Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 36

Cats, from their great powers of resistance, are said to have nine lives;[383] hence Mercutio, in "Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 1), says: "Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives." Ben Jonson, in "Every Man in His Humour" (iii. 2), makes Edward Knowell say to Bobadil, "'Twas pity you had not ten; a cat's and your own." And in Gay's fable of the "Old Woman and her Cats," one of these animals is introduced, upbraiding the witch:

"'Tis infamy to serve a hag, Cats are thought imps, her broom a nag; And boys against our lives combine, Because 'tis said, your cats have nine."

[383] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," vol. iii. p. 42.

In Marston's "Dutch Courtezan" we read:

"Why then, thou hast nine lives like a cat."

And in Dekker's "Strange Horse-Race" (1613): "When the grand Helcat had gotten these two furies with nine lives." This notion, it may be noted, is quite the reverse of the well-known saying, "Care will kill a cat,"

mentioned in "Much Ado About Nothing" (v. 1), where Claudio says: "What though care killed a cat."

For some undiscovered reason a cat was formerly called Tybert or Tybalt;[384] hence some of the insulting remarks of Mercutio, in "Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 1), who calls Tybalt "rat-catcher" and "king of cats."

In the old romance of "Hystorye of Reynard the Foxe" (chap. vi.), we are told how "the king called for Sir Tibert, the cat, and said to him, Sir Tibert, you shall go to Reynard, and summon him the second time."[385] A popular term for a wild cat was "cat-o'-mountain," an expression[386]

borrowed from the Spaniards, who call the wild cat "gato-montes." In the "Merry Wives of Windsor" (ii. 2), Falstaff says of Pistol, "Your cat-a-mountain looks."

[384] Dyce's "Glossary to Shakespeare," p. 466.

[385] From Tibert, Tib was also a common name for a cat.

[386] Douce's "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 41.

The word cat was used as a term of contempt, as in "The Tempest" (ii. 1) and "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (iii. 2), where Lysander says, "Hang off, thou cat." Once more, too, in "Coriola.n.u.s" (iv. 2), we find it in the same sense:

"'Twas you incensed the rabble; Cats, that can judge as fitly of his worth, As I can of those mysteries which heaven Will not have earth to know."

A gib, or a gib cat, is an old male cat[387]-gib being the contraction of Gilbert,[388] and is, says Nares, an expression exactly a.n.a.logous to that of jacka.s.s.[389] Tom-cat is now the usual term. The word was certainly not bestowed upon a cat early in life, as is evident from the melancholy character ascribed to it in Shakespeare's allusion in "1 Henry IV." (i. 2): "I am as melancholy as a gib cat." Ray gives "as melancholy as a gib'd [a corruption of gib] cat." The term occurs again in "Hamlet" (iii. 4). It is improperly applied to a female by Beaumont and Fletcher, in the "Scornful Lady" (v. 1): "Bring out the cat-hounds!

I'll make you take a tree, wh.o.r.e; then with my tiller bring down your gib-ship, and then have you cased and hung up in the warren."

[387] Dyce's "Glossary," p. 183.

[388] A gibbe (an old male cat), Macou, Cotgrave's "French and English Dictionary."

[389] "Glossary," vol. i. p. 360.

_Chameleon._ This animal was popularly believed to feed on air, a notion which Sir Thomas Browne[390] has carefully discussed. He has a.s.signed, among other grounds for this vulgar opinion, its power of abstinence, and its faculty of self-inflation. It lives on insects, which it catches by its long, gluey tongue, and crushes between its jaws. It has been ascertained by careful experiment that the chameleon can live without eating for four months. It can inflate not only its lungs, but its whole body, including even the feet and tail. In allusion to this supposed characteristic, Shakespeare makes Hamlet say (iii. 2), "Of the chameleon's dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed; you cannot feed capons so;" and in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona" (ii. 1) Speed says: "Though the chameleon, Love, can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my victuals, and would fain have meat." There is, too, a popular notion that this animal undergoes frequent changes of color, according to that of the bodies near it. This, however, depends on the volition of the animal, or the state of its feelings, on its good or bad health, and is subordinate to climate, age, and s.e.x.[391] In "3 Henry VI." (iii. 2) Gloster boasts:

"I can add colours to the chameleon, Change shapes, with Proteus, for advantages."

[390] "Vulgar Errors," bk. iii. p. 21, 1852; bk. i. p. 321, _note_.

[391] Ovid ("Metamorphoses," bk. xv. l. 411) speaks of its changes of color.

