Kitabı oku: «Folk-lore of Shakespeare», sayfa 31
Formerly, too, prophecies of apparent impossibilities were common in Scotland; such as the removal of one place to another. So in “Macbeth” (iv. 1), the apparition says:
“Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be, until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.”
Portents and Prodigies. In years gone the belief in supernatural occurrences was a common article of faith; and our ancestors made use of every opportunity to prove the truth of this superstitious belief. The most usual monitions of this kind were, “lamentings heard in the air; shakings and tremblings of the earth; sudden gloom at noon-day; the appearance of meteors; the shooting of stars; eclipses of the sun and moon; the moon of a bloody hue; the shrieking of owls; the croaking of ravens; the shrilling of crickets; night-howlings of dogs; the death-watch; the chattering of pies; wild neighing of horses; blood dropping from the nose; winding-sheets; strange and fearful noises, etc.,” many of which Shakespeare has used, introducing them as the precursors of murder, sudden death, disasters, and superhuman events.955 Thus in “Richard II.” (ii. 4), the following prodigies are selected as the forerunners of the death or fall of kings:
“’Tis thought, the king is dead: we will not stay.
The bay-trees in our country are all wither’d,
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
The pale-fac’d moon looks bloody on the earth,
And lean-look’d prophets whisper fearful change;
Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap,
The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,
The other to enjoy by rage and war:
These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.”
Previous to the assassination of Julius Cæsar, we are told, in “Hamlet” (i. 1), how:
“In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;
As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.”
More appalling still are the circumstances which preceded and accompanied the murder of Duncan (“Macbeth,” ii. 3). We may also compare the omens which marked the births of Owen Glendower and Richard III. Indeed, the supposed sympathy of the elements with human joy or sorrow or suffering is evidently a very ancient superstition; and this presumed sensitiveness, not only of the elements, but of animated nature, to the perpetration of deeds of darkness and blood by perverted nature, has in all ages been extensively believed. It is again beautifully illustrated in the lines where Shakespeare makes Lenox, on the morning following the murder of Duncan by his host (“Macbeth,” ii. 3), give the following narrative:
“The night has been unruly; where we lay,
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 woeful time: the obscure bird
Clamour’d the livelong night: some say, the earth
Was feverous and did shake.”
This idea is further illustrated in the dialogue which follows, between Ross and an old man:
“Old Man. Threescore and ten I can remember well:
Within the volume of which time I have seen
Hours dreadful, and things strange: but this sore night
Hath trifled former knowings.
Ross. Ah, good father,
Thou seest, the heavens, as troubled with man’s act,
Threaten his bloody stage: by the clock, ’tis day,
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp:
Is’t night’s predominance, or the day’s shame,
That darkness does the face of earth entomb,
When living light should kiss it?”
Supernatural Authority of Kings. The belief in the supernatural authority of monarchs is but a remnant of the long-supposed “divine right” of kings to govern, which resulted from a conviction that they could trace their pedigrees back to the deities themselves.956 Thus Shakespeare even puts into the mouth of the murderer and usurper Claudius, King of Denmark, the following sentence:
“Let him go, Gertrude: do not fear our person:
There’s such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will.”
This notion is by no means confined to either civilized or semi-civilized nations. It is, says Mr. Hardwick, “a universal feeling among savage tribes.” The ignorant serf of Russia believed, and, indeed, yet believes, that if the deity were to die the emperor would succeed to his power and authority.
Sympathetic Indications. According to a very old tradition the wounds of a murdered person were supposed to bleed afresh at the approach or touch of the murderer. This effect, though impossible, remarks Nares,957 except it were by miracle, was firmly believed, and almost universally, for a very long period. Poets, therefore, were fully justified in their use of it. Thus Shakespeare, in “Richard III.” (i. 2) makes Lady Anne, speaking of Richard, Duke of Gloster, say:
“O, gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry’s wounds
Open their congeal’d mouths, and bleed afresh! —
Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity;
For ’tis thy presence that exhales this blood
From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells;
Thy deed, inhuman and unnatural,
Provokes this deluge most unnatural.”
Stow alludes to this circumstance in his “Annals” (p. 424). He says the king’s body “was brought to St. Paul’s in an open coffin, barefaced, where he bled; thence he was carried to the Blackfriars, and there bled.” Matthew Paris also states that after Henry II.’s death his son Richard came to view the body – “Quo superveniente, confestim erupit sanguis ex naribus regis mortui; ac si indignaretur spiritus in adventue ejus, qui ejusdem mortis causa esse credebatur, ut videretur sanguis clamare ad Deum.”958 In the “Athenian Oracle” (i. 106), this supposed phenomenon is thus accounted for: “The blood is congealed in the body for two or three days, and then becomes liquid again, in its tendency to corruption. The air being heated by many persons coming about the body, is the same thing to it as motion is. ’Tis observed that dead bodies will bleed in a concourse of people, when murderers are absent, as well as present, yet legislators have thought fit to authorize it, and use this trial as an argument, at least to frighten, though ’tis no conclusive one to condemn them.” Among other allusions to this superstition may be mentioned one by King James in his “Dæmonology,” where we read: “In a secret murder, if the dead carkasse be at any time thereafter handled by the murderer, it will gush out of blood, as if the blood were crying to heaven for revenge of the murderer.” It is spoken of also in a note to chapter v. of the “Fair Maid of Perth,” that this bleeding of a corpse was urged as an evidence of guilt in the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh as late as the year 1668. An interesting survival of this curious notion exists in Durham, where, says Mr. Henderson,959 “touching of the corpse by those who come to look at it is still expected by the poor on the part of those who come to their house while a dead body is lying in it, in token that they wished no ill to the departed, and were in peace and amity with him.”
We may also compare the following passage, where Macbeth (iii. 4), speaking of the Ghost, says:
“It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood:
Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;
Augurs and understood relations have
By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth
The secret’st man of blood.”
Shakespeare perhaps alludes to some story in which the stones covering the corpse of a murdered man were said to have moved of themselves, and so revealed the secret. The idea of trees speaking probably refers to the story of the tree which revealed to Æneas the murder of Polydorus (Verg., “Æneid,” iii. 22, 599). Indeed, in days gone by, this superstition was carried to such an extent that we are told, in D’Israeli’s “Curiosities of Literature,” “by the side of the bier, if the slightest change was observable in the eyes, the mouth, feet, or hands of the corpse, the murderer was conjectured to be present, and many an innocent spectator must have suffered death. This practice forms a rich picture in the imagination of our old writers; and their histories and ballads are labored into pathos by dwelling on this phenomenon.”
CHAPTER XXIII
MISCELLANEOUS CUSTOMS, ETC
Badge of Poverty. In the reign of William III., those who received parish relief had to wear a badge. It was the letter P, with the initial of the parish to which they belonged, in red or blue cloth, on the shoulder of the right sleeve. In “2 Henry VI.” (v. 1) Clifford says:
“Might I but know thee by thy household badge.”
Bedfellow. A proof of the simplicity of manners in olden times is evidenced by the fact that it was customary for men, even of the highest rank, to sleep together. In “Henry V.” (ii. 2) Exeter says:
“Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,
Whom he hath dull’d and cloy’d with gracious favours.”
“This unseemly custom,” says Malone, “continued common till the middle of the last century, if not later.” Beaumont and Fletcher, in the “Coxcomb” (i. 1), thus refer to it:
“Must we, that have so long time been as one,
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.960
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
“rejoice
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:
“Duke. The best and wholesom’st spirits of the night
Envelope you, good provost! Who call’d here of late?
Provost. None, since the curfew rung.”
And, once more, in “Romeo and Juliet” (iv. 4), Capulet says:
“Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crow’d,
The curfew bell hath rung, ’tis three o’clock.”961
Sacring Bell. This was a bell which rang for processions and other holy ceremonies.962 It is mentioned in “Henry VIII.” (iii. 2), by the Earl of Surrey:
“I’ll startle you
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:
“The bell invites me.
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):
“‘It is perhaps that sauncing bell
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:
“The old saintis bell that rings all in.”
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):
“Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick.”
These carpet-knights were sometimes called “knights of the green cloth.”963
Chair Days. Days of old age and infirmity. So, in “2 Henry VI.” (v. 2), young Clifford, on seeing his dead father, says:
“Wast thou ordain’d, dear father,
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.”964
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):
“I will not hurt him. —
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:
“What art thou, Greek? art thou for Hector’s match?
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:
“I’ll call for clubs, if you will not away.”
In “Titus Andronicus” (ii. 1), Aaron says:
“Clubs, clubs! these lovers will not keep the peace.”
“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.’”965
Color-Lore. Green eyes have been praised by poets of nearly every land,966 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:
“Lovers, make moan:
His eyes were green as leeks.”
The Nurse, in her description of Romeo’s rival (“Romeo and Juliet,” iii. 5), says:
“An eagle, madam,
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:
“O vouchsafe,
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.967 It has also been suggested968 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:
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:
“She pin’d in thought,
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.970 Shakespeare would seem to allude to this custom in the “Winter’s Tale” (i. 2), where Leontes says:
“lower messes,
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:
“Being barber’d ten times o’er, goes to the feast,
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):
“Do me right,
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,971 a rouse was a large glass in which a health was given, the drinking of which, by the rest of the company, formed a carouse. Hamlet (i. 4) says:
“The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse.”
The word occurs again in the following act (1), where Polonius uses the phrase “o’ertook in’s rouse;” and in the sense of a bumper, or glass of liquor, in “Othello” (ii. 3), “they have given me a rouse already.”
Sheer Ale. This term, which is used in the “Taming of the Shrew” (Induction, sc. 2), by Sly – “Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if she know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale” – according to some expositors, means “ale alone, nothing but ale,” rather than “unmixed ale.”
Sneak-cup. This phrase, which is used by Falstaff in “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 3) – “the prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup” – was used to denote one who balked his glass.
Earnest Money. It was, in olden times, customary to ratify an agreement by a bent coin. In “Henry VIII.” (ii. 3), the old lady remarks:
“Tis strange: a three-pence bow’d would hire me,
Old as I am, to queen it.”
There were, however, no threepences so early as the reign of Henry VIII.
Exclamations. “Charity, for the Lord’s sake!” was the form of ejaculatory supplication used by imprisoned debtors to the passers-by. So, in Davies’s “Epigrams” (1611):
“Good, gentle writers, ‘for the Lord’s sake, for the Lord’s sake,’
Like Ludgate prisoner, lo, I, begging, make
My mone.”
In “Measure for Measure” (iv. 3), the phrase is alluded to by Pompey: “all great doers in our trade, and are now ‘for the Lord’s sake.’”
“Cry Budget.” A watchword. Thus Slender says to Shallow, in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (v. 2); “We have a nay-word, how to know one another: I come to her in white, and cry ‘mum;’ she cries ‘budget;’ and by that we know one another.”
“God save the mark.” “Romeo and Juliet” (iii. 2). This exclamation has hitherto baffled the research of every commentator. It occurs again in “1 Henry IV.” (i. 3); and in the “Merchant of Venice” (ii. 2) and in “Othello” (i. 1), we have “God bless the mark.” In the quarto, 1597, instead of “God save the mark” in the first passage quoted, we have “God save the sample,” an expression equally obscure.972
Halidom. This exclamation was used, says Minsheu,973 by old countrymen, by manner of swearing. In “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (iv. 2), the Hostess says: “By my halidom, I was fast asleep;” the probable derivation being holy, with the termination dome.
Hall! Hall! An exclamation formerly used, to make a clear space in a crowd, for any particular purpose, was “A hall, a hall.” So, in “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 5), Capulet says:
“Come, musicians, play. —
A hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls.”
Hay. This is equivalent to “you have it,” an exclamation in fencing, when a thrust or hit is received by the antagonist. In “Romeo and Juliet” (ii. 4), Mercutio speaks of “the punto reverso! the hay!”
Hold. To cry hold! when persons were fighting, was an authoritative way of separating them, according to the old military law. So Macbeth, in his struggle with Macduff, says:
“And damn’d be he that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’”
We may compare Lady Macbeth’s words (i. 5):
“Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry, ‘Hold, hold!’”
“I’ the name of me.” A vulgar exclamation formerly in use. So in the “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 2) it is used by the Clown.
“O ho, O ho!” This savage exclamation was, says Steevens, constantly appropriated by the writers of our ancient mysteries and moralities to the devil. In “The Tempest” (i. 2), Caliban, when rebuked by Prospero for seeking “to violate the honor of my child,” replies:
“O ho, O ho! would it had been done!
Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else
This isle with Calibans.”
Push. An exclamation equivalent to pish.974 It is used by Leonato in “Much Ado About Nothing” (v. 1):
“And made a push at chance and sufferance;”
and again, in “Timon of Athens” (iii. 6), where one of the lords says: “Push! did you see my cap?”
Rivo was an exclamation often used in Bacchanalian revels, but its origin is uncertain. It occurs in “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 4): “‘Rivo!’ says the drunkard.” Gifford suggests that it is “corrupted, perhaps, from the Spanish rio, which is figuratively used for a large quantity of liquor,” a derivation, however, which Mr. Dyce does not think probable.
Sneck-up. This was an exclamation of contempt, equivalent to “go and hang yourself.”975 It is used by Sir Toby in “Twelfth Night” (ii. 3), in reply to Malvolio’s rebuke: “We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up!”
So-ho. This is the cry of sportsmen when the hare is found in her seat.
Spy. “I spy” is the usual exclamation at a well-known childish game called “Hie spy, hie!”976
Tailor. Johnson explains the following words of Puck in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1) thus:
“The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And ‘tailor’ cries, and falls into a cough.”
“The custom of crying tailor at a sudden fall backwards, I think I remember to have observed. He that slips beside his chair, falls as a tailor squats upon his board.” Mr. Dyce,977 however, adds, “it may be doubted if this explains the text.”
Tilly-vally. An exclamation of contempt, the etymology of which is uncertain. According to Douce it is a hunting phrase borrowed from the French. Singer says it is equivalent to fiddle-faddle. It occurs in “Twelfth Night” (ii. 3), being used by Sir Toby: “Am not I consanguineous? am I not of her blood? Tilly-vally, lady!”
In “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4), the Hostess corrupts it to tilly-fally: “Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne’er tell me: your ancient swaggerer comes not in my doors.”
As a further illustration of the use of this word, Singer quotes a conversation between Sir Thomas More and his wife, given in Roper’s Life: “Is not this house, quoth he, as nigh heaven as my own? To whom she, after her accustomed homely fashion, not liking such talk, answered, Tylle-valle, Tylle-valle.”
Westward, ho. This was one of the exclamations of the watermen who plied on the Thames, and is used by Viola in “Twelfth Night” (iii. 1). Dyce978 quotes from Peel’s “Edward I.” to illustrate the use of this word:
“Queen Elinor. Ay, good woman, conduct me to the court,
That there I may bewail my sinful life,
And call to God to save my wretched soul.
[A cry of ‘Westward, ho!’
Woman, what noise is this I hear?
Potter’s Wife. An like your grace, it is the watermen that call for
passengers to go westward now.”
Dekker took the exclamation “Westward, ho!” for the title of a comedy; and Jonson, Chapman, and Marston adopted that of “Eastward, ho!” for one jointly written by them a few years afterwards.
Fools. Mr. Douce, in his essay “On the Clowns and Fools of Shakespeare,” has made a ninefold division of English fools, according to quality or place of employment, as the domestic fool, the city or corporation fool, the tavern fool, the fool of the mysteries and moralities. The last is generally called the “vice,” and is the original of the stage clowns so common among the dramatists of the time of Elizabeth, and who embody so much of the wit of Shakespeare.
A very palpable distinction is that which distinguishes between such creatures as were chosen to excite to laughter from some deformity of mind or body, and such as were chosen for a certain alertness of mind and power of repartee – or, briefly, butts and wits. The dress of the regular court fool of the middle ages was not altogether a rigid uniform, but seems to have changed from time to time. The head was shaved, the coat was motley, and the breeches tight, with, generally, one leg different in color from the other. The head was covered with a garment resembling a monk’s cowl, which fell over the breast and shoulders, and often bore asses’ ears, and was crested with a coxcomb, while bells hung from various parts of the attire. The fool’s bauble was a short staff bearing a ridiculous head, to which was sometimes attached an inflated bladder, by which sham castigations were inflicted; a long petticoat was also occasionally worn, but seems to have belonged rather to the idiots than the wits. The fool’s business was to amuse his master, to excite his laughter by sharp contrast, to prevent the over-oppression of state affairs, and, in harmony with a well-known physiological precept, by his liveliness at meals to assist his lord’s digestion.979
The custom of shaving and nicking the head of a fool is very old. There is a penalty of ten shillings, in one of Alfred’s Ecclesiastical Laws, if one opprobriously shave a common man like a fool; and Malone cites a passage from “The Choice of Change,” etc., by S. R. Gent, 4to, 1598 – “Three things used by monks, which provoke other men to laugh at their follies: 1. They are shaven and notched on the head like fooles.”
In the “Comedy of Errors” (v. 1), the servant says:
“My master preaches patience to him, and the while
His man with scissors nicks him like a fool.”
Forfeits. In order to enforce some kind of regularity in barbers’ shops, which were once places of great resort for the idle, certain laws were usually made, the breaking of which was to be punished by forfeits. Rules of this kind, however, were as often laughed at as obeyed. So, in “Measure for Measure” (v. 1):
“laws for all faults,
But faults so countenanc’d, that the strong statutes
Stand like the forfeits in a barber’s shop,
As much in mock as mark.”
Gambling. It was once customary for a person when going abroad “to put out” a sum of money on condition of receiving good interest for it on his return home; if he never returned the deposit was forfeited. Hence such a one was called “a putter-out.” It is to this practice that reference is made in the following passage (“The Tempest,” iii. 3):
“or that there were such men
Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find
Each putter-out of five for one will bring us
Good warrant of.”
Malone quotes from Moryson’s “Itinerary” (1617, pt. i. p. 198): “This custom of giving out money upon these adventures was first used in court and noblemen;” a practice which “banker-outs, stage-players, and men of base condition had drawn into contempt,” by undertaking journeys merely for gain upon their return. In Ben Jonson’s “Every Man Out of His Humour” (ii. 3) the custom is thus alluded to: “I do intend, this year of jubilee coming on, to travel; and because I will not altogether go upon expence, I am determined to put forth some five thousand pound, to be paid me five for one, upon the return of my wife, myself, and my dog, from the Turk’s court at Constantinople. If all, or either of us, miscarry in the journey, ’tis gone; if we be successful, why then there will be five and twenty thousand pound to entertain time with.”
