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Part IV.
GAMES AND SPORTS

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BOYISH GAMES

Young William may have found life at the Henley Street house and at the Grammar School rather dull, but there was no lack of diversion and recreation out of doors. Household comforts and attractions were meagre enough in those days, but holidays were frequent, and rural sports and pastimes for young and old were many and varied. We may be sure that Shakespeare enjoyed these to the full. His writings abound in allusions to them which were doubtless reminiscences of his own boyhood.

Many of the children's games to which he refers are familiar to small folk now, especially in the rural districts. Hide-and-seek, for example—also known as "hoop-and-hide" and "harry-racket"—is probably the play that Hamlet had in mind when he exclaimed (iv. 2. 33), "Hide, fox, and after." Blind-man's-buff is also alluded to by Hamlet when, chiding his mother for preferring his uncle to his father, he asks:

A dictionary of Shakespeare's time couples this name for the pastime with the one that has survived: "The Hoodwinke play, or hoodmanblinde, in some places called the blindmanbuf." Hamlet's question is evidently suggested by the practice of making the "blind man" guess whom he has caught—as Greek and Roman boys did when they played the game.

In the grave-digging scene (v. 1. 100) Hamlet asks: "Did these bones cost no more the breeding but to play at loggats with them?" This refers to the throwing of loggats or loggets—small logs, or sticks of wood much like "Indian clubs"—at a stake, the player coming nearest to it being the winner.

In a poem of 1611 we find loggats in a list of games with sundry others that are still in vogue:—

Stool-ball, commonly played by girls and women, sometimes in company with boys or men, is to this day a village pastime in some parts of England. It is essentially a lighter kind of cricket, but is more ancient than that game.

Pitching the bar was an athletic exercise still common in Scotland. Scott alludes to it in The Lady of the Lake, iv. 559:—

And again, in the account of the sports at Stirling Castle, v. 647:—

A poet of the 16th century tells us that to throw "the stone, the bar, or the plummet" is a commendable exercise for kings and princes; and, according to the old chroniclers, it was a favorite diversion with Henry VIII. after his accession to the throne.

Nine-holes, a game in which nine holes were made in a board or in the ground at which small balls were rolled, is among the rustic sports enumerated by Drayton in the Poly-Olbion.

There were many ball-games besides stool-ball in the days of Elizabeth, from the simple hand-ball, which Homer represents the princess of Corcyra as playing with her maidens, to more complicated exercises, among which we can recognize the germ of the later "rounders," out of which our Yankee base-ball has been developed.

The term base, as denoting a starting-point or goal, occurs in the name of other than ball-games, especially in "prisoners' base"—sometimes "prisoners' bars," or "prison-bars"—which was popular long before Shakespeare was born. It is played by two sides, who occupy opposite bases, or "homes." Any player running out from his base is chased by the opposite party, and if caught is made a prisoner. It belongs to a class of old games, one of the most popular of which was called "barley-break."

Originally, this was played by three couples, male and female; one couple was stationed in "hell" or the space between the two goals, and tried to catch the others as they ran across. It is thus described by Sir Philip Sidney in the Arcadia:—

Later it came to be played by any number of young people, of either sex or both, with one person in "hell" at the start. The game was kept up until all had been captured and brought into this Inferno. In this form, under the name of "Lill-lill"—which was the signal cry of the person between the goals for beginning the sport—it was played by schoolboys in eastern Massachusetts fifty years ago.

Barley-break is often alluded to by the dramatists and lyrists of Shakespeare's day, and complete poems were written upon it by Suckling, Herrick, and others. Shakespeare does not mention it, though he has several references to prisoners' base; as in Cymbeline (v. 3. 20):—

To "bid a base," or "the base," was a common phrase for challenging to a game of this kind, and we often find it used figuratively; as in Venus and Adonis, 303, in the spirited description of the horse, which, like many other passages, shows Shakespeare's interest in the animal:—

In the Two Gentlemen of Verona (i. 2. 97), Lucetta says to Julia, with a pun upon the phrase: "Indeed, I bid the base for Proteus."

Drayton, in the Poly-Olbion, includes this game with others that have been described above: "At hood-wink, barley-brake, at tick [that is, tag], or prison-base"; and Spenser in the Shepherd's Calendar (October) refers to it among rustic pastimes: "In rymes, in ridles, and in bydding base."

Foot-ball is mentioned by Shakespeare in the Comedy of Errors (ii. 1. 82), where Dromio of Ephesus says to his mistress Adriana, who has been chiding him:—

In Lear (i. 4. 95), Oswald says to Kent, "I'll not be struck, my lord!" and Kent replies, "Nor tripped neither, you base foot-ball player."

The game was popular with the common people of England at least as early as the reign of Edward III., for in 1349 it was prohibited by royal edict—not, apparently, from any particular objection to the game in itself, but because it was believed to interfere with the popular interest in archery.

The sport was, however, a rough one then as now. Alexander Barclay, who died in 1552, in one of his Eclogues, tells how

Edmund Waller, in the next century, writes:—

King James I., in his Basilicon—a set of rules for the nurture and conduct of Henry, Prince of Wales, the heir-apparent to the throne—says:—

"Certainly bodily exercises and games are very commendable, as well for banishing of idleness, the mother of all vice, as for making the body able and durable for travell, which is very necessarie for a king. But from this court I debarre all rough and violent exercises; as the foote-ball, meeter for lameing than making able the users thereof; likewise such tumbling tricks as only serve for comedians and balladines [theatrical dancers] to win their bread with; but the exercises that I would have you to use, although but moderately, not making a craft of them, are, running, leaping, wrestling, fencing, dancing, and playing at the caitch, or tenise, archery, palle-malle, and such like other fair and pleasant field-games."

Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, published in 1660, mentions foot-ball among the "common recreations of country folks," as distinguished from the "disports of greater men," or those higher in rank.

In Romeo and Juliet (i. 4. 41) Mercutio says to Romeo, "If thou art Dun, we'll draw thee from the mire"—that is, of love. This is an allusion to a rural game which seems to have been a favorite for several centuries, and to which scores of references, literal and figurative, are to be found in writers of all classes.

In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (16936) we read:—

Bishop Butler, more than three hundred years later, writes: "they mean to leave reformation, like Dun in the mire."

Gifford, in his notes on Ben Jonson's Masque of Christmas, tells us (in 1816) that he himself had "often played at this game." He describes it substantially as follows: A log of wood called "Dun the cart-horse" is brought into the middle of the room, and some one cries, "Dun is stuck in the mire." Two of the players try, with or without ropes, to drag it out, but, pretending to be unable to do so, call for help. Others come forward, and make awkward attempts to draw out the log, which they manage, if possible, to drop upon a companion's toes, causing "much honest mirth."

It is remarkable that so simple a diversion could have been popular with generation after generation of British young folk, and that they should apparently recall it with so much interest in later years. Verily, our forefathers in the old country were easily amused.

In Antony and Cleopatra (iii. 13. 91) we find an allusion to another game equally simple—if, indeed, it be not too simple to be called a game. Antony says:—

A "muss" was merely a scramble for small coins or other things thrown down to be taken by those who could seize them. Ben Jonson, in The Magnetic Lady (iv. 1), says:—

In the same author's Bartholomew Fair (iv. 1), when the costard-monger's basket of pears is overturned, Cokes begins to scramble for them, crying, "Ods so! a muss, a muss, a muss, a muss!"

Dryden, in the prologue to Widow Ranter, says:—

This is the origin of the modern colloquial or slang use of muss.

"Handy-dandy" was a childish play in which something was shaken between the two hands, and a guess made as to the hand in which it remained. It is alluded to in Lear (iv. 6. 157): "See how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?" The game is very ancient, being mentioned by Aristotle, Plato, and other Greek writers.

In the Midsummer-Night's Dream (ii. 2. 98) Titania, lamenting the results of the quarrel with Oberon, says:—

The "nine men's morris" was a Warwickshire game which is still kept up among the rural population of the county. It is played on three squares, one within another, with lines uniting the angles and the middle of the sides; the opponents having each nine "men," which are moved somewhat as in draughts, or checkers.

In the country the squares were often cut in the green turf, the sides of the outer one being sometimes three or four yards long. In towns, they were chalked upon the pavement. It was also played indoors upon a board.

A woodcut of 1520 represents two monkeys engaged at it. It was sometimes called "nine men's merrils," from merelles, the old French name for the "men," or counters, with which it was played.

The "quaint mazes" in Titania's speech, according to the best English critics, refer to a game known as "running the figure of eight."

Space would fail to describe other boyish games of the time, even those mentioned in the writings of Shakespeare; and I need not say anything of leap-frog, trundling-hoop, battledore and shuttle-cock, seesaw—sometimes called "riding the wild mare"—tops, and many other pastimes in perennial favor with boys.

Mulcaster, the head-master of Merchant-Taylors School in London (see page 106 above), in a book printed in 1581, enumerates as suitable exercises for boys: "indoors, dancing, wrestling, fencing, the top and scourge [whip-top]; outdoor, walking, running, leaping, swimming, riding, hunting, shooting, and playing at the ball—hand-ball, tennis, foot-ball, arm-ball." William doubtless had experience in most of these, swimming in the Avon among them.

SWIMMING AND FISHING.

The spirited description of Ferdinand swimming (The Tempest, ii. 1. 113–121) could have been written only by one well skilled in the art:—

There are many other allusions to swimming in the plays which indicate the writer's personal acquaintance with the exercise; as in Macbeth, i. 2. 8:—

The swimming match between Cæsar and Cassius (Julius Cæsar, i. 2. 100) is described with sympathetic vigor. Cassius says to Brutus:—

Of course William often went a-fishing in the Avon, and understood, as Ursula says in Much Ado About Nothing (iii. 1. 26), that

BEAR-BAITING.

The boy must often have seen a bear-baiting, for the cruel sport was popular with all classes, from sovereign to peasant. Queen Elizabeth was fond of it, as was her sister Mary; and it was one of the "princely pleasures" provided for the entertainment of the former at Kenilworth in 1575, when thirteen great bears were worried by bandogs.

On another occasion, when Elizabeth gave a splendid dinner to the French ambassadors, she entertained them afterwards with the baiting of bulls and bears; and she herself watched the sport till six at night. The next day the ambassadors went to see another exhibition of the same kind. A Danish ambassador, some years later, was entertained by the Queen at Greenwich with a bear-baiting and "other merry disports," as the chronicle expresses it.

Elizabeth was a lover of the drama, but was unwilling that it should interfere with these brute tragedies. In 1591, a royal edict forbade plays to be acted on Thursdays, because bear-baiting and similar sports had usually been practised on that day. This order was followed by one to the same effect from the lord mayor, who complained that "in divers places the players do use to recite their plays to the great hurt and destruction of the game of bear-baiting and such like pastimes, which are maintained for her majesty's pleasure."

The clergy were as fond of these amusements as their parishioners appear to have been. Thomas Cartwright, in a book published in 1572, says: "If there be a bear or a bull to be baited in the afternoon, or a jackanapes to ride on horseback, the minister hurries the service over in a shameful manner, in order to be present at the show."

It is on record that at a certain place in Cheshire, "the town bear having died, the corporation in 1601 gave orders to sell their Bible in order to purchase another." At another place, when a bear was wanted for baiting at a town festival, the church-wardens pawned the Bible from the sacred desk in order to obtain the means of enjoying their immemorial sport.

There are many allusions to bear-baiting in Shakespeare. In Twelfth Night (i. 3. 98) Sir Andrew Aguecheek says: "I would I had bestowed that time in the tongues [that is, the study of languages] that I have in fencing, dancing, and bear-baiting: O, had I but followed the arts!" In the same play (ii. 5. 9) Fabian, referring to Malvolio, says to Sir Toby, "You know, he brought me out of favor with my lady about a bear-baiting here"; and Fabian replies, "To anger him we'll have the bear back again." There is a figurative reference to the sport in this play (iii. 1. 130) where Olivia says to the disguised Viola:—

In 2 Henry VI. (v. 1. 148) we find a similar figure where York says to Clifford:—

The amusing dialogue between Slender and Anne Page, in the Merry Wives of Windsor (i. 1. 307), may be added:—

Sackerson was a famous bear exhibited at Paris Garden, a popular bear-garden on the Bankside in London, near the Globe Theatre. An old epigram refers to the place and the animal thus:—

that is, neglecting Ployden and other writers on law for the sports at the bear-garden.

For the bear to get loose was a serious matter. We read in a diary of 1554 that at a bear-baiting on the Bankside "the great blind bear broke loose, and in running away he caught a servingman by the calf of the leg and bit a great piece away," so that "within three days after he died."

James I. prohibited baiting on Sundays, but did not otherwise discourage it. In the time of the Commonwealth Paris Garden was shut up, the bear was killed, and the amusement forbidden; but with the Restoration it was revived, and continued to be popular until the early part of the next century. In 1802 an attempt was made in Parliament to suppress it altogether, but the House of Commons by a majority of thirteen refused to pass the bill. It was not until the year 1835 that baiting was finally abolished by an act of Parliament, forbidding "the keeping of any house, pit, or other place, for baiting or fighting any bull, bear, dog, or other animal."

COCK-FIGHTING AND COCK-THROWING.

Cock-fighting was another barbarous amusement that was very early in great favor in England. Fitz-stephen, who died in 1191, records that in London "every year at Shrove Tuesday the schoolboys do bring cocks to their master, and all the forenoon they delight themselves in cock-fighting"; and it is not until the 16th century that we find Dean Colet, the founder of St. Paul's School, objecting to it as an amusement for the pupils.

The good lady who founded the Nottingham grammar school in 1513 was content with restricting the sport to "twice a year."

In Scotland cock-fights were sanctioned as a school recreation till the middle of the last century, and the master received a fee, called "cock-penny," from the boys on the occasion. As late as 1790, at Applecross, in Ross-shire, "the cock-fight dues" were reckoned as a part of the schoolmaster's income.

Shakespeare has only two or three allusions to cock-fighting in his works. Antony says of Octavius (Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 3. 36):—

Dr. Johnson, in a note on the passage, says: "The ancients used to match quails as we match cocks." The birds were inhooped, or confined within a circle, to keep them "up to the scratch"; or, according to some authorities, the one that was driven out of the hoop was considered beaten.

Hamlet, when at the point of death, exclaims:—

He means that the poison triumphs over him, as a victorious cock over his beaten antagonist.

In the Taming of the Shrew (ii. 1. 228), Katharina says to Petruchio, "You crow too like a craven." This word craven, which meant a base coward, was often applied to a vanquished knight who had not fought bravely, and hence came to be used with reference to a beaten or cowardly cock, as it is in this passage.

Another popular diversion, especially among the boys, was "throwing at cocks," in which the bird was tied to a stake and sticks thrown at it until it was killed. This sport, which dates back to the 14th century, and which was not uncommon in England less than a hundred years ago, is said to have been peculiar to that country.

Sir Thomas More, writing in the 16th century, tells of his own skill in his childhood in casting a "cock-stele," that is, a stick or cudgel to throw at a cock. The amusement was regularly practised on Shrove Tuesday.

In some places the cock was put into an earthen vessel made for the purpose, with only his head and tail exposed to view. The vessel was then suspended across the street twelve or fourteen feet from the ground, to be thrown at. The boy who broke the pot and freed the cock from his confinement had him for a reward.

According to a popular superstition of Shakespeare's day, the cock was supposed to be a kind of devil's messenger, from his crowing after Peter's denial of his Master. Clergymen sometimes made this an excuse for their enjoyment in cock-throwing.

Shakespeare makes no reference to this vulgar prejudice against the cock. On the contrary, in a very beautiful passage in Hamlet (i. 1. 158), he associates the bird with the joy and hope of Christmas:—

OTHER CRUEL SPORTS.

When the Chief Justice says to Falstaff (2 Henry IV. i. 2. 255), "Fare you well; commend me to my cousin Westmoreland," the fat knight mutters, "If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle." The allusion is to a cruel sport which is said to have been common with Warwickshire boys. A toad was put on one end of a short board placed across a small log, and the other end was then struck with a bat, thus throwing the creature high in the air. This was called filliping the toad. A three-man beetle was a heavy rammer with three handles used in driving piles, requiring three men to wield it. Such a beetle would evidently be needed for filliping a weight like Falstaff's.

Falstaff alludes to another piece of boyish cruelty to animals in The Merry Wives of Windsor (v. 1.26) when he says, after the cudgelling he has received from Ford, "Since I plucked geese, played truant, and whipped top, I knew not what 'twas to be beaten till lately." The young barbarians of Shakespeare's time thought it fine sport to pull the feathers from a live goose. If they sometimes got whipped for it, we may suppose that it was solely for the mischief done to private property. When their elders were fond of bear-baiting, cock-fighting, and other brutal amusements, the boys would hardly be punished for torturing a domestic animal unless its value was lessened by the ill-treatment.

Whether Shakespeare in his boyhood was guilty of thoughtless cruelty like this, as boys are apt to be even nowadays, we cannot say; but later in life he recognized its wantonness, and more than once reproved the brutality of children of larger growth in their sports and amusements.

In Lear (iv. 1. 38) Gloster says bitterly:—

In the same play (iv. 7. 36) Cordelia, referring to the unnatural conduct of Goneril in turning her old father out of doors in the storm, exclaims:—

The poet did not forget that even an insect may suffer pain. In Measure for Measure (iii. 1. 79) Isabella says to her brother:—

In As You Like It (ii 1. 21) the banished Duke in the Forest of Arden laments the necessity of killing deer for food:—

The sympathy of the Duke and the First Lord for the "poor dappled fools" is sincere, but that of Jaques, as we understand when we come to know him better, is mere sentimental affectation. We may be sure that the Duke rather than Jaques represents the feeling of Shakespeare himself for the unfortunate creatures.

In another part of the same play (i. 2) the poet, through the mouth of Touchstone, the philosophic Fool, gives a sly rap at people who find amusement in brutal games. Le Beau, a courtier who is really a kind-hearted fellow, as his conduct elsewhere proves, meeting Rosalind and Celia, tells them that they have just "lost much fine sport," that is, as he explains, some "good wrestling." They ask him to "tell the manner of it," and he says:—

Wrestling, by the bye, was a common exercise with the rural youth in the time of Elizabeth, and no doubt the smaller boys often tried their hand at it.

ARCHERY.

Archery was a popular pastime in those days with young and old. The bow and arrow continued to be used in warfare long after the discovery of gunpowder. As late as 1572 Queen Elizabeth promised to furnish six thousand men for Charles IX. of France, half of whom were to be archers. Ralph Smithe, a writer on Martial Discipline in the reign of the same queen, says: "Captains and officers should be skilful of that most noble weapon the long bow; and to see that their soldiers, according to their draught and strength, have good bows," etc. In the reign of Henry VIII. several laws were made for promoting the use of the long bow. One of these required every male subject to exercise himself in archery, and also to keep a long bow with arrows continually in his house. Men sixty years old, ecclesiastics, and certain justices were exempted from this obligation. Fathers and guardians were commanded to teach the male children the use of the long bow, and to have bows provided for them as soon as they were seven years old; and masters were ordered to furnish bows for their apprentices, and to compel them to learn to shoot therewith upon holidays and at every other convenient time.

In 1545 Roger Ascham published his Toxophilus, or the Schole of Shooting, in which he advocated the practice of archery among scholars as among the people at large, and gave full directions for making and using bows and arrows. He dedicated the book to Henry VIII., who rewarded the patriotic service with a pension of ten pounds a year.

Ascham urged that attention should be paid to training the young in archery; "for children," he said, "if sufficient pains are taken with them at the outset, may much more easily be taught to shoot well than men," because the latter have frequently more trouble to unlearn their bad habits than would suffice to teach them good ones.

One of the statutes of Henry VIII. forbade any person who had reached the age of twenty-four years from shooting at a mark less than 220 yards distant; and a writer of 1602 tells of Cornish archers who could send an arrow to a distance of 480 yards. Matches of archery were held under the patronage of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, to encourage skill in the art. At one of these, held in London in 1583, there was a procession of three thousand archers, each of whom had a long bow and four arrows. Nine hundred and forty-two of the men had chains of gold about their necks. The company was guarded by four thousand whifflers (heralds or ushers) and billmen, besides pages and footmen. They went through the city to Smithfield, where, after performing various evolutions, they "shot at a target for honor."

There are many allusions to archery in Shakespeare's works, only one or two of which can be mentioned here. In 2 Henry IV. (iii. 2. 49) Shallow, referring to "old Double," who is dead, says of him: "Jesu, Jesu, dead! a' drew a good bow; and dead! a' shot a fine shoot: John O' Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on his head. Dead! a' would have clapped i' the clout at twelve score; and carried you a forehand shaft at fourteen and fourteen and a half, that it would have done a man's heart good to see."

To "clap in the clout" was to hit the clout, or the white mark in the centre of the target. "Twelve score" means twelve score or two hundred and forty yards; and the "fourteen" and "fourteen and a half" also refer to scores of yards. The "forehand shaft" is among the kinds of arrow mentioned by Ascham, who says: "the forehand must have a big breast, to bear the great might of the bow"; that is, the great strain in shooting at long range.

In Much Ado About Nothing (i. 1. 39) Beatrice, making fun of Benedick, says: "He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged Cupid at the flight; and my uncle's fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged him at the bird-bolt"; that is, he posted a challenge, inviting Cupid to compete with him in shooting with the flight, a kind of light-feathered arrow used for great distances. The fool subscribed (wrote underneath) a challenge to Benedick to try his skill with the cross-bow and bird-bolt, a short, thick, blunt-headed arrow used by children and fools, who could not be trusted with pointed arrows. The point of the joke is that Benedick, though he has the vanity to think he can compete in feats of archery with an expert bowman like Cupid, is only fit to contend with beginners and blunderers.

In Loves Labour's Lost (iv. 3. 23) Cupid's own arrow is jocosely called a bird-bolt. Biron, finding that the King has fallen in love with the French Princess, exclaims, "Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thumped him with thy bird-bolt."

HUNTING

Professor Baynes, in his article on Shakespeare in the Encyclopædia Britannica, says: "It is clear that in his early years the poet had some experience of hunting, hawking, coursing, wild-duck shooting, and the like. Many of these sports were pursued by the local gentry and the yeomen together; and the poet, as the son of a well-connected burgess of Stratford, who had recently been mayor of the town and possessed estates in the county, would be well entitled to share in them, while his handsome presence and courteous bearing would be likely to ensure him a hearty welcome."

His love for dogs and horses is illustrated by many passages in his works. There was never a more graphic description of hounds than he puts into the mouth of Theseus in the Midsummer-Night's Dream (iv. 1. 108):—