Folk-lore of Shakespeare

“Ungirt, unblest, the proverbe sayes;And they to prove it right,Have got a fashion now adayes,That’s odious to the sight;Like Frenchmen, all on points they stand,No girdles now they wear.”

“Walls have ears.” So, in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (v. 1), Thisbe is made to say:

“O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,For parting my fair Pyramus and me.”

“Wedding and ill-wintering tame both man and beast.” Thus, in “Taming of the Shrew” (iv. 1), Grumio says: “Winter tames man, woman, and beast; for it hath tamed my old master, and my new mistress, and myself.” We may also compare the Spanish adage: “You will marry and grow tame.”

“We steal as in a castle” (“1 Henry IV.,” ii. 1). This, says Steevens, was once a proverbial phrase.

“What can’t be cured must be endured.” With this popular adage may be compared the following: “Past cure is still past care,” in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2). So in “Richard II.” (ii. 3), the Duke of York says:

“Things past redress are now with me past care.”

Again, in “Macbeth” (iii. 2) Lady Macbeth says:

“Things without all remedyShould be without regard: what’s done is done.”

“What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine” (“Measure for Measure,” v. 1).

“When things come to the worst they’ll mend.” The truth of this popular adage is thus exemplified by Pandulph in “King John” (iii. 4):

“Before the curing of a strong disease,Even in the instant of repair and health,The fit is strongest; evils that take leave,On their departure most of all show evil.”

Of course it is equivalent to the proverb, “When the night’s darkest the day’s nearest.”

“When? can you tell?” (“Comedy of Errors,” iii. 1). This proverbial query, often met with in old writers, and perhaps alluded to just before in this scene, when Dromio of Syracuse says: “Right, sir; I’ll tell you when, an you’ll tell me wherefore;” occurs again in “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 1): “Ay, when? canst tell?”

“When two men ride the same horse one must ride behind.” So in “Much Ado About Nothing” (iii. 5) Dogberry says: “An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind.”895 With this may be compared the Spanish adage, “He who rides behind does not saddle when he will.”

“While the grass grows, the steed starves.” This is alluded to by Hamlet (iii. 2): “Ay, sir, but ‘while the grass grows,’ the proverb is something musty.” See Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 499.

“Who dares not stir by day must walk by night” (“King John,” i. 1).

“Who goes to Westminster for a wife, to St. Paul’s for a man, and to Smithfield for a horse, may meet with a queane, a knave, and a jade.” This proverb, often quoted by old writers, is alluded to in “2 Henry IV.” (i. 2):

“Falstaff. Where’s Bardolph?

Page. He’s gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse.

Falstaff. I bought him in Paul’s, and he’ll buy me a horse in Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.”

“Wit, whither wilt?” This was a proverbial expression not unfrequent in Shakespeare’s day. It is used by Orlando in “As You Like It” (iv. 1): “A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say – ‘Wit, whither wilt?’”

“Will you take eggs for money?” This was a proverbial phrase, quoted by Leontes in the “Winter’s Tale” (i. 2), for putting up with an affront, or being cajoled or imposed upon.

“Words are but wind, but blows unkind.” In “Comedy of Errors” (iii. 1), Dromio of Ephesus uses the first part of this popular adage.

“Worth a Jew’s eye.” Launcelot, in the “Merchant of Venice” (ii. 5), says:

“There will come a Christian by,Will be worth a Jewess’ eye.”

According to tradition, the proverb arose from the custom of torturing Jews to extort money from them. It is simply, however, a corruption of the Italian gióia (a jewel).

“You’ll never be burned for a witch.” This proverb, which was applied to a silly person, is probably referred to in “Antony and Cleopatra” (i. 2) by Charmian, when he says to the soothsayer:

“Out, fool; I forgive thee for a witch.”

“Young ravens must have food” (“Merry Wives of Windsor,” i. 3).896 Ray has “Small birds must have meat.”

CHAPTER XX

THE HUMAN BODY

It would be difficult to enumerate the manifold forms of superstition which have, in most countries, in the course of past centuries, clustered round the human body. Many of these, too, may still be found scattered, here and there, throughout our own country, one of the most deep-rooted being palmistry, several allusions to which are made by Shakespeare.

According to a popular belief current in years past, a trembling of the body was supposed to be an indication of demoniacal possession. Thus, in the “Comedy of Errors” (iv. 4) the Courtezan says of Antipholus of Ephesus:

“Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy!”

and Pinch adds:

“I charge thee, Satan, hous’d within this man,To yield possession to my holy prayers,And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight;I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven!”

