Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 38

"O cruell, be content, to take in worth my tears, Which growe to gumme, and fall from me: content thee with my heares, Content thee with my hornes, which every year I new, Since all these three make medicines, some sickness to eschew.

My tears congeal'd to gumme, by peeces from me fall, And thee preserve from pestilence, in pomander or ball.

Such wholesome tears shedde I, when thou pursewest me so."

[405] "De Proprietate Rerum," lib. xviii. c. 30.

[406] Cf. Vergil's description of the wounded stag in "aeneid,"

bk. vii.

[407] Commentary on Bartholomaeus's "De Proprietate Rerum."

[408] The drops which fall from their eyes are not tears from the lachrymal glands, but an oily secretion from the inner angle of the eye close to the nose.-Brewer's "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable," p. 217.

[409] "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakespeare," p. 183.

_Dog._ As the favorite of our domestic animals, the dog not unnaturally possesses an extensive history, besides entering largely into those superst.i.tions which, more or less, are a.s.sociated with every stage of human life. It is not surprising, therefore, that Shakespeare frequently speaks of the dog, making it the subject of many of his ill.u.s.trations.

Thus he has not omitted to mention the fatal significance of its howl, which is supposed either to foretell death or misfortune. In "2 Henry VI." (i. 4) he makes Bolingbroke say:

"The time when screech-owls cry, and ban-dogs howl,[410]

And spirits walk, and ghosts break up their graves."

[410] These dogs were kept for baiting bears, when that amus.e.m.e.nt was in vogue, and "from their terrific howling they are occasionally introduced to heighten the horror of the picture." Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 50.

And, again, in "3 Henry VI." (v. 6), King Henry, speaking of Gloster, says:

"The owl shriek'd at thy birth,-an evil sign; The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time; Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempests shook down trees."

The same superst.i.tion prevails in France and Germany,[411] and various charms are resorted to for averting the ill-consequences supposed to attach to this sign of ill-omen. Several of these, too, are practised in our own country. Thus, in Staffordshire, when a dog howls, the following advice is given: "Take off your shoe from the left foot, and spit upon the sole, place it on the ground bottom upwards, and your foot upon the place you sat upon, which will not only preserve you from harm, but stop the howling of the dog."[412] A similar remedy is recommended in Norfolk:[413] "Pull off your left shoe, and turn it, and it will quiet him. A dog won't howl three times after." We are indebted to antiquity for this superst.i.tion, some of the earliest writers referring to it.

Thus, Pausanias relates how, previous to the destruction of the Messenians, the dogs pierced the air by raising a louder barking than usual; and it is on record how, before the sedition in Rome, about the dictatorship of Pompey, there was an extraordinary howling of dogs.

Vergil[414] ("Georgics," lib. i. l. 470), speaking of the Roman misfortunes, says:

"Obscenaeque canes, importunaeque volucres Signa dabant."

[411] See Kelly's "Indo-European Folk-Lore," p. 109.

[412] Henderson's "Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties," p. 48.

[413] See "English Folk-Lore," p. 101.

[414] See Hardwick's "Traditions, Superst.i.tions, and Folk-Lore," p. 171.

Capitolinus narrates, too, how the dogs, by their howling, presaged the death of Maximinus. The idea which a.s.sociates the dog's howl with the approach of death is probably derived from a conception in Aryan mythology, which represents a dog as summoning the departing soul.

Indeed, as Mr. Fiske[415] remarks, "Throughout all Aryan mythology, the souls of the dead are supposed to ride on the night-wind, with their howling dogs, gathering into their throng the souls of those just dying as they pa.s.s by their houses."

[415] "Myths and Mythmakers," 1873, p. 36.

Another popular superst.i.tion-in all probability derived from the Egyptians-refers to the setting and rising of Sirius, or the dog-star, as infusing madness into the canine race. Hence the name of the "dog-days" was given by the Romans to the period between the 3d of July and the 11th of August, to which Shakespeare alludes in "Henry VIII."

(v. 3): "the dog-days now reign." We may, too, compare the words of Benvolio, in "Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 1):

"For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring."

It is obvious, however, that this superst.i.tion is utterly groundless, for not only does the star vary in its rising, but is later and later every year. The term "dog-day" is still a common phrase, and it is difficult to say whether it is from superst.i.tious adherence to old custom, or from a belief in the injurious effect of heat upon dogs, that the magistrates, often unwisely, at this season of the year order them to be muzzled or tied up. It was the practice to put them to death; and Ben Jonson, in his "Bartholomew Fair," speaks of "the dog-killer" in this month of August. Lord Bacon, too, in his "Sylva Sylvarum," tells us that "it is a common experience that dogs know the dog-killer, when, as in times of infection, some petty fellow is sent out to kill them.

Although they have never seen him before, yet they will all come forth and bark and fly at him."

A "curtal dog," to which allusion is made in "Merry Wives of Windsor"

(ii. 1), by Pistol-

"Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs,"

denoted "originally the dog of an unqualified person, which, by the forest laws, must have its tail cut short, partly as a mark, and partly from a notion that the tail of a dog is necessary to him in running." In later usage, _curtail dog_ means either a common dog, not meant for sport, or a dog that missed the game, which latter sense it has in the pa.s.sage above.[416]

[416] "Nares's Glossary," vol. i. p. 218.

_Dragon._ As the type and embodiment of the spirit of evil, the dragon has been made the subject of an extensive legendary lore. The well-known myth of St. George and the Dragon, which may be regarded as a grand allegory representing the hideous and powerful monster against whom the Christian soldier is called to fight, has exercised a remarkable influence for good in times past, over half-instructed people. It has been truly remarked that "the dullest mind and hardest heart could not fail to learn from it something of the hatefulness of evil, the beauty of self-sacrifice, and the all-conquering might of truth." This graceful conception is alluded to by Shakespeare, in his "King John" (ii. 1), where, according to a long-established custom, it is made a subject for sign-painting:[417]

"St. George, that swinged the dragon, and e'er since, Sits on his horseback at mine hostess' door, Teach us some fence!"

[417] For the various versions of this myth consult Baring-Gould's "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages," 1877, pp.

266-316.

In ancient mythology the task of drawing the chariot of night was a.s.signed to dragons, on account of their supposed watchfulness. In "Cymbeline" (ii. 2) Iachimo, addressing them, says:

"Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawning May bare the raven's eye!"[418]

[418] Cf. "Troilus and Cressida," v. 8; "Midsummer-Night's Dream," iii. 2.

Milton, in his "Il Penseroso," mentions the dragon yoke of night, and in his "Comus" (l. 130):

"the dragon womb Of Stygian darkness."

It may be noticed that the whole tribe of serpents sleep with their eyes open, and so appear to exert a constant watchfulness.[419]

[419] Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. x. p. 363.

In devising loathsome ingredients for the witches' mess, Shakespeare ("Macbeth," iv. 1) speaks of "the scale of dragon," alluding to the horror in which this mythical being was held. Referring, also, to the numerous legends a.s.sociated with its dread form, he mentions "the spleen of fiery dragons" ("Richard III.," v. 3), "dragon's wings" ("1 Henry VI.," i. 1), and ("Pericles," i. 1), "death-like dragons." Mr.

Conway[420] has admirably summed up the general views respecting this imaginary source of terror: "Nearly all the dragon forms, whatever their original types and their region, are represented in the conventional monster of the European stage, which meets the popular conception. The dragon is a masterpiece of the popular imagination, and it required many generations to give it artistic shape. Every Christmas he appears in some London pantomime, with aspect similar to that which he has worn for many ages. His body is partly green, with the memories of the sea and of slime, and partly brown or dark, with lingering shadow of storm clouds.

The lightning flames still in his red eyes, and flashes from his fire-breathing mouth. The thunder-bolt of Jove, the spear of Wodan, are in the barbed point of his tail. His huge wings-bat-like, spiked-sum up all the mythical life of extinct harpies and vampires. Spine of crocodile is on his neck, tail of the serpent, and all the jagged ridges of rocks and sharp thorns of jungles bristle around him, while the ice of glaciers and bra.s.sy glitter of sunstrokes are in his scales. He is ideal of all that is hard, obstructive, perilous, loathsome, horrible in nature; every detail of him has been seen through and vanquished by man, here or there, but in selection and combination they rise again as principles, and conspire to form one great generalization of the forms of pain-the sum of every creature's worst."[421]

[420] "Demonology and Devil-Lore," 1880, vol. i. p. 383.

[421] The dragon formerly const.i.tuted a part of the morris-dance.

_Elephant._ According to a vulgar error, current in bygone times, the elephant was supposed to have no joints-a notion which is said to have been first recorded from tradition by Ctesias the Cnidian.[422] Sir Thomas Browne has entered largely into this superst.i.tion, arguing, from reason, anatomy, and general a.n.a.logy with other animals, the absurdity of the error. In "Troilus and Cressida" (ii. 3), Ulysses says: "The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy: his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure." Steevens quotes from "The Dialogues of Creatures Moralized"-a curious specimen of our early natural history-the following: "the olefawnte that bowyth not the kneys." In the play of "All Fools," 1605, we read: "I hope you are no elephant-you have joints." In a note to Sir Thomas Browne's Works,[423] we are told, "it has long been the custom for the exhibitors of itinerant collections of wild animals, when showing the elephant, to mention the story of its having no joints, and its consequent inability to kneel; and they never fail to think it necessary to demonstrate its untruth by causing the animal to bend one of its fore-legs, and to kneel also."

[422] Sir Thomas Browne's Works, 1852, vol. i. pp. 220-232.

[423] Edited by Simon Wilkin, 1852, vol. i. p. 226.

In "Julius Caesar" (ii. 1) the custom of seducing elephants into pitfalls, lightly covered with hurdles and turf, on which a proper bait to tempt them was exposed, is alluded to.[424] Decius speaks of elephants being betrayed "with holes."