Folk-lore of Shakespeare, Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer [e reader comics TXT] 📗
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Seen cities, countries, kingdoms, and their wonders,
Been bedfellows, and in our various journey
Mixt all our observations.”
In the same way, letters from noblemen to each other often began with the appellation bedfellow.[961]
Curfew Bell, which is generally supposed to be of Norman origin, is still rung in some of our old country villages, although it has long lost its significance. It seems to have been as important to ghosts as to living men, it being their signal for walking, a license which apparently lasted till the first cock. Fairies, too, and other spirits, were under the same regulations; and hence Prospero, in “The Tempest” (v. 1), says of his elves that they
To hear the solemn curfew.”
In “King Lear” (iii. 4) we find the fiend Flibbertigibbet obeying the same rule, for Edgar says: “This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet; he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock.”
In “Measure for Measure” (iv. 2) we find another allusion:
Envelope you, good provost! Who call’d here of late?
And, once more, in “Romeo and Juliet” (iv. 4), Capulet says:
The curfew bell hath rung, ’tis three o’clock.”[962]
Sacring Bell. This was a bell which rang for processions and other holy ceremonies.[963] It is mentioned in “Henry VIII.” (iii. 2), by the Earl of Surrey:
Worse than the sacring bell.”
It is rung in the Romish Church to give notice that the “Host” is approaching, and is now called “Sanctus bell,” from the words “Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth,” pronounced by the priest.
On the graphic passage where Macbeth (ii. 1) says:
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell”—
Malone has this note: “Thus Raleigh, speaking of love, in England’s ‘Helicon’ (1600):
That toules all into heaven or hell.’”
Sauncing being probably a mistake for sacring or saint’s bell, originally, perhaps, written “saintis bell.” In “Hudibras” we find:
Carpet-knights. These were knights dubbed at court by mere favor, and not on the field of battle, for their military exploits. In “Twelfth Night” (iii. 4), Sir Toby defines one of them thus: “He is knight, dubbed with unhatched rapier, and on carpet consideration.”
A “trencher knight” was probably synonymous, as in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2):
These carpet-knights were sometimes called “knights of the green cloth.”[964]
Chair Days. Days of old age and infirmity. So, in “2 Henry VI.” (v. 2), young Clifford, on seeing his dead father, says:
To lose thy youth in peace, and to achieve
The silver livery of advised age,
And, in thy reverence, and thy chair-days, thus
To die in ruffian battle?”
Chivalry. The expression “sworn brothers,” which Shakespeare several times employs, refers to the “fratres jurati,” who, in the days of chivalry, mutually bound themselves by oath to share each other’s fortune. Thus, Falstaff says of Shallow, in “2 Henry IV.” (iii. 2): “He talks as familiarly of John o’ Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him.” In “Henry V.” (ii. 1), Bardolph says: “we’ll be all three sworn brothers to France.” In course of time it was used in a laxer sense, to denote intimacy, as in “Much Ado About Nothing” (i. 1), where Beatrice says of Benedick, that “He hath every month a new sworn brother.”[965]
According to the laws of chivalry, a person of superior birth might not be challenged by an inferior; or, if challenged, might refuse combat, a reference to which seems to be made by Cleopatra (“Antony and Cleopatra,” ii. 4):
These hands do lack nobility, that they strike
A meaner than myself.”
Again, in “Troilus and Cressida” (v. 4), the same practice is alluded to by Hector, who asks Thersites:
Art thou of blood and honour?”
Singer quotes from “Melville’s Memoirs” (1735, p. 165): “The Laird of Grange offered to fight Bothwell, who answered that he was not his equal. The like answer made he to Tullibardine. Then my Lord Lindsay offered to fight him, which he could not well refuse; but his heart failed him, and he grew cold on the business.”
Clubs. According to Malone, it was once a common custom, on the breaking-out of a fray, to call out “Clubs, clubs!” to part the combatants. Thus, in “1 Henry VI.” (i. 3), the Mayor declares:
In “Titus Andronicus” (ii. 1), Aaron says:
“Clubs,” too, “was originally the popular cry to call forth the London apprentices, who employed their clubs for the preservation of the public peace. Sometimes, however, they used those weapons to raise a disturbance, as they are described doing in the following passage in ‘Henry VIII.’ (v. 4): ‘I miss’d the meteor once, and hit that woman; who cried out ‘Clubs!’ when I might see from far some forty truncheoners draw to her succour, which were the hope o’ the Strand, where she was quartered.’”[966]
Color-Lore. Green eyes have been praised by poets of nearly every land,[967] and, according to Armado, in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (i. 2), “Green, indeed, is the colour of lovers.”
In “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (v. 1), Thisbe laments:
His eyes were green as leeks.”
The Nurse, in her description of Romeo’s rival (“Romeo and Juliet,” iii. 5), says:
Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
As Paris hath.”
In the “Two Noble Kinsmen” (v. 1), Emilia, praying to Diana, says:
With that thy rare green eye—which never yet
Beheld thing maculate—look on thy virgin.”
The words of Armado have been variously explained as alluding to green eyes—Spanish writers being peculiarly enthusiastic in this praise—to the willow worn by unsuccessful lovers, and to their melancholy.[968] It has also been suggested[969] that, as green is the color most suggestive of freshness and spring-time, it may have been considered the most appropriate lover’s badge. At the same time, however, it is curious that, as green has been regarded as an ominous color, it should be connected with lovers, for, as an old couplet remarks:
Have lovers true;
In green and white,
Forsaken quite.”[970]
In “Merchant of Venice” (iii. 2), “green-eyed jealousy,” and in “Othello” (iii. 3), its equivalent, “green-eyed monster,” are expressions used by Shakespeare.
Yellow is an epithet often, too, applied to jealousy, by the old writers. In the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (i. 3), Nym says he will possess Ford “with yellowness.” In “Much Ado About Nothing” (ii. 1) Beatrice describes the Count as “civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion.” In “Twelfth Night” (ii. 4), Viola tells the Duke how her father’s daughter loved a man, but never told her love:
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument.”
Dinner Customs. In days gone by there was but one salt-cellar on the table, which was a large piece of plate, generally much ornamented. The tables being long, the salt was commonly placed about the middle, and served as a kind of boundary to the different quality of the guests invited. Those of distinction were ranked above; the space below being assigned to the dependants, inferior relations of the master of the house, etc.[971] Shakespeare would seem to allude to this custom in the “Winter’s Tale” (i. 2), where Leontes says:
Perchance, are to this business purblind?”
Upon which passage Steevens adds, “Leontes comprehends inferiority of understanding in the idea of inferiority of rank.” Ben Jonson, speaking of the characteristics of an insolent coxcomb, remarks: “His fashion is not to take knowledge of him that is beneath him in clothes. He never drinks below the salt.”
Ordinary. This was a public dinner, where each paid his share, an allusion to which custom is made by Enobarbus, in “Antony and Cleopatra” (ii. 2), who, speaking of Antony, says:
And, for his ordinary, pays his heart
For what his eyes eat only.”
Again, in “All’s Well that Ends Well” (ii. 3), Lafeu says: “I did think thee, for two ordinaries, to be a pretty wise fellow; thou didst make tolerable vent of thy travel.”
The “ordinary” also denoted the lounging-place of the men of the town, and the fantastic gallants who herded together. They were, says the author of “Curiosities of Literature” (vol. iii. p. 82), “the exchange for news, the echoing-places for all sorts of town talk; there they might hear of the last new play and poem, and the last fresh widow sighing for some knight to make her a lady; these resorts were attended also to save charges of housekeeping.”
Drinking Customs. Shakespeare has given several allusions to the old customs associated with drinking, which have always varied in different countries. At the present day many of the drinking customs still observed are very curious, especially those kept up at the universities and inns-of-court.
Alms-drink was a phrase in use, says Warburton, among good fellows, to signify that liquor of another’s share which his companion drank to ease him. So, in “Antony and Cleopatra” (ii. 7) one of the servants says of Lepidus: “They have made him drink alms-drink.”
By-drinkings. This was a phrase for drinkings between meals, and is used by the Hostess in “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 3), who says to Falstaff: “You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet, and by-drinkings.”
Hooped Pots. In olden times drinking-pots were made with hoops, so that, when two or more drank from the same tankard, no one should drink more than his share. There were generally three hoops to the pots: hence, in “2 Henry VI.” (iv. 2), Cade says: “The three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops.” In Nash’s “Pierce Pennilesse” we read: “I believe hoopes on quart pots were invented that every man should take his hoope, and no more.”
The phrases “to do a man right” and “to do him reason” were, in years gone by, the common expressions in pledging healths; he who drank a bumper expected that a bumper should be drunk to his toast. To this practice alludes the scrap of a song which Silence sings in “2 Henry IV.” (v. 3):
And dub me knight:
Samingo.”
He who drank, too, a bumper on his knee to the health of his mistress was dubbed a knight for the evening. The word Samingo is either a corruption of, or an intended blunder for, San Domingo, but why this saint should be the patron of topers is uncertain.
Rouse. According to Gifford,[972] a rouse was a large glass in which a health was given, the drinking of which,
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