Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 37

[398] Singer's "Shakespeare," 1875, vol. x. p. 118.

_Deer._ In "King Lear" (iii. 4) Edgar uses deer for wild animals in general:

"But mice, and rats, and such small deer, Have been Tom's food for seven long year."

Shakespeare frequently refers to the popular sport of hunting the deer;[399] and by his apt allusions shows how thoroughly familiar he was with the various amus.e.m.e.nts of his day.[400] In "Winter's Tale" (i. 2) Leontes speaks of "the mort o' the deer:" certain notes played on the horn at the death of the deer, and requiring a deep-drawn breath.[401]

It was anciently, too, one of the customs of the chase for all to stain their hands in the blood of the deer as a trophy. Thus, in "King John"

(ii. 1), the English herald declares to the men of Angiers how

"like a jolly troop of huntsmen, come Our l.u.s.ty English, all with purpled hands, Dyed in the dying slaughter of their foes."

[399] See Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," 1876, pp. 66, 75, 79, 80, 113, 117.

[400] See "As You Like It," iv. 2; "All's Well That Ends Well,"

v. 2; "Macbeth," iv. 3; "1 Henry IV.," v. 4; "1 Henry VI.," iv.

2; "2 Henry VI.," v. 2; "t.i.tus Andronicus," iii. 1, etc.

[401] Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. viii. p. 421

The practice is again alluded to in "Julius Caesar" (iii. 1):

"here thy hunters stand, Sign'd in thy spoil, and crimson'd in thy lethe."

Old Turbervile gives us the details of this custom: "Our order is, that the prince, or chief, if so please them, do alight, and take a.s.say of the deer, with a sharp knife, the which is done in this manner-the deer being laid upon his back, the prince, chief, or such as they do appoint, comes to it, and the chief huntsman, kneeling if it be a prince, doth hold the deer by the forefoot, whilst the prince, or chief, do cut a slit drawn along the brisket of the deer."

In "Antony and Cleopatra" (v. 2), where Caesar, speaking of Cleopatra's death, says:

"bravest at the last, She levell'd at our purposes, and, being royal, Took her own way"-

there is possibly an allusion to the _hart royal_, which had the privilege of roaming unmolested, and of taking its own way to its lair.

Shooting with the cross-bow at deer was an amus.e.m.e.nt of great ladies.

Buildings with flat roofs, called stands, partly concealed by bushes, were erected in the parks for the purpose. Hence the following dialogue in "Love's Labour's Lost" (iv. 1):

"_Princess._ Then forester, my friend, where is the bush That we must stand and play the murderer in?

_Forester._ Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice; A stand where you may make the fairest shoot."

Among the hunting terms to which Shakespeare refers may be mentioned the following:

"To draw" meant to trace the steps of the game, as in "Comedy of Errors"

(iv. 2):

"A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot well."

The term "to run counter" was to mistake the course of the game, or to turn and pursue the backward trail.

The "recheat" denoted certain notes sounded on the horn, properly and more usually employed to recall the dogs from a wrong scent. It is used in "Much Ado About Nothing" (i. 1): "I will have a recheat winded in my forehead." We may compare Drayton's "Polyolbion" (xiii.):

"Recheating with his horn, which then the hunter cheers."

The phrase "to recover the wind of me," used by Hamlet (iii. 2), is borrowed from hunting, and means to get the animal pursued to run with the wind, that it may not scent the toil or its pursuers. Again, when Falstaff, in "2 Henry IV." (ii. 4), speaks of "fat rascals," he alludes to the phrase of the forest-"rascall," says Puttenham, "being properly the hunting term given to a young deer leane and out of season."

The phrase "a hunts-up" implied any song intended to arouse in the morning-even a love song-the name having been derived from a tune or song employed by early hunters.[402] The term occurs in "Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 5), where Juliet says to Romeo, speaking of the lark:

"Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray, Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day."

[402] Chappell's "Popular Music of the Olden Time," 2d ed. vol.

i. p. 61; see Douce's "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakespeare," p. 432; see, too, Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 440.

In Drayton's "Polyolbion" (xiii.) it is used:

"No sooner doth the earth her flowery bosom brave, At such time as the year brings on the pleasant spring, But hunts-up to the morn the feather'd sylvans sing."

In Shakespeare's day it was customary to hunt as well after dinner as before, hence, in "Timon of Athens" (ii. 2), Timon says:

"So soon as dinner's done, we'll forth again."

The word "embossed" was applied to a deer when foaming at the mouth from fatigue. In "Taming of the Shrew" (Ind. scene 1) we read: "the poor cur is embossed," and in "Antony and Cleopatra" (iv. 13):

"the boar of Thessaly Was never so emboss'd."

It was usual to call a pack of hounds "a cry," from the French _meute de chiens_. The term is humorously applied to any troop or company of players, as by Hamlet (iii. 2), who speaks of "a fellowship in a cry of players." In "Coriola.n.u.s" (iv. 6) Menenius says,

"You have made Good work, you and your cry."

Antony, in "Julius Caesar" (iii. 1), alludes to the technical phrase to "let slip a dog," employed in hunting the hart. This consisted in releasing the hounds from the leash or _slip_ of leather by which they were held in hand until it was judged proper to let them pursue the animal chased.[403] In "1 Henry IV." (i. 3) Northumberland tells Hotspur:

"Before the game's afoot, thou still let'st slip."

[403] See Dyce's "Glossary," p. 401.

In "Taming of the Shrew" (v. 2) Tranio says:

"O, sir, Lucentio slipp'd me like his greyhound, Which runs himself, and catches for his master."

A sportsman's saying, applied to hounds, occurs in "2 Henry IV." (v. 3): "a' will not out; he is true bred," serving to expound Gadshill's expression, "such as can hold in," "1 Henry IV." (ii. 1).

The severity of the game laws under our early monarchs was very stringent; and a clause in the "Forest Charter"[404] grants "to an archbishop, bishop, earl, or baron, when travelling through the royal forests, at the king's command, the privilege to kill one deer or two in the sight of the forester, if he was at hand; if not, they were commanded to cause a horn to be sounded, that it might not appear as if they had intended to steal the game." In "Merry Wives of Windsor" (v.

5), Falstaff, using the terms of the forest, alludes to the perquisites of the keeper. Thus he speaks of the "shoulders for the fellow of this walk," _i. e._, the keeper.

[404] See Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," 1876, p. 65.

Shakespeare has several pretty allusions to the tears of the deer, this animal being said to possess a very large secretion of tears. Thus Hamlet (iii. 2) says: "let the strucken deer go weep;" and in "As You Like It" (ii. 1) we read of the "sobbing deer," and in the same scene the first lord narrates how, at a certain spot,

"a poor sequester'd stag That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt Did come to languish; ...

... and the big round tears Coursed one another down his innocent nose In piteous chase."

Bartholomaeus[405] says, that "when the hart is arered, he fleethe to a ryver or ponde, and roreth cryeth and wepeth when he is take."[406] It appears that there were various superst.i.tions connected with the tears of the deer. Batman[407] tells us that "when the hart is sick, and hath eaten many serpents for his recoverie, he is brought unto so great a heate that he hasteth to the water, and there covereth his body unto the very eares and eyes, at which time distilleth many tears from which the [Bezoar] stone is gendered."[408] Douce[409] quotes the following pa.s.sage from the "n.o.ble Art of Venerie," in which the hart thus addresses the hunter: