Folk-lore of Shakespeare

“The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,Sing all a green willow:Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,Sing willow, willow, willow:The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur’d her moans,Sing willow, willow, willow:Her salt tears fell from her, and soften’d the stones,Sing willow, willow, willow:Sing all a green willow must be my garland.”

And further on Emilia says (v. 2):

“I will play the swan,And die in music. – [Singing] ‘Willow, willow, willow.’”

And, again, Lorenzo, in “Merchant of Venice” (v. 1), narrates:

“In such a nightStood Dido, with a willow in her hand,Upon the wild sea-banks.”

It was, too, in reference to this custom that Shakespeare, in “Hamlet” (iv. 7), represented poor Ophelia hanging her flowers on the “willow aslant a brook.” “This tree,” says Douce,560 “might have been chosen as the symbol of sadness from the cxxxvii. Psalm (verse 2): ‘We hanged our harps upon the willows;’ or else from a coincidence between the weeping-willow and falling tears.” Another reason has been assigned. The Agnus castus was supposed to promote chastity, and “the willow being of a much like nature,” says Swan, in his “Speculum Mundi” (1635), “it is yet a custom that he which is deprived of his love must wear a willow garland.” Bona, the sister of the King of France, on receiving news of Edward the Fourth’s marriage with Elizabeth Grey, exclaimed,

“in hope he’ll prove a widower shortly,I’ll wear the willow garland for his sake.”

Wormwood. The use of this plant in weaning infants is alluded to in “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 3), by Juliet’s nurse, in the following passage:

“For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,*****When it did taste the wormwood on the nippleOf my dug, and felt it bitter, pretty fool.”

Yew. This tree, styled by Shakespeare “the dismal yew” (“Titus Andronicus,” ii. 3), apart from the many superstitions associated with it, has been very frequently planted in churchyards, besides being used at funerals. Paris, in “Romeo and Juliet” (v. 3), says:

“Under yond yew-trees lay thee all along,Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground;So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,But thou shalt hear it.”

Although various reasons have been assigned for planting the yew-tree in churchyards, it seems probable that the practice had a superstitious origin. As witches were supposed to exercise a powerful influence over the winds, they were believed occasionally to exert their formidable power against religious edifices. Thus Macbeth says (iv. 1):

“Though you untie the winds, and let them fightAgainst the churches.”

To counteract, therefore, this imaginary danger, our ancestors may have planted the yew-tree in their churchyards, not only on account of its vitality as an evergreen, but as connected in some way, in heathen times, with the influence of evil powers.561 In a statute made in the latter part of Edward I.’s reign, to prevent rectors from cutting down trees in churchyards, we find the following: “Verum arbores ipsæ, propter ventorum impetus ne ecclesiis noceant, sæpe plantantur.”562

The custom of sticking yew in the shroud is alluded to in the following song in “Twelfth Night” (ii. 4):

“My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,O, prepare it!My part of death, no one so trueDid share it.”

Through being reckoned poisonous, it is introduced in “Macbeth” (iv. 1) in connection with the witches:

“Gall of goat, and slips of yew,Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse.”

“How much the splitting or tearing off of the slip had to do with magic we learn from a piece of Slavonic folk-lore. It is unlucky to use for a beam a branch or a tree broken by the wind. The devil, or storm-spirit, claims it as his own, and, were it used, the evil spirit would haunt the house. It is a broken branch the witches choose; a sliver’d slip the woodman will have none of.”563

Its epithet, “double-fatal” (“Richard II.,” iii. 2), no doubt refers to the poisonous quality of the leaves, and on account of its wood being employed for instruments of death. Sir Stephen Scroop, when telling Richard of Bolingbroke’s revolt, declares that

“Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bowsOf double-fatal yew against thy state.”

It has been suggested that the poison intended by the Ghost in “Hamlet” (i. 5), when he speaks of the “juice of cursed hebenon,” is that of the yew, and is the same as Marlowe’s “juice of hebon” (“Jew of Malta,” iii. 4). The yew is called hebon by Spenser and by other writers of Shakespeare’s age; and, in its various forms of eben, eiben, hiben, etc., this tree is so named in no less than five different European languages. From medical authorities, both of ancient and modern times, it would seem that the juice of the yew is a rapidly fatal poison; next, that the symptoms attendant upon yew-poisoning correspond, in a very remarkable manner, with those which follow the bites of poisonous snakes; and, lastly, that no other poison but the yew produces the “lazar-like” ulcerations on the body upon which Shakespeare, in this passage, lays so much stress.564

