BIRDS.
In the present chapter we have not only a striking proof of
Shakespeare's minute acquaintance with natural history, but of his
remarkable versatility as a writer. While displaying a most extensive
knowledge of ornithology, he has further illustrated his subject by
alluding to those numerous legends, popular sayings, and superstitions
which have, in this and other countries, clustered round the feathered
race. Indeed, the following pages are alone sufficient to show, if it
were necessary, how fully he appreciated every branch of antiquarian
lore; and what a diligent student he must have been in the pursuit of
that wide range of information, the possession of which has made him one
of the most many-sided writers that the world has ever seen. The
numerous incidental allusions, too, by Shakespeare, to the folk-lore of
bygone days, while showing how deeply he must have read and gathered
knowledge from every available source, serve as an additional proof of
his retentive memory, and marvellous power of embellishing his ideas by
the most apposite illustrations. Unfortunately, however, these have,
hitherto, been frequently lost sight of through the reader's
unacquaintance with that extensive field of folk-lore which was so well
known to the poet. For the sake of easy reference, the birds with which
the present chapter deals are arranged alphabetically.
_Barnacle-Goose._ There was a curious notion, very prevalent in former
times, that this bird (_Anser bernicla_) was generated from the barnacle
(_Lepas anatifera_), a shell-fish, growing on a flexible stem, and
adhering to loose timber, bottoms of ships, etc., a metamorphosis to
which Shakespeare alludes in "The Tempest" (iv. 1), where he makes
Caliban say:
"we shall lose our time,
And all be turn'd to barnacles."
This vulgar error, no doubt, originated in mistaking the fleshy peduncle
of the shell-fish for the neck of a goose, the shell for its head, and
the tentacula for a tuft of feathers. These shell-fish, therefore,
bearing, as seen out of the water, a resemblance to the goose's neck,
were ignorantly, and without investigation, confounded with geese
themselves. In France, the barnacle-goose may be eaten on fast days, by
virtue of this old belief in its fishy origin.[152] Like other fictions
this one had its variations,[153] for sometime the barnacles were
supposed to grow on trees, and thence to drop into the sea, and become
geese, as in Drayton's account of Furness ("Polyolb." 1622, song 27, l.
1190). As early as the 12th century this idea[154] was promulgated by
Giraldus Cambrensis in his "Topographia Hiberniæ." Gerarde, who in the
year 1597 published his "Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes,"
narrates the following: "There are found in the north parts of Scotland,
and the isles adjacent called Orcades, certain trees, whereon do grow
certain shell-fishes, of a white color, tending to russet, wherein are
contained little living creatures; which shells in time of maturity do
open, and out of them grow those little living things which, falling
into the water, do become fowls, whom we call barnacles, in the north of
England brant geese, and in Lancashire tree geese; but the others that
do fall upon the land perish, and do come to nothing. Thus much of the
writings of others, and also from the mouths of people of those parts,
which may very well accord with truth. But what our eyes have seen and
hands have touched, we shall declare. There is a small island in
Lancashire called the Pile of Foulders, wherein are found the broken
pieces of old ships, some whereof have been cast thither by shipwreck,
and also the trunks or bodies, with the branches, of old rotten trees,
cast up there likewise, whereon is found a certain spume or froth, that
in time breedeth into certain shells, in shape like those of the mussel,
but sharper pointed, and of a whitish color: wherein is contained a
thing in form like a lace of silk, one end whereof is fastened unto the
inside of the shell, even as the fish of oysters and mussels are. The
other end is made fast unto the belly of a rude mass or lump, which in
time cometh to the shape and form of a bird; when it is perfectly formed
the shell gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the
foresaid lace or string; next come the legs of the bird hanging out, and
as it groweth greater it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length it
is all come forth and hangeth only by the bill. In short space after it
cometh to full maturity, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth
feathers and groweth to a fowl, bigger than a mallard, and lesser than a
goose; having black legs and bill, or beak, and feathers black and
white, spotted in such a manner as is our magpie, which the people of
Lancashire call by no other name than a tree goose." An interesting cut
of these birds so growing is given by Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps from a
manuscript of the 14th century, who is of opinion that the barnacle
mentioned by Caliban was the tree-goose. It is not to be supposed,
however, that there were none who doubted this marvellous story, or who
took steps to refute it. Belon, so long ago as 1551, says Mr.
Harting,[155] and others after him, treated it with ridicule, and a
refutation may be found in Willughby's "Ornithology," which was edited
by Ray in 1678.[156] This vulgar error is mentioned by many of the old
writers. Thus Bishop Hall, in his "Virgidemiarum" (lib. iv. sat. 2),
says:
"The Scottish barnacle, if I might choose,
That of a worme doth waxe a winged goose."
[152] See Harland and Wilkinson's "Lancashire Folk-Lore," 1867,
pp. 116-121; "Notes and Queries," 1st series, vol. viii. p.
224; "Penny Cyclopædia," vol. vii. p. 206, article "Cirripeda."
[153] Nares's "Glossary," 1872, vol. i. p. 56.
[154] See Harting's "Ornithology of Shakespeare," 1871, pp.
246-257.
[155] "Ornithology of Shakespeare," 1871, p. 252.
[156] See "Philosophical Transactions" for 1835; Darwin's
"Monograph of the Cirrhipedia," published by the Ray Society; a
paper by Sir J. Emerson Tennent in "Notes and Queries," 1st
series, vol. viii. p. 223; Brand's "Popular Antiquities," 1849,
vol. iii. pp. 361, 362; Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare,"
1839, p. 14.
Butler, too, in his "Hudibras" (III. ii. l. 655), speaks of it; and
Marston, in his "Malecontent" (1604), has the following: "Like your
Scotch barnacle, now a block, instantly a worm, and presently a great
goose."
_Blackbird._ This favorite is called, in the "Midsummer-Night's Dream"
(iii. 1) an ousel (old French, _oisel_), a term still used in the
neighborhood of Leeds:
"The ousel cock, so black of hue,
With orange-tawny bill."
In "2 Henry IV." (iii. 2) when Justice Shallow inquires of Justice
Silence, "And how doth my cousin?" he is answered: "Alas, a black
ousel,[157] cousin Shallow," a phrase which, no doubt, corresponded to
our modern one, "a black sheep." In Spenser's "Epithalamium" (l. 82),
the word occurs:
"The ousel shrills, the ruddock warbles soft."
[157] See Yarrell's "History of British Birds," 2d edition,
vol. i. p. 218; "Dialect of Leeds," 1862, p. 329. In "Hamlet"
(iii. 2), some modern editions read "ouzle;" the old editions
all have _weasel_, which is now adopted.
_Buzzard._ Mr. Staunton suggests that in the following passage of the
"Taming of the Shrew" (ii. 1) a play is intended upon the words, and
that in the second line "buzzard" means a beetle, from its peculiar
buzzing noise:
"_Pet._ O slow-wing'd turtle! shall a buzzard take thee?
_Kath._ Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard."
The beetle was formerly called a buzzard; and in Staffordshire, a
cockchafer is termed a hum-buz. In Northamptonshire we find a proverb,
"I'm between a hawk and a buzzard," which means, "I don't know what to
do, or how to act."[158]
[158] Miss Baker's "Northamptonshire Glossary," 1854, vol. i.
p. 94. See Nares's "Glossary," 1872, vol. i. p. 124; and
"Richard III.," i. 1.
_Chaffinch._ Some think that this bird is alluded to in the song in the
"Midsummer-Night's Dream" (iii. 1), where the expression "finch" is
used; the chaffinch having always been a favorite cage-bird with the
lower classes.[159] In "Troilus and Cressida" (v. 1) Thersites calls
Patroclus a "finch-egg," which was evidently meant as a term of
reproach. Others, again, consider the phrase as equivalent to coxcomb.
[159] Harting's "Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 144;
Halliwell-Phillipps's "Handbook Index to Shakespeare," 1866, p.
187. The term finch, also, according to some, may mean either
the bullfinch or goldfinch.
_Chough._ In using this word Shakespeare probably, in most cases, meant
the jackdaw;[160] for in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (iii. 2) he says:
"russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
Rising and cawing at the gun's report;"
the term russet-pated being applicable to the jackdaw, but not to the
real chough. In "1 Henry IV." (v. 1). Prince Henry calls Falstaff
_chewet_--"Peace, chewet, peace"--in allusion, no doubt, to the chough or
jackdaw, for common birds have always had a variety of names.[161] Such
an appellation would be a proper reproach to Falstaff, for his meddling
and impertinent talk. Steevens and Malone, however, finding that
_chewets_ were little round pies made of minced meat, thought that the
Prince compared Falstaff, for his unseasonable chattering, to a minced
pie. Cotgrave[162] describes the French _chouette_ as an owlet; also, a
"chough," which many consider to be the simple and satisfactory
explanation of _chewet_. Belon, in his "History of Birds" (Paris, 1855),
speaks of the _chouette_ as the smallest kind of chough or crow. Again,
in "1 Henry IV." (ii. 2), in the amusing scene where Falstaff, with the
Prince and Poins, meet to rob the travellers at Gadshill, Falstaff
calls the victims "fat chuffs," probably, says Mr. Harting, who connects
the word with chough, from their strutting about with much noise.
Nares,[163] too, in his explanation of _chuff_, says, that some suppose
it to be from chough, which is similarly pronounced, and means a kind of
sea-bird, generally esteemed a stupid one. Various other meanings are
given. Thus, Mr. Gifford[164] affirms that _chuff_ is always used in a
bad sense, and means "a coarse, unmannered clown, at once sordid and
wealthy;" and Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps explains it as spoken in contempt
for a fat person.[165] In Northamptonshire,[166] we find the word chuff
used to denote a person in good condition, as in Clare's "Village
Minstrel:"
"His chuff cheeks dimpling in a fondling smile."
[160] See Yarrell's "History of British Birds," 2d edition,
vol. ii. p. 58.
[161] Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 156; Singer's
"Shakespeare," 1875, vol. v. p. 115; Dyce's "Glossary," 1876,
p. 77.
[162] Mr. Dyce says that if Dr. Latham had been acquainted with
the article "Chouette," in Cotgrave, he would not probably have
suggested that Shakespeare meant here the lapwing or pewit.
Some consider the magpie is meant. See Halliwell-Phillipps's
"Handbook Index to Shakespeare," 1866, p. 83. Professor Newton
would read "russet-patted," or "red-legged," thinking that
Shakespeare meant the chough.
[163] "Glossary," vol. i. p. 162; Singer's "Notes to
Shakespeare," 1875, vol. v. p. 42.
[164] Massinger's Works, 1813, vol. i. p. 281.
[165] "Handbook Index to Shakespeare," 1866, p. 86.
[166] Miss Baker's "Northamptonshire Glossary," 1854, vol. i.
p. 116.
Shakespeare alludes to the practice of teaching choughs to talk,
although from the following passages he does not appear to have esteemed
their talking powers as of much value; for in "All's Well That Ends
Well" (iv. 1), he says: "Choughs' language, gabble enough, and good
enough." And in "The Tempest" (ii. 1), he represents Antonio as saying:
"There be that can rule Naples
As well as he that sleeps; lords that can prate
As amply and unnecessarily
As this Gonzalo; I myself could make
A chough of as deep chat."
Shakespeare always refers to the jackdaw as the "daw."[167] The chough
or jackdaw was one of the birds considered ominous by our forefathers,
an allusion to which occurs in "Macbeth" (iii. 4):
"Augurs and understood relations have,
By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth
The secret'st man of blood."
[167] "Coriolanus," iv. 5; "Troilus and Cressida," i. 2; "Much
Ado About Nothing," ii. 3; "Twelfth Night," iii. 4; "Love's
Labour's Lost," v. 2, song; "1 Henry VI." ii. 4.
At the present day this bird is not without its folk-lore, and there is
a Norwich rhyme to the following effect:[168]
"When three daws are seen on St. Peter's vane together,
Then we're sure to have bad weather."
In the north of England,[169] too, the flight of jackdaws down the
chimney is held to presage death.
[168] Swainson's "Weather-Lore," 1873, p. 240.
[169] Henderson's "Folk-Lore of Northern Counties," 1879, p. 48.
_Cock._ The beautiful notion which represents the cock as crowing all
night long on Christmas Eve, and by its vigilance dispelling every kind
of malignant spirit[170] and evil influence is graphically mentioned in
"Hamlet" (i. 1), where Marcellus, speaking of the ghost, says:
"It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long.
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time."
[170] See Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," p. 438.
In short, there is a complete prostration of the powers of darkness; and
thus, for the time being, mankind is said to be released from the
influence of all those evil forces which otherwise exert such sway. The
notion that spirits fly at cock-crow is very ancient, and is mentioned
by the Christian poet Prudentius, who flourished in the beginning of the
fourth century. There is also a hymn, said to have been composed by St.
Ambrose, and formerly used in the Salisbury Service, which so much
resembles the following speech of Horatio (i. 1), that one might almost
suppose Shakespeare had seen it:[171]
"The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine."
[171] See Ibid.
This disappearance of spirits at cock-crow is further alluded to (i.
2):[172]
"the morning cock crew loud,
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
And vanished from our sight."
[172] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. ii. pp. 51-57;
Hampson's "Medii OEvi Kalendarium," vol. i. p. 84.
Blair, too, in his "Grave," has these graphic words:
"the tale
Of horrid apparition, tall and ghastly,
That walks at dead of night, or takes his stand
O'er some new-open'd grave, and, strange to tell,
Evanishes at crowing of the cock."
This superstition has not entirely died out in England, and a
correspondent of "Notes and Queries"[173] relates an amusing legend
current in Devonshire: "Mr. N. was a squire who had been so unfortunate
as to sell his soul to the devil, with the condition that after his
funeral the fiend should take possession of his skin. He had also
persuaded a neighbor to be present on the occasion of the flaying. On
the death of Mr. N. this man went, in a state of great alarm, to the
parson of the parish, and asked his advice. By him he was told to fulfil
his engagement, but he must be sure and carry a cock into the church
with him. On the night after the funeral the man proceeded to the
church, armed with the cock, and, as an additional security, took up his
position in the parson's pew. At twelve o'clock the devil arrived,
opened the grave, took the corpse from the coffin, and flayed it. When
the operation was concluded, he held the skin up before him and
remarked, 'Well, 'twas not worth coming for after all, for it is all
full of holes!' As he said this the cock crew, whereupon the fiend,
turning round to the man, exclaimed, 'If it had not been for the bird
you have got there under your arm, I would have your skin too!' But,
thanks to the cock, the man got home safe again." Various origins have
been assigned to this superstition, which Hampson[174] regards as a
misunderstood tradition of some Sabæan fable. The cock, he adds, which
seems by its early voice to call forth the sun, was esteemed a sacred
solar bird; hence it was also sacred to Mercury, one of the
personifications of the sun.
[173] 1st series, vol. iii. p. 404.
[174] "Medii OEvi Kalendarium," vol. i. p. 85.
A very general amusement, up to the end of the last century, was
cock-fighting, a diversion of which mention is occasionally made by
Shakespeare, as in "Antony and Cleopatra" (ii. 3):
"His cocks do win the battle still of mine,
When it is all to nought."
And again Hamlet says (v. 2):
"O, I die, Horatio;
The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit"--
meaning, the poison triumphs over him, as a cock over his beaten
antagonist. Formerly, cock-fighting entered into the occupations of the
old and young.[175] Schools had their cock-fights. Travellers agreed
with coachmen that they were to wait a night if there was a cock-fight
in any town through which they passed. When country gentlemen had sat
long at table, and the conversation had turned upon the relative merits
of their several birds, a cock-fight often resulted, as the birds in
question were brought for the purpose into the dining-room.
Cock-fighting was practised on Shrove Tuesday to a great extent, and in
the time of Henry VII. seems to have been practised within the precincts
of court. The earliest mention of this pastime in England is by
Fitzstephens, in 1191. Happily, nowadays, cock-fighting is, by law, a
misdemeanor, and punishable by penalty. One of the popular terms for a
cock beaten in a fight was "a craven," to which we find a reference in
the "Taming of the Shrew" (ii. 1):
"No cock of mine; you crow too like a craven."
[175] Roberts's "Social History of Southern Counties of
England," 1856, p. 421; see "British Popular Customs," 1876, p. 65.
We may also compare the expression in "Henry V." (iv. 7): "He is a
craven and a villain else." In the old appeal or wager of battle,[176]
in our common law, we are told, on the authority of Lord Coke, that the
party who confessed himself wrong, or refused to fight, was to pronounce
the word _cravent_, and judgment was at once given against him.
Singer[177] says the term may be satisfactorily traced from _crant_,
_creant_, the old French word for an act of submission. It is so written
in the old metrical romance of "Ywaine and Gawaine" (Ritson, i. 133):
"Or yelde the til us als creant."
[176] Nares's "Glossary," 1872, vol. i. p. 203.
[177] Singer's "Shakespeare," 1875, vol. ix. p. 256;
Halliwell-Phillipps's "Handbook Index to Shakespeare," p. 112.
And in "Richard Coeur de Lion" (Weber, ii. 208):
"On knees he fel down, and cryde, crêaunt."
It then became _cravant_, _cravent_, and at length _craven_.
In the time of Shakespeare the word _cock_ was used as a vulgar
corruption or purposed disguise of the name of God, an instance of which
occurs in "Hamlet" (iv. 5): "By cock, they are to blame." This
irreverent alteration of the sacred name is found at least a dozen
times[178] in Heywood's "Edward the Fourth," where one passage is,
"_Herald._ Sweare on this booke, King Lewis, so help you God,
You mean no otherwise then you have said.
_King Lewis._ So helpe me Cock as I dissemble not."
[178] Dyce's "Glossary to Shakespeare," p. 85.
We find, too, other allusions to the sacred name, as in "cock's
passion," "cock's body;" as in "Taming of the Shrew" (iv. 1): "Cock's
passion, silence!" A not uncommon oath, too, in Shakespeare's time was
"Cock and pie"--_cock_ referring to God, and _pie_ being supposed to mean
the service-book of the Romish Church; a meaning which, says Mr. Dyce,
seems much more probable than Douce's[179] supposition that this oath
was connected with the making of solemn vows by knights in the days of
chivalry, during entertainments at which a roasted peacock was served
up. It is used by Justice Shallow ("2 Henry IV.," v. 1): "By cock and
pye, sir, you shall not away to-night." We may also compare the
expression in the old play of "Soliman and Perseda" (1599): "By cock and
pye and mousefoot." Mr. Harting[180] says the "Cock and Pye" (_i. e._,
magpie) was an ordinary ale-house sign, and may have thus become a
subject for the vulgar to swear by.
[179] "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 290.
[180] "Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 171.
The phrase, "Cock-a-hoop"[181]--which occurs in "Romeo and Juliet" (i.
5),
"You'll make a mutiny among my guests!
You will set cock-a-hoop! you'll be the man!"
--no doubt refers to a reckless person, who takes the cock or tap out of
a cask, and lays it on the top or hoop of the barrel, thus letting all
the contents of the cask run out. Formerly, a quart pot was called a
hoop, being formed of staves bound together with hoops like barrels.
There were generally three hoops to such a pot; hence, in "2 Henry VI."
(iv. 2), one of Jack Cade's popular reformations was to increase their
number: "the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it
felony to drink small beer." Some, however, consider the term
Cock-a-hoop[182] refers to the boastful crowing of the cock.
[181] It is also an ale-house sign.
[182] See Dyce's "Glossary to Shakespeare," p. 85.
In "King Lear" (iii. 2) Shakespeare speaks of the "cataracts and
hurricanoes" as having
"drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!"
Vanes on the tops of steeples were in days gone by made in the form of
a cock--hence weathercocks--and put up, in papal times, to remind the
clergy of watchfulness.[183] Apart, too, from symbolism, the large tail
of the cock was well adapted to turn with the wind.[184]
[183] See "Book of Days," 1863, vol. i. p. 157.
[184] In "King Lear" (iv. 6), where Edgar says:
"Yond tall anchoring bark,
Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight."
the word "cock" is an abbreviation for cock-boat.
_Cormorant._ The proverbial voracity of this bird[185] gave rise to a
man of large appetite being likened to it, a sense in which Shakespeare
employs the word, as in "Coriolanus" (i. 1): "the cormorant belly;" in
"Love's Labour's Lost" (i. 1): "cormorant devouring Time;" and in
"Troilus and Cressida" (ii. 2): "this cormorant war." "Although," says
Mr. Harting,[186] "Shakespeare mentions the cormorant in several of his
plays, he has nowhere alluded to the sport of using these birds, when
trained, for fishing; a fact which is singular, since he often speaks of
the then popular pastime of hawking, and he did not die until some years
after James I. had made fishing with cormorants a fashionable
amusement."
[185] For superstitions associated with this bird, see Brand's
"Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 218.
[186] "Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 260.
_Crow._ This has from the earliest times been reckoned a bird of bad
omen; and in "Julius Cæsar" (v. 1), Cassius, on the eve of battle,
predicted a defeat, because, to use his own words:
"crows and kites
Fly o'er our heads and downward look on us,
As we were sickly prey: their shadows seem
A canopy most fatal, under which
Our army lies, ready to give up the ghost."
Allusions to the same superstition occur in "Troilus and Cressida" (i.
2); "King John" (v. 2), etc. Vergil ("Bucolic," i. 18) mentions the
croaking of the crow as a bad omen:
"Sæpe sinistra cava prædixit ab ilice cornix."
And Butler, in his "Hudibras" (part ii. canto 3), remarks:
"Is it not ominous in all countries,
When crows and ravens croak upon trees."
Even children, nowadays, regard with no friendly feelings this bird of
ill-omen;[187] and in the north of England there is a rhyme to the
following effect:
"Crow, crow, get out of my sight,
Or else I'll eat thy liver and lights."
[187] See "Folk-Lore Record," 1879, vol. i. p. 52; Henderson's
"Folk-Lore of Northern Counties," 1879, pp. 25, 126, 277.
Among other allusions made by Shakespeare to the crow may be noticed the
crow-keeper--a person employed to drive away crows from the fields. At
present,[188] in all the midland counties, a boy set to drive away the
birds is said to keep birds; hence, a stuffed figure, now called a
_scarecrow_, was also called a crow-keeper, as in "King Lear" (iv. 6):
"That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper."
[188] Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 208.
One of Tusser's directions for September is:
"No sooner a-sowing, but out by-and-by,
With mother or boy that alarum can cry:
And let them be armed with a sling or a bow,
To scare away pigeon, the rook, or the crow."
In "Romeo and Juliet" (i. 4) a scarecrow seems meant:
"Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper."
Among further references to this practice is that in "1 Henry VI." (i.
4), where Lord Talbot relates that, when a prisoner in France, he was
publicly exhibited in the market-place:
"Here, said they, is the terror of the French,
The scarecrow that affrights our children so."[189]
[189] Cf. "Henry IV.," iv. 2.
And once more, in "Measure for Measure" (ii. 1):
"We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch and not their terror."
The phrase "to pluck a crow" is to complain good-naturedly, but
reproachfully, and to threaten retaliation.[190] It occurs in "Comedy of
Errors" (iii. 1): "We'll pluck a crow together." Sometimes the word
_pull_ is substituted for pluck, as in Butler's "Hudibras" (part ii.
canto 2):
"If not, resolve before we go
That you and I must pull a crow."
[190] Miss Baker's "Northamptonshire Glossary," vol. ii. p.
161; Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 393.
The crow has been regarded as the emblem of darkness, which has not
escaped the notice of Shakespeare, who, in "Pericles" (iv. introd.),
speaking of the white dove, says:
"With the dove of Paphos might the crow
Vie feathers white."[191]
[191] Cf. "Romeo and Juliet," i. 5.
_Cuckoo._ Many superstitions have clustered round the cuckoo, and both
in this country and abroad it is looked upon as a mysterious bird, being
supposed to possess the gift of second-sight, a notion referred to in
"Love's Labour's Lost" (v. 2):
"Cuckoo, cuckoo:[192] O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear."
[192] "A cuckold being called from the cuckoo, the note of that
bird was supposed to prognosticate that destiny."--Nares's
"Glossary," vol. i. p. 212.
And again, in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (iii. 1), Bottom sings:
"The plain-song cuckoo gray,
Whose note full many a man doth mark,
And dares not answer nay."
It is still a common idea that the cuckoo, if asked, will tell any one,
by the repetition of its cries, how long he has to live. The country
lasses in Sweden count the cuckoo's call to ascertain how many years
they have to remain unmarried, but they generally shut their ears and
run away on hearing it a few times.[193] Among the Germans the notes of
the cuckoo, when heard in spring for the first time, are considered a
good omen. Cæsarius (1222) tells us of a convertite who was about to
become a monk, but changed his mind on hearing the cuckoo's call, and
counting twenty-two repetitions of it. "Come," said he, "I have
certainly twenty-two years still to live, and why should I mortify
myself during all that time? I will go back to the world, enjoy its
delights for twenty years, and devote the remaining two to
penitence."[194] In England the peasantry salute the cuckoo with the
following invocation:
"Cuckoo, cherry-tree,
Good bird, tell me,
How many years have I to live"--
the allusion to the cherry-tree having probably originated in the
popular fancy that before the cuckoo ceases its song it must eat three
good meals of cherries. Pliny mentions the belief that when the cuckoo
came to maturity it devoured the bird which had reared it, a
superstition several times alluded to by Shakespeare. Thus, in "King
Lear" (i. 4), the Fool remarks:
"The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,
That it had its head bit off by its young."
[193] Engel's "Musical Myths and Facts," 1876, vol. i. p. 9.
[194] See Kelly's "Indo-European Folk-Lore," 1863, p. 99;
"English Folk-Lore," 1879, pp. 55-62.
Again, in "1 Henry IV." (v. 1), Worcester says:
"And being fed by us you used us so
As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo's bird,
Useth the sparrow; did oppress our nest;
Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk
That even our love durst not come near your sight
For fear of swallowing."
Once more, the opinion that the cuckoo made no nest of its own, but
laid its eggs in that of another bird, is mentioned in "Antony and
Cleopatra" (ii. 6):
"Thou dost o'er-count me of my father's house;
But, since the cuckoo builds not for himself,
Remain in't as thou may'st."
It has been remarked,[195] however, in reference to the common idea that
the young cuckoo ill-treats its foster-mother, that if we watch the
movements of the two birds, when the younger is being fed, we cannot
much wonder at this piece of folk-lore. When the cuckoo opens its great
mouth, the diminutive nurse places her own head so far within its
precincts that it has the exact appearance of a voluntary surrender to
decapitation.
[195] See Mary Howitt's "Pictorial Calendar of the Seasons," p.
155; Knight's "Pictorial Shakespeare," vol. i. pp. 225, 226.
The notion[196] "which couples the name of the cuckoo with the character
of the man whose wife is unfaithful to him appears to have been derived
from the Romans, and is first found in the Middle Ages in France, and in
the countries of which the modern language is derived from the Latin.
But the ancients more correctly gave the name of the bird, not to the
husband of the faithless wife, but to her paramour, who might justly be
supposed to be acting the part of the cuckoo. They applied the name of the
bird in whose nest the cuckoo's eggs were usually deposited--'carruca'--to
the husband. It is not quite clear how, in the passage from classic to
mediæval, the application of the term was transferred to the husband."
In further allusion to this bird, we may quote the following from "All's
Well That Ends Well" (i. 3):
"For I the ballad will repeat,
Which men full true shall find,
Your marriage comes by destiny,
Your cuckoo sings by kind."
[196] Chambers's "Book of Days," vol. i. p. 531.
The cuckoo has generally been regarded as the harbinger of spring, and,
according to a Gloucester rhyme:
"The cuckoo comes in April,
Sings a song in May;
Then in June another tune,
And then she flies away."
Thus, in "1 Henry IV." (iii. 2), the king, alluding to his predecessor,
says:
"So, when he had occasion to be seen,
He was but as the cuckoo is in June,
Heard, not regarded."
In "Love's Labour's Lost" (v. 2) spring is maintained by the cuckoo, in
those charming sonnets descriptive of the beauties of the country at
this season.
The word cuckoo has, from the earliest times, been used as a term of
reproach;[197] and Plautus[198] has introduced it on more than one
occasion. In this sense we find it quoted by Shakespeare in "1 Henry
IV." (ii. 4): "O' horseback, ye cuckoo." The term _cuckold_, too, which
so frequently occurs throughout Shakespeare's plays, is generally
derived from cuculus,[199] from the practice already alluded to of
depositing its eggs in other birds' nests.
[197] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. ii. p. 201.
[198] "Asinaria," v. 1.
[199] Nares, in his "Glossary" (vol. i. p. 212), says:
"Cuckold, perhaps, _quasi_ cuckoo'd, _i. e._, one served; _i.
e._, forced to bring up a brood that is not his own."
_Domestic Fowl._ In "The Tempest" (v. 1), the word chick is used as a
term of endearment: "My Ariel; chick," etc.; and in "Macbeth" (iv. 3)
Macduff speaks of his children as "all my pretty chickens." In
"Coriolanus" (v. 3), hen is applied to a woman: "poor hen, fond of no
second brood;" and in "Taming of the Shrew" (ii. 1), Petruchio says: "so
Kate will be my hen;" and, once more, "1 Henry IV." (iii. 3), Falstaff
says, "How now, Dame Partlet the hen?" In "Othello" (i. 3) Iago applies
the term "guinea-hen" to Desdemona, a cant phrase in Shakespeare's day
for a fast woman.
_Dove._ Among the many beautiful allusions to this bird we may mention
one in "Hamlet" (v. 1), where Shakespeare speaks of the dove only laying
two eggs:[200]
"as patient as the female dove
When that her golden couplets are disclosed."
[200] Singer's "Shakespeare," 1875, vol. ix. p. 294.
The young nestlings, when first disclosed, are only covered with a
yellow down, and the mother rarely leaves the nest, in consequence of
the tenderness of her young; hence the dove has been made an emblem of
patience. In "2 Henry IV." (iv. 1), it is spoken of as the symbol of
peace:
"The dove and very blessed spirit of peace."
Its love, too, is several times referred to, as in "Romeo and Juliet"
(ii. 1), "Pronounce but--love and dove;" and in "1 Henry VI." (ii. 2),
Burgundy says:
"Like to a pair of loving turtle-doves,
That could not live asunder, day or night."
This bird has also been regarded as the emblem of fidelity, as in the
following graphic passage in "Troilus and Cressida" (iii. 2):
"As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,
As iron to adamant, as earth to the centre;"
and in "Winter's Tale" (iv. 4) we read:
"turtles pair,
That never mean to part."
Its modesty is alluded to in the "Taming of the Shrew" (ii. 1): "modest
as the dove;" and its innocence in "2 Henry VI." (iii. 1) is mentioned,
where King Henry says:
"Our kinsman Gloster is as innocent
From meaning treason to our royal person
As is the sucking lamb or harmless dove:
The duke is virtuous, mild and too well given
To dream on evil, or to work my downfall."
The custom of giving a pair of doves or pigeons as a present or
peace-offering is alluded to in "Titus Andronicus" (iv. 4), where the
clown says, "God and Saint Stephen give you good den: I have brought you
a letter and a couple of pigeons here;" and when Gobbo tried to find
favor with Bassanio, in "Merchant of Venice" (ii. 2), he began by
saying, "I have here a dish of doves, that I would bestow upon your
worship." Shakespeare alludes in several places to the "doves of Venus,"
as in "Venus and Adonis:"
"Thus weary of the world, away she [Venus] hies,
And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid
Their mistress, mounted, through the empty skies
In her light chariot quickly is conveyed;
Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen
Means to immure herself and not be seen;"
and in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (i. 1), where Hermia speaks of "the
simplicity of Venus' doves." This will also explain, says Mr.
Harting,[201] the reference to "the dove of Paphos," in "Pericles" (iv.
Introd.). The towns of Old and New Paphos are situated on the southwest
extremity of the coast of Cyprus. Old Paphos is the one generally
referred to by the poets, being the peculiar seat of the worship of
Venus, who was fabled to have been wafted thither after her birth amid
the waves. The "dove of Paphos" may therefore be considered as
synonymous with the "dove of Venus."
[201] "Ornithology of Shakespeare," pp. 190, 191.
Mahomet, we are told, had a dove, which he used to feed with wheat out
of his ear; when hungry, the dove lighted on his shoulder, and thrust
its bill in to find its breakfast, Mahomet persuading the rude and
simple Arabians that it was the Holy Ghost, that gave him advice.[202]
Hence, in "1 Henry VI." (i. 2), the question is asked:
"Was Mahomet inspired with a dove?"
[202] Sir W. Raleigh's "History of the World," bk. i. pt. i.
ch. 6.
_Duck._ A barbarous pastime in Shakespeare's time was hunting a tame
duck in the water with spaniels. For the performance of this
amusement[203] it was necessary to have recourse to a pond of water
sufficiently extensive to give the duck plenty of room for making its
escape from the dogs when closely pursued, which it did by diving as
often as any of them came near it, hence the following allusion in
"Henry V." (ii. 3):
"And hold-fast is the only dog, my duck."[204]
[203] Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," 1876, p. 329.
[204] There is an allusion to the proverbial saying, "Brag is a
good dog, but Hold-fast is a better."
"To swim like a duck" is a common proverb, which occurs in "The Tempest"
(ii. 2), where Trinculo, in reply to Stephano's question how he escaped,
says: "Swam ashore, man, like a duck; I can swim like a duck, I'll be
sworn."
_Eagle._ From the earliest time this bird has been associated with
numerous popular fancies and superstitions, many of which have not
escaped the notice of Shakespeare. A notion of very great antiquity
attributes to it the power of gazing at the sun undazzled, to which
Spenser, in his "Hymn of Heavenly Beauty" refers:
"And like the native brood of eagle's kind,
On that bright sun of glory fix thine eyes."
In "Love's Labour's Lost" (iv. 3) Biron says of Rosaline:
"What peremptory eagle-sighted eye
Dares look upon the heaven of her brow,
That is not blinded by her majesty?"[205]
[205] In the same scene we are told,
"A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind."
Cf. "Romeo and Juliet," iii. 5; "Richard II.," iii. 3.
And in "3 Henry VI." (ii. 1) Richard says to his brother Edward:
"Nay, if thou be that princely eagle's bird,
Show thy descent by gazing 'gainst the sun."
The French naturalist, Lacepede,[206] has calculated that the clearness
of vision in birds is nine times more extensive than that of the
farthest-sighted man. The eagle, too, has always been proverbial for its
great power of flight, and on this account has had assigned to it the
sovereignty of the feathered race. Aristotle and Pliny both record the
legend of the wren disputing for the crown, a tradition which is still
found in Ireland:[207] "The birds all met together one day, and settled
among themselves that whichever of them could fly highest was to be the
king of them all. Well, just as they were starting, the little rogue of
a wren perched itself on the eagle's tail. So they flew and flew ever so
high, till the eagle was miles above all the rest, and could not fly
another stroke, for he was so tired. Then says he, 'I'm the king of the
birds,' says he; 'hurroo!' 'You lie,' says the wren, darting up a perch
and a half above the big fellow. The eagle was so angry to think how he
was outwitted by the wren, that when the latter was coming down he gave
him a stroke of his wing, and from that day the wren has never been able
to fly higher than a hawthorn bush." The swiftness of the eagle's flight
is spoken of in "Timon of Athens," (i. 1):
"an eagle flight, bold, and forth on,
Leaving no tract behind."[208]
[206] Quoted by Harting, in "Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 24.
[207] Kelly's "Indo-European Folk-Lore," pp. 75, 79.
[208] Cf. "Antony and Cleopatra," ii. 2: "This was but as a fly
by an eagle."
The great age, too, of the eagle is well known; and the words of the
Psalmist are familiar to most readers:
"His youth shall be renewed like the eagle's."
Apemantus, however, asks of Timon ("Timon of Athens," iv. 3):
"will these moss'd trees,
That have outlived the eagle, page thy heels,
And skip when thou point'st out?"
Turbervile, in his "Booke of Falconrie," 1575, says that the great age
of this bird has been ascertained from the circumstance of its always
building its eyrie or nest in the same place. The Romans considered the
eagle a bird of good omen, and its presence in time of battle was
supposed to foretell victory. Thus, in "Julius Cæsar" (v. 1) we read:
"Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign
Two mighty eagles fell; and there they perch'd,
Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands."
It was selected for the Roman legionary standard,[209] through being the
king and most powerful of all birds. As a bird of good omen it is
mentioned also in "Cymbeline" (i. 1):
"I chose an eagle,
And did avoid a puttock;"
and in another scene (iv. 2) the Soothsayer relates how
"Last night the very gods show'd me a vision,
... thus:--
I saw Jove's bird, the Roman eagle, wing'd
From the spungy south to this part of the west,
There vanish'd in the sunbeams: which portends
(Unless my sins abuse my divination),
Success to the Roman host."
[209] Josephus, "De Bello Judico," iii. 5.
The conscious superiority[210] of the eagle is depicted by Tamora in
"Titus Andronicus" (iv. 4):
"The eagle suffers little birds to sing,
And is not careful what they mean thereby,
Knowing that with the shadow of his wing,
He can at pleasure stint their melody."
[210] Harting's "Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 33.
_Goose._ This bird was the subject[211] of many quaint proverbial
phrases often used in the old popular writers. Thus, a _tailor's goose_
was a jocular name for his pressing-iron, probably from its being often
roasting before the fire, an allusion to which occurs in "Macbeth" (ii.
3): "come in, tailor; here you may roast your goose." The "wild-goose
chase," which is mentioned in "Romeo and Juliet" (ii. 4)--"Nay, if thy
wits run the wild-goose chase, I have done"--was a kind of horse-race,
which resembled the flight of wild geese. Two horses were started
together, and whichever rider could get the lead, the other was obliged
to follow him over whatever ground the foremost jockey chose to go. That
horse which could distance the other won the race. This reckless sport
is mentioned by Burton, in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," as a recreation
much in vogue in his time among gentlemen. The term "Winchester goose"
was a cant phrase for a certain venereal disease, because the stews in
Southwark were under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Winchester, to
whom Gloster tauntingly applies the term in the following passage ("1
Henry VI.," i. 3):
"Winchester goose! I cry--a rope! a rope!"
[211] Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 378.
In "Troilus and Cressida" (v. 10) there is a further allusion:
"Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss."
Ben Jonson[212] calls it:
"the Winchestrian goose,
Bred on the banke in time of Popery,
When Venus there maintain'd the mystery."
[212] "Execration against Vulcan," 1640, p. 37.
"Plucking geese" was formerly a barbarous sport of boys ("Merry Wives of
Windsor," v. 1), which consisted in stripping a living goose of its
feathers.[213]
[213] Singer's "Notes," 1875, vol. i. p. 283.
In "Coriolanus" (i. 4), the goose is spoken of as the emblem of
cowardice. Marcius says:
"You souls of geese,
That bear the shapes of men, how have you run
From slaves that apes would beat!"
_Goldfinch._ The Warwickshire name[214] for this bird is "Proud Tailor,"
to which, some commentators think, the words in "1 Henry IV." (iii. 1)
refer:
"_Lady P._ I will not sing.
_Hotsp._ 'Tis the next way to turn tailor, or be red-breast teacher."
[214] See "Archæologia," vol. iii. p. 33.
It has, therefore, been suggested that the passage should be read thus:
"'Tis the next way to turn tailor, or red-breast teacher," _i. e._, "to
turn teacher of goldfinches or redbreasts."[215] Singer,[216] however,
explains the words thus: "Tailors, like weavers, have ever been
remarkable for their vocal skill. Percy is jocular in his mode of
persuading his wife to sing; and this is a humorous turn which he gives
to his argument, 'Come, sing.' 'I will not sing.' ''Tis the next [_i.
e._, the readiest, nearest] way to turn tailor, or redbreast
teacher'--the meaning being, to sing is to put yourself upon a level with
tailors and teachers of birds."
[215] Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 693. Some think that the
bullfinch is meant.
[216] Singer's "Notes," 1875, vol. v. p. 82; see Dyce's
"Glossary," p. 433.
_Gull._ Shakespeare often uses this word as synonymous with fool. Thus
in "Henry V." (iii. 6) he says:
"Why, 'tis a gull, a fool."
The same play upon the word occurs in "Othello" (v. 2), and in "Timon of
Athens" (ii. 1). In "Twelfth Night" (v. 1) Malvolio asks:
"Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd,
Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,
And made the most notorious geck and gull
That e'er invention played on? tell me why."
