Folk-lore of Shakespeare by Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer (year 2 reading books .txt) 📖
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Ever shall be fortunate.”
Steevens, in illustration of this custom, quotes from Chaucer’s “The Merchant’s Tale” (ed. Tyrwhitt), line 9693:
The formula for this curious ceremony is thus given in the Manual for the use of Salisbury: “Nocte vero sequente cum sponsus et sponsa ad lectum pervenerint, accedat sacerdos et benedicat thalamum, dicens. Benedic, Domine, thalamum istum et omnes habitantes in eo; ut in tua pace consistant, et in tua voluntate permaneant: et in tuo amore vivant et senescant et multiplicentur in longitudine dierum. Per Dominum.—Item benedictio super lectum. Benedic, Domine, hoc cubiculum, respice, quinon dormis neque dormitas. Qui custodis Israel, custodi famulos tuos in hoc lecto quiescentes ab omnibus fantasmaticis demonum illusionibus. Custodi eos vigilantes ut in preceptis tuis meditentur dormientes, et te per soporem sentiant; ut hic et ubique depensionis tuæ muniantur auxilio. Per Dominum.—Deinde fiat benedictio super eos in lecto tantum cum oremus. Benedicat Deus corpora vestra et animas vestras; et det super eos benedictionem sicut benedixit Abraham, Isaac, et Jacob, Amen. His peractis aspergat eos aqua benedicta, et sic discedat et dimittat eos in pace.”[722]
In the French romance of Melusine, the bishop who marries her to Raymondin blesses the nuptial-bed. The ceremony is there presented in a very ancient cut, of which Douce has given a copy. The good prelate is sprinkling the parties with holy water. It appears that, occasionally, during the benediction, the married couple only sat on the bed; but they generally received a portion of the consecrated bread and wine. It is recorded in France, that, on frequent occasions, the priest was improperly detained till midnight, while the wedding guests rioted in the luxuries of the table, and made use of language that was extremely offensive to the clergy. It was therefore ordained, in the year 1577, that the ceremony of blessing the nuptial-bed should for the future be performed in the day-time, or at least before supper, and in the presence of the bride and bridegroom, and of their nearest relations only.
On the morning after the celebration of the marriage, it was formerly customary for friends to serenade a newly married couple, or to greet them with a morning song to bid them good-morrow. In “Othello” (iii. 1) this custom is referred to by Cassio, who, speaking of Othello and Desdemona, says to the musicians:
Something that’s brief; and bid, ‘Good morrow, general.’”
According to Cotgrave, the morning-song to a newly married woman was called the “hunt’s up.” It has been suggested that this may be alluded to by Juliet (iii. 5), who, when urging Romeo to make his escape, tells him:
O, now I would they had chang’d voices too!
Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence with hunt’s-up to the day.
O, now be gone.”
In olden times torches were used at weddings—a practice, indeed, dating as far back as the time of the Romans. From the following lines in Herrick’s “Hesperides,” it has been suggested that the custom once existed in this country:
The ev’ning witnest that I dy’d.
Those holy lights, wherewith they guide
Unto the bed the bashful bride,
Serv’d but as tapers for to burne
And light my reliques to their urne.
This epitaph which here you see,
Supply’d the Epithalamie.”[723]
Shakespeare alludes to this custom in “1 Henry VI.” (iii. 2), where Joan of Arc, thrusting out a burning torch on the top of the tower at Rouen, exclaims:
That joineth Rouen unto her countrymen.”
In “The Tempest,” too (iv. 1), Iris says:
Till Hymen’s torch be lighted.”
According to a Roman marriage custom, the bride, on her entry into her husband’s house, was prohibited from treading over his threshold, and lest she should even so much as touch it, she was always lifted over it. Shakespeare seems inadvertently to have overlooked this usage in “Coriolanus” (iv. 5), where he represents Aufidius as saying:
Sigh’d truer breath; but that I see thee here,
Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart,
Than when I first my wedded mistress saw
Bestride my threshold.”
Lucan in his “Pharsalia” (lib. ii. 1. 359), says:
Once more, Sunday appears to have been a popular day for marriages; the brides of the Elizabethan dramas being usually represented as married on Sundays. In the “Taming of the Shrew” (ii. 1), Petruchio, after telling his future father-in-law “that upon Sunday is the wedding-day,” and laughing at Katharina’s petulant exclamation, “I’ll see thee hanged on Sunday first,” says:
I will to Venice; Sunday comes apace:—
We will have rings, and things, and fine array;
And, kiss me, Kate, we will be married o’ Sunday.”
Thus Mr. Jeaffreson, speaking of this custom in his “Brides and Bridals,” rightly remarks: “A fashionable wedding, celebrated on the Lord’s Day in London, or any part of England, would nowadays be denounced by religious people of all Christian parties. But in our feudal times, and long after the Reformation, Sunday was of all days of the week the favorite one for marriages. Long after the theatres had been closed on Sundays, the day of rest was the chief day for weddings with Londoners of every social class.”
Love-charms have from the earliest times been much in request among the credulous, anxious to gain an insight into their matrimonial prospects.[724] In the “Merchant of Venice” (v. 1), we have an allusion to the practice of kneeling and praying at wayside crosses for a happy marriage, in the passage where Stephano tells how his mistress
By holy crosses, where she kneels and prays
For happy wedlock hours.”
The use of love-potions by a despairing lover, to secure the affections of another, was a superstitious practice much resorted to in olden times.[725] This mode of enchantment, too, was formerly often employed in our own country, and Gay, in his “Shepherd’s Week,” relates how Hobnelia was guilty of this questionable practice:
To town with new-laid eggs, preserved in hay.
I made my market long before ’twas night;
My purse grew heavy, and my basket light.
Straight to the ’pothecary’s shop I went,
And in love-powder all my money spent.
Behap what will, next Sunday after prayers,
When to the ale-house Lubberkin repairs,
These golden flies into his mug I’ll throw,
And soon the swain with fervent love shall glow.”
In the “Character of a Quack Astrologer,” 1673, quoted by Brand, we are told how “he trappans a young heiress to run away with a footman, by persuading a young girl ’tis her destiny; and sells the old and ugly philtres and love-powder to procure them sweethearts.” Shakespeare has represented Othello as accused of winning Desdemona “by conjuration and mighty magic.” Thus Brabantio (i. 2) says:
Abus’d her delicate youth with drugs, or minerals,
That weaken motion.”
And in the following scene he further repeats the same charge against Othello:
By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;
For nature so preposterously to err,
Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense,
Sans witchcraft could not.”
Othello, however, in proving that he had won Desdemona only by honorable means, addressing the Duke, replies:
I will a round unvarnish’d tale deliver
Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms,
What conjuration, and what mighty magic,—
For such proceeding I am charg’d withal,—
I won his daughter.”
It may have escaped the poet’s notice that, by the Venetian law, the giving love-potions was held highly criminal, as appears in the code “Della Promission del Malefico,” cap. xvii., “Del Maleficii et Herbarie.”
A further allusion to this practice occurs in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1). where Puck and Oberon amuse themselves at Titania’s expense.[726]
An expression common in Shakespeare’s day for any one born out of wedlock is mentioned by the Bastard in “King John” (i. 1):
The old saying also that “Hanging and wiving go by destiny” is quoted by Nerissa in the “Merchant of Venice” (ii. 9). In “Much Ado About Nothing” (ii. 1), Don Pedro makes use of an old popular phrase in asking Claudio: “When mean you to go to church?” referring to his marriage.
A solemn and even melancholy air was often affected by the beaux of Queen Elizabeth’s time, as a refined mark of gentility, a most sad and pathetic allusion to which custom is made by Arthur in “King John” (iv. 1):
Yet, I remember, when I was in France,
Young gentlemen would be as sad as night,
Only for wantonness.”[727]
There are frequent references to this fashion in our old writers. Thus, in Ben Jonson’s “Every Man in His Humor” (i. 3), we read: “Why, I do think of it; and I will be more proud, and melancholy, and gentlemanlike than I have been, I’ll insure you.”
[707] “Shakespeare and His Times,” 1817, vol. i. p. 220.
[708] On entering into any contract, or plighting of troth, the clapping of the hands together set the seal, as in the “Winter’s Tale” (i. 2), where Leontes says:
And clap thyself my love; then didst thou utter
I am yours forever.”
So, too, in “The Tempest” (iii. 1):
Ferdinand. Ay, with a heart as willing
As bondage e’er of freedom: here’s my hand.
Miranda. And mine, with my heart in’t.”
And in the old play of “Ram Alley,” by Barry (1611), we read, “Come, clap hands, a match.” The custom is not yet disused in common life.
[709] “The Stratford Shakespeare,” 1854, vol. i p. 70.
[710] Knight’s “Stratford Shakespeare,” p. 73.
[711] Cf. “King John” (ii. 2):
Austria. And your lips too; for, I am well assured,
That I did so, when I was first assured.”
[712] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 363; “Archæologia,” vol. xiv. p. 7; Jones’s “Finger Ring Lore,” 1877, pp. 313-318.
[713] See Jeaffreson’s “Brides and Bridals,” 1873, vol. i. pp. 77, 78.
[714] Sops in wine.
[715] See “Brand’s Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. pp. 136, 139.
[716] “Pop. Antiq.,” vol. ii. p. 140.
[717] “Brides and Bridals,” 1873, vol. i. p. 252.
[718] “Brides and Bridals,” vol. i. p. 177.
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