Among the other explanations of this passage is the well-known one which identifies “hebenon” with henbane. Mr. Beisly suggests that nightshade may be meant, while Nares considers that ebony is meant.565

From certain ancient statutes it appears that every Englishman, while archery was practised, was obliged to keep in his house either a bow of yew or some other wood.566

CHAPTER IX

INSECTS AND REPTILES

As Dr. Johnson has truly remarked, Shakespeare is “the poet of nature,” for “his attention was not confined to the actions of men; he was an exact surveyor of the inanimate world; his descriptions have always some peculiarity, gathered by contemplating things as they really exist. Whether life or nature be his subject, Shakespeare shows plainly that he has seen with his own eyes.” So, too, he was in the habit of taking minute observation of the popular notions relating to natural history, so many of which he has introduced into his plays, using them to no small advantage. In numerous cases, also, the peculiarities of certain natural objects have furnished the poet with many excellent metaphors. Thus, in “Richard II.” (ii. 3), Bolingbroke speaks of “the caterpillars of the commonwealth;” and in “2 Henry VI.” (iii. 1) the Duke of York’s reflection on the destruction of his hopes is,

“Thus are my blossoms blasted in the bud,And caterpillars eat my leaves away,”

their destructive powers being familiar.

Ant. An ancient name for the ant is “pismire,” probably a Danish word, from paid and myre, signifying such ants as live in hillocks. In “1 Henry IV.” (i. 3) Hotspur says:

“Why, look you, I am whipp’d and scourg’d with rods,Nettled, and stung with pismires, when I hearOf this vile politician, Bolingbroke.”

Blue-bottle. This well-known insect has often been used as a term of reproach. Thus, in “2 Henry IV.” (v. 4), it furnishes an epithet applied by the abusive tongue of Doll Tearsheet to the beadle who had her in custody. She reviles him as a “blue-bottle rogue,” a term, says Mr. Patterson,567 “evidently suggested by the similarity of the colors of his costume to that of the insect.”

Bots. Our ancestors imagined that poverty or improper food engendered these worms, or that they were the offspring of putrefaction. In “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 1), one of the carriers says: “Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the next way to give poor jades the bots.” And one of the misfortunes of the miserable nag of Petruchio (“Taming of the Shrew,” iii. 2), is that he is so “begnawn with the bots.”

Cricket. The presence of crickets in a house has generally been regarded as a good omen, and said to prognosticate cheerfulness and plenty. Thus, Poins, in answer to the Prince’s question in “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 4), “Shall we be merry?” replies, “As merry as crickets.” By many of our poets the cricket has been connected with cheerfulness and mirth. Thus, in Milton, “Il Penseroso” desires to be

“Far from all resort of mirth,Save the cricket on the hearth.”

It has not always, however, been regarded in the same light, for Gay, in his “Pastoral Dirge,” among the rural prognostications of death, gives the following:

“And shrilling crickets in the chimney cry’d.”

And in Dryden’s “Œdipus” occurs the subjoined:

“Owls, ravens, crickets, seem the watch of death.”

Lady Macbeth, also (“Macbeth,” ii. 2), in replying to the question of her husband after the murder of Duncan, says:

“I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry.”

In “Cymbeline” (ii. 2), also, when Iachimo, at midnight, commences his survey of the chamber where Imogen lies sleeping, his first words refer to the chirping of crickets, rendered all the more audible by the repose which at that moment prevailed throughout the palace:

“The crickets sing, and man’s o’er-labour’d senseRepairs itself by rest.”

Gilbert White, in his “History of Selborne” (1853, p. 174), remarks that “it is the housewife’s barometer, foretelling her when it will rain; and is prognostic, sometimes, she thinks, of ill or good luck, of the death of a near relation, or the approach of an absent lover. By being the constant companion of her solitary home, it naturally becomes the object of her superstition.”568

Its supposed keen sense of hearing is referred to in the “Winter’s Tale” (ii. 1) by Mamillius, who, on being asked by Hermione to tell a tale, replies:

“I will tell it softly;Yond crickets shall not hear it.”

Frog. In the “Two Noble Kinsmen” (iii. 4), the Gaoler’s Daughter says:

“Would I could find a fine frog! he would tell meNews from all parts o’ the world; then would I makeA carack of a cockle-shell, and sailBy east and north-east to the King of Pigmies,For he tells fortunes rarely.”

In days gone by frogs were extensively used for the purpose of divination.

