"The poor beetle that we tread
upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang
as great
As when a giant dies,"
though it has suited the purpose of other poets besides Shakespeare
to say so. The higher and more complex the organization, the more
acute the pleasure and the pain. A toad has been known to live for
days with the upper part of its head cut away by a scythe, and a
beetle will survive for hours upon the fisherman's hook. It
perhaps causes a grasshopper less pain to detach one of its legs
than it does a man to remove a single hair from his beard. Nerves
alone feel pain, and the nervous system of a beetle is a very
rudimentary affair.
In "Coriolanus" there is a comparison which implies that a man can
tread upon his own shadow,--a difficult feat in northern countries
at all times except midday; Shakespeare is particular to mention
the time of day:--
"Such a nature,
Tickled with good success, disdains
the shadow
Which he treads on at noon."