_c.o.c.katrice._ This imaginary creature, also called a basilisk, has been the subject of extraordinary prejudice. It was absurdly said to proceed from the eggs of old c.o.c.ks. It has been represented as having eight feet, a crown on the head, and a hooked and recurved beak.[392] Pliny a.s.serts that the basilisk had a voice so terrible that it struck terror into all other species. Sir Thomas Browne,[393] however, distinguishes the c.o.c.katrice from the ancient basilisk. He says, "This of ours is generally described with legs, wings, a serpentine and winding tail, and a crest or comb somewhat like a c.o.c.k. But the basilisk of elder times was a proper kind of serpent, not above three palms long, as some account; and different from other serpents by advancing his head and some white marks, or coronary spots upon the crown, as all authentic writers have delivered." No other animal, perhaps, has given rise to so many fabulous notions. Thus, it was supposed to have so deadly an eye as to kill by its very look, to which Shakespeare often alludes. In "Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 2), Juliet says:

"say thou but 'I,'

And that bare vowel, 'I,' shall poison more Than the death-darting eye of c.o.c.katrice."

[392] Cuvier's "Animal Kingdom," 1831, vol. ix. p. 226.

[393] "Vulgar Errors," bk. iii. p. 7.

In "Richard III." (iv. 1) the d.u.c.h.ess exclaims:

"O my accursed womb, the bed of death!

A c.o.c.katrice hast thou hatch'd to the world, Whose unavoided eye is murderous!"

In "Lucrece" (l. 540) we read:

"Here with a c.o.c.katrice' dead-killing eye He rouseth up himself, and makes a pause."

Once more,[394] in "Twelfth Night" (iii. 4), Sir Toby Belch affirms: "This will so fright them both that they will kill one another by the look, like c.o.c.katrices." It has also been affirmed that this animal could not exercise this faculty unless it first perceived the object of its vengeance; if first seen, it died. Dryden has alluded to this superst.i.tion:

"Mischiefs are like the c.o.c.katrice's eye, If they see first they kill, if seen, they die."

[394] See "Cymbeline," ii. 4; "Winter's Tale," i. 2.

c.o.c.katrice was a popular phrase for a loose woman, probably from the fascination of the eye.[395] It appears, too, that basilisk[396] was the name of a huge piece of ordnance carrying a ball of very great weight.

In the following pa.s.sage in "Henry V." (v. 2), there is no doubt a double allusion-to pieces of ordnance, and to the fabulous creature already described:

"The fatal b.a.l.l.s of murdering basilisks."

[395] Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p 173.

[396] Dyce's "Glossary," p. 29; see "1 Henry IV.," ii. 3, "of basilisks, of cannon, culverin."

_Colt._ From its wild tricks the colt was formerly used to designate, according to Johnson, "a witless, heady, gay youngster." Portia mentions it with a quibble in "The Merchant of Venice" (i. 2), referring to the Neapolitan prince. "Ay, that's a colt, indeed." The term "to colt"

meant to trick, or befool; as in the phrase in "1 Henry IV." (ii. 2): "What a plague mean ye to colt me thus?" Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps[397]

explains the expression in "Henry VIII." (i. 3), "Your colt's tooth is not cast yet," to denote a love of youthful pleasure. In "Cymbeline"

(ii. 4) it is used in a coa.r.s.er sense: "She hath been colted by him."

[397] "Handbook Index to Shakespeare."

_Crocodile._ According to fabulous accounts the crocodile was the most deceitful of animals; its tears being proverbially fallacious. Thus Oth.e.l.lo (iv. 1) says:

"O devil, devil!

If that the earth could teem with woman's tears, Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.- Out of my sight!"

We may also compare the words of the queen in "2 Henry VI." (iii. 1):

"Henry my lord is cold in great affairs, Too full of foolish pity; and Gloster's show Beguiles him, as the mournful crocodile With sorrow snares relenting pa.s.sengers."

It is said that this treacherous animal weeps over a man's head when it has devoured the body, and will then eat up the head too. In Bullokar's "Expositor," 1616, we read: "Crocodile lachrymae, crocodiles teares, do signify such teares as are feigned, and spent only with intent to deceive or do harm." In Quarles's "Emblems" there is the following allusion:

"O what a crocodilian world is this, Compos'd of treachries and ensnaring wiles!

She cloaths destruction in a formal kiss, And lodges death in her deceitful smiles."

In the above pa.s.sage from "Oth.e.l.lo," Singer says there is, no doubt, a reference to the doctrine of equivocal generation, by which new animals were supposed to be producible by new combinations of matter.[398]