Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 86

says Sir J. Hawkins, "resembled that of a peac.o.c.k's tail." It is alluded to in "Twelfth Night" (v. 1) by Sir Toby: "A pa.s.sy-measures pavin,"

although the reading of this pa.s.sage is uncertain, the editors of the "Globe" edition subst.i.tuting _panyn_.

It has been conjectured that the "pa.s.sy-measure galliard," and the "pa.s.sy-measure pavan" were only two different measures of the same dance, from the Italian _pa.s.samezzo_.[833]

[833] See Dyce, vol. iii. p. 412, _note_ 121.

_Roundel._ This was also called the "round," a dance of a circular kind, and is probably referred to by t.i.tania in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream"

(ii. 2), where she says to her train:[834]

"Come now, a roundel and a fairy song."

[834] Roundel also meant a song. Mr. Dyce considers the dance is here meant.

Ben Jonson, in the "Tale of a Tub,"[835] seems to call the rings, which such fairy dances are supposed to make, _roundels_.

"I'll have no roundels, I, in the queen's paths."

[835] See Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. ii. p. 333.

_Satyrs' Dance._ A dance of satyrs was a not uncommon entertainment in Shakespeare's day, or even at an earlier period.[836] It was not confined to England, and has been rendered memorable by the fearful accident with which it was accompanied at the Court of France in 1392, a graphic description of which has been recorded by Froissart. In the "Winter's Tale" (iv. 4), the satyrs' dance is alluded to by the Servant, who says: "Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three neat-herds, three swine-herds, that have made themselves all men of hair; they call themselves Saltiers: and they have a dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are not in't." In a book of songs composed by Thomas Ravenscroft and others, in the time of Shakespeare, we find one[837] called the "Satyres' daunce." It is for four voices, and is as follows:

"Round a round, a rounda, keepe your ring To the glorious sunne we sing.

Hoe, hoe!

He that weares the flaming rayes, And the imperiall crowne of bayes, Him with shoutes and songs we praise.

Hoe, hoe!

That in his bountee would vouchsafe to grace The humble sylvanes and their s.h.a.ggy race."

[836] See Knight's "Pictorial Shakespeare," vol. ii. p. 384; Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. iv. p. 85; Boswell's "Shakespeare," vol. xiv. p. 371.

[837] See Douce's "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakespeare," p. 222.

_Sword-dance._ In olden times there were several kinds of sword-dances, most of which afforded opportunities for the display of skill. In "Antony and Cleopatra" (iii. 11), there seems to be an allusion to this custom, where Antony, speaking of Caesar, says:[838]

"he, at Philippi, kept His sword e'en like a dancer."

[838] See Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," 1876, pp. 300, 301; Douce's "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakespeare," p. 193.

And in "All's Well that Ends Well" (ii. 1), where Bertram, lamenting that he is kept from the wars, adds:

"I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock, Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry, Till honour be bought up, and no sword worn But one to dance with."

In "t.i.tus Andronicus" (ii. 1), too, Demetrius says to Chiron:

"Why, boy, although our mother, unadvis'd Gave you a dancing-rapier by your side."

_Tread a Measure_, to which the King refers in "Love's Labour's Lost"

(v. 2), when he tells Boyet to tell Rosaline

"we have measur'd many miles, To tread a measure with her on this gra.s.s,"

was a grave solemn dance, with slow and measured steps, like the minuet.

As it was of so solemn a nature, it was performed[839] at public entertainments in the Inns of Court, and it was "not unusual, nor thought inconsistent, for the first characters in the law to bear a part in treading a measure."

[839] Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. ii. p. 269; Sir Christopher Hatton was famous for it.

_Trip and Go_ was the name of a favorite morris-dance, and appears, says Mr. Chappell, in his "Popular Music of the Olden Times," etc. (2d edition, vol. i. p. 131), to have become a proverbial expression. It is used in "Love's Labour's Lost" (iv. 2).

_Up-spring._ From the following pa.s.sage, in Chapman's "Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany," it would seem that this was a German dance:

"We Germans have no changes in our dances; An almain and an up-spring, that is all."

Karl Elze,[840] who, a few years ago, reprinted Chapman's "Alphonsus" at Leipsic, says that the word "up-spring" "is the 'Hupfauf,' the last and wildest dance at the old German merry-makings. No epithet could there be more appropriate to this drunken dance than Shakespeare's _swaggering_"

in "Hamlet" (i. 4):

"The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse, Keeps wa.s.sail, and the swaggering up-spring reels."

[840] Quoted in Dyce's "Glossary," p. 476.

CHAPTER XVIII.

PUNISHMENTS.

Shakespeare has not omitted to notice many of the punishments which were in use in years gone by; the scattered allusions to these being interesting in so far as they serve to ill.u.s.trate the domestic manners and customs of our forefathers. Happily, however, these cruel tortures, which darken the pages of history, have long ago pa.s.sed into oblivion; and at the present day it is difficult to believe that such barbarous practices could ever have been tolerated in any civilized country. The horrible punishment of "boiling to death," is mentioned in "Twelfth Night" (ii. 5), where Fabian says: "If I lose a scruple of this sport, let me be boiled to death with melancholy." In "Winter's Tale" (iii. 2), Paulina inquires:

"What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?

What wheels? racks? fires? What flaying? boiling In leads or oils? What old or newer torture Must I receive?"

There seems to be an indirect allusion to this punishment in "The Two n.o.ble Kinsmen" (iv. 3), where the Gaoler's Daughter in her madness speaks of those who "are mad, or hang, or drown themselves, being put into a caldron of lead and usurer's grease, and there boiling like a gammon of bacon that will never be enough."

The practice of holding burning basins before the eyes of captives, to destroy their eyesight, is probably alluded to by Macbeth (iv. 1), in the pa.s.sage where the apparitions are presented to him by the witches:

"Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo; down!

Thy crown does sear mine eyeb.a.l.l.s."[841]

[841] Halliwell-Phillipps's "Index to Shakespeare," p. 36.

In "Antony and Cleopatra" (ii. 4), soaking in brine as a punishment is referred to by Cleopatra, who says to the messenger:

"Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stew'd in brine, Smarting in lingering pickle."

Drowning by the tide, a method of punishing criminals, is probably noticed in "The Tempest" (i. 1), by Antonio:

"We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.