owl by day,If he arise, is mock’d and wonder’d at.”
And in “Julius Cæsar” (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”283 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,284 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!”
Singer, in his Notes on this passage (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.”285 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.”
Ariel,286 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.” Douce287 says the following story was current among the Gloucestershire 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 Herefordshire, substitutes a fairy in the place of our Saviour. Similar legends are found on the Continent.288
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:289
“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.”
The rewards given to parrots to encourage them to speak are mentioned in “Troilus and Cressida” (v. 2):290 “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 “Othello” (ii. 3).
Peacock. This bird was as proverbially used for a proud, vain fool as the lapwing for a silly one. In this sense some would understand it in the much-disputed passage in “Hamlet” (iii. 2):
“For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
This realm dismantled was
Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
A very, very – peacock.”291
The third and fourth folios read pajock,292 the other editions have “paiock,” “paiocke,” or “pajocke,” and in the later quartos the word was changed to “paicock” and “pecock,” whence Pope printed peacock.
Dyce says that in Scotland the peacock is called the peajock. Some have proposed to read paddock, and in the last scene Hamlet bestows this opprobrious name upon the king. It has been also suggested to read puttock, a kite.293 The peacock has also been regarded as the emblem of pride and arrogance, as in “1 Henry VI.” (iii. 3):294
“Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while,
And, like a peacock, sweep along his tail;
We’ll pull his plumes, and take away his train.”
Pelican. There are several allusions by Shakespeare to the pelican’s piercing her own breast to feed her young. Thus, in “Hamlet” (iv. 5), Laertes says:
“To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms;
And like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood.”
And in “King Lear,” where the young pelicans are represented as piercing their mother’s breast to drink her blood, an illustration of filial impiety (iii. 4), the king says:
“Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers
Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
Judicious punishment! ’Twas this flesh begot
Those pelican daughters.”295
It is a common notion that the fable here alluded to
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.”
Halliwell-Phillipps’s, “Handbook Index,” 1866, p. 354.
See Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 302.
See Singer’s “Notes to The Tempest,” 1875, vol. i. p. 82.
See
See Dasent’s “Tales of the Norse,” 1859, p. 230.
“Hudibras,” pt. i. ch. i.
In “Much Ado About Nothing” (i. 1), Benedick likens Beatrice to a “parrot-teacher,” from her talkative powers.
This is the reading adopted by Singer.
“Notes to Hamlet,” Clark and Wright, 1876, pp. 179, 180.
See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 645; Singer’s “Notes,” vol. ix. p. 228.
Cf. “Troilus and Cressida,” iii. 3.
Cf. “Richard II.” i. 1.
