Folk-lore of Shakespeare, Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer [e reader comics TXT] 📗
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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.”
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.
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:
If thou proceed in this thy insolence.”
It is alluded to in Davenant’s “Cruel Brother” (1630):
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:
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
Till they come to Berwick, from whence they came.”
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:
To make this shameless callat[855] know herself.”
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:
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.”
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.”
[841] Halliwell-Phillipps’s “Index to Shakespeare,” p. 36.
[842] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 46.
[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.
[845] Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 197.
[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.
[847] “Shakespeare,” vol. vi. p. 485; see “Boswell’s Life of Johnson,” vol. ii. p. 6.
[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.
[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.
[850] See Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 49; Halliwell-Phillipps’s “Handbook Index to Shakespeare,” p. 56; Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 104.
[851] It is reprinted in Hawkins’s “English Drama,” 1773.
[852] “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” pp. 263. 264; see Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 423.
[853] See “Book of Days,” vol. i. pp. 598, 599.
[854] Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 965.
[855] “Callat,” an immodest woman, also applied to a scold. Cf. “Winter’s Tale,” ii. 3:
Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband,
And now baits me.”
[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.
CHAPTER XIX. PROVERBS.In the present chapter are collected together the chief proverbs either quoted or alluded to by Shakespeare. Many of these are familiar to most readers, but have gained an additional interest by reason of their connection with the poet’s writings. At the same time, it may be noted that very many of Shakespeare’s pithy sayings have, since his day, passed into proverbs, and have taken their place in this class of literature. It is curious to notice, as Mrs. Cowden-Clarke remarks,[857] how “Shakespeare has paraphrased some of our commonest proverbs in his own choice and elegant diction.” Thus, “Make hay while the sun shines” becomes
Cold biting winter mars our hoped-for hay,”
a statement which applies to numerous other proverbial sayings.
“A black man is a jewel in a fair woman’s eyes.” In the “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (v. 2), the following passage is an amusing illustration of the above:
Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies’ eyes.”
In “Titus Andronicus” (v. 1) there is a further allusion to this proverb, where Lucius says of Aaron,
“A beggar marries a wife and lice.” So in “King Lear” (iii. 2), Song:
Before the head has any,
The head and he shall louse;
So beggars marry many.”
Thus it is also said: “A beggar payeth a benefit with a louse.”
“A cunning knave needs no broker.” This old proverb is quoted by Hume, in “2 Henry VI.” (i. 2):
“A curst cur must be tied short.” With this proverb we may compare what Sir Toby says in “Twelfth Night” (iii. 2), to Sir Andrew: “Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief.”
“A drop hollows the stone,” or “many drops pierce the stone.” We may compare “3 Henry VI.” (iii. 2), “much rain wears the marble,” and also the messenger’s words (ii. 1), when he relates how “the noble Duke of York was slain:”
And stood against them, as the hope of Troy
Against the Greeks, that would have enter’d Troy.
But Hercules himself must yield to odds;
And many strokes, though with a little axe,
Hew down and fell the hardest-timber’d oak.”
“A finger in every pie.” So, in “Henry VIII.” (i. 1), Buckingham says of Wolsey:
From his ambitious finger.”
To the same purport is the following proverb:[858] “He had a finger in the pie when he burnt his nail off.”
“A fool’s bolt is soon shot.” Quoted by Duke of Orleans in “Henry V.” (iii. 7). With this we may compare the French: “De fol juge breve sentence.”[859]
“A friend at court is as good as a penny in the purse.” So, in “2 Henry IV.” (v. 1), Shallow says: “a friend i’ the court is better than a penny in purse.” The French equivalent of this saying is: “Bon fait avoir ami en cour, car le procès en est plus court.”
“A little pot’s soon hot.” Grumio, in “Taming of the Shrew” (iv. 1), uses this familiar proverb: “were not I a little pot, and soon hot, my very lips might freeze to my teeth,” etc.
“A pox of the devil” (“Henry V.,” iii. 7).
“A smoky chimney and a scolding wife are two bad companions.” There are various versions of this proverb. Ray gives the following: “Smoke, raining into the house, and a scolding wife, will make a man run out of doors.”
Hotspur, in “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 1), says of Glendower:
As a tired horse, a railing wife;
Worse than a smoky house.”
“A snake lies hidden in the grass.” This, as Mr. Green[860] remarks, is no unfrequent proverb, and the idea is often made use of
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