Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 71

[714] Sops in wine.

It existed even among our Gothic ancestors, and is mentioned in the ordinances of the household of Henry VII., "For the Marriage of a Princess:-'Then pottes of ipocrice to be ready, and to be put into cupps with soppe, and to be borne to the estates, and to take a soppe and drinke.'" It was also practised at the magnificent marriage of Queen Mary and Philip, in Winchester Cathedral, and at the marriage of the Elector Palatine to the daughter of James I., in 1612-13. Indeed, it appears to have been the practice at most marriages. In Jonson's "Magnetic Lady" it is called a "knitting cup;" in Middleton's "No Wit like a Woman's," the "contracting cup." In Robert Armin's comedy of "The History of the Two Maids of More Clacke," 1609, the play begins with:

"_Enter a maid strewing flowers, and a serving-man perfuming the door._

_Maid._ Strew, strew.

_Man._ The muscadine stays for the bride at church: The priest and Hymen's ceremonies tend To make them man and wife."

Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Scornful Lady" (i. 1), the custom is referred to:[715]

"If my wedding-smock were on, Were the gloves bought and given, the license come, Were the rosemary branches dipp'd, and all The hippocras and cakes eat and drunk off."

[715] See "Brand's Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. ii. pp. 136, 139.

We find it enjoined in the Hereford missal. By the Sarum missal it is directed that the sops immersed in this wine, as well as the liquor itself, and the cup that contained it, should be blessed by the priest.

The beverage used on this occasion was to be drunk by the bride and bridegroom and the rest of the company.

The nuptial kiss in the church was anciently part of the marriage ceremony, as appears from a rubric in one of the Salisbury missals. In the "Taming of the Shrew," Shakespeare has made an excellent use of this custom, where he relates how Petruchio (iii. 2)

"took the bride about the neck And kiss'd her lips with such a clamorous smack That, at the parting, all the church did echo."

Again, in "Richard II." (v. 1), where the Duke of Northumberland announces to the king that he is to be sent to Pomfret, and his wife to be banished to France, the king exclaims:

"Doubly divorc'd!-Bad men, ye violate A twofold marriage,-'twixt my crown and me, And then, betwixt me and my married wife.- Let me unkiss the oath twixt thee and me; And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made."

Marston, too, in his "Insatiate Countess," mentions it:

"The kisse thou gav'st me in the church, here take."

The practice is still kept up among the poor; and Brand[716] says it is "still customary among persons of middling rank as well as the vulgar, in most parts of England, for the young men present at the marriage ceremony to salute the bride, one by one, the moment it is concluded."

[716] "Pop. Antiq.," vol. ii. p. 140.

Music was the universal accompaniment of weddings in olden times.[717]

The allusions to wedding music that may be found in the works of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other Elizabethan dramatists, testify, as Mr. Jeaffreson points out, that, in the opinion of their contemporaries, a wedding without the braying of trumpets and beating of drums and clashing of cymbals was a poor affair. In "As You Like It" (v. 4), Hymen says:

"Whiles a wedlock-hymn we sing."

[717] "Brides and Bridals," 1873, vol. i. p. 252.

And in "Romeo and Juliet" (iv. 5), Capulet says:

"Our wedding cheer, to a sad burial feast; Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change."

It seems to have been customary for the bride at her wedding to wear her hair unbraided and hanging loose over her shoulders. There may be an allusion to this custom in "King John" (iii. 1), where Constance says:

"O Lewis, stand fast! the devil tempts thee here In likeness of a new untrimmed bride."

At the celebration of her marriage with the Palatine, Elizabeth Stuart wore "her hair dishevelled and hanging down her shoulders." Heywood speaks of this practice in the following graphic words:

"At length the blushing bride comes, with her hair Dishevelled 'bout her shoulders."

It has been suggested that the bride's veil, which of late years has become one of the most conspicuous features of her costume, may be nothing more than a milliner's subst.i.tute, which in old time concealed not a few of the bride's personal attractions, and covered her face when she knelt at the altar. Mr. Jeaffreson[718] thinks it may be ascribed to the Hebrew ceremony; or has come from the East, where veils have been worn from time immemorial. Some, again, connect it with the yellow veil which was worn by the Roman brides. Strange, too, as it may appear, it is nevertheless certain that knives and daggers were formerly part of the customary accoutrements of brides. Thus, Shakespeare, in the old quarto, 1597, makes Juliet wear a knife at the friar's cell, and when she is about to take the potion. This custom, however, is easily accounted for, when we consider that women anciently wore a knife suspended from their girdle. Many allusions to this practice occur in old writers.[719] In Dekker's "Match Me in London," 1631, a bride says to her jealous husband:

"See, at my girdle hang my wedding knives!

With those dispatch me."

[718] "Brides and Bridals," vol. i. p. 177.

[719] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. ii. pp. 131-133.

In the "Witch of Edmonton," 1658, Somerton says:

"But see, the bridegroom and bride come; the new Pair of Sheffield knives fitted both to one sheath."

Among other wedding customs alluded to by Shakespeare we may mention one referred to in "Taming of the Shrew" (ii. 1), where Katharina, speaking of Bianca, says to her father:

"She is your treasure, she must have a husband: I must dance bare-foot on her wedding-day, And, for your love to her, lead apes in h.e.l.l,"

it being a popular notion that unless the elder sisters danced barefoot at the marriage of a younger one, they would inevitably become old maids, and be condemned "to lead apes in h.e.l.l." The expression "to lead apes in h.e.l.l," applied above to old maids, has given rise to much discussion, and the phrase has not yet been satisfactorily explained.

Steevens suggests that it might be considered an act of posthumous retribution for women who refused to bear children to be condemned to the care of apes in leading-strings after death. Malone says that "to lead apes" was in Shakespeare's time one of the employments of a bear-ward, who often carried about one of these animals with his bear.

Nares explains the expression by reference to the word ape as denoting a fool, it probably meaning that those coquettes who made fools of men, and led them about without real intention of marriage, would have them still to lead against their will hereafter. In "Much Ado About Nothing"

(ii. 1), Beatrice says: "therefore I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his apes into h.e.l.l." Douce[720] tells us that homicides and adulterers were in ancient times compelled, by way of punishment, to lead an ape by the neck, with their mouths affixed in a very unseemly manner to the animal's tail.

[720] "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakespeare," p. 203.

In accordance with an old custom, the bride, on the wedding-night, had to dance with every guest, and play the amiable, however much against her own wishes. In "Henry VIII." (v. 2), there seems to be an allusion to this practice, where the king says:

"I had thought, They had parted so much honesty among them, At least, good manners, as not thus to suffer A man of his place, and so near our favour, To dance attendance on their lordships' pleasures."

In the "Christian State of Matrimony" (1543) we read thus: "Then must the poor bryde kepe foote with a dauncers, and refuse none, how scabbed, foule, droncken, rude, and shameless soever he be."

As in our own time, so, too, formerly, flowers entered largely into the marriage festivities. Most readers will at once call to mind that touching scene in "Romeo and Juliet" (iv. 5), where Capulet says, referring to Juliet's supposed untimely death:

"Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse."

It seems, too, in days gone by to have been customary to deck the bridal bed with flowers, various allusions to which are given by Shakespeare.

Thus, in "Hamlet" (v. 1), the queen, speaking of poor Ophelia, says:

"I hop'd thou should'st have been my Hamlet's wife; I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid."

In "The Tempest" (iv. 1) we may compare the words of Prospero, who, alluding to the marriage of his daughter Miranda with Ferdinand, by way of warning, cautions them lest

"barren hate, Sour-ey'd disdain and discord shall bestrew The union of your bed with weeds so loathly That you shall hate it both."

In the Papal times no new-married couple could go to bed together till the bridal-bed had been blessed-this being considered one of the most important of the marriage ceremonies. "On the evening of the wedding-day," says Mr. Jeaffreson,[721] "when the married couple sat in state in the bridal-bed, before the exclusion of the guests, who a.s.sembled to commend them yet again to Heaven's keeping, one or more priests, attended by acolytes swinging to and fro lighted censers, appeared in the crowded chamber to bless the couch, its occupants, and the truckle-bed, and fumigate the room with hallowing incense." In "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (v. 1), Oberon says:

"Now, until the break of day, Through this house each fairy stray.