Gad-fly. A common name for this fly is the “brize” or “breese,”569 an allusion to which occurs in “Troilus and Cressida” (i. 3), where Nestor, speaking of the sufferings which cattle endure from this insect, says:

“The herd hath more annoyance by the breeseThan by the tiger.”

And in “Antony and Cleopatra” (iii. 10) Shakespeare makes the excited Scarus draw a comparison between the effect which this insect produces on a herd of cattle and the abruptness and sudden frenzy of Cleopatra’s retreat from the naval conflict:

“Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt,Whom leprosy o’ertake! i’ the midst o’ the fight,When vantage like a pair of twins appear’d,Both as the same, or rather ours the elder, —The breese upon her, like a cow in June, —Hoists sails, and flies.”

It is said that the terror this insect causes in cattle proceeds solely from the alarm occasioned by “a peculiar sound it emits while hovering for the purpose of oviposition.”570

Lady-bird. This is used in “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 3) as a term of endearment. Lady Capulet having inquired after her daughter Juliet, the Nurse replies:

“I bade her come. What, lamb! What, lady-bird!God forbid! Where’s this girl? What, Juliet!”

Mr. Staunton regards this passage as an exquisite touch of nature. “The old nurse,” he says, “in her fond garrulity, uses ‘lady-bird’ as a term of endearment; but, recollecting its application to a female of loose manners, checks herself – ‘God forbid!’ her darling should prove such a one.” Mr. Dyce,571 however, considers this explanation incorrect, and gives the subjoined note: “The nurse says that she has already bid Juliet come; she then calls out, ‘What, lamb! What, lady-bird!’ and Juliet not yet making her appearance, she exclaims, ‘God forbid! Where’s this girl?’ The words ‘God forbid’ being properly an ellipsis of ‘God forbid that any accident should keep her away,’ but used here merely as an expression of impatience.”

Lizard. It was a common superstition in the time of Shakespeare that lizards were venomous, a notion which probably originated in their singular form. Hence the lizard’s leg was thought a suitable ingredient for the witches’ caldron in “Macbeth” (iv. 1). Suffolk, in “2 Henry VI.” (iii. 2), refers to this idea:

“Their chiefest prospect murdering basilisks!Their softest touch as smart as lizards’ stings.”

Again, in “3 Henry VI.” (ii. 2), Queen Margaret speaks of

“venom toads, or lizards’ dreadful stings.”

In “Troilus and Cressida” (v. 1) it is classed with the toad and owl.

Moth. This term, as Mr. Patterson remarks in his “Insects Mentioned by Shakespeare” (1841, p. 164), does not awaken many pleasing associations. In the minds of most people it stands for an insect either contemptible from its size and inertness, or positively obnoxious from its attacks on many articles of clothing. Thus Shakespeare, he says, employs the expression “moth” to denote something trifling or extremely minute. And in “King John” (iv. 1) we have the touching appeal of Prince Arthur to Hubert, in which, for mote, he would substitute moth:

“Arthur. Is there no remedy?Hubert. None, but to lose your eyes.Arthur. O heaven! – that there were but a mote in yours,A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair,Any annoyance in that precious sense!Then, feeling what small things are boisterous there,Your vile intent must needs seem horrible.”

See also “Henry V.” (iv. 1). In these two passages, however, the correct reading is probably “mote.”572

Serpent. A term used by our old writers to signify a serpent was “a worm,” which is still found in the north of England in the same sense. It is used several times by Shakespeare; as, for instance, in “Measure for Measure” (iii. 1), where the Duke, addressing Claudio, says:

“Thou’rt by no means valiant;For thou dost fear the soft and tender forkOf a poor worm.”

This passage also illustrates an error very prevalent in days gone by, that the forked tongue of the serpent tribe was their instrument of offence, without any thought of the teeth or fangs, which are its real weapons.573 Again, the “blind-worm” or “slow-worm” – a little snake with very small eyes, falsely supposed to be venomous – is spoken of in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 2), in that charming passage where the fairies are represented as singing to their queen, Titania:

“You spotted snakes, with double tongue,Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;Newts, and blind-worms, do no wrong,Come not near our fairy queen.”

In “Macbeth” (iv. 1), among the ingredients of the witches’ caldron are

“Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting.”

To quote a further allusion, Shakespeare, in “Timon of Athens” (iv. 3), speaks of

“The gilded newt and eyeless venom’d worm.”

Massinger employs the same term in his “Parliament of Love” (iv. 2):

“The sad fatherThat sees his son stung by a snake to death,May, with more justice, stay his vengeful hand,And let the worm escape, than you vouchsafe himA minute to repent.”574

There was an old notion that the serpent caused death without pain, a popular fancy which Shakespeare has introduced in his “Antony and Cleopatra” (v. 2):

“Hast thou the pretty worm of Nilus there,That kills and pains not?”

The term “worm” was also occasionally used to signify a “poor creature,” as also was the word “snake.” Thus, in the “Taming of the Shrew” (v. 2), Katharina says:

“Come, come, you froward and unable worms!My mind hath been as big as one of yours,My heart as great, my reason, haply, more.”

So, in “As You Like It” (iv. 3), Rosalind uses “snake” in the sense of reproach: “Well, go your way to her, for I see love hath made thee a tame snake.”

The serpent, as the emblem of ingratitude, is alluded to by King Lear (ii. 4), who, referring to his daughter, says how she

“struck me with her tongue,Most serpent-like, upon the very heart: —All the stor’d vengeances of heaven fallOn her ingrateful top!”

According to a popular belief, still credited, a poisonous bite could be cured by the blood of the viper which darted the poison. Thus, in “Richard II.” (i. 1), Mowbray says:

“I am disgrac’d, impeach’d, and baffled here,Pierc’d to the soul with slander’s venom’d spear,The which no balm can cure, but his heart-bloodWhich breath’d this poison.”

In Cornwall it is still believed that the dead body of a serpent, bruised on the wound it has occasioned, is an infallible remedy for its bite.575 Hence has originated the following rhyme:

“The beauteous adder hath a sting,Yet bears a balsam too.”

The old notion that the snake, in casting off its slough, or skin, annually, is supposed to regain new vigor and fresh youth, is alluded to by King Henry (“Henry V.,” iv. 1), who speaks of “casted slough and fresh legerity” – legerity meaning lightness, nimbleness. In “Twelfth Night” (ii. 5), in the letter which Malvolio finds, there is this passage: “to inure thyself to what thou art like to be, cast thy humble slough and appear fresh.” One of the most useful miracles which St. Patrick is reported to have performed was his driving the venomous reptiles out of Ireland, and forbidding them to return. This tradition is probably alluded to by King Richard (“Richard II.,” ii. 1):

“Now for our Irish wars:We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,Which live like venom, where no venom else,But only they, hath privilege to live.”

The way, we are told, by which the saint performed this astounding feat of his supernatural power was by means of a drum. Even spiders, too, runs the legend, were included in this summary process of excommunicating the serpent race. One of the customs, therefore, observed on St. Patrick’s day, is visiting Croagh Patrick. This sacred hill is situated in the county of Mayo, and is said to have been the spot chosen by St. Patrick for banishing the serpents and other noxious animals into the sea.

In “Julius Cæsar” (ii. 1), where Brutus says,

“It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;And that craves wary walking.”

we may compare the popular adage,

“March windWakes the ether (i. e., adder) and blooms the whin.”576

Spider. This little creature, which, in daily life, is seldom noticed except for its cobweb, the presence of which in a house generally betokens neglect, has, however, an interesting history, being the subject of many a curious legend and quaint superstition. Thus, it has not escaped the all-pervading eye of Shakespeare, who has given us many curious scraps of folk-lore concerning it. In days gone by the web of the common house-spider was much in request for stopping the effusion of blood; and hence Bottom, in addressing one of his fairy attendants in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iii. 1), says: “I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master Cobweb: if I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you.”

Its medicinal virtues, however, do not end here, for, in Sussex577 it is used in cases of jaundice, many an old doctress prescribing “a live spider rolled up in butter.” It is stated, too, that the web is narcotic, and has been administered internally in certain cases of fever, with success.578 As a remedy for ague it has been considered most efficacious. Some years ago a lady in the south of Ireland was celebrated far and near for her cure of this disorder. Her remedy was a large house-spider taken alive, enveloped in treacle or preserve. Of course, the parties were carefully kept in ignorance of what the wonderful remedy was.579

According to a universal belief, spiders were formerly considered highly venomous, in allusion to which notion King Richard II. (iii. 2), in saluting the “dear earth” on which he stands, after “late tossing on the breaking seas,” accosts it thus:

“Feed not thy sovereign’s foe, my gentle earth,Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense;But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,And heavy-gaited toads, lie in their way,Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet,Which with usurping steps do trample thee.”

Again, Leontes, in the “Winter’s Tale” (ii. 1), remarks:

“There may be in the cupA spider steep’d.”

In “Cymbeline” (iv. 2) and “Richard III.” (i. 2) Shakespeare classes it with adders and toads; and in the latter play (i. 3), when Queen Margaret is hurling imprecations on her enemies, she is turned from her encounter with Gloster by a remark made by Queen Elizabeth; and while a pitying spirit seems for a minute to supplant her rage, she addresses her successor in these words:

“Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune!Why strew’st thou sugar on that bottled spider,Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?”

In another part of the same play (iv. 4) the epithet “bottled” is again applied in a similar manner by Queen Elizabeth:

“That bottled spider, that foul bunch-back’d toad!”

Ritson, on these two passages, has the following remarks on the term, bottled spider: “A large, bloated, glossy spider, supposed to contain venom proportionate to its size.”

The origin of the silvery threads of gossamer which are so frequently seen extending from bush to bush was formerly unknown. Spenser, for instance, speaks of them as “scorched dew;” and Thomson, in his “Autumn,” mentions “the filmy threads of dew evaporate;” which probably, says Mr. Patterson,580 refers to the same object. The gossamer is now, however, known to be the production of a minute spider. It is twice mentioned by Shakespeare, but not in connection with the little being from which it originates. One of the passages is in “Romeo and Juliet” (ii. 6):

“A lover may bestride the gossamerThat idles in the wanton summer air,And yet not fall; so light is vanity.”

The other occurs in “King Lear” (iv. 6), where Edgar accosts his father, after his supposed leap from that

“cliff, whose high and bending headLooks fearfully in the confined deep.”

He says:

“Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,So many fathom down precipitating,Thou’dst shiver’d like an egg.”

In each case it is expressive of extreme lightness. Nares, in his “Glossary” (vol. i. p. 378), considers that the term “gossamer” originally came from the French gossampine, the cotton-tree, and is equivalent to cotton-wool. He says that it also means any light, downy matter, such as the flying seeds of thistles and other plants, and, in poetry, is not unfrequently used to denote the long, floating cobwebs seen in fine weather. In the above passage from “King Lear” he thinks it has the original sense, and in the one from “Romeo and Juliet” probably the last. Some are of opinion that the word is derived from goss, the gorse or furze.581 In Germany the popular belief attributes the manufacture of the gossamer to the dwarfs and elves. Of King Oberon, it may be remembered, we are told,

“A rich mantle he did wear,Made of tinsel gossamer,Bestarred over with a fewDiamond drops of morning dew.”

Hogg, too, introduces it as a vehicle fit for the fairy bands, which he describes as

“sailing ’mid the golden airIn skiffs of yielding gossamer.”

Toad. Among the vulgar errors of Shakespeare’s day was the belief that the head of the toad contained a stone possessing great medicinal virtues. In “As You Like It,” (ii. 1), the Duke says:

“Sweet are the uses of adversity;Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.”

Lupton, in his “One Thousand Notable Things,” says that “a toad-stone, called Crepaudina, touching any part envenomed by the bite of a rat, wasp, spider, or other venomous beast, ceases the pain and swelling thereof.” In the Londesborough Collection is a silver ring of the fifteenth century, in which one of these stones is set.582

It was also generally believed that the toad was highly venomous – a notion to which there are constant allusions in Shakespeare’s plays; as, for example, in the above passage, where it is spoken of as “ugly and venomous.” In “Richard III.” (i. 2), Lady Anne says to Gloster:

“Never hung poison on a fouler toad.”

And, in another scene (i. 3), Queen Margaret speaks of “this pois’nous bunch-back’d toad.”

Once more, in “Titus Andronicus” (iv. 2), the Nurse describes Queen Tamora’s babe as being “as loathsome as a toad.” There is doubtless some truth in this belief, as the following quotation from Mr. Frank Buckland’s “Curiosities of Natural History” seems to show: “Toads are generally reported to be poisonous; and this is perfectly true to a certain extent. Like the lizards, they have glands in their skin which secrete a white, highly acid fluid, and just behind the head are seen two eminences like split beans; if these be pressed, this acid fluid will come out – only let the operator mind that it does not get into his eyes, for it generally comes out with a jet. There are also other glands dispersed through the skin. A dog will never take a toad in his mouth, and the reason is that this glandular secretion burns his tongue and lips. It is also poisonous to the human subject. Mr. Blick, surgeon, of Islip, Oxfordshire,583 tells me that a man once made a wager, when half drunk, in a village public-house, that he would bite a toad’s head off; he did so, but in a few hours his lips, tongue, and throat began to swell in a most alarming way, and he was dangerously ill for some time.”