It is also used to express a trick or imposition, as in "Much Ado About
Nothing" (ii. 3): "I should think this a gull, but that the
white-bearded fellow speaks it."[217] "Gull-catchers," or
"gull-gropers," to which reference is made in "Twelfth Night" (ii. 5),
where Fabian, on the entry of Maria, exclaims: "Here comes my noble
gull-catcher," were the names by which sharpers[218] were known in
Shakespeare's time.[219] The "gull-catcher" was generally an old
usurer, who lent money to a gallant at an ordinary, who had been
unfortunate in play.[220] Decker devotes a chapter to this character in
his "Lanthorne and Candle-light," 1612. According to him, "the
gull-groper is commonly an old mony-monger, who having travailed through
all the follyes of the world in his youth, knowes them well, and shunnes
them in his age, his whole felicitie being to fill his bags with golde
and silver." The person so duped was termed a gull, and the trick also.
In that disputed passage in "The Tempest" (ii. 2), where Caliban,
addressing Trinculo, says:
"sometimes I'll get thee
Young scamels from the rock."
some think that the sea-mew, or sea-gull, is intended,[221] sea-mall, or
sea-mell, being still a provincial name for this bird. Mr. Stevenson, in
his "Birds of Norfolk" (vol. ii. p. 260), tells us that "the female
bar-tailed godwit is called a 'scammell' by the gunners of Blakeney. But
as this bird is not a rock-breeder,[222] it cannot be the one intended
in the present passage, if we regard it as an accurate description from
a naturalist's point of view." Holt says that "scam" is a limpet, and
scamell probably a diminutive. Mr. Dyce[223] reads "scamels," _i. e._,
the kestrel, stannel, or windhover, which breeds in rocky situations and
high cliffs on our coasts. He also further observes that this accords
well with the context "from the rock," and adds that staniel or stannyel
occurs in "Twelfth Night" (ii. 5), where all the old editions exhibit
the gross misprint "stallion."
[217] Some doubt exists as to the derivation of _gull_. Nares
says it is from the old French _guiller_. Tooke holds that
gull, guile, wile, and guilt are all from the Anglo-Saxon
"wiglian, gewiglian," that by which any one is deceived.
Harting's "Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 267.
[218] See D'Israeli's "Curiosities of Literature," vol. iii. p. 84.
[219] See Thornbury's "Shakespeare's England," vol. i. pp. 311-322.
[220] Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 394.
[221] Harting's "Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 269.
[222] Aldis Wright's "Notes to 'The Tempest'," 1875, pp. 120, 121.
[223] See Dyce's "Shakespeare," vol. i. p. 245.
_Hawk._ The diversion of catching game with hawks was very popular in
Shakespeare's time,[224] and hence, as might be expected, we find many
scattered allusions to it throughout his plays. The training of a hawk
for the field was an essential part of the education of a young Saxon
nobleman; and the present of a well-trained hawk was a gift to be
welcomed by a king. Edward the Confessor spent much of his leisure time
in either hunting or hawking; and in the reign of Edward III. we read
how the Bishop of Ely attended the service of the church at Bermondsey,
Southwark, leaving his hawk in the cloister, which in the meantime was
stolen--the bishop solemnly excommunicating the thieves. On one occasion
Henry VIII. met with a serious accident when pursuing his hawk at
Hitchin, in Hertfordshire. In jumping over a ditch his pole broke, and
he fell headlong into the muddy water, whence he was with some
difficulty rescued by one of his followers. Sir Thomas More, writing in
the reign of Henry VIII., describing the state of manhood, makes a young
man say:
"Man-hod I am, therefore I me delyght
To hunt and hawke, to nourish up and fede
The greyhounde to the course, the hawke to th' flight,
And to bestryde a good and lusty stede."
[224] See Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," 1876, pp. 60-97, and
"Book of Days," 1863, vol. ii. pp. 211-213; Smith's "Festivals,
Games, and Amusements," 1831, p. 174.
In noticing, then, Shakespeare's allusions to this sport, we have a good
insight into its various features, and also gain a knowledge of the
several terms associated with it. Thus frequent mention is made of the
word "haggard"--a wild, untrained hawk--and in the following allegory
("Taming of the Shrew," iv. 1), where it occurs, much of the knowledge
of falconry is comprised:
"My falcon now is sharp, and passing empty;
And, till she stoop, she must not be full-gorged,[225]
For then she never looks upon her lure.
Another way I have to man my haggard,
To make her come, and know her keeper's call;
That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites
That bate, and beat, and will not be obedient.
She eat no meat to-day, nor none shall eat;
Last night she slept not, nor to-night she shall not."[226]
[225] "A hawk full-fed was untractable, and refused the
lure--the lure being a thing stuffed to look like the game the
hawk was to pursue; its lure was to tempt him back after he had
flown."
[226] In the same play (iv. 2) Hortensio describes Bianca as
"this proud disdainful haggard." See Dyce's "Glossary," p. 197;
Cotgrave's "French and English Dictionary," sub. "Hagard;" and
Latham's "Falconry," etc., 1658.
Further allusions occur in "Twelfth Night" (iii. 1), where Viola says of
the Clown:
"This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;
And to do that well craves a kind of wit:
He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons, and the time;
And, like the haggard, check at every feather
That comes before his eye."
In "Much Ado About Nothing" (iii. 1), Hero, speaking of Beatrice, says
that:
"her spirits are as coy and wild
As haggards of the rock."
And Othello (iii. 3), mistrusting Desdemona, and likening her to a hawk,
exclaims:
"if I do prove her haggard,--
I'd whistle her off."[227]
[227] "To whistle off," or dismiss by a whistle; a hawk seems
to have been usually sent off in this way against the wind when
sent in pursuit of prey.
The word "check" alluded to above was a term in falconry applied to a
hawk when she forsook her proper game and followed some other of
inferior kind that crossed her in her flight[228]--being mentioned again
in "Hamlet" (iv. 7), where the king says:
"If he be now return'd
As checking at his voyage."[229]
[228] Dyce's "Glossary," p. 77; see "Twelfth Night," ii. 5.
[229] The use of the word is not quite the same here, because
the voyage was Hamlet's "proper game," which he abandons.
"Notes to Hamlet," Clark and Wright, 1876, p. 205.
Another common expression used in falconry is "tower," applied to
certain hawks, etc., which tower aloft, soar spirally to a height in the
air, and thence swoop upon their prey. In "Macbeth" (ii. 4) we read of
"A falcon, towering in her pride of place;"
in "2 Henry VI." (ii. 1) Suffolk says,
"My lord protector's hawks do tower so well;"
and in "King John" (v. 2) the Bastard says,
"And like an eagle o'er his aery[230] towers."
[230] See Dyce's "Glossary," p. 456; Harting's "Ornithology of
Shakespeare," p. 39; Tuberville's "Booke of Falconrie," 1611,
p. 53.
The word "quarry," which occurs several times in Shakespeare's plays, in
some instances means the "game or prey sought." The etymology has, says
Nares, been variously attempted, but with little success. It may,
perhaps, originally have meant the square, or enclosure (_carrée_), into
which the game was driven (as is still practised in other countries),
and hence the application of it to the game there caught would be a
natural extension of the term. Randle Holme, in his "Academy of Armory"
(book ii. c. xi. p. 240), defines it as "the fowl which the hawk flyeth
at, whether dead or alive." It was also equivalent to a heap of
slaughtered game, as in the following passages. In "Coriolanus" (i. 1),
Caius Marcius says:
"I'd make a quarry
With thousands of these quarter'd slaves."
In "Macbeth" (iv. 3)[231] we read "the quarry of these murder'd deer;"
and in "Hamlet" (v. 2), "This quarry cries on havock."
[231] Also in i. 2 we read:
"And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
Show'd like a rebel's whore."
Some read "quarry;" see "Notes to Macbeth." Clark and Wright,
p. 77. It denotes the square-headed bolt of a cross-bow; see
Douce's "Illustrations," 1839, p. 227; Nares's "Glossary," vol.
ii. p. 206.
Another term in falconry is "stoop," or "swoop," denoting the hawk's
violent descent from a height upon its prey. In "Taming of the Shrew"
(iv. 1) the expression occurs, "till she stoop, she must not be
full-gorged." In "Henry V." (iv. 1), King Henry, speaking of the king,
says, "though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when
they stoop, they stoop with the like wing." In "Macbeth" (iv. 3), too,
Macduff, referring to the cruel murder of his children, exclaims, "What!
... at one fell swoop?"[232] Webster, in the "White Devil,"[233] says:
"If she [_i. e._, Fortune] give aught, she deals it in small parcels,
That she may take away all at one swoop."
[232] See Spenser's "Fairy Queen," book i. canto xi. l. 18:
"Low stooping with unwieldy sway."
[233] Ed. Dyce, 1857, p. 5.
Shakespeare gives many incidental allusions to the hawk's trappings.
Thus, in "Lucrece" he says:
"Harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells
With trembling fear, as fowl hear falcon's bells."
And in "As You Like It" (iii. 3),[234] Touchstone says, "As the ox hath
his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and the falcon her bells, so man hath
his desires." The object of these bells was to lead the falconer to the
hawk when in a wood or out of sight. In Heywood's play entitled "A Woman
Killed with Kindness," 1617, is a hawking scene, containing a striking
allusion to the hawk's bells. The dress of the hawk consisted of a
close-fitting hood of leather or velvet, enriched with needlework, and
surmounted with a tuft of colored feathers, for use as well as ornament,
inasmuch as they assisted the hand in removing the hood when the birds
for the hawk's attack came in sight. Thus in "Henry V." (iii. 7), the
Constable of France, referring to the valor of the Dauphin, says, "'Tis
a hooded valour; and when it appears, it will bate."[235] And again, in
"Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 2), Juliet says:
"Hood my unmann'd[236] blood, bating in my cheeks."
[234] See "3 Henry VI." i. 1.
[235] A quibble is perhaps intended between bate, the term of
falconry, and abate, _i. e._, fall off, dwindle. "Bate is a
term in falconry, to flutter the wings as preparing for flight,
particularly at the sight of prey." In '1 Henry IV.' (iv. 1):
"'All plumed like estridges, that with the wind
Bated, like eagles having lately bathed.'"
--Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 60.
[236] "Unmann'd" was applied to a hawk not tamed.
The "jesses" were two short straps of leather or silk, which were
fastened to each leg of a hawk, to which was attached a swivel, from
which depended the leash or strap which the falconer[237] twisted round
his hand. Othello (iii. 3) says:
"Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings."
[237] See Singer's "Notes to Shakespeare," 1875, vol. x. p. 86;
Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 448.
We find several allusions to the training of hawks.[238] They were
usually trained by being kept from sleep, it having been customary for
the falconers to sit up by turns and "watch" the hawk, and keep it from
sleeping, sometimes for three successive nights. Desdemona, in "Othello"
(iii. 3), says:
"my lord shall never rest;
I'll watch him tame and talk him out of patience;
His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift;
I'll intermingle everything he does
With Cassio's suit."
[238] See passage in "Taming of the Shrew," iv. 1, already
referred to, p. 122.
So, in Cartwright's "Lady Errant" (ii. 2):
"We'll keep you as they do hawks,
Watching until you leave your wildness."
In "The Merry Wives of Windsor" (v. 5), where Page says,
"Nay, do not fly: I think we have watch'd you now,"
the allusion is, says Staunton, to this method employed to tame or
"reclaim" hawks.
Again, in "Othello" (iii. 3),[239] Iago exclaims:
"She that, so young, could give out such a seeming,
To seel her father's eyes up close as oak;"
in allusion to the practice of seeling a hawk, or sewing up her eyelids,
by running a fine thread through them, in order to make her tractable
and endure the hood of which we have already spoken.[240] King Henry ("2
Henry IV." iii. 1), in his soliloquy on sleep, says:
"Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge."
[239] Also in same play, i. 3.
[240] Turbervile, in his "Booke of Falconrie," 1575, gives some
curious directions as "how to seele a hawke;" we may compare
similar expressions in "Antony and Cleopatra," iii. 13; v. 2.
In Spenser's "Fairy Queen" (I. vii. 23), we read:
"Mine eyes no more on vanity shall feed,
But sealed up with death, shall have their deadly meed."
It was a common notion that if a dove was let loose with its eyes so
closed it would fly straight upwards, continuing to mount till it fell
down through mere exhaustion.[241]
[241] Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. pp. 777, 778; cf. Beaumont
and Fletcher, "Philaster," v. 1.
In "Cymbeline" (iii. 4), Imogen, referring to Posthumus, says:
"I grieve myself
To think, when thou shalt be disedged by her
That now thou tir'st on,"--
this passage containing two metaphorical expressions from falconry. A
bird was said to be _disedged_ when the keenness of its appetite was
taken away by _tiring_, or feeding upon some tough or hard substance
given to it for that purpose. In "3 Henry VI." (i. 1), the king says:
"that hateful duke,
Whose haughty spirit, winged with desire,
Will cost my crown, and like an empty eagle
Tire on the flesh of me and of my son."
In "Timon of Athens" (iii. 6), one of the lords says: "Upon that were
my thoughts tiring, when we encountered."
In "Venus and Adonis," too, we find a further allusion:
"Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast,
Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh, and bone," etc.
Among other allusions to the hawk may be mentioned one in "Measure for
Measure" (iii. 1):
"This outward-sainted deputy,
Whose settled visage and deliberate word
Nips youth i' the head, and follies doth _emmew_,
As falcon doth the fowl"
--the word "emmew" signifying the place where hawks were shut up during
the time they moulted. In "Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 4), Lady Capulet says
of Juliet:
"To-night she's mew'd up to her heaviness;"
and in "Taming of the Shrew" (i. 1), Gremio, speaking of Bianca to
Signor Baptista, says: "Why will you mew her?"
When the wing or tail feathers of a hawk were dropped, forced out, or
broken, by any accident, it was usual to supply or repair as many as
were deficient or damaged, an operation called "to imp[242] a hawk."
