Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 29

_Ostrich._ The extraordinary digestion of this bird[274] is said to be shown by its swallowing iron and other hard substances.[275] In "2 Henry VI." (iv. 10), the rebel Cade says to Alexander Iden: "Ah, villain, thou wilt betray me, and get a thousand crowns of the king by carrying my head to him; but I'll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword like a great pin, ere thou and I part." Cuvier,[276] speaking of this bird, says, "It is yet so voracious, and its senses of taste and smell are so obtuse, that it devours animal and mineral substances indiscriminately, until its enormous stomach is completely full. It swallows without any choice, and merely as it were to serve for ballast, wood, stones, gra.s.s, iron, copper, gold, lime, or, in fact, any other substance equally hard, indigestible, and deleterious." Sir Thomas Browne,[277] writing on this subject, says, "The ground of this conceit in its swallowing down fragments of iron, which men observing, by a forward illation, have therefore conceived it digesteth them, which is an inference not to be admitted, as being a fallacy of the consequent."

In Loudon's "Magazine of Natural History" (No. 6, p. 32) we are told of an ostrich having been killed by swallowing gla.s.s.

[274] Called _estridge_ in "1 Henry IV." iv. 1.

[275] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 365.

[276] "Animal Kingdom," 1829, vol. viii. p. 427.

[277] See Sir Thomas Browne's Works, 1852, vol. i. pp. 334-337.

_Owl._ The dread attached to this unfortunate bird is frequently spoken of by Shakespeare, who has alluded to several of the superst.i.tions a.s.sociated with it. At the outset, many of the epithets ascribed to it show the prejudice with which it was regarded-being in various places stigmatized as "the vile owl," in "Troilus and Cressida" (ii. I); and the "obscure bird," in "Macbeth" (ii. 3), etc. From the earliest period it has been considered a bird of ill-omen, and Pliny tells us how, on one occasion, even Rome itself underwent a l.u.s.tration, because one of them strayed into the Capitol. He represents it also as a funereal bird, a monster of the night, the very abomination of human kind. Vergil[278]

describes its death-howl from the top of the temple by night, a circ.u.mstance introduced as a precursor of Dido's death. Ovid,[279] too, constantly speaks of this bird's presence as an evil omen; and indeed the same notions respecting it may be found among the writings of most of the ancient poets. This superst.i.tious awe in which the owl is held may be owing to its peculiar look, its occasional and uncertain appearance, its loud and dismal cry,[280] as well as to its being the bird of night.[281] It has generally been a.s.sociated with calamities and deeds of darkness.[282] Thus, its weird shriek pierces the ear of Lady Macbeth (ii. 2), while the murder is being committed:

"Hark!-Peace!

It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman, Which gives the stern'st good night."

[278] "aeneid," bk. iv. l. 462.

[279] "Metamorphoses," bk. v. l. 550; bk. vi. l. 432; bk. x. l.

453; bk. xv. l. 791.

[280] "2 Henry VI." iii. 2; iv. 1.

[281] "t.i.tus Andronicus," ii. 3.

[282] Cf. "Lucrece," l. 165; see Yarrell's "History of British Birds," vol. i. p. 122.

And when the murderer rushes in, exclaiming,

"I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?"

she answers:

"I heard the owl scream."

Its appearance at a birth has been said to foretell ill-luck to the infant, a superst.i.tion to which King Henry, in "3 Henry VI." (v. 6), addressing Gloster, refers:

"The owl shriek'd at thy birth, an evil sign."

Its cries[283] have been supposed to presage death, and, to quote the words of the _Spectator_, "a screech-owl at midnight has alarmed a family more than a band of robbers." Thus, in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (v. 1), we are told how

"the screech-owl, screeching loud, Puts the wretch that lies in woe In remembrance of a shroud;"

and in "1 Henry VI." (iv. 2), it is called the "ominous and fearful owl of death." Again, in "Richard III." (iv. 4), where Richard is exasperated by the bad news, he interrupts the third messenger by saying:

"Out on ye, owls! nothing but songs of death?"

[283] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 209.

The owl by day is considered by some equally ominous, as in "3 Henry VI." (v. 4):

"the owl by day, If he arise, is mock'd and wonder'd at."

And in "Julius Caesar" (i. 3), Casca says:

"And yesterday the bird of night did sit, Even at noon-day, upon the market-place, Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies Do so conjointly meet, let not men say, 'These are their reasons,-they are natural;'

For, I believe, they are portentous things Unto the climate that they point upon."

Considering, however, the abhorrence with which the owl is generally regarded, it is not surprising that the "owlet's wing"[284] should form an ingredient of the caldron in which the witches in "Macbeth" (iv. 1) prepared their "charm of powerful trouble." The owl is, too, in all probability, represented by Shakespeare as a witch,[285] a companion of the fairies in their moonlight gambols. In "Comedy of Errors" (ii. 2), Dromio of Syracuse says:

"This is the fairy land: O, spite of spites!

We talk with goblins, owls, and elvish sprites.

If we obey them not, this will ensue, They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue!"

[284] The spelling of the folios is "howlets." In Holland's translation of Pliny (chap. xvii. book x.), we read "of owlls or howlets." Cotgrave gives "Hulotte."

[285] Halliwell-Phillipps's, "Handbook Index," 1866, p. 354.

Singer, in his Notes on this pa.s.sage (vol. ii. p. 28) says: "It has been asked, how should Shakespeare know that screech-owls were considered by the Romans as witches?" Do these cavillers think that Shakespeare never looked into a book? Take an extract from the Cambridge Latin Dictionary (1594, 8vo), probably the very book he used: "Strix, a _scritche owle_; an unluckie kind of bird (as they of olde time said) which sucked out the blood of infants lying in their cradles; a witch, that changeth the favour of children; an hagge or fairie." So in the "London Prodigal," a comedy, 1605: "Soul, I think I am sure crossed or witch'd with an owl."[286] In "The Tempest" (v. 1) Shakespeare introduces Ariel as saying:

"Where the bee sucks, there suck I, In a cowslip's bell I lie, There I couch when owls do cry."

[286] See Dyce's "Glossary," p. 302.

Ariel,[287] who sucks honey for luxury in the cowslip's bell, retreats thither for quiet when owls are abroad and screeching. According to an old legend, the owl was originally a baker's daughter, to which allusion is made in "Hamlet" (iv. 5), where Ophelia exclaims: "They say the owl was a baker's daughter. Lord! we know what we are, but know not what we may be." Douce[288] says the following story was current among the Gloucesters.h.i.+re peasantry: "Our Saviour went into a baker's shop where they were baking, and asked for some bread to eat; the mistress of the shop immediately put a piece of dough into the oven to bake for him; but was reprimanded by her daughter, who, insisting that the piece of dough was too large, reduced it to a very small size; the dough, however, immediately began to swell, and presently became a most enormous size, whereupon the baker's daughter cried out, 'Heugh, heugh, heugh!' which owl-like noise probably induced our Saviour to transform her into that bird for her wickedness." Another version of the same story, as formerly known in Herefords.h.i.+re, subst.i.tutes a fairy in the place of our Saviour.

Similar legends are found on the Continent.[289]

[287] See Singer's "Notes to The Tempest," 1875, vol. i. p. 82.

[288] See _Gentleman's Magazine_, November, 1804, pp. 1083, 1084. Grimm's "Deutsche Mythologie."

[289] See Dasent's "Tales of the Norse," 1859, p. 230.

_Parrot._ The "popinjay," in "1 Henry IV." (i. 3), is another name for the parrot-from the Spanish _papagayo_-a term which occurs in Browne's "Pastorals" (ii. 65):

"Or like the mixture nature dothe display Upon the quaint wings of the popinjay."

Its supposed restlessness before rain is referred to in "As You Like It"

(iv. 1): "More clamorous than a parrot against rain." It was formerly customary to teach the parrot unlucky words, with which, when any one was offended, it was the standing joke of the wise owner to say, "Take heed, sir, my parrot prophesies"-an allusion to which custom we find in "Comedy of Errors" (iv. 4), where Dromio of Ephesus says: "prophesy like the parrot, _beware the rope's end_." To this Butler hints, where, speaking of Ralpho's skill in augury, he says:[290]

"Could tell what subtlest parrots mean, That speak and think contrary clean; What member 'tis of whom they talk, When they cry _rope_, and _walk, knave, walk_."

[290] "Hudibras," pt. i. ch. i.

The rewards given to parrots to encourage them to speak are mentioned in "Troilus and Cressida" (v. 2):[291] "the parrot will not do more for an almond." Hence, a proverb for the greatest temptation that could be put before a man seems to have been "An almond for a parrot." To "talk like a parrot" is a common proverb, a sense in which it occurs in "Oth.e.l.lo"

(ii. 3).

[291] In "Much Ado About Nothing" (i. 1), Bened.i.c.k likens Beatrice to a "parrot-teacher," from her talkative powers.