Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 55

_Wasp._ So easily, we are told,[587] is the wrathful temperament of this insect aroused, that extreme irascibility can scarcely be better expressed than by the term "waspish." It is in this sense that Shakespeare has applied the epithet, "her waspish-headed son," in the "Tempest" (iv. 1), where we are told that Cupid is resolved to be a boy outright. Again, in "As You Like It" (iv. 3), Silvius says:

"I know not the contents; but, as I guess By the stern brow and waspish action Which she did use as she was writing of it, It bears an angry tenor."

[587] Patterson's "Insects Mentioned by Shakespeare," 1841, p. 137.

Again, in the "Taming of the Shrew" (ii. 1), Petruchio addresses his intended spouse in language not highly complimentary:

"_Pet._ Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.

_Kath._ If I be waspish, best beware my sting.

_Pet._ My remedy is, then, to pluck it out."

In the celebrated scene in "Julius Caesar" (iv. 3), in which the reconciliation between Brutus and Ca.s.sius is effected, the word is used in a similar sense:

"I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter, When you are waspish."[588]

[588] Cf. "t.i.tus Andronicus," ii. 3; "Henry VIII.," iii. 3.

_Water-Fly._ This little insect, which, on a sunny day, may be seen almost on every pool, dimpling the gla.s.sy surface of the water, is used as a term of reproach by Shakespeare. Thus, Hamlet (v. 2), speaking of Osric, asks Horatio, "Dost know this water-fly?" In "Troilus and Cressida" (v. 1), Thersites exclaims: "Ah, how the poor world is pestered with such water-flies, diminutives of nature." Johnson says it is the proper emblem of a busy trifler, because it skips up and down upon the surface of the water without any apparent purpose.

CHAPTER X.

FOLK-MEDICINE.

Without discussing the extent of Shakespeare's technical medical knowledge, the following pages will suffice to show that he was fully acquainted with many of the popular notions prevalent in his day respecting certain diseases and their cures. These, no doubt, he collected partly from the literature of the period, with which he was so fully conversant, besides gathering a good deal of information on the subject from daily observation. Anyhow, he has bequeathed to us some interesting particulars relating to the folk-medicine of bygone times, which is of value, in so far as it helps to ill.u.s.trate the history of medicine in past years. In Shakespeare's day the condition of medical science was very unlike that at the present day. As Mr. Goadby, in his "England of Shakespeare" (1881, p. 104), remarks, "the man of science was always more or less of an alchemist, and the students of medicine were usually extensive dealers in charms and philtres." If a man wanted bleeding he went to a barber-surgeon, and when he required medicine he consulted an apothecary; the shop of the latter being well described by Romeo (v. 1):

"And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuff'd, and other skins Of ill-shap'd fishes; and about his shelves A beggarly account of empty boxes, Green earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds, Remnants of pack-thread and old cakes of roses, Were thinly scattered, to make up a show."

Such a man was as ready "to sell love-philtres to a maiden as narcotics to a friar."

_Bleeding._ Various remedies were in use in Shakespeare's day to stop bleeding. Thus, a key, on account of the coldness of the metal of which it is composed, was often employed; hence the term "key-cold" became proverbial, and is referred to by many old writers. In "Richard III."

(i. 2), Lady Anne, speaking of the corpse of King Henry the Sixth, says

"Poor key-cold figure of a holy king."

In the "Rape of Lucrece" (l. 1774) the same expression is used:

"And then in key-cold Lucrece' bleeding stream He falls, and bathes the pale fear in his face."

In Beaumont and Fletcher's "Wild Goose Chase" (iv. 3) we read: "For till they be key-cold dead, there's no trusting of 'em."[589]

[589] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 482; also, Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 311; Henderson's "Folk-Lore of Northern Counties," 1879, pp. 168, 169.

Another common remedy was the one alluded to in "King Lear" (iii. 7), where one of the servants says:

"I'll fetch some flax, and whites of eggs, To apply to his bleeding face."

This pa.s.sage has been thought to be parodied in Ben Jonson's play, "The Case is Altered" (ii. 4): "Go, get a white of an egg and a little flax, and close the breach of the head; it is the most conducible thing that can be." Mr. Gifford, however, has shown the incorrectness of this a.s.sertion, pointing out that Jonson's play was written in 1599, some years before "King Lear" appeared, while the allusion is "to a method of cure common in Jonson's time to every barber-surgeon and old woman in the kingdom."[590]

[590] Aldis Wright's "Notes to King Lear," 1877, p. 179.

Cobwebs are still used to stanch the bleeding from small wounds, and Bottom's words seem to refer to this remedy of domestic surgery: "I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master Cobweb; if I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you."

Anciently, says Mr. Singer, "a superst.i.tious belief was annexed to the accident of bleeding at the nose;" hence, in the "Merchant of Venice"

(ii. 5), Launcelot says: "It was not for nothing that my nose fell a-bleeding on Black Monday last." In days gone by, it was customary with our forefathers to be bled periodically, in spring and in autumn, in allusion to which custom King Richard refers ("Richard II.," i. 1), when he says to his uncle:

"Our doctors say this is no month to bleed."

Hence the almanacs of the time generally gave particular seasons as the most beneficial for bleeding. The forty-seventh aphorism of Hippocrates (sect. 6) is, that "persons who are benefited by venesection or purging should be bled or purged in the spring."

_Blindness._ The exact meaning of the term "sand-blind," which occurs in the "Merchant of Venice" (ii. 2), is somewhat obscure:

"_Launcelot._ O heavens, this is my true-begotten father! who, being more than sand-blind, high gravel blind, knows me not.

_Gobbo._ Alack, sir, I am sand-blind, I know you not."

It probably means very dim-sighted,[591] and in Nares's "Glossary"[592]

it is thus explained: "Having an imperfect sight, as if there was sand in the eye." The expression is used by Beaumont and Fletcher in "Love's Cure" (ii. 1): "Why, signors, and my honest neighbours, will you impute that as a neglect of my friends, which is an imperfection in me? I have been _sand-blind_ from my infancy." The term was probably one in vulgar use.[593]

[591] Dyce's "Glossary," p. 381; cf. the word "Berlue, pur-blinded, made sand-blind," Cotgrave's "Fr. and Eng. Dict."

[592] Vol. ii. p. 765.

[593] Bucknill's "Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare," p. 93.

_Blister._ In the following pa.s.sage of "Timon of Athens" (v. 1), Timon appears to refer to the old superst.i.tion that a lie produces a blister on the tongue, though, in the malice of his rage, he imprecates the minor punishment on truth, and the old surgery of cauterization on falsehood:[594]

"Thou sun, that comfort'st, burn!-Speak, and be hang'd; For each true word, a blister! and each false Be as a caut'rizing to the root o' the tongue, Consuming it with speaking!"

[594] Bucknill's "Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare," p. 258.

We may also compare the pa.s.sage in "Winter's Tale" (ii. 2), where Paulina declares:

"If I prove honey-mouth'd, let my tongue blister, And never to my red-look'd anger be The trumpet any more."[595]

[595] Cf., too, "Love's Labour's Lost" (v. 2):

"A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart, That put Armado's page out of his part."

_Bone-ache._ This was a nickname, in bygone years, for the _Lues venerea_, an allusion to which we find in "Troilus and Cressida" (ii.

3), where Thersites speaks of "the bone-ache" as "the curse dependent on those that war for a placket." Another name for this disease was the "brenning or burning," a notice of which we find in "King Lear" (iv. 6).