Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 111

There is probably a veiled allusion to the same ceremony in "Winter's Tale" (iv. 4), where, at the dance of shepherds and shepherdesses, the following dialogue occurs:

"_Clown._ Come on, strike up!

_Dorcas._ Mopsa must be your mistress: marry, garlic, To mend her kissing with.

_Mopsa._ Now, in good time!

_Clown._ Not a word, a word; we stand upon our manners.

Come, strike up!"

In an old treatise ent.i.tled the "Use and Abuse of Dancing and Minstrelsie" we read:

"But some reply, what fools will daunce, If that when daunce is doon, He may not have at ladyes lips, That which in daunce he doon."

The practice of saluting ladies with a kiss was once very general, and in the "Merry Wives of Windsor" to kiss the hostess is indirectly spoken of as a common courtesy of the day.

In "Romeo and Juliet" (i. 5) a further instance occurs, where Romeo kisses Juliet at Capulet's entertainment; and, in "Henry VIII." (i. 4), Lord Sands is represented as kissing Anne Bullen, next to whom he sits at supper.

The celebrated "kissing comfits" were sugar-plums, once extensively used by fashionable persons to make the breath sweet. Falstaff, in the "Merry Wives of Windsor" (v. 5), when embracing Mrs. Ford, says: "Let it thunder to the tune of 'Green Sleeves,' hail kissing comfits, and snow eringoes."

In "Measure for Measure" (iv. 1, song) kisses are referred to as "seals of love." A Judas kiss was a kiss of treachery. Thus, in "3 Henry VI."

(v. 7), Gloster says:

"so Judas kiss'd his master, And cried 'All hail!' when-as he meant all harm."

_Lace Songs._ These were jingling rhymes, sung by young girls while engaged at their lace-pillows. A practice alluded to by the Duke in "Twelfth Night" (ii. 4):

"O, fellow, come, the song we had last night.- Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain; The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids that weave their thread with bones Do use to chant it."

Miss Baker, in her "Northamptonshire Glossary" (1854, vol. i. p. 378).

says, "The movement of the bobbins is timed by the modulation of the tune, which excites them to regularity and cheerfulness; and it is a pleasing sight to see them, in warm, sunny weather, seated outside their cottage doors, or seeking the shade of a neighboring tree; where, in cheerful groups, they unite in singing their rude and simple rhymes. The following is a specimen of one of these ditties, most descriptive of the occupation:

"'Nineteen long lines, bring over my down, The faster I work it, I'll shorten my score, But if I do play, it'll stick to a stay, So heigh ho! little fingers, and tw.a.n.k it away.'"

_Letters._ The word Emmanuel was formerly prefixed, probably from feelings of piety, to letters and public deeds. So in "2 Henry VI." (iv.

2) there is the following allusion to it:

"_Cade._ What is thy name?

_Clerk._ Emmanuel.

_d.i.c.k._ They use to write it on the top of letters."

Staunton says: "We can refer to one MS. alone, in the British Museum (Ad. MSS. 19, 400), which contains no less than fourteen private epistles headed 'Emanewell,' or 'Jesus Immanuel.'"

Another superscription of a letter in years gone by was "to the bosom"

of a lady. Thus Hamlet (ii. 2) says in his letter to Ophelia:

"In her excellent white bosom, these."

And in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona" (iii. 1), Proteus says:

"Thy letters may be here, though thou art hence; Which, being writ to me, shall be deliver'd Even in the milk-white bosom of thy love."

This custom seems to have originated in the circ.u.mstance of women having a pocket in the forepart of their stays, in which, according to Steevens, "they carried not only love-letters and love-tokens, but even their money and materials for needlework."

_Livery._ The phrase "sue my livery," which occurs in the following speech of Bolingbroke ("Richard II." ii. 3),

"I am denied to sue my livery here, And yet my letters-patents give me leave; My father's goods are all distrain'd, and sold, And these, and all, are all amiss employ'd,"

is thus explained by Malone: "On the death of every person who held by knight's service, the escheator of the court in which he died summoned a jury, who inquired what estate he died seized of, and of what age his next heir was. If he was under age, he became a ward of the king's; but if he was found to be of full age, he then had a right to sue out a writ of _ouster le main_, that is, his livery, that the king's hand might be taken off, and the land delivered to him." York ("Richard II.," ii. 1) also says:

"If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights, Call in the letters-patents that he hath By his attorneys-general to sue His livery."

_Love-Day._ This denoted a day of amity or reconciliation; an expression which is used by Saturninus in "t.i.tus Andronicus" (i. 1):

"You are my guest, Lavinia, and your friends.- This day shall be a love-day, Tamora."

MILITARY LORE. _Fleshment._ This is a military term; a young soldier being said to _flesh_ his sword the first time he draws blood with it.

In "King Lear" (ii. 2), Oswald relates how Kent

"in the fleshment of this dread exploit, Drew on me here again,"

upon which pa.s.sage Singer (vol. ix. p. 377) has this note: "Fleshment, therefore, is here metaphorically applied to the first act which Kent, in his new capacity, had performed for his master; and, at the same time, in a sarcastic sense, as though he had esteemed it an heroic exploit to trip a man behind, who was actually falling." The phrase occurs again in "1 Henry IV." (v. 4), where Prince Henry tells his brother:

"Come, brother John, full bravely hast thou flesh'd Thy maiden sword."

_Swearing by the Sword._ According to Nares,[985] "the singular mixture of religious and military fanaticism which arose from the Crusades gave rise to the custom of taking a solemn oath upon a sword. In a plain, unenriched sword, the separation between the blade and the hilt was usually a straight transverse bar, which, suggesting the idea of a cross, added to the devotion which every true knight felt for his favorite weapon, and evidently led to this practice." Hamlet makes Horatio swear that he will never divulge having seen the Ghost (i. 5):

"Never to speak of this that you have seen, Swear by my sword."

[985] "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 858; see Dyce's "Glossary," p. 431.

In the "Winter's Tale" (ii. 3), Leonato says:

"Swear by this sword Thou wilt perform my bidding."

The cross of the sword is also mentioned to ill.u.s.trate the true bearing of the oath. Hence, in "1 Henry IV." (ii. 4), Falstaff says jestingly of Glendower, that he "swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh hook."[986] On account of the practice of swearing by a sword, or, rather, by the cross or upper end of it, the name of _Jesus_ was sometimes inscribed on the handle or some other part.

[986] A Welsh hook was a sort of bill, hooked at the end, and with a long handle. See Dyce's "Glossary," p. 497; and Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. ix. p. 168.

_Mining Terms._ According to Mr. Collier, the phrase "truepenny" is a mining term current in the north of England, signifying a particular indication in the soil, of the direction in which ore is to be found.

Thus Hamlet (i. 5) says

"Ah, ha, boy! say'st thou so? art thou there, truepenny?"

when making Horatio and Marcellus again swear that they will not divulge having seen the ghost.

_Patrons._ The custom of clergymen praying for their patrons, in what is called the bidding prayer, seems alluded to by Kent in "King Lear" (i.