.\n\nRook, weather-lore of, 153;\n bird of good omen, 153;\n deserting a rookery, 153.\n\nRose, associated with \"Wars of Roses,\" 239, 240;\n divination by, 318;\n symbolical use, 238;\n customs connected with, 238;\n cakes, 239;\n water, 239.\n\nRosemary, strengthens memory, 240;\n symbol of remembrance, 240;\n at weddings and funerals, 240;\n for garnishing dishes at Christmas, 241.\n\nRoundel, a dance, 429.\n\nRouse, 528.\n\nRuddock, name for redbreast, 153.\n\nRue, divination by, 318.\n\nRunning, for the ring, 417;\n the figure of eight, 417;\n counter, hunting term, 178.\n\nRush-bearings, 242.\n\nRush candle, 242.\n\nRush-ring, 242.\n\n\nSabbath of witches, 30.\n\nSaffron, its uses, 242, 243.\n\nSagittary, 543.\n\nSalad-days, 543.\n\nSaliva, medical notion respecting, 289.\n\nSalt, used metaphorically, 543;\n sitting below the, 526.\n\nSalutations, 544.\n\nSampson, Agnes, reputed witch, 33.\n\nSatyrs' dance, 430.\n\nScale of dragon, used by witches, 185.\n\nScambling days, 301.\n\nScammell or scamel, 121.\n\nScare-crow, 109.\n\nScrofula, cure for, 279.\n\nSea, source of dew, 90;\n persons drowned in, 382;\n eagle, name for osprey, 138;\n gull, 121;\n mell or mew, 121;\n monster, 504.\n\nSecondary rainbow, 91.\n\nSee-saw, game, 417.\n\nSeel, term in falconry, 127.\n\nSerpent, called a worm, 254;\n its forked tongue supposed to injure, 255;\n said to cause death without pain, 255, 256;\n used by witches, 255;\n emblem of ingratitude, 256;\n cures for bite of, 256;\n driven out of Ireland by St. Patrick, 257;\n casting of its slough, 257.\n\nSerpigo, name for skin disease, 288.\n\nServants, taking oath of fidelity, 544;\n gold chains worn by, 544;\n attend bare-headed, 545.\n\nSheep-shearing customs, 317.\n\nSheer ale, 528.\n\nShepherd's, mill, 413;\n purse, 268.\n\nShepherd-queen, 318.\n\nSheriffs' post, 545.\n\nShoe-tye, name for a traveller, 545.\n\nShoeing-horn, 545.\n\nShooting stars, 516.\n\nShore, Jane, 27, 37.\n\nShove-groat, 417;\n shove-halfpenny, 418.\n\nShrouding-sheet, 380.\n\nShrove Tuesday, 299.\n\nSickness, 288.\n\nSieve, used by witches, 34;\n toss in a, punishment so called, 441.\n\nSigh, notions respecting, 289.\n\nSignatures, doctrine of, 218.\n\nSilence before thunder, 93.\n\n\"Six Worthies,\" 316.\n\nSkimmington, old ceremony of, 443.\n\nSlide, board, or groat, 418, note;\n thrift, 418, note.\n\nSlip-thrift, 418, note.\n\nSlough of snake, 257.\n\nSlow-worm, 255.\n\nSmulkin, evil spirit, 61.\n\nSmithfield fair, 321.\n\nSnails, charming of, 198;\n omens of fine weather, 199.\n\nSneak-cup, 528.\n\nSneck-up, exclamation, 531.\n\nSnipe, applied to foolish man, 154.\n\nSnowballs, 418.\n\nSolemn supper, 545.\n\nSop o' the moonshine, 78.\n\nSouls, transmigration of, 50.\n\nSoul-bell, 367;\n mass cakes, 379.\n\nSouling, going a, 326.\n\nSpan-counter, old game, 418.\n\nSparrow, called Philip, 154;\n hawk, 154.\n\nSpear-grass, 243.\n\nSpectre huntsman, 49.\n\nSpider, considered venomous, 258;\n cure for jaundice and ague, 258;\n web used for stopping blood, 258;\n bottled, 259;\n gossamer, notion respecting, 259.\n\nSpirits, various kinds of, 60;\n unlucky to cross their path, 48;\n disappear at cock-crow, 104;\n impatient at being interrogated, 45;\n their appearance, 45;\n walking of, by way of penance, 46;\n reason for appearing, 46;\n allotted time for work, 47;\n signs of their approach, 47;\n of revenge, 58.\n\nSpleen, supposed cause of laughter, 496.\n\nSpy, I, exclamation, 531.\n\nSqualls, weather-lore of, 95.\n\nStalking horse, 191.\n\nStarling, 155.\n\nStars, influence on mundane events, 80;\n heroes reckoned among, 82.\n\nStatute-cap, 546.\n\nStephen's (St.) Day, hunting wren on, 501.\n\nSterility, 289.\n\nStigmatic, deformed person so called, 270.\n\nStocks, old punishment, 440.\n\nStool-ball, old game, 419.\n\nStoop, or swoop, term in falconry, 124.\n\nStover, fodder for cattle, 243.\n\nStrappado, military punishment, 440.\n\nStrawberry, 243.\n\nSuccubi, class of devils, 78.\n\nSuicide, 290.\n\nSun, weather-lore of, 63-65;\n dancing of, 63;\n cloudy rising, ominous, 64;\n red sunrise, 64;\n watery sunset, 65;\n supposed to be a planet, 62.\n\nSunday, fashionable day for weddings, 358.\n\nSunshine in March, 68.\n\nSwallow, harbinger of spring, 155;\n bird of good omen, 156.\n\nSwan, sings before death, 156.\n\nSword, swearing by, 542;\n dance, 430.\n\nSympathetic indications, 518.\n\n\nTailor, exclamation, 531.\n\nTailor's goose, name for pressing-iron, 118.\n\nTassel-gentle, name of hawk, 157.\n\nTavy's (St.) Day, 226, 304.\n\nTawdry lace, 325.\n\nTears, of the deer, 180;\n crocodile, 176.\n\nTeeth, superstitions relating to, 332, 333.\n\nTelme's (St.) fire, meteor so called, 83.\n\nTen bones, name for fingers, 491.\n\nTen commandments, 491.\n\nTennis, 419.\n\nTermagant, tyrant of miracle-plays, 313.\n\nTewksbury mustard, 232.\n\nTheatrical lore, 546.\n\nThorns, legend relating to, 244.\n\nThreshold, bride must not cross, 358.\n\nThumb, biting of, an insult, 492;\n rings, 389.\n\nThunder, notions relating to, 91;\n bolt, 91;\n stone, 91.\n\nTick-tack, old game, 421.\n\nTiger, roars in stormy weather, 199.\n\nTire, term in falconry, 127.\n\nTitania, fairy queen, 2, 3, 14.\n\nTilly-vally, exclamation, 531.\n\nToad, evil spirit likened to, 262;\n changes eyes with lark, 134;\n said to be venomous, 261;\n stone, 260.\n\nTokens plague-spots, 285.\n\nTomb, ornamenting, 377.\n\nTongue, blister on, 266.\n\nToothache, 507;\n caused by a worm, 290.\n\nTorches at weddings, 357.\n\nToss in a sieve, punishment so called, 441.\n\nTouching for king's evil, 279.\n\nTournaments, 547.\n\nTower, term in falconry, 123.\n\nTransmigration of souls, 50.\n\nTread a measure, dance, 431.\n\nTrefoil, divination by, 318.\n\nTrial by the stool, for detecting witches, 31.\n\nTrip and go, a morris-dance, 431.\n\nTroll-my-dame, or Troll-madam, game so called, 422.\n\nTruepenny, mining term, 542.\n\nTrump, old game, 422.\n\nTrumpet, for announcing visitors, 547.\n\nTub-fast, 292.\n\nTurkey, 158.\n\nTurquoise, supposed virtues of, 393.\n\nTutelary guardians, 57.\n\nTwelfth Day, 297.\n\nTybert or Tybalt, cat so called, 172.\n\n\nUnicorn, mode of betraying, 199.\n\nUp-spring, German dance, 431, 432.\n\nUrchin, name for fairy, 9, 17.\n\nUrchins' dance, 9.\n\n\nValentine's (St.) Day, 298;\n birds choose their mates on, 298;\n selecting valentines on, 298;\n customs in France on, 298.\n\nVervain, divination by, 318.\n\nVice, character in old miracle-plays, 314.\n\nViolet, associated with early death, 244;\n superstition relating to, 244.\n\n_Virus lunare_, 75.\n\nVitalis (St.) invoked in case of nightmare, 283.\n\nVulture, 158.\n\n\nWagtail, used in opprobrious sense, 158.\n\nWakes, 331.\n\nWalking fire, name for _ignis fatuus_, 86.\n\nWandering, knight, name of sun, 63;\n stars, 78, 79.\n\nWar-cry, 547.\n\nWarden, name of pear, 235.\n\nWasp, 262.\n\nWassail, bowl, 205;\n candle, 330.\n\nWat, name for hare, 188.\n\nWater, casting, 293;\n galls, name for rainbow, 91.\n\nWaxen images, used by witches, 37.\n\nWeasel, considered ominous, 200;\n kept in houses, 200;\n said to be quarrelsome, 200.\n\nWeathercocks, 108.\n\nWeb-and-pin, name for cataract, 269.\n\nWedding-torch, 357.\n\nWere-wolf, mark of, 31.\n\nWestward, ho, exclamation, 531.\n\nWhale, 504.\n\nWheel, punishment of, 441.\n\nWhipping, 442.\n\nWhistling of swan, 157.\n\nWhite dog-rose, 240.\n\nWhitsun, ale, 312;\n mysteries, 311.\n\nWhitsuntide, 310.\n\nWild-goose chase, 118.\n\nWill-o'-the-wisp, 8, 85.\n\nWill-with-a-wisp, 87.\n\nWillow, symbol of sadness, 245;\n garlands made of, 245.\n\nWinchester, college, custom at, 387;\n goose, 119.\n\nWind, weather-lore of, 94;\n sale of, 34.\n\nWinding-sheet, 380, 516.\n\nWisp, punishment for a scold, 442.\n\nWitches, in \"Macbeth,\" 27;\n create storms, 32;\n drawing blood from, 32;\n propitiation of, 32;\n powers limited, 31;\n harass horses, 190;\n offspring of, 40;\n say their prayers backwards, 40;\n sell or give winds, 34;\n ointment, 36;\n intercourse between, and demons, 40;\n protection from, 32;\n vanish at will, 35;\n destroy cattle, 39;\n look into futurity, 36;\n beard, characteristic of, 29;\n trials, 36.\n\nWitch of Brentford, 27.\n\nWits, the five, 496.\n\nWoodcock, applied to a foolish person, 159.\n\nWorm, a poor creature, 256;\n name for serpent, 254;\n toothache, said to be caused by, 290.\n\nWormwood used in weaning, 246.\n\nWren, its diminutiveness, 160.\n\nWrestling, 422.\n\n\nYew, planted in churchyards, 247;\n stuck in shroud, 274, 380;\n poisonous qualities, 248.\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n\n\n\nENGLISH CLASSICS.\n\nEDITED BY\n\nWM. J. ROLFE, A.M.\n\nIllustrated. 16mo, Cloth, 56 cents per vol.; Paper, 40 cents per vol.\n\n\nThis work has been done so well that it could hardly have been done\nbetter. It shows throughout knowledge, taste, discriminating judgment,\nand, what is rarer and of yet higher value, a sympathetic appreciation\nof the poet's moods and purposes. * * * The peculiarities of\nShakespeare's style are pointed out and elucidated; his allusions are\nexplained; his singular use of words, and moods and tenses and cases, is\nremarked upon; and the archaic and transitional phraseology which is\nfound in many passages of his plays are made the occasion of instructive\nbut unpedantic comment.--_N. Y. Times._\n\n\nSHAKESPEARE'S WORKS.\n\n OTHELLO.\n JULIUS C\u00c6SAR.\n THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.\n MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.\n MACBETH.\n HAMLET.\n MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.\n ROMEO AND JULIET.\n AS YOU LIKE IT.\n THE TEMPEST.\n TWELFTH NIGHT.\n THE WINTER'S TALE.\n KING JOHN.\n RICHARD II.\n HENRY IV. PART I.\n HENRY IV. PART II.\n HENRY V.\n RICHARD III.\n HENRY VIII.\n KING LEAR.\n THE TAMING OF THE SHREW.\n ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.\n CORIOLANUS.\n THE COMEDY OF ERRORS.\n CYMBELINE.\n ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.\n MEASURE FOR MEASURE.\n MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.\n LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.\n TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.\n TIMON OF ATHENS.\n TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.\n HENRY VI. PART I.\n HENRY VI. PART II.\n HENRY VI. PART III.\n PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE.\n THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN.\n POEMS.\n SONNETS.\n TITUS ANDRONICUS.\n\n\nGOLDSMITH'S SELECT POEMS.\n\nGRAY'S SELECT POEMS.\n\n\n\n\nENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS.\n\nEDITED BY JOHN MORLEY.\n\n12mo, Cloth, 75 cents per volume.\n\n\n SAMUEL JOHNSON By LESLIE STEPHEN.\n EDWARD GIBBON By J. C. MORISON.\n SIR WALTER SCOTT By R. H. HUTTON.\n PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY By J. A. SYMONDS.\n DAVID HUME By T. H. HUXLEY.\n OLIVER GOLDSMITH By WILLIAM BLACK.\n DANIEL DEFOE By WILLIAM MINTO.\n ROBERT BURNS By J. C. SHAIRP.\n EDMUND SPENSER By R. W. CHURCH.\n WILLIAM M. THACKERAY By ANTHONY TROLLOPE.\n EDMUND BURKE By JOHN MORLEY.\n JOHN MILTON By MARK PATTISON.\n NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE By HENRY JAMES, JR.\n ROBERT SOUTHEY By E. DOWDEN.\n GEOFFREY CHAUCER By A. W. WARD.\n JOHN BUNYAN By J. A. FROUDE.\n WILLIAM COWPER By GOLDWIN SMITH.\n ALEXANDER POPE By LESLIE STEPHEN.\n LORD BYRON By JOHN NICHOL.\n JOHN LOCKE By THOMAS FOWLER.\n WILLIAM WORDSWORTH By F. W. H. MYERS.\n JOHN DRYDEN By G. SAINTSBURY.