Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 100

This superst.i.tion is alluded to by Shakespeare, who, in "3 Henry VI."

(iv. 7), makes Gloster say:

"For many men that stumble at the threshold Are well foretold that danger lurks within."

In "Richard III." (iii. 4), Hastings relates:[912]

"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."

[912] The following is from Holinshed, who copies Sir Thomas More: "In riding toward the Tower the same morning in which he (Hastings) was beheaded his horse twice or thrice stumbled with him, almost to the falling; which thing, albeit each man wot well daily happeneth to them to whome no such mischance is toward; yet hath it beene of an olde rite and custome observed as a token oftentimes notablie foregoing some great misfortune."

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-night Have 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:[913] "His very hair is of the dissembling colour," whereupon Celia replies: "Something browner than Judas's."

[913] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 127; Dyce's "Glossary," pp. 61, 230.

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."[914]

[914] The quartos of 1602 read "a kane-coloured beard."

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."[915]

[915] See Jaques's Description of the Seven Ages in "As You Like It," (ii. 6).

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 G.o.ds, 'tis most ign.o.bly done To 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 cla.s.ses 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 ent.i.tled "Le Prince d'

Amour," 1660:

"Next the clown doth out-rush With the beard of the bush."

According to an old superst.i.tion, much hair on the head has been supposed to indicate an absence of intellect, a notion referred to by Antipholus of Syracuse, in the "Comedy of Errors" (ii. 2): "there's many a man hath more hair than wit." In the "Two Gentlemen of Verona" (iii.

1), the same proverbial sentence is mentioned by Speed. Malone quotes the following lines upon Suckling's "Aglaura," as an ill.u.s.tration of this saying:[916]

"This great voluminous pamphlet may be said To be like one that hath more hair than head; More excrement than body: trees which sprout With broadest leaves have still the smallest fruit."

[916] "Parna.s.sus Biceps," 1656.

Steevens gives an example from "Florio:" "A tisty-tosty wag-feather, more haire than wit."

Excessive fear has been said to cause the hair to stand on end: an instance of which Shakespeare records in "Hamlet" (iii. 4), in that celebrated pa.s.sage where the Queen, being at a loss to understand her son's strange appearance during his conversation with the Ghost, which is invisible to her, says:

"And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, Your bedded hair, like life in excrements, Starts up, and stands on end."

A further instance occurs in "The Tempest" (i. 2), where Ariel, describing the shipwreck, graphically relates how

"All, but mariners, Plunged in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel, Then all a-fire with me: the king's son, Ferdinand, With hair up-staring-then like reeds, not hair- Was the first man that leap'd."

Again, Macbeth says (i. 3):

"why do I yield to that suggestion Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair?"

And further on he says (v. 5):

"The time has been, my senses would have cool'd To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir As life were in't."

In "2 Henry VI." (iii. 2) it is referred to by Suffolk as a sign of madness:

"My hair be fix'd on end, as one distract."

And, once more, in "Richard III." (i. 3), Hastings declares:

"My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses."

Another popular notion mentioned by Shakespeare is, that sudden fright or great sorrow will cause the hair to turn white. In "1 Henry IV." (ii.

4), Falstaff, in his speech to Prince Henry, tells him: "thy father's beard is turned white with the news."