Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 98

Again, in "Much Ado About Nothing" (ii. 3): "wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one, that blood hath the victory."

Once more, in "King Lear" (iv. 2), the Duke of Albany says to Goneril:

"Were't my fitness To let these hands obey my blood, They are apt enough to dislocate and tear Thy flesh and bones."

Again, the phrase "to be in blood" was a term of the chase, meaning, to be in good condition, to be vigorous. In "1 Henry VI." (iv. 2), Talbot exclaims:

"If we be English deer, be, then, in blood; Not rascal-like, to fall down with a pinch"

-the expression being put in opposition to "rascal," which was the term for the deer when lean and out of condition. In "Love's Labour's Lost"

(iv. 2), Holofernes says: "The deer was, as you know, _sanguis_,-in blood."

The notion that the blood may be thickened by emotional influences is mentioned by Polixenes in the "Winter's Tale" (i. 2), where he speaks of "thoughts that would thick my blood." In King John's temptation of Hubert to murder Arthur (iii. 3), it is thus referred to:

"Or if that surly spirit, melancholy, Had bak'd thy blood and made it heavy, thick, Which else runs tickling up and down the veins."

Red blood was considered a traditionary sign of courage. Hence, in the "Merchant of Venice" (ii. 1), the Prince of Morocco, when addressing himself to Portia, and urging his claims for her hand, says:

"Bring me the fairest creature northward born, Where Phoebus' fire scarce thaws the icicles, And let us make incision for your love,[899]

To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine."

[899] Mr. Singer, in a note on this pa.s.sage, says, "It was customary, in the East, for lovers to testify the violence of their pa.s.sion by cutting themselves in the sight of their mistresses; and the fashion seems to have been adopted here as a mark of gallantry in Shakespeare's time, when young men frequently stabbed their arms with daggers, and, mingling the blood with wine, drank it off to the healths of their mistresses."-Vol. ii. p. 417.

Again, in the same play, cowards are said to "have livers as white as milk," and an effeminate man is termed a "milk-sop." Macbeth, too (v.

3), calls one of his frighted soldiers a "lily-liver'd boy." And in "King Lear" (ii. 2), the Earl of Kent makes use of the same phrase. In ill.u.s.tration of this notion Mr. Douce[900] quotes from Bartholomew Glantville, who says: "Reed clothes have been layed upon deed men in remembrance of theyr hardynes and boldnes, whyle they were in theyr bloudde."

[900] "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakspeare," 1839, p. 156.

The absence of blood in the liver as the supposed property of a coward, originated, says Dr. Bucknill,[901] in the old theory of the circulation of the blood, which explains Sir Toby's remarks on his dupe, in "Twelfth Night" (iii. 2): "For Andrew, if he were opened, and you find so much blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat the rest of the anatomy."

[901] "Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare," p. 124.

We may quote here a notion referred to in "Lucrece" (1744-50), that, ever since the sad death of Lucrece, corrupted blood has watery particles:

"About the mourning and congealed face Of that black blood a watery rigol goes, Which seems to weep upon the tainted place: And ever since, as pitying Lucrece' woes, Corrupted blood some watery token shows; And blood untainted still doth red abide, Blushing at that which is so putrefied."

_Brain._ By old anatomists the brain was divided into three ventricles, in the hindermost of which they placed the memory. That this division was not unknown to Shakespeare is apparent from "Love's Labour's Lost"

(iv. 2), where Holofernes says: "A foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of memory." Again, Lady Macbeth (i. 7), speaking of Duncan's two chamberlains, says:

"Will I with wine and wa.s.sail so convince, That memory, the warder of the brain, Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason A limbeck only."

The "third ventricle is the cerebellum, by which the brain is connected with the spinal marrow and the rest of the body; the memory is posted in the cerebellum, like a warder or sentinel, to warn the reason against attack. Thus, when the memory is converted by intoxication into a mere fume,[902] then it fills the brain itself-the receipt or receptacle of reason, which thus becomes like an alembic, or cap of a still."[903]

[902] Cf. "Tempest," v. 1:

"the ignorant fumes that mantle Their clearer reason."

[903] Clark and Wright's "Notes to Macbeth," 1877, p. 101.

A popular nickname, in former times, for the skull, was "brain-pan;" to which Cade, in "2 Henry VI." (iv. 10) refers: "many a time, but for a sallet, my brain-pan had been cleft with a brown bill." The phrase "to beat out the brains" is used by Shakespeare metaphorically in the sense of defeat or destroy; just as nowadays we popularly speak of knocking a scheme on the head. In "Measure for Measure" (v. 1), the Duke, addressing Isabella, tells her:

"O most kind maid, It was the swift celerity of his death, Which I did think with slower foot came on, That brain'd my purpose."

The expression "to bear a brain," which is used by the Nurse in "Romeo and Juliet" (i. 3),

"Nay, I do bear a brain,"

denoted "much mental capacity either of attention, ingenuity, or remembrance."[904] Thus, in Marston's "Dutch Courtezan" (1605), we read:

"My silly husband, alas! knows nothing of it, 'tis I that must beare a braine for all."

[904] Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. viii. p. 123.

The notion of the brain as the seat of the soul is mentioned by Prince Henry, who, referring to King John (v. 7), says:

"his pure brain, Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house, Doth, by the idle comments that it makes, Foretell the ending of mortality."

_Ear._ According to a well-known superst.i.tion, much credited in days gone by, and still extensively believed, a tingling of the right ear is considered lucky, being supposed to denote that a friend is speaking well of one, whereas a tingling of the left is said to imply the opposite. This notion, however, varies in different localities, as in some places it is the tingling of the left ear which denotes the friend, and the tingling of the right ear the enemy. In "Much Ado About Nothing"

(iii. 1), Beatrice asks Ursula and Hero, who had been talking of her:

"What fire is in mine ears?"

the reference, no doubt, being to this popular fancy. Sir Thomas Browne[905] ascribes the idea to the belief in guardian angels, who touch the right or left ear according as the conversation is favorable or not to the person.

[905] "Vulgar Errors," book v. chap. 23 (Bohn's edition, 1852, vol. ii. p. 82).

In Shakespeare's day it was customary for young gallants to wear a long lock of hair dangling by the ear, known as a "love-lock." Hence, in "Much Ado About Nothing" (iii. 3), the Watch identifies one of his delinquents: "I know him; a' wears a lock."[906]

[906] Prynne attacked the fashion in his "Unloveliness of Love-locks."

Again, further on (v. 1), Dogberry gives another allusion to this practice: "He wears a key in his ear, and a lock hanging by it."

An expression of endearment current in years gone by was "to bite the ear." In "Romeo and Juliet" (ii. 4), Mercutio says:

"I will bite thee by the ear for that jest,"

a pa.s.sage which is explained in Nares ("Glossary," vol. i. p. 81) by the following one from Ben Jonson's "Alchemist" (ii. 3):

"_Mammon._ Th' hast witch'd me, rogue; take, go.

_Face._ Your jack, and all, sir.

_Mammon._ Slave, I could bite thine ear.... Away, thou dost not care for me!"

Gifford, in his notes on Jonson's "Works" (vol. ii. p. 184), says the odd mode of expressing pleasure by biting the ear seems "to be taken from the practice of animals, who, in a playful mood, bite each other's ears."

While speaking of the ear, it may be noted that the so-called want of ear for music has been regarded as a sign of an austere disposition.

Thus Caesar says of Ca.s.sius ("Julius Caesar," i. 2):