Thus, in "Richard II." (ii. 1), Northumberland says:
"If, then, we shall shake off our slavish yoke,
Imp out our drooping country's broken wing."
[242] Imp, from Anglo-Saxon, _impan_, to graft. Turbervile has
a whole chapter on "The way and manner how to ympe a hawke's
feather, howsoever it be broken or bruised."
So Massinger, in his "Renegado" (v. 8), makes Asambeg say:
"strive to imp
New feathers to the broken wings of time."
Hawking was sometimes called birding.[243] In the "Merry Wives of
Windsor" (iii. 3) Master Page says: "I do invite you to-morrow morning
to my house to breakfast; after, we'll a-birding together, I have a
fine hawk for the bush." In the same play (iii. 5) Dame Quickly,
speaking of Mistress Ford, says: "Her husband goes this morning
a-birding;" and Mistress Ford says (iv. 2): "He's a-birding, sweet Sir
John." The word hawk, says Mr. Harting, is invariably used by
Shakespeare in its generic sense; and in only two instances does he
allude to a particular species. These are the kestrel and sparrow-hawk.
In "Twelfth Night" (ii. 5) Sir Toby Belch, speaking of Malvolio, as he
finds the letter which Maria has purposely dropped in his path, says:
"And with what wing the staniel[244] checks at it"
--staniel being a corruption of stangdall, a name for the kestrel
hawk.[245] "Gouts" is the technical term for the spots on some parts of
the plumage of a hawk, and perhaps Shakespeare uses the word in allusion
to a phrase in heraldry. Macbeth (ii. 1), speaking of the dagger, says:
"I see thee still,
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood."
[243] Harting's "Ornithology of Shakspeare," p. 72.
[244] The reading of the folios here is stallion; but the word
wing, and the falconer's term _checks_, prove that the bird
must be meant. See Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 832.
[245] See kestrel and sparrow-hawk.
_Heron._ This bird was frequently flown at by falconers. Shakespeare, in
"Hamlet" (ii. 2), makes Hamlet say, "I am but mad north-north-west; when
the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw;" handsaw being a
corruption of "heronshaw," or "hernsew," which is still used, in the
provincial dialects, for a heron. In Suffolk and Norfolk it is
pronounced "harnsa," from which to "handsaw" is but a single step.[246]
Shakespeare here alludes to a proverbial saying, "He knows not a hawk
from a handsaw."[247] Mr. J. C. Heath[248] explains the passage thus:
"The expression obviously refers to the sport of hawking. Most birds,
especially one of heavy flight like the heron, when roused by the
falconer or his dog, would fly down or with the wind, in order to
escape. When the wind is from the north the heron flies towards the
south, and the spectator may be dazzled by the sun, and be unable to
distinguish the hawk from the heron. On the other hand, when the wind is
southerly the heron flies towards the north, and it and the pursuing
hawk are clearly seen by the sportsman, who then has his back to the
sun, and without difficulty knows the hawk from the hernsew."
[246] "Notes to Hamlet," Clark and Wright, 1876, p. 159.
[247] Ray's "Proverbs," 1768, p. 196.
[248] Quoted in "Notes to Hamlet," by Clark and Wright, p. 159;
see Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 416.
_Jay._ From its gay and gaudy plumage this bird has been used for a
loose woman, as "Merry Wives of Windsor" (iii. 3): "we'll teach him to
know turtles from jays," _i. e._, to distinguish honest women from loose
ones. Again, in "Cymbeline" (iii. 4), Imogen says:
"Some jay of Italy,
Whose mother was her painting,[249] hath betray'd him."
[249] That is, made by art: the creature not of nature, but of
painting; cf. "Taming of the Shrew," iv. 3; "The Tempest," ii. 2.
_Kestrel._ A hawk of a base, unserviceable breed,[250] and therefore
used by Spenser, in his "Fairy Queen" (II. iii. 4), to signify base:
"Ne thought of honour ever did assay
His baser breast, but in his kestrell kynd
A pleasant veine of glory he did fynd."
[250] Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 482.
By some[251] it is derived from "coystril," a knave or peasant, from
being the hawk formerly used by persons of inferior rank. Thus, in
"Twelfth Night" (i. 3), we find "coystrill," and in "Pericles" (iv. 6)
"coystrel." The name kestrel, says Singer,[252] for an inferior kind of
hawk, was evidently a corruption of the French _quercelle_ or
_quercerelle_, and originally had no connection with coystril, though in
later times they may have been confounded. Holinshed[253] classes
coisterels with lackeys and women, the unwarlike attendants on an army.
The term was also given as a nickname to the emissaries employed by the
kings of England in their French wars. Dyce[254] also considers kestrel
distinct from coistrel.
[251] Harting's "Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 74.
[252] "Notes," vol. iii. pp. 357, 358.
[253] "Description of England," vol. i. p. 162.
[254] "Glossary to Shakespeare," p. 88.
_Kingfisher._ It was a common belief in days gone by that during the
days the halcyon or kingfisher was engaged in hatching her eggs, the sea
remained so calm that the sailor might venture upon it without incurring
risk of storm or tempest; hence this period was called by Pliny and
Aristotle "the halcyon days," to which allusion is made in "1 Henry VI."
(i. 2):
"Expect Saint Martin's summer, halcyon days."
Dryden also refers to this notion:
"Amidst our arms as quiet you shall be,
As halcyons brooding on a winter's sea."
Another superstition connected with this bird occurs in "King Lear" (ii.
2), where the Earl of Kent says:
"turn their halcyon beaks
With every gale and vary of their masters;"
the prevalent idea being that a dead kingfisher, suspended from a cord,
would always turn its beak in that direction from whence the wind blew.
Marlowe, in his "Jew of Malta" (i. 1), says:
"But now how stands the wind?
Into what corner peers my halcyon's bill?"
Occasionally one may still see this bird hung up in cottages, a remnant,
no doubt, of this old superstition.[255]
[255] Sir Thomas Browne's "Vulgar Errors," bk. iii. chap. 10.
_Kite._ This bird was considered by the ancients to be unlucky. In
"Julius Cæsar" (v. 1) Cassius says:
"ravens, crows, and kites,
Fly o'er our heads, and downward look on us."
In "Cymbeline" (i. 2), too, Imogen says,
"I chose an eagle,
And did avoid a puttock,"
puttock, here, being a synonym sometimes applied to the kite.[256]
Formerly the kite became a term of reproach from its ignoble habits.
Thus, in "Antony and Cleopatra" (iii. 13), Antony exclaims, "you kite!"
and King Lear (i. 4) says to Goneril, "Detested kite! thou liest." Its
intractable disposition is alluded to in "Taming of the Shrew," by
Petruchio (iv. 1). A curious peculiarity of this bird is noticed in
"Winter's Tale" (iv. 3), where Autolycus says: "My traffic is sheets;
when the kite builds, look to lesser linen"--meaning that his practice
was to steal sheets; leaving the smaller linen to be carried away by the
kites, who will occasionally carry it off to line their nests.[257] Mr.
Dyce[258] quotes the following remarks of Mr. Peck on this passage:
"Autolycus here gives us to understand that he is a thief of the first
class. This he explains by an allusion to an odd vulgar notion. The
common people, many of them, think that if any one can find a kite's
nest when she hath young, before they are fledged, and sew up their back
doors, so as they cannot mute, the mother-kite, in compassion to their
distress, will steal lesser linen, as caps, cravats, ruffles, or any
other such small matters as she can best fly with, from off the hedges
where they are hanged to dry after washing, and carry them to her nest,
and there leave them, if possible to move the pity of the first comer,
to cut the thread and ease them of their misery."
[256] Also to the buzzard, which see, p. 100.
[257] Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. iv. p. 67.
[258] "Glossary," p. 243.
_Lapwing._ Several interesting allusions are made by Shakespeare to this
eccentric bird. It was a common notion that the young lapwings ran out
of the shell with part of it sticking on their heads, in such haste were
they to be hatched. Horatio ("Hamlet," v. 2) says of Osric: "This
lapwing runs away with the shell on his head."
It was, therefore, regarded as the symbol of a forward fellow.
Webster,[259] in the "White Devil" (1857, p. 13), says:
"forward lapwing!
He flies with the shell on's head."
[259] "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 495; see Yarrell's "History of
British Birds," 2d edition, vol. ii. p. 482.
The lapwing, like the partridge, is also said to draw pursuers from her
nest by fluttering along the ground in an opposite direction or by
crying in other places. Thus, in the "Comedy of Errors" (iv. 2),
Shakespeare says:
"Far from her nest the lapwing cries away."
Again, in "Measure for Measure" (i. 4), Lucio exclaims:
"though 'tis my familiar sin,
With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest,
Tongue far from heart."
Once more, in "Much Ado About Nothing" (iii. 1), we read:
"For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs,
Close by the ground, to hear our conference."
Several, too, of our older poets refer to this peculiarity. In Ben
Jonson's "Underwoods" (lviii.) we are told:
"Where he that knows will like a lapwing fly,
Farre from the nest, and so himself belie."
Through thus alluring intruders from its nest, the lapwing became a
symbol of insincerity; and hence originated the proverb, "The lapwing
cries tongue from heart," or, "The lapwing cries most, farthest from her
nest."[260]
[260] Ray's "Proverbs," 1768, p. 199.
_Lark._ Shakespeare has bequeathed to us many exquisite passages
referring to the lark, full of the most sublime pathos and lofty
conceptions. Most readers are doubtless acquainted with that superb song
in "Cymbeline" (ii. 3), where this sweet songster is represented as
singing "at heaven's gate;" and again, as the bird of dawn, it is
described in "Venus and Adonis," thus:
"Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest,
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast
The sun ariseth in his majesty."[261]
[261] Cf. "Midsummer-Night's Dream" (iv. 1). "the morning
lark;" "Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 5), "the lark, the herald of
the morn."
In "Love's Labour's Lost" (v. 2, song) we have a graphic touch of
pastoral life:
"When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks."
The words of Portia, too, in "Merchant of Venice" (v. 1), to sing "as
sweetly as the lark," have long ago passed into a proverb.
It was formerly a current saying that the lark and toad changed eyes, to
which Juliet refers in "Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 5):
"Some say, the lark and loathed toad change eyes;"
Warburton says this popular fancy originated in the toad having very
fine eyes, and the lark very ugly ones. This tradition was formerly
expressed in a rustic rhyme:
"to heav'n I'd fly,
But that the toad beguil'd me of mine eye."
In "Henry VIII." (iii. 2) the Earl of Surrey, in denouncing Wolsey,
alludes to a curious method of capturing larks, which was effected by
small mirrors and red cloth. These, scaring the birds, made them crouch,
while the fowler drew his nets over them:
"let his grace go forward,
And dare us with his cap, like larks."
In this case the cap was the scarlet hat of the cardinal, which it was
intended to use as a piece of red cloth. The same idea occurs in
Skelton's "Why Come Ye not to Court?" a satire on Wolsey:
"The red hat with his lure
Bringeth all things under cure."
The words "tirra-lirra" ("Winter's Tale," iv. 3) are a fanciful
combination of sounds,[262] meant to imitate the lark's note; borrowed,
says Nares, from the French _tire-lire_. Browne, "British Pastorals"
(bk. i. song 4), makes it "teery-leery." In one of the Coventry pageants
there is the following old song sung by the shepherds at the birth of
Christ, which contains the expression:
"As I out rode this endenes night,
Of three joli sheppards I sawe a syght,
And all aboute there fold a stare shone bright,
They sang terli terlow,
So mereli the sheppards their pipes can blow."
[262] Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 886; Douce's
"Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 217.
In Scotland[263] and the north of England the peasantry say that if one
is desirous of knowing what the lark says, he must lie down on his back
in the field and listen, and he will then hear it say:
"Up in the lift go we,
Tehee, tehee, tehee, tehee!
There's not a shoemaker on the earth
Can make a shoe to me, to me!
Why so, why so, why so?
Because my heel is as long as my toe."
[263] Chambers's "Popular Rhymes of Scotland," 1870, p. 192.
_Magpie._ It was formerly known as magot-pie, probably from the French
_magot_, a monkey, because the bird chatters and plays droll tricks like
a monkey. It has generally been regarded with superstitious awe as a
mysterious bird,[264] and is thus alluded to in "Macbeth" (iii. 4):
"Augurs and understood relations, have
By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth
The secret'st man of blood."
[264] See "English Folk-Lore," p. 81.
And again, in "3 Henry VI." (v. 6), it is said:
"chattering pies in dismal discords sung."
There are numerous rhymes[265] relating to the magpie, of which we
subjoin, as a specimen, one prevalent in the north of England:
"One is sorrow, two mirth,
Three a wedding, four a birth,
Five heaven, six hell,
Seven the de'il's ain sell."
[265] Henderson's "Folk-Lore of Northern Counties," p. 127.
In Devonshire, in order to avert the ill-luck from seeing a magpie, the
peasant spits over his right shoulder three times, and in Yorkshire
various charms are in use. One is to raise the hat as a salutation, and
then to sign the cross on the breast; and another consists in making the
same sign by crossing the thumbs. It is a common notion in Scotland that
magpies flying near the windows of a house portend a speedy death to one
of its inmates. The superstitions associated with the magpie are not
confined to this country, for in Sweden[266] it is considered the
witch's bird, belonging to the evil one and the other powers of night.
In Denmark, when a magpie perches on a house it is regarded as a sign
that strangers are coming.
[266] Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," vol. ii. p. 34; Brand's
"Pop. Antiq.," 1849, pp. 215, 216; see also Harland and
Wilkinson's "Lancashire Folk-Lore," 1867, pp. 143, 145.
