The hateful messengers of heavy things,
Of death and dolor telling sad tidings.”
And once more the following passage from Drayton’s “Barons’ Wars” (bk. v. stanza 42) illustrates the same idea:
Whose croaking him of following horror tells.”
In “Much Ado About Nothing” (ii. 3), the “night-raven” is mentioned. Benedick observes to himself: “I had as lief have heard the night-raven, come what plague could have come after it.” This inauspicious bird, according to Steevens, is the owl; but this conjecture is evidently wrong, “being at variance with sundry passages in our early writers, who make a distinction between it and the night-raven.”[314]
Thus Johnson, in his “Seven Champions of Christendom” (part i.), speaks of “the dismal cry of night-ravens, ... and the fearefull sound of schriek owles.” Cotgrave regarded the “night-crow” and the “night-raven” as synonymous; and Mr. Yarrell considered them only different names for the night-heron.[315] In “3 Henry VI.” (v. 6) King Henry says:
Goldsmith, in his “Animated Nature,” calls the bittern the night-raven, and says: “I remember, in the place where I was a boy, with what terror the bird’s note affected the whole village; they consider it as the presage of some sad event, and generally found or made one to succeed it. If any person in the neighborhood died, they supposed it could not be otherwise, for the night-raven had foretold it; but if nobody happened to die, the death of a cow or a sheep gave completion to the prophecy.”
According to an old belief the raven deserts its own young, to which Shakespeare alludes in “Titus Andronicus” (ii. 3):
The whilst their own birds famish in their nests.”
“It was supposed that when the raven,” says Mr. Harting,[316] “saw its young ones newly hatched and covered with down, it conceived such an aversion that it forsook them, and did not return to the nest until a darker plumage had shown itself.” To this belief the commentators consider the Psalmist refers, when he says, “He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry” (Psalm cxlvii. 9). We are told, too, in Job, “Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat” (xxxviii. 41). Shakespeare, in “As You Like It” (ii. 3), probably had the words of the Psalmist in his mind:
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow.”
The raven has from earliest times been symbolical of blackness, both in connection with color and character. In “Romeo and Juliet” (iii. 2), Juliet exclaims:
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!
Dove-feather’d raven!”[317]
Once more, ravens’ feathers were formerly used by witches, from an old superstition that the wings of this bird carried with them contagion wherever they went. Hence, in “The Tempest” (i. 2), Caliban says:
With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen
Drop on you both!”
Robin Redbreast. According to a pretty notion,[318] this little bird is said to cover with leaves any dead body it may chance to find unburied; a belief which probably, in a great measure, originated in the well-known ballad of the “Children in the Wood,” although it seems to have been known previously. Thus Singer quotes as follows from “Cornucopia, or Divers Secrets,” etc. (by Thomas Johnson, 1596): “The robin redbreast, if he finds a man or woman dead, will cover all his face with moss; and some think that if the body should remain unburied that he would cover the whole body also.” In Dekker’s “Villaines Discovered by Lanthorn and Candlelight” (1616), quoted by Douce, it is said, “They that cheere up a prisoner but with their sight, are robin redbreasts that bring strawes in their bills to cover a dead man in extremitie.” Shakespeare, in a beautiful passage in “Cymbeline” (iv. 2), thus touchingly alludes to it, making Arviragus, when addressing the supposed dead body of Imogen, say:
Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,
I’ll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack
The flower that’s like thy face, pale primrose, nor
The azured harebell, like thy veins; no, nor
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander
Out-sweeten’d not thy breath: the ruddock would,
With charitable bill,—O bill, sore-shaming
Those rich-left heirs, that let their fathers lie
Without a monument!—bring thee all this;
Yea, and furr’d moss besides, when flowers are none
To winter-ground thy corse”—
the “ruddock”[319] being one of the old names for the redbreast, which is nowadays found in some localities. John Webster, also, refers to the same idea in “The White Devil” (1857, ed. Dyce, p. 45):
Since o’er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.”
