Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 26

Again, in "Oth.e.l.lo" (iii. 3),[239] Iago exclaims:

"She that, so young, could give out such a seeming, To seel her father's eyes up close as oak;"

in allusion to the practice of seeling a hawk, or sewing up her eyelids, by running a fine thread through them, in order to make her tractable and endure the hood of which we have already spoken.[240] King Henry ("2 Henry IV." iii. 1), in his soliloquy on sleep, says:

"Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast Seal up the s.h.i.+p-boy's eyes, and rock his brains In cradle of the rude imperious surge."

[239] Also in same play, i. 3.

[240] Turbervile, in his "Booke of Falconrie," 1575, gives some curious directions as "how to seele a hawke;" we may compare similar expressions in "Antony and Cleopatra," iii. 13; v. 2.

In Spenser's "Fairy Queen" (I. vii. 23), we read:

"Mine eyes no more on vanity shall feed, But sealed up with death, shall have their deadly meed."

It was a common notion that if a dove was let loose with its eyes so closed it would fly straight upwards, continuing to mount till it fell down through mere exhaustion.[241]

[241] Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. pp. 777, 778; cf. Beaumont and Fletcher, "Philaster," v. 1.

In "Cymbeline" (iii. 4), Imogen, referring to Posthumus, says:

"I grieve myself To think, when thou shalt be disedged by her That now thou tir'st on,"-

this pa.s.sage containing two metaphorical expressions from falconry. A bird was said to be _disedged_ when the keenness of its appet.i.te was taken away by _tiring_, or feeding upon some tough or hard substance given to it for that purpose. In "3 Henry VI." (i. 1), the king says:

"that hateful duke, Whose haughty spirit, winged with desire, Will cost my crown, and like an empty eagle Tire on the flesh of me and of my son."

In "Timon of Athens" (iii. 6), one of the lords says: "Upon that were my thoughts tiring, when we encountered."

In "Venus and Adonis," too, we find a further allusion:

"Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast, Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh, and bone," etc.

Among other allusions to the hawk may be mentioned one in "Measure for Measure" (iii. 1):

"This outward-sainted deputy, Whose settled visage and deliberate word Nips youth i' the head, and follies doth _emmew_, As falcon doth the fowl"

-the word "emmew" signifying the place where hawks were shut up during the time they moulted. In "Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 4), Lady Capulet says of Juliet:

"To-night she's mew'd up to her heaviness;"

and in "Taming of the Shrew" (i. 1), Gremio, speaking of Bianca to Signor Baptista, says: "Why will you mew her?"

When the wing or tail feathers of a hawk were dropped, forced out, or broken, by any accident, it was usual to supply or repair as many as were deficient or damaged, an operation called "to imp[242] a hawk."

Thus, in "Richard II." (ii. 1), Northumberland says:

"If, then, we shall shake off our slavish yoke, Imp out our drooping country's broken wing."

[242] Imp, from Anglo-Saxon, _impan_, to graft. Turbervile has a whole chapter on "The way and manner how to ympe a hawke's feather, howsoever it be broken or bruised."

So Ma.s.singer, in his "Renegado" (v. 8), makes Asambeg say:

"strive to imp New feathers to the broken wings of time."

Hawking was sometimes called birding.[243] In the "Merry Wives of Windsor" (iii. 3) Master Page says: "I do invite you to-morrow morning to my house to breakfast; after, we'll a-birding together, I have a fine hawk for the bush." In the same play (iii. 5) Dame Quickly, speaking of Mistress Ford, says: "Her husband goes this morning a-birding;" and Mistress Ford says (iv. 2): "He's a-birding, sweet Sir John." The word hawk, says Mr. Harting, is invariably used by Shakespeare in its generic sense; and in only two instances does he allude to a particular species. These are the kestrel and sparrow-hawk.

In "Twelfth Night" (ii. 5) Sir Toby Belch, speaking of Malvolio, as he finds the letter which Maria has purposely dropped in his path, says:

"And with what wing the staniel[244] checks at it"

-staniel being a corruption of stangdall, a name for the kestrel hawk.[245] "Gouts" is the technical term for the spots on some parts of the plumage of a hawk, and perhaps Shakespeare uses the word in allusion to a phrase in heraldry. Macbeth (ii. 1), speaking of the dagger, says:

"I see thee still, And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood."

[243] Harting's "Ornithology of Shakspeare," p. 72.

[244] The reading of the folios here is stallion; but the word wing, and the falconer's term _checks_, prove that the bird must be meant. See Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 832.

[245] See kestrel and sparrow-hawk.

_Heron._ This bird was frequently flown at by falconers. Shakespeare, in "Hamlet" (ii. 2), makes Hamlet say, "I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw;" handsaw being a corruption of "heronshaw," or "hernsew," which is still used, in the provincial dialects, for a heron. In Suffolk and Norfolk it is p.r.o.nounced "harnsa," from which to "handsaw" is but a single step.[246]

Shakespeare here alludes to a proverbial saying, "He knows not a hawk from a handsaw."[247] Mr. J. C. Heath[248] explains the pa.s.sage thus: "The expression obviously refers to the sport of hawking. Most birds, especially one of heavy flight like the heron, when roused by the falconer or his dog, would fly down or with the wind, in order to escape. When the wind is from the north the heron flies towards the south, and the spectator may be dazzled by the sun, and be unable to distinguish the hawk from the heron. On the other hand, when the wind is southerly the heron flies towards the north, and it and the pursuing hawk are clearly seen by the sportsman, who then has his back to the sun, and without difficulty knows the hawk from the hernsew."

[246] "Notes to Hamlet," Clark and Wright, 1876, p. 159.

[247] Ray's "Proverbs," 1768, p. 196.

[248] Quoted in "Notes to Hamlet," by Clark and Wright, p. 159; see Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 416.

_Jay._ From its gay and gaudy plumage this bird has been used for a loose woman, as "Merry Wives of Windsor" (iii. 3): "we'll teach him to know turtles from jays," _i. e._, to distinguish honest women from loose ones. Again, in "Cymbeline" (iii. 4), Imogen says:

"Some jay of Italy, Whose mother was her painting,[249] hath betray'd him."

[249] That is, made by art: the creature not of nature, but of painting; cf. "Taming of the Shrew," iv. 3; "The Tempest," ii. 2.

_Kestrel._ A hawk of a base, unserviceable breed,[250] and therefore used by Spenser, in his "Fairy Queen" (II. iii. 4), to signify base:

"Ne thought of honour ever did a.s.say His baser breast, but in his kestrell kynd A pleasant veine of glory he did fynd."

[250] Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 482.

By some[251] it is derived from "coystril," a knave or peasant, from being the hawk formerly used by persons of inferior rank. Thus, in "Twelfth Night" (i. 3), we find "coystrill," and in "Pericles" (iv. 6) "coystrel." The name kestrel, says Singer,[252] for an inferior kind of hawk, was evidently a corruption of the French _quercelle_ or _quercerelle_, and originally had no connection with coystril, though in later times they may have been confounded. Holinshed[253] cla.s.ses coisterels with lackeys and women, the unwarlike attendants on an army.

The term was also given as a nickname to the emissaries employed by the kings of England in their French wars. Dyce[254] also considers kestrel distinct from coistrel.

[251] Harting's "Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 74.

[252] "Notes," vol. iii. pp. 357, 358.

[253] "Description of England," vol. i. p. 162.