_Martin._ The martin, or martlet, which is called in "Macbeth" (i. 6)
the "guest of summer," as being a migratory bird, has been from the
earliest times treated with superstitious respect--it being considered
unlucky to molest or in any way injure its nest. Thus, in the "Merchant
of Venice" (ii. 9), the Prince of Arragon says:
"the martlet
Builds in the weather, on the outward wall,
Even in the force and road of casualty."
Forster[267] says that the circumstance of this bird's nest being built
so close to the habitations of man indicates that it has long enjoyed
freedom from molestation. There is a popular rhyme still current in the
north of England:
"The martin and the swallow
Are God Almighty's bow and arrow."
[267] "Atmospherical Researches," 1823, p. 262.
_Nightingale._ The popular error that the nightingale sings with its
breast impaled upon a thorn is noticed by Shakespeare, who makes Lucrece
say:
"And whiles against a thorn thou bear'st thy part
To keep thy sharp woes waking."
In the "Passionate Pilgrim" (xxi.) there is an allusion:
"Everything did banish moan,
Save the nightingale alone.
She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
Lean'd her breast up-till a thorn,
And there sung the dolefull'st ditty,
That to hear it was great pity."
Beaumont and Fletcher, in "The Faithful Shepherdess" (v. 3), speak of
"The nightingale among the thick-leaved spring,
That sits alone in sorrow, and doth sing
Whole nights away in mourning."
Sir Thomas Browne[268] asks "Whether the nightingale's sitting with her
breast against a thorn be any more than that she placeth some prickles
on the outside of her nest, or roosteth in thorny, prickly places, where
serpents may least approach her?"[269] In the "Zoologist" for 1862 the
Rev. A. C. Smith mentions "the discovery, on two occasions, of a strong
thorn projecting upwards in the centre of the nightingale's nest."
Another notion is that the nightingale never sings by day; and thus
Portia, in "Merchant of Venice" (v. 1), says:
"I think,
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren."
[268] Sir Thomas Browne's Works, 1852, vol. i. p. 378.
[269] See "Book of Days," vol. i. p. 515.
Such, however, is not the case, for this bird often sings as sweetly in
the day as at night-time. There is an old superstition[270] that the
nightingale sings all night, to keep itself awake, lest the glow-worm
should devour her. The classical fable[271] of the unhappy Philomela
turned into a nightingale, when her sister Progne was changed to a
swallow, has doubtless given rise to this bird being spoken of as _she_;
thus Juliet tells Romeo (iii. 5):
"It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree;
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale."
[270] Southey's "Commonplace Book." 5th series. 1851, p. 305.
[271] Ovid's "Metamorphoses," bk. vi. ll. 455-676; "Titus
Andronicus," iv. 1.
Sometimes the nightingale is termed Philomel, as in "Midsummer-Night's
Dream" (ii. 2, song):[272]
"Philomel, with melody,
Sing in our sweet lullaby."
[272] Cf. "Lucrece," ll. 1079, 1127.
_Osprey._ This bird,[273] also called the sea-eagle, besides having a
destructive power of devouring fish, was supposed formerly to have a
fascinating influence, both which qualities are alluded to in the
following passage in "Coriolanus" (iv. 7):
"I think he'll be to Rome,
As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it
By sovereignty of nature."
[273] See Yarrell's "History of British Birds," 1856, vol. i.
p. 30; Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 620; also Pennant's
"British Zoology;" see Peele's Play of the "Battle of Alcazar"
(ii. 3), 1861, p. 28.
Drayton, in his "Polyolbion" (song xxv.), mentions the same fascinating
power of the osprey:
"The osprey, oft here seen, though seldom here it breeds,
Which over them the fish no sooner do espy,
But, betwixt him and them by an antipathy,
Turning their bellies up, as though their death they saw,
They at his pleasure lie, to stuff his gluttonous maw."
_Ostrich._ The extraordinary digestion of this bird[274] is said to be
shown by its swallowing iron and other hard substances.[275] In "2 Henry
VI." (iv. 10), the rebel Cade says to Alexander Iden: "Ah, villain, thou
wilt betray me, and get a thousand crowns of the king by carrying my
head to him; but I'll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my
sword like a great pin, ere thou and I part." Cuvier,[276] speaking of
this bird, says, "It is yet so voracious, and its senses of taste and
smell are so obtuse, that it devours animal and mineral substances
indiscriminately, until its enormous stomach is completely full. It
swallows without any choice, and merely as it were to serve for ballast,
wood, stones, grass, iron, copper, gold, lime, or, in fact, any other
substance equally hard, indigestible, and deleterious." Sir Thomas
Browne,[277] writing on this subject, says, "The ground of this conceit
in its swallowing down fragments of iron, which men observing, by a
forward illation, have therefore conceived it digesteth them, which is
an inference not to be admitted, as being a fallacy of the consequent."
In Loudon's "Magazine of Natural History" (No. 6, p. 32) we are told of
an ostrich having been killed by swallowing glass.
[274] Called _estridge_ in "1 Henry IV." iv. 1.
[275] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 365.
[276] "Animal Kingdom," 1829, vol. viii. p. 427.
[277] See Sir Thomas Browne's Works, 1852, vol. i. pp. 334-337.
_Owl._ The dread attached to this unfortunate bird is frequently spoken
of by Shakespeare, who has alluded to several of the superstitions
associated with it. At the outset, many of the epithets ascribed to it
show the prejudice with which it was regarded--being in various places
stigmatized as "the vile owl," in "Troilus and Cressida" (ii. I); and
the "obscure bird," in "Macbeth" (ii. 3), etc. From the earliest period
it has been considered a bird of ill-omen, and Pliny tells us how, on
one occasion, even Rome itself underwent a lustration, because one of
them strayed into the Capitol. He represents it also as a funereal bird,
a monster of the night, the very abomination of human kind. Vergil[278]
describes its death-howl from the top of the temple by night, a
circumstance introduced as a precursor of Dido's death. Ovid,[279] too,
constantly speaks of this bird's presence as an evil omen; and indeed
the same notions respecting it may be found among the writings of most
of the ancient poets. This superstitious awe in which the owl is held
may be owing to its peculiar look, its occasional and uncertain
appearance, its loud and dismal cry,[280] as well as to its being the
bird of night.[281] It has generally been associated with calamities and
deeds of darkness.[282] Thus, its weird shriek pierces the ear of Lady
Macbeth (ii. 2), while the murder is being committed:
"Hark!--Peace!
It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern'st good night."
[278] "Æneid," bk. iv. l. 462.
[279] "Metamorphoses," bk. v. l. 550; bk. vi. l. 432; bk. x. l.
453; bk. xv. l. 791.
[280] "2 Henry VI." iii. 2; iv. 1.
[281] "Titus Andronicus," ii. 3.
[282] Cf. "Lucrece," l. 165; see Yarrell's "History of British
Birds," vol. i. p. 122.
And when the murderer rushes in, exclaiming,
"I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?"
she answers:
"I heard the owl scream."
Its appearance at a birth has been said to foretell ill-luck to the
infant, a superstition to which King Henry, in "3 Henry VI." (v. 6),
addressing Gloster, refers:
"The owl shriek'd at thy birth, an evil sign."
Its cries[283] have been supposed to presage death, and, to quote the
words of the _Spectator_, "a screech-owl at midnight has alarmed a
family more than a band of robbers." Thus, in "A Midsummer-Night's
Dream" (v. 1), we are told how
"the screech-owl, screeching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in woe
In remembrance of a shroud;"
and in "1 Henry VI." (iv. 2), it is called the "ominous and fearful owl
of death." Again, in "Richard III." (iv. 4), where Richard is
exasperated by the bad news, he interrupts the third messenger by
saying:
"Out on ye, owls! nothing but songs of death?"
[283] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 209.
The owl by day is considered by some equally ominous, as in "3 Henry
VI." (v. 4):
"the owl by day,
If he arise, is mock'd and wonder'd at."
And in "Julius Cæsar" (i. 3), Casca says:
"And yesterday the bird of night did sit,
Even at noon-day, upon the market-place,
Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies
Do so conjointly meet, let not men say,
'These are their reasons,--they are natural;'
For, I believe, they are portentous things
Unto the climate that they point upon."
Considering, however, the abhorrence with which the owl is generally
regarded, it is not surprising that the "owlet's wing"[284] should form
an ingredient of the caldron in which the witches in "Macbeth" (iv. 1)
prepared their "charm of powerful trouble." The owl is, too, in all
probability, represented by Shakespeare as a witch,[285] a companion of
the fairies in their moonlight gambols. In "Comedy of Errors" (ii. 2),
Dromio of Syracuse says:
"This is the fairy land: O, spite of spites!
We talk with goblins, owls, and elvish sprites.
If we obey them not, this will ensue,
They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue!"
[284] The spelling of the folios is "howlets." In Holland's
translation of Pliny (chap. xvii. book x.), we read "of owlls
or howlets." Cotgrave gives "Hulotte."
[285] Halliwell-Phillipps's, "Handbook Index," 1866, p. 354.
Singer, in his Notes on this passage (vol. ii. p. 28) says: "It has been
asked, how should Shakespeare know that screech-owls were considered by
the Romans as witches?" Do these cavillers think that Shakespeare never
looked into a book? Take an extract from the Cambridge Latin Dictionary
(1594, 8vo), probably the very book he used: "Strix, a _scritche owle_;
an unluckie kind of bird (as they of olde time said) which sucked out
the blood of infants lying in their cradles; a witch, that changeth the
favour of children; an hagge or fairie." So in the "London Prodigal," a
comedy, 1605: "Soul, I think I am sure crossed or witch'd with an
owl."[286] In "The Tempest" (v. 1) Shakespeare introduces Ariel as
saying:
"Where the bee sucks, there suck I,
In a cowslip's bell I lie,
There I couch when owls do cry."
[286] See Dyce's "Glossary," p. 302.
Ariel,[287] who sucks honey for luxury in the cowslip's bell, retreats
thither for quiet when owls are abroad and screeching. According to an
old legend, the owl was originally a baker's daughter, to which allusion
is made in "Hamlet" (iv. 5), where Ophelia exclaims: "They say the owl
was a baker's daughter. Lord! we know what we are, but know not what we
may be." Douce[288] says the following story was current among the
Gloucestershire peasantry: "Our Saviour went into a baker's shop where
they were baking, and asked for some bread to eat; the mistress of the
shop immediately put a piece of dough into the oven to bake for him; but
was reprimanded by her daughter, who, insisting that the piece of dough
was too large, reduced it to a very small size; the dough, however,
immediately began to swell, and presently became a most enormous size,
whereupon the baker's daughter cried out, 'Heugh, heugh, heugh!' which
owl-like noise probably induced our Saviour to transform her into that
bird for her wickedness." Another version of the same story, as formerly
known in Herefordshire, substitutes a fairy in the place of our Saviour.
Similar legends are found on the Continent.[289]
[287] See Singer's "Notes to The Tempest," 1875, vol. i. p. 82.
[288] See _Gentleman's Magazine_, November, 1804, pp. 1083,
1084. Grimm's "Deutsche Mythologie."
[289] See Dasent's "Tales of the Norse," 1859, p. 230.
_Parrot._ The "popinjay," in "1 Henry IV." (i. 3), is another name for
the parrot--from the Spanish _papagayo_--a term which occurs in Browne's
"Pastorals" (ii. 65):
"Or like the mixture nature dothe display
Upon the quaint wings of the popinjay."
Its supposed restlessness before rain is referred to in "As You Like It"
(iv. 1): "More clamorous than a parrot against rain." It was formerly
customary to teach the parrot unlucky words, with which, when any one
was offended, it was the standing joke of the wise owner to say, "Take
heed, sir, my parrot prophesies"--an allusion to which custom we find in
"Comedy of Errors" (iv. 4), where Dromio of Ephesus says: "prophesy like
the parrot, _beware the rope's end_." To this Butler hints, where,
speaking of Ralpho's skill in augury, he says:[290]
"Could tell what subtlest parrots mean,
That speak and think contrary clean;
What member 'tis of whom they talk,
When they cry _rope_, and _walk, knave, walk_."
[290] "Hudibras," pt. i. ch. i.
The rewards given to parrots to encourage them to speak are mentioned in
"Troilus and Cressida" (v. 2):[291] "the parrot will not do more for an
almond." Hence, a proverb for the greatest temptation that could be put
before a man seems to have been "An almond for a parrot." To "talk like
a parrot" is a common proverb, a sense in which it occurs in "Othello"
(ii. 3).
[291] In "Much Ado About Nothing" (i. 1), Benedick likens
Beatrice to a "parrot-teacher," from her talkative powers.
_Peacock._ This bird was as proverbially used for a proud, vain fool as
the lapwing for a silly one. In this sense some would understand it in
the much-disputed passage in "Hamlet" (iii. 2):
"For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
This realm dismantled was
Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
A very, very--peacock."[292]
[292] This is the reading adopted by Singer.
The third and fourth folios read _pajock_,[293] the other editions have
"paiock," "paiocke," or "pajocke," and in the later quartos the word was
changed to "paicock" and "pecock," whence Pope printed peacock.
[293] "Notes to Hamlet," Clark and Wright, 1876, pp. 179, 180.
Dyce says that in Scotland the peacock is called the peajock. Some have
proposed to read _paddock_, and in the last scene Hamlet bestows this
opprobrious name upon the king. It has been also suggested to read
_puttock_, a kite.[294] The peacock has also been regarded as the emblem
of pride and arrogance, as in "1 Henry VI." (iii. 3):[295]
"Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while,
And, like a peacock, sweep along his tail;
We'll pull his plumes, and take away his train."
[294] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 645; Singer's
"Notes," vol. ix. p. 228.
[295] Cf. "Troilus and Cressida," iii. 3.
