ANIMALS.
As in the case of the birds considered in the previous chapter,
Shakespeare has also interwoven throughout his plays an immense deal of
curious folk-lore connected with animals. Not only does he allude with
the accuracy of a naturalist to the peculiarities and habits of certain
animals, but so true to nature is he in his graphic descriptions of them
that it is evident his knowledge was in a great measure acquired from
his own observation. It is interesting, also, to note how carefully he
has, here and there, worked into his narrative some old proverb or
superstition, thereby adding a freshness to the picture which has, if
possible, imbued it with an additional lustre. In speaking of the dog,
he has introduced many an old hunting custom, and his references to the
tears of the deer are full of sweet pathos, as, for instance, where
Hamlet says (iii. 2), "Let the stricken deer go weep." It is not
necessary, however, to add further illustrations, as these will be found
in the following pages.
_Ape._ In addition to Shakespeare's mention of this animal as a common
term of contempt, there are several other allusions to it. There is the
well-known phrase, "to lead apes in hell," applied to old maids,
mentioned in the "Taming of the Shrew" (ii. 1)--the meaning of this term
not having been yet satisfactorily explained.[341] (It is further
discussed in the chapter on Marriage.)
[341] See page 165.
In "2 Henry IV." (ii. 4), the word is used as a term of endearment,
"Alas, poor ape, how thou sweat'st."
_Ass._ Beyond the proverbial use of this much ill-treated animal to
denote a silly, foolish person, Shakespeare has said little about it.
In "Troilus and Cressida" (ii. 1), Thersites uses the word _assinego_, a
Portuguese expression for a young ass, "Thou hast no more brain than I
have in mine elbows; an assinego may tutor thee." It is used by Beaumont
and Fletcher in the "Scornful Lady" (v. 4): "All this would be forsworn,
and I again an assinego, as your sister left me."[342] Dyce[343] would
spell the word "asinico," because it is so spelled in the old editions
of Shakespeare, and is more in accordance with the Spanish word.[344] In
"King Lear" (i. 4), the Fool alludes to Æsop's celebrated fable of the
old man and his ass: "thou borest thine ass on thy back o'er the dirt."
[342] Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 38.
[343] "Glossary to Shakespeare," 1876, p. 20.
[344] "Asinico, a little ass," Connelly's "Spanish and English
Dictionary," Madrid, 4to.
_Bat._ The bat, immortalized by Shakespeare ("The Tempest," v. 1) as the
"delicate Ariel's" steed--
"On the bat's back I do fly,"
--has generally been an object of superstitious dread, and proved to the
poet and painter a fertile source of images of gloom and terror.[345] In
Scotland[346] it is still connected with witchcraft, and if, while
flying, it rise and then descend again earthwards, it is a sign that the
witches' hour is come--the hour in which they are supposed to have power
over every human being who is not specially shielded from their
influence. Thus, in "Macbeth" (iv. 1) the "wool of bat" forms an
ingredient in the witches' caldron. One of its popular names is
"rere-mouse," which occurs in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (ii. 2), where
Titania says:
"Some, war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,
To make my small elves coats."
[345] "English Folk-Lore," p. 115; cf. "Macbeth," iii. 2.
[346] Henderson's "Folk-Lore of Northern Counties," 1879, pp.
125, 126.
This term is equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon, _hrére-mús_, from _hreran_,
to stir, agitate, and so the same as the old name "flitter-mouse."[347]
The early copies spell the word _reremise_.[348] It occurs in the
Wicliffite version of Leviticus xi. 19, and the plural in the form
"reremees" or "rere-myis" is found in Isaiah ii. 20. At Polperro,
Cornwall,[349] the village boys call it "airy-mouse," and address it in
the following rhyme:
"Airy mouse, airy mouse! fly over my head,
And you shall have a crust of bread;
And when I brew, and when I bake,
You shall have a piece of my wedding-cake."
[347] It has been speciously derived from the English word
_rear_, in the sense of being able to raise itself in the air,
but this is erroneous. Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 726.
[348] Aldis Wright's "Notes to A Midsummer-Night's Dream,"
1877, p. 101.
[349] "Folk-Lore Record," 1879, p. 201.
In Scotland[350] it is known as the Backe or Bakie bird. An immense deal
of folk-lore has clustered round this curious little animal.[351]
[350] Jamieson's "Scottish Dictionary," 1879, vol. i p. 106.
[351] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 189;
Harting's "Ornithology of Shakespeare," 1871, pp. 13, 14.
_Bear._ According to an old idea, the bear brings forth unformed lumps
of animated flesh, and then licks them into shape--a vulgar error,
referred to in "3 Henry VI." (iii. 2), where Gloster, bemoaning his
deformity, says of his mother:
"She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe,
* * * * *
To disproportion me in every part,
Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp,
That carries no impression like the dam."
This erroneous notion, however, was long ago confuted by Sir Thomas
Browne.[352] Alexander Ross, in his "Arcana Microcosmi," nevertheless
affirms that bears bring forth their young deformed and misshapen, by
reason of the thick membrane in which they are wrapped, that is covered
over with a mucous matter. This, he says, the dam contracts in the
winter-time, by lying in hollow caves without motion, so that to the
eye the cub appears like an unformed lump. The above mucilage is
afterwards licked away by the dam, and the membrane broken, whereby that
which before seemed to be unformed appears now in its right shape. This,
he contends, is all that the ancients meant.[353] Ovid (Metamorphoses,
bk. xv. l. 379) thus describes this once popular fancy:
"Nec catulus, partu quem reddidit ursa recenti,
Sed male viva caro est: lambendo mater in artus
Fingit, et in formam, quantam capit ipsa, reducit."
[352] "Vulgar Errors," 1852, vol. i. p. 247.
[353] See Bartholomæus, "De Proprietate Rerum," lib. xviii. c.
112; Aristotle, "History of Animals," lib. vi. c. 31; Pliny's
"Natural History," lib. viii. c. 54.
Bears, in days gone by, are reported to have been surprised by means of
a mirror, which they would gaze on, affording their pursuers an
opportunity of taking the surer aim. In "Julius Cæsar" (ii. I), this
practice is mentioned by Decius:
"unicorns may be betray'd with trees,
And bears with glasses."[354]
[354] Steevens on this passage.
Batman, "On Bartholomæus" (1582), speaking of the bear, says, "And when
he is taken he is made blinde with a bright basin, and bound with
chaynes, and compelled to playe." This, however, says Mr. Aldis
Wright,[355] probably refers to the actual blinding of the bear.
[355] "Notes on Julius Cæsar," 1878, p. 134.
A favorite amusement with our ancestors was bear-baiting. As early as
the reign of Henry II. the baiting of bears by dogs was a popular game
in London,[356] while at a later period "a royal bear-ward" was an
officer regularly attached to the royal household. In "2 Henry VI." (v.
1), this personage is alluded to by Clifford, who says:
"Are these thy bears? We'll bait thy bears to death,
And manacle the bear-ward in their chains,
If thou dar'st bring them to the baiting place."
[356] "Notices Illustrative of the Drama and other Popular
Amusements," incidentally illustrating Shakespeare and his
contemporaries, extracted from the MSS. of Leicester, by W.
Kelly, 1865, p. 152.
And again, in "Much Ado About Nothing" (ii. 1), Beatrice says, "I will
even take sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his apes into
hell." The synonymous term, "bear-herd," occurs in "Taming of the Shrew"
(Ind. scene 2), where Sly speaks of himself as "by transmutation a
bear-herd;" and in "2 Henry IV." (i. 2), Sir John Falstaff remarks how
"true valor is turned bear-herd." Among the Harleian MSS.[357] is
preserved the original warrant of Richard III. appointing John Brown to
this office, and which recites "the diligent service he had done the
king" as the ground for granting him the privilege of wandering about
the country with his bears and apes, and receiving the "loving
benevolence and favors of the people."[358] In the time of Queen
Elizabeth bear-baiting was still a favorite pastime, being considered a
fashionable entertainment for ladies of the highest rank.[359] James I.
encouraged this sport. Nichols[360] informs us that on one occasion the
king, accompanied by his court, took the queen, the Princess Elizabeth,
and the two young princes to the Tower to witness a fight between a lion
and a bear, and by the king's command the bear (which had killed a child
that had been negligently left in the bear-house) was afterwards "baited
to death upon a stage in the presence of many spectators." Popular, says
Mr. Kelly, as bear-baiting was in the metropolis and at court, it was
equally so among all classes of the people.[361] It is on record that at
Congleton, in Cheshire, "the town-bear having died, the corporation in
1601 gave orders to sell their Bible, in order to purchase another,
which was done, and the town no longer without a bear." This event is
kept up in a popular rhyme:
"Congleton rare, Congleton rare,
Sold the Bible to pay for a bear."
[357] No. 433. The document is given at length in Collier's
"Annals of the Stage," vol. i. p. 35, note.
[358] Kelly's "Notices of Leicester," p. 152.
[359] Wright's "Domestic Manners," p. 304.
[360] "Progresses and Processions," vol. ii. p. 259.
[361] About 1760 it was customary to have a bear baited at the
election of the mayor. Corry, "History of Liverpool," 1810, p.
93.
The same legend attaches to Clifton, a village near Rugby:
"Clifton-upon-Dunsmore, in Warwickshire,
Sold the Church Bible to buy a bear."
In Pulleyn's "Etymological Compendium,"[362] we are told that "this
cruel amusement is of African origin, and was introduced into Europe by
the Romans." It is further alluded to by Shakespeare in "Twelfth Night"
(i. 3), "dancing and bear-baiting;" and further on in the same play (ii.
5) Fabian says, "he brought me out o' favor with my lady about a
bear-baiting here;" and Macbeth (v. 7) relates:
"They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,
But, bear-like, I must fight the course."[363]
[362] Edited by M. A. Thorns, 1853, p. 170.
[363] For further information on this subject consult Strutt's
"Sports and Pastimes," 1876; Kelly's "Notices of Leicester,"
pp. 152-159.
And in "Julius Cæsar" (iv. 1), Octavius says:
"we are at the stake,
And bay'd about with many enemies."
_Boar._ It appears that in former times boar-hunting was a favorite
recreation; many allusions to which we find in old writers. Indeed, in
the Middle Ages, the destruction of a wild boar ranked among the deeds
of chivalry,[364] and "won for a warrior almost as much renown as the
slaying an enemy in the open field." So dangerous, too, was boar-hunting
considered, that Shakespeare represents Venus as dissuading Adonis from
the perilous practice:
"'O be advised! thou know'st not what it is,
With javelin's point a churlish swine to gore,
Whose tushes never sheathed he whetteth still,
Like to a mortal butcher, bent to kill.
* * * * *
His brawny sides, with hairy bristles arm'd,
Are better proof than thy spear's point can enter;
His short thick neck cannot be easily harm'd;
Being ireful, on the lion he will venture.'"
[364] Chambers's "Book of Days," 1864, vol. ii. pp. 518, 519.
Such hunting expeditions were generally fatal to some of the dogs, and
occasionally to one or more of the hunters. An old tradition of Grimsby,
in Lincolnshire,[365] asserts that every burgess, at his admission to
the freedom of the borough, anciently presented to the mayor a boar's
head, or an equivalent in money, when the animal could not be procured.
The old seal of the mayor of Grimsby represents a boar hunt. The lord,
too, of the adjacent manor of Bradley, was obliged by his tenure to keep
a supply of these animals in his wood, for the entertainment of the
mayor and burgesses.[366] A curious triennial custom called the "Rhyne
Toll," is observed at Chetwode, a small village about five miles from
Buckingham.[367] According to tradition, it originated in the
destruction of an enormous wild boar--the terror of the surrounding
county--by one of the lords of Chetwode; who, after fighting with it for
four hours on a hot summer's day, eventually killed it:
"Then Sir Ryalas he drawed his broad sword with might,
Wind well thy horn, good hunter;
And he fairly cut the boar's head off quite,
For he was a jovial hunter."
[365] Hampson's "OEvi Medii Kalendarium," vol. i. p. 96.
[366] See _Gentleman's Magazine_, vol. xcviii. pp. 401, 402.
[367] See "Book of Days," vol. ii. pp. 517-519.
As a reward, it is said, the king "granted to him and to his heirs
forever, among other immunities and privileges, the full right to levy
every year the Rhyne Toll." This is still kept up, and consists of a
yearly tax on all cattle found within the manor of Chetwode between the
30th of October and the 7th of November, inclusive. In "Antony and
Cleopatra" (iv. 13) Cleopatra alludes to the famous boar killed by
Meleager,
"the boar of Thessaly
Was never so emboss'd."[368]
[368] "Embossed" is a hunting term, properly applied to a deer
when foaming at the mouth from fatigue, see p. 179; also Dyce's
"Glossary to Shakespeare," p. 142; see Nares's "Glossary," vol.
i. p. 275.
_Bull._ Once upon a time there was scarcely a town or village of any
magnitude which had not its bull-ring.[369] Indeed, it was not until the
year 1835 that baiting was finally put down by an act of Parliament,
"forbidding the keeping of any house, pit, or other place for baiting or
fighting any bull, bear, dog, or other animal;" and, after an existence
of at least seven centuries, this ceased to rank among the amusements of
the English people.[370] This sport is alluded to in "Merry Wives of
Windsor" (v. 5), "Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa." We
may, too, compare the expressions in "Troilus and Cressida" (v. 7),
"Now, bull, now, dog!... The bull has the game."[371]
[369] Wright's "Domestic Manners," p. 304; see Strutt's "Sports
and Pastimes;" Smith's "Festivals, Games, and Amusements,"
1831, pp. 192-229.
[370] "Book of Days," vol. ii. p. 59.
[371] Cf. "2 Henry IV." ii. 2, "the town-bull."
_Cat._ Few animals, in times past, have been more esteemed than the cat,
or been honored with a wider folk-lore. Indeed, among the Egyptians this
favored animal was held sacred to Isis, or the moon, and worshipped with
great ceremony. In the mythology of all the Indo-European nations the
cat holds a prominent place; and its connection with witches is well
known. "The picture of a witch," says Mr. Henderson,[372] "is incomplete
without her cat, by rights a black one." In "Macbeth" (iv. 1) the first
witch says:
"Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd"--
it being a common superstition that the form most generally assumed by
the familiar spirits of witches was the cat. Thus, in another passage of
the same play (i. 1), the first witch says: "I come, Graymalkin"--the
word otherwise spelled Grimalkin,[373] meaning a gray cat. Numerous
stories are on record of witches having disguised themselves as cats,
in order to carry out their fiendish designs. A woodman out working in
the forest has his dinner every day stolen by a cat. Exasperated at the
continued repetition of the theft, he lies in wait for the aggressor,
and succeeds in cutting off her paw, when lo! on his return home he
finds his wife minus a hand.[374] An honest Yorkshireman,[375] who bred
pigs, often lost the young ones. On applying to a certain wise man of
Stokesley, he was informed that they were bewitched by an old woman who
lived near. The owner of the pigs, calling to mind that he had often
seen a cat prowling about his yard, decided that this was the old woman
in disguise. He watched for her, and, as soon as she made her
appearance, flung at her a poker with all his might. The cat
disappeared, and, curiously enough, the poor old woman in question that
night fell and broke her leg. This was considered as conclusive that she
was the witch that had simulated the form of a cat. This notion is very
prevalent on the Continent. It is said that witch-cats have a great
hankering after beer.[376] Witches are adepts in the art of brewing, and
therefore fond of tasting what their neighbors brew. On these occasions
they always masquerade as cats, and what they steal they consume on the
spot. There was a countryman whose beer was all drunk up by night
whenever he brewed, so that at last he resolved for once to sit up all
night and watch. As he was standing by his brewing pan, a number of cats
made their appearance, and calling to them, he said; "Come, puss, puss,
come, warm you a bit." So in a ring they all sat round the fire as if to
warm themselves. After a time, he asked them "if the water was hot."
"Just on the boil," said they; and as he spoke he dipped his
long-handled pail in the wort, and soused the whole company with it.
They all vanished at once, but on the following day his wife had a
terribly scalded face, and then he knew who it was that had always drunk
his beer. This story is widely prevalent, and is current among the
Flemish-speaking natives of Belgium. Again, a North German
tradition[377] tells us of a peasant who had three beautiful large cats.
A neighbor begged to have one of them, and obtained it. To accustom it
to the place, he shut it up in the loft. At night, the cat, popping its
head through the window, said, "What shall I bring to-night?" "Thou
shalt bring mice," answered the man. The cat then set to work, and cast
all it caught on the floor. Next morning the place was so full of dead
mice that it was hardly possible to open the door, and the man was
employed the whole day in throwing them away by bushels. At night the
cat again asked, "What shall I bring to-night?" "Thou shalt bring rye,"
answered the peasant. The cat was now busily employed in shooting down
rye, so that in the morning the door could not be opened. The man then
discovered that the cat was a witch, and carried it back to his
neighbor. A similar tradition occurs in Scandinavian mythology.[378]
Spranger[379] relates that a laborer, on one occasion, was attacked by
three young ladies in the form of cats, and that they were wounded by
him. On the following day they were found bleeding in their beds. In
Vernon,[380] about the year 1566, "the witches and warlocks gathered in
great multitudes under the shape of cats. Four or five men were attacked
in a lone place by a number of these beasts. The men stood their ground,
and succeeded in slaying one cat and wounding many others. Next day a
number of wounded women were found in the town, and they gave the judge
an accurate account of all the circumstances connected with their
wounding." It is only natural, then, that Shakespeare, in his
description of the witches in "Macbeth," should have associated them
with the popular superstition which represents the cat as their agent--a
notion that no doubt originated in the classic story of Galanthis being
turned into a cat, and becoming, through the compassion of Hecate, her
priestess. From their supposed connection with witchcraft, cats were
formerly often tormented by the ignorant vulgar. Thus it appears[381]
that, in days gone by, they (occasionally fictitious ones) were hung up
in baskets and shot at with arrows. In some counties, too, they were
enclosed, with a quantity of soot, in wooden bottles suspended on a
line, and he who could beat out the bottom of the bottle as he ran under
it, and yet escape its contents, was the hero of the sport.[382]
Shakespeare alludes to this practice in "Much Ado About Nothing" (i. 1),
where Benedick says: "Hang me in a bottle like a cat, and shoot at me."
[372] "Folk-Lore of Northern Counties," p. 267; Brand's "Pop.
Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 7.
[373] Malkin is a diminutive of "Mary;" "Maukin," the same
word, is still used in Scotland for a hare. "Notes to Macbeth,"
by Clark and Wright, 1877, p. 75.
[374] Sternberg's "Dialect and Folk-Lore of Northamptonshire,"
1851, p. 148.
[375] Henderson's "Folk-Lore of Northern Counties" 1879, p. 206.
[376] Kelly's "Indo-European Folk-Lore," 1863, p. 238.
[377] Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," 1851, vol. iii. p. 32.
[378] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 32; vol. iii. pp. 26-236.
[379] See Baring-Gould's "Book of Werewolves," 1869, p. 65.
[380] Ibid., p. 66.
[381] Dyce's "Glossary to Shakespeare," p. 70.
[382] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 39; also
Wright's "Essays on the Superstitions of the Middle Ages,"
1846.
Percy, in his "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry" (1794, vol. i. p.
155), says: "It is still a diversion in Scotland to hang up a cat in a
small cask or firkin, half filled with soot; and then a parcel of clowns
on horseback try to beat out the ends of it, in order to show their
dexterity in escaping before the contents fall upon them."
This practice was once kept up at Kelso, in Scotland, according to
Ebenezer Lazarus, who, in his "Description of Kelso" (1789, p. 144), has
given a graphic description of the whole ceremony. He says, "This is a
sport which was common in the last century at Kelso on the Tweed. A
large concourse of men, women, and children assembled in a field about
half a mile from the town, and a cat having been put into a barrel
stuffed full of soot, was suspended on a crossbeam between two high
poles. A certain number of the whipmen, or husbandmen, who took part in
this savage and unmanly amusement, then kept striking, as they rode to
and fro on horseback, the barrel in which the unfortunate animal was
confined, until at last, under the heavy blows of their clubs and
mallets, it broke, and allowed the cat to drop. The victim was then
seized and tortured to death." He justly stigmatizes it, saying:
"The cat in the barrel exhibits such a farce,
That he who can relish it is worse than an ass."
Cats, from their great powers of resistance, are said to have nine
lives;[383] hence Mercutio, in "Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 1), says: "Good
king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives." Ben Jonson, in "Every
Man in His Humour" (iii. 2), makes Edward Knowell say to Bobadil, "'Twas
pity you had not ten; a cat's and your own." And in Gay's fable of the
"Old Woman and her Cats," one of these animals is introduced, upbraiding
the witch:
"'Tis infamy to serve a hag,
Cats are thought imps, her broom a nag;
And boys against our lives combine,
Because 'tis said, your cats have nine."
[383] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," vol. iii. p. 42.
In Marston's "Dutch Courtezan" we read:
"Why then, thou hast nine lives like a cat."
And in Dekker's "Strange Horse-Race" (1613): "When the grand Helcat had
gotten these two furies with nine lives." This notion, it may be noted,
is quite the reverse of the well-known saying, "Care will kill a cat,"
mentioned in "Much Ado About Nothing" (v. 1), where Claudio says: "What
though care killed a cat."
For some undiscovered reason a cat was formerly called Tybert or
Tybalt;[384] hence some of the insulting remarks of Mercutio, in "Romeo
and Juliet" (iii. 1), who calls Tybalt "rat-catcher" and "king of cats."
In the old romance of "Hystorye of Reynard the Foxe" (chap. vi.), we are
told how "the king called for Sir Tibert, the cat, and said to him, Sir
Tibert, you shall go to Reynard, and summon him the second time."[385] A
popular term for a wild cat was "cat-o'-mountain," an expression[386]
borrowed from the Spaniards, who call the wild cat "gato-montes." In the
"Merry Wives of Windsor" (ii. 2), Falstaff says of Pistol, "Your
cat-a-mountain looks."
[384] Dyce's "Glossary to Shakespeare," p. 466.
[385] From Tibert, Tib was also a common name for a cat.
[386] Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 41.
The word cat was used as a term of contempt, as in "The Tempest" (ii. 1)
and "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (iii. 2), where Lysander says, "Hang
off, thou cat." Once more, too, in "Coriolanus" (iv. 2), we find it in
the same sense:
"'Twas you incensed the rabble;
Cats, that can judge as fitly of his worth,
As I can of those mysteries which heaven
Will not have earth to know."
A gib, or a gib cat, is an old male cat[387]--gib being the contraction
of Gilbert,[388] and is, says Nares, an expression exactly analogous to
that of jackass.[389] Tom-cat is now the usual term. The word was
certainly not bestowed upon a cat early in life, as is evident from the
melancholy character ascribed to it in Shakespeare's allusion in "1
Henry IV." (i. 2): "I am as melancholy as a gib cat." Ray gives "as
melancholy as a gib'd [a corruption of gib] cat." The term occurs again
in "Hamlet" (iii. 4). It is improperly applied to a female by Beaumont
and Fletcher, in the "Scornful Lady" (v. 1): "Bring out the cat-hounds!
I'll make you take a tree, whore; then with my tiller bring down your
gib-ship, and then have you cased and hung up in the warren."
[387] Dyce's "Glossary," p. 183.
[388] A gibbe (an old male cat), Macou, Cotgrave's "French and
English Dictionary."
[389] "Glossary," vol. i. p. 360.
_Chameleon._ This animal was popularly believed to feed on air, a notion
which Sir Thomas Browne[390] has carefully discussed. He has assigned,
among other grounds for this vulgar opinion, its power of abstinence,
and its faculty of self-inflation. It lives on insects, which it catches
by its long, gluey tongue, and crushes between its jaws. It has been
ascertained by careful experiment that the chameleon can live without
eating for four months. It can inflate not only its lungs, but its whole
body, including even the feet and tail. In allusion to this supposed
characteristic, Shakespeare makes Hamlet say (iii. 2), "Of the
chameleon's dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed; you cannot feed capons
so;" and in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona" (ii. 1) Speed says: "Though
the chameleon, Love, can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by
my victuals, and would fain have meat." There is, too, a popular notion
that this animal undergoes frequent changes of color, according to that
of the bodies near it. This, however, depends on the volition of the
animal, or the state of its feelings, on its good or bad health, and is
subordinate to climate, age, and sex.[391] In "3 Henry VI." (iii. 2)
Gloster boasts:
"I can add colours to the chameleon,
Change shapes, with Proteus, for advantages."
[390] "Vulgar Errors," bk. iii. p. 21, 1852; bk. i. p. 321,
_note_.
[391] Ovid ("Metamorphoses," bk. xv. l. 411) speaks of its
changes of color.
_Cockatrice._ This imaginary creature, also called a basilisk, has been
the subject of extraordinary prejudice. It was absurdly said to proceed
from the eggs of old cocks. It has been represented as having eight
feet, a crown on the head, and a hooked and recurved beak.[392] Pliny
asserts that the basilisk had a voice so terrible that it struck terror
into all other species. Sir Thomas Browne,[393] however, distinguishes
the cockatrice from the ancient basilisk. He says, "This of ours is
generally described with legs, wings, a serpentine and winding tail, and
a crest or comb somewhat like a cock. But the basilisk of elder times
was a proper kind of serpent, not above three palms long, as some
account; and different from other serpents by advancing his head and
some white marks, or coronary spots upon the crown, as all authentic
writers have delivered." No other animal, perhaps, has given rise to so
many fabulous notions. Thus, it was supposed to have so deadly an eye as
to kill by its very look, to which Shakespeare often alludes. In "Romeo
and Juliet" (iii. 2), Juliet says:
"say thou but 'I,'
And that bare vowel, 'I,' shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice."
[392] Cuvier's "Animal Kingdom," 1831, vol. ix. p. 226.
[393] "Vulgar Errors," bk. iii. p. 7.
In "Richard III." (iv. 1) the Duchess exclaims:
"O my accursed womb, the bed of death!
A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,
Whose unavoided eye is murderous!"
In "Lucrece" (l. 540) we read:
"Here with a cockatrice' dead-killing eye
He rouseth up himself, and makes a pause."
Once more,[394] in "Twelfth Night" (iii. 4), Sir Toby Belch affirms:
"This will so fright them both that they will kill one another by the
look, like cockatrices." It has also been affirmed that this animal
could not exercise this faculty unless it first perceived the object of
its vengeance; if first seen, it died. Dryden has alluded to this
superstition:
"Mischiefs are like the cockatrice's eye,
If they see first they kill, if seen, they die."
[394] See "Cymbeline," ii. 4; "Winter's Tale," i. 2.
Cockatrice was a popular phrase for a loose woman, probably from the
fascination of the eye.[395] It appears, too, that basilisk[396] was the
name of a huge piece of ordnance carrying a ball of very great weight.
In the following passage in "Henry V." (v. 2), there is no doubt a
double allusion--to pieces of ordnance, and to the fabulous creature
already described:
"The fatal balls of murdering basilisks."
[395] Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p 173.
[396] Dyce's "Glossary," p. 29; see "1 Henry IV.," ii. 3, "of
basilisks, of cannon, culverin."
_Colt._ From its wild tricks the colt was formerly used to designate,
according to Johnson, "a witless, heady, gay youngster." Portia mentions
it with a quibble in "The Merchant of Venice" (i. 2), referring to the
Neapolitan prince. "Ay, that's a colt, indeed." The term "to colt"
meant to trick, or befool; as in the phrase in "1 Henry IV." (ii. 2):
"What a plague mean ye to colt me thus?" Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps[397]
explains the expression in "Henry VIII." (i. 3), "Your colt's tooth is
not cast yet," to denote a love of youthful pleasure. In "Cymbeline"
(ii. 4) it is used in a coarser sense: "She hath been colted by him."
[397] "Handbook Index to Shakespeare."
_Crocodile._ According to fabulous accounts the crocodile was the most
deceitful of animals; its tears being proverbially fallacious. Thus
Othello (iv. 1) says:
"O devil, devil!
If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.--
Out of my sight!"
We may also compare the words of the queen in "2 Henry VI." (iii. 1):
"Henry my lord is cold in great affairs,
Too full of foolish pity; and Gloster's show
Beguiles him, as the mournful crocodile
With sorrow snares relenting passengers."
It is said that this treacherous animal weeps over a man's head when it
has devoured the body, and will then eat up the head too. In Bullokar's
"Expositor," 1616, we read: "Crocodile lachrymæ, crocodiles teares, do
signify such teares as are feigned, and spent only with intent to
deceive or do harm." In Quarles's "Emblems" there is the following
allusion:
"O what a crocodilian world is this,
Compos'd of treachries and ensnaring wiles!
She cloaths destruction in a formal kiss,
And lodges death in her deceitful smiles."
In the above passage from "Othello," Singer says there is, no doubt, a
reference to the doctrine of equivocal generation, by which new animals
were supposed to be producible by new combinations of matter.[398]
[398] Singer's "Shakespeare," 1875, vol. x. p. 118.
_Deer._ In "King Lear" (iii. 4) Edgar uses deer for wild animals in
general:
"But mice, and rats, and such small deer,
Have been Tom's food for seven long year."
Shakespeare frequently refers to the popular sport of hunting the
deer;[399] and by his apt allusions shows how thoroughly familiar he was
with the various amusements of his day.[400] In "Winter's Tale" (i. 2)
Leontes speaks of "the mort o' the deer:" certain notes played on the
horn at the death of the deer, and requiring a deep-drawn breath.[401]
It was anciently, too, one of the customs of the chase for all to stain
their hands in the blood of the deer as a trophy. Thus, in "King John"
(ii. 1), the English herald declares to the men of Angiers how
"like a jolly troop of huntsmen, come
Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,
Dyed in the dying slaughter of their foes."
[399] See Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," 1876, pp. 66, 75, 79,
80, 113, 117.
[400] See "As You Like It," iv. 2; "All's Well That Ends Well,"
v. 2; "Macbeth," iv. 3; "1 Henry IV.," v. 4; "1 Henry VI.," iv.
2; "2 Henry VI.," v. 2; "Titus Andronicus," iii. 1, etc.
[401] Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. viii. p. 421
The practice is again alluded to in "Julius Cæsar" (iii. 1):
"here thy hunters stand,
Sign'd in thy spoil, and crimson'd in thy lethe."
Old Turbervile gives us the details of this custom: "Our order is, that
the prince, or chief, if so please them, do alight, and take assay of
the deer, with a sharp knife, the which is done in this manner--the deer
being laid upon his back, the prince, chief, or such as they do appoint,
comes to it, and the chief huntsman, kneeling if it be a prince, doth
hold the deer by the forefoot, whilst the prince, or chief, do cut a
slit drawn along the brisket of the deer."
In "Antony and Cleopatra" (v. 2), where Cæsar, speaking of Cleopatra's
death, says:
"bravest at the last,
She levell'd at our purposes, and, being royal,
Took her own way"--
there is possibly an allusion to the _hart royal_, which had the
privilege of roaming unmolested, and of taking its own way to its lair.
Shooting with the cross-bow at deer was an amusement of great ladies.
Buildings with flat roofs, called stands, partly concealed by bushes,
were erected in the parks for the purpose. Hence the following dialogue
in "Love's Labour's Lost" (iv. 1):
"_Princess._ Then forester, my friend, where is the bush
That we must stand and play the murderer in?
_Forester._ Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice;
A stand where you may make the fairest shoot."
Among the hunting terms to which Shakespeare refers may be mentioned the
following:
"To draw" meant to trace the steps of the game, as in "Comedy of Errors"
(iv. 2):
"A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot well."
The term "to run counter" was to mistake the course of the game, or to
turn and pursue the backward trail.
The "recheat" denoted certain notes sounded on the horn, properly and
more usually employed to recall the dogs from a wrong scent. It is used
in "Much Ado About Nothing" (i. 1): "I will have a recheat winded in my
forehead." We may compare Drayton's "Polyolbion" (xiii.):
"Recheating with his horn, which then the hunter cheers."
The phrase "to recover the wind of me," used by Hamlet (iii. 2), is
borrowed from hunting, and means to get the animal pursued to run with
the wind, that it may not scent the toil or its pursuers. Again, when
Falstaff, in "2 Henry IV." (ii. 4), speaks of "fat rascals," he alludes
to the phrase of the forest--"rascall," says Puttenham, "being properly
the hunting term given to a young deer leane and out of season."
The phrase "a hunts-up" implied any song intended to arouse in the
morning--even a love song--the name having been derived from a tune or
song employed by early hunters.[402] The term occurs in "Romeo and
Juliet" (iii. 5), where Juliet says to Romeo, speaking of the lark:
"Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day."
[402] Chappell's "Popular Music of the Olden Time," 2d ed. vol.
i. p. 61; see Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," p. 432;
see, too, Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 440.
In Drayton's "Polyolbion" (xiii.) it is used:
"No sooner doth the earth her flowery bosom brave,
At such time as the year brings on the pleasant spring,
But hunts-up to the morn the feather'd sylvans sing."
In Shakespeare's day it was customary to hunt as well after dinner as
before, hence, in "Timon of Athens" (ii. 2), Timon says:
"So soon as dinner's done, we'll forth again."
The word "embossed" was applied to a deer when foaming at the mouth from
fatigue. In "Taming of the Shrew" (Ind. scene 1) we read: "the poor cur
is embossed," and in "Antony and Cleopatra" (iv. 13):
"the boar of Thessaly
Was never so emboss'd."
It was usual to call a pack of hounds "a cry," from the French _meute de
chiens_. The term is humorously applied to any troop or company of
players, as by Hamlet (iii. 2), who speaks of "a fellowship in a cry of
players." In "Coriolanus" (iv. 6) Menenius says,
"You have made
Good work, you and your cry."
Antony, in "Julius Cæsar" (iii. 1), alludes to the technical phrase to
"let slip a dog," employed in hunting the hart. This consisted in
releasing the hounds from the leash or _slip_ of leather by which they
were held in hand until it was judged proper to let them pursue the
animal chased.[403] In "1 Henry IV." (i. 3) Northumberland tells
Hotspur:
"Before the game's afoot, thou still let'st slip."
[403] See Dyce's "Glossary," p. 401.
In "Taming of the Shrew" (v. 2) Tranio says:
"O, sir, Lucentio slipp'd me like his greyhound,
Which runs himself, and catches for his master."
A sportsman's saying, applied to hounds, occurs in "2 Henry IV." (v. 3):
"a' will not out; he is true bred," serving to expound Gadshill's
expression, "such as can hold in," "1 Henry IV." (ii. 1).
The severity of the game laws under our early monarchs was very
stringent; and a clause in the "Forest Charter"[404] grants "to an
archbishop, bishop, earl, or baron, when travelling through the royal
forests, at the king's command, the privilege to kill one deer or two in
the sight of the forester, if he was at hand; if not, they were
commanded to cause a horn to be sounded, that it might not appear as if
they had intended to steal the game." In "Merry Wives of Windsor" (v.
5), Falstaff, using the terms of the forest, alludes to the perquisites
of the keeper. Thus he speaks of the "shoulders for the fellow of this
walk," _i. e._, the keeper.
[404] See Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," 1876, p. 65.
Shakespeare has several pretty allusions to the tears of the deer, this
animal being said to possess a very large secretion of tears. Thus
Hamlet (iii. 2) says: "let the strucken deer go weep;" and in "As You
Like It" (ii. 1) we read of the "sobbing deer," and in the same scene
the first lord narrates how, at a certain spot,
"a poor sequester'd stag
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt
Did come to languish; ...
... and the big round tears
Coursed one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase."
Bartholomæus[405] says, that "when the hart is arered, he fleethe to a
ryver or ponde, and roreth cryeth and wepeth when he is take."[406] It
appears that there were various superstitions connected with the tears
of the deer. Batman[407] tells us that "when the hart is sick, and hath
eaten many serpents for his recoverie, he is brought unto so great a
heate that he hasteth to the water, and there covereth his body unto the
very eares and eyes, at which time distilleth many tears from which the
[Bezoar] stone is gendered."[408] Douce[409] quotes the following
passage from the "Noble Art of Venerie," in which the hart thus
addresses the hunter:
"O cruell, be content, to take in worth my tears,
Which growe to gumme, and fall from me: content thee with my heares,
Content thee with my hornes, which every year I new,
Since all these three make medicines, some sickness to eschew.
My tears congeal'd to gumme, by peeces from me fall,
And thee preserve from pestilence, in pomander or ball.
Such wholesome tears shedde I, when thou pursewest me so."
[405] "De Proprietate Rerum," lib. xviii. c. 30.
[406] Cf. Vergil's description of the wounded stag in "Æneid,"
bk. vii.
[407] Commentary on Bartholomæus's "De Proprietate Rerum."
[408] The drops which fall from their eyes are not tears from
the lachrymal glands, but an oily secretion from the inner
angle of the eye close to the nose.--Brewer's "Dictionary of
Phrase and Fable," p. 217.
[409] "Illustrations of Shakespeare," p. 183.
_Dog._ As the favorite of our domestic animals, the dog not unnaturally
possesses an extensive history, besides entering largely into those
superstitions which, more or less, are associated with every stage of
human life. It is not surprising, therefore, that Shakespeare frequently
speaks of the dog, making it the subject of many of his illustrations.
Thus he has not omitted to mention the fatal significance of its howl,
which is supposed either to foretell death or misfortune. In "2 Henry
VI." (i. 4) he makes Bolingbroke say:
"The time when screech-owls cry, and ban-dogs howl,[410]
And spirits walk, and ghosts break up their graves."
[410] These dogs were kept for baiting bears, when that
amusement was in vogue, and "from their terrific howling they
are occasionally introduced to heighten the horror of the
picture." Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 50.
And, again, in "3 Henry VI." (v. 6), King Henry, speaking of Gloster,
says:
"The owl shriek'd at thy birth,--an evil sign;
The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;
Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempests shook down trees."
The same superstition prevails in France and Germany,[411] and various
charms are resorted to for averting the ill-consequences supposed to
attach to this sign of ill-omen. Several of these, too, are practised in
our own country. Thus, in Staffordshire, when a dog howls, the following
advice is given: "Take off your shoe from the left foot, and spit upon
the sole, place it on the ground bottom upwards, and your foot upon the
place you sat upon, which will not only preserve you from harm, but stop
the howling of the dog."[412] A similar remedy is recommended in
Norfolk:[413] "Pull off your left shoe, and turn it, and it will quiet
him. A dog won't howl three times after." We are indebted to antiquity
for this superstition, some of the earliest writers referring to it.
Thus, Pausanias relates how, previous to the destruction of the
Messenians, the dogs pierced the air by raising a louder barking than
usual; and it is on record how, before the sedition in Rome, about the
dictatorship of Pompey, there was an extraordinary howling of dogs.
Vergil[414] ("Georgics," lib. i. l. 470), speaking of the Roman
misfortunes, says:
"Obscenæque canes, importunæque volucres
Signa dabant."
[411] See Kelly's "Indo-European Folk-Lore," p. 109.
[412] Henderson's "Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties," p. 48.
[413] See "English Folk-Lore," p. 101.
[414] See Hardwick's "Traditions, Superstitions, and
Folk-Lore," p. 171.
Capitolinus narrates, too, how the dogs, by their howling, presaged the
death of Maximinus. The idea which associates the dog's howl with the
approach of death is probably derived from a conception in Aryan
mythology, which represents a dog as summoning the departing soul.
Indeed, as Mr. Fiske[415] remarks, "Throughout all Aryan mythology, the
souls of the dead are supposed to ride on the night-wind, with their
howling dogs, gathering into their throng the souls of those just dying
as they pass by their houses."
[415] "Myths and Mythmakers," 1873, p. 36.
Another popular superstition--in all probability derived from the
Egyptians--refers to the setting and rising of Sirius, or the dog-star,
as infusing madness into the canine race. Hence the name of the
"dog-days" was given by the Romans to the period between the 3d of July
and the 11th of August, to which Shakespeare alludes in "Henry VIII."
(v. 3): "the dog-days now reign." We may, too, compare the words of
Benvolio, in "Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 1):
"For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring."
It is obvious, however, that this superstition is utterly groundless,
for not only does the star vary in its rising, but is later and later
every year. The term "dog-day" is still a common phrase, and it is
difficult to say whether it is from superstitious adherence to old
custom, or from a belief in the injurious effect of heat upon dogs, that
the magistrates, often unwisely, at this season of the year order them
to be muzzled or tied up. It was the practice to put them to death; and
Ben Jonson, in his "Bartholomew Fair," speaks of "the dog-killer" in
this month of August. Lord Bacon, too, in his "Sylva Sylvarum," tells us
that "it is a common experience that dogs know the dog-killer, when, as
in times of infection, some petty fellow is sent out to kill them.
Although they have never seen him before, yet they will all come forth
and bark and fly at him."
A "curtal dog," to which allusion is made in "Merry Wives of Windsor"
(ii. 1), by Pistol--
"Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs,"
denoted "originally the dog of an unqualified person, which, by the
forest laws, must have its tail cut short, partly as a mark, and partly
from a notion that the tail of a dog is necessary to him in running." In
later usage, _curtail dog_ means either a common dog, not meant for
sport, or a dog that missed the game, which latter sense it has in the
passage above.[416]
[416] "Nares's Glossary," vol. i. p. 218.
_Dragon._ As the type and embodiment of the spirit of evil, the dragon
has been made the subject of an extensive legendary lore. The well-known
myth of St. George and the Dragon, which may be regarded as a grand
allegory representing the hideous and powerful monster against whom the
Christian soldier is called to fight, has exercised a remarkable
influence for good in times past, over half-instructed people. It has
been truly remarked that "the dullest mind and hardest heart could not
fail to learn from it something of the hatefulness of evil, the beauty
of self-sacrifice, and the all-conquering might of truth." This graceful
conception is alluded to by Shakespeare, in his "King John" (ii. 1),
where, according to a long-established custom, it is made a subject for
sign-painting:[417]
"St. George, that swinged the dragon, and e'er since,
Sits on his horseback at mine hostess' door,
Teach us some fence!"
[417] For the various versions of this myth consult
Baring-Gould's "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages," 1877, pp.
266-316.
In ancient mythology the task of drawing the chariot of night was
assigned to dragons, on account of their supposed watchfulness. In
"Cymbeline" (ii. 2) Iachimo, addressing them, says:
"Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawning
May bare the raven's eye!"[418]
[418] Cf. "Troilus and Cressida," v. 8; "Midsummer-Night's
Dream," iii. 2.
Milton, in his "Il Penseroso," mentions the dragon yoke of night, and in
his "Comus" (l. 130):
"the dragon womb
Of Stygian darkness."
It may be noticed that the whole tribe of serpents sleep with their
eyes open, and so appear to exert a constant watchfulness.[419]
[419] Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. x. p. 363.
In devising loathsome ingredients for the witches' mess, Shakespeare
("Macbeth," iv. 1) speaks of "the scale of dragon," alluding to the
horror in which this mythical being was held. Referring, also, to the
numerous legends associated with its dread form, he mentions "the spleen
of fiery dragons" ("Richard III.," v. 3), "dragon's wings" ("1 Henry
VI.," i. 1), and ("Pericles," i. 1), "death-like dragons." Mr.
Conway[420] has admirably summed up the general views respecting this
imaginary source of terror: "Nearly all the dragon forms, whatever their
original types and their region, are represented in the conventional
monster of the European stage, which meets the popular conception. The
dragon is a masterpiece of the popular imagination, and it required many
generations to give it artistic shape. Every Christmas he appears in
some London pantomime, with aspect similar to that which he has worn for
many ages. His body is partly green, with the memories of the sea and of
slime, and partly brown or dark, with lingering shadow of storm clouds.
The lightning flames still in his red eyes, and flashes from his
fire-breathing mouth. The thunder-bolt of Jove, the spear of Wodan, are
in the barbed point of his tail. His huge wings--bat-like, spiked--sum up
all the mythical life of extinct harpies and vampires. Spine of
crocodile is on his neck, tail of the serpent, and all the jagged ridges
of rocks and sharp thorns of jungles bristle around him, while the ice
of glaciers and brassy glitter of sunstrokes are in his scales. He is
ideal of all that is hard, obstructive, perilous, loathsome, horrible in
nature; every detail of him has been seen through and vanquished by man,
here or there, but in selection and combination they rise again as
principles, and conspire to form one great generalization of the forms
of pain--the sum of every creature's worst."[421]
[420] "Demonology and Devil-Lore," 1880, vol. i. p. 383.
[421] The dragon formerly constituted a part of the
morris-dance.
_Elephant._ According to a vulgar error, current in bygone times, the
elephant was supposed to have no joints--a notion which is said to have
been first recorded from tradition by Ctesias the Cnidian.[422] Sir
Thomas Browne has entered largely into this superstition, arguing, from
reason, anatomy, and general analogy with other animals, the absurdity
of the error. In "Troilus and Cressida" (ii. 3), Ulysses says: "The
elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy: his legs are legs for
necessity, not for flexure." Steevens quotes from "The Dialogues of
Creatures Moralized"--a curious specimen of our early natural history--the
following: "the olefawnte that bowyth not the kneys." In the play of
"All Fools," 1605, we read: "I hope you are no elephant--you have
joints." In a note to Sir Thomas Browne's Works,[423] we are told, "it
has long been the custom for the exhibitors of itinerant collections of
wild animals, when showing the elephant, to mention the story of its
having no joints, and its consequent inability to kneel; and they never
fail to think it necessary to demonstrate its untruth by causing the
animal to bend one of its fore-legs, and to kneel also."
[422] Sir Thomas Browne's Works, 1852, vol. i. pp. 220-232.
[423] Edited by Simon Wilkin, 1852, vol. i. p. 226.
In "Julius Cæsar" (ii. 1) the custom of seducing elephants into
pitfalls, lightly covered with hurdles and turf, on which a proper bait
to tempt them was exposed, is alluded to.[424] Decius speaks of
elephants being betrayed "with holes."
[424] See Pliny's "Natural History," bk. viii.
_Fox._ It appears that the term fox was a common expression for the old
English weapon, the broadsword of Jonson's days, as distinguished from
the small (foreign) sword. The name was given from the circumstance that
Andrea Ferrara adopted a fox as the blade-mark of his weapons--a
practice, since his time, adopted by other foreign sword-cutlers. Swords
with a running fox rudely engraved on the blades are still occasionally
to be met with in the old curiosity shops of London.[425] Thus, in
"Henry V." (iv. 4), Pistol says:
"O Signieur Dew, thou diest on point of fox,
Except, O signieur, thou do give to me
Egregious ransom."
[425] Staunton's "Shakespeare," 1864, vol. ii. p. 367; Nares's
"Glossary," vol. i. p. 331.
In Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair" (ii. 6) the expression occurs: "What
would you have, sister, of a fellow that knows nothing but a
basket-hilt, and an old fox in it?"
The tricks and artifices of a hunted fox were supposed to be very
extraordinary; hence Falstaff makes use of this expression in "1 Henry
IV." (iii. 3): "No more truth in thee than in a drawn fox."
_Goat._ It is curious that the harmless goat should have had an evil
name, and been associated with devil-lore. Thus, there is a common
superstition in England and Scotland that it is never seen for
twenty-four hours together; and that once in this space it pays a visit
to the devil, in order to have its beard combed. It was, formerly, too,
a popular notion that the devil appeared frequently in the shape of a
goat, which accounted for his horns and tail. Sir Thomas Browne observes
that the goat was the emblem of the sin-offering, and is the emblem of
sinful men at the day of judgment. This may, perhaps, account for
Shakespeare's enumerating the "gall of goat" ("Macbeth," iv. 1) among
the ingredients of the witches' caldron. His object seems to have been
to include the most distasteful and ill-omened things imaginable--a
practice shared, indeed, by other poets contemporary with him.
_Hare._ This was formerly esteemed a melancholy animal, and its flesh
was supposed to engender melancholy in those who ate it. This idea was
not confined to our own country, but is mentioned by La Fontaine in one
of his "Fables" (liv. ii. fab. 14):
"Dans un profond ennui ce lievre se plongeoit,
Cet animal est triste, et la crainte le rounge;"
and later on he says: "Le melancolique animal." Hence, in "1 Henry IV."
(i. 2), Falstaff is told by Prince Henry that he is as melancholy as a
hare. This notion was not quite forgotten in Swift's time; for in his
"Polite Conversation," Lady Answerall, being asked to eat hare, replies:
"No, madam; they say 'tis melancholy meat." Mr. Staunton quotes the
following extract from Turbervile's book on Hunting and Falconry: "The
hare first taught us the use of the hearbe called wyld succory, which is
very excellent for those which are disposed to be melancholicke. She
herself is one of the most melancholicke beasts that is, and to heale
her own infirmitie, she goeth commonly to sit under that hearbe."
The old Greek epigram relating to the hare--
"Strike ye my body, now that life is fled;
So hares insult the lion when he's dead,"
--is alluded to by the Bastard in "King John" (ii. 1):
"You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,
Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard."
A familiar expression among sportsmen for a hare is "Wat," so called,
perhaps, from its long ears or wattles. In "Venus and Adonis" the term
occurs:
"By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,
Stands on his hinder legs, with listening ear."
In Drayton's "Polyolbion" (xxiii.) we read:
"The man whose vacant mind prepares him to the sport,
The finder sendeth out, to seek out nimble Wat,
Which crosseth in the field, each furlong, every flat,
Till he this pretty beast upon the form hath found."
_Hedgehog._ The urchin or hedgehog, like the toad, for its solitariness,
the ugliness of its appearance, and from a popular belief that it sucked
or poisoned the udders of cows, was adopted into the demonologic system;
and its shape was sometimes supposed to be assumed by mischievous
elves.[426] Hence, in "The Tempest" (i. 2), Prospero says:
"Urchins
Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,
All exercise on thee;"
and later on in the same play (ii. 2) Caliban speaks of being frighted
with "urchin shows." In the witch scene in "Macbeth" (iv. 1) the
hedge-pig is represented as one of the witches' familiars; and in the
"Midsummer-Night's Dream" (ii. 2), in the incantation of the fairies,
"thorny hedgehogs" are exorcised. For the use of urchins in similar
associations we may quote "Merry Wives of Windsor" (iv. 4), "like
urchins, ouphes, and fairies;" and "Titus Andronicus" (ii. 3), "ten
thousand swelling toads, as many urchins."[427] In the phrase still
current, of "little urchin" for a child, the idea of the fairy also
remains. In various legends we find this animal holding a prominent
place. Thus, for example, it was in the form of a hedgehog[428] that the
devil is said to have made his attempt to let the sea in through the
Brighton Downs, which was prevented by a light being brought, though the
seriousness of the scheme is still attested in the Devil's Dyke. There
is an ancient tradition that when the devil had smuggled himself into
Noah's Ark he tried to sink it by boring a hole; but this scheme was
defeated, and the human race saved, by the hedgehog stuffing himself
into the hole. In the Brighton story, as Mr. Conway points out, the
devil would appear to have remembered his former failure in drowning
people, and to have appropriated the form which defeated him. In
"Richard III." (i. 2), the hedgehog is used as a term of reproach by
Lady Anne, when addressing Gloster.
[426] Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. ix. p. 75.
[427] See Wright's Notes to "The Tempest," 1875, p. 94.
[428] Conway's "Demonology and Devil-Lore," 1880, vol. i. p. 122.
_Horse._ Although Shakespeare's allusions to the horse are most
extensive, yet he has said little of the many widespread superstitions,
legends, and traditional tales that have been associated from the
earliest times with this brave and intellectual animal. Indeed, even
nowadays, both in our own country and abroad, many a fairy tale is told
and credited by the peasantry in which the horse occupies a prominent
place. It seems to have been a common notion that, at night-time,
fairies in their nocturnal revels played various pranks with horses,
often entangling in a thousand knots their hair--a superstition to which
we referred in our chapter on Fairies, where Mercutio, in "Romeo and
Juliet" (i. 4), says:
"This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night,
And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes."
In "King Lear" (ii. 3), Edgar says: "I'll ... elf all my hair in knots."
Mr. Hunt, in his "Popular Romances of the West of England" (1871, p.
87), tells us that, when a boy, he was on a visit at a farmhouse near
Fowey River, and well remembers the farmer, with much sorrow, telling
the party one morning at breakfast, how "the piskie people had been
riding Tom again." The mane was said to be knotted into fairy stirrups,
and the farmer said he had no doubt that at least twenty small people
had sat upon the horse's neck. Warburton[429] considers that this
superstition may have originated from the disease called "Plica
Polonica." Witches, too, have generally been supposed to harass the
horse, using it in various ways for their fiendish purposes. Thus, there
are numerous local traditions in which the horse at night-time has been
ridden by the witches, and found in the morning in an almost prostrate
condition, bathed in sweat.
[429] Warburton on "Romeo and Juliet," i. 4.
It was a current notion that a horse-hair dropped into corrupted water
would soon become an animal. The fact, however, is that the hair moves
like a living thing because a number of animalculæ cling to it.[430]
This ancient vulgar error is mentioned in "Antony and Cleopatra" (i. 2):
"much is breeding,
Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life,
And not a serpent's poison."
[430] Dyce's "Glossary," p. 104.
Steevens quotes from Churchyard's "Discourse of Rebellion," 1570:
"Hit is of kinde much worse than horses heare,
That lyes in donge, where on vyle serpents brede."
Dr. Lister, in the "Philosophical Transactions," says that these
animated horse-hairs are real thread-worms. It was asserted that these
worms moved like serpents, and were poisonous to swallow. Coleridge
tells us it was a common experiment with boys in Cumberland and
Westmoreland to lay a horse-hair in water, which, when removed after a
time, would twirl round the finger and sensibly compress it--having
become the supporter of an immense number of small, slimy water-lice.
A horse is said to have a "cloud in his face" when he has a dark-colored
spot in his forehead between his eyes. This gives him a sour look, and,
being supposed to indicate an ill-temper, is generally considered a
great blemish. This notion is alluded to in "Antony and Cleopatra" (iii.
2), where Agrippa, speaking of Cæsar, says:
"He has a cloud in's face,"
whereupon Enobarbus adds:
"He were the worse for that, were he a horse;
So is he, being a man."
Burton, in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," uses the phrase for the look of
a woman: "Every lover admires his mistress, though she be very deformed
of herselfe--thin, leane, chitty face, have clouds in her face," etc.
"To mose in the chine," a phrase we find in "Taming of the Shrew" (iii.
2)--"Possessed with the glanders, and like to mose in the chine"--refers
to a disorder in horses, also known as "mourning in the chine."
Alluding to the custom associated with horses, we may note that a
stalking-horse, or stale, was either a real or artificial one, under
cover of which the fowler approached towards and shot at his game. It is
alluded to in "As You Like It" (v. 4) by the Duke, who says of
Touchstone: "He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the
presentation of that he shoots his wit." In "Much Ado About Nothing"
(ii. 3), Claudio says: "Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits."[431] In
"Comedy of Errors" (ii. 1), Adriana says: "I am but his stale," upon
which Malone remarks: "Adriana undoubtedly means to compare herself to a
stalking-horse, behind whom Antipholus shoots at such game as he
selects." In "Taming of the Shrew," Katharina says to her father (i. 1):
"is it your will
To make a stale of me amongst these mates?"
which, says Singer, means "make an object of mockery." So in "3 Henry
VI." (iii. 3), Warwick says:
"Had he none else to make a stale but me?"
[431] See Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," p. 106;
Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 830.
That it was also a hunting term might be shown, adds Dyce,[432] by
quotations from various old writers. In the inventories of the wardrobe
belonging to King Henry VIII. we frequently find the allowance of
certain quantities of stuff for the purpose of making "stalking-coats
and stalking-hose for the use of his majesty."[433]
[432] "Glossary," p. 412.
[433] See Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," p. 48.
Again, the forehorse of a team was generally gayly ornamented with tufts
and ribbons and bells. Hence, in "All's Well That Ends Well" (ii. 1),
Bertram complains that, bedizened like one of these animals, he will
have to squire ladies at the court, instead of achieving honor in the
wars--
"I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock,
Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry,
Till honour be bought up, and no sword worn
But one to dance with."
A familiar name for a common horse was "Cut"--either from its being
docked or gelded--a name occasionally applied to a man as a term of
contempt. In "Twelfth Night" (ii. 3), Sir Toby Belch says: "Send for
money, knight; if thou hast her not i' the end, call me cut." In "1
Henry IV." (ii. 1), the first carrier says: "I prithee, Tom, beat Cut's
saddle." We may compare, too, what Falstaff says further on in the same
play (ii. 4): "I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my
face, call me horse." Hence, _call me cut_ is the same as _call me
horse_--both expressions having been used.
In Shakespeare's day a _race_ of horses was the term for what is now
called a stud. So in "Macbeth" (ii. 4), Rosse says:
"And Duncan's horses--a thing most strange and certain--
Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,
Turn'd wild in nature."
The words "minions of their race," according to Steevens, mean the
favorite horses on the race-ground.
_Lion._ The traditions and stories of the darker ages abounded with
examples of the lion's generosity. "Upon the supposition that these acts
of clemency were true, Troilus, in the passage below, reasons not
improperly ('Troilus and Cressida,' v. 3) that to spare against reason,
by mere instinct and pity, became rather a generous beast than a wise
man:"[434]
"Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you,
Which better fits a lion than a man."
[434] Singer's "Shakespeare," 1875, vol. vii. p. 277.
It is recorded by Pliny[435] that "the lion alone of all wild animals is
gentle to those that humble themselves before him, and will not touch
any such upon their submission, but spareth what creature soever lieth
prostrate before him." Hence Spenser's Una, attended by a lion; and
Perceval's lion, in "Morte d'Arthur" (bk. xiv. c. 6). Bartholomæus says
the lion's "mercie is known by many and oft ensamples: for they spare
them that lie on the ground." Shakespeare again alludes to this notion
in "As You Like It" (iv. 3):
"for 'tis
The royal disposition of that beast
To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead."
[435] "Natural History," bk. viii. c. 19.
It was also supposed that the lion would not injure a royal prince.
Hence, in "1 Henry IV." (ii. 4) the Prince says: "You are lions too, you
ran away upon instinct, you will not touch the true prince; no, fie!"
The same notion is alluded to by Beaumont and Fletcher in "The Mad
Lover" (iv. 5):
"Fetch the Numidian lion I brought over;
If she be sprung from royal blood, the lion
He'll do you reverence, else--
* * * * *
He'll tear her all to pieces."
According to some commentators there is an allusion in "3 Henry VI." (i.
3) to the practice of confining lions and keeping them without food that
they may devour criminals exposed to them:
"So looks the pent-up lion o'er the wretch
That trembles under his devouring paws."
_Mole._ The eyes of the mole are so extremely minute, and so perfectly
hid in its hair, that our ancestors considered it blind--a vulgar error,
to which reference is made by Caliban in "The Tempest" (iv. 1):
"Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole may not
Hear a foot fall."
And again by Pericles (i. 1):
"The blind mole casts
Copp'd hills towards heaven."
Hence the expression "blind as a mole." Alexander Ross[436] absurdly
speaks of the mole's eyes as only the "forms of eyes," given by nature
"rather for ornament than for use; as wings are given to the ostrich,
which never flies, and a long tail to the rat, which serves for no other
purpose but to be catched sometimes by it." Sir Thomas Browne, however,
in his "Vulgar Errors" (bk. iii. c. xviii.),[437] has, with his usual
minuteness, disproved this idea, remarking "that they have eyes in their
head is manifested unto any that wants them not in his own." A popular
term for the mole was the "moldwarp" or "mouldiwarp,"[438] so called
from the Anglo-Saxon, denoting turning the mould. Thus, in "1 Henry IV."
(iii. 1) Hotspur says:
"sometime he angers me
With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant."
[436] "Arcana Microcosmi," p. 151.
[437] 1852, vol. i. pp. 312-315.
[438] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 577; Singer's
"Shakespeare," vol. v. p. 77.
_Mouse._ This word was formerly used as a term of endearment, from
either sex to the other. In this sense it is used by Rosaline in "Love's
Labour's Lost" (v. 2):
"What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?"
and again in "Hamlet" (iii. 4).
Some doubt exists as to the exact meaning of "Mouse-hunt," by Lady
Capulet, in "Romeo and Juliet" (iv. 4):
"Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time,
But I will watch you from such watching now."
According to some, the expression implies "a hunter of gay women," mouse
having been used in this signification.[439] Others are of opinion that
the stoat[440] is meant, the smallest of the weasel tribe, and others
again the polecat. Mr. Staunton[441] tells us that the mouse-hunt is the
marten, an animal of the weasel tribe which prowls about for its prey at
night, and is applied to any one of rakish propensities.
[439] Halliwell-Phillipps's "Handbook Index to Shakespeare,"
1866, p. 331.
[440] Forby's "Vocabulary of East Anglia," vol. ii. p. 222.
[441] See Staunton's "Shakespeare," vol. i. p. 278.
Holinshed, in his "History of Scotland" (1577, p. 181), quotes from the
laws of Kenneth II., King of Scotland: "If a sowe eate her pigges, let
hyr be stoned to death and buried, that no man eate of hyr fleshe." This
offence is probably alluded to by Shakespeare in "Macbeth" (iv. 1),
where the witch says:
"Pour in sow's blood, that hath eaten
Her nine farrow."
_Polecat_, or _Fitchew_. This animal is supposed to be very amorous; and
hence its name, Mr. Steevens says, was often applied to ladies of easy
or no virtue. In "Othello" (iv. 1) Cassio calls Bianca a "fitchew," and
in "Troilus and Cressida" (v. 1) Thersites alludes to it.[442]
[442] Cf. "King Lear," iv. 6.
_Porcupine._ Another name for this animal was the porpentine, which
spelling occurs in "Hamlet" (i. 5):
"Like quills upon the fretful porpentine."
And again, in "2 Henry VI." (iii. 1) York speaks of "a sharp-quill'd
porpentine." Ajax, too, in "Troilus and Cressida" (ii. 1), applies the
term to Thersites: "do not, porpentine." In the above passages, however,
and elsewhere, the word has been altered by editors to porcupine.
According to a popular error, the porcupine could dart his quills. They
are easily detached, very sharp, and slightly barbed, and may easily
stick to a person's legs, when he is not aware that he is near enough to
touch them.[443]
[443] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 673.
_Rabbit._ In "2 Henry IV." (ii. 2) this animal is used as a term of
reproach, a sense in which it was known in Shakespeare's day. The phrase
"cony-catch," which occurs in "Taming of the Shrew" (v. 1)--"Take heed,
Signior Baptista, lest you be cony-catched in this business"--implied the
act of deceiving or cheating a simple person--the cony or rabbit being
considered a foolish animal.[444] It has been shown, from Dekker's
"English Villanies," that the system of cheating was carried to a great
length in the early part of the seventeenth century, that a collective
society of sharpers was called "a warren," and their dupes
"rabbit-suckers," _i. e._, young rabbit or conies.[445] Shakespeare has
once used the term to express harmless roguery, in the "Taming of the
Shrew" (iv. 1). When Grumio will not answer his fellow-servants, except
in a jesting way, Curtis says to him: "Come, you are so full of
cony-catching."
[444] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 189.
[445] See D'Israeli's "Curiosities of Literature," vol. iii. p. 78.
_Rat._ The fanciful idea that rats were commonly rhymed to death, in
Ireland, is said to have arisen from some metrical charm or incantation,
used there for that purpose, to which there are constant allusions in
old writers. In the "Merchant of Venice" (iv. 1) Shylock says:
"What if my house be troubled with a rat,
And I be pleased to give ten thousand ducats
To have it baned?"
And in "As You Like It" (iii. 2), Rosalind says: "I was never so
be-rhymed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat, which I can
hardly remember." We find it mentioned by Ben Jonson in the "Poetaster"
(v. 1):
"Rhime them to death, as they do Irish rats,
In drumming tunes."
"The reference, however, is generally referred, in Ireland," says Mr.
Mackay, "to the supposed potency of the verses pronounced by the
professional rhymers of Ireland, which, according to popular
superstition, could not only drive rats to destruction, but could
absolutely turn a man's face to the back of his head."[446]
[446] "The strange phrase and the superstition that arose out
of it seem to have been produced by a mistranslation, by the
English-speaking population of a considerable portion of
Ireland, of two Celtic or Gaelic words, _ran_, to _roar_, to
shriek, to bellow, to make a great noise on a wind instrument;
and _rann_, to versify, to rhyme. It is well known that rats
are scared by any great and persistent noise in the house which
they infest. The Saxon English, as well as Saxon Irish, of
Shakespeare's time, confounding _rann_, a rhyme, with _ran_, a
_roar_, fell into the error which led to the English phrase as
used by Shakespeare."--_Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer_,
1882, vol. ii. p. 9. "On Some Obscure Words and Celtic Phrases
in Shakespeare," by Charles Mackay.
Sir W. Temple, in his "Essay on Poetry," seems to derive the idea from
the Runic incantations, for, after speaking of them in various ways, he
adds, "and the proverb of rhyming rats to death, came, I suppose, from
the same root."
According to a superstitious notion of considerable antiquity, rats
leaving a ship are considered indicative of misfortune to a vessel,
probably from the same idea that crows will not build upon trees that
are likely to fall. This idea is noticed by Shakespeare in "The Tempest"
(i. 2), where Prospero, describing the vessel in which himself and
daughter had been placed, with the view to their certain destruction at
sea, says:
"they hurried us aboard a bark,
Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared
A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats
Instinctively have quit it."
The _Shipping Gazette_ of April, 1869, contained a communication
entitled, "A Sailor's Notion about Rats," in which the following passage
occurs: "It is a well-authenticated fact that rats have often been known
to leave ships in the harbor previous to their being lost at sea. Some
of those wiseacres who want to convince us against the evidence of our
senses will call this superstition. As neither I have time, nor you
space, to cavil with such at present, I shall leave them alone in their
glory." The fact, however, as Mr. Hardwick has pointed out in his
"Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-lore" (1872, p. 251), that rats do
sometimes migrate from one ship to another, or from one barn or
corn-stack to another, from various causes, ought to be quite sufficient
to explain such a superstition. Indeed, a story is told of a cunning
Welsh captain who wanted to get rid of rats that infested his ship, then
lying in the Mersey, at Liverpool. Having found out that there was a
vessel laden with cheese in the basin, and getting alongside of her
about dusk, he left all his hatches open, and waited till all the rats
were in his neighbor's ship, and then moved off.
_Snail._ A common amusement among children consists in charming snails,
in order to induce them to put out their horns--a couplet, such as the
following, being repeated on the occasion:
"Peer out, peer out, peer out of your hole,
Or else I'll beat you as black as a coal."
In Scotland, it is regarded as a token of fine weather if the snail obey
the command and put out its horn:[447]
"Snailie, snailie, shoot out your horn,
And tell us if it will be a bonnie day the morn."
[447] See "English Folk-Lore," 1878, p. 120.
Shakespeare alludes to snail-charming in the "Merry Wives of Windsor"
(iv. 2), where Mrs. Page says of Mrs. Ford's husband, he "so buffets
himself on the forehead, crying, _Peer out! peer out!_ that any madness
I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility, and patience, to this
his distemper he is in now." In "Comedy of Errors" (ii. 2), the snail is
used to denote a lazy person.
_Tiger._ It was an ancient belief that this animal roared and raged most
furiously in stormy and high winds--a piece of folk-lore alluded to in
"Troilus and Cressida" (i. 3), by Nestor, who says:
"The herd hath more annoyance by the breese
Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,
And flies fled under shade, why then, the thing of courage,
As roused with rage, with rage doth sympathize."
_Unicorn._ In "Julius Cæsar" (ii. 1) Decius tells how "unicorns may be
betray'd with trees," alluding to their traditionary mode of capture.
They are reported to have been taken by one who, running behind a tree,
eluded the violent push the animal was making at him, so that his horn
spent its force on the trunk, and stuck fast, detaining the animal till
he was despatched by the hunter.[448] In Topsell's "History of Beasts"
(1658, p. 557), we read of the unicorn: "He is an enemy to the lions,
wherefore, as soon as ever a lion seeth a unicorn, he runneth to a tree
for succour, that so when the unicorn maketh force at him, he may not
only avoid his horn, but also destroy him; for the unicorn, in the
swiftness of his course, runneth against the tree, wherein his sharp
horn sticketh fast, that when the lion seeth the unicorn fastened by the
horn, without all danger he falleth upon him and killeth him." With this
passage we may compare the following from Spenser's "Fairy Queen" (bk.
ii. canto 5):
"Like as a lyon, whose imperiall power
A prowd rebellious unicorn defyes,
T' avoide the rash assault and wrathful stowre
Of his fiers foe, him to a tree applyes,
And when him ronning in full course he spyes,
He slips aside: the whiles that furious beast
His precious horne, sought of his enimyes
Strikes in the stocke, ne thence can be releast,
But to the mighty victor yields a bounteous feast."
[448] See Brewer's "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable," p. 922.
_Weasel._ To meet a weasel was formerly considered a bad omen.[449] That
may be a tacit allusion to this superstition in "Lucrece" (l. 307):
"Night-wandering weasels shriek to see him there;
They fright him, yet he still pursues his fear."
[449] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 283.
It appears that weasels were kept in houses, instead of cats, for the
purpose of killing vermin. Phædrus notices this their feline office in
the first and fourth fables of his fourth book. The supposed
quarrelsomeness of this animal is spoken of by Pisanio in "Cymbeline"
(iii. 4), who tells Imogen that she must be "as quarrelous as the
weasel;" and in "1 Henry IV." (ii. 3), Lady Percy says to Hotspur:
"A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen
As you are toss'd with."
This character of the weasel is not, however, generally mentioned by
naturalists.