Folk-lore of Shakespeare by Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer (year 2 reading books .txt) đź“–
- Author: Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer
- Performer: -
Book online «Folk-lore of Shakespeare by Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer (year 2 reading books .txt) 📖». Author Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer
Alluding to the revels, there can be no doubt that Shakespeare was indebted to the revel-books for some of his plots. Thus, in “The Tempest” (iv. 1), Prospero remarks to Ferdinand and Miranda, after Iris, Ceres, and Juno have appeared, and the dance of the nymphs is over:
As if you were dismay’d; be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.”
It has been inferred that Shakespeare was present at Kenilworth, in 1575, when Elizabeth was so grandly entertained there. Lakes and seas are represented in the masque. Triton, in the likeness of a mermaid, came towards the queen, says George Gascoigne, and “Arion appeared, sitting on a dolphin’s back.” In the dialogue in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream,” between Oberon and Puck (ii. 1), there seems a direct allusion to this event:
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song,
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid’s music.
Then, too, there were the “Children of the Revels,” a company who performed at Blackfriars Theatre. In “Hamlet” (ii. 2), Shakespeare alludes to these “children-players.”[639] Rosencrantz says, in the conversation preceding the entry of the players, in reply to Hamlet’s inquiry whether the actors have suffered through the result of the late inhibition, evidently referring to the plague, “Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but there is, sir, an aery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped for ’t; these are now the fashion; and so berattle the common stages—so they call them—that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither.”
Twelfth-Day. There can be no doubt that the title of Shakespeare’s play, “Twelfth Night,” took its origin in the festivities associated with this festival. The season has, from time immemorial, been one of merriment, “the more decided from being the proper close of the festivities of Christmas, when games of chance were traditionally rife, and the sport of sudden and casual elevation gave the tone of the time. Of like tone is the play, and to this,”[640] says Mr. Lloyd, “it apparently owes its title.” The play, it appears, was probably originally acted at the barristers’ feast at the Middle Temple, on February 2, 1601-2, as Manningham tells us in his “Diary” (Camden Society, 1868, ed. J. Bruce, p. 18). It is worthy of note that the festive doings of the Inns of Court, in days gone by, at Christmas-tide were conducted on the most extravagant scale.[641] In addition to the merry disports of the Lord of Misrule, there were various revels. The Christmas masque at Gray’s Inn, in 1594, was on a magnificent scale.
St. Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14). Whatever may be the historical origin of this festival, whether heathen or Christian, there can be no doubt of its antiquity. According to an old tradition, to which Chaucer refers, birds choose their mates on this day; and hence, in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iv. 1), Theseus asks:
Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?”
From this notion, it has been suggested, arose the once popular practice of choosing valentines, and also the common belief that the first two single persons who meet in the morning of St. Valentine’s day have a great chance of becoming wed to each other. This superstition is alluded to in Ophelia’s song in “Hamlet” (iv. 5):
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your valentine.”
There seems every probability that St. Valentine’s day, with its many customs, has come down to us from the Romans, but was fathered upon St. Valentine in the earlier ages of the Church in order to Christianize it.[642] In France St. Valentine’s was a movable feast, celebrated on the first Sunday in Lent, which was called the jour des brandons, because the boys carried about lighted torches on that day.
Shrove-Tuesday. This day was formerly devoted to feasting and merriment of every kind, but whence originated the custom of eating pancakes is still a matter of uncertainty. The practice is alluded to in “All’s Well that Ends Well” (ii. 2), where the clown speaks of “a pancake for Shrove-Tuesday.”[643] In “Pericles” (ii. 1) they are termed “flap-jacks,” a term used by Taylor, the Water-Poet, in his “Jack-a-Lent Workes” (1630, vol. i. p. 115): “Until at last by the skill of the cooke it is transformed into the form of a flap-jack, which in our translation is called a pancake.” Shrovetide was, in times gone by, a season of such mirth that shroving, or to shrove, signified to be merry. Hence, in “2 Henry IV.” (v. 3), Justice Silence says:
For women are shrews, both short and tall;
’Tis merry in hall, when beards wag all,
And welcome merry shrove-tide.
Be merry, be merry.”
It was a holiday and a day of license for apprentices, laboring persons, and others.[644]
Lent. This season was at one time marked by a custom now fallen into disuse. A figure, made up of straw and cast-off clothes, was drawn or carried through the streets amid much noise and merriment; after which it was either burned, shot at, or thrown down a chimney. This image was called a “Jack-a-Lent,” and was, according to some, intended to represent Judas Iscariot. It occurs twice in the “Merry Wives of Windsor;” once merely as a jocular appellation (iii. 3), where Mrs. Page says to Robin, “You little Jack-a-Lent, have you been true to us?” and once (v. 5) as a butt, or object of satire and attack, Falstaff remarking, “How wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent, when ’tis upon ill employment!” It is alluded to by Ben Jonson in his “Tale of a Tub” (iv. 2):
And wast made up of patches, parings, shreds;
Thou, that when last thou wert put out of service,
Travell’d to Hamstead Heath on an Ash Wednesday,
Where thou didst stand six weeks the Jack of Lent,
For boys to hurl three throws a penny at thee,
To make thee a purse.”
Elderton, in a ballad called “Lenton Stuff,” in a MS. in the Ashmolean Museum, thus concludes his account of Lent:[645]
With the hedpeece of a herynge,
And saythe, repent yowe of yower syn,
For shame, syrs, leve yowre swerynge:
And to Palme Sonday doethe he ryde,
With sprots and herryngs by his syde,
And makes an end of Lenton tyde!”[646]
In the reign of Elizabeth butchers were strictly enjoined not to sell fleshmeat in Lent, not with a religious view, but for the double purpose[647] of diminishing the consumption of fleshmeat during that period, and so making it more plentiful during the rest of the year, and of encouraging the fisheries and augmenting the number of seamen. Butchers, however, who had an interest at court frequently obtained a dispensation to kill a certain number of beasts a week during Lent; of which indulgence the wants of invalids, who could not subsist without animal food, was made the pretence. It is to this practice that Cade refers in “2 Henry VI.” (iv. 3), where he tells Dick, the butcher of Ashford: “Therefore, thus will I reward thee,—the Lent shall be as long again as it is; and thou shalt have a license to kill for a hundred lacking one.”
In “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4), Falstaff mentions an indictment against Hostess Quickly, “for suffering flesh to be eaten in thy house, contrary to the law; for the which I think thou wilt howl.” Whereupon she replies, “All victuallers do so: what’s a joint of mutton or two in a whole Lent?”
The sparing fare in olden days, during Lent, is indirectly referred to by Rosencrantz in “Hamlet” (ii. 2): “To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment the players shall receive.” We may compare, too, Maria’s words in “Twelfth Night” (i. 5), where she speaks of a good lenten answer, i. e., short.
By a scrap of proverbial rhyme quoted by Mercutio in “Romeo and Juliet” (ii. 4), and the speech introducing it, it appears that a stale hare might be used to make a pie in Lent; he says:
“No hare, sir: unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie, that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.
And an old hare hoar,
Is very good meat in Lent,” etc.
Scambling days. The days so called were Mondays and Saturdays in Lent, when no regular meals were provided, and our great families scambled. There may possibly be an indirect allusion to this custom in “Henry V.” (v. 2), where Shakespeare makes King Henry say: “If ever thou beest mine, Kate, as I have a saving faith within me tells me thou shalt, I get thee with scambling.” In the old household book of the fifth Earl of Northumberland there is a particular section appointing the order of service for these days, and so regulating the licentious contentions of them. We may, also, compare another passage in the same play (i. 1), where the Archbishop of Canterbury speaks of “the scambling and unquiet time.”
Good Friday. Beyond the bare allusion to this day, Shakespeare makes no reference to the many observances formerly associated with it. In “King John” (i. 1) he makes Philip the Bastard say to Lady Faulconbridge:
Sir Robert might have eat his part in me
Upon Good Friday, and ne’er broke his fast.”
And, in “1 Henry IV.” (i. 2), Poins inquires: “Jack, how agrees the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou soldest him on Good Friday last, for a cup of Madeira and a cold capon’s leg?”
Easter. According to a popular superstition, it is considered unlucky to omit wearing new clothes on Easter Day, to which Shakespeare no doubt alludes in “Romeo and Juliet” (iii. 1), when he makes Mercutio ask Benvolio whether he did “not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter.” In East Yorkshire, on Easter Eve, young folks go to the nearest market-town to buy some new article of dress or personal adornment to wear for the first time on Easter Day, as otherwise they believe that birds—notably rooks or “crakes”—will spoil their clothes.[648] In “Poor Robin’s Almanac” we are told:
Or else be sure you will it rue.”
Some think that the custom of “clacking”
Comments (0)