_Pelican._ There are several allusions by Shakespeare to the pelican's
piercing her own breast to feed her young. Thus, in "Hamlet" (iv. 5),
Laertes says:
"To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms;
And like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood."
And in "King Lear," where the young pelicans are represented as piercing
their mother's breast to drink her blood, an illustration of filial
impiety (iii. 4), the king says:
"Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers
Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
Judicious punishment! 'Twas this flesh begot
Those pelican daughters."[296]
[296] Cf. "Richard II." i. 1.
It is a common notion that the fable here alluded to is a classical one,
but this is an error. Shakespeare, says Mr. Harting, "was content to
accept the story as he found it, and to apply it metaphorically as the
occasion required." Mr. Houghton, in an interesting letter to "Land and
Water"[297] on this subject, remarks that the Egyptians believed in a
bird feeding its young with its blood, and this bird is none other than
the vulture. He goes on to say that the fable of the pelican doubtless
originated in the Patristic annotations on the Scriptures. The
ecclesiastical Fathers transferred the Egyptian story from the vulture
to the pelican, but magnified the story a hundredfold, for the blood of
the parent was not only supposed to serve as food for the young, but was
also able to reanimate the dead offspring. Augustine, commenting on
Psalm cii. 6--"I am like a pelican of the wilderness"--remarks: "These
birds [male pelicans] are said to kill their offspring by blows of their
beaks, and then to bewail their death for the space of three days. At
length, however, it is said that the mother inflicts a severe wound on
herself, pouring the flowing blood over the dead young ones, which
instantly brings them to life." To the same effect write Eustathius,
Isidorus, Epiphanius, and a host of other writers.[298]
[297] Mr. Harting, in his "Ornithology of Shakespeare," quotes
an interesting correspondence from "Land and Water" (1869), on
the subject.
[298] See Sir Thomas Browne's Works, 1852, vol. ii. pp. 1-4.
According to another idea[299] pelicans are hatched dead, but the cock
pelican then wounds his breast, and lets one drop of blood fall upon
each, and this quickens them.
[299] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. pp. 366, 367.
_Pheasant._ This bird is only once alluded to, in "Winter's Tale" (iv.
4), where the Clown jokingly says to the Shepherd, "Advocate's the
court-word for a pheasant; say, you have none."
_Phoenix._ Many allusions are made to this fabulous bird, which is said
to rise again from its own ashes. Thus, in "Henry VIII." (v. 4), Cranmer
tells how
"when
The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix,
Her ashes new create another heir,
As great in admiration as herself."
Again, in "3 Henry VI." (i. 4), the Duke of York exclaims:
"My ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth
A bird that will revenge upon you all."
Once more, in "1 Henry VI." (iv. 7), Sir William Lucy, speaking of
Talbot and those slain with him, predicts that
"from their ashes shall be rear'd
A phoenix that shall make all France afeard."[300]
[300] Cf. "The Tempest," iii. 3; "All's Well that Ends Well,"
i. 1; "Antony and Cleopatra," iii. 2; "Cymbeline," i. 6.
Sir Thomas Browne[301] tells us that there is but one phoenix in the
world, "which after many hundred years burns herself, and from the ashes
thereof ariseth up another." From the very earliest times there have
been countless traditions respecting this wonderful bird. Thus, its
longevity has been estimated from three hundred to fifteen hundred
years; and among the various localities assigned as its home are
Ethiopia, Arabia, Egypt, and India. In "The Phoenix and Turtle," it is
said,
"Let the bird of loudest lay
On the sole Arabian tree,
Herald sad and trumpet be."
[301] Works, 1852, vol. i. pp. 277-284.
Pliny says of this bird, "Howbeit, I cannot tell what to make of him;
and first of all, whether it be a tale or no, that there is never but
one of them in the whole world, and the same not commonly seen."
Malone[302] quotes from Lyly's "Euphues and his England" (p. 312, ed.
Arber): "For as there is but one phoenix in the world, so is there but
one tree in Arabia wherein she buyldeth;" and Florio's "New Worlde of
Wordes" (1598), "Rasin, a tree in Arabia, whereof there is but one
found, and upon it the phoenix sits."
[302] See Aldis Wright's "Notes to The Tempest," 1875, p. 129.
_Pigeon._ As carriers, these birds have been used from a very early
date, and the Castle of the Birds, at Bagdad, takes its name from the
pigeon-post which the old monks of the convent established. The building
has crumbled into ruins long ago by the lapse of time, but the bird
messengers of Bagdad became celebrated as far westward as Greece, and
were a regular commercial institution between the distant parts of Asia
Minor, Arabia, and the East.[303] In ancient Egypt, also, the carrier
breed was brought to great perfection, and, between the cities of the
Nile and the Red Sea, the old traders used to send word of their
caravans to each other by letters written on silk, and tied under the
wings of trained doves. In "Titus Andronicus" (iv. 3) Titus, on seeing a
clown enter with two pigeons, says:
"News, news from heaven! Marcus, the post is come.
Sirrah, what tidings? have you any letters?"
[303] _Daily Telegraph_, January 31, 1880; see Southey's
"Commonplace Book," 1849, 2d series, p. 447.
From the same play we also learn that it was customary to give a pair of
pigeons as a present. The Clown says to Saturninus (iv. 4), "I have
brought you a letter and a couple of pigeons here."[304]
[304] See _Dove_, pp. 114, 115.
In "Romeo and Juliet" (i. 3) the dove is used synonymously for pigeon,
where the nurse is represented as
"Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall."
Mr. Darwin, in his "Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication"
(vol. i. pp. 204, 205), has shown that from the very earliest times
pigeons have been kept in a domesticated state. He says: "The earliest
record of pigeons in a domesticated condition occurs in the fifth
Egyptian dynasty, about 3000 B.C.; but Mr. Birch, of the British Museum,
informs me that the pigeon appears in a bill of fare in the previous
dynasty. Domestic pigeons are mentioned in Genesis, Leviticus, and
Isaiah. Pliny informs us that the Romans gave immense prices for
pigeons; 'nay, they are come to this pass that they can reckon up their
pedigree and race.' In India, about the year 1600, pigeons were much
valued by Akbar Khan; 20,000 birds were carried about with the court."
In most countries, too, the breeding and taming of pigeons has been a
favorite recreation. The constancy of the pigeon has been proverbial
from time immemorial, allusions to which occur in "Winter's Tale" (iv.
3), and in "As You Like It" (iii. 3).
_Quail._ The quail was thought to be an amorous bird, and hence was
metaphorically used to denote people of a loose character.[305] In this
sense it is generally understood in "Troilus and Cressida" (v. 1):
"Here's Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough, and one that loves quails."
Mr. Harting,[306] however, thinks that the passage just quoted refers to
the practice formerly prevalent of keeping quails, and making them fight
like game-cocks. The context of the passage would seem to sanction the
former meaning. Quail fighting[307] is spoken of in "Antony and
Cleopatra" (ii. 3), where Antony, speaking of the superiority of Cæsar's
fortunes to his own, says:
"if we draw lots, he speeds;
His cocks do win the battle still of mine,
When it is all to nought; and his quails ever
Beat mine, inhoop'd, at odds."
[305] Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 704;
Halliwell-Phillipps's "Handbook Index to Shakespeare," 1866, p.
398; Dyce's "Glossary," p. 345; Singer's "Shakespeare," vol.
vii. p. 264.
[306] "Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 218.
[307] Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," 1876, pp. 19, 97, 677;
Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. ii. pp. 59, 60.
It appears that cocks as well as quails were sometimes made to fight
within a broad hoop--hence the term _inhoop'd_--to keep them from quitting
each other. Quail-fights were well known among the ancients, and
especially at Athens.[308] Julius Pollux relates that a circle was made,
in which the birds were placed, and he whose quail was driven out of
this circle lost the stake, which was sometimes money, and occasionally
the quails themselves. Another practice was to produce one of these
birds, which being first smitten with the middle finger, a feather was
then plucked from its head. If the quail bore this operation without
flinching, his master gained the stake, but lost it if he ran away. Some
doubt exists as to whether quail-fighting prevailed in the time of
Shakespeare. At the present day[309] the Sumatrans practise these quail
combats, and this pastime is common in some parts of Italy, and also in
China. Mr. Douce has given a curious print, from an elegant Chinese
miniature painting, which represents some ladies engaged at this
amusement, where the quails are actually inhooped.
[308] Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 367.
[309] Marsden's "History of Sumatra," 1811, p. 276.
_Raven._ Perhaps no bird is so universally unpopular as the raven, its
hoarse croak, in most countries, being regarded as ominous. Hence, as
might be expected, Shakespeare often refers to it, in order to make the
scene he depicts all the more vivid and graphic. In "Titus Andronicus"
(ii. 3), Tamora, describing "a barren detested vale," says:
"The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,
O'ercome with moss and baleful mistletoe:
Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds,
Unless the nightly owl or fatal raven."
And in "Julius Cæsar" (v. 1), Cassius tells us how ravens
"Fly o'er our heads, and downward look on us,
As we were sickly prey."[310]
[310] Cf. "2 Henry VI." iii. 2; "Troilus and Cressida," v. 2.
It seems that the superstitious dread[311] attaching to this bird has
chiefly arisen from its supposed longevity,[312] and its frequent
mention and agency in Holy Writ. By the Romans it was consecrated to
Apollo, and was believed to have a prophetic knowledge--a notion still
very prevalent. Thus, its supposed faculty[313] of "smelling death"
still renders its presence, or even its voice, ominous. Othello (iv. 1)
exclaims,
"O, it comes o'er my memory,
As doth the raven o'er the infected house,
Boding to all."
[311] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. pp. 211, 212.
[312] "English Folk-lore," 1878, p. 78.
[313] See Hunt's "Popular Romances of West of England," 1881, p. 380.
There is no doubt a reference here to the fanciful notion that it was a
constant attendant on a house infected with the plague. Most readers,
too, are familiar with that famous passage in "Macbeth" (i. 5) where
Lady Macbeth, having heard of the king's intention to stay at the
castle, exclaims,
"the raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty!"
We may compare Spenser's language in the "Fairy Queen" (bk. ii. c. vii.
l. 23):
"After him owles and night ravens flew,
The hateful messengers of heavy things,
Of death and dolor telling sad tidings."
And once more the following passage from Drayton's "Barons' Wars" (bk.
v. stanza 42) illustrates the same idea:
"The ominous raven often he doth hear,
Whose croaking him of following horror tells."
In "Much Ado About Nothing" (ii. 3), the "night-raven" is mentioned.
Benedick observes to himself: "I had as lief have heard the night-raven,
come what plague could have come after it." This inauspicious bird,
according to Steevens, is the owl; but this conjecture is evidently
wrong, "being at variance with sundry passages in our early writers, who
make a distinction between it and the night-raven."[314]
[314] Dyce's "Glossary," 1876, p. 288.
Thus Johnson, in his "Seven Champions of Christendom" (part i.), speaks
of "the dismal cry of night-ravens, ... and the fearefull sound of
schriek owles." Cotgrave regarded the "night-crow" and the "night-raven"
as synonymous; and Mr. Yarrell considered them only different names for
the night-heron.[315] In "3 Henry VI." (v. 6) King Henry says:
"The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time."
[315] See Harting's "Ornithology of Shakespeare," pp. 101, 102;
Yarrell's "History of British Birds," vol. ii. p. 581.
Goldsmith, in his "Animated Nature," calls the bittern the night-raven,
and says: "I remember, in the place where I was a boy, with what terror
the bird's note affected the whole village; they consider it as the
presage of some sad event, and generally found or made one to succeed
it. If any person in the neighborhood died, they supposed it could not
be otherwise, for the night-raven had foretold it; but if nobody
happened to die, the death of a cow or a sheep gave completion to the
prophecy."
According to an old belief the raven deserts its own young, to which
Shakespeare alludes in "Titus Andronicus" (ii. 3):
"Some say that ravens foster forlorn children,
The whilst their own birds famish in their nests."
"It was supposed that when the raven," says Mr. Harting,[316] "saw its
young ones newly hatched and covered with down, it conceived such an
aversion that it forsook them, and did not return to the nest until a
darker plumage had shown itself." To this belief the commentators
consider the Psalmist refers, when he says, "He giveth to the beast his
food, and to the young ravens which cry" (Psalm cxlvii. 9). We are told,
too, in Job, "Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones
cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat" (xxxviii. 41). Shakespeare,
in "As You Like It" (ii. 3), probably had the words of the Psalmist in
his mind:
"He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow."
[316] "Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 107.
The raven has from earliest times been symbolical of blackness, both in
connection with color and character. In "Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 2),
Juliet exclaims:
"O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!
Dove-feather'd raven!"[317]
[317] Cf. "Midsummer-Night's Dream," ii. 2; "Twelfth Night," v. 1.
Once more, ravens' feathers were formerly used by witches, from an old
superstition that the wings of this bird carried with them contagion
wherever they went. Hence, in "The Tempest" (i. 2), Caliban says:
"As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd
With raven's feather from unwholesome fen
Drop on you both!"