\n WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR By SIDNEY COLVIN.\n THOMAS DE QUINCEY By DAVID MASSON.\n CHARLES LAMB By ALFRED AINGER.\n RICHARD BENTLEY By R. C. JEBB.\n CHARLES DICKENS By A. W. WARD.\n THOMAS GRAY By E. W. GOSSE.\n JONATHAN SWIFT By LESLIE STEPHEN.\n LAURENCE STERNE By H. D. TRAILL.\n THOMAS B. MACAULAY By J. COTTER MORISON.\n HENRY FIELDING By AUSTIN DOBSON.\n RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN By MRS. OLIPHANT.\n\n_Others to follow._\n\n\n\n\nBOOKS FOR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.\n\n\nDOWDEN'S SHAKSPERE. Shakspere. A Critical Study of his Mind and Art. 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By his Nephew, GEORGE OTTO TREVELYAN, M.P.\nWith Portrait on Steel. Complete in 2 vols., 8vo, Cloth. Uncut Edges and\nGilt Tops, $5.00; Sheep, $6.00; Half Calf, $9.50. Popular Edition, 1\nvol., 12mo, Cloth, $1.75.\n\nFROUDE'S CARLYLE. Thomas Carlyle. A History of the First Forty Years of\nhis Life (1795-1835). By JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M.A. With Portraits and\nIllustrations. 2 volumes in one, 12mo, Cloth, $1.00. Also, in 2 vols.,\n4to, Paper, 15 cents per volume.\n\n\n\n\nHarper's Cyclop\u00e6dia of British and American Poetry.\n\nCyclop\u00e6dia of British and American Poetry. Edited by EPES SARGENT. Large\n8vo, nearly 1000 pages; Containing nearly 2000 Selections from over 750\nAuthors; Arranged Chronologically: with a Biographical Sketch, and a\nCritical Estimate of each Author. Illuminated Cloth, with Colored Edges,\n$4.50; Half Leather, $5.00.\n\n\nMr. Sargent has shown the knowledge and the skill that might have been\nexpected from so well-read and so accomplished a writer; he has shown a\ncatholicity as well as a sureness of taste; he has proceeded on what\nseems to me the true principle of arrangement, that of chronology; he\nhas made his selections as full as he could consistently with the\nmultitude to be selected from, neither rejecting old ones because they\nwere old, nor accepting new ones because they were new, but earnestly\naiming in both cases to represent the great body of British and American\npoets at their best, and their best only; and he has felt the natural\ndemand of its readers for information concerning it and its authors--an\nimperative demand which he has fulfilled with a thoroughness that is\nhonorable to his scholarship, and with a modesty that is honorable to\nhis genius. That such a work as this might have been done differently I\ncan see; that it could have been done better I do not see at all.--R. H.\nSTODDARD, in _The Critic_, N. Y.\n\nThe special value of this collection is in the fact that it expresses\nthe taste and feeling of one of the most cultured men of this\ngeneration, who, with a poet's sensibility, spent his whole life in the\ncompanionship and atmosphere of books and authors. His judgment could be\ntrusted. His taste was almost unerring in literary matters. His\ncriticism was as keen as it was genial, and seemed to detect the faulty\nand the false almost by instinct. It is a great privilege to have such a\nman's selection of the poems in the English language worth preserving.\nMr. Sargent's work deserves special commendation for the exquisite\njustice it does to living writers but little known. It is a volume of\nrare and precious flowers, culled because of their intrinsic value,\nwithout regard to the writers' fame.--_Evening Express_, N. Y.\n\nMr. Sargent was eminently fitted for the preparation of a work of this\nkind. Few men possessed a wider or more profound knowledge of English\nliterature; and his judgment was clear, acute, and discriminating. * * *\nThe beautiful typography and other exterior charms broadly hint at the\nrich feast of instruction and enjoyment which the superb volume is\neminently fitted to furnish.