Folk-lore of Shakespeare by Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer (year 2 reading books .txt) 📖
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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:
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):
“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:
On that bright sun of glory fix thine eyes.”
In “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iv. 3) Biron says of Rosaline:
Dares look upon the heaven of her brow,
That is not blinded by her majesty?”[205]
And in “3 Henry VI.” (ii. 1) Richard says to his brother Edward:
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):
Leaving no tract behind.”[208]
The great age, too, of the eagle is well known; and the words of the Psalmist are familiar to most readers:
Apemantus, however, asks of Timon (“Timon of Athens,” iv. 3):
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:
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):
And did avoid a puttock;”
and in another scene (iv. 2) the Soothsayer relates how
... 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.”
The conscious superiority[210] of the eagle is depicted by Tamora in “Titus Andronicus” (iv. 4):
And is not careful what they mean thereby,
Knowing that with the shadow of his wing,
He can at pleasure stint their melody.”
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):
In “Troilus and Cressida” (v. 10) there is a further allusion:
Ben Jonson[212] calls it:
Bred on the banke in time of Popery,
When Venus there maintain’d the mystery.”
“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]
In “Coriolanus” (i. 4), the goose is spoken of as the emblem of cowardice. Marcius says:
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:
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.”
Gull. Shakespeare often uses this word as synonymous with fool. Thus in “Henry V.” (iii. 6) he says:
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:
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:
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.”
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
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