Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 18

"where once Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew From the still vex'd Bermoothes."

And Caliban (i. 2), when venting his rage on Prospero and Miranda, can find no stronger curse than the following:

"As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd, With raven's feather from unwholesome fen Drop on you both!"

It has been suggested that in "Antony and Cleopatra" (iii. 12) Shakespeare may refer to an old notion whereby the sea was considered the source of dews as well as rain. Euphronius is represented as saying:

"Such as I am, I come from Antony: I was of late as petty to his ends As is the morn-dew on the myrtle leaf To his grand sea."

According to an erroneous notion formerly current, it was supposed that the air, and not the earth, drizzled dew-a notion referred to in "Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 5):

"When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew."

And in "King John" (ii. 1):

"Before the dew of evening fall."

Then there is the celebrated honey-dew, a substance which has furnished the poet with a touching simile, which he has put into the mouth of "t.i.tus Andronicus" (iii. 1):

"When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears Stood on her cheeks; as doth the honey-dew Upon a gather'd lily almost wither'd."

According to Pliny, "honey-dew" is the saliva of the stars, or a liquid produced by the purgation of the air. It is, however, a secretion deposited by a small insect, which is distinguished by the generic name of aphis.[144]

[144] See Patterson's "Insects Mentioned by Shakespeare," 1841, p. 145.

_Rainbow._ Secondary rainbows, the watery appearance in the sky accompanying the rainbow, are in many places termed "water-galls"-a term we find in the "Rape of Lucrece" (1586-89):

"And round about her tear-distained eye Blue circles stream'd, like rainbows in the sky: These water-galls in her dim element Foretell new storms to those already spent."

Horace Walpole several times makes use of the word: "False good news are always produced by true good, like the water-gall by the rainbow;" and again, "Thank heaven it is complete, and did not remain imperfect, like a water-gall."[145] In "The Dialect of Craven" we find "Water-gall, a secondary or broken rainbow. _Germ._ Wa.s.ser-galle."

[145] "Letters," vol. i. p. 310; vol. vi. pp. 1, 187.-Ed.

Cunningham.

_Thunder._ According to an erroneous fancy the destruction occasioned by lightning was effected by some solid body known as the thunder-stone or thunder-bolt. Thus, in the beautiful dirge in "Cymbeline" (iv. 2):

"_Guid._ Fear no more the lightning flash,

_Arv._ Or the all-dreaded thunder-stone."

Oth.e.l.lo asks (v. 2):

"Are there no stones in heaven But what serve for the thunder?"

And in "Julius Caesar" (i. 3), Ca.s.sius says:

"And, thus unbraced, Casca, as you see, Have bared my bosom to the thunder-stone."

The thunder-stone is the imaginary product of the thunder, which the ancients called _Brontia_, mentioned by Pliny ("Nat. Hist." x.x.xvii. 10) as a species of gem, and as that which, falling with the lightning, does the mischief. It is the fossil commonly called the Belemnite, or finger-stone, and now known to be a sh.e.l.l.

A superst.i.tious notion prevailed among the ancients that those who were stricken with lightning were honored by Jupiter, and therefore to be accounted holy. It is probably to this idea that Shakespeare alludes in "Antony and Cleopatra" (ii. 5):

"Some innocents 'scape not the thunderbolt."[146]

[146] Douce's "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 369.

The bodies of such were supposed not to putrefy; and, after having been exhibited for a certain time to the people, were not buried in the usual manner, but interred on the spot where the lightning fell, and a monument erected over them. Some, however, held a contrary opinion. Thus Persius (sat. ii. l. 27) says:

"Triste jaces lucis evitandumque bidental."

The ground, too, that had been smitten by a thunder-bolt was accounted sacred, and afterwards enclosed; nor did any one even presume to walk on it. Such spots were, therefore, consecrated to the G.o.ds, and could not in future become the property of any one.

Among the many other items of folk-lore a.s.sociated with thunder is a curious one referred to in "Pericles" (iv. 3): "Thunder shall not so awake the bed of eels." The notion formerly being that thunder had the effect of rousing eels from their mud, and so rendered them more easy to be taken in stormy weather. Marston alludes to this superst.i.tion in his satires ("Scourge of Villainie," sat. vii.):

"They are nought but eeles, that never will appeare Till that tempestuous winds or thunder teare Their slimy beds."

The silence that often precedes a thunder-storm is thus graphically described in "Hamlet" (ii. 2):

"'we often see, against some storm, A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still, The bold winds speechless, and the orb below As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder Doth rend the region.'"

_Earthquakes_, around which so many curious myths and superst.i.tions have cl.u.s.tered,[147] are scarcely noticed by Shakespeare. They are mentioned among the ominous signs of that terrible night on which Duncan is so treacherously slain ("Macbeth," ii. 3):

"the obscure bird Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth Was feverous and did shake."

[147] See Tylor's "Primitive Culture," vol. i. pp. 364-367.

And in "1 Henry IV." (iii. 1) Hotspur a.s.signs as a reason for the earthquakes the following theory:

"Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth In strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd By the imprisoning of unruly wind Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving, Shakes the old beldam earth, and topples down Steeples, and moss-grown towers."

_Equinox._ The storms that prevail in spring at the vernal equinox are aptly alluded to in "Macbeth" (i. 2):

"As whence the sun 'gins his reflection s.h.i.+pwrecking storms and direful thunders break, So from that spring, whence comfort seem'd to come, Discomfort swells."

-the meaning being: the beginning of the reflection of the sun is the epoch of his pa.s.sing from the severe to the milder season, opening, however, with storms.

_Wind._ An immense deal of curious weather-lore[148] has been a.s.sociated with the wind from the earliest period; and in our own and foreign countries innumerable proverbs are found describing the future state of the weather from the position of the wind, for, according to an old saying, "every wind has its weather." Shakespeare has introduced some of these, showing how keen an observer he was of those every-day sayings which have always been much in use, especially among the lower cla.s.ses.

Thus the proverbial wet which accompanies the wind when in the south is mentioned in "As You Like It" (iii. 5):

"Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain."

[148] See Swainson's "Weather-Lore."

And again, in "1 Henry IV." (v. 1):

"The southern wind Doth play the trumpet to his [_i. e._, the sun's] purposes; And by his hollow whistling in the leaves Foretells a tempest, and a bl.u.s.tering day."

A popular saying to the same effect, still in use, tells us that: