Chapter 12

“Recheating with his horn, which then the hunter cheers.”

The phrase “to recover the wind of me,” used by Hamlet (iii. 2), is borrowed from hunting, and means to get the animal pursued to run with the wind, that it may not scent the toil or its pursuers. Again, when Falstaff, in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4), speaks of “fat rascals,” he alludes to the phrase of the forest—“rascall,” says Puttenham, “being properly the hunting term given to a young deer leane and out of season.”

The phrase “a hunts-up” implied any song intended toarouse in the morning—even a love song—the name having been derived from a tune or song employed by early hunters.[402]The term occurs in “Romeo and Juliet” (iii. 5), where Juliet says to Romeo, speaking of the lark:

“Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day.”

In Drayton’s “Polyolbion” (xiii.) it is used:

“No sooner doth the earth her flowery bosom brave,At such time as the year brings on the pleasant spring,But hunts-up to the morn the feather’d sylvans sing.”

In Shakespeare’s day it was customary to hunt as well after dinner as before, hence, in “Timon of Athens” (ii. 2), Timon says:

“So soon as dinner’s done, we’ll forth again.”

The word “embossed” was applied to a deer when foaming at the mouth from fatigue. In “Taming of the Shrew” (Ind. scene 1) we read: “the poor cur is embossed,” and in “Antony and Cleopatra” (iv. 13):

“the boar of ThessalyWas never so emboss’d.”

It was usual to call a pack of hounds “a cry,” from the Frenchmeute de chiens. The term is humorously applied to any troop or company of players, as by Hamlet (iii. 2), who speaks of “a fellowship in a cry of players.” In “Coriolanus” (iv. 6) Menenius says,

“You have madeGood work, you and your cry.”

Antony, in “Julius Cæsar” (iii. 1), alludes to the technical phrase to “let slip a dog,” employed in hunting the hart. This consisted in releasing the hounds from the leash orslipof leather by which they were held in hand until it wasjudged proper to let them pursue the animal chased.[403]In “1 Henry IV.” (i. 3) Northumberland tells Hotspur:

“Before the game’s afoot, thou still let’st slip.”

In “Taming of the Shrew” (v. 2) Tranio says:

“O, sir, Lucentio slipp’d me like his greyhound,Which runs himself, and catches for his master.”

A sportsman’s saying, applied to hounds, occurs in “2 Henry IV.” (v. 3): “a’ will not out; he is true bred,” serving to expound Gadshill’s expression, “such as can hold in,” “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 1).

The severity of the game laws under our early monarchs was very stringent; and a clause in the “Forest Charter”[404]grants “to an archbishop, bishop, earl, or baron, when travelling through the royal forests, at the king’s command, the privilege to kill one deer or two in the sight of the forester, if he was at hand; if not, they were commanded to cause a horn to be sounded, that it might not appear as if they had intended to steal the game.” In “Merry Wives of Windsor” (v. 5), Falstaff, using the terms of the forest, alludes to the perquisites of the keeper. Thus he speaks of the “shoulders for the fellow of this walk,”i. e., the keeper.

Shakespeare has several pretty allusions to the tears of the deer, this animal being said to possess a very large secretion of tears. Thus Hamlet (iii. 2) says: “let the strucken deer go weep;” and in “As You Like It” (ii. 1) we read of the “sobbing deer,” and in the same scene the first lord narrates how, at a certain spot,

“a poor sequester’d stagThat from the hunter’s aim had ta’en a hurtDid come to languish; ...... and the big round tearsCoursed one another down his innocent noseIn piteous chase.”

Bartholomæus[405]says, that “when the hart is arered, hefleethe to a ryver or ponde, and roreth cryeth and wepeth when he is take.”[406]It appears that there were various superstitions connected with the tears of the deer. Batman[407]tells us that “when the hart is sick, and hath eaten many serpents for his recoverie, he is brought unto so great a heate that he hasteth to the water, and there covereth his body unto the very eares and eyes, at which time distilleth many tears from which the [Bezoar] stone is gendered.”[408]Douce[409]quotes the following passage from the “Noble Art of Venerie,” in which the hart thus addresses the hunter:

“O cruell, be content, to take in worth my tears,Which growe to gumme, and fall from me: content thee with my heares,Content thee with my hornes, which every year I new,Since all these three make medicines, some sickness to eschew.My tears congeal’d to gumme, by peeces from me fall,And thee preserve from pestilence, in pomander or ball.Such wholesome tears shedde I, when thou pursewest me so.”

Dog.As the favorite of our domestic animals, the dog not unnaturally possesses an extensive history, besides entering largely into those superstitions which, more or less, are associated with every stage of human life. It is not surprising, therefore, that Shakespeare frequently speaks of the dog, making it the subject of many of his illustrations. Thus he has not omitted to mention the fatal significance of its howl, which is supposed either to foretell death or misfortune. In “2 Henry VI.” (i. 4) he makes Bolingbroke say:

“The time when screech-owls cry, and ban-dogs howl,[410]And spirits walk, and ghosts break up their graves.”

And, again, in “3 Henry VI.” (v. 6), King Henry, speakingof Gloster, says:

“The owl shriek’d at thy birth,—an evil sign;The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;Dogs howl’d, and hideous tempests shook down trees.”

The same superstition prevails in France and Germany,[411]and various charms are resorted to for averting the ill-consequences supposed to attach to this sign of ill-omen. Several of these, too, are practised in our own country. Thus, in Staffordshire, when a dog howls, the following advice is given: “Take off your shoe from the left foot, and spit upon the sole, place it on the ground bottom upwards, and your foot upon the place you sat upon, which will not only preserve you from harm, but stop the howling of the dog.”[412]A similar remedy is recommended in Norfolk:[413]“Pull off your left shoe, and turn it, and it will quiet him. A dog won’t howl three times after.” We are indebted to antiquity for this superstition, some of the earliest writers referring to it. Thus, Pausanias relates how, previous to the destruction of the Messenians, the dogs pierced the air by raising a louder barking than usual; and it is on record how, before the sedition in Rome, about the dictatorship of Pompey, there was an extraordinary howling of dogs. Vergil[414](“Georgics,” lib. i. l. 470), speaking of the Roman misfortunes, says:

“Obscenæque canes, importunæque volucresSigna dabant.”

Capitolinus narrates, too, how the dogs, by their howling, presaged the death of Maximinus. The idea which associates the dog’s howl with the approach of death is probably derived from a conception in Aryan mythology, which representsa dog as summoning the departing soul. Indeed, as Mr. Fiske[415]remarks, “Throughout all Aryan mythology, the souls of the dead are supposed to ride on the night-wind, with their howling dogs, gathering into their throng the souls of those just dying as they pass by their houses.”

Another popular superstition—in all probability derived from the Egyptians—refers to the setting and rising of Sirius, or the dog-star, as infusing madness into the canine race. Hence the name of the “dog-days” was given by the Romans to the period between the 3d of July and the 11th of August, to which Shakespeare alludes in “Henry VIII.” (v. 3): “the dog-days now reign.” We may, too, compare the words of Benvolio, in “Romeo and Juliet” (iii. 1):

“For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.”

It is obvious, however, that this superstition is utterly groundless, for not only does the star vary in its rising, but is later and later every year. The term “dog-day” is still a common phrase, and it is difficult to say whether it is from superstitious adherence to old custom, or from a belief in the injurious effect of heat upon dogs, that the magistrates, often unwisely, at this season of the year order them to be muzzled or tied up. It was the practice to put them to death; and Ben Jonson, in his “Bartholomew Fair,” speaks of “the dog-killer” in this month of August. Lord Bacon, too, in his “Sylva Sylvarum,” tells us that “it is a common experience that dogs know the dog-killer, when, as in times of infection, some petty fellow is sent out to kill them. Although they have never seen him before, yet they will all come forth and bark and fly at him.”

A “curtal dog,” to which allusion is made in “Merry Wives of Windsor” (ii. 1), by Pistol—

“Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs,”

denoted “originally the dog of an unqualified person, which, by the forest laws, must have its tail cut short, partly as a mark, and partly from a notion that the tail of a dog is necessaryto him in running.” In later usage,curtail dogmeans either a common dog, not meant for sport, or a dog that missed the game, which latter sense it has in the passage above.[416]

Dragon.As the type and embodiment of the spirit of evil, the dragon has been made the subject of an extensive legendary lore. The well-known myth of St. George and the Dragon, which may be regarded as a grand allegory representing the hideous and powerful monster against whom the Christian soldier is called to fight, has exercised a remarkable influence for good in times past, over half-instructed people. It has been truly remarked that “the dullest mind and hardest heart could not fail to learn from it something of the hatefulness of evil, the beauty of self-sacrifice, and the all-conquering might of truth.” This graceful conception is alluded to by Shakespeare, in his “King John” (ii. 1), where, according to a long-established custom, it is made a subject for sign-painting:[417]

“St. George, that swinged the dragon, and e’er since,Sits on his horseback at mine hostess’ door,Teach us some fence!”

In ancient mythology the task of drawing the chariot of night was assigned to dragons, on account of their supposed watchfulness. In “Cymbeline” (ii. 2) Iachimo, addressing them, says:

“Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawningMay bare the raven’s eye!”[418]

Milton, in his “Il Penseroso,” mentions the dragon yoke of night, and in his “Comus” (l. 130):

“the dragon wombOf Stygian darkness.”

It may be noticed that the whole tribe of serpents sleepwith their eyes open, and so appear to exert a constant watchfulness.[419]

In devising loathsome ingredients for the witches’ mess, Shakespeare (“Macbeth,” iv. 1) speaks of “the scale of dragon,” alluding to the horror in which this mythical being was held. Referring, also, to the numerous legends associated with its dread form, he mentions “the spleen of fiery dragons” (“Richard III.,” v. 3), “dragon’s wings” (“1 Henry VI.,” i. 1), and (“Pericles,” i. 1), “death-like dragons.” Mr. Conway[420]has admirably summed up the general views respecting this imaginary source of terror: “Nearly all the dragon forms, whatever their original types and their region, are represented in the conventional monster of the European stage, which meets the popular conception. The dragon is a masterpiece of the popular imagination, and it required many generations to give it artistic shape. Every Christmas he appears in some London pantomime, with aspect similar to that which he has worn for many ages. His body is partly green, with the memories of the sea and of slime, and partly brown or dark, with lingering shadow of storm clouds. The lightning flames still in his red eyes, and flashes from his fire-breathing mouth. The thunder-bolt of Jove, the spear of Wodan, are in the barbed point of his tail. His huge wings—bat-like, spiked—sum up all the mythical life of extinct harpies and vampires. Spine of crocodile is on his neck, tail of the serpent, and all the jagged ridges of rocks and sharp thorns of jungles bristle around him, while the ice of glaciers and brassy glitter of sunstrokes are in his scales. He is ideal of all that is hard, obstructive, perilous, loathsome, horrible in nature; every detail of him has been seen through and vanquished by man, here or there, but in selection and combination they rise again as principles, and conspire to form one great generalization of the forms of pain—the sum of every creature’sworst.”[421]

Elephant.According to a vulgar error, current in bygone times, the elephant was supposed to have no joints—a notion which is said to have been first recorded from tradition by Ctesias the Cnidian.[422]Sir Thomas Browne has entered largely into this superstition, arguing, from reason, anatomy, and general analogy with other animals, the absurdity of the error. In “Troilus and Cressida” (ii. 3), Ulysses says: “The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy: his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure.” Steevens quotes from “The Dialogues of Creatures Moralized”—a curious specimen of our early natural history—the following: “the olefawnte that bowyth not the kneys.” In the play of “All Fools,” 1605, we read: “I hope you are no elephant—you have joints.” In a note to Sir Thomas Browne’s Works,[423]we are told, “it has long been the custom for the exhibitors of itinerant collections of wild animals, when showing the elephant, to mention the story of its having no joints, and its consequent inability to kneel; and they never fail to think it necessary to demonstrate its untruth by causing the animal to bend one of its fore-legs, and to kneel also.”

In “Julius Cæsar” (ii. 1) the custom of seducing elephants into pitfalls, lightly covered with hurdles and turf, on which a proper bait to tempt them was exposed, is alluded to.[424]Decius speaks of elephants being betrayed “with holes.”

Fox.It appears that the term fox was a common expression for the old English weapon, the broadsword of Jonson’s days, as distinguished from the small (foreign) sword. The name was given from the circumstance that Andrea Ferrara adopted a fox as the blade-mark of his weapons—a practice, since his time, adopted by other foreign sword-cutlers. Swords with a running fox rudely engraved on the blades are still occasionally to be met with in the oldcuriosity shops of London.[425]Thus, in “Henry V.” (iv. 4), Pistol says:

“O Signieur Dew, thou diest on point of fox,Except, O signieur, thou do give to meEgregious ransom.”

In Ben Jonson’s “Bartholomew Fair” (ii. 6) the expression occurs: “What would you have, sister, of a fellow that knows nothing but a basket-hilt, and an old fox in it?”

The tricks and artifices of a hunted fox were supposed to be very extraordinary; hence Falstaff makes use of this expression in “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 3): “No more truth in thee than in a drawn fox.”

Goat.It is curious that the harmless goat should have had an evil name, and been associated with devil-lore. Thus, there is a common superstition in England and Scotland that it is never seen for twenty-four hours together; and that once in this space it pays a visit to the devil, in order to have its beard combed. It was, formerly, too, a popular notion that the devil appeared frequently in the shape of a goat, which accounted for his horns and tail. Sir Thomas Browne observes that the goat was the emblem of the sin-offering, and is the emblem of sinful men at the day of judgment. This may, perhaps, account for Shakespeare’s enumerating the “gall of goat” (“Macbeth,” iv. 1) among the ingredients of the witches’ caldron. His object seems to have been to include the most distasteful and ill-omened things imaginable—a practice shared, indeed, by other poets contemporary with him.

Hare.This was formerly esteemed a melancholy animal, and its flesh was supposed to engender melancholy in those who ate it. This idea was not confined to our own country, but is mentioned by La Fontaine in one of his “Fables” (liv. ii. fab. 14):

“Dans un profond ennui ce lievre se plongeoit,Cet animal est triste, et la crainte le rounge;”

and later on he says: “Le melancolique animal.” Hence, in “1 Henry IV.” (i. 2), Falstaff is told by Prince Henry that he is as melancholy as a hare. This notion was not quite forgotten in Swift’s time; for in his “Polite Conversation,” Lady Answerall, being asked to eat hare, replies: “No, madam; they say ’tis melancholy meat.” Mr. Staunton quotes the following extract from Turbervile’s book on Hunting and Falconry: “The hare first taught us the use of the hearbe called wyld succory, which is very excellent for those which are disposed to be melancholicke. She herself is one of the most melancholicke beasts that is, and to heale her own infirmitie, she goeth commonly to sit under that hearbe.”

The old Greek epigram relating to the hare—

“Strike ye my body, now that life is fled;So hares insult the lion when he’s dead,”

—is alluded to by the Bastard in “King John” (ii. 1):

“You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard.”

A familiar expression among sportsmen for a hare is “Wat,” so called, perhaps, from its long ears or wattles. In “Venus and Adonis” the term occurs:

“By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,Stands on his hinder legs, with listening ear.”

In Drayton’s “Polyolbion” (xxiii.) we read:

“The man whose vacant mind prepares him to the sport,The finder sendeth out, to seek out nimble Wat,Which crosseth in the field, each furlong, every flat,Till he this pretty beast upon the form hath found.”

Hedgehog.The urchin or hedgehog, like the toad, for its solitariness, the ugliness of its appearance, and from a popular belief that it sucked or poisoned the udders of cows, was adopted into the demonologic system; and its shape wassometimes supposed to be assumed by mischievous elves.[426]Hence, in “The Tempest” (i. 2), Prospero says:

“UrchinsShall, for that vast of night that they may work,All exercise on thee;”

and later on in the same play (ii. 2) Caliban speaks of being frighted with “urchin shows.” In the witch scene in “Macbeth” (iv. 1) the hedge-pig is represented as one of the witches’ familiars; and in the “Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 2), in the incantation of the fairies, “thorny hedgehogs” are exorcised. For the use of urchins in similar associations we may quote “Merry Wives of Windsor” (iv. 4), “like urchins, ouphes, and fairies;” and “Titus Andronicus” (ii. 3), “ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins.”[427]In the phrase still current, of “little urchin” for a child, the idea of the fairy also remains. In various legends we find this animal holding a prominent place. Thus, for example, it was in the form of a hedgehog[428]that the devil is said to have made his attempt to let the sea in through the Brighton Downs, which was prevented by a light being brought, though the seriousness of the scheme is still attested in the Devil’s Dyke. There is an ancient tradition that when the devil had smuggled himself into Noah’s Ark he tried to sink it by boring a hole; but this scheme was defeated, and the human race saved, by the hedgehog stuffing himself into the hole. In the Brighton story, as Mr. Conway points out, the devil would appear to have remembered his former failure in drowning people, and to have appropriated the form which defeated him. In “Richard III.” (i. 2), the hedgehog is used as a term of reproach by Lady Anne, when addressing Gloster.

Horse.Although Shakespeare’s allusions to the horse are most extensive, yet he has said little of the many widespread superstitions, legends, and traditional tales that have been associated from the earliest times with this brave and intellectualanimal. Indeed, even nowadays, both in our own country and abroad, many a fairy tale is told and credited by the peasantry in which the horse occupies a prominent place. It seems to have been a common notion that, at night-time, fairies in their nocturnal revels played various pranks with horses, often entangling in a thousand knots their hair—a superstition to which we referred in ourchapter on Fairies, where Mercutio, in “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 4), says:

“This is that very MabThat plats the manes of horses in the night,And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes.”

In “King Lear” (ii. 3), Edgar says: “I’ll ... elf all my hair in knots.”

Mr. Hunt, in his “Popular Romances of the West of England” (1871, p. 87), tells us that, when a boy, he was on a visit at a farmhouse near Fowey River, and well remembers the farmer, with much sorrow, telling the party one morning at breakfast, how “the piskie people had been riding Tom again.” The mane was said to be knotted into fairy stirrups, and the farmer said he had no doubt that at least twenty small people had sat upon the horse’s neck. Warburton[429]considers that this superstition may have originated from the disease called “Plica Polonica.” Witches, too, have generally been supposed to harass the horse, using it in various ways for their fiendish purposes. Thus, there are numerous local traditions in which the horse at night-time has been ridden by the witches, and found in the morning in an almost prostrate condition, bathed in sweat.

It was a current notion that a horse-hair dropped into corrupted water would soon become an animal. The fact, however, is that the hair moves like a living thing because a number of animalculæ cling to it.[430]This ancient vulgar error is mentioned in “Antony and Cleopatra” (i. 2):

“much is breeding,Which, like the courser’s hair, hath yet but life,And not a serpent’s poison.”

Steevens quotes from Churchyard’s “Discourse of Rebellion,” 1570:

“Hit is of kinde much worse than horses heare,That lyes in donge, where on vyle serpents brede.”

Dr. Lister, in the “Philosophical Transactions,” says that these animated horse-hairs are real thread-worms. It was asserted that these worms moved like serpents, and were poisonous to swallow. Coleridge tells us it was a common experiment with boys in Cumberland and Westmoreland to lay a horse-hair in water, which, when removed after a time, would twirl round the finger and sensibly compress it—having become the supporter of an immense number of small, slimy water-lice.

A horse is said to have a “cloud in his face” when he has a dark-colored spot in his forehead between his eyes. This gives him a sour look, and, being supposed to indicate an ill-temper, is generally considered a great blemish. This notion is alluded to in “Antony and Cleopatra” (iii. 2), where Agrippa, speaking of Cæsar, says:

“He has a cloud in’s face,”

whereupon Enobarbus adds:

“He were the worse for that, were he a horse;So is he, being a man.”

Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” uses the phrase for the look of a woman: “Every lover admires his mistress, though she be very deformed of herselfe—thin, leane, chitty face, have clouds in her face,” etc.

“To mose in the chine,” a phrase we find in “Taming of the Shrew” (iii. 2)—“Possessed with the glanders, and like to mose in the chine”—refers to a disorder in horses, also known as “mourning in the chine.”

Alluding to the custom associated with horses, we may note that a stalking-horse, or stale, was either a real or artificialone, under cover of which the fowler approached towards and shot at his game. It is alluded to in “As You Like It” (v. 4) by the Duke, who says of Touchstone: “He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit.” In “Much Ado About Nothing” (ii. 3), Claudio says: “Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits.”[431]In “Comedy of Errors” (ii. 1), Adriana says: “I am but his stale,” upon which Malone remarks: “Adriana undoubtedly means to compare herself to a stalking-horse, behind whom Antipholus shoots at such game as he selects.” In “Taming of the Shrew,” Katharina says to her father (i. 1):

“is it your willTo make a stale of me amongst these mates?”

which, says Singer, means “make an object of mockery.” So in “3 Henry VI.” (iii. 3), Warwick says:

“Had he none else to make a stale but me?”

That it was also a hunting term might be shown, adds Dyce,[432]by quotations from various old writers. In the inventories of the wardrobe belonging to King Henry VIII. we frequently find the allowance of certain quantities of stuff for the purpose of making “stalking-coats and stalking-hose for the use of his majesty.”[433]

Again, the forehorse of a team was generally gayly ornamented with tufts and ribbons and bells. Hence, in “All’s Well That Ends Well” (ii. 1), Bertram complains that, bedizened like one of these animals, he will have to squire ladies at the court, instead of achieving honor in the wars—

“I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock,Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry,Till honour be bought up, and no sword wornBut one to dance with.”

A familiar name for a common horse was “Cut”—either from its being docked or gelded—a name occasionally applied to a man as a term of contempt. In “Twelfth Night”(ii. 3), Sir Toby Belch says: “Send for money, knight; if thou hast her not i’ the end, call me cut.” In “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 1), the first carrier says: “I prithee, Tom, beat Cut’s saddle.” We may compare, too, what Falstaff says further on in the same play (ii. 4): “I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse.” Hence,call me cutis the same ascall me horse—both expressions having been used.

In Shakespeare’s day araceof horses was the term for what is now called a stud. So in “Macbeth” (ii. 4), Rosse says:

“And Duncan’s horses—a thing most strange and certain—Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,Turn’d wild in nature.”

The words “minions of their race,” according to Steevens, mean the favorite horses on the race-ground.

Lion.The traditions and stories of the darker ages abounded with examples of the lion’s generosity. “Upon the supposition that these acts of clemency were true, Troilus, in the passage below, reasons not improperly (‘Troilus and Cressida,’ v. 3) that to spare against reason, by mere instinct and pity, became rather a generous beast than a wise man:”[434]

“Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you,Which better fits a lion than a man.”

It is recorded by Pliny[435]that “the lion alone of all wild animals is gentle to those that humble themselves before him, and will not touch any such upon their submission, but spareth what creature soever lieth prostrate before him.” Hence Spenser’s Una, attended by a lion; and Perceval’s lion, in “Morte d’Arthur” (bk. xiv. c. 6). Bartholomæus says the lion’s “mercie is known by many and oft ensamples: for they spare them that lie on the ground.” Shakespeare again alludes to this notion in “As You Like It” (iv. 3):

“for ’tisThe royal disposition of that beastTo prey on nothing that doth seem as dead.”

It was also supposed that the lion would not injure a royal prince. Hence, in “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 4) the Prince says: “You are lions too, you ran away upon instinct, you will not touch the true prince; no, fie!” The same notion is alluded to by Beaumont and Fletcher in “The Mad Lover” (iv. 5):

“Fetch the Numidian lion I brought over;If she be sprung from royal blood, the lionHe’ll do you reverence, else—*****He’ll tear her all to pieces.”

According to some commentators there is an allusion in “3 Henry VI.” (i. 3) to the practice of confining lions and keeping them without food that they may devour criminals exposed to them:

“So looks the pent-up lion o’er the wretchThat trembles under his devouring paws.”

Mole.The eyes of the mole are so extremely minute, and so perfectly hid in its hair, that our ancestors considered it blind—a vulgar error, to which reference is made by Caliban in “The Tempest” (iv. 1):

“Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole may notHear a foot fall.”

And again by Pericles (i. 1):

“The blind mole castsCopp’d hills towards heaven.”

Hence the expression “blind as a mole.” Alexander Ross[436]absurdly speaks of the mole’s eyes as only the “forms of eyes,” given by nature “rather for ornament than for use; as wings are given to the ostrich, which never flies, and a long tail to the rat, which serves for no other purpose but to be catched sometimes by it.” Sir Thomas Browne, however, in his “Vulgar Errors” (bk. iii. c. xviii.),[437]has, with hisusual minuteness, disproved this idea, remarking “that they have eyes in their head is manifested unto any that wants them not in his own.” A popular term for the mole was the “moldwarp” or “mouldiwarp,”[438]so called from the Anglo-Saxon, denoting turning the mould. Thus, in “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 1) Hotspur says:

“sometime he angers meWith telling me of the moldwarp and the ant.”

Mouse.This word was formerly used as a term of endearment, from either sex to the other. In this sense it is used by Rosaline in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2):

“What’s your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?”

and again in “Hamlet” (iii. 4).

Some doubt exists as to the exact meaning of “Mouse-hunt,” by Lady Capulet, in “Romeo and Juliet” (iv. 4):

“Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time,But I will watch you from such watching now.”

According to some, the expression implies “a hunter of gay women,” mouse having been used in this signification.[439]Others are of opinion that the stoat[440]is meant, the smallest of the weasel tribe, and others again the polecat. Mr. Staunton[441]tells us that the mouse-hunt is the marten, an animal of the weasel tribe which prowls about for its prey at night, and is applied to any one of rakish propensities.

Holinshed, in his “History of Scotland” (1577, p. 181), quotes from the laws of Kenneth II., King of Scotland: “If a sowe eate her pigges, let hyr be stoned to death and buried, that no man eate of hyr fleshe.” This offence is probably alluded to by Shakespeare in “Macbeth” (iv. 1), where thewitch says:

“Pour in sow’s blood, that hath eatenHer nine farrow.”

Polecat, orFitchew. This animal is supposed to be very amorous; and hence its name, Mr. Steevens says, was often applied to ladies of easy or no virtue. In “Othello” (iv. 1) Cassio calls Bianca a “fitchew,” and in “Troilus and Cressida” (v. 1) Thersites alludes to it.[442]

Porcupine.Another name for this animal was the porpentine, which spelling occurs in “Hamlet” (i. 5):

“Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.”

And again, in “2 Henry VI.” (iii. 1) York speaks of “a sharp-quill’d porpentine.” Ajax, too, in “Troilus and Cressida” (ii. 1), applies the term to Thersites: “do not, porpentine.” In the above passages, however, and elsewhere, the word has been altered by editors to porcupine. According to a popular error, the porcupine could dart his quills. They are easily detached, very sharp, and slightly barbed, and may easily stick to a person’s legs, when he is not aware that he is near enough to touch them.[443]

Rabbit.In “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 2) this animal is used as a term of reproach, a sense in which it was known in Shakespeare’s day. The phrase “cony-catch,” which occurs in “Taming of the Shrew” (v. 1)—“Take heed, Signior Baptista, lest you be cony-catched in this business”—implied the act of deceiving or cheating a simple person—the cony or rabbit being considered a foolish animal.[444]It has been shown, from Dekker’s “English Villanies,” that the system of cheating was carried to a great length in the early part of the seventeenth century, that a collective society of sharpers was called “a warren,” and their dupes “rabbit-suckers,”i. e., young rabbit or conies.[445]Shakespeare has once used the term to express harmless roguery, in the “Taming of the Shrew”(iv. 1). When Grumio will not answer his fellow-servants, except in a jesting way, Curtis says to him: “Come, you are so full of cony-catching.”

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:

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