Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 41

[444] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 189.

[445] See D'Israeli's "Curiosities of Literature," vol. iii. p. 78.

_Rat._ The fanciful idea that rats were commonly rhymed to death, in Ireland, is said to have arisen from some metrical charm or incantation, used there for that purpose, to which there are constant allusions in old writers. In the "Merchant of Venice" (iv. 1) Shylock says:

"What if my house be troubled with a rat, And I be pleased to give ten thousand ducats To have it baned?"

And in "As You Like It" (iii. 2), Rosalind says: "I was never so be-rhymed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember." We find it mentioned by Ben Jonson in the "Poetaster"

(v. 1):

"Rhime them to death, as they do Irish rats, In drumming tunes."

"The reference, however, is generally referred, in Ireland," says Mr.

Mackay, "to the supposed potency of the verses p.r.o.nounced by the professional rhymers of Ireland, which, according to popular superst.i.tion, could not only drive rats to destruction, but could absolutely turn a man's face to the back of his head."[446]

[446] "The strange phrase and the superst.i.tion that arose out of it seem to have been produced by a mistranslation, by the English-speaking population of a considerable portion of Ireland, of two Celtic or Gaelic words, _ran_, to _roar_, to shriek, to bellow, to make a great noise on a wind instrument; and _rann_, to versify, to rhyme. It is well known that rats are scared by any great and persistent noise in the house which they infest. The Saxon English, as well as Saxon Irish, of Shakespeare's time, confounding _rann_, a rhyme, with _ran_, a _roar_, fell into the error which led to the English phrase as used by Shakespeare."-_Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer_, 1882, vol. ii. p. 9. "On Some Obscure Words and Celtic Phrases in Shakespeare," by Charles Mackay.

Sir W. Temple, in his "Essay on Poetry," seems to derive the idea from the Runic incantations, for, after speaking of them in various ways, he adds, "and the proverb of rhyming rats to death, came, I suppose, from the same root."

According to a superst.i.tious notion of considerable antiquity, rats leaving a s.h.i.+p are considered indicative of misfortune to a vessel, probably from the same idea that crows will not build upon trees that are likely to fall. This idea is noticed by Shakespeare in "The Tempest"

(i. 2), where Prospero, describing the vessel in which himself and daughter had been placed, with the view to their certain destruction at sea, says:

"they hurried us aboard a bark, Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared A rotten carca.s.s of a boat, not rigg'd, Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats Instinctively have quit it."

The _s.h.i.+pping Gazette_ of April, 1869, contained a communication ent.i.tled, "A Sailor's Notion about Rats," in which the following pa.s.sage occurs: "It is a well-authenticated fact that rats have often been known to leave s.h.i.+ps in the harbor previous to their being lost at sea. Some of those wiseacres who want to convince us against the evidence of our senses will call this superst.i.tion. As neither I have time, nor you s.p.a.ce, to cavil with such at present, I shall leave them alone in their glory." The fact, however, as Mr. Hardwick has pointed out in his "Traditions, Superst.i.tions, and Folk-lore" (1872, p. 251), that rats do sometimes migrate from one s.h.i.+p to another, or from one barn or corn-stack to another, from various causes, ought to be quite sufficient to explain such a superst.i.tion. Indeed, a story is told of a cunning Welsh captain who wanted to get rid of rats that infested his s.h.i.+p, then lying in the Mersey, at Liverpool. Having found out that there was a vessel laden with cheese in the basin, and getting alongside of her about dusk, he left all his hatches open, and waited till all the rats were in his neighbor's s.h.i.+p, and then moved off.

_Snail._ A common amus.e.m.e.nt among children consists in charming snails, in order to induce them to put out their horns-a couplet, such as the following, being repeated on the occasion:

"Peer out, peer out, peer out of your hole, Or else I'll beat you as black as a coal."

In Scotland, it is regarded as a token of fine weather if the snail obey the command and put out its horn:[447]

"Snailie, snailie, shoot out your horn, And tell us if it will be a bonnie day the morn."

[447] See "English Folk-Lore," 1878, p. 120.

Shakespeare alludes to snail-charming in the "Merry Wives of Windsor"

(iv. 2), where Mrs. Page says of Mrs. Ford's husband, he "so buffets himself on the forehead, crying, _Peer out! peer out!_ that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility, and patience, to this his distemper he is in now." In "Comedy of Errors" (ii. 2), the snail is used to denote a lazy person.

_Tiger._ It was an ancient belief that this animal roared and raged most furiously in stormy and high winds-a piece of folk-lore alluded to in "Troilus and Cressida" (i. 3), by Nestor, who says:

"The herd hath more annoyance by the breese Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks, And flies fled under shade, why then, the thing of courage, As roused with rage, with rage doth sympathize."

_Unicorn._ In "Julius Caesar" (ii. 1) Decius tells how "unicorns may be betray'd with trees," alluding to their traditionary mode of capture.