_Robin Redbreast._ According to a pretty notion,[318] this little bird
is said to cover with leaves any dead body it may chance to find
unburied; a belief which probably, in a great measure, originated in the
well-known ballad of the "Children in the Wood," although it seems to
have been known previously. Thus Singer quotes as follows from
"Cornucopia, or Divers Secrets," etc. (by Thomas Johnson, 1596): "The
robin redbreast, if he finds a man or woman dead, will cover all his
face with moss; and some think that if the body should remain unburied
that he would cover the whole body also." In Dekker's "Villaines
Discovered by Lanthorn and Candlelight" (1616), quoted by Douce, it is
said, "They that cheere up a prisoner but with their sight, are robin
redbreasts that bring strawes in their bills to cover a dead man in
extremitie." Shakespeare, in a beautiful passage in "Cymbeline" (iv. 2),
thus touchingly alludes to it, making Arviragus, when addressing the
supposed dead body of Imogen, say:
"With fairest flowers,
Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,
I'll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack
The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor
The azured harebell, like thy veins; no, nor
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander
Out-sweeten'd not thy breath: the ruddock would,
With charitable bill,--O bill, sore-shaming
Those rich-left heirs, that let their fathers lie
Without a monument!--bring thee all this;
Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none
To winter-ground thy corse"--
the "ruddock"[319] being one of the old names for the redbreast, which
is nowadays found in some localities. John Webster, also, refers to the
same idea in "The White Devil" (1857, ed. Dyce, p. 45):
"Call for the robin redbreast and the wren
Since o'er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men."
[318] "English Folk-Lore," pp. 62-64; Brand's "Pop. Antiq.,"
1849, vol. iii. p. 191; Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. x. p. 424;
Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 380.
[319] Cf. Spenser's "Epithalamium," v. 8:
"The thrush replies, the mavis descant plays,
The ouzell shrills, the ruddock warbles soft."
Drayton, too, in "The Owl," has the following lines:
"Cov'ring with moss the dead's unclosed eye,
The little redbreast teaching charitie."
_Rook._ As an ominous bird this is mentioned in "Macbeth" (iii. 4).
Formerly the nobles of England prided themselves in having a
rookery[320] in the neighborhood of their castles, because rooks were
regarded as "fowls of good omen." On this account no one was permitted
to kill them, under severe penalties. When rooks desert a rookery[321]
it is said to foretell the downfall of the family on whose property it
is. A Northumbrian saying informs us that the rooks left the rookery of
Chipchase before the family of Reed left that place. There is also a
notion that when rooks haunt a town or village "mortality is supposed to
await its inhabitants, and if they feed in the street it shows that a
storm is at hand."[322]
[320] _Standard_, January 26, 1877.
[321] "English Folk-Lore," p. 76.
[322] Henderson's "Folk-Lore of Northern Counties," 1879, p. 122.
The expression "bully-rook," in "Merry Wives of Windsor" (i. 3), in
Shakespeare's time, says Mr. Harting,[323] had the same meaning as
"jolly dog" nowadays; but subsequently it became a term of reproach,
meaning a cheating sharper. It has been suggested that the term derives
its origin from the _rook_ in the game of chess; but Douce[324]
considers it very improbable that this noble game, "never the amusement
of gamblers, should have been ransacked on this occasion."
[323] "Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 121.
[324] "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 36; the term
"bully-rook" occurs several times in Shadwell's "Sullen
Lovers;" see Dyce's "Glossary," p. 58.
_Snipe._ This bird was in Shakespeare's time proverbial for a foolish
man.[325] In "Othello" (i. 3), Iago, speaking of Roderigo, says:
"For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane,
If I would time expend with such a snipe,
But for my sport and profit."
[325] In Northamptonshire the word denotes an icicle, from its
resemblance to the long bill of the bird so-called.--Baker's
"Northamptonshire Glossary," 1854, vol. ii. p. 260.
_Sparrow._ A popular name for the common sparrow was, and still is,
Philip, perhaps from its note, "Phip, phip." Hence the allusion to a
person named Philip, in "King John" (i. 1):
_Gurney._ Good leave, good Philip.
_Bastard._ Philip?--sparrow!
Staunton says perhaps Catullus alludes to this expression in the
following lines:
"Sed circumsiliens, modo huc, modo illuc,
Ad solam dominam usque pipilabat."
Skelton, in an elegy upon a sparrow, calls it "Phyllyp Sparowe;" and
Gascoigne also writes "The praise of Philip Sparrow."
In "Measure for Measure" (iii. 2), Lucio, speaking of Angelo, the
deputy-duke of Vienna, says: "Sparrows must not build in his
house-eaves, because they are lecherous."[326]
[326] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 653; Dyce's
"Glossary," p. 320.
_Sparrow-hawk._ A name formerly given to a young sparrow-hawk was
eyas-musket,[327] a term we find in "Merry Wives of Windsor" (iii. 3):
"How now, my eyas-musket! what news with you?" It was thus
metaphorically used as a jocular phrase for a small child. As the
invention, too, of fire-arms took place[328] at a time when hawking was
in high fashion, some of the new weapons were named after those birds,
probably from the idea of their fetching their prey from on high.
_Musket_ has thus become the established name for one sort of gun. Some,
however, assert that the musket was invented in the fifteenth century,
and owes its name to its inventors.
[327] Derived from the French _mouschet_, of the same meaning.
[328] Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 593: Douce's
"Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 46. Turbervile tells
us "the first name and terme that they bestowe on a falcon is
an eyesse, and this name doth laste as long as she is an eyrie
and for that she is taken from the eyrie."
_Starling._ This was one of the birds that was in days gone by trained
to speak. In "1 Henry IV." (i. 3), Hotspur says:
"I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him,
To keep his anger still in motion."
Pliny tells us how starlings were taught to utter both Latin and Greek
words for the amusement of the young Cæsars; and there are numerous
instances on record of the clever sentences uttered by this amusing
bird.
_Swallow._ This bird has generally been honored as the harbinger of
spring, and Athenæus relates that the Rhodians had a solemn song to
welcome it. Anacreon has a well-known ode. Shakespeare, in the "Winter's
Tale" (iv. 3), alludes to the time of the swallow's appearance in the
following passage:
"daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty."
And its departure is mentioned in "Timon of Athens" (iii. 6): "The
swallow follows not summer more willing than we your lordship."
We may compare Tennyson's notice of the bird's approach and migration in
"The May Queen:"
"And the swallow 'll come back again with summer o'er the wave."
It has been long considered lucky for the swallow to build its nest on
the roof of a house, but just as unlucky for it to forsake a place which
it has once tenanted. Shakespeare probably had this superstition in his
mind when he represents Scarus as saying, in "Antony and Cleopatra" (iv.
12):
"Swallows have built
In Cleopatra's sails their nests: the augurers
Say, they know not,--they cannot tell;--look grimly,
And dare not speak their knowledge."
_Swan._ According to a romantic notion, dating from antiquity, the swan
is said to sing sweetly just before its death, many pretty allusions to
which we find scattered here and there throughout Shakespeare's plays.
In "Merchant of Venice" (iii. 2), Portia says:
"he makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music."
Emilia, too, in "Othello" (v. 2), just before she dies, exclaims:
"I will play the swan,
And die in music."
In "King John" (v. 7), Prince Henry, at his father's death-bed, thus
pathetically speaks:
"'Tis strange that death should sing.
I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,
And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings
His soul and body to their lasting rest."
Again, in "Lucrece" (1611), we have these touching lines:
"And now this pale swan in her watery nest,
Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending."
And once more, in "The Phoenix and Turtle:"
"Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right."
This superstition, says Douce,[329] "was credited by Plato, Chrysippus,
Aristotle, Euripides, Philostratus, Cicero, Seneca, and Martial. Pliny,
Ælian, and Athenæus, among the ancients, and Sir Thomas More, among the
moderns, treat this opinion as a vulgar error. Luther believed in it."
This notion probably originated in the swan being identified with
Orpheus. Sir Thomas Browne[330] says, we read that, "after his death,
Orpheus, the musician, became a swan. Thus was it the bird of Apollo,
the bird of music by the Greeks." Alluding to this piece of folk-lore,
Carl Engel[331] remarks: "Although our common swan does not produce
sounds which might account for this tradition, it is a well-known fact
that the wild swan (_Cygnus ferus_), also called the 'whistling swan,'
when on the wing emits a shrill tone, which, however harsh it may sound
if heard near, produces a pleasant effect when, emanating from a large
flock high in the air, it is heard in a variety of pitches of sound,
increasing or diminishing in loudness according to the movement of the
birds and to the current of the air." Colonel Hawker[332] says, "The
only note which I ever heard the wild swan make, in winter, is his
well-known 'whoop.'"[333]
[329] "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 161.
[330] Works, 1852, vol. i. p. 357.
[331] "Musical Myths and Facts," 1876, vol. i. p. 89.
[332] "Instructions to Young Sportsmen," 11th ed., p. 269.
[333] See Baring-Gould's "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,"
1877, p. 561; Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," 1852, vol. iii.
pp. 302-328.
_Tassel-Gentle._[334] The male of the goshawk was so called on account
of its tractable disposition, and the facility with which it was tamed.
The word occurs in "Romeo and Juliet" (ii. 2):
"O, for a falconer's voice
To lure this tassel-gentle back again!"
[334] Properly "tiercel gentle," French, _tiercelet_; cf.
"Troilus and Cressida," iii. 2, "the falcon as the tercel."
Spenser, in his "Fairy Queen" (bk. iii. c. iv. l. 49), says:
"Having far off espied a tassel-gent
Which after her his nimble wings doth straine."
This species of hawk was also commonly called a "falcon-gentle," on
account of "her familiar, courteous disposition."[335]
[335] "Gentleman's Recreation," p. 19, quoted in Nares's
"Glossary," vol. ii. p. 867.
_Turkey._ This bird, so popular with us at Christmas-tide, is mentioned
in "1 Henry IV." (ii. 1), where the First Carrier says: "God's body! the
turkeys in my pannier are quite starved." This, however, is an
anachronism on the part of Shakespeare, as the turkey was unknown in
this country until the reign of Henry VIII. According to a rhyme written
in 1525, commemorating the introduction of this bird, we are told how:
"Turkies, carps, hoppes, piccarell, and beere,
Came into England all in one yeare."
The turkey is again mentioned by Shakespeare in "Twelfth Night" (ii. 5),
where Fabian says of Malvolio: "Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock
of him: how he jets under his advanced plumes!"
_Vulture._ In several passages Shakespeare has most forcibly introduced
this bird to deepen the beauty of some of his exquisite passages. Thus,
in "King Lear" (ii. 4), when he is complaining of the unkindness of a
daughter, he bitterly exclaims:
"O Regan, she hath tied
Sharp-tooth'd unkindness, like a vulture, here."
What, too, can be more graphic than the expression of Tamora in "Titus
Andronicus" (v. 2):
"I am Revenge, sent from the infernal kingdom,
To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind."
Equally forcible, too, are Pistol's words in "The Merry Wives of
Windsor" (i. 3): "Let vultures gripe thy guts."
Johnson considers that "the vulture of sedition" in "2 Henry VI." (iv.
3) is in allusion to the tale of Prometheus, but of this there is a
decided uncertainty.
_Wagtail._ In "King Lear" (ii. 2), Kent says, "Spare my grey beard, you
wagtail?" the word being used in an opprobrious sense, to signify an
officious person.
_Woodcock._ In several passages this bird is used to denote a fool or
silly person; as in "Taming of the Shrew" (i. 2): "O this woodcock! what
an ass it is!" And again, in "Much Ado About Nothing" (v. 1), where
Claudio, alluding to the plot against Benedick, says: "Shall I not find
a woodcock too?" In "Love's Labour's Lost" (iv. 3) Biron says:
"O heavens, I have my wish!
Dumain transformed: four woodcocks in a dish."
The woodcock has generally been proverbial as a foolish bird--perhaps
because it is easily caught in springes or nets.[336] Thus the popular
phrase "Springes to catch woodcocks" meant arts to entrap
simplicity,[337] as in "Hamlet" (i. 3):
"Aye, springes to catch woodcocks."
[336] Dyce's "Glossary," p. 508.
[337] Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 971.
A similar expression occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Loyal Subject"
(iv. 4):
"Go like a woodcock,
And thrust your neck i' th' noose."
"It seems," says Nares, "that woodcocks are now grown wiser by time, for
we do not now hear of their being so easily caught. If they were
sometimes said to be without brains, it was only founded on their
character, certainly not on any examination of the fact."[338] Formerly,
one of the terms for twilight[339] was "cock-shut time," because the net
in which cocks, _i. e._, woodcocks, were shut in during the twilight,
was called a "cock-shut." It appears that a large net was stretched
across a glade, and so suspended upon poles as to be easily drawn
together. Thus, in "Richard III." (v. 3), Ratcliff says:
"Thomas the Earl of Surrey, and himself,
Much about cock-shut time, from troop to troop,
Went through the army, cheering up the soldiers."
[338] See Willughby's "Ornithology," iii. section 1.
[339] Minsheu's "Guide into Tongues," ed. 1617.
In Ben Jonson's "Masque of Gypsies" we read:
"Mistress, this is only spite;
For you would not yesternight
Kiss him in the cock-shut light."
Sometimes it was erroneously written "cock-shoot." "Come, come away
then, a fine cock-shoot evening." In the "Two Noble Kinsmen" (iv. 1) we
find the term "cock-light."
_Wren._ The diminutive character of this bird is noticed in "A
Midsummer-Night's Dream" (iii. 1, song):
"The wren with little quill."
In "Macbeth" (iv. 2), Lady Macbeth says:
"the poor wren,
The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
Her young ones in her nest, against the owl."
Considering, too, that as many as sixteen young ones have been found in
this little bird's nest, we can say with Grahame, in his poem on the
birds of Scotland:
"But now behold the greatest of this train
Of miracles, stupendously minute;
The numerous progeny, claimant for food
Supplied by two small bills, and feeble wings
Of narrow range, supplied--ay, duly fed--
Fed in the dark, and yet not one forgot."
The epithet "poor," applied to the wren by Lady Macbeth, was certainly
appropriate in days gone by, when we recollect how it was cruelly hunted
in Ireland on St. Stephen's day--a practice which prevailed also in the
Isle of Man.[340]
[340] See Yarrell's "History of British Birds," vol. ii. p. 178.