In “The Tempest” (ii. 2), Caliban says to Stephano, “Thou dost me yet but little hurt; thou wilt anon, I know it by thy trembling.”

It was formerly supposed that our bodies consisted of the four elements – fire, air, earth, and water, and that all diseases arose from derangement in the due proportion of these elements. Thus, in Antony’s eulogium on Brutus, in “Julius Cæsar” (v. 5), this theory is alluded to:

“His life was gentle, and the elementsSo mix’d in him, that Nature might stand up,And say to all the world, ‘This was a man!’”

In “Twelfth Night” (ii. 3) it is also noticed:

“Sir Toby. Do not our lives consist of the four elements?

Sir Andrew. ’Faith, so they say; but I think, it rather consists of eating and drinking.

Sir Toby. Thou art a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink. Marian, I say! – a stoop of wine!”

In “Antony and Cleopatra” (v. 2), Shakespeare makes the latter say:

“I am fire, and air, my other elementsI give to baser life.”

This theory is the subject, too, of Sonnets xliv. and xlv., and is set forth at large in its connection with physic in Sir Philip Sidney’s “Arcadia:”

“O elements, by whose (men say) contention,Our bodies be in living power maintained,Was this man’s death the fruit of your dissension?O physic’s power, which (some say) hath restrainedApproach of death, alas, thou keepest meagerly,When once one is for Atropos distrained.Great be physicians’ brags, but aide is beggarlyWhen rooted moisture fails, or groweth drie;They leave off all, and say, death comes too eagerly.They are but words therefore that men doe buyOf any, since God Esculapius ceased.”

This notion was substantially adopted by Galen, and embraced by the physicians of the olden times.897

Blood. In old phraseology this word was popularly used for disposition or temperament. In “Timon of Athens” (iv. 2), Flavius says:

“Strange, unusual blood,When man’s worst sin is, he does too much good!”

In the opening passage of “Cymbeline” it occurs in the same sense:

“You do not meet a man but frowns: our bloodsNo more obey the heavens, than our courtiersStill seem as does the king,”

the meaning evidently being that “our dispositions no longer obey the influences of heaven; they are courtiers, and still seem to resemble the disposition the king is in.”

Again, in “Much Ado About Nothing” (ii. 3): “wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one, that blood hath the victory.”

Once more, in “King Lear” (iv. 2), the Duke of Albany says to Goneril:

“Were’t my fitnessTo let these hands obey my blood,They are apt enough to dislocate and tearThy flesh and bones.”

Again, the phrase “to be in blood” was a term of the chase, meaning, to be in good condition, to be vigorous. In “1 Henry VI.” (iv. 2), Talbot exclaims:

“If we be English deer, be, then, in blood;Not rascal-like, to fall down with a pinch”

– the expression being put in opposition to “rascal,” which was the term for the deer when lean and out of condition. In “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iv. 2), Holofernes says: “The deer was, as you know, sanguis, – in blood.”

The notion that the blood may be thickened by emotional influences is mentioned by Polixenes in the “Winter’s Tale” (i. 2), where he speaks of “thoughts that would thick my blood.” In King John’s temptation of Hubert to murder Arthur (iii. 3), it is thus referred to:

“Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,Had bak’d thy blood and made it heavy, thick,Which else runs tickling up and down the veins.”

Red blood was considered a traditionary sign of courage. Hence, in the “Merchant of Venice” (ii. 1), the Prince of Morocco, when addressing himself to Portia, and urging his claims for her hand, says:

“Bring me the fairest creature northward born,Where Phoebus’ fire scarce thaws the icicles,And let us make incision for your love,898To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine.”

Again, in the same play, cowards are said to “have livers as white as milk,” and an effeminate man is termed a “milk-sop.” Macbeth, too (v. 3), calls one of his frighted soldiers a “lily-liver’d boy.” And in “King Lear” (ii. 2), the Earl of Kent makes use of the same phrase. In illustration of this notion Mr. Douce899 quotes from Bartholomew Glantville, who says: “Reed clothes have been layed upon deed men in remembrance of theyr hardynes and boldnes, whyle they were in theyr bloudde.”

The absence of blood in the liver as the supposed property of a coward, originated, says Dr. Bucknill,900 in the old theory of the circulation of the blood, which explains Sir Toby’s remarks on his dupe, in “Twelfth Night” (iii. 2): “For Andrew, if he were opened, and you find so much blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I’ll eat the rest of the anatomy.”

