Folk-lore of Shakespeare. Dyer Thomas Firminger Thiselton

Скачать книгу

there sung the dolefull’st ditty,

      That to hear it was great pity.”

      Beaumont and Fletcher, in “The Faithful Shepherdess” (v. 3), speak of

      “The nightingale among the thick-leaved spring,

      That sits alone in sorrow, and doth sing

      Whole nights away in mourning.”

      Sir Thomas Browne267 asks “Whether the nightingale’s sitting with her breast against a thorn be any more than that she placeth some prickles on the outside of her nest, or roosteth in thorny, prickly places, where serpents may least approach her?”268 In the “Zoologist” for 1862 the Rev. A. C. Smith mentions “the discovery, on two occasions, of a strong thorn projecting upwards in the centre of the nightingale’s nest.” Another notion is that the nightingale never sings by day; and thus Portia, in “Merchant of Venice” (v. 1), says:

      “I think,

      The nightingale, if she should sing by day,

      When every goose is cackling, would be thought

      No better a musician than the wren.”

      Such, however, is not the case, for this bird often sings as sweetly in the day as at night-time. There is an old superstition269 that the nightingale sings all night, to keep itself awake, lest the glow-worm should devour her. The classical fable270 of the unhappy Philomela turned into a nightingale, when her sister Progne was changed to a swallow, has doubtless given rise to this bird being spoken of as she; thus Juliet tells Romeo (iii. 5):

      “It was the nightingale, and not the lark,

      That pierc’d the fearful hollow of thine ear;

      Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree;

      Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.”

      Sometimes the nightingale is termed Philomel, as in “Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 2, song):271

      “Philomel, with melody,

      Sing in our sweet lullaby.”

       Osprey. This bird,272 also called the sea-eagle, besides having a destructive power of devouring fish, was supposed formerly to have a fascinating influence, both which qualities are alluded to in the following passage in “Coriolanus” (iv. 7):

      “I think he’ll be to Rome,

      As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it

      By sovereignty of nature.”

      Drayton, in his “Polyolbion” (song xxv.), mentions the same fascinating power of the osprey:

      “The osprey, oft here seen, though seldom here it breeds,

      Which over them the fish no sooner do espy,

      But, betwixt him and them by an antipathy,

      Turning their bellies up, as though their death they saw,

      They at his pleasure lie, to stuff his gluttonous maw.”

       Ostrich. The extraordinary digestion of this bird273 is said to be shown by its swallowing iron and other hard substances.274 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,275 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, grass, iron, copper, gold, lime, or, in fact, any other substance equally hard, indigestible, and deleterious.” Sir Thomas Browne,276 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 glass.

      Owl. The dread attached to this unfortunate bird is frequently spoken of by Shakespeare, who has alluded to several of the superstitions associated 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 lustration, 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. Vergil277 describes its death-howl from the top of the temple by night, a circumstance introduced as a precursor of Dido’s death. Ovid,278 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 superstitious awe in which the owl is held may be owing to its peculiar look, its occasional and uncertain appearance, its loud and dismal cry,279 as well as to its being the bird of night.280 It has generally been associated with calamities and deeds of darkness.281 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.”

      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 superstition to which King Henry, in “3 Henry VI.” (v. 6), addressing Gloster, refers:

      “The owl shriek’d at thy birth, an evil sign.”

      Its cries282 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!

Скачать книгу