Drayton, too, in “The Owl,” has the following lines:
The little redbreast teaching charitie.”
Rook. As an ominous bird this is mentioned in “Macbeth” (iii. 4). Formerly the nobles of England prided themselves in having a rookery[320] in the neighborhood of their castles, because rooks were regarded as “fowls of good omen.” On this account no one was permitted to kill them, under severe penalties. When rooks desert a rookery[321] it is said to foretell the downfall of the family on whose property it is. A Northumbrian saying informs us that the rooks left the rookery of Chipchase before the family of Reed left that place. There is also a notion that when rooks haunt a town or village “mortality is supposed to await its inhabitants, and if they feed in the street it shows that a storm is at hand.”[322]
The expression “bully-rook,” in “Merry Wives of Windsor” (i. 3), in Shakespeare’s time, says Mr. Harting,[323] had the same meaning as “jolly dog” nowadays; but subsequently it became a term of reproach, meaning a cheating sharper. It has been suggested that the term derives its origin from the rook in the game of chess; but Douce[324] considers it very improbable that this noble game, “never the amusement of gamblers, should have been ransacked on this occasion.”
Snipe. This bird was in Shakespeare’s time proverbial for a foolish man.[325] In “Othello” (i. 3), Iago, speaking of Roderigo, says:
If I would time expend with such a snipe,
But for my sport and profit.”
Sparrow. A popular name for the common sparrow was, and still is, Philip, perhaps from its note, “Phip, phip.” Hence the allusion to a person named Philip, in “King John” (i. 1):
Staunton says perhaps Catullus alludes to this expression in the following lines:
Ad solam dominam usque pipilabat.”
Skelton, in an elegy upon a sparrow, calls it “Phyllyp Sparowe;” and Gascoigne also writes “The praise of Philip Sparrow.”
In “Measure for Measure” (iii. 2), Lucio, speaking of Angelo, the deputy-duke of Vienna, says: “Sparrows must not build in his house-eaves, because they are lecherous.”[326]
Sparrow-hawk. A name formerly given to a young sparrow-hawk was eyas-musket,[327] a term we find in “Merry Wives of Windsor” (iii. 3): “How now, my eyas-musket! what news with you?” It was thus metaphorically used as a jocular phrase for a small child. As the invention, too, of fire-arms took place[328] at a time when hawking was in high fashion, some of the new weapons were named after those birds, probably from the idea of their fetching their prey from on high. Musket has thus become the established name for one sort of gun. Some, however, assert that the musket was invented in the fifteenth century, and owes its name to its inventors.
Starling. This was one of the birds that was in days gone by trained to speak. In “1 Henry IV.” (i. 3), Hotspur says:
Nothing but ‘Mortimer,’ and give it him,
To keep his anger still in motion.”
Pliny tells us how starlings were taught to utter both Latin and Greek words for the amusement of the young Cæsars; and there are numerous instances on record of the clever sentences uttered by this amusing bird.
Swallow. This bird has generally been honored as the harbinger of spring, and Athenæus relates that the Rhodians had a solemn song to welcome it. Anacreon has a well-known ode. Shakespeare, in the “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 3), alludes to the time of the swallow’s appearance in the following passage:
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty.”
And its departure is mentioned in “Timon of Athens” (iii. 6): “The swallow follows not summer more willing than we your lordship.”
We may compare Tennyson’s notice of the bird’s approach and migration in “The May Queen:”
It has been long considered lucky for the swallow to build its nest on the roof of a house, but just as unlucky for it to forsake a place which it has once tenanted. Shakespeare probably had this superstition in his mind when he represents Scarus as saying, in “Antony and Cleopatra” (iv. 12):
In Cleopatra’s sails their nests: the augurers
Say, they know not,—they cannot tell;—look grimly,
And dare not speak their knowledge.”
Swan. According to a romantic notion, dating from antiquity, the swan is said to sing sweetly just before its death, many pretty allusions to which we find scattered here and there throughout Shakespeare’s plays. In “Merchant of Venice” (iii. 2), Portia says:
Fading in music.”
Emilia, too, in “Othello” (v. 2), just before she dies, exclaims:
And die in music.”
In “King John” (v. 7), Prince Henry, at his father’s death-bed, thus pathetically speaks:
I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,
And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings
His soul and body to their lasting rest.”
Again, in “Lucrece” (1611), we have these touching lines:
Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending.”
And once more, in “The Phœnix and Turtle:”
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.”
This superstition, says Douce,[329] “was credited by Plato, Chrysippus, Aristotle, Euripides, Philostratus, Cicero, Seneca, and Martial. Pliny, Ælian, and Athenæus, among the ancients, and Sir Thomas More, among the moderns, treat this opinion as a vulgar error. Luther believed in it.” This notion probably originated in the swan being identified with Orpheus. Sir Thomas Browne[330] says, we read that, “after his death, Orpheus, the musician, became a swan. Thus was it the bird of Apollo, the bird of music by the Greeks.” Alluding to this piece of folk-lore, Carl Engel[331] remarks: “Although our common swan does not produce sounds which might account for this tradition, it is a well-known fact that the wild swan (Cygnus ferus), also called the ‘whistling swan,’ when on the wing emits a shrill tone, which, however harsh it may sound if heard near, produces a pleasant effect when, emanating from a large flock high in the air, it is heard in a variety of pitches of sound, increasing or diminishing in loudness according to the movement of the birds and to the current of the air.” Colonel Hawker[332] says, “The only note which I ever heard the wild swan make, in winter, is his well-known ‘whoop.’”[333]
Tassel-Gentle.[334] The male of the goshawk was so called on account of its tractable disposition, and the facility with which it was tamed. The word occurs in “Romeo and Juliet” (ii. 2):
To lure this tassel-gentle back again!”
Spenser, in his “Fairy Queen” (bk. iii. c. iv. l. 49), says:
Which after her his nimble wings doth straine.”
This species of hawk was also commonly called a “falcon-gentle,” on account of “her familiar, courteous disposition.”[335]
Turkey. This bird, so popular with us at Christmas-tide, is mentioned in “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 1), where the First Carrier says: “God’s body! the turkeys in my pannier are quite starved.” This, however, is an anachronism on the part of Shakespeare, as the turkey was unknown in this country until the reign of Henry VIII. According to a rhyme written in 1525, commemorating the introduction of this bird, we are told how:
Came into England all in one yeare.”
The turkey is again mentioned by Shakespeare in “Twelfth Night” (ii. 5), where Fabian says of Malvolio: “Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him: how he jets under his advanced plumes!”
Vulture. In several passages Shakespeare has most forcibly introduced this bird to deepen the beauty of some of his exquisite passages. Thus, in “King Lear” (ii. 4), when he is complaining of the unkindness of a daughter, he bitterly exclaims:
Sharp-tooth’d unkindness, like a vulture, here.”
What, too, can be more graphic than the expression of Tamora in “Titus Andronicus” (v. 2):
To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind.”
Equally forcible, too, are Pistol’s words in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” (i. 3): “Let vultures gripe thy guts.”
Johnson considers that “the vulture of sedition” in “2 Henry VI.” (iv. 3) is in allusion to the tale of Prometheus, but of this there is a decided uncertainty.
Wagtail. In “King Lear” (ii. 2), Kent says, “Spare my grey beard, you wagtail?” the word being used in an opprobrious sense, to signify an officious person.
Woodcock. In several passages this bird is used to denote a fool or silly person; as in “Taming of the Shrew” (i. 2): “O this woodcock! what an ass it is!” And again, in “Much Ado About Nothing” (v. 1), where Claudio, alluding to the plot against Benedick, says: “Shall I not find a woodcock too?” In “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iv. 3) Biron says:
Dumain transformed: four woodcocks in a dish.”
The woodcock has generally been proverbial as a foolish bird—perhaps because it is easily caught in springes or nets.[336] Thus the popular phrase “Springes to catch woodcocks” meant arts to entrap simplicity,[337] as in “Hamlet” (i. 3):
A similar expression occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Loyal Subject” (iv. 4):
And thrust your neck i’ th’ noose.”
“It seems,” says Nares, “that woodcocks are now grown wiser by time, for we do not now hear of their being so easily caught. If they were sometimes said to be without brains, it was only founded on their character, certainly not on any examination of the fact.”[338] Formerly, one of the terms for twilight[339] was “cock-shut time,” because the net in which cocks, i. e., woodcocks, were shut in during the twilight, was called a “cock-shut.” It appears that a large net was stretched across a glade, and so suspended upon poles as to be easily drawn together. Thus, in “Richard III.” (v. 3), Ratcliff says:
In Ben Jonson’s “Masque of Gypsies” we read:
For you would not yesternight
Kiss him in the cock-shut light.”
Sometimes it was erroneously written “cock-shoot.” “Come, come away then, a fine cock-shoot evening.” In the “Two Noble Kinsmen” (iv. 1) we find the term “cock-light.”
Wren. The diminutive character of this bird is noticed in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iii. 1, song):
In “Macbeth” (iv. 2), Lady Macbeth says:
The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.”
Considering, too, that as many as sixteen young ones have been found in this little bird’s nest, we can say with Grahame, in his poem on the birds of Scotland:
Of miracles, stupendously minute;
The numerous progeny, claimant for food
Supplied by two small bills, and feeble wings
Of narrow range, supplied—ay, duly fed—
Fed in the dark, and yet not one forgot.”
The epithet “poor,” applied to the wren by Lady Macbeth, was certainly appropriate in days gone by, when we recollect how it was cruelly hunted in Ireland on St. Stephen’s day—a practice which prevailed also in the Isle of Man.[340]
FOOTNOTES:
[152] See Harland and Wilkinson’s “Lancashire Folk-Lore,” 1867, pp. 116-121; “Notes and Queries,” 1st series, vol. viii. p. 224; “Penny Cyclopædia,” vol. vii. p. 206, article “Cirripeda.”
[153] Nares’s “Glossary,” 1872, vol. i. p. 56.
[154] See Harting’s “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” 1871, pp. 246-257.
[155] “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” 1871, p. 252.
[156] See “Philosophical Transactions” for 1835; Darwin’s “Monograph of the Cirrhipedia,” published by the Ray Society; a paper by Sir J. Emerson Tennent in “Notes and Queries,” 1st series, vol. viii. p. 223; Brand’s “Popular Antiquities,” 1849, vol. iii. pp. 361, 362; Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 14.
[157] See Yarrell’s “History of British Birds,” 2d edition, vol. i. p. 218; “Dialect of Leeds,” 1862, p. 329. In “Hamlet” (iii. 2), some modern editions read “ouzle;” the old editions all have weasel, which is now adopted.
[158] Miss Baker’s “Northamptonshire Glossary,” 1854, vol. i. p. 94. See Nares’s “Glossary,” 1872, vol. i. p. 124; and “Richard III.,” i. 1.
[159] Harting’s “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” p. 144; Halliwell-Phillipps’s “Handbook Index to Shakespeare,” 1866, p. 187. The term finch, also, according to some, may mean either the bullfinch or goldfinch.
[160] See Yarrell’s “History of British Birds,” 2d edition, vol. ii. p. 58.
[161] Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 156; Singer’s “Shakespeare,” 1875, vol. v. p. 115; Dyce’s “Glossary,” 1876, p. 77.
[162] Mr. Dyce says that if Dr. Latham had been acquainted with the article “Chouette,” in Cotgrave, he would not probably have suggested that Shakespeare meant here the lapwing or pewit. Some consider the magpie is meant. See Halliwell-Phillipps’s “Handbook Index to Shakespeare,” 1866, p. 83. Professor Newton would read “russet-patted,” or “red-legged,” thinking that Shakespeare meant the chough.
[163] “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 162; Singer’s “Notes to Shakespeare,” 1875, vol. v. p. 42.
[164] Massinger’s Works, 1813, vol. i. p. 281.
[165] “Handbook Index to Shakespeare,” 1866, p. 86.
[166] Miss Baker’s “Northamptonshire Glossary,” 1854, vol. i. p. 116.
[167] “Coriolanus,” iv. 5; “Troilus and Cressida,” i. 2; “Much Ado About Nothing,” ii. 3; “Twelfth Night,” iii. 4; “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” v. 2, song; “1 Henry VI.” ii. 4.
[168] Swainson’s “Weather-Lore,” 1873, p. 240.
[169] Henderson’s “Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,” 1879, p. 48.
[170] See Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 438.
[171] See Ibid.
[172] See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. pp. 51-57; Hampson’s “Medii Œvi Kalendarium,” vol. i. p. 84.
[173] 1st series, vol. iii. p. 404.
[174] “Medii Œvi Kalendarium,” vol. i. p. 85.
[175] Roberts’s “Social History of Southern Counties of England,” 1856, p. 421; see “British Popular Customs,” 1876, p. 65.
[176] Nares’s “Glossary,” 1872, vol. i. p. 203.
[177] Singer’s “Shakespeare,” 1875, vol. ix. p. 256; Halliwell-Phillipps’s “Handbook Index to Shakespeare,” p. 112.
[178] Dyce’s “Glossary to Shakespeare,” p. 85.
[179] “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 290.
[180] “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” p. 171.
[181] It is also an ale-house sign.
[182] See Dyce’s “Glossary to Shakespeare,” p. 85.
[183] See “Book of Days,” 1863, vol. i. p. 157.
[184] In “King Lear” (iv. 6), where Edgar says:
Diminish’d to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight.”
the word “cock” is an abbreviation for cock-boat.
[185] For superstitions associated with this bird, see Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. p. 218.
[186] “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” p. 260.
[187] See “Folk-Lore Record,” 1879, vol. i. p. 52; Henderson’s “Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,” 1879, pp. 25, 126, 277.
[188] Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 208.
[189] Cf. “Henry IV.,” iv. 2.
[190] Miss Baker’s “Northamptonshire Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 161; Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. p. 393.
[191] Cf. “Romeo and Juliet,” i. 5.
[192] “A cuckold being called from the cuckoo, the note of that bird was supposed to prognosticate that destiny.”—Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 212.
[193] Engel’s “Musical Myths and Facts,” 1876, vol. i. p. 9.
[194] See Kelly’s “Indo-European Folk-Lore,” 1863, p. 99; “English Folk-Lore,” 1879, pp. 55-62.
[195] See Mary Howitt’s “Pictorial Calendar of the Seasons,” p. 155; Knight’s “Pictorial Shakespeare,” vol. i. pp. 225, 226.
[196] Chambers’s “Book of Days,” vol. i. p. 531.
[197] See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. p. 201.
[198] “Asinaria,” v. 1.
[199] Nares, in his “Glossary” (vol. i. p. 212), says: “Cuckold, perhaps, quasi cuckoo’d, i. e., one served; i. e., forced to bring up a brood that is not his own.”
[200] Singer’s “Shakespeare,” 1875, vol. ix. p. 294.
[201] “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” pp. 190, 191.
[202] Sir W. Raleigh’s “History of the World,” bk. i. pt. i. ch. 6.
[203] Strutt’s “Sports and Pastimes,” 1876, p. 329.
[204] There is an allusion to the proverbial saying, “Brag is a good dog, but Hold-fast is a better.”
[205] In the same scene we are told,
Cf. “Romeo and Juliet,” iii. 5; “Richard II.,” iii. 3.
[206] Quoted by Harting, in “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” p. 24.
[207] Kelly’s “Indo-European Folk-Lore,” pp. 75, 79.
[208] Cf. “Antony and Cleopatra,” ii. 2: “This was but as a fly by an eagle.”
[209] Josephus, “De Bello Judico,” iii. 5.
[210] Harting’s “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” p. 33.
[211] Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 378.
[212] “Execration against Vulcan,” 1640, p. 37.
[213] Singer’s “Notes,” 1875, vol. i. p. 283.
[214] See “Archæologia,” vol. iii. p. 33.
[215] Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 693. Some think that the bullfinch is meant.
[216] Singer’s “Notes,” 1875, vol. v. p. 82; see Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 433.
[217] Some doubt exists as to the derivation of gull. Nares says it is from the old French guiller. Tooke holds that gull, guile, wile, and guilt are all from the Anglo-Saxon “wiglian, gewiglian,” that by which any one is deceived. Harting’s “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” p. 267.
[218] See D’Israeli’s “Curiosities of Literature,” vol. iii. p. 84.
[219] See Thornbury’s “Shakespeare’s England,” vol. i. pp. 311-322.
[220] Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 394.
[221] Harting’s “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” p. 269.
[222] Aldis Wright’s “Notes to ‘The Tempest’,” 1875, pp. 120, 121.
[223] See Dyce’s “Shakespeare,” vol. i. p. 245.
[224] See Strutt’s “Sports and Pastimes,” 1876, pp. 60-97, and “Book of Days,” 1863, vol. ii. pp. 211-213; Smith’s “Festivals, Games, and Amusements,” 1831, p. 174.
[225] “A hawk full-fed was untractable, and refused the lure—the lure being a thing stuffed to look like the game the hawk was to pursue; its lure was to tempt him back after he had flown.”
[226] In the same play (iv. 2) Hortensio describes Bianca as “this proud disdainful haggard.” See Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 197; Cotgrave’s “French and English Dictionary,” sub. “Hagard;” and Latham’s “Falconry,” etc., 1658.
[227] “To whistle off,” or dismiss by a whistle; a hawk seems to have been usually sent off in this way against the wind when sent in pursuit of prey.
[228] Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 77; see “Twelfth Night,” ii. 5.
[229] The use of the word is not quite the same here, because the voyage was Hamlet’s “proper game,” which he abandons. “Notes to Hamlet,” Clark and Wright, 1876, p. 205.
[230] See Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 456; Harting’s “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” p. 39; Tuberville’s “Booke of Falconrie,” 1611, p. 53.
[231] Also in i. 2 we read:
Show’d like a rebel’s whore.”
Some read “quarry;” see “Notes to Macbeth.” Clark and Wright, p. 77. It denotes the square-headed bolt of a cross-bow; see Douce’s “Illustrations,” 1839, p. 227; Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 206.
[232] See Spenser’s “Fairy Queen,” book i. canto xi. l. 18:
[233] Ed. Dyce, 1857, p. 5.
[234] See “3 Henry VI.” i. 1.
[235] A quibble is perhaps intended between bate, the term of falconry, and abate, i. e., fall off, dwindle. “Bate is a term in falconry, to flutter the wings as preparing for flight, particularly at the sight of prey.” In ‘1 Henry IV.’ (iv. 1):
Bated, like eagles having lately bathed.’”
—Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 60.
[236] “Unmann’d” was applied to a hawk not tamed.
[237] See Singer’s “Notes to Shakespeare,” 1875, vol. x. p. 86; Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 448.
[238] See passage in “Taming of the Shrew,” iv. 1, already referred to, p. 122.
[239] Also in same play, i. 3.
[240] Turbervile, in his “Booke of Falconrie,” 1575, gives some curious directions as “how to seele a hawke;” we may compare similar expressions in “Antony and Cleopatra,” iii. 13; v. 2.
[241] Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. pp. 777, 778; cf. Beaumont and Fletcher, “Philaster,” v. 1.
[242] Imp, from Anglo-Saxon, impan, to graft. Turbervile has a whole chapter on “The way and manner how to ympe a hawke’s feather, howsoever it be broken or bruised.”
[243] Harting’s “Ornithology of Shakspeare,” p. 72.
[244] The reading of the folios here is stallion; but the word wing, and the falconer’s term checks, prove that the bird must be meant. See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 832.
[245] See kestrel and sparrow-hawk.
[246] “Notes to Hamlet,” Clark and Wright, 1876, p. 159.
[247] Ray’s “Proverbs,” 1768, p. 196.
[248] Quoted in “Notes to Hamlet,” by Clark and Wright, p. 159; see Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 416.
[249] That is, made by art: the creature not of nature, but of painting; cf. “Taming of the Shrew,” iv. 3; “The Tempest,” ii. 2.
[250] Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 482.
[251] Harting’s “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” p. 74.
[252] “Notes,” vol. iii. pp. 357, 358.
[253] “Description of England,” vol. i. p. 162.
[254] “Glossary to Shakespeare,” p. 88.
[255] Sir Thomas Browne’s “Vulgar Errors,” bk. iii. chap. 10.
[256] Also to the buzzard, which see, p. 100.
[257] Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. iv. p. 67.
[258] “Glossary,” p. 243.
[259] “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 495; see Yarrell’s “History of British Birds,” 2d edition, vol. ii. p. 482.
[260] Ray’s “Proverbs,” 1768, p. 199.
[261] Cf. “Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iv. 1). “the morning lark;” “Romeo and Juliet” (iii. 5), “the lark, the herald of the morn.”
[262] Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 886; Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 217.
[263] Chambers’s “Popular Rhymes of Scotland,” 1870, p. 192.
[264] See “English Folk-Lore,” p. 81.
[265] Henderson’s “Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,” p. 127.
[266] Thorpe’s “Northern Mythology,” vol. ii. p. 34; Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, pp. 215, 216; see also Harland and Wilkinson’s “Lancashire Folk-Lore,” 1867, pp. 143, 145.
[267] “Atmospherical Researches,” 1823, p. 262.
[268] Sir Thomas Browne’s Works, 1852, vol. i. p. 378.
[269] See “Book of Days,” vol. i. p. 515.
[270] Southey’s “Commonplace Book.” 5th series. 1851, p. 305.
[271] Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” bk. vi. ll. 455-676; “Titus Andronicus,” iv. 1.
[272] Cf. “Lucrece,” ll. 1079, 1127.
[273] See Yarrell’s “History of British Birds,” 1856, vol. i. p. 30; Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 620; also Pennant’s “British Zoology;” see Peele’s Play of the “Battle of Alcazar” (ii. 3), 1861, p. 28.
[274] Called estridge in “1 Henry IV.” iv. 1.
[275] See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. p. 365.
[276] “Animal Kingdom,” 1829, vol. viii. p. 427.
[277] See Sir Thomas Browne’s Works, 1852, vol. i. pp. 334-337.
[278] “Æneid,” bk. iv. l. 462.
[279] “Metamorphoses,” bk. v. l. 550; bk. vi. l. 432; bk. x. l. 453; bk. xv. l. 791.
[280] “2 Henry VI.” iii. 2; iv. 1.
[281] “Titus Andronicus,” ii. 3.
[282] Cf. “Lucrece,” l. 165; see Yarrell’s “History of British Birds,” vol. i. p. 122.
[283] See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. p. 209.
[284] The spelling of the folios is “howlets.” In Holland’s translation of Pliny (chap. xvii. book x.), we read “of owlls or howlets.” Cotgrave gives “Hulotte.”
[285] Halliwell-Phillipps’s, “Handbook Index,” 1866, p. 354.
[286] See Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 302.
[287] See Singer’s “Notes to The Tempest,” 1875, vol. i. p. 82.
[288] See Gentleman’s Magazine, November, 1804, pp. 1083, 1084. Grimm’s “Deutsche Mythologie.”
[289] See Dasent’s “Tales of the Norse,” 1859, p. 230.
[290] “Hudibras,” pt. i. ch. i.
[291] In “Much Ado About Nothing” (i. 1), Benedick likens Beatrice to a “parrot-teacher,” from her talkative powers.
[292] This is the reading adopted by Singer.
[293] “Notes to Hamlet,” Clark and Wright, 1876, pp. 179, 180.
[294] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 645; Singer’s “Notes,” vol. ix. p. 228.
[295] Cf. “Troilus and Cressida,” iii. 3.
[296] Cf. “Richard II.” i. 1.
[297] Mr. Harting, in his “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” quotes an interesting correspondence from “Land and Water” (1869), on the subject.
[298] See Sir Thomas Browne’s Works, 1852, vol. ii. pp. 1-4.
[299] See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. pp. 366, 367.
[300] Cf. “The Tempest,” iii. 3; “All’s Well that Ends Well,” i. 1; “Antony and Cleopatra,” iii. 2; “Cymbeline,” i. 6.
[301] Works, 1852, vol. i. pp. 277-284.
[302] See Aldis Wright’s “Notes to The Tempest,” 1875, p. 129.
[303] Daily Telegraph, January 31, 1880; see Southey’s “Commonplace Book,” 1849, 2d series, p. 447.
[304] See Dove, pp. 114, 115.
[305] Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 704; Halliwell-Phillipps’s “Handbook Index to Shakespeare,” 1866, p. 398; Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 345; Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. vii. p. 264.
[306] “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” p. 218.
[307] Strutt’s “Sports and Pastimes,” 1876, pp. 19, 97, 677; Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. pp. 59, 60.
[308] Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 367.
[309] Marsden’s “History of Sumatra,” 1811, p. 276.
[310] Cf. “2 Henry VI.” iii. 2; “Troilus and Cressida,” v. 2.
[311] See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. pp. 211, 212.
[312] “English Folk-lore,” 1878, p. 78.
[313] See Hunt’s “Popular Romances of West of England,” 1881, p. 380.
[314] Dyce’s “Glossary,” 1876, p. 288.
[315] See Harting’s “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” pp. 101, 102; Yarrell’s “History of British Birds,” vol. ii. p. 581.
[316] “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” p. 107.
[317] Cf. “Midsummer-Night’s Dream,” ii. 2; “Twelfth Night,” v. 1.
[318] “English Folk-Lore,” pp. 62-64; Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. p. 191; Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. x. p. 424; Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 380.
[319] Cf. Spenser’s “Epithalamium,” v. 8:
The ouzell shrills, the ruddock warbles soft.”
[320] Standard, January 26, 1877.
[321] “English Folk-Lore,” p. 76.
[322] Henderson’s “Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,” 1879, p. 122.
[323] “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” p. 121.
[324] “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 36; the term “bully-rook” occurs several times in Shadwell’s “Sullen Lovers;” see Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 58.
[325] In Northamptonshire the word denotes an icicle, from its resemblance to the long bill of the bird so-called.—Baker’s “Northamptonshire Glossary,” 1854, vol. ii. p. 260.
[326] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 653; Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 320.
[327] Derived from the French mouschet, of the same meaning.
[328] Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 593: Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 46. Turbervile tells us “the first name and terme that they bestowe on a falcon is an eyesse, and this name doth laste as long as she is an eyrie and for that she is taken from the eyrie.”
[329] “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 161.
[330] Works, 1852, vol. i. p. 357.
[331] “Musical Myths and Facts,” 1876, vol. i. p. 89.
[332] “Instructions to Young Sportsmen,” 11th ed., p. 269.
[333] See Baring-Gould’s “Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,” 1877, p. 561; Thorpe’s “Northern Mythology,” 1852, vol. iii. pp. 302-328.
[334] Properly “tiercel gentle,” French, tiercelet; cf. “Troilus and Cressida,” iii. 2, “the falcon as the tercel.”
[335] “Gentleman’s Recreation,” p. 19, quoted in Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 867.
[336] Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 508.
[337] Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 971.
[338] See Willughby’s “Ornithology,” iii. section 1.
[339] Minsheu’s “Guide into Tongues,” ed. 1617.
[340] See Yarrell’s “History of British Birds,” vol. ii. p. 178.