We may quote here a notion referred to in “Lucrece” (1744-50), that, ever since the sad death of Lucrece, corrupted blood has watery particles:

“About the mourning and congealed faceOf that black blood a watery rigol goes,Which seems to weep upon the tainted place:And ever since, as pitying Lucrece’ woes,Corrupted blood some watery token shows;And blood untainted still doth red abide,Blushing at that which is so putrefied.”

Brain. By old anatomists the brain was divided into three ventricles, in the hindermost of which they placed the memory. That this division was not unknown to Shakespeare is apparent from “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iv. 2), where Holofernes says: “A foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of memory.” Again, Lady Macbeth (i. 7), speaking of Duncan’s two chamberlains, says:

“Will I with wine and wassail so convince,That memory, the warder of the brain,Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reasonA limbeck only.”

The “third ventricle is the cerebellum, by which the brain is connected with the spinal marrow and the rest of the body; the memory is posted in the cerebellum, like a warder or sentinel, to warn the reason against attack. Thus, when the memory is converted by intoxication into a mere fume,901 then it fills the brain itself – the receipt or receptacle of reason, which thus becomes like an alembic, or cap of a still.”902

A popular nickname, in former times, for the skull, was “brain-pan;” to which Cade, in “2 Henry VI.” (iv. 10) refers: “many a time, but for a sallet, my brain-pan had been cleft with a brown bill.” The phrase “to beat out the brains” is used by Shakespeare metaphorically in the sense of defeat or destroy; just as nowadays we popularly speak of knocking a scheme on the head. In “Measure for Measure” (v. 1), the Duke, addressing Isabella, tells her:

“O most kind maid,It was the swift celerity of his death,Which I did think with slower foot came on,That brain’d my purpose.”

The expression “to bear a brain,” which is used by the Nurse in “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 3),

“Nay, I do bear a brain,”

denoted “much mental capacity either of attention, ingenuity, or remembrance.”903 Thus, in Marston’s “Dutch Courtezan” (1605), we read:

“My silly husband, alas! knows nothing of it, ’tisI that must beare a braine for all.”

The notion of the brain as the seat of the soul is mentioned by Prince Henry, who, referring to King John (v. 7), says:

“his pure brain,Which some suppose the soul’s frail dwelling-house,Doth, by the idle comments that it makes,Foretell the ending of mortality.”

Ear. According to a well-known superstition, much credited in days gone by, and still extensively believed, a tingling of the right ear is considered lucky, being supposed to denote that a friend is speaking well of one, whereas a tingling of the left is said to imply the opposite. This notion, however, varies in different localities, as in some places it is the tingling of the left ear which denotes the friend, and the tingling of the right ear the enemy. In “Much Ado About Nothing” (iii. 1), Beatrice asks Ursula and Hero, who had been talking of her:

“What fire is in mine ears?”

the reference, no doubt, being to this popular fancy. Sir Thomas Browne904 ascribes the idea to the belief in guardian angels, who touch the right or left ear according as the conversation is favorable or not to the person.

In Shakespeare’s day it was customary for young gallants to wear a long lock of hair dangling by the ear, known as a “love-lock.” Hence, in “Much Ado About Nothing” (iii. 3), the Watch identifies one of his delinquents: “I know him; a’ wears a lock.”905

Again, further on (v. 1), Dogberry gives another allusion to this practice: “He wears a key in his ear, and a lock hanging by it.”

An expression of endearment current in years gone by was “to bite the ear.” In “Romeo and Juliet” (ii. 4), Mercutio says:

“I will bite thee by the ear for that jest,”

a passage which is explained in Nares (“Glossary,” vol. i. p. 81) by the following one from Ben Jonson’s “Alchemist” (ii. 3):

“Mammon. Th’ hast witch’d me, rogue; take, go.

Face. Your jack, and all, sir.

Mammon. Slave, I could bite thine ear… Away, thou dost not care for me!”

Gifford, in his notes on Jonson’s “Works” (vol. ii. p. 184), says the odd mode of expressing pleasure by biting the ear seems “to be taken from the practice of animals, who, in a playful mood, bite each other’s ears.”

While speaking of the ear, it may be noted that the so-called want of ear for music has been regarded as a sign of an austere disposition. Thus Cæsar says of Cassius (“Julius Cæsar,” i. 2):

“He hears no musicSeldom he smiles.”

There is, too, the well-known passage in the “Merchant of Venice” (v. 1):

“The man that hath no music in himself,Nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds,Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.”

According to the Italian proverb: “Whom God loves not, that man loves not music.”906

Elbow. According to a popular belief, the itching of the elbow denoted an approaching change of some kind or other.907 Thus, in “1 Henry IV.” (v. 1), the king speaks of

“Fickle changelings, and poor discontents,Which gape, and rub the elbow, at the newsOf hurlyburly innovation.”

With this idea we may compare similar ones connected with other parts of the body. Thus, in “Macbeth” (iv. 1), one of the witches exclaims:

“By the pricking of my thumbs,Something wicked this way comes.”

Again, in “Troilus and Cressida” (ii. 1), Ajax says: “My fingers itch,”908 and an itching palm was said to be an indication that the person would shortly receive money. Hence, it denoted a hand ready to receive bribes. Thus, in “Julius Cæsar” (iv. 3), Brutus says to Cassius:

“Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourselfAre much condemn’d to have an itching palm;To sell and mart your offices for goldTo undeservers.”

So, in “Merry Wives of Windsor” (ii. 3), Shallow says: “If I see a sword out, my finger itches to make one.”

Again, in “Othello” (iv. 3), poor Desdemona says to Emilia:

“Mine eyes do itch;Doth that bode weeping?”

Grose alludes to this superstition, and says: “When the right eye itches, the party affected will shortly cry; if the left, they will laugh.” The itching of the eye, as an omen, is spoken of by Theocritus, who says:

“My right eye itches now, and I will see my love.”

Eyes. A good deal of curious folk-lore has, at one time or another, clustered round the eye; and the well-known superstition known as the “evil eye” has already been described in the chapter on Birth and Baptism. Blueness above the eye was, in days gone by, considered a sign of love, and as such is alluded to by Rosalind in “As You Like It” (iii. 2), where she enumerates the marks of love to Orlando: “A lean cheek, which you have not; a blue eye, and sunken, which you have not.”

The term “baby in the eye” was sportively applied by our forefathers to the miniature reflection of himself which a person may see in the pupil of another’s eye. In “Timon of Athens” (i. 2), one of the lords says:

“Joy had the like conception in our eyes,And, at that instant, like a babe sprung up,”

an allusion probably being made to this whimsical notion. It is often referred to by old writers, as, for instance, by Drayton, in his “Ideas:”

“But O, see, see! we need enquire no further,Upon your lips the scarlet drops are found,And, in your eye, the boy that did the murder.”909

We may compare the expression, “to look babies in the eyes,” a common amusement of lovers in days gone by. In Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Loyal Subject” (iii. 2), Theodore asks:

“Can ye look babies, sisters,In the young gallants’ eyes, and twirl their band-strings?”

And once more, to quote from Massinger’s “Renegado” (ii. 4), where Donusa says:

“When a young lady wrings you by the hand, thus,Or with an amorous touch presses your foot;Looks babies in your eyes, plays with your locks,” etc.

Another old term for the eyes was “crystal,” which is used by Pistol to his wife, Mrs. Quickly, in “Henry V.” (ii. 3):

“Therefore, caveto be thy counsellor.Go, clear thy crystals;”

that is, dry thine eyes.

In “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 2), the phrase is employed by Benvolio:

“Tut! you saw her fair, none else being by,Herself pois’d with herself in either eye:But in that crystal scales let there be weigh’dYour lady’s love against some other maid.”

It also occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Double Marriage” (v. 3), where Juliana exclaims:

“Sleep you, sweet glasses!An everlasting slumber crown those crystals.”

The expression “wall-eyed” denotes, says Dyce (“Glossary,” p. 486), “eyes with a white or pale-gray iris – glaring-eyed.” It is used by Lucius in “Titus Andronicus” (v. 1):

“Say, wall-ey’d slave, whither wouldst thou conveyThis growing image of thy fiend-like face?”

In “King John” (iv. 3), Salisbury speaks of “wall-eyed wrath.”

Brockett, in his “Glossary of North Country Words,” says: “In those parts of the north with which I am best acquainted, persons are said to be wall-eyed when the white of the eye is very large and to one side; on the borders ‘sic folks’ are considered lucky. The term is also occasionally applied to horses with similar eyes, though its wider general acceptation seems to be when the iris of the eye is white, or of a very pale color. A wall-eyed horse sees perfectly well.”

Face. A common expression “to play the hypocrite,” or feign, was “to face.” So, in “1 Henry VI.” (v. 3), Suffolk declares how:

“Fair Margaret knowsThat Suffolk doth not flatter, face, or feign.”

Hence the name of one of the characters in Ben Jonson’s “Alchemist.” So, in the “Taming of the Shrew” (ii. 1):

“Yet I have faced it with a card of ten.”

The phrase, also, “to face me down,” implied insisting upon anything in opposition. So, in the “Comedy of Errors” (iii. 1), Antipholus of Ephesus says:

“But here’s a villain that would face me downHe met me on the mart.”

Feet. Stumbling has from the earliest period been considered ominous.910 Thus, Cicero mentions it among the superstitions of his day; and numerous instances of this unlucky act have been handed down from bygone times. We are told by Ovid how Myrrha, on her way to Cinyra’s chamber, stumbled thrice, but was not deterred by the omen from an unnatural and fatal crime; and Tibullus (lib. I., eleg. iii. 20), refers to it:

“O! quoties ingressus iter, mihi tristia dixi,Offensum in porta signa dedisse pedem.”

This superstition is alluded to by Shakespeare, who, in “3 Henry VI.” (iv. 7), makes Gloster say:

“For many men that stumble at the thresholdAre well foretold that danger lurks within.”

In “Richard III.” (iii. 4), Hastings relates:911

“Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble,And started when he look’d upon the Tower,As loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.”

In the same way, stumbling at a grave has been regarded as equally unlucky; and in “Romeo and Juliet” (v. 3), Friar Laurence says:

“how oft to-nightHave my old feet stumbled at graves.”

Hair. From time immemorial there has been a strong antipathy to red hair, which originated, according to some antiquarians, in a tradition that Judas had hair of this color. One reason, it may be, why the dislike to it arose, was that this color was considered ugly and unfashionable, and on this account a person with red hair would soon be regarded with contempt. It has been conjectured, too, that the odium took its rise from the aversion to the red-haired Danes. In “As You Like It” (iii. 4), Rosalind, when speaking of Orlando, refers to this notion:912 “His very hair is of the dissembling colour,” whereupon Celia replies: “Something browner than Judas’s.”

Yellow hair, too, was in years gone by regarded with ill-favor, and esteemed a deformity. In ancient pictures and tapestries both Cain and Judas are represented with yellow beards, in allusion to which Simple, in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (i. 4), when interrogated, says of his master: “He hath but a little wee face, with a little yellow beard – a Cain-coloured beard.”913

In speaking of beards, it may be noted that formerly they gave rise to various customs. Thus, in Shakespeare’s day, dyeing beards was a fashionable custom, and so Bottom, in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (i. 2), is perplexed as to what beard he should wear when acting before the duke. He says: “I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.”914

To mutilate a beard in any way was considered an irreparable outrage, a practice to which Hamlet refers (ii. 2):

“Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?”

And in “King Lear” (iii. 7), Gloster exclaims:

“By the kind gods, ’tis most ignobly doneTo pluck me by the beard.”

Stroking the beard before a person spoke was preparatory to favor. Hence in “Troilus and Cressida” (i. 3), Ulysses, when describing how Achilles asks Patroclus to imitate certain of their chiefs, represents him as saying:

“‘Now play me Nestor; hem, and stroke thy beard,As he, being drest to some oration.’”

Again, the phrase “to beard” meant to oppose face to face in a hostile manner. Thus, in “1 Henry IV.” (iv. 1), Douglas declares:

“No man so potent breathes upon the ground,But I will beard him.”

And in “1 Henry VI.” (i. 3), the Bishop of Winchester says to Gloster:

“Do what thou dar’st; I’ll beard thee to thy face.”

It seems also to have been customary to swear by the beard, an allusion to which is made by Touchstone in “As You Like It” (i. 2): “stroke your chins, and swear by your beards that I am a knave.”

We may also compare what Nestor says in “Troilus and Cressida” (iv. 5):

“By this white beard, I’d fight with thee to-morrow.”

Our ancestors paid great attention to the shape of their beards, certain cuts being appropriated to certain professions and ranks. In “Henry V.” (iii. 6), Gower speaks of “a beard of the general’s cut.” As Mr. Staunton remarks, “Not the least odd among the fantastic fashions of our forefathers was the custom of distinguishing certain professions and classes by the cut of the beard; thus we hear, inter alia, of the bishop’s beard, the judge’s beard, the soldier’s beard, the citizen’s beard, and even the clown’s beard.” Randle Holme tells us, “The broad or cathedral beard [is] so-called because bishops or gown-men of the church anciently did wear such beards.” By the military man, the cut adopted was known as the stiletto or spade. The beard of the citizen was usually worn round, as Mrs. Quickly describes it in “Merry Wives of Windsor” (i. 4), “like a glover’s paring-knife.” The clown’s beard was left bushy or untrimmed. Malone quotes from an old ballad entitled “Le Prince d’ Amour,” 1660: