Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 22

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."[189]

[189] Cf. "Henry IV.," iv. 2.

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 it Their perch and not their terror."

The phrase "to pluck a crow" is to complain good-naturedly, but reproachfully, and to threaten retaliation.[190] It occurs in "Comedy of Errors" (iii. 1): "We'll pluck a crow together." Sometimes the word _pull_ is subst.i.tuted for pluck, as in Butler's "Hudibras" (part ii.

canto 2):

"If not, resolve before we go That you and I must pull a crow."

[190] Miss Baker's "Northamptonshire Glossary," vol. ii. p.

161; Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 393.

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 crow Vie feathers white."[191]

[191] Cf. "Romeo and Juliet," i. 5.

_Cuckoo._ Many superst.i.tions have cl.u.s.tered 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:[192] O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear."

[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.

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 repet.i.tion of its cries, how long he has to live. The country la.s.ses 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.[193] Among the Germans the notes of the cuckoo, when heard in spring for the first time, are considered a good omen. Caesarius (1222) tells us of a convert.i.te who was about to become a monk, but changed his mind on hearing the cuckoo's call, and counting twenty-two repet.i.tions 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."[194] 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 superst.i.tion 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."

[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.

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

"And being fed by us you used us so As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo's bird, Useth the sparrow; did oppress our nest; Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk That even our love durst not come near your sight For 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,[195] 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.

[195] See Mary Howitt's "Pictorial Calendar of the Seasons," p.

155; Knight's "Pictorial Shakespeare," vol. i. pp. 225, 226.

The notion[196] "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 pa.s.sage from cla.s.sic to mediaeval, 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."

[196] Chambers's "Book of Days," vol. i. p. 531.

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;[197] and Plautus[198] 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,[199] from the practice already alluded to of depositing its eggs in other birds' nests.

[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."

_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 "Coriola.n.u.s" (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 "Oth.e.l.lo" (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:[200]

"as patient as the female dove When that her golden couplets are disclosed."

[200] Singer's "Shakespeare," 1875, vol. ix. p. 294.

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: