XIV. DEATH AND BURIAL
From a very early period there has been a belief in the existence of a power of prophecy at that period which precedes death. It took its origin in the assumed fact that the soul becomes divine in the same ratio as its connection with the body is loosened. It has been urged in support of this theory that at the hour of death the soul is, as it were, on the confines of two worlds, and may possibly at the same moment possess a power which is both prospective and retrospective. Shakespeare, in “Richard II.” (ii. 1), makes the dying Gaunt exclaim, alluding to his nephew, the young and self-willed king:
“Methinks I am a prophet new inspir’d, And thus, expiring, do foretell of him.”
Again, the brave Percy, in “1 Henry IV.” (v. 4), when in the agonies of death, expresses the same idea:
“O, I could prophesy, But that the earthy and cold hand of death Lies on my tongue.”
We may also compare what Nerissa says of Portia’s father in “Merchant of Venice” (i. 2), “Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men, at their death, have good inspirations.”
Curious to say, this notion may be traced up to the time of Homer. Thus Patroclus prophesies the death of Hector (“Iliad,” π. 852): “You yourself are not destined to live long, for even now death is drawing nigh unto you, and a violent fate awaits you—about to be slain in fight by the hands of Achilles.” Aristotle tells us that the soul, when on the point of death, foretells things about to happen. Others have sought for the foundation of this belief in the 49th chapter of Genesis: “And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.... And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.” Whether, however, we accept this origin or not, at any rate it is very certain that the notion in question has existed from the earliest times, being alluded to also by Socrates, Xenophon, and Diodorus Siculus. It still lingers on in Lancashire and other parts of England.
Among other omens of death may be mentioned high spirits, which have been supposed to presage impending death. Thus, in “Romeo and Juliet” (v. 3), Romeo exclaims:
“How oft, when men are at the point of death, Have they been merry! which their keepers call A lightning before death.”
This idea is noticed by Ray, who inserts it as a proverb, “It’s a lightening before death;” and adds this note: “This is generally observed of sick persons, that a little before they die their pains leave them, and their understanding and memory return to them—as a candle just before it goes out gives a great blaze.” It was also a superstitious notion that unusual mirth was a forerunner of adversity. Thus, in the last act of “Romeo and Juliet” (sc. 1) Romeo comes on, saying:
“If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep, My dreams presage some joyful news at hand: My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne; And all this day an unaccustom’d spirit Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.”
Immediately, however, a messenger enters to announce Juliet’s death.
In “Richard III.” (iii. 2), Hastings is represented as rising in the morning in unusually high spirits. Stanley says:
“The lords at Pomfret, when they rode from London, Were jocund, and suppos’d their state was sure, And they, indeed, had no cause to mistrust; But yet, you see, how soon the day o’ercast.”
This idea, it may be noted, runs throughout the whole scene. Before dinner-time, Hastings was beheaded.
Once more, in “2 Henry IV.” (iv. 2), the same notion is alluded to in the following dialogue:
“Westmoreland. Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray.
Mowbray. You wish me health in very happy season; For I am, on the sudden, something ill.
Archbishop. Against ill chances men are ever merry; But heaviness foreruns the good event.
Westmoreland. Therefore be merry, coz; since sudden sorrow Serves to say thus, ‘Some good thing comes to-morrow.’
Archbishop. Believe me, I am passing light in spirit.
Mowbray. So much the worse, if your own rule be true.”
Tytler, in his “History of Scotland,” thus speaks of the death of King James I.: “On this fatal evening (Feb. 20, 1437), the revels of the court were kept up to a late hour. The prince himself appears to have been in unusually gay and cheerful spirits. He even jested, if we may believe the contemporary manuscript, about a prophecy which had declared that a king that year should be slain.” Shelley strongly entertained this superstition: “During all the time he spent in Leghorn, he was in brilliant spirits, to him a sure prognostic of coming evil.”
Again, it is a very common opinion that death announces its approach by certain mysterious noises, a notion, indeed, which may be traced up to the time of the Romans, who believed that the genius of death announced his approach by some supernatural warning. In “Troilus and Cressida” (iv. 4), Troilus says:
“Hark! you are call’d: some say, the Genius so Cries ‘Come!’ to him that instantly must die.”
This superstition was frequently made use of by writers of bygone times, and often served to embellish, with touching pathos, their poetic sentiment. Thus Flatman, in some pretty lines, has embodied this thought:
“My soul, just now about to take her flight, Into the regions of eternal night, Methinks I hear some gentle spirit say, Be not fearful, come away.”
Pope speaks in the same strain:
“Hark! they whisper, angels say, Sister spirit, come away.”
Shakespeare, too, further alludes to this idea in “Macbeth” (ii. 3), where, it may be remembered, Lennox graphically describes how, on the awful night in which Duncan is so basely murdered:
“Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say, Lamentings heard i’ the air; strange screams of death; And prophesying, with accents terrible, Of dire combustion, and confus’d events, New hatch’d to the woful time.”
As in Shakespeare’s day, so, too, at the present time, there is perhaps no superstition so deeply rooted in the minds of many people as the belief in what are popularly termed “death-warnings.” Modern folk-lore holds either that a knocking or rumbling in the floor is an omen of a death about to happen, or that dying persons themselves announce their dissolution to their friends in such strange sounds.[728] Many families are supposed to have particular warnings, such as the appearance of a bird, the figure of a tall woman, etc. Such, moreover, are not confined to our own country, but in a variety of forms are found on the Continent. According to another belief, it was generally supposed that when a man was on his death-bed the devil or his agents tried to seize his soul, if it should happen that he died without receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist, or without confessing his sins. Hence, in “2 Henry VI.” (iii. 3), the king says:
“O, beat away the busy meddling fiend That lays strong siege unto this wretch’s soul, And from his bosom purge this black despair.”
[728] Tylor’s “Primitive Culture,” 1873, vol. i. p. 145.
In the old Office books of the Church, these “busy meddling fiends” are often represented with great anxiety besieging the dying man; but on the approach of the priest and his attendants, they are shown to display symptoms of despair at their impending discomfiture. Douce[729] quotes from an ancient manuscript book of devotion, written in the reign of Henry VI., the following prayer to St. George: “Judge for me whan the moste hedyous and damnable dragons of helle shall be redy to take my poore soule and engloute it in to theyr infernall belyes.”
[729] “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1829, pp. 324-326.
Some think that the “passing-bell,” which was formerly tolled for a person who was dying, was intended to drive away the evil spirit that might be hovering about to seize the soul of the deceased. Its object, however, was probably to bespeak the prayers of the faithful, and to serve as a solemn warning to the living. Shakespeare has given several touching allusions to it. Thus, in Sonnet lxxi. he says:
“No longer mourn for me when I am dead, Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world.”
In “2 Henry IV.” (i. 1), Northumberland speaks in the same strain:
“Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news Hath but a losing office: and his tongue Sounds ever after as a sullen bell, Remember’d knolling a departing friend.”
We may quote a further allusion in “Venus and Adonis” (l. 701):
“And now his grief may be compared well To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell.”
In a statute passed during the reign of Henry VIII., it is ordered “that clarks are to ring no more than the passing bell for poare people, nor less for an honest householder, and he be a citizen; nor for children, maydes, journeymen, apprentices, day-labourers, or any other poare person.” In 1662, the Bishop of Worcester[730] asks, in his visitation charge: “Doth the parish clerk or sexton take care to admonish the living, by tolling of a passing-bell, of any that are dying, thereby to meditate of their own deaths, and to commend the other’s weak condition to the mercy of God?” It was, also, called the “soul-bell,” upon which Bishop Hall remarks: “We call it the soul-bell because it signifies the departure of the soul, not because it helps the passage of the soul.” Ray, in his “Collection of Proverbs,” has the following couplet:
“When thou dost hear a toll or knell Then think upon thy passing-bell.”
[730] “Annals of Worcester,” 1845.
It was formerly customary to draw away the pillow from under the heads of dying persons, so as to accelerate their departure—an allusion to which we find in “Timon of Athens” (iv. 3), where Timon says:
“Pluck stout men’s pillows from below their heads.”
This, no doubt, originated in the notion that a person cannot die happily on a bed made of pigeons’ feathers. Grose says: “It is impossible for a person to die whilst resting on a pillow stuffed with the feathers of a dove; but that he will struggle with death in the most exquisite torture. The pillows of dying persons are therefore frequently taken away when they appear in great agonies, lest they may have pigeon’s feathers in them.” Indeed, in Lancashire, this practice is carried to such an extent that some will not allow dying persons to lie on a feather bed, because they hold that it very much increases their pain and suffering, and actually retards their departure.[731]
[731] Harland and Wilkinson’s “Lancashire Folk-Lore,” 1869, p. 268; see “English Folk-Lore,” 1878, pp. 99, 100; also “Notes and Queries,” 1st series, vol. iv. p. 133.
The departure of the human soul from this world, and its journey to its untried future, have become interwoven with an extensive network of superstitions, varying more or less in every country and tribe. Shakespeare has alluded to the numerous destinations of the disembodied spirit, enumerating the many ideas prevalent in his time on the subject. In “Measure for Measure” (iii. 1), Claudio thus speaks:
“Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice; To be imprison’d in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendent world.”[732]
[732] Cf. Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” v. 595-683.
We may compare also the powerful language of Othello (v. 2):
“This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven, And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl! Even like thy chastity.— O cursed, cursed slave! Whip me, ye devils, From the possession of this heavenly sight! Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur! Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire! O Desdemona! Desdemona! dead!”
Douce[733] says that in the former passage it is difficult to decide whether Shakespeare is alluding to the pains of hell or purgatory. Both passages are obscure, and have given rise to much criticism. It seems probable, however, that while partly referring to the notions of the time, relating to departed souls, Shakespeare has in a great measure incorporated the ideas of what he had read in books of Catholic divinity. The passages quoted above remind us of the legend of St. Patrick’s purgatory, where mention is made of a lake of ice and snow into which persons were plunged up to their necks; and of the description of hell given in the “Shepherd’s Calendar:”
“a great froste in a water rounes And after a bytter wynde comes Which gothe through the soules with eyre; Fends with pokes pulle theyr flesshe ysondre, They fight and curse, and eche on other wonder.”
[733] See “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, pp. 82, 83.
We cannot here enter, however, into the mass of mystic details respecting “the soul’s dread journey[734] by caverns and rocky paths and weary plains, over steep and slippery mountains, by frail bank or giddy bridge, across gulfs or rushing rivers, abiding the fierce onset of the soul-destroyer or the doom of the stern guardian of the other world.” Few subjects, indeed, have afforded greater scope for the imagination than the hereafter of the human soul, and hence, as might be expected, numerous myths have been invented in most countries to account for its mysterious departure in the hour of death, from the world of living men to its unseen, unknown home in the distant land of spirits.
[734] Tylor’s “Primitive Culture,” vol. ii. p. 46.
Shakespeare several times uses the word “limbo” in a general signification for hell, as in “Titus Andronicus” (iii. 1):
“As far from help as limbo is from bliss.”
And in “All’s Well that Ends Well” (v. 3), Parolles says: “for, indeed, he was mad for her, and talked of Satan, and of limbo, and of furies, and I know not what.” In “Henry VIII.” (v. 4), “in Limbo Patrum” is jocularly put for a prison; and, again, in “Comedy of Errors” (iv. 2), “he’s in Tartar limbo.” “According to the schoolmen, Limbus Patrum was the place, bordering on hell, where the souls of the patriarchs and saints of the Old Testament remained till the death of Christ, who, descending into hell, set them free.”[735]
[735] Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 246.
One of the punishments invented of old for the covetous and avaricious, in hell, was to have melted gold poured down their throats, to which allusion is made by Flaminius, in “Timon of Athens” (iii. 1), who, denouncing Lucullus for his mean insincerity towards his friend Timon, exclaims, on rejecting the bribe offered him to tell his master that he had not seen him:
“May these add to the number that may scald thee! Let molten coin be thy damnation.”
In the “Shepherd’s Calendar,” Lazarus declares himself to have seen covetous men and women in hell dipped in caldrons of molten lead. Malone quotes the following from an old black-letter ballad of “The Dead Man’s Song:”
“Ladles full of melted gold Were poured down their throats.”
Crassus was so punished by the Parthians.[736]
[736] Singer’s “Shakespeare,” 1875, vol. viii. p. 291.
There is possibly a further allusion to this imaginary punishment in “Antony and Cleopatra” (ii. 5), where Cleopatra says to the messenger:
“But, sirrah, mark, we use To say, the dead are well: bring it to that, The gold I give thee will I melt, and pour Down thy ill-uttering throat.”
According to a well-known superstition among sailors, it is considered highly unlucky to keep a corpse on board, in case of a death at sea. Thus, in “Pericles” (iii. 1), this piece of folk-lore is alluded to:
“1 Sailor. Sir, your queen must overboard; the sea works high, the wind is loud, and will not lie till the ship be cleared of the dead.
Pericles. That’s your superstition.
1 Sailor. Pardon us, sir; with us at sea it hath been still observed; and we are strong in custom. Therefore briefly yield her; for she must overboard straight.”
It was also a popular opinion that death is delayed until the ebb of the tide—a superstition to which Mrs. Quickly refers in “Henry V.” (ii. 3); speaking of Falstaff’s death, she says: “’A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom child; ’a parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning o’ the tide.” Hence, in cases of sickness, many pretended that they could foretell the hour of the soul’s departure. It may be remembered how Mr. Peggotty explained to David Copperfield, by poor Barkis’s bedside, that “people can’t die along the coast except when the tide’s pretty nigh out. They can’t be born unless it’s pretty nigh in—not properly born till flood. He’s a-going out with the tide—he’s a-going out with the tide. It’s ebb at half arter three, slack-water half an hour. If he lives till it turns he’ll hold his own till past the flood, and go out with the next tide.” Mr. Henderson[737] quotes from the parish register of Heslidon, near Hartlepool, the subjoined extracts of old date, in which the state of the tide at the time of death is mentioned:
“The xith daye of Maye, A.D. 1595, at vi. of ye clocke in the morninge, being full water, Mr. Henrye Mitford, of Hoolam, died at Newcastel, and was buried the xvith daie, being Sondaie, at evening prayer, the hired preacher maid ye sermon.”
“The xviith daie of Maie, at xii. of ye clock at noon, being lowe water, Mrs. Barbara Mitford died, and was buried the xviiith daie of Maie, at ix. of the clocke. Mr. Holsworth maid ye sermon.”
[737] “Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,” 1880, p. 58.
According to Mr. Henderson, this belief is common along the east coast of England, from Northumberland to Kent. It has been suggested that there may be “some slight foundation for this belief in the change of temperature which undoubtedly takes place on the change of tide, and which may act on the flickering spark of life, extinguishing it as the ebbing sea recedes.”
We may compare, too, the following passage in “2 Henry IV.” (iv. 4), where Clarence, speaking of the approaching death of the king, says:
“The river hath thrice flow’d, no ebb between; And the old folk, time’s doting chronicles, Say it did so a little time before That our great grandsire, Edward, sick’d and died.”
This was an historical fact, having happened on October 12, 1411.
The prayers of the Church, which are used for the recovery of the sick, were, in the olden time, also supposed to have a morbific influence, to which Gloster attributes the death of the king in “1 Henry VI.” (i. 1):
“The church! where is it? Had not churchmen pray’d, His thread of life had not so soon decay’d.”
Once more, the custom of closing the eyes at the moment of death is touchingly referred to in “Antony and Cleopatra” (v. 2), where Charmian may be supposed to close Cleopatra’s eyes:
“Downy windows, close; And golden Phœbus never be beheld Of eyes again so royal.”
Passing on from that solemn moment in human life when the soul takes its flight from the fragile tenement of clay that contained it during its earthly existence, we find that, even among the lowest savages, there has generally been a certain respect paid to the dead body; and, consequently, various superstitious rites have, from time to time, been associated with its burial, which has been so appropriately termed “the last act.” While occasionally speaking of death, Shakespeare has not only pictured its solemnity in the most powerful and glowing language, but, as opportunity allowed, given us a slight insight into those customs that formerly prevailed in connection with the committal of the body to its final resting-place in the grave. At the present day, when there is an ever-growing tendency to discard and forget, as irrational and foolish, the customs of bygone years, it is interesting to find chronicled, for all future time, in the immortal pages of our illustrious poet, those superstitious rites and social usages which may be said to have been most intimately identified with the age to which they belonged. One custom, perhaps, that will always retain its old hold among us—so long as we continue to bury the remains of our departed ones—is the scattering of flowers on their graves; a practice, indeed, which may be traced up to pagan times. It is frequently mentioned by Shakespeare in some of his superb passages; as, for instance, in “Cymbeline” (iv. 2), where Arviragus says:
“With fairest flowers, Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, I’ll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack The flower that’s like thy face, pale primrose, nor The azur’d hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, Out-sweeten’d not thy breath.
* * * * *
Yea, and furr’d moss besides, when flowers are none, To winter-ground thy corse.”
In “Hamlet” (iv. 5), the poor, bewildered Ophelia sings:
“Larded with sweet flowers; Which bewept to the grave did go With true-love showers.”
Then, further on (v. 1), there is the affecting flower-strewing scene, where the Queen, standing over the grave of Ophelia, bids her a long farewell:
“Sweets to the sweet: farewell! I hop’d thou should’st have been my Hamlet’s wife; I thought thy bride-bed to have deck’d, sweet maid, And not have strew’d thy grave.”
In “Romeo and Juliet” (iv. 5), Capulet says:
“Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse.”
And further on (v. 3) the Page says:
“He came with flowers to strew his lady’s grave.”[738]
[738] Cf. “Winter’s Tale,” iv. 4.
Once more, in “Pericles” (iv. 1), Marina is introduced, entering with a basket of flowers, uttering these sad words:
“No, I will rob Tellus of her weed, To strew thy green with flowers; the yellows, blues, The purple violets, and marigolds, Shall, as a carpet, hang upon thy grave, While summer days do last.”
Flowers, which so soon droop and wither, are, indeed, sweet emblems of that brief life which is the portion of mankind in this world, while, at the same time, their exquisite beauty is a further type of the glory that awaits the redeemed hereafter, when, like fair flowers, they shall burst forth in unspeakable grandeur on the resurrection morn. There is a pretty custom observed in South Wales on Palm Sunday, of spreading fresh flowers upon the graves of friends and relatives, the day being called Flowering Sunday.
The practice of decorating the corpse is mentioned by many old writers. In “Romeo and Juliet” (iv. 5), Friar Laurence says:
“Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary On this fair corse; and, as the custom is, In all her best array bear her to church.”
Queen Katharine, in “Henry VIII.” (iv. 2), directs:
“When I am dead, good wench, Let me be us’d with honour: strew me over With maiden flowers.”
It was formerly customary, in various parts of England, to have a garland of flowers and sweet herbs carried before a maiden’s coffin, and afterwards to suspend it in the church. In allusion to this practice, the Priest, in “Hamlet” (v. 1), says:
“Yet here she is allow’d her virgin crants, Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home Of bell and burial.”
—crants[739] meaning garlands. It may be noted that no other instance has been found of this word in English. These garlands are thus described by Gay:
“To her sweet mem’ry flow’ry garlands strung, On her now empty seat aloft were hung.”
[739] The word in German is kranz, in other Teutonic dialects krants, krans, and crance—the latter being Lowland Scotch—and having cransies for plural. Clark and Wright’s “Hamlet,” 1876, p. 216.
Nichols, in his “History of Lancashire” (vol. ii. pt. i. p. 382), speaking of Waltham, in Framland Hundred, says: “In this church, under every arch, a garland is suspended, one of which is customarily placed there whenever any young unmarried woman dies.” Brand[740] tells us he saw in the churches of Wolsingham and Stanhope, in the county of Durham, specimens of these garlands; the form of a woman’s glove, cut in white paper, being hung in the centre of each of them.
[740] “Pop. Antiq.” vol. ii. p. 303.
The funerals of knights and persons of rank were, in Shakespeare’s day, performed with great ceremony and ostentation. Sir John Hawkins observes that “the sword, the helmet, the gauntlets, spurs, and tabard are still hung over the grave of every knight.” In “Hamlet” (iv. 5), Laertes speaks of this custom:
“His means of death, his obscure burial,— No trophy, sword, nor hatchment, o’er his bones, No noble rite, nor formal ostentation,— Cry to be heard, as ’twere from heaven to earth, That I must call’t in question.”
Again, in “2 Henry VI.” (iv. 10), Iden says:
“Is’t Cade that I have slain, that monstrous traitor? Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed, And hang thee o’er my tomb when I am dead.”
The custom of bearing the dead body in its ordinary habiliments, and with the face uncovered—a practice referred to in “Romeo and Juliet” (iv. 1)—appears to have been peculiar to Italy:
“Then, as the manner of our country is, In thy best robes uncover’d on the bier, Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.”
In Coryat’s “Crudities” (1776, vol. ii. p. 27) the practice is thus described: “The burials are so strange, both in Venice and all other cities, towns, and parishes of Italy, that they differ not only from England, but from all other nations whatever in Christendom. For they carry the corse to church with the face, hands, and feet all naked, and wearing the same apparel that the person wore lately before he died, or that which he craved to be buried in; which apparel is interred together with the body.”[741] Singer[742] says that Shakespeare no doubt had seen this custom particularly described in the “Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet:”
“Another use there is, that, whosoever dies, Borne to the church, with open face, upon the bier he lies, In wonted weed attir’d, not wrapt in winding sheet.”
[741] See Staunton’s “Shakespeare,” 1864, vol. i. p. 305.
[742] “Shakespeare,” 1875, vol. ix. pp. 209, 210.
He alludes to it again in Ophelia’s song, in “Hamlet” (iv. 5):
“They bore him barefac’d on the bier.”
It was, in bygone times, customary to bury the Danish kings in their armor; hence the remark of Hamlet (i. 4), when addressing the Ghost:
“What may this mean, That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel, Revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon, Making night hideous?”
Shakespeare was probably guilty of an anachronism in “Coriolanus” (v. 6) when he makes one of the lords say:
“Bear from hence his body, And mourn you for him: let him be regarded As the most noble corse that ever herald Did follow to his urn,”
the allusion being to the public funeral of English princes, at the conclusion of which a herald proclaimed the style of the deceased.
We may compare what Queen Katharine says in “Henry VIII.” (iv. 2):
“After my death I wish no other herald, No other speaker of my living actions, To keep my honour from corruption, But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.”
It seems to have been the fashion, as far back as the thirteenth century, to ornament the tombs of eminent persons with figures and inscriptions on plates of brass; hence, in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (i. 1), the King says:
“Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives, Live register’d upon our brazen tombs.”
In “Much Ado About Nothing” (v. 1), Leonato, speaking of his daughter’s death, says:
“Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb, And sing it to her bones: sing it to-night.”
And also in a previous scene (iv. 1) this graceful custom is noticed:
“Maintain a mourning ostentation, And on your family’s old monument Hang mournful epitaphs.”
It was also the custom, in years gone by, on the death of an eminent person, for his friends to compose short laudatory verses, epitaphs, etc., and to affix them to the hearse or grave with pins, wax, paste, etc. Thus, in “Henry V.” (i. 2), King Henry declares:
“Either our history shall with full mouth Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave, Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth, Not worshipp’d with a waxen epitaph,”
meaning, says Gifford, “I will either have my full history recorded with glory, or lie in an undisturbed grave; not merely without an inscription sculptured in stone, but unworshipped, unhonoured, even by a waxen epitaph.”[743]
[743] Notes on “Jonson’s Works,” vol. ix. p. 58.
We may also compare what Lucius says in “Titus Andronicus” (i. 1):
“There lie thy bones, sweet Mutius, with thy friends, Till we with trophies do adorn thy tomb!”
The custom was still general when Shakespeare lived; many fine and interesting examples existing in the old Cathedral of St. Paul’s, and other churches of London, down to the time of the great fire, in the form of pensil-tables of wood and metal, painted or engraved with poetical memorials, suspended against the columns and walls.
“Feasts of the Dead,” which have prevailed in this and other countries from the earliest times, are, according to some antiquarians, supposed to have been borrowed from the cæna feralis of the Romans—an offering, consisting of milk, honey, wine, olives, and strewed flowers, to the ghost of the deceased. In a variety of forms this custom has prevailed among most nations—the idea being that the spirits of the dead feed on the viands set before them; hence the rite in question embraced the notion of a sacrifice. In Christian times, however, these funeral offerings have passed into commemorative banquets, under which form they still exist among us. In allusion to these feasts, Hamlet (i. 2), speaking of his mother’s marriage, says:
“The funeral bak’d meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.”
Again, in “Romeo and Juliet” (iv. 5), Capulet narrates how:
“All things that we ordained festival, Turn from their office to black funeral: Our instruments, to melancholy bells; Our wedding cheer, to a sad burial feast.”
Mr. Tylor,[744] in discussing the origin of funeral feasts, and in tracing their origin back to the savage and barbaric times of the institution of feast of departed souls, says we may find a lingering survival of this old rite in the doles of bread and drink given to the poor at funerals, and “soul-mass cakes,” which peasant girls beg for at farmhouses, with the traditional formula,
“Soul, soul, for a soul cake, Pray you, mistress, a soul cake.”[745]
[744] “Primitive Culture,” vol. ii. p. 43.
[745] See “British Popular Customs,” p. 404; Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. pp. 237, 246; Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 439.
In the North of England the funeral feast is called an “arval,” and the loaves that are sometimes distributed among the poor are termed “arval bread.”
Among other funeral customs mentioned by Shakespeare, may be mentioned his allusion to the burial service. Originally, before the reign of Edward VI., it was the practice for the priest to throw earth on the body in the form of a cross, and then to sprinkle it with holy water. Thus, in the “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 4), the Shepherd says:
“Some hangman must put on my shroud, and lay me Where no priest shovels in dust,”
implying, “I must be buried as a common malefactor, out of the pale of consecrated ground, and without the usual rites of the dead”—a whimsical anachronism, as Mr. Douce[746] points out, when it is considered that the old Shepherd was a pagan, a worshipper of Jupiter and Apollo.
[746] See Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 222.
In “Antony and Cleopatra” (i. 3), we find an allusion to the lachrymatory vials filled with tears which the Romans were in the habit of placing in the tomb of a departed friend. Cleopatra sorrowfully exclaims:
“O most false love! Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see, In Fulvia’s death, how mine receiv’d shall be.”
This is another interesting instance of Shakespeare’s knowledge of the manners of distant ages, showing how varied and extensive his knowledge was, and his skill in applying it whenever occasion required.
The winding or shrouding sheet, in which the body was wrapped previous to its burial, is alluded to in “Hamlet” (v. 1), in the song of the clown:
“A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade, For and a shrouding sheet: O, a pit of clay for to be made For such a guest is meet.”
Again, in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (v. 1), Puck says:
“the screech-owl, screeching loud, Puts the wretch that lies in woe In remembrance of a shroud.”
Ophelia speaks of the shroud as white as the mountain snow (“Hamlet,” iv. 5). The following song, too, in “Twelfth Night” (ii. 4), mentions the custom of sticking yew in the shroud:
“Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath: I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, O prepare it! My part of death, no one so true Did share it!”
To quote two further illustrations. Desdemona (“Othello,” iv. 2) says to Emilia: “Lay on my bed my wedding-sheets,” and when in the following scene Emilia answers:
“I have laid those sheets you bade me on the bed,”
Desdemona adds:
“If I do die before thee, pr’thee, shroud me In one of those same sheets”
—a wish, indeed, which her cruel fate so speedily caused to be realized. And in “3 Henry VI.” (i. 1) we have King Henry’s powerful words:
“Think’st thou, that I will leave my kingly throne, Wherein my grandsire and my father sat? No: first shall war unpeople this my realm; Ay, and their colours,—often borne in France, And now in England, to our heart’s great sorrow,— Shall be my winding-sheet.”
The custom, still prevalent, of carrying the dead to the grave with music—a practice which existed in the primitive church—to denote that they have ended their spiritual warfare, and are become conquerors, formerly existed very generally in this country.[747] In “Cymbeline” (iv. 2), Arviragus says:
“And let us, Polydore, though now our voices Have got the mannish crack, sing him to the ground, As once our mother; use like note and words, Save that Euriphile must be Fidele.”
[747] See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol ii. pp. 267-270.
The tolling of bells at funerals is referred to in “Hamlet” (v. 1), where the priest says of Ophelia:
“she is allow’d her virgin crants, Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home Of bell and burial.”
It has been a current opinion for centuries that places of burial are haunted with spectres and apparitions—a notion, indeed, that prevailed as far back as the times of heathenism. Ovid speaks of ghosts coming out of their sepulchres and wandering about: and Vergil, quoting the popular opinion of his time, tells us how Moeris could call the ghosts out of their sepulchres (“Bucol.” viii. 98):
“Moerim, sæpe animas imis excire sepulchris, Atque satas alio vidi traducere messis.”
Indeed, the idea of the ghost remaining near the corpse is of world-wide prevalence; and as Mr. Tylor[748] points out, “through all the changes of religious thought from first to last, in the course of human history, the hovering ghosts of the dead make the midnight burial-ground a place where men’s flesh creeps with terror.” In “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (v. 1), Puck declares:
“Now it is the time of night, That the graves, all gaping wide, Every one lets forth his sprite, In the church-way paths to glide.”
[748] “Primitive Culture,” vol. ii. p. 30.
In the same play, too (iii. 2), Puck, speaking of “Aurora’s harbinger,” says:
“At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there, Troop home to churchyards: damned spirits all, That in cross-ways and floods have burial, Already to their wormy beds are gone; For fear lest day should look their shames upon.”
In this passage two curious superstitions are described; the ghosts of self-murderers, who are buried in cross-roads, and of those who have been drowned at sea, being said to wander for a hundred years, owing to the rites of sepulture having never been properly bestowed on their bodies.
We may further compare Hamlet’s words (iii. 2):
“’Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world.”
From the earliest period much importance has been attached to the position of the grave, the popular direction being from east to west, that from north to south being regarded as not only dishonorable, but unlucky. Thus, in “Cymbeline” (iv. 2), Guiderius, when arranging about the apparently dead body of Imogen, disguised in man’s apparel, says:
“Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to the east; My father had a reason for’t.”
Indeed, the famous antiquary Hearne had such precise views in this matter that he left orders for his grave to be made straight by a compass, due east and west. This custom was practised by the ancient Greeks, and thus, as Mr. Tylor points out,[749] it is not to late and isolated fancy, but to the carrying on of ancient and widespread solar ideas, that we trace the well-known legend that the body of Christ was laid with the head towards the west, thus looking eastward, and the Christian usage of digging graves east and west, which prevailed through mediæval times, and is not yet forgotten. The rule of laying the head to the west, and its meaning that the dead shall rise looking towards the east, are perfectly stated in the following passage from an ecclesiastical treatise of the 16th century:[750] “Debet autem quis sic sepeliri ut capite ad occidentem posito, pedes dirigat ad Orientem, in quo quasi ipsa positione orat: et innuit quod promptus est, ut de occasu festinet ad ortum: de mundo ad seculum.”[751]
[749] “Primitive Culture,” 1873, vol. ii. p. 423.
[750] Durandus, “De Officio Mortuorum,” lib. vii. chap. 35-39.
[751] Dr. Johnson thought the words of the clown in “Hamlet” (v. 1), “make her grave straight,” meant, “make her grave from east to west, in a direct line parallel to the church.” This interpretation seems improbable, as the word straight in the sense of immediately occurs frequently in Shakespeare’s plays.
Within old monuments and receptacles for the dead perpetual lamps were supposed to be lighted up, an allusion to which is made by Pericles (iii. 1), who, deploring the untimely death of Thaisa at sea, and the superstitious demand made by the sailors that her corpse should be thrown overboard, says:
“Nor have I time To give thee hallow’d to thy grave, but straight Must cast thee, scarcely coffin’d, in the ooze; Where, for a monument upon thy bones, And aye-remaining lamps, the belching whale And humming water must o’erwhelm thy corpse, Lying with simple shells.”
Again, in “Troilus and Cressida” (iii. 2), we find a further reference in the words of Troilus:
“O, that I thought it could be in a woman, To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love.”
Pope, too, in his “Eloisa to Abelard,” has a similar allusion (l. 261, 262):
“Ah, hopeless lasting flames, like those that burn To light the dead, and warm th’ unfruitful urn!”
D’Israeli, in his “Curiosities of Literature,” thus explains this superstition: “It has happened frequently that inquisitive men, examining with a flambeau ancient sepulchres which have just been opened, the fat and gross vapors engendered by the corruption of dead bodies kindled as the flambeau approached them, to the great astonishment of the spectators, who frequently cried out ‘A miracle!’ This sudden inflammation, although very natural, has given room to believe that these flames proceeded from perpetual lamps, which some have thought were placed in the tombs of the ancients, and which, they said, were extinguished at the moment that these tombs opened, and were penetrated by the exterior air.” Mr. Dennis, however, in his “Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria” (1878, vol. ii. p. 404), says that the use of sepulchral lamps by the ancients is well known, and gave rise to the above superstition. Sometimes lamps were kept burning in sepulchres long after the interment, as in the case of the Ephesian widow described by Petronius (“Satyr,” c. 13), who replaced the lamp placed in her husband’s tomb.
A common expression formerly applied to the dead occurs in the “Winter’s Tale” (v. 1), where Dion asks:
“What were more holy, Than to rejoice the former queen is well?”
So in “Antony and Cleopatra” (ii. 5):
“Messenger. First, madam, he is well.
Cleopatra. Why, there’s more gold. But, sirrah, mark, we use To say, the dead are well.”[752]
[752] See Malone’s note, Variorum edition, xiv. 400.
Lastly, commentators have differed as to the meaning of the words of Julia in the “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (i. 2):
“I see you have a month’s mind to them.”
Douce says she refers to the mind or remembrance days of our popish ancestors; persons in their wills having often directed that in a month, or at some other specific time, some solemn office, as a mass or a dirge, should be performed for the repose of their souls. Thus Ray quotes a proverb: “To have a month’s mind to a thing,” and mentions the above custom. For a further and not improbable solution of this difficulty, the reader may consult Dyce’s “Glossary” (p. 277).
XV. RINGS AND PRECIOUS STONES
From a very early period, rings and precious stones have held a prominent place in the traditionary lore, customs, and superstitions of most nations. Thus, rings have been supposed “to protect from evil fascinations of every kind, against the evil eye, the influence of demons, and dangers of every possible character: though it was not simply in the rings themselves that the supposed virtues existed, but in the materials of which they were composed—in some particular precious stones that were set in them as charms or talismans, in some device or inscription on the stone, or some magical letters engraved on the circumference of the ring.”[753] Rings, too, in days gone by, had a symbolical importance. Thus, it was anciently the custom for every monarch to have a ring, the temporary possession of which invested the holder with the same authority as the owner himself could exercise. Thus, in “Henry VIII.” (v. 1), we have the king’s ring given to Cranmer, and presented by him (sc. 2), as a security against the machinations of Gardiner and others of the council, who were plotting to destroy him. Thus the king says:
“If entreaties Will render you no remedy, this ring Deliver them, and your appeal to us There make before them.”
[753] Jones’s “Finger-Ring Lore,” 1877, p. 91.
This custom, too, was not confined to royalty, for in “Richard II.” (ii. 2), the Duke of York gives this order to his servant:
“Sirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloster; Bid her send me presently a thousand pound:— Hold, take my ring.”
There is an interesting relic of the same custom still kept up at Winchester College.[754] When the captain of the school petitions the head-master for a holiday, and obtains it, he receives from him a ring, in token of the indulgence granted, which he wears during the holiday, and returns to the head-master when it is over. The inscription upon the ring was, formerly, “Potentiam fero, geroque.” It is now “Commendat rarior usus” (Juvenal, “Sat.” xi. 208).
[754] Wordsworth’s “Shakespeare and the Bible,” 1880, p. 283.
Token Rings date from very early times. Edward I., in 1297, presented Margaret, his fourth daughter, with a golden pyx, in which he deposited a ring, as a token of his unfailing love.
In “Richard III.” (i. 2) when Gloster brings his hasty wooing to a conclusion, he gives the Lady Anne a ring, saying:
“Look, how my ring encompasseth thy finger, Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart; Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.”
In “Cymbeline” (i. 1) Imogen gives Posthumus a ring when they part, and he presents her with a bracelet in exchange:
“Look here, love; This diamond was my mother’s; take it, heart; But keep it till you woo another wife, When Imogen is dead.
Posthumus. How! how! another?— You gentle gods, give me but this I have, And sear up my embracements from a next With bonds of death! Remain, remain thou here, (Putting on the ring) While sense can keep it on.”
Yet he afterwards gives it up to Iachimo (ii. 4)—upon a false representation—to test his wife’s honor:
“Here, take this too; It is a basilisk unto mine eye, Kills me to look on’t.”
The exchange of rings, a solemn mode of private contract between lovers, we have already referred to in the chapter on Marriage, a practice alluded to in the “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (ii. 2), where Julia gives Proteus a ring, saying:
“Keep this remembrance for thy Julia’s sake;”
and he replies:
“Why, then we’ll make exchange: here, take you this.”
Death’s-head rings. Rings engraved with skulls and skeletons were not necessarily mourning rings, but were also worn by persons who affected gravity; and, curious to say, by the procuresses of Elizabeth’s time. Biron, in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2), refers to “a death’s face in a ring;” and we may quote Falstaff’s words in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4): “Peace, good Doll! do not speak like a death’s head; do not bid me remember mine end.” We may compare the following from “The Chances” (i. 5), by Beaumont and Fletcher:
“As they keep deaths’ heads in rings, To cry ‘memento’ to me.”
According to Mr. Fairholt, “the skull and skeleton decorations for rings first came into favor and fashion at the obsequious court of France, when Diana of Poictiers became the mistress of Henry II. At that time she was a widow, and in mourning, so black and white became fashionable colors; jewels were formed like funeral memorials; golden ornaments, shaped like coffins, holding enamelled skeletons, hung from the neck; watches, made to fit in little silver skulls, were attached to the waists of the denizens of a court that alternately indulged in profanity or piety, but who mourned for show.”[755]
[755] See Jones’s “Finger-Ring Lore,” 1877, p. 372.
Posy-rings were formerly much used, it having been customary to inscribe a motto or “posy” within the hoop of the betrothal ring. Thus, in the “Merchant of Venice” (v. 1), Gratiano, when asked by Portia the reason of his quarrel with Nerissa, answers:
“About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring That she did give me; whose posy was For all the world like cutlers’ poetry Upon a knife, ‘Love me, and leave me not.’”
In “As You Like It“ (iii. 2), Jaques tells Orlando, “You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths’ wives, and conned them out of rings?”
Again, “Hamlet” (iii. 2) asks:
“Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?”
Many of our old writers allude to the posy-rings. Thus Herrick, in his “Hesperides,” says:
“What posies for our wedding rings, What gloves we’ll give, and ribbonings.”
Henry VIII. gave Anne of Cleves a ring with the following posy: “God send me well to kepe;” a most unpropitious alliance, as the king expressed his dislike to her soon after the marriage.
Thumb-rings. These were generally broad gold rings worn on the thumb by important personages. Thus Falstaff (“1 Henry IV.” ii. 4) bragged that, in his earlier years, he had been so slender in figure as to “creep into an alderman’s thumb-ring;” and a ring thus worn—probably as more conspicuous—appears to have been considered as appropriate to the customary attire of a civic dignitary at a much later period. A character in the Lord Mayor’s Show, in 1664, is described as “habited like a grave citizen—gold girdle, and gloves hung thereon, rings on his fingers, and a seal ring on his thumb.”[756] Chaucer, in his “Squire’s Tale,” says of the rider of the brazen horse who advanced into the hall, Cambuscan, that “upon his thumb he had of gold a ring.” In “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 4), Mercutio speaks of the
“agate stone On the forefinger of an alderman.”
[756] See Jones’s “Finger-Ring Lore,” 1877, p. 88.
It has been suggested that Shakespeare, in the following passage, alludes to the annual celebration, at Venice, of the wedding of the Doge with the Adriatic, when he makes Othello say (i. 2):
“But that I love the gentle Desdemona, I would not my unhoused free condition Put into circumscription and confine For the sea’s worth.”
This custom, it is said, was instituted by Pope Alexander III., who gave the Doge a gold ring from his own finger, in token of the victory by the Venetian fleet, at Istria, over Frederick Barbarossa, in defence of the Pope’s quarrel. When his holiness gave the ring, he desired the Doge to throw a similar ring into the sea every year on Ascension Day, in commemoration of the event.
Agate. This stone was frequently cut to represent the human form, and was occasionally worn in the hat by gallants. In “2 Henry IV.” (i. 2) Falstaff says: “I was never manned with an agate till now”—meaning, according to Johnson, “had an agate for my man,” was waited on by an agate.
Carbuncle. The supernatural lustre of this gem[757] is supposed to be described in “Titus Andronicus” (ii. 3), where, speaking of the ring on the finger of Bassianus, Martius says:
“Upon his bloody finger he doth wear A precious ring, that lightens all the hole, Which, like a taper in some monument, Doth shine upon the dead man’s earthy cheeks, And shows the ragged entrails of the pit.”
[757] See Sir Thomas Browne’s “Vulgar Errors.”
In Drayton’s “Muses’ Elysium” (“Nymphal.” ix.) it is thus eulogized:
“That admired mighty stone, The carbuncle that’s named, Which from it such a flaming light And radiancy ejecteth, That in the very darkest night The eye to it directeth.”
Milton, speaking of the cobra, says:
“His head Crested aloof, and carbuncle his eyes.”
John Norton,[758] an alchemist in the reign of Edward IV., wrote a poem entitled the “Ordinal,” or a manual of the chemical art. One of his projects, we are told, was a bridge of gold over the Thames, crowned with pinnacles of gold, which, being studded with carbuncles, would diffuse a blaze of light in the dark. Among the other references to it given by Shakespeare may be mentioned one in “Henry VIII.” (ii. 3), where the Princess Elizabeth is spoken of as
“a gem To lighten all this isle.”
[758] Jones’s “Precious Stones,” 1880, p. 62.
And Hamlet (ii. 2) uses the phrase, “With eyes like carbuncles.”
Chrysolite. This stone was supposed to possess peculiar virtues, and, according to Simon Maiolus, in his “Dierum Caniculares” (1615-19), Thetel the Jew, who wrote a book, “De Sculpturiis,” mentions one naturally in the form of a woman, which was potent against fascination of all kinds. “Othello” (v. 2) thus alludes to this stone in reference to his wife:
“Nay, had she been true, If heaven would make me such another world Of one entire and perfect chrysolite, I’d not have sold her for it.”
Pearls. The Eastern custom of powdering sovereigns at their coronation with gold-dust and seed-pearl is alluded to in “Antony and Cleopatra”[759] (ii. 5):
“I’ll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail Rich pearls upon thee.”
[759] See Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. x. p. 213.
So Milton (“Paradise Lost,” ii. 4):
“The gorgeous East, with liberal hand, Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold.”
Again, to swallow a pearl in a draught seems to have been common to royal and mercantile prodigality. In “Hamlet” (v. 2) the King says:
“The king shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath; And in the cup an union[760] shall he throw.”
[760] A union is a precious pearl, remarkable for its size.
Further on Hamlet himself asks, tauntingly:
“Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane, Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?”
Malone, as an illustration of this custom, quotes from the second part of Heywood’s “If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody:”
“Here sixteen thousand pound at one clap goes Instead of sugar. Gresham drinks this pearl Unto the queen, his mistress.”
In former times powdered pearls were considered invaluable for stomach complaints; and Rondeletius tells us that they were supposed to possess an exhilarating quality: “Uniones quæ a conchis, et valde cordiales sunt.”
Much mystery was, in bygone days, thought to hang over the origin of pearls, and, according to the poetic Orientals,[761] “Every year, on the sixteenth day of the month Nisan, the pearl oysters rise to the sea and open their shells, in order to receive the rain which falls at that time, and the drops thus caught become pearls.” Thus, in “Richard III.” (iv. 4) the king says:
“The liquid drops of tears that you have shed Shall come again, transform’d to orient pearl, Advantaging their loan with interest Of ten times double gain of happiness.”
[761] See Jones’s “History and Mystery of Precious Stones,” p. 116.
Moore, in one of his Melodies, notices this pretty notion:
“And precious the tear as that rain from the sky Which turns into pearls as it falls in the sea.”
Turquoise. This stone was probably more esteemed for its secret virtues than from any commercial value, the turquoise, turkise, or turkey-stone, having from a remote period been supposed to possess talismanic properties. Thus, in the “Merchant of Venice” (iii. 1), Shylock says: “It was my turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor: I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.” Mr. Dyce[762] says that Shylock valued his turquoise, “not only as being the gift of Leah, but on account of the imaginary virtues ascribed to it: which was supposed to become pale or to brighten according as the health of the wearer was bad or good.” Thus, Ben Jonson, in “Sejanus” (i. 1), alludes to its wonderful properties:
“And true as turkoise in the dear lord’s ring, Look well or ill with him.”
[762] “Glossary,” p. 465.
Fenton, in his “Certain Secret Wonders of Nature” (1569), thus describes it: “The turkeys doth move when there is any evil prepared to him that weareth it.” There were numerous other magical properties ascribed to the turquoise. Thus, it was supposed to lose its color entirely at the death of its owner, but to recover it when placed upon the finger of a new and healthy possessor. It was also said that whoever wore a turquoise, so that either it or its setting touched the skin, might fall from any height, the stone attracting to itself the whole force of the blow. With the Germans, the turquoise is still the gem appropriated to the ring, the “gage d’amour,” presented by the lover on the acceptance of his suit, the permanence of its color being believed to depend upon the constancy of his affection.[763]
[763] See C. W. King on “Precious Stones,” 1867, p. 267.
XVI. SPORTS AND PASTIMES
Very many of the old sports and pastimes in popular use in Shakespeare’s day have long ago not only been laid aside, but, in the course of years, have become entirely forgotten. This is to be regretted, as a great number of these capital diversions were admirably suited both for in and out of doors, the simplicity which marked them being one of their distinguishing charms. That Shakespeare, too, took an interest in these good old sources of recreation, may be gathered from the frequent reference which he has made to them; his mention of some childish game even serving occasionally as an illustration in a passage characterized by its force and vigor.
Archery. In Shakespeare’s day this was a very popular diversion, and the “Knights of Prince Arthur’s Round Table” was a society of archers instituted by Henry VIII., and encouraged in the reign of Elizabeth.[764] Fitzstephen, who wrote in the reign of Henry II., notices it among the summer pastimes of the London youth; and the repeated statutes, from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, enforcing the use of the bow, generally ordered the leisure time upon holidays to be passed in its exercise.[765] Shakespeare seems to have been intimately acquainted with the numerous terms connected with archery, many of which we find scattered throughout his plays. Thus, in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iv. 1), Maria uses the expression, “Wide o’ the bow hand,” a term which signified a good deal to the left of the mark.
[764] See Drake’s “Shakespeare and His Times,” vol. ii. pp. 178-181.
[765] Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1870, vol. ii. p. 290.
The “clout” was the nail or pin of the target, and “from the passages,” says Dyce,[766] “which I happen to recollect in our early writers, I should say that the clout, or pin, stood in the centre of the inner circle of the butts, which circle, being painted white, was called the white; that, to ‘hit the white’ was a considerable feat, but that to ‘hit or cleave the clout or pin’ was a much greater one, though, no doubt, the expressions were occasionally used to signify the same thing, viz., to hit the mark.” In “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iv. 1), Costard says of Boyet:
“Indeed, a’ must shoot nearer, or he’ll ne’er hit the clout;”
and, in “2 Henry IV.” (iii. 2), Shallow says of old Double: “He would have clapped i’ the clout at twelve score”—that is, he would have hit the clout at twelve-score yards. And “King Lear” (iv. 6) employs the phrase “i’ the clout, i’ the clout: hewgh!”
[766] “Glossary,” p. 84.
In “Romeo and Juliet” (ii. 4), where Mercutio relates how Romeo is “shot thorough the ear with a love-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy’s butt-shaft,” the metaphor, of course, is from archery.
The term “loose” was the technical one for the discharging of an arrow, and occurs in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2).
According to Capell,[767] the words of Bottom, in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (i. 2), “hold, or cut bow-strings,” were a proverbial phrase, and alluded to archery. “When a party was made at butts, assurance of meeting was given in the words of that phrase, the sense of the person using them being that he would ‘hold’ or keep promise, or they might ‘cut his bow-strings,’ demolish him for an archer.” Whether, adds Dyce, “this be the true explanation of the phrase, I am unable to determine.”
[767] “Glossary,” p. 210.
All hid, all hid. Biron, in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iv. 3), no doubt means the game well-known as hide-and-seek, “All hid, all hid; an old infant play.” The following note, however, in Cotgrave’s “French and English Dictionary,” has been adduced to show that he may possibly mean blind-man’s-buff: “Clignemasset. The childish play called Hodman-blind [i. e., blind-man’s-buff], Harrie-racket, or Are you all hid.”
Backgammon. The old name for this game was “Tables,” as in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2):
“This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice.”
An interesting history of this game will be found in Strutt’s “Sports and Pastimes” (1876, pp. 419-421).
Barley-break. This game, called also the “Last Couple in Hell,” which is alluded to in the “Two Noble Kinsmen,” (iv. 3), was played by six people, three of each sex, who were coupled by lot.[768] A piece of ground was then chosen, and divided into three compartments, of which the middle one was called hell. It was the object of the couple condemned to this division to catch the others, who advanced from the two extremities; in which case a change of situation took place, and hell was filled by the couple who were excluded by preoccupation from the other places. This catching, however, was not so easy, as, by the rules of the game, the middle couple were not to separate before they had succeeded, while the others might break hands whenever they found themselves hard pressed. When all had been taken in turn, the last couple were said “to be in hell,” and the game ended.
[768] From Gifford’s Note on Massinger’s Works, 1813, vol. i. p. 104.
The game was frequently mentioned by old writers, and appears to have been very popular. From Herrick’s Poems, it is seen that the couples in their confinement occasionally solaced themselves by kisses:
“Barley-break; or, Last in Hell.
“We two are last in hell; what may we fear, To be tormented, or kept pris’ners here? Alas, if kissing be of plagues the worst, We’ll wish in hell we had been last and first.”
In Scotland it was called barla-breikis, and was, says Jamieson, “generally played by young people in a corn-yard, hence its name, barla-bracks, about the stacks.”[769] The term “hell,” says Nares,[770] “was indiscreet, and must have produced many profane allusions, besides familiarizing what ought always to preserve its due effect of awe upon the mind.” Both its names are alluded to in the following passage in Shirley’s “Bird in a Cage:”
“Shall’s to barlibreak? I was in hell last; ’tis little less to be in a petticoat sometimes.”
[769] See Jamieson’s “Scottish Dictionary,” 1879, vol. i. p. 122.
[770] “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 57.
Base. This was a rustic game, known also as “Prison base” or “Prison bars.” It is mentioned in “Cymbeline” (v. 3) by Posthumus:
“Lads more like to run The country base, than to commit such slaughter.”
And in “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (i. 2) by Lucetta:
“Indeed, I bid the base for Proteus.”[771]
[771] Ibid. vol. i. p. 58.
The success of this pastime depended upon the agility of the candidates, and their skill in running. Early in the reign of Edward III. it is spoken of as a childish amusement, and was prohibited to be played in the avenues of the palace at Westminster during the session of Parliament, because of the interruption it occasioned to the members and others in passing to and fro as their business required. It was also played by men, and especially in Cheshire and other adjoining counties, where it seems to have been in high repute among all classes. Strutt thus describes the game:[772] “The performance of this pastime requires two parties of equal number, each of them having a base or home to themselves, at the distance of about twenty or thirty yards. The players then on either side, taking hold of hands, extend themselves in length, and opposite to each other, as far as they conveniently can, always remembering that one of them must touch the base. When any one of them quits the hand of his fellow and runs into the field, which is called giving the chase, he is immediately followed by one of his opponents. He is again followed by a second from the former side, and he by a second opponent, and so on alternately until as many are out as choose to run, every one pursuing the man he first followed, and no other; and if he overtake him near enough to touch him, his party claims one towards their game, and both return home. They then run forth again and again in like manner until the number is completed that decides the victory. This number is optional, and rarely exceeds twenty.”
[772] “Sports and Pastimes,” 1876, p. 143.
The phrase to “bid the base,” means to run fast, challenging another to pursue. It occurs again in “Venus and Adonis:”
“To bid the wind a base he now prepares.”
In Spenser’s “Fairy Queen” (bk. v. canto 8), we read:
“So ran they all as they had been at base, They being chased that did others chase.”
Bat-fowling. This sport, which is noticed in “The Tempest” (ii. 1) by Sebastian, was common in days gone by. It is minutely described in Markham’s “Hunger’s Prevention” (1600), which is quoted by Dyce.[773] The term “bat-fowling,” however, had another signification, says Mr. Harting,[774] in Shakespeare’s day, and it may have been in this secondary sense that it is used in “The Tempest,” being a slang word for a particular mode of cheating. Bat-fowling was practised about dusk, when the rogue pretended to have dropped a ring or a jewel at the door of some well-furnished shop, and, going in, asked the apprentice of the house to light his candle to look for it. After some peering about the bat-fowler would drop the candle as if by accident. “Now, I pray you, good young man,” he would say, “do so much as light the candle again.” While the boy was away the rogue plundered the shop, and having stolen everything he could find stole himself away.
[773] “Glossary,” pp. 29, 30.
[774] See Harting’s “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” p. 156; Strutt’s “Sports and Pastimes,” 1876, p. 98. A simple mode of bat-fowling, by means of a large clap-net and a lantern, and called bird-batting, is alluded to in Fielding’s “Joseph Andrews” (bk. ii. chap. x.). Drake thinks that it is to a stratagem of this kind Shakespeare alludes when he paints Buckingham exclaiming (“Henry VIII.” i. 1):
“The net has fall’n upon me; I shall perish Under device and practice.”
Billiards. Shakespeare is guilty of an anachronism in “Antony and Cleopatra” (ii. 5), where he makes Cleopatra say: “Let’s to billiards”—the game being unknown to the ancients. The modern manner of playing at billiards differs from that formerly in use. At the commencement of the last century,[775] the billiard-table was square, having only three pockets for the balls to run in, situated on one of the sides—that is, at each corner, and the third between them. About the middle of the table a small arch of iron was placed, and at a little distance from it an upright cone called a king. At certain periods of the game it was necessary for the balls to be driven through the one and round the other, without knocking either of them down, which was not easily effected, because they were not fastened to the table.
[775] Strutt’s “Sports and Pastimes,” 1876, p. 396.
Bone-ace. This old game, popularly called “One-and-Thirty,” is alluded to by Grumio in “Taming of the Shrew” (i. 2): “Well, was it fit for a servant to use his master so; being, perhaps, for aught I see, two-and-thirty—a pip out.”[776] It was very like the French game of “Vingt-un,” only a longer reckoning. Strutt[777] says that “perhaps Bone-ace is the same as the game called Ace of Hearts, prohibited with all lotteries by cards and dice, An. 12 Geor. II., Cap. 38, sect. 2.” It is mentioned in Massinger’s “Fatal Dowry” (ii. 2): “You think, because you served my lady’s mother, [you] are thirty-two years old, which is a pip out, you know.”
[776] A pip is a spot upon a card.
[777] “Sports and Pastimes,” 1876, p. 436.
The phrase “to be two-and-thirty,” a pip out, was an old cant term applied to a person who was intoxicated.
Bo-peep. This nursery amusement, which consisted in peeping from behind something, and crying “Bo!” is referred to by the Fool in “King Lear” (i. 4): “That such a king should play bo-peep.” In Sherwood’s Dictionary it is defined, “Jeu d’enfant; ou (plustost) des nourrices aux petits enfans; se cachans le visage et puis se monstrant.” Minsheu’s derivation of bo-peep, from the noise which chickens make when they come out of the shell, is, says Douce,[778] more whimsical than just.
[778] “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 405.
Bowls. Frequent allusions occur to this game, which seems to have been a popular pastime in olden times. The small ball, now called the jack, at which the players aim, was sometimes termed the “mistress.” In “Troilus and Cressida” (iii. 2), Pandarus says: “So, so; rub[779] on, and kiss the mistress.” A bowl that kisses the jack, or mistress, is in the most advantageous position; hence “to kiss the jack” served to denote a state of great advantage. Thus, in “Cymbeline” (ii. 1), Cloten exclaims, “Was there ever man had such luck! when I kissed the jack, upon an up-cast to be hit away! I had a hundred pound on’t.” There is another allusion to this game, according to Staunton, in “King John” (ii. 1): “on the outward eye of fickle France”—the aperture on one side which contains the bias or weight that inclines the bowl in running from a direct course, being sometimes called the eye.
[779] Rub is still a term at the game, expressive of the movement of the balls. Cf. “King Lear” (ii. 2), and “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iv. 1), where Boyet, speaking of the game, says: “I fear too much rubbing.”
A further reference to this game occurs in the following dialogue in “Richard II.” (iii. 4):
“Queen. What sport shall we devise here in this garden, To drive away the heavy thought of care?
1 Lady. Madam, we’ll play at bowls.
Queen.’Twill make me think the world is full of rubs, And that my fortune runs against the bias”
—the bias, as stated above, being a weight inserted in one side of a bowl, in order to give it a particular inclination in bowling. “To run against the bias,” therefore, became a proverb. Thus, to quote another instance, in the “Taming of the Shrew” (iv. 5) Petruchio says:
“Well, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run, And not unluckily against the bias.”
And in “Troilus and Cressida” (iv. 5), the term “bias-cheek” is used to denote a cheek swelling out like the bias of a bowl.[780]
[780] Halliwell-Phillipps’ “Handbook Index to Shakespeare,” p. 43.
Cards. Some of the old terms connected with card-playing are curious, a few of which are alluded to by Shakespeare. Thus, in “King Lear” (v. 1), Edmund says:
“And hardly shall I carry out my side,”
alluding to the card table, where to carry out a side meant to carry out the game with your partner successfully. So, “to set up a side” was to become partners in the game; “to pull or pluck down a side” was to lose it.[781]
[781] Staunton’s “Shakespeare,” vol. iii. p. 592.
A lurch at cards denoted an easy victory. So, in “Coriolanus” (ii. 2), Cominius says: “he lurch’d all swords of the garland,” meaning, as Malone says, that Coriolanus gained from all other warriors the wreath of victory, with ease, and incontestable superiority.
A pack of cards was formerly termed “a deck of cards,” as in “3 Henry VI.” (v. 1):
“The king was slily finger’d from the deck.”
Again, “to vie” was also a term at cards, and meant particularly to increase the stakes, and generally to challenge any one to a contention, bet, wager, etc. So, Cleopatra (v. 2), says:
“nature wants stuff To vie strange forms with fancy.”
Cherry-pit. This consisted in throwing cherry stones into a little hole—a game, says Nares, still practised with dumps or money.[782] In “Twelfth Night” (iii. 4), Sir Toby alludes to it: “What, man! ’tis not for gravity to play at cherry-pit with Satan.” Nash, in his “Pierce Pennilesse,” speaking of the disfigurement of ladies’ faces by painting, says: “You may play at cherry-pit in the dint of their cheeks.”
[782] See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” vol. ii. p. 409.
Chess. As might be expected, several allusions occur in Shakespeare’s plays to this popular game. In “The Tempest” (v. 1), Ferdinand and Miranda are represented playing at it; and in “King John” (ii. 1), Elinor says:
“That thou mayst be a queen, and check the world!”
In the “Taming of the Shrew” (i. 1), Katharina asks:
“I pray you, sir, is it your will To make a stale[783] of me amongst these mates?”
alluding, as Douce[784] suggests, to the chess term of stale-mate, which is used when the game is ended by the king being alone and unchecked, and then forced into a situation from which he is unable to move without going into check. This is a dishonorable termination to the adversary, who thereby loses the game. Thus, in Bacon’s Twelfth Essay: “They stand still like a stale at chess, where it is no mate, but yet the game cannot stir.”
[783] She means, “Do you intend to make a mockery of me among these companions?”
[784] “Illustrations of Shakspeare,” p. 20.
Dice. Among the notices of this game, may be quoted that in “Henry V.” (iv. prologue):
“The confident and over-lusty French Do the low-rated English play at dice.”
Edgar, in “King Lear” (iii. 4), says: “Wine loved I deeply, dice dearly.” Pistol, in “Merry Wives of Windsor” (i. 3), gives a double allusion:
“Let vultures gripe thy guts!—for gourd and fullam holds, And high and low beguiles the rich and poor.”
“Gourds” were false dice, with a secret cavity scooped out like a gourd. “Fullams” were also false dice, “loaded with metal on one side, so as better to produce high throws, or to turn up low numbers, as was required, and were hence named ‘high men’ or ‘low men,’ also ‘high fullams’ and ‘low fullams.’”[785] It has been suggested that dice were termed fullams either because Fulham was the resort of sharpers, or because they were principally manufactured there.
[785] Gifford’s note on Jonson’s Works, vol. ii. p. 3.
Dun is in the mire. This is a Christmas sport, which Gifford[786] describes as follows: “A log of wood is brought into the midst of the room: this is Dun (the cart-horse), and a cry is raised that he is stuck in the mire. Two of the company advance, either with or without ropes, to draw him out. After repeated attempts, they find themselves unable to do it, and call for more assistance. The game continues till all the company take part in it, when Dun is extricated. Much merriment is occasioned from the awkward efforts of the rustics to lift the log, and from sundry arch contrivances to let the ends of it fall on one another’s toes.” Thus, in “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 4), Mercutio says:
“If thou art dun, we’ll draw thee from the mire.”
[786] Ibid., vol. vii. p. 283.
Beaumont and Fletcher, also, in the “Woman Hater” (iv. 3), allude to this game:
“Dun’s in the mire, get out again how he can.”
Fast and Loose. This was a cheating game, much practised in Shakespeare’s day, whereby gypsies and other vagrants beguiled the common people of their money: and hence was very often to be seen at fairs. Its other name was “pricking at the belt or girdle;” and it is thus described by Sir J. Hawkins: “A leathern belt was made up into a number of intricate folds, and placed edgewise upon a table. One of the folds was made to resemble the middle of the girdle, so that whoever could thrust a skewer into it would think he held it fast to the table; whereas, when he has so done, the person with whom he plays may take hold of both ends, and draw it away.” In “Antony and Cleopatra” (iv. 12), Antony says:
“Like a right gypsy, hath, at fast and loose, Beguil’d me to the very heart of loss.”
The drift of this game seems to have been to encourage wagers whether the belt was fast or loose, which the juggler could easily make it at his option. It is constantly alluded to by old writers, and is thus described in Drayton’s “Moon-calf:”
“He like a gypsy oftentimes would go, All kinds of gibberish he hath learn’d to know, And with a stick, a short string, and a noose, Would show the people tricks at fast and loose.”
Fencing. In years gone by, there were three degrees in fencing, a master’s, a provost’s, and a scholar’s.[787] To each of these a prize was played, with various weapons, in some open place or square. In “Titus Andronicus” (i. 1), this practice is alluded to by Saturninus:
“So, Bassianus, you have play’d your prize.”
[787] See Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 35.
In the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (i. 1), Slender says: “I bruised my shin th’ other day with playing at sword and dagger with a master of fence,” i. e., with one who had taken his master’s degree in the science.
Among the numerous allusions to fencing quoted by Shakespeare may be mentioned the following: “Venue or veney” was a fencing term, meaning an attack or hit. It is used in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (i. 1), by Slender, who relates how he bruised his shin “with playing at sword and dagger with a master of fence; three veneys for a dish of stewed prunes.” It is used metaphorically in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 1), for a brisk attack, by Armado: “A sweet touch, a quick venue of wit! snip, snap, quick and home!”[788] The Italian term “Stoccado” or “Stoccata,” abbreviated also into “Stock,” seems to have had a similar signification. In “Romeo and Juliet” (iii. 1), Mercutio, drawing his sword, says:
“Alla stoccata carries it away.”
[788] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 919.
In the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (ii. 1), it is used by Shallow: “In these times you stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and I know not what.” Again, “Montant,” an abbreviation of Montanto, denoted an upright blow or thrust, and occurs also in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (ii. 3), where the Host tells Caius that he, with the others, has come —“to see thee pass thy punto, thy stock, thy reverse, thy distance, thy montant.” Hence, in “Much Ado About Nothing” (i. 1), Beatrice jocularly calls Benedick “Signior Montanto,” meaning to imply that he was a great fencer. Of the other old fencing terms quoted in the passage above, it appears that “passado” implied a pass or motion forwards. It occurs in “Romeo and Juliet” (ii. 4), where Mercutio speaks of the “immortal passado! the punto reverso!” Again, in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (i. 2), Armado says of Cupid that “The passado he respects not, the duello he regards not.” The “punto reverso” was a backhanded thrust or stroke, and the term “distance” was the space between the antagonists.
Shakespeare has also alluded to other fencing terms, such as the “foin,” a thrust, which is used by the Host in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (iii. 2), and in “Much Ado About Nothing” (v. 1), where Antonio says, in his heated conversation with Leonato:
“Sir boy, I’ll whip you from your foining fence; Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will.”
The term “traverse” denoted a posture of opposition, and is used by the Host in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (ii. 3). A “bout,” too, is another fencing term, to which the King refers in “Hamlet” (iv. 7):
“When in your motion you are hot and dry— As make your bouts more violent to that end.”
Filliping the Toad. This is a common and cruel diversion of boys. They lay a board, two or three feet long, at right angles over a transverse piece two or three inches thick, then, placing the toad at one end of the board, the other end is struck by a bat or large stick, which throws the poor toad forty or fifty feet perpendicularly from the earth; and the fall generally kills it. In “2 Henry IV.” (i. 2), Falstaff says: “If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle.”[789]
[789] A three-man beetle is a heavy implement, with three handles, used in driving piles, etc., which required three men to lift it.
Flap-dragon.[790] This pastime was much in use in days gone by. A small combustible body was set on fire, and put afloat in a glass of liquor. The courage of the toper was tried in the attempt to toss off the glass in such a manner as to prevent the flap-dragon doing mischief—raisins in hot brandy being the usual flap-dragons. Shakespeare several times mentions this custom, as in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 1) where Costard says: “Thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.” And in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4), he makes Falstaff say: “and drinks off candles’ ends for flap-dragons.”[791]
[790] A correspondent of “Notes and Queries,” 2d series, vol. vii. p. 277, suggests as a derivation the German schnapps, spirit, and drache, dragon, and that it is equivalent to spirit-fire.
[791] Cf. “Winter’s Tale” (iii. 3): “But to make an end of the ship,—to see how the sea flap-dragoned it.”
It appears that formerly gallants used to vie with each other in drinking off flap-dragons to the health of their mistresses—which were sometimes even candles’ ends, swimming in brandy or other strong spirits, whence, when on fire, they were snatched by the mouth and swallowed;[792] an allusion to which occurs in the passage above. As candles’ ends made the most formidable flap-dragon, the greatest merit was ascribed to the heroism of swallowing them. Ben Jonson, in “The Masque of the Moon” (1838, p. 616, ed. Gifford), says: “But none that will hang themselves for love, or eat candles’ ends, etc., as the sublunary lovers do.”
[792] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 131.
Football. An allusion to this once highly popular game occurs in “Comedy of Errors” (ii. 1). Dromio of Ephesus asks:
“Am I so round with you as you with me, That like a football you do spurn me thus?
* * * * *
If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.”
In “King Lear” (i. 4), Kent calls Oswald “a base football player.”
According to Strutt,[793] it does not appear among the popular exercises before the reign of Edward III.; and then, in 1349, it was prohibited by a public edict because it impeded the progress of archery. The danger, however, attending this pastime occasioned James I. to say: “From this Court I debarre all rough and violent exercises, as the football, meeter for laming than making able the users thereof.”
[793] “Sports and Pastimes,” pp. 168, 169.
Occasionally the rustic boys made use of a blown bladder, without the covering of leather, by way of a football, putting beans and horse-beans inside, which made a rattling noise as it was kicked about. Barclay, in his “Ship of Fools” (1508) thus graphically describes it:
“Howe in the winter, when men kill the fat swine, They get the bladder and blow it great and thin, With many beans or peason put within: It ratleth, soundeth, and shineth clere and fayre, While it is thrown and caste up in the ayre, Eche one contendeth and hath a great delite With foote and with hande the bladder for to smite; If it fall to grounde, they lifte it up agayne, This wise to labour they count it for no payne.”
Shrovetide was the great season for football matches;[794] and at a comparatively recent period it was played in Derby, Nottingham, Kingston-upon-Thames, etc.
[794] See “British Popular Customs,” 1876, pp. 78, 83, 87, 401.
Gleek. According to Drake,[795] this game is alluded to twice by Shakespeare—in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iii. 1):
“Nay, I can gleek upon occasion.”
[795] “Shakespeare and his Times,” vol. ii. p. 170; see Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakspeare,” pp. 118, 435.
And in “Romeo and Juliet” (iv. 5):
“1 Musician. What will you give us?
Peter. No money, on my faith, but the gleek.”
Douce, however, considers that the word gleek was simply used to express a stronger sort of joke, a scoffing; and that the phrase “to give the gleek” merely denoted to pass a jest upon, or to make a person appear ridiculous.
Handy-dandy. A very old game among children. A child hides something in his hand, and makes his playfellow guess in which hand it is. If the latter guess rightly, he wins the article, if wrongly, he loses an equivalent.[796] Sometimes, says Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, “the game is played by a sort of sleight-of-hand, changing the article rapidly from one hand into the other, so that the looker-on is often deceived, and induced to name the hand into which it is apparently thrown.” This is what Shakespeare alludes to by “change places” in “King Lear” (iv. 6): “see how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?”[797]
[796] Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 199.
[797] See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. p. 420.
Hide-fox and all after. A children’s game, considered by many to be identical with hide-and-seek. It is mentioned by Hamlet (iv. 2). Some commentators think that the term “kid-fox,” in “Much Ado About Nothing” (ii. 3), may have been a technical term in the game of “hide-fox.” Some editions have printed it “hid-fox.” Claudio says:
“O, very well, my lord: the music ended, We’ll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth.”
Hoodman-blind. The childish sport now called blindman’s buff was known by various names, such as hood-wink, blind-hob, etc. It was termed “hoodman-blind,” because the players formerly were blinded with their hoods,[798] and under this designation it is mentioned by Hamlet (iii. 4):
“What devil was’t That thus hath cozen’d you at hoodman-blind?”
[798] See Strutt’s “Sports and Pastimes,” pp. 499, 500; Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. pp. 397, 398.
In Scotland this game was called “belly-blind;” and Gay, in his “Shepherd’s Week” (i. 96), says, concerning it:
“As once I play’d at blindman’s buff, it hapt About my eyes the towel thick was wrapt, I miss’d the swains, and seiz’d on Blouzelind. True speaks that ancient proverb, ‘Love is blind.’”
The term “hoodman” occurs in “All’s Well that Ends Well” (iv. 3). The First Lord says: “Hoodman comes!” and no doubt there is an allusion to the game in the same play (iii. 6), “we will bind and hoodwink him;” and in “Macbeth” (iv. 3) Macduff says: “the time you may so hoodwink.” There may also have been a reference to falconry—the hawks being hooded in the intervals of sport. Thus, in Latham’s “Falconry” (1615), “to hood” is the term used for the blinding, “to unhood” for the unblinding.
Horse-racing. That this diversion was in Shakespeare’s day occasionally practised in the spirit of the modern turf is evident from “Cymbeline” (iii. 2):
“I have heard of riding wagers, Where horses have been nimbler than the sands That run i’ the clock’s behalf.”
Burton,[799] too, who wrote at the close of the Shakespearian era, mentions the ruinous consequences of this recreation: “Horse races are desports of great men, and good in themselves, though many gentlemen by such means gallop quite out of their fortunes.”
[799] “Anatomy of Melancholy;” Drake’s “Shakespeare and His Times,” vol. ii. p. 298.
Leap-frog. One boy stoops down with his hands upon his knees, and others leap over him, every one of them running forward and stooping in his turn. It is mentioned by Shakespeare in “Henry V.” (v. 2), where he makes the king say, “If I could win a lady at leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle with my armour on my back, ... I should quickly leap into a wife.” Ben Jonson, in his comedy of “Bartholomew Fair,” speaks of “a leappe frogge chance note.”
Laugh-and-lie-down (more properly laugh-and-lay-down) was a game at cards, to which there is an allusion in the “Two Noble Kinsmen” (ii. 1):
“Emilia. I could laugh now.
Waiting-woman. I could lie down, I’m sure.”
Loggat. The game so called resembles bowls, but with notable differences.[800] First, it is played, not on a green, but on a floor strewed with ashes. The jack is a wheel of lignum vitæ, or other hard wood, nine inches in diameter, and three or four inches thick. The loggat, made of apple-wood, is a truncated cone, twenty-six or twenty-seven inches in length, tapering from a girth of eight and a half to nine inches at one end to three and a half or four inches at the other. Each player has three loggats, which he throws, holding lightly the thin end. The object is to lie as near the jack as possible. Hamlet speaks of this game (v. 1): “Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with ’em?” comparing, perhaps, the skull to the jack at which the bones were thrown. In Ben Jonson’s “Tale of a Tub” (iv. 5) we read:
“Now are they tossing of his legs and arms, Like loggats at a pear-tree.”
[800] Clark and Wright’s “Notes to Hamlet,” 1876, pp. 212, 213.
Sir Thomas Hanmer makes the game the same as nine-pins or skittles. He says: “It is one of the unlawful games enumerated in the Thirty-third statute of Henry VIII.;[801] it is the same which is now called kittle-pins, in which the boys often make use of bones instead of wooden pins, throwing at them with another bone instead of bowling.”
[801] See Strutt’s “Sports and Pastimes,” p. 365; Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 522.
Marbles. It has been suggested that there is an allusion to this pastime in “Measure for Measure” (i. 3):
“Believe not that the dribbling dart of love Can pierce a complete bosom.”
—dribbling being a term used in the game of marbles for shooting slowly along the ground, in contradistinction to plumping, which is elevating the hand so that the marble does not touch the ground till it reaches the object of its aim.[802] According to others, a dribbler was a term in archery expressive of contempt.[803]
[802] Baker’s “Northamptonshire Glossary,” 1854, vol. i. p. 198.
[803] See Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 134.
Muss. This was a phrase for a scramble, when any small objects were thrown down, to be taken by those who could seize them. In “Antony and Cleopatra” (iii. 13), Antony says:
“Like boys unto a muss, kings would start forth.”
The word is used by Dryden, in the Prologue to the “Widow Ranter:”
“Bauble and cap no sooner are thrown down But there’s a muss of more than half the town.”
Nine-Men’s-Morris. This rustic game, which is still extant in some parts of England, was sometimes called “the nine men’s merrils,” from merelles, or mereaux, an ancient French word for the jettons or counters with which it was played.[804] The other term, morris, is probably a corruption suggested by the sort of dance which, in the progress of the game, the counters performed. Some consider[805] that it was identical with the game known as “Nine-holes,”[806] mentioned by Herrick in his “Hesperides:”
“Raspe playes at nine-holes, and ’tis known he gets Many a tester by his game, and bets.”
[804] Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 144.
[805] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 605.
[806] See Strutt’s “Sports and Pastimes,” 1876, pp. 368, 369.
Cotgrave speaks of “Le jeu des merelles,” the boyish game called “merills,” or “five pennie morris,” played here most commonly with stones, but in France with pawns or men made on purpose, and termed “merelles.” It was also called “peg morris,” as is evidenced by Clare, who, in his “Rural Muse,” speaking of the shepherd boy, says:
“Oft we may track his haunts, where he hath been To spend the leisure which his toils bestow, By nine-peg morris nicked upon the green.”
The game is fully described by James, in the “Variorum Shakespeare,” as follows: “In that part of Warwickshire where Shakespeare was educated, and the neighbouring parts of Northamptonshire, the shepherds and other boys dig up the turf with their knives to represent a sort of imperfect chessboard. It consists of a square, sometimes only a foot diameter, sometimes three or four yards. Within this is another square, every side of which is parallel to the external square; and these squares are joined by lines drawn from each corner of both squares, and the middle of each line. One party or player has wooden pegs, the other stones, which they move in such a manner as to take up each other’s men, as they are called, and the area of the inner square is called the pound, in which the men taken up are impounded. These figures are, by the country people, called nine-men’s-morris, or merrils; and are so called because each party has nine men. These figures are always cut upon the green turf or leys, as they are called, or upon the grass at the end of ploughed lands, and in rainy seasons never fail to be choked up with mud.” This verifies the allusion made by Shakespeare in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1):
“The nine men’s morris is fill’d up with mud; And the quaint mazes in the wanton green, For lack of tread are undistinguishable.”
This game was also transferred to a board, and continues a fireside recreation of the agricultural laborer. It is often called by the name of “Mill,” or “Shepherd’s Mill.”[807]
[807] See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. pp. 429, 432.
Noddy. Some doubt exists as to what game at cards was signified by this term. It has been suggested that cribbage is meant. Mr. Singer thinks it bore some resemblance to the more recent game of “Beat the Knave out of Doors,” which is mentioned together with “Ruff and new coat” in Heywood’s play of “A Woman Killed with Kindness.” The game is probably alluded to in “Troilus and Cressida” (i. 2), in the following dialogue:
“Pandarus. When comes Troilus?—I’ll show you Troilus anon: if he see me, you shall see him nod at me.
Cressida. Will he give you the nod?
Pandarus. You shall see.
Cressida. If he do, the rich shall have more.”[808]
[808] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 606.
The term “noddy” was also applied to a fool, because, says Minsheu, he nods when he should speak. In this sense it occurs in “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (i. 1):
“Speed. You mistook, sir: I say, she did nod; and you ask me, if she did nod; and I say, ‘Ay.’
Proteus. And that set together is noddy.”
Novem Quinque. A game of dice, so called from its principal throws being five and nine. It is alluded to in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2) by Biron, who speaks of it simply as “novem.”
Parish-top. Formerly a top was kept for public exercise in a parish—a custom to which the old writers often refer. Thus, in “Twelfth Night” (i. 3), Sir Toby Belch says: “He’s a coward, and a coystril, that will not drink to my niece till his brains turn o’ the toe like a parish-top.” On which passage Mr. Steevens says: “A large top was kept in every village, to be whipped in frosty weather, that the peasants might be kept warm by exercise, and out of mischief while they could not work.” Beaumont and Fletcher, in “Thierry and Theodoret” (ii. 3), speak of the practice:
“I’ll hazard My life upon it, that a body of twelve Should scourge him hither like a parish top, And make him dance before you.”
And in their “Night Walker” (i. 3) they mention the “town-top.” Evelyn, enumerating the uses of willow-wood, speaks of “great town-topps.” Mr. Knight[809] remarks that the custom which existed in the time of Elizabeth, and probably long before, of a large top being provided for the amusement of the peasants in frosty weather, presents a curious illustration of the mitigating influences of social kindness in an age of penal legislation.
[809] “Pictorial Shakespeare,” vol. ii. p. 145.
Primero. In Shakespeare’s time this was a very fashionable game at cards, and hence is frequently alluded to by him. It was known under the various designations of Primero, Prime, and Primavista; and, according to Strutt,[810] has been reckoned among the most ancient games of cards known to have been played in England. Shakespeare speaks of Henry VIII. (v. 1) playing at primero with the Duke of Suffolk, and makes Falstaff exclaim, in “Merry Wives of Windsor” (iv. 5), “I never prospered since I forswore myself at primero.” That it was the court game is shown in a very curious picture described by Mr. Barrington, in the “Archæologia” (vol. viii. p. 132), which represents Lord Burleigh playing at this pastime with three other noblemen. Primero continued to be the most fashionable game throughout the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, Elizabeth, and James I.[811] In the Earl of Northumberland’s letters about the Gunpowder-plot we find that Josceline Percy was playing at primero on Sunday, when his uncle, the conspirator, called on him at Essex House; and in the Sydney Papers there is an account of a quarrel between Lord Southampton and one Ambrose Willoughby, on account of the former persisting to play at primero in the presence-chamber after the queen had retired to rest. The manner of playing was thus: Each player had four cards dealt to him one by one; the seven was the highest card in point of number that he could avail himself of, which counted for twenty-one; the six counted for sixteen, the five for fifteen, and the ace for the same; but the two, the three, and the four for their respective points only.
[810] “Sports and Pastimes.”
[811] Smith’s “Festivals, Games, and Amusements,” 1831, p. 320.
There may be further allusions to this game in “Taming of the Shrew” (ii. 1), where Tranio says:
“A vengeance on your crafty, wither’d hide! Yet I have faced it with a card of ten”
—the phrase “to face it with a card of ten” being derived, as some suggest, possibly from primero, wherein the standing boldly on a ten was often successful. “To face” meant, as it still does, to attack by impudence of face. In “1 Henry VI.” (v. 3) Suffolk speaks of a “cooling card,” which Nares considers is borrowed from primero—a card so decisive as to cool the courage of the adversary. Gifford objects to this explanation, and says a “cooling-card” is, literally, a bolus. There can be no doubt, however, that, metaphorically, the term was used to denote something which damped or overwhelmed the hopes of an expectant. Thus, in Fletcher’s “Island Princess” (i. 3), Piniero says:
“These hot youths I fear will find a cooling-card.”
Push-pin was a foolish sport, consisting in nothing more than pushing one pin across another. Biron, in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iv. 3), speaks of Nestor playing “at push-pin with the boys.”
Quintain. This was a figure set up for tilters to run at, in mock resemblance of a tournament, and is alluded to in “As You Like It” (i. 2) by Orlando, who says:
“My better parts Are all thrown down, and that which here stands up Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block.”
It cannot be better or more minutely described than in the words of Mr. Strutt:[812] “Tilting or combating at the quintain is a military exercise of high antiquity, and antecedent, I doubt not, to the jousts and tournaments. The quintain originally was nothing more than the trunk of a tree or post set up for the practice of the tyros in chivalry. Afterwards a staff or spear was fixed in the earth, and a shield being hung upon it, was the mark to strike at. The dexterity of the performer consisted in smiting the shield in such a manner as to break the ligatures and bear it to the ground. In process of time this diversion was improved, and instead of a staff and the shield, the resemblance of a human figure carved in wood was introduced. To render the appearance of this figure more formidable, it was generally made in the likeness of a Turk or a Saracen, armed at all points, bearing a shield upon his left arm, and brandishing a club or a sabre with his right. The quintain thus fashioned was placed upon a pivot, and so contrived as to move round with facility. In running at this figure, it was necessary for the horseman to direct his lance with great adroitness, and make his stroke upon the forehead between the eyes, or upon the nose; for if he struck wide of those parts, especially upon the shield, the quintain turned about with much velocity, and, in case he was not exceedingly careful, would give him a severe blow upon the back with the wooden sabre held in the right hand, which was considered as highly disgraceful to the performer, while it excited the laughter and ridicule of the spectators.”[813] In Ben Jonson’s “Underwoods” it is thus humorously mentioned:
“Go, Captain Stub, lead on, and show What horse you come on, by the blow You give Sir Quintain, and the cuff You ’scape o’ the sandbags counterbuff.”
[812] “Sports and Pastimes,” 1876, p. 182.
[813] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 713.
Quoits. This game derived its origin, according to Strutt,[814] from the ancient discus, and with us, at the present day, it is a circular plate of iron perforated in the middle, not always of one size, but larger or smaller, to suit the strength or conveniency of the several candidates. It is referred to in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4), by Falstaff, who assigns as one of the reasons why Prince Henry loves Poins: “Because their legs are both of a bigness, and ’a plays at quoits well.”
[814] “Sports and Pastimes,” p. 141.
Formerly, in the country, the rustics, not having the round perforated quoits to play with, used horse-shoes; and in many places the quoit itself, to this day, is called a shoe.
Running for the ring. This, according to Staunton, was the name of a sport, a ring having been one of the prizes formerly given in wrestling and running matches. Thus, in the “Taming of the Shrew” (i. 1), Hortensio says: “He that runs fastest gets the ring.”
Running the figure of eight. Steevens says that this game is alluded to by Shakespeare in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1), where Titania speaks of the “quaint mazes in the wanton green.” Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, in referring to this passage, says: “Several mazes of the kind here alluded to are still preserved, having been kept up from time immemorial. On the top of Catherine Hill, Winchester, the usual play-place of the school, was a very perplexed and winding path, running in a very small space over a great deal of ground, called a “miz-maze.” The senior boys obliged the juniors to tread it, to prevent the figure from being lost, and I believe it is still retained.”[815]
[815] See Milner’s “History of Winchester,” vol. ii. p. 155.
See-Saw. Another name for this childish sport is that given by Falstaff in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4), where he calls it “riding the wild mare.” Gay thus describes this well-known game:
“Across the fallen oak the plank I laid, And myself pois’d against the tott’ring maid; High leap’d the plank, adown Buxonia fell.”
Shove-Groat. The object of this game was to shake or push pieces of money on a board to reach certain marks. It is alluded to in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4), where Falstaff says: “Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling;” or, in other words, Bardolph was to quoit Pistol down-stairs as quickly as the smooth shilling—the shove-groat—flies along the board. In a statute of 33 Henry VIII., shove-groat is called a new game, and was probably originally played with the silver groat. The broad shilling of Edward VI. came afterwards to be used in this game, which was, no doubt, the same as shovel-board, with the exception that the latter was on a larger scale. Master Slender, in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (i. 1), had his pocket picked of “two Edward shovel-boards, that cost me two shilling and two pence a-piece.” Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, in describing the game in his “Archaic Dictionary,” says that “a shilling or other smooth coin was placed on the extreme edge of the shovel-board, and propelled towards a mark by a smart stroke with the palm of the hand.” It is mentioned under various names, according to the coin employed, as shove-groat,[816] etc. The game of shove-halfpenny is mentioned in the Times of April 25, 1845, as then played by the lower orders. According to Strutt, it “was analogous to the modern pastime called Justice Jervis, or Jarvis, which is confined to common pot-houses.”
[816] According to Douce, “Illustrations of Shakespeare” (1839, p. 280), it was known as “slide-groat,” “slide-board,” “slide-thrift,” and “slip-thrift.” See Strutt’s “Sports and Pastimes,” 1876, pp. 16, 394, 398; Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 791; Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. p. 441.
Snowballs. These are alluded to in “Pericles” (iv. 6), and in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (iii. 5).
Span-counter. In this boyish game one throws a counter, or piece of money, which the other wins, if he can throw another so as to hit it, or lie within a span of it. In “2 Henry VI.” (iv. 2), Cade says: “Tell the king from me, that, for his father’s sake, Henry the Fifth, in whose time boys went to span-counter for French crowns, I am content he shall reign.” It is called in France “tapper;” and in Swift’s time was played with farthings, as he calls it “span-farthing.”[817]
[817] See Strutt’s “Sports and Pastimes,” 1876, p. 491.
Stool-ball. This game, alluded to in the “Two Noble Kinsmen” (v. 2), was formerly popular among young women, and occasionally was played by persons of both sexes indiscriminately, as the following lines, from a song written by Durfey for his play of “Don Quixote,” acted at Dorset Gardens, in 1694, show:[818]
“Down in a vale on a summer’s day, All the lads and lasses met to be merry; A match for kisses at stool-ball to play, And for cakes, and ale, and sider, and perry.
Chorus—Come all, great, small, short, tall, away to stool-ball.”
[818] Quoted by Strutt, “Sports and Pastimes,” p. 166.
Strutt informs us that this game, as played in the north, “consists in simply setting a stool upon the ground, and one of the players takes his place before it, while his antagonist, standing at a distance, tosses a ball with the intention of striking the stool; and this is the business of the former to prevent by beating it away with the hand, reckoning one to the game for every stroke of the ball; if, on the contrary, it should be missed by the hand and touch the stool, the players change places. The conqueror is he who strikes the ball most times before it touches the stool.”
Tennis. According to a story told by the old annalists, one of the most interesting historical events in connection with this game happened when Henry V. was meditating war against France. “The Dolphin,” says Hall in his “Chronicle,” “thynkyng King Henry to be given still to such plaies and lyght folies as he exercised and used before the tyme that he was exalted to the Croune, sent to hym a tunne of tennis balles to plaie with, as who saied that he had better skill of tennis than of warre.” On the foundation of this incident, as told by Holinshed, Shakespeare has constructed his fine scene of the French Ambassadors’ audience in “Henry V.” (i. 2). As soon as the first Ambassador has given the Dauphin’s message and insulting gift, the English king speaks thus:
“We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us; His present and your pains we thank you for: When we have match’d our rackets to these balls, We will, in France, by God’s grace, play a set Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard. Tell him, he hath made a match with such a wrangler That all the courts of France will be disturb’d With chases.”
In “Hamlet” (ii. 1), Polonius speaks of this pastime, and alludes to “falling out at tennis.” In the sixteenth century tennis-courts were common in England, and the establishment of such places was countenanced by the example of royalty. It is evident that Henry VII. was a tennis-player. In a MS. register of his expenditures, made in the thirteenth year of his reign, this entry occurs: “Item, for the king’s loss at tennis, twelvepence; for the loss of balls, threepence.” Stow, in his “Survey of London,” tells us that among the additions that King Henry VIII. made to Whitehall, were “divers fair tennis-courts, bowling-allies, and a cock-pit.” Charles II. frequently diverted himself with playing at tennis, and had a particular kind of dress made for that purpose. Pericles, when he is shipwrecked and cast upon the coast of Pentapolis, addresses himself and the three fishermen whom he chances to meet thus (“Pericles,” ii. 1):
“A man whom both the waters and the wind, In that vast tennis-court, have made the ball For them to play upon, entreats you pity him.”
In “Much Ado About Nothing” (iii. 2), Claudio, referring to Benedick, says: “the old ornament of his cheek hath already stuffed tennis-balls;”[819] and in “Henry V.” (iii. 7), the Dauphin says his horse “bounds from the earth as if his entrails were hairs.” Again, “bandy” was originally a term at tennis, to which Juliet refers in “Romeo and Juliet” (ii. 5), when speaking of her Nurse:
“Had she affections, and warm youthful blood, She’d be as swift in motion as a ball; My words would bandy her to my sweet love, And his to me.”
[819] In “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2), the Princess speaks of “a set of wit well play’d;” upon which Mr. Singer (“Shakespeare,” vol. ii. p. 263) adds that “a set is a term at tennis for a game.”
Also, King Lear (i. 4) says to Oswald: “Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?”
Tick-tack. This was a sort of backgammon, and is alluded to by Lucio in “Measure for Measure” (i. 2) who, referring to Claudio’s unpleasant predicament, says: “I would be sorry should be thus foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack.” In Weaver’s “Lusty Juventus,” Hipocrisye, seeing Lusty Juventus kiss Abhominable Lyuing, says:
“What a hurly burly is here! Smicke smacke, and all thys gere! You well [will] to tycke take, I fere, If thou had tyme.”[820]
[820] Quoted by Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 449; see Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. p. 445.
“Jouer au tric-trac” is used, too, in France in a wanton sense.
Tray-trip. This was probably a game at cards, played with dice as well as with cards, the success in which chiefly depended upon the throwing of treys. Thus, in a satire called “Machivell’s Dog” (1617):
“But, leaving cardes, lets go to dice a while, To passage, treitrippe, hazarde, or mumchance.”
In “Twelfth Night” (ii. 5). Sir Toby Belch asks: “Shall I play my freedom at tray-trip, and become thy bond-slave?” It may be remembered, too, that in “The Scornful Lady” of Beaumont and Fletcher (ii. 1), the Chaplain complains that the Butler had broken his head, and being asked the reason, says, for
“Reproving him at tra-trip, sir, for swearing.”
Some are of opinion that it resembled the game of hopscotch, or Scotch-hop; but this, says Nares,[821] “seems to rest merely upon unauthorized conjecture.”
[821] “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 896.
Troll-my-dame. The game of Troll-madam, still familiar as Bagatelle, was borrowed from the French (Trou-madame). One of its names was Pigeon-holes, because played on a board, at one end of which were a number of arches, like pigeon-holes, into which small balls had to be bowled. In “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 2), it is mentioned by Autolycus, who, in answer to the Clown, says that the manner of fellow that robbed him was one that he had “known to go about with troll-my-dames.” Cotgrave declares it as “the game called Trunkes, or the Hole.”
Trump. This was probably the triumfo of the Italians, and the triomphe of the French—being perhaps of equal antiquity in England with primero. At the latter end of the sixteenth century it was very common among the inferior classes. There is, no doubt, a particular allusion to this game in “Antony and Cleopatra” (iv. 14), where Antony says:
“the queen— Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine; Which, whilst it was mine, had annex’d unto’t A million more, now lost—she, Eros, has Pack’d cards with Cæsar, and false-play’d my glory Unto an enemy’s triumph.”
The poet meant to say, that Cleopatra, by collusion, played the great game they were engaged in falsely, so as to sacrifice Antony’s fame to that of his enemy. There is an equivoque between trump and triumph. The game in question bore a very strong resemblance to our modern whist—the only points of dissimilarity being that more or less than four persons might play at trump; that all the cards were not dealt out; and that the dealer had the privilege of discarding some, and taking others in from the stock. In Eliot’s “Fruits for the French,” 1593, it is called “a very common ale-house game in England.”
Wrestling. Of the many allusions that are given by Shakespeare to this pastime, we may quote the phrase “to catch on the hip,” made use of by Shylock in the “Merchant of Venice” (i. 3), who, speaking of Antonio, says,
“If I can catch him once upon the hip, I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him”
—the meaning being, “to have at an entire advantage.”[822] The expression occurs again in “Othello” (ii. 1), where Iago says:
“I’ll have our Michael Cassio on the hip.”
[822] Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 208.
Nares,[823] however, considers the phrase was derived from hunting; because, “when the animal pursued is seized upon the hip, it is finally disabled from flight.”
[823] “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 421.
In “As You Like It” (ii. 3), where Adam speaks of the “bonny priser of the humorous duke,” Singer considers that a priser was the phrase for a wrestler, a prise being a term in that sport for a grappling or hold taken.
XVII. DANCES
We are indebted to Shakespeare for having bequeathed to us many interesting allusions to some of the old dances in use in his day, but which have long ago passed into oblivion. As will be seen, these were of a very diverse character, but, as has been remarked, were well suited to the merry doings of our forefathers; and although in some cases they justly merited censure for their extravagant nature, yet the greater part of these sources of diversion were harmless. Indeed, no more pleasing picture can be imagined than that of a rustic sheep-shearing gathering in the olden times, when, the work over, the peasantry joined together in some simple dance, each one vieing with his neighbor to perform his part with as much grace as possible.
Antic. This was a grotesque dance. In “Macbeth” (iv. 1), the witch, perceiving how Macbeth is affected by the horrible apparitions which he has seen, says to her sisters:
“Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprites, And show the best of our delights. I’ll charm the air to give a sound, While you perform your antic round.”
To quote another instance, Armado, in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 1), says:
“We will have, if this fadge not, an antique.”
Bergomask Dance. According to Sir Thomas Hanmer, this was a dance after the manner of the peasants of Bergomasco, a county in Italy belonging to the Venetians. All the buffoons in Italy affected to imitate the ridiculous jargon of that people, and from thence it became customary to mimic also their manner of dancing. In “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (v. 1), Bottom asks Theseus whether he would like “to hear a Bergomask dance,” between two of their company.
Brawl. This was a kind of dance. It appears that several persons united hands in a circle, and gave one another continual shakes, the steps changing with the tune. With this dance balls were usually opened.[824] Kissing was occasionally introduced. In “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iii. 1), Moth asks his master: “Will you win your love with a French brawl.”
[824] Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 134.
Canary. This was the name of a sprightly dance, the music to which consisted of two strains with eight bars in each; an allusion to which is made by Moth in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iii. 1), who speaks of jigging off a tune at the tongue’s end, and canarying to it with the feet. And in “All’s Well that End’s Well” (ii. 1), Lafeu tells the king that he has seen a medicine
“that’s able to breathe life into a stone, Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary With spritely fire and motion.”
This dance is said to have originated in the Canary Islands, an opinion, however, which has, says Dyce, been disputed.[825]
[825] See Chappell’s “Popular Music of the Olden Time,” 2d edition, vol. i. p. 368; Dyce’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 63.
Cinque-pace. This was so named from its steps being regulated by the number five:
“Five was the number of the music’s feet, Which still the dance did with five paces meet.”[826]
[826] Quoted by Nares from Sir John Davies on “Dancing.” Mr. Dyce, “Glossary,” p. 81, says that Nares wrongly confounded this with the “gallard.”
In “Much Ado About Nothing” (ii. 1), Shakespeare makes Beatrice make a quibble upon the term; for after comparing wooing, wedding, and repenting to a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace, she says: “then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.” A further reference occurs in “Twelfth Night” (i. 3), by Sir Toby Belch, who calls it a “sink-a-pace.”
Coranto. An allusion to this dance, which appears to have been of a very lively and rapid character, is made in “Henry V.” (iii. 5), where the Duke of Bourbon describes it as the “swift coranto;” and in “All’s Well that Ends Well” (ii. 3) Lafeu refers to it. A further notice of it occurs in “Twelfth Night” (i. 3), in the passage where Sir Toby Belch speaks of “coming home in a coranto.”
Fading. Malone quotes a passage from “Sportive Wit,” 1666, which implies that this was a rustic dance:
“The courtiers scorn us country clowns, We country clowns do scorn the court; We can be as merry upon the downs As you at midnight with all your sport, With a fading, with a fading.”
It would appear, also, from a letter appended to Boswell’s edition of Malone, that it was an Irish dance, and that it was practised, upon rejoicing occasions, as recently as 1803, the date of the letter:
“This dance is still practised on rejoicing occasions in many parts of Ireland; a king and queen are chosen from amongst the young persons who are the best dancers; the queen carries a garland composed of two hoops placed at right angles, and fastened to a handle; the hoops are covered with flowers and ribbons; you have seen it, I dare say, with the May-maids. Frequently in the course of the dance the king and queen lift up their joined hands as high as they can, she still holding the garland in the other. The most remote couple from the king and queen first pass under; all the rest of the line linked together follow in succession. When the last has passed, the king and queen suddenly face about and front their companions; this is often repeated during the dance, and the various undulations are pretty enough, resembling the movements of a serpent. The dancers on the first of May visit such newly wedded pairs of a certain rank as have been married since last May-day in the neighborhood, who commonly bestow on them a stuffed ball richly decked with gold and silver lace, and accompanied with a present in money, to regale themselves after the dance. This dance is practised when the bonfires are lighted up, the queen hailing the return of summer in a popular Irish song beginning:
‘We lead on summer—see! she follows in our train.’”
In the “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 4), Shakespeare seems to allude to this dance where he makes the servant, speaking of the pedler, say: “he has the prettiest love songs for maids; so without bawdry, which is strange; with such delicate burdens of ‘dildos’ and ‘fadings.’” Some commentators,[827] however, consider that only the song is meant.
[827] See Knight’s “Pictorial Shakespeare,” vol. ii. p. 375; Dyce’s “Glossary,” 1836, p. 152; “British Popular Customs,” 1876, pp. 276, 277. See also Chappell’s “Popular Music of the Olden Time,” 2d edition, vol. i. p. 235; Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 292.
Hay. Douce[828] says this dance was borrowed by us from the French, and is classed among the “brawls” in Thoinot Arbeau’s “Orchesographie” (1588). In “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 1), Dull says: “I will play on tabor to the Worthies, and let them dance their hay.”
[828] “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 146.
Jig. Besides meaning a merry, sprightly dance, a jig also implied a coarse sort of comic entertainment, in which sense it is probably used by Hamlet (ii. 2): “He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry.” “It seems,” says Mr. Collier,[829] “to have been a ludicrous composition in rhyme, sung, or said, by the clown, and accompanied by dancing and playing upon the pipe and tabor.”[830] an instance of which perhaps occurs in the Clown’s song at the close of “Twelfth Night:”
“When that I was and a little tiny boy.”
[829] “History of English Dramatic Poetry,” vol. iii. p. 380; see Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 229; Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 450; Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. ix. pp. 198, 219.
[830] “Hamlet:” iii. 2: “your only jig-maker.”
Fletcher, in the Prologue to the “Fair Maid of the Inn,” says:
“A jig should be clapt at, and every rhyme Praised and applauded by a clamorous chime.”
Among the allusions to this dance we may quote one in “Much Ado About Nothing” (ii. 1), where Beatrice compares wooing to a Scotch jig; and another in “Twelfth Night” (i. 3), where Sir Toby Belch says, his “very walk should be a jig.”
Lavolta. According to Florio, the lavolta is a kind of turning French dance, in which the man turns the woman round several times, and then assists her in making a high spring or cabriole. It is thus described by Sir John Davies:
“Yet is there one the most delightful kind. A loftie jumping, or a leaping round, Where arme in arme two dauncers are entwined, And whirle themselves, with strict embracements bound; And still their feet an anapest do sound, An anapest is all their musicks song, Whose first two feet are short, and third is long.”
Douce,[831] however, considers it to be of Italian origin, and says, “It passed from Italy into Provence and the rest of France, and thence into England.” Scot, too, in his “Discovery of Witchcraft,” thus speaks of it: “He saith, that these night-walking, or rather night-dancing, witches, brought out of Italie into France that dance which is called la Volta.” Shakespeare, in his “Henry V.” (iii. 5), makes the Duke of Bourbon allude to it:
“They bid us to the English dancing-schools, And teach lavoltas high, and swift corantos.”
[831] “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 301; see Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 498.
Again, in “Troilus and Cressida” (iv. 4), Troilus says:
“I cannot sing, Nor heel the high lavolt.”
Light o’ Love. This was an old dance tune, and was a proverbial expression for levity, especially in love matters.[832] In “Much Ado About Nothing” (iii. 4), Margaret says: “Clap’s into ‘Light o’ love;’ that goes without a burden; do you sing it, and I’ll dance it;” to which Beatrice answers: “Yea, light o’ love, with your heels.”
[832] Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 510.
In “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (i. 2), it is alluded to:
“Julia. Best sing it to the tune of ‘Light o’ love.’
Lucetta. It is too heavy for so light a tune.”
In the “Two Noble Kinsmen” (v. 2), we read:
“He’ll dance the morris twenty mile an hour. And gallops to the tune of ‘Light o’ love.’”
And in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Chances” (i. 3), Frederic says: “Sure he has encounter’d some light-o’-love or other.”
Pavan. This was a grave and majestic dance, in which the gentlemen wore their caps, swords, and mantles, and the ladies their long robes and trains. The dancers stepped round the room and then crossed in the middle, trailing their garments on the ground, “the motion whereof,” says Sir J. Hawkins, “resembled that of a peacock’s tail.” It is alluded to in “Twelfth Night” (v. 1) by Sir Toby: “A passy-measures pavin,” although the reading of this passage is uncertain, the editors of the “Globe” edition substituting panyn.
It has been conjectured that the “passy-measure galliard,” and the “passy-measure pavan” were only two different measures of the same dance, from the Italian passamezzo.[833]
[833] See Dyce, vol. iii. p. 412, note 121.
Roundel. This was also called the “round,” a dance of a circular kind, and is probably referred to by Titania in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 2), where she says to her train:[834]
“Come now, a roundel and a fairy song.”
[834] Roundel also meant a song. Mr. Dyce considers the dance is here meant.
Ben Jonson, in the “Tale of a Tub,”[835] seems to call the rings, which such fairy dances are supposed to make, roundels.
“I’ll have no roundels, I, in the queen’s paths.”
[835] See Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. ii. p. 333.
Satyrs’ Dance. A dance of satyrs was a not uncommon entertainment in Shakespeare’s day, or even at an earlier period.[836] It was not confined to England, and has been rendered memorable by the fearful accident with which it was accompanied at the Court of France in 1392, a graphic description of which has been recorded by Froissart. In the “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 4), the satyrs’ dance is alluded to by the Servant, who says: “Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three neat-herds, three swine-herds, that have made themselves all men of hair; they call themselves Saltiers: and they have a dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are not in’t.” In a book of songs composed by Thomas Ravenscroft and others, in the time of Shakespeare, we find one[837] called the “Satyres’ daunce.” It is for four voices, and is as follows:
“Round a round, a rounda, keepe your ring To the glorious sunne we sing. Hoe, hoe!
He that weares the flaming rayes, And the imperiall crowne of bayes, Him with shoutes and songs we praise. Hoe, hoe!
That in his bountee would vouchsafe to grace The humble sylvanes and their shaggy race.”
[836] See Knight’s “Pictorial Shakespeare,” vol. ii. p. 384; Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. iv. p. 85; Boswell’s “Shakespeare,” vol. xiv. p. 371.
[837] See Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 222.
Sword-dance. In olden times there were several kinds of sword-dances, most of which afforded opportunities for the display of skill. In “Antony and Cleopatra” (iii. 11), there seems to be an allusion to this custom, where Antony, speaking of Cæsar, says:[838]
“he, at Philippi, kept His sword e’en like a dancer.”
[838] See Strutt’s “Sports and Pastimes,” 1876, pp. 300, 301; Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 193.
And in “All’s Well that Ends Well” (ii. 1), where Bertram, lamenting that he is kept from the wars, adds:
“I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock, Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry, Till honour be bought up, and no sword worn But one to dance with.”
In “Titus Andronicus” (ii. 1), too, Demetrius says to Chiron:
“Why, boy, although our mother, unadvis’d Gave you a dancing-rapier by your side.”
Tread a Measure, to which the King refers in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2), when he tells Boyet to tell Rosaline
“we have measur’d many miles, To tread a measure with her on this grass,”
was a grave solemn dance, with slow and measured steps, like the minuet. As it was of so solemn a nature, it was performed[839] at public entertainments in the Inns of Court, and it was “not unusual, nor thought inconsistent, for the first characters in the law to bear a part in treading a measure.”
[839] Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. ii. p. 269; Sir Christopher Hatton was famous for it.
Trip and Go was the name of a favorite morris-dance, and appears, says Mr. Chappell, in his “Popular Music of the Olden Times,” etc. (2d edition, vol. i. p. 131), to have become a proverbial expression. It is used in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iv. 2).
Up-spring. From the following passage, in Chapman’s “Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany,” it would seem that this was a German dance:
“We Germans have no changes in our dances; An almain and an up-spring, that is all.”
Karl Elze,[840] who, a few years ago, reprinted Chapman’s “Alphonsus” at Leipsic, says that the word “up-spring” “is the ‘Hüpfauf,’ the last and wildest dance at the old German merry-makings. No epithet could there be more appropriate to this drunken dance than Shakespeare’s swaggering” in “Hamlet” (i. 4):
“The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels.”
[840] Quoted in Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 476.
XVIII. PUNISHMENTS
Shakespeare has not omitted to notice many of the punishments which were in use in years gone by; the scattered allusions to these being interesting in so far as they serve to illustrate the domestic manners and customs of our forefathers. Happily, however, these cruel tortures, which darken the pages of history, have long ago passed into oblivion; and at the present day it is difficult to believe that such barbarous practices could ever have been tolerated in any civilized country. The horrible punishment of “boiling to death,” is mentioned in “Twelfth Night” (ii. 5), where Fabian says: “If I lose a scruple of this sport, let me be boiled to death with melancholy.” In “Winter’s Tale” (iii. 2), Paulina inquires:
“What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me? What wheels? racks? fires? What flaying? boiling In leads or oils? What old or newer torture Must I receive?”
There seems to be an indirect allusion to this punishment in “The Two Noble Kinsmen” (iv. 3), where the Gaoler’s Daughter in her madness speaks of those who “are mad, or hang, or drown themselves, being put into a caldron of lead and usurer’s grease, and there boiling like a gammon of bacon that will never be enough.”
The practice of holding burning basins before the eyes of captives, to destroy their eyesight, is probably alluded to by Macbeth (iv. 1), in the passage where the apparitions are presented to him by the witches:
“Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo; down! Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs.”[841]
[841] Halliwell-Phillipps’s “Index to Shakespeare,” p. 36.
In “Antony and Cleopatra” (ii. 4), soaking in brine as a punishment is referred to by Cleopatra, who says to the messenger:
“Thou shalt be whipp’d with wire, and stew’d in brine, Smarting in lingering pickle.”
Drowning by the tide, a method of punishing criminals, is probably noticed in “The Tempest” (i. 1), by Antonio:
“We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards. This wide-chapp’d rascal—would thou might’st lie drowning The washing of ten tides!”
Baffle. This was formerly a punishment of infamy inflicted on recreant knights, one part of which consisted in hanging them up by the heels, to which Falstaff probably refers in “1 Henry IV.” (i. 2), where he says to the prince, “call me villain, and baffle me.” And, further on (ii. 4): “if thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit-sucker, or a poulter’s hare.”[842] In “2 Henry IV.” (i. 2), the Chief Justice tells Falstaff that “to punish him by the heels would amend the attention of his ears.” And in “All’s Well that Ends Well” (iv. 3), where the lord relates how Parolles has “sat in the stocks all night,” Bertram says: “his heels have deserved it, in usurping his spurs so long.”
[842] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 46.
Spenser, in his “Fairy Queen” (vi. 7), thus describes this mode of punishment:
“And after all, for greater infamie He by the heels him hung upon a tree, And baffl’d so, that all which passed by The picture of his punishment might see.”
The appropriate term, too, for chopping off the spurs of a knight when he was to be degraded, was “hack”—a custom to which, it has been suggested, Mrs. Page alludes in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (ii. 1):[843] “What?—Sir Alice Ford! These knights will hack, and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy gentry.”[844]
[843] Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, in his “Handbook Index to the Works of Shakespeare” (1866, p. 231), suggests this meaning.
[844] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 397.
Mr. Dyce,[845] however, says the most probable meaning of this obscure passage is, that there is an allusion to the extravagant number of knights created by King James, and that hack is equivalent to “become cheap or vulgar.”
[845] Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 197.
It appears, too, that in days gone by the arms, etc., of traitors and rebels might be defaced. Thus, in “Richard II.” (ii. 3), Berkeley tells Bolingbroke:
“Mistake me not, my lord; ’tis not my meaning To raze one title of your honour out.”
Upon which passage we may quote from Camden’s “Remains” (1605, p. 186): “How the names of them, which for capital crimes against majestie, were erased out of the public records, tables, and registers, or forbidden to be borne by their posteritie, when their memory was damned, I could show at large.” In the following act (iii. 1) Bolingbroke further relates how his enemies had:
“Dispark’d my parks, and fell’d my forest woods, From mine own windows torn my household coat, Raz’d out my impress, leaving me no sign.”
Bilboes. These were a kind of stocks or fetters used at sea to confine prisoners, of which Hamlet speaks to Horatio (v. 2):
“Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting, That would not let me sleep: methought I lay Worse than the mutines in the bilboes.”
This punishment is thus described by Steevens: “The bilboes is a bar of iron with fetters annexed to it, by which mutinous or disorderly sailors were anciently linked together. The word is derived from Bilboa, a place in Spain where instruments of steel were fabricated in the utmost perfection. To understand Shakespeare’s allusion completely, it should be known that, as these fetters connect the legs of the offenders very close together, their attempts to rest must be as fruitless as those of Hamlet, in whose mind ‘there was a kind of fighting that would not let him sleep.’ Every motion of one must disturb his partner in confinement. The bilboes are still shown in the Tower of London, among the other spoils of the Spanish Armada.”[846]
[846] Bilbo was also a rapier or sword; thus, in “Merry Wives of Windsor” (iii. 5), Falstaff says to Ford: “I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first, an intolerable fright, to be detected ... next, to be compassed, like a good bilbo ... hilt to point,” etc.
Brand.—The branding of criminals is indirectly alluded to in “2 Henry VI.” (v. 2), by Young Clifford, who calls the Duke of Richmond a “foul stigmatick,” which properly meant “a person who had been branded with a hot iron for some crime, one notably defamed for naughtiness.” The practice was abolished by law in the year 1822.
The practice, too, of making persons convicted of perjury wear papers, while undergoing punishment, descriptive of their offence, is spoken of in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iv. 3), where Biron says of Longaville:
“Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.”
Holinshed relates how Wolsey “so punished a perjure with open punishment and open paper-wearing that in his time it was disused.”
Breech. This old term to whip or punish as a school-boy is noticed in the “Taming of the Shrew” (iii. 1):
“I am no breeching scholar in the schools; I’ll not be tied to hours nor ’pointed times”
—breeching being equivalent to “liable to be whipped.”
In “Merry Wives of Windsor” (iv. 1), Sir Hugh Evans tells the boy page: “If you forget your ‘quies,’ your ‘quæs,’ and your ‘quods,’ you must be preeches” (breeched).
Crown. A burning crown, as the punishment of regicides or other criminals, is probably alluded to by Anne in “Richard III.” (iv. 1):
“O, would to God that the inclusive verge Of golden metal, that must round my brow, Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brain!”
Mr. Singer,[847] in a note on this passage, quotes from Chettle’s “Tragedy of Hoffman” (1631), where this punishment is introduced:
“Fix on thy master’s head my burning crown.”
And again:
“Was adjudg’d To have his head sear’d with a burning crown.”
[847] “Shakespeare,” vol. vi. p. 485; see “Boswell’s Life of Johnson,” vol. ii. p. 6.
The Earl of Athol, who was executed for the murder of James I. of Scotland, was, before his death, crowned with a hot iron. In some of the monkish accounts of a place of future torments, a burning crown is appropriated to those who deprived any lawful monarch of his kingdom.
Pillory. This old mode of punishment is referred to by Launce in the “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (iv. 4), where he speaks of having “stood on the pillory.” In “Taming of the Shrew” (ii. 1), Hortensio, when he tells Baptista how he had been struck by Katharina because “I did but tell her she mistook her frets,” adds:
“she struck me on the head, And through the instrument my pate made way; And there I stood amazed for a while, As on a pillory, looking through the lute.”
It has been suggested that there may be an allusion to the pillory in “Measure for Measure” (v. 1), where Lucio says to the duke, disguised in his friar’s hood: “you must be hooded, must you? show your knave’s visage, with a pox to you! show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour!” The alleged crime was not capital, and suspension in the pillory for an hour was all that the speaker intended.[848]
[848] Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 661; see Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, pp. 90, 91, 109; Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” vol. iii. p. 111.
Press. Several allusions occur to this species of torture, applied to contumacious felons. It was also, says Malone, “formerly inflicted on those persons who, being indicted, refused to plead. In consequence of their silence, they were pressed to death by a heavy weight laid upon the stomach.” In “Much Ado About Nothing” (iii. 1), Hero says of Beatrice:
“she would laugh me Out of myself, press me to death with wit.”
In “Richard II.” (iii. 4) the Queen exclaims:
“O, I am press’d to death, through want of speaking!”
And in “Measure for Measure” (v. 1), Lucio tells the Duke that, “Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping, and hanging.”
In the “Perfect Account of the Daily Intelligence” (April 16th, 1651), we find it recorded: “Mond., April 14th. This Session, at the Old Bailey, were four men pressed to death that were all in one robbery, and, out of obstinacy and contempt of the Court, stood mute, and refused to plead.” This punishment was not abolished until by statute 12 George III. c. 20.
Rack. According to Mr. Blackstone, this “was utterly unknown to the law of England; though once, when the Dukes of Exeter and Suffolk, and other ministers of Henry VI., had laid a design to introduce the civil law into this kingdom as a rule of government, for the beginning thereof they erected a rack of torture, which was called, in derision, the Duke of Exeter’s daughter; and still remains in the Tower of London, where it was occasionally used as an engine of state, not of law, more than once in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. But when, upon the assassination of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, it was proposed, in the Privy Council, to put the assassin to the rack, in order to discover his accomplices, the judges (being consulted) declared unanimously, to their own honor and the honor of the English law, that no such proceeding was allowable by the law of England.” Mr. Hallam observes that, though the English law never recognized the use of torture, yet there were many instances of its employment in the reign of Elizabeth and James; and, among others, in the case of the Gunpowder Plot. He further adds, in the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth “the rack seldom stood idle in the Tower.” Of the many allusions to this torture may be mentioned Sebastian’s word in “Twelfth Night” (v. 1):
“Antonio! O my dear Antonio! How have the hours rack’d and tortured me, Since I have lost thee.”
In “Measure for Measure” (v. 1), Escalus orders the “unreverend and unhallow’d friar” (the Duke disguised) to be taken to the rack:
“Take him hence; to the rack with him!—We’ll touse you Joint by joint.”
The engine, which sometimes meant the rack, is spoken of in “King Lear” (i. 4):
“Which, like an engine, wrench’d my frame of nature From the fix’d place.”[849]
[849] It also meant a warlike engine, as in “Coriolanus,” v. 4: “When he walks, he moves like an engine, and the ground shrinks before his treading;” so, also, in “Troilus and Cressida,” ii. 3.
So, in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Night Walker” (iv. 5):
“Their souls shot through with adders, torn on engines.”
Once more, in “Measure for Measure” (ii. 1), where Escalus tells how
“Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none”
—a passage which Mr. Dyce would thus read:
“Some run from brakes of vice.”
It has been suggested that there is an allusion to “engines of torture,” although, owing to the many significations of the word “brake,” its meaning here has been much disputed.[850]
[850] See Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 49; Halliwell-Phillipps’s “Handbook Index to Shakespeare,” p. 56; Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 104.
Stocks. This old-fashioned mode of punishment is the subject of frequent allusion by Shakespeare. Thus, Launce, in the “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (iv. 4), says: “I have sat in the stocks for puddings he hath stolen.” In “All’s Well that Ends Well” (iv. 3), Bertram says: “Come, bring forth this counterfeit module, has deceived me, like a double-meaning prophesier.” Whereupon one of the French lords adds: “Bring him forth: has sat i’ the stocks all night, poor gallant knave.” Volumnia says of Coriolanus (v. 3):
“There’s no man in the world More bound to’s mother; yet here he lets me prate Like one i’ the stocks.”
Again, in the “Comedy of Errors” (iii. 1), Luce speaks of “a pair of stocks in the town,” and in “King Lear” (ii. 2), Cornwall, referring to Kent, says:
“Fetch forth the stocks!— You stubborn ancient knave.”
It would seem that formerly, in great houses, as in some colleges, there were movable stocks for the correction of the servants. Putting a person in the stocks, too, was an exhibition familiar to the ancient stage. In “Hick Scorner,”[851] printed in the reign of Henry VIII., Pity is placed in the stocks, and left there until he is freed “by Perseverance and Contemplacyon.”
[851] It is reprinted in Hawkins’s “English Drama,” 1773.
Strappado. This was a military punishment, by which the unfortunate sufferer was cruelly tortured in the following way: a rope being fastened under his arms, he was drawn up by a pulley to the top of a high beam, and then suddenly let down with a jerk. The result usually was a dislocation of the shoulder-blade. In “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 4), it is referred to by Falstaff, who tells Poins: “were I at the strappado, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion.” At Paris, says Douce,[852] “there was a spot called l’estrapade, in the Faubourg St. Jacques, where soldiers received this punishment. The machine, whence the place took its name, remained fixed like a perpetual gallows.” The term is probably derived from the Italian strappare, to pull or draw with violence.
[852] “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” pp. 263. 264; see Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 423.
Toss in a Sieve. This punishment, according to Cotgrave, was inflicted “on such as committed gross absurdities.” In “1 Henry VI.” (i. 3), Gloster says to the Bishop of Winchester:
“I’ll canvass thee in thy broad cardinal’s hat, If thou proceed in this thy insolence.”
It is alluded to in Davenant’s “Cruel Brother” (1630):
“I’ll sift and winow him in an old hat.”
Wheel. The punishment of the wheel was not known at Rome, but we read of Mettius Tuffetius being torn asunder by quadrigæ driven in opposite directions. As Shakespeare, remarks Malone, “has coupled this species of punishment with another that certainly was unknown to ancient Rome, it is highly probable that he was not apprised of the story of Mettius Tuffetius, and that in this, as in various other instances, the practice of his own times was in his thoughts, for in 1594 John Chastel had been thus executed in France for attempting to assassinate Henry IV.”
Coriolanus (iii. 2) says:
“Let them pull all about mine ears, present me Death on the wheel, or at wild horses’ heels.”
Whipping. Three centuries ago this mode of punishment was carried to a cruel extent. By an act passed in the 2d year of Henry VIII., vagrants were to be carried to some market-town, or other place, and there tied to the end of a cart, naked, and beaten with whips throughout such market-town, or other place, till the body should be bloody by reason of such whipping. The punishment was afterwards slightly mitigated, for, by a statute passed in 39th of Elizabeth’s reign, vagrants “were only to be stripped naked from the middle upwards, and whipped till the body should be bloody.” The stocks were often so constructed as to serve both for stocks and whipping-posts.[853] Among the numerous references to this punishment by Shakespeare, we may quote “2 Henry IV.” (v. 4), where the beadle says of Hostess Quickly: “The constables have delivered her over to me, and she shall have whipping-cheer enough, I warrant her.” In the “Taming of the Shrew” (i. 1), Gremio says, speaking of Katharina, “I had as lief take her dowry with this condition,—to be whipped at the high-cross every morning,” in allusion to what Hortensio had just said: “why, man, there be good fellows in the world, an a man could light on them, would take her with all faults, and money enough.” In “2 Henry VI.” (ii. 1), Gloster orders Simpcox and his wife to
“be whipped through every market-town, Till they come to Berwick, from whence they came.”
[853] See “Book of Days,” vol. i. pp. 598, 599.
Wisp. This was a punishment for a scold.[854] It appears that “a wisp, or small twist of straw or hay, was often applied as a mark of opprobrium to an immodest woman, a scold, or similar offender; even, therefore, the showing it to a woman, was considered a grievous affront.” In “3 Henry VI.” (ii. 2) Edward says of Queen Margaret:
“A wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns, To make this shameless callat[855] know herself.”
[854] Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 965.
[855] “Callat,” an immodest woman, also applied to a scold. Cf. “Winter’s Tale,” ii. 3:
“A callat Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband, And now baits me.”
A wisp, adds Nares, seems to have been the badge of the scolding woman in the ceremony of Skimmington;[856] an allusion to which is given in a “Dialogue between John and Jone, striving who shall wear the breeches,” in the “Pleasures of Poetry,” cited by Malone:
“Good, gentle Jone, with-holde thy handes, This once let me entreat thee, And make me promise never more, That thou shalt mind to beat me. For fear thou wear the wispe, good wife, And make our neighbours ride.”
[856] Skimmington was a burlesque ceremony in ridicule of a man beaten by his wife. See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” vol. ii. pp. 191, 192.
In Nash’s “Pierce Pennilesse” (1593) there is also an amusing allusion to it: “Why, thou errant butter-whore, thou cotquean and scrattop of scolds, wilt thou never leave afflicting a dead carcasse? continually read the rhetorick lecture of Ramme-alley? a wispe, a wispe, you kitchen-stuffe wrangler.”