--_N. Y. Times._\n\nWe commend it highly. It contains so many of the notable poems of our\nlanguage, and so much that is sound poetry, if not notable, that it will\nmake itself a pleasure wherever it is found.--_N. Y. Herald._\n\nA handsome volume, which will give the purest pleasure to great numbers\nof hearts and households. * * * Most readers will find their favorite\npoems, and selections from their favorite poets. * * * As a cyclop\u00e6dia\nfor reference, and a volume for general reading, it is both useful and\ndelightful.--_Observer_, N. Y.\n\nWe consider Mr. Sargent's \"Cyclop\u00e6dia of British and American Poetry\"\nthe best of all such cyclop\u00e6dias in existence.--_Buffalo Express._\n\nA poet himself of no mean reputation, and a man of large experience and\nexcellent taste in literature, he possessed just the qualities requisite\nfor the difficult task of sifting the great mass of British and American\npoetry, and selecting not only the poems which were good in themselves,\nbut those which most fairly represent the genius and style of the\nseveral authors, and still keep the book down to reasonable proportions.\nHis biographical sketches of the poets are admirable, giving just the\ninformation a reader cares for. We think Mr. Sargent's work is even\nbetter than Mr. Bryant's, and that is of itself no small praise.--_Troy\nPress._\n\nWe have in this volume the choicest from what would fill many library\nshelves, and also, at hand here, many fragmentary pieces, familiar\nfavorites, but such as otherwise we should not know where to find when\nwanted.--_The Advance_, Chicago.\n\nThe selections are so judiciously made and so handsomely clothed that\nthe public cannot fail to be grateful, both for the skill of the editor\nand the taste of the publishers.--_Christian Advocate_, N. Y.\n\n\nPUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.\n\nHARPER & BROTHERS _will send the above work by mail, postage prepaid,\nto any part of the United States, on receipt of the price_.\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER'S NOTES\n\n\nObvious punctuation and printer's errors have been corrected. See below\nfor the detailed list.\n\n page 6--typo fixed: changed 'feeche' to 'fecche'\n page 47--spelling normalized: changed 'wide-spread' to 'widespread'\n page 54--typo fixed: changed 'London' to 'Loudun'\n page 92--spelling normalized: changed 'thunderbolt' to 'thunder-bolt'\n page 129--spelling normalized: 'sparrowhawk' changed to 'sparrow-hawk'\n page 138--spelling normalized: changed 'glowworm' to 'glow-worm'\n page 182--typo fixed: changed 'Georgic' to 'Georgics'\n page 189--spelling normalized: changed 'hedgepig' to 'hedge-pig'\n page 201--typo fixed: changed 'Biesly' to 'Beisly'\n page 202--typo fixed: changed 'Georgic' to 'Georgics'\n page 213--typo fixed: changed 'Biesly' to 'Beisly'\n page 316--spelling normalized: changed 'merrymakings' to 'merry-makings'\n page 327--spelling normalized: changed 'Lord-Mayor's Day' to 'Lord\n Mayor's Day'\n page 353--typo fixed: changed 'Jeafferson' to 'Jeaffreson'\n page 394--typo fixed: changed 'Skakespeare' to 'Shakespeare'\n page 399--spelling normalized: changed 'One-and Thirty' to\n 'One-and-Thirty'\n page 486--typo fixed: changed 'Ceila' to 'Celia'\n page 542--typo fixed: changed 'Shakepeare' to 'Shakespeare'\n page 548--spelling normalized: changed 'Leet-Ale' to 'Leet Ale'\n page 549--typo fixed: changed 'Belemite' to 'Belemnite'\n page 549--spelling normalized: changed 'Blindworm' to 'Blind-worm'\n page 552--spelling normalized: changed 'Foot-ball' to 'Football'\n page 552--spelling normalized: changed 'Gadfly' to 'Gad-fly'\n page 554--spelling normalized: changed 'Maypole' to 'May-pole'","title":"Folk-lore of Shakespeare","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":175308}