They are reported to have been taken by one who, running behind a tree, eluded the violent push the animal was making at him, so that his horn spent its force on the trunk, and stuck fast, detaining the animal till he was despatched by the hunter.[448] In Topsell's "History of Beasts"

(1658, p. 557), we read of the unicorn: "He is an enemy to the lions, wherefore, as soon as ever a lion seeth a unicorn, he runneth to a tree for succour, that so when the unicorn maketh force at him, he may not only avoid his horn, but also destroy him; for the unicorn, in the swiftness of his course, runneth against the tree, wherein his sharp horn sticketh fast, that when the lion seeth the unicorn fastened by the horn, without all danger he falleth upon him and killeth him." With this pa.s.sage we may compare the following from Spenser's "Fairy Queen" (bk.

ii. canto 5):

"Like as a lyon, whose imperiall power A prowd rebellious unicorn defyes, T' avoide the rash a.s.sault and wrathful stowre Of his fiers foe, him to a tree applyes, And when him ronning in full course he spyes, He slips aside: the whiles that furious beast His precious horne, sought of his enimyes Strikes in the stocke, ne thence can be releast, But to the mighty victor yields a bounteous feast."

[448] See Brewer's "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable," p. 922.

_Weasel._ To meet a weasel was formerly considered a bad omen.[449] That may be a tacit allusion to this superst.i.tion in "Lucrece" (l. 307):

"Night-wandering weasels shriek to see him there; They fright him, yet he still pursues his fear."

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

It appears that weasels were kept in houses, instead of cats, for the purpose of killing vermin. Phaedrus notices this their feline office in the first and fourth fables of his fourth book. The supposed quarrelsomeness of this animal is spoken of by Pisanio in "Cymbeline"

(iii. 4), who tells Imogen that she must be "as quarrelous as the weasel;" and in "1 Henry IV." (ii. 3), Lady Percy says to Hotspur:

"A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen As you are toss'd with."

This character of the weasel is not, however, generally mentioned by naturalists.

CHAPTER VIII.

PLANTS.

That Shakespeare possessed an extensive knowledge of the history and superst.i.tions a.s.sociated with flowers is evident, from even only a slight perusal of his plays. Apart from the extensive use which he has made of these lovely objects of nature for the purpose of embellis.h.i.+ng, or adding pathos to, pa.s.sages here and there, he has also, with a master hand, interwoven many a little legend or superst.i.tion, thereby infusing an additional force into his writings. Thus we know with what effect he has made use of the willow in "Oth.e.l.lo," in that touching pa.s.sage where Desdemona (iv. 3), antic.i.p.ating her death, relates how her mother had a maid called Barbara:

"She was in love; and he she lov'd prov'd mad, And did forsake her; she had a song of willow, An old thing 'twas, but it expressed her fortune, And she died singing it: that song, to-night, Will not go from my mind."

In a similar manner Shakespeare has frequently introduced flowers with a wonderful aptness, as in the case of poor Ophelia. Those, however, desirous of gaining a good insight into Shakespeare's knowledge of flowers, as ill.u.s.trated by his plays, would do well to consult Mr.

Ellacombe's exhaustive work on the "Plant-Lore of Shakespeare," a book to which we are much indebted in the following pages, as also to Mr.

Beisly's "Shakespeare's Garden."

_Aconite._[450] This plant, from the deadly virulence of its juice, which, Mr. Turner says, "is of all poysones the most hastie poysone,"

is compared by Shakespeare to gunpowder, as in "2 Henry IV." (iv. 4):

"the united vessel of their blood, Mingled with venom of suggestion, As, force perforce, the age will pour it in, Shall never leak, though it do work as strong As aconitum, or rash gunpowder."

[450] _Aconitum napellus_, Wolf's-bane or Monk's-hood.

It is, too, probably alluded to in the following pa.s.sage in "Romeo and Juliet" (v. 1), where Romeo says:

"let me have A dram of poison; such soon-speeding gear As will disperse itself through all the veins, That the life-weary taker may fall dead; And that the trunk may be discharg'd of breath As violently, as hasty powder fir'd Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb."

According to Ovid, it derived its name from growing upon rock (Metamorphoses, bk. vii. l. 418):

"Quae, quia nasc.u.n.tur, dura vivacia caute, Agrestes aconita vocant."

It is probably derived from the Greek ?????t??, "without a struggle," in allusion to the intensity of its poisonous qualities. Vergil[451] speaks of it, and tells us how the aconite deceives the wretched gatherers, because often mistaken for some harmless plant.[452] The ancients fabled it as the invention of Hecate,[453] who caused the plant to spring from the foam of Cerberus, when Hercules dragged him from the gloomy regions of Pluto. Ovid pictures the stepdame as preparing a deadly potion of aconite (Metamorphoses, bk. i. l. 147):