Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 27

[254] "Glossary to Shakespeare," p. 88.

_Kingfisher._ It was a common belief in days gone by that during the days the halcyon or kingfisher was engaged in hatching her eggs, the sea remained so calm that the sailor might venture upon it without incurring risk of storm or tempest; hence this period was called by Pliny and Aristotle "the halcyon days," to which allusion is made in "1 Henry VI."

(i. 2):

"Expect Saint Martin's summer, halcyon days."

Dryden also refers to this notion:

"Amidst our arms as quiet you shall be, As halcyons brooding on a winter's sea."

Another superst.i.tion connected with this bird occurs in "King Lear" (ii.

2), where the Earl of Kent says:

"turn their halcyon beaks With every gale and vary of their masters;"

the prevalent idea being that a dead kingfisher, suspended from a cord, would always turn its beak in that direction from whence the wind blew.

Marlowe, in his "Jew of Malta" (i. 1), says:

"But now how stands the wind?

Into what corner peers my halcyon's bill?"

Occasionally one may still see this bird hung up in cottages, a remnant, no doubt, of this old superst.i.tion.[255]

[255] Sir Thomas Browne's "Vulgar Errors," bk. iii. chap. 10.

_Kite._ This bird was considered by the ancients to be unlucky. In "Julius Caesar" (v. 1) Ca.s.sius says:

"ravens, crows, and kites, Fly o'er our heads, and downward look on us."

In "Cymbeline" (i. 2), too, Imogen says,

"I chose an eagle, And did avoid a puttock,"

puttock, here, being a synonym sometimes applied to the kite.[256]

Formerly the kite became a term of reproach from its ign.o.ble habits.

Thus, in "Antony and Cleopatra" (iii. 13), Antony exclaims, "you kite!"

and King Lear (i. 4) says to Goneril, "Detested kite! thou liest." Its intractable disposition is alluded to in "Taming of the Shrew," by Petruchio (iv. 1). A curious peculiarity of this bird is noticed in "Winter's Tale" (iv. 3), where Autolycus says: "My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen"-meaning that his practice was to steal sheets; leaving the smaller linen to be carried away by the kites, who will occasionally carry it off to line their nests.[257] Mr.

Dyce[258] quotes the following remarks of Mr. Peck on this pa.s.sage: "Autolycus here gives us to understand that he is a thief of the first cla.s.s. This he explains by an allusion to an odd vulgar notion. The common people, many of them, think that if any one can find a kite's nest when she hath young, before they are fledged, and sew up their back doors, so as they cannot mute, the mother-kite, in compa.s.sion to their distress, will steal lesser linen, as caps, cravats, ruffles, or any other such small matters as she can best fly with, from off the hedges where they are hanged to dry after was.h.i.+ng, and carry them to her nest, and there leave them, if possible to move the pity of the first comer, to cut the thread and ease them of their misery."

[256] Also to the buzzard, which see, p. 100.

[257] Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. iv. p. 67.

[258] "Glossary," p. 243.

_Lapwing._ Several interesting allusions are made by Shakespeare to this eccentric bird. It was a common notion that the young lapwings ran out of the sh.e.l.l with part of it sticking on their heads, in such haste were they to be hatched. Horatio ("Hamlet," v. 2) says of Osric: "This lapwing runs away with the sh.e.l.l on his head."

It was, therefore, regarded as the symbol of a forward fellow.

Webster,[259] in the "White Devil" (1857, p. 13), says:

"forward lapwing!

He flies with the sh.e.l.l on's head."

[259] "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 495; see Yarrell's "History of British Birds," 2d edition, vol. ii. p. 482.

The lapwing, like the partridge, is also said to draw pursuers from her nest by fluttering along the ground in an opposite direction or by crying in other places. Thus, in the "Comedy of Errors" (iv. 2), Shakespeare says:

"Far from her nest the lapwing cries away."

Again, in "Measure for Measure" (i. 4), Lucio exclaims:

"though 'tis my familiar sin, With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest, Tongue far from heart."

Once more, in "Much Ado About Nothing" (iii. 1), we read:

"For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs, Close by the ground, to hear our conference."

Several, too, of our older poets refer to this peculiarity. In Ben Jonson's "Underwoods" (lviii.) we are told:

"Where he that knows will like a lapwing fly, Farre from the nest, and so himself belie."

Through thus alluring intruders from its nest, the lapwing became a symbol of insincerity; and hence originated the proverb, "The lapwing cries tongue from heart," or, "The lapwing cries most, farthest from her nest."[260]

[260] Ray's "Proverbs," 1768, p. 199.

_Lark._ Shakespeare has bequeathed to us many exquisite pa.s.sages referring to the lark, full of the most sublime pathos and lofty conceptions. Most readers are doubtless acquainted with that superb song in "Cymbeline" (ii. 3), where this sweet songster is represented as singing "at heaven's gate;" and again, as the bird of dawn, it is described in "Venus and Adonis," thus:

"Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest, From his moist cabinet mounts up on high, And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast The sun ariseth in his majesty."[261]

[261] Cf. "Midsummer-Night's Dream" (iv. 1). "the morning lark;" "Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 5), "the lark, the herald of the morn."

In "Love's Labour's Lost" (v. 2, song) we have a graphic touch of pastoral life:

"When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks."

The words of Portia, too, in "Merchant of Venice" (v. 1), to sing "as sweetly as the lark," have long ago pa.s.sed into a proverb.

It was formerly a current saying that the lark and toad changed eyes, to which Juliet refers in "Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 5):

"Some say, the lark and loathed toad change eyes;"

Warburton says this popular fancy originated in the toad having very fine eyes, and the lark very ugly ones. This tradition was formerly expressed in a rustic rhyme:

"to heav'n I'd fly, But that the toad beguil'd me of mine eye."

In "Henry VIII." (iii. 2) the Earl of Surrey, in denouncing Wolsey, alludes to a curious method of capturing larks, which was effected by small mirrors and red cloth. These, scaring the birds, made them crouch, while the fowler drew his nets over them:

"let his grace go forward, And dare us with his cap, like larks."