Folk-lore of Shakespeare

“Or yelde the til us als creant.”

And in “Richard Cœur de Lion” (Weber, ii. 208):

“On knees he fel down, and cryde, crêaunt.”

It then became cravant, cravent, and at length craven.

In the time of Shakespeare the word cock was used as a vulgar corruption or purposed disguise of the name of God, an instance of which occurs in “Hamlet” (iv. 5): “By cock, they are to blame.” This irreverent alteration of the sacred name is found at least a dozen times177 in Heywood’s “Edward the Fourth,” where one passage is,

“Herald. Sweare on this booke, King Lewis, so help you God,You mean no otherwise then you have said.King Lewis. So helpe me Cock as I dissemble not.”

We find, too, other allusions to the sacred name, as in “cock’s passion,” “cock’s body;” as in “Taming of the Shrew” (iv. 1): “Cock’s passion, silence!” A not uncommon oath, too, in Shakespeare’s time was “Cock and pie” —cock referring to God, and pie being supposed to mean the service-book of the Romish Church; a meaning which, says Mr. Dyce, seems much more probable than Douce’s178 supposition that this oath was connected with the making of solemn vows by knights in the days of chivalry, during entertainments at which a roasted peacock was served up. It is used by Justice Shallow (“2 Henry IV.,” v. 1): “By cock and pye, sir, you shall not away to-night.” We may also compare the expression in the old play of “Soliman and Perseda” (1599): “By cock and pye and mousefoot.” Mr. Harting179 says the “Cock and Pye” (i. e., magpie) was an ordinary ale-house sign, and may have thus become a subject for the vulgar to swear by.

The phrase, “Cock-a-hoop”180– which occurs in “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 5),

“You’ll make a mutiny among my guests!You will set cock-a-hoop! you’ll be the man!”

– no doubt refers to a reckless person, who takes the cock or tap out of a cask, and lays it on the top or hoop of the barrel, thus letting all the contents of the cask run out. Formerly, a quart pot was called a hoop, being formed of staves bound together with hoops like barrels. There were generally three hoops to such a pot; hence, in “2 Henry VI.” (iv. 2), one of Jack Cade’s popular reformations was to increase their number: “the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony to drink small beer.” Some, however, consider the term Cock-a-hoop181 refers to the boastful crowing of the cock.

In “King Lear” (iii. 2) Shakespeare speaks of the “cataracts and hurricanoes” as having

“drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!”

Vanes on the tops of steeples were in days gone by made in the form of a cock – hence weathercocks – and put up, in papal times, to remind the clergy of watchfulness.182 Apart, too, from symbolism, the large tail of the cock was well adapted to turn with the wind.183

Cormorant. The proverbial voracity of this bird184 gave rise to a man of large appetite being likened to it, a sense in which Shakespeare employs the word, as in “Coriolanus” (i. 1): “the cormorant belly;” in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (i. 1): “cormorant devouring Time;” and in “Troilus and Cressida” (ii. 2): “this cormorant war.” “Although,” says Mr. Harting,185 “Shakespeare mentions the cormorant in several of his plays, he has nowhere alluded to the sport of using these birds, when trained, for fishing; a fact which is singular, since he often speaks of the then popular pastime of hawking, and he did not die until some years after James I. had made fishing with cormorants a fashionable amusement.”

Crow. This has from the earliest times been reckoned a bird of bad omen; and in “Julius Cæsar” (v. 1), Cassius, on the eve of battle, predicted a defeat, because, to use his own words:

“crows and kitesFly o’er our heads and downward look on us,As we were sickly prey: their shadows seemA canopy most fatal, under whichOur army lies, ready to give up the ghost.”

Allusions to the same superstition occur in “Troilus and Cressida” (i. 2); “King John” (v. 2), etc. Vergil (“Bucolic,” i. 18) mentions the croaking of the crow as a bad omen:

“Sæpe sinistra cava prædixit ab ilice cornix.”

And Butler, in his “Hudibras” (part ii. canto 3), remarks:

“Is it not ominous in all countries,When crows and ravens croak upon trees.”

Even children, nowadays, regard with no friendly feelings this bird of ill-omen;186 and in the north of England there is a rhyme to the following effect:

“Crow, crow, get out of my sight,Or else I’ll eat thy liver and lights.”

Among other allusions made by Shakespeare to the crow may be noticed the crow-keeper – a person employed to drive away crows from the fields. At present,187 in all the midland counties, a boy set to drive away the birds is said to keep birds; hence, a stuffed figure, now called a scarecrow, was also called a crow-keeper, as in “King Lear” (iv. 6): “That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper.”

One of Tusser’s directions for September is:

“No sooner a-sowing, but out by-and-by,With mother or boy that alarum can cry:And let them be armed with a sling or a bow,To scare away pigeon, the rook, or the crow.”

In “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 4) a scarecrow seems meant:

“Bearing a Tartar’s painted bow of lath,Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper.”

Among further references to this practice is that in “1 Henry VI.” (i. 4), where Lord Talbot relates that, when a prisoner in France, he was publicly exhibited in the market-place:

“Here, said they, is the terror of the French,The scarecrow that affrights our children so.”188

And once more, in “Measure for Measure” (ii. 1):

“We must not make a scarecrow of the law,Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,And let it keep one shape, till custom make itTheir perch and not their terror.”

The phrase “to pluck a crow” is to complain good-naturedly, but reproachfully, and to threaten retaliation.189 It occurs in “Comedy of Errors” (iii. 1): “We’ll pluck a crow together.” Sometimes the word pull is substituted for pluck, as in Butler’s “Hudibras” (part ii. canto 2):

“If not, resolve before we goThat you and I must pull a crow.”

The crow has been regarded as the emblem of darkness, which has not escaped the notice of Shakespeare, who, in “Pericles” (iv. introd.), speaking of the white dove, says:

“With the dove of Paphos might the crowVie feathers white.”190

Cuckoo. Many superstitions have clustered round the cuckoo, and both in this country and abroad it is looked upon as a mysterious bird, being supposed to possess the gift of second-sight, a notion referred to in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2):

“Cuckoo, cuckoo:191 O word of fear,Unpleasing to a married ear.”

And again, in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iii. 1), Bottom sings:

“The plain-song cuckoo gray,Whose note full many a man doth mark,And dares not answer nay.”

It is still a common idea that the cuckoo, if asked, will tell any one, by the repetition of its cries, how long he has to live. The country lasses in Sweden count the cuckoo’s call to ascertain how many years they have to remain unmarried, but they generally shut their ears and run away on hearing it a few times.192 Among the Germans the notes of the cuckoo, when heard in spring for the first time, are considered a good omen. Cæsarius (1222) tells us of a convertite who was about to become a monk, but changed his mind on hearing the cuckoo’s call, and counting twenty-two repetitions of it. “Come,” said he, “I have certainly twenty-two years still to live, and why should I mortify myself during all that time? I will go back to the world, enjoy its delights for twenty years, and devote the remaining two to penitence.”193 In England the peasantry salute the cuckoo with the following invocation:

“Cuckoo, cherry-tree,Good bird, tell me,How many years have I to live” —

the allusion to the cherry-tree having probably originated in the popular fancy that before the cuckoo ceases its song it must eat three good meals of cherries. Pliny mentions the belief that when the cuckoo came to maturity it devoured the bird which had reared it, a superstition several times alluded to by Shakespeare. Thus, in “King Lear” (i. 4), the Fool remarks:

“The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,That it had its head bit off by its young.”

Again, in “1 Henry IV.” (v. 1), Worcester says:

“And being fed by us you used us soAs that ungentle gull, the cuckoo’s bird,Useth the sparrow; did oppress our nest;Grew by our feeding to so great a bulkThat even our love durst not come near your sightFor fear of swallowing.”

Once more, the opinion that the cuckoo made no nest of its own, but laid its eggs in that of another bird, is mentioned in “Antony and Cleopatra” (ii. 6):

“Thou dost o’er-count me of my father’s house;But, since the cuckoo builds not for himself,Remain in’t as thou may’st.”

It has been remarked,194 however, in reference to the common idea that the young cuckoo ill-treats its foster-mother, that if we watch the movements of the two birds, when the younger is being fed, we cannot much wonder at this piece of folk-lore. When the cuckoo opens its great mouth, the diminutive nurse places her own head so far within its precincts that it has the exact appearance of a voluntary surrender to decapitation.

The notion195 “which couples the name of the cuckoo with the character of the man whose wife is unfaithful to him appears to have been derived from the Romans, and is first found in the Middle Ages in France, and in the countries of which the modern language is derived from the Latin. But the ancients more correctly gave the name of the bird, not to the husband of the faithless wife, but to her paramour, who might justly be supposed to be acting the part of the cuckoo. They applied the name of the bird in whose nest the cuckoo’s eggs were usually deposited – ‘carruca’ – to the husband. It is not quite clear how, in the passage from classic to mediæval, the application of the term was transferred to the husband.” In further allusion to this bird, we may quote the following from “All’s Well That Ends Well” (i. 3):

“For I the ballad will repeat,Which men full true shall find,Your marriage comes by destiny,Your cuckoo sings by kind.”

The cuckoo has generally been regarded as the harbinger of spring, and, according to a Gloucester rhyme:

“The cuckoo comes in April,Sings a song in May;Then in June another tune,And then she flies away.”

Thus, in “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 2), the king, alluding to his predecessor, says:

“So, when he had occasion to be seen,He was but as the cuckoo is in June,Heard, not regarded.”

In “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2) spring is maintained by the cuckoo, in those charming sonnets descriptive of the beauties of the country at this season.

The word cuckoo has, from the earliest times, been used as a term of reproach;196 and Plautus197 has introduced it on more than one occasion. In this sense we find it quoted by Shakespeare in “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 4): “O’ horseback, ye cuckoo.” The term cuckold, too, which so frequently occurs throughout Shakespeare’s plays, is generally derived from cuculus,198 from the practice already alluded to of depositing its eggs in other birds’ nests.

Domestic Fowl. In “The Tempest” (v. 1), the word chick is used as a term of endearment: “My Ariel; chick,” etc.; and in “Macbeth” (iv. 3) Macduff speaks of his children as “all my pretty chickens.” In “Coriolanus” (v. 3), hen is applied to a woman: “poor hen, fond of no second brood;” and in “Taming of the Shrew” (ii. 1), Petruchio says: “so Kate will be my hen;” and, once more, “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 3), Falstaff says, “How now, Dame Partlet the hen?” In “Othello” (i. 3) Iago applies the term “guinea-hen” to Desdemona, a cant phrase in Shakespeare’s day for a fast woman.

Dove. Among the many beautiful allusions to this bird we may mention one in “Hamlet” (v. 1), where Shakespeare speaks of the dove only laying two eggs:199

“as patient as the female doveWhen that her golden couplets are disclosed.”

The young nestlings, when first disclosed, are only covered with a yellow down, and the mother rarely leaves the nest, in consequence of the tenderness of her young; hence the dove has been made an emblem of patience. In “2 Henry IV.” (iv. 1), it is spoken of as the symbol of peace:

“The dove and very blessed spirit of peace.”

Its love, too, is several times referred to, as in “Romeo and Juliet” (ii. 1), “Pronounce but – love and dove;” and in “1 Henry VI.” (ii. 2), Burgundy says:

“Like to a pair of loving turtle-doves,That could not live asunder, day or night.”

This bird has also been regarded as the emblem of fidelity, as in the following graphic passage in “Troilus and Cressida” (iii. 2):

“As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,As iron to adamant, as earth to the centre;”

and in “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 4) we read:

“turtles pair,That never mean to part.”

Its modesty is alluded to in the “Taming of the Shrew” (ii. 1): “modest as the dove;” and its innocence in “2 Henry VI.” (iii. 1) is mentioned, where King Henry says:

“Our kinsman Gloster is as innocentFrom meaning treason to our royal personAs is the sucking lamb or harmless dove:The duke is virtuous, mild and too well givenTo dream on evil, or to work my downfall.”

The custom of giving a pair of doves or pigeons as a present or peace-offering is alluded to in “Titus Andronicus” (iv. 4), where the clown says, “God and Saint Stephen give you good den: I have brought you a letter and a couple of pigeons here;” and when Gobbo tried to find favor with Bassanio, in “Merchant of Venice” (ii. 2), he began by saying, “I have here a dish of doves, that I would bestow upon your worship.” Shakespeare alludes in several places to the “doves of Venus,” as in “Venus and Adonis:”

“Thus weary of the world, away she [Venus] hies,And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aidTheir mistress, mounted, through the empty skiesIn her light chariot quickly is conveyed;Holding their course to Paphos, where their queenMeans to immure herself and not be seen;”

and in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (i. 1), where Hermia speaks of “the simplicity of Venus’ doves.” This will also explain, says Mr. Harting,200 the reference to “the dove of Paphos,” in “Pericles” (iv. Introd.). The towns of Old and New Paphos are situated on the southwest extremity of the coast of Cyprus. Old Paphos is the one generally referred to by the poets, being the peculiar seat of the worship of Venus, who was fabled to have been wafted thither after her birth amid the waves. The “dove of Paphos” may therefore be considered as synonymous with the “dove of Venus.”

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.201 Hence, in “1 Henry VI.” (i. 2), the question is asked:

“Was Mahomet inspired with a dove?”

Duck. A barbarous pastime in Shakespeare’s time was hunting a tame duck in the water with spaniels. For the performance of this amusement202 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):

“And hold-fast is the only dog, my duck.”203

“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:

“And like the native brood of eagle’s kind,On that bright sun of glory fix thine eyes.”

In “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iv. 3) Biron says of Rosaline:

“What peremptory eagle-sighted eyeDares look upon the heaven of her brow,That is not blinded by her majesty?”204

And in “3 Henry VI.” (ii. 1) Richard says to his brother Edward:

“Nay, if thou be that princely eagle’s bird,Show thy descent by gazing ’gainst the sun.”

The French naturalist, Lacepede,205 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:206 “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):

“an eagle flight, bold, and forth on,Leaving no tract behind.”207

The great age, too, of the eagle is well known; and the words of the Psalmist are familiar to most readers:

“His youth shall be renewed like the eagle’s.”

Apemantus, however, asks of Timon (“Timon of Athens,” iv. 3):

“will these moss’d trees,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:

“Coming from Sardis, on our former ensignTwo mighty eagles fell; and there they perch’d,Gorging and feeding from our soldiers’ hands.”

It was selected for the Roman legionary standard,208 through being the king and most powerful of all birds. As a bird of good omen it is mentioned also in “Cymbeline” (i. 1):

“I chose an eagle,And did avoid a puttock;”

and in another scene (iv. 2) the Soothsayer relates how

“Last night the very gods show’d me a vision,… thus: —I saw Jove’s bird, the Roman eagle, wing’dFrom 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 superiority209 of the eagle is depicted by Tamora in “Titus Andronicus” (iv. 4):

“The eagle suffers little birds to sing,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 subject210 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):

“Winchester goose! I cry – a rope! a rope!”

In “Troilus and Cressida” (v. 10) there is a further allusion:

“Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss.”

Ben Jonson211 calls it:

“the Winchestrian goose,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.212

In “Coriolanus” (i. 4), the goose is spoken of as the emblem of cowardice. Marcius says:

“You souls of geese,That bear the shapes of men, how have you runFrom slaves that apes would beat!”

Goldfinch. The Warwickshire name213 for this bird is “Proud Tailor,” to which, some commentators think, the words in “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 1) refer:

“Lady P. I will not sing.Hotsp. ’Tis the next way to turn tailor, or be red-breast teacher.”

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.”214 Singer,215 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:

“Why, ’tis a gull, a fool.”

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:

“Why have you suffer’d me to be imprison’d,Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,And made the most notorious geck and gullThat 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.”216 “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 sharpers217 were known in Shakespeare’s time.218 The “gull-catcher” was generally an old usurer, who lent money to a gallant at an ordinary, who had been unfortunate in play.219 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:

“sometimes I’ll get theeYoung scamels from the rock.”

some think that the sea-mew, or sea-gull, is intended,220 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,221 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. Dyce222 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,223 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 a young Saxon nobleman; and the present of a well-trained hawk was a gift to be welcomed by a king. Edward the Confessor spent much of his leisure time in either hunting or hawking; and in the reign of Edward III. we read how the Bishop of Ely attended the service of the church at Bermondsey, Southwark, leaving his hawk in the cloister, which in the meantime was stolen – the bishop solemnly excommunicating the thieves. On one occasion Henry VIII. met with a serious accident when pursuing his hawk at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire. In jumping over a ditch his pole broke, and he fell headlong into the muddy water, whence he was with some difficulty rescued by one of his followers. Sir Thomas More, writing in the reign of Henry VIII., describing the state of manhood, makes a young man say: