Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 32

_Rook._ As an ominous bird this is mentioned in "Macbeth" (iii. 4).

Formerly the n.o.bles of England prided themselves in having a rookery[320] in the neighborhood of their castles, because rooks were regarded as "fowls of good omen." On this account no one was permitted to kill them, under severe penalties. When rooks desert a rookery[321]

it is said to foretell the downfall of the family on whose property it is. A Northumbrian saying informs us that the rooks left the rookery of Chipchase before the family of Reed left that place. There is also a notion that when rooks haunt a town or village "mortality is supposed to await its inhabitants, and if they feed in the street it shows that a storm is at hand."[322]

[320] _Standard_, January 26, 1877.

[321] "English Folk-Lore," p. 76.

[322] Henderson's "Folk-Lore of Northern Counties," 1879, p. 122.

The expression "bully-rook," in "Merry Wives of Windsor" (i. 3), in Shakespeare's time, says Mr. Harting,[323] had the same meaning as "jolly dog" nowadays; but subsequently it became a term of reproach, meaning a cheating sharper. It has been suggested that the term derives its origin from the _rook_ in the game of chess; but Douce[324]

considers it very improbable that this n.o.ble game, "never the amus.e.m.e.nt of gamblers, should have been ransacked on this occasion."

[323] "Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 121.

[324] "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 36; the term "bully-rook" occurs several times in Shadwell's "Sullen Lovers;" see Dyce's "Glossary," p. 58.

_Snipe._ This bird was in Shakespeare's time proverbial for a foolish man.[325] In "Oth.e.l.lo" (i. 3), Iago, speaking of Roderigo, says:

"For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane, If I would time expend with such a snipe, But for my sport and profit."

[325] In Northamptons.h.i.+re the word denotes an icicle, from its resemblance to the long bill of the bird so-called.-Baker's "Northamptons.h.i.+re Glossary," 1854, vol. ii. p. 260.

_Sparrow._ A popular name for the common sparrow was, and still is, Philip, perhaps from its note, "Phip, phip." Hence the allusion to a person named Philip, in "King John" (i. 1):

_Gurney._ Good leave, good Philip.

_b.a.s.t.a.r.d._ Philip?-sparrow!

Staunton says perhaps Catullus alludes to this expression in the following lines:

"Sed circ.u.msiliens, modo huc, modo illuc, Ad solam dominam usque pipilabat."

Skelton, in an elegy upon a sparrow, calls it "Phyllyp Sparowe;" and Gascoigne also writes "The praise of Philip Sparrow."

In "Measure for Measure" (iii. 2), Lucio, speaking of Angelo, the deputy-duke of Vienna, says: "Sparrows must not build in his house-eaves, because they are lecherous."[326]

[326] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 653; Dyce's "Glossary," p. 320.

_Sparrow-hawk._ A name formerly given to a young sparrow-hawk was eyas-musket,[327] a term we find in "Merry Wives of Windsor" (iii. 3): "How now, my eyas-musket! what news with you?" It was thus metaphorically used as a jocular phrase for a small child. As the invention, too, of fire-arms took place[328] at a time when hawking was in high fas.h.i.+on, some of the new weapons were named after those birds, probably from the idea of their fetching their prey from on high.

_Musket_ has thus become the established name for one sort of gun. Some, however, a.s.sert that the musket was invented in the fifteenth century, and owes its name to its inventors.

[327] Derived from the French _mouschet_, of the same meaning.

[328] Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 593: Douce's "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 46. Turbervile tells us "the first name and terme that they bestowe on a falcon is an eyesse, and this name doth laste as long as she is an eyrie and for that she is taken from the eyrie."

_Starling._ This was one of the birds that was in days gone by trained to speak. In "1 Henry IV." (i. 3), Hotspur says:

"I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak Nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him, To keep his anger still in motion."

Pliny tells us how starlings were taught to utter both Latin and Greek words for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the young Caesars; and there are numerous instances on record of the clever sentences uttered by this amusing bird.

_Swallow._ This bird has generally been honored as the harbinger of spring, and Athenaeus relates that the Rhodians had a solemn song to welcome it. Anacreon has a well-known ode. Shakespeare, in the "Winter's Tale" (iv. 3), alludes to the time of the swallow's appearance in the following pa.s.sage:

"daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty."

And its departure is mentioned in "Timon of Athens" (iii. 6): "The swallow follows not summer more willing than we your lords.h.i.+p."

We may compare Tennyson's notice of the bird's approach and migration in "The May Queen:"

"And the swallow 'll come back again with summer o'er the wave."

It has been long considered lucky for the swallow to build its nest on the roof of a house, but just as unlucky for it to forsake a place which it has once tenanted. Shakespeare probably had this superst.i.tion in his mind when he represents Scarus as saying, in "Antony and Cleopatra" (iv.

12):

"Swallows have built In Cleopatra's sails their nests: the augurers Say, they know not,-they cannot tell;-look grimly, And dare not speak their knowledge."

_Swan._ According to a romantic notion, dating from antiquity, the swan is said to sing sweetly just before its death, many pretty allusions to which we find scattered here and there throughout Shakespeare's plays.

In "Merchant of Venice" (iii. 2), Portia says:

"he makes a swan-like end, Fading in music."

Emilia, too, in "Oth.e.l.lo" (v. 2), just before she dies, exclaims:

"I will play the swan, And die in music."

In "King John" (v. 7), Prince Henry, at his father's death-bed, thus pathetically speaks:

"'Tis strange that death should sing.

I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan, Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death, And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings His soul and body to their lasting rest."

Again, in "Lucrece" (1611), we have these touching lines:

"And now this pale swan in her watery nest, Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending."

And once more, in "The Phnix and Turtle:"

"Let the priest in surplice white, That defunctive music can, Be the death-divining swan, Lest the requiem lack his right."

This superst.i.tion, says Douce,[329] "was credited by Plato, Chrysippus, Aristotle, Euripides, Philostratus, Cicero, Seneca, and Martial. Pliny, aelian, and Athenaeus, among the ancients, and Sir Thomas More, among the moderns, treat this opinion as a vulgar error. Luther believed in it."

This notion probably originated in the swan being identified with Orpheus. Sir Thomas Browne[330] says, we read that, "after his death, Orpheus, the musician, became a swan. Thus was it the bird of Apollo, the bird of music by the Greeks." Alluding to this piece of folk-lore, Carl Engel[331] remarks: "Although our common swan does not produce sounds which might account for this tradition, it is a well-known fact that the wild swan (_Cygnus ferus_), also called the 'whistling swan,'

when on the wing emits a shrill tone, which, however harsh it may sound if heard near, produces a pleasant effect when, emanating from a large flock high in the air, it is heard in a variety of pitches of sound, increasing or diminis.h.i.+ng in loudness according to the movement of the birds and to the current of the air." Colonel Hawker[332] says, "The only note which I ever heard the wild swan make, in winter, is his well-known 'whoop.'"[333]

[329] "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 161.

[330] Works, 1852, vol. i. p. 357.

[331] "Musical Myths and Facts," 1876, vol. i. p. 89.

[332] "Instructions to Young Sportsmen," 11th ed., p. 269.