Part 10

By this team is meant the chariot of the moon, said to be drawn by two horses, the one black, the other white. It is probable that Shakspeare might have consulted some translation of Boccaccio's _Genealogy of the gods_, which, as has been already remarked, appears to have occasionally supplied him with his mythological information. As this is the first time we meet with the name of _Hecate_ in our author, it may be proper to notice the error he has committed in making it a word of two syllables, which he has done in several other places, though in one (viz. I. _Henry Sixth_, if he wrote that play) it is rightly made a trisyllable:

"I speak not to that railing Hĕcătē."

Act III. Scene 2.

His contemporaries have usually given it properly. Thus Spenser in the _Fairy queen_,

"As Hĕcătē, in whose almighty hand."

B. vii. Canto 6.

Ben Jonson has, of course, always been correct. Mr. Malone observes, in a note on _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 5, that Marlowe, though a scholar, has used the word _Hecate_ as a dissyllable. It may be added that Middelton and Golding have done the same; the latter in his translation of Ovid, book vii. has used it in both ways.

SCENE 2. Page 168.

PUCK. I am sent with broom before, To sweep the dust behind the door.

In confirmation of Dr. Johnson's remark that fairies delight in cleanliness, two other poems shall be quoted. The first is the _Fairy queen_, printed in Percy's Ancient Ballads, iii. 207, edit. 1775.

"But if the house be swept, And from uncleanness kept, We praise the household maid," &c.

The other is the _Fairies farewell_, by Bishop Corbet, printed also in Percy's collection, iii. 210, from his _Poetica stromata_, 1648, 18mo. It is also in a preceding edition of the bishop's poems, 1647, 18mo.

"Farewell rewards and fairies! Good housewives now may say; For now foule sluts in dairies Doe fare as well as they: And though they sweepe their hearths no less Than mayds were wont to doe, Yet who of late for cleanliness Finds sixepence in her shoe?"

SCENE 2. Page 170.

OBE. To the best _bride bed_ will we, Which by us shall _blessed_ be.

Mr. Steevens remarks that the ceremony of blessing the bed was observed at the marriage of a _princess_. It was used at _all_ marriages. This was the form, copied from the Manual for the use of Salisbury. "Nocte vero sequente cum sponsus et sponsa _ad lectum pervenerint_, accedat sacerdos et benedicat thalamum, dicens: Benedic, Domine, thalamum istum et omnes habitantes in eo; ut in tua pace consistant, et in tua voluntate permaneant: et in amore tuo vivant et senescant et multiplicentur in longitudine dierum. Per Dominum.--Item _benedictio super lectum_. Benedic, Domine, hoc _cubiculum_, respice, quinon dormis neque dormitas. Qui custodis Israel, custodi famulos tuos in hoc lecto quiescentes _ab omnibus fantasmaticis demonum illusionibus_: custodi eos vigilantes ut in preceptis tuis meditentur dormientes, et te per soporem sentiant: ut hic et ubique defensionis tuæ muniantur auxilio. Per Dominum.--Deinde fiat benedictio _super eos in lecto_ tantum cum Oremus. Benedicat Deus corpora vestra et animas vestras; et det super vos benedictionem sicut benedixit Abraham, Isaac, et Jacob, Amen.--His peractis _aspergat eos aqua benedicta_, et sic discedat et dimittat eos in pace." We may observe on this strange ceremony, that the purity of modern times stands not in need of these holy aspersions to lull the senses and dissipate the illusions of the Devil. The married couple would, no doubt, rejoice when the benediction was ended. In the French romance of _Melusine_, the bishop who marries her to Raymondin blesses the nuptial bed. The ceremony is there represented in a very ancient cut, of which a copy is subjoined. The good prelate is sprinkling the parties with holy water. Sometimes during the benediction the married couple only _sat_ upon the bed; but they generally received a portion of consecrated bread and wine. It is recorded in France, that on frequent occasions the priest was improperly detained till the hour of midnight, whilst the wedding guests rioted in the luxuries of the table, and made use of language that was extremely offensive to the clergy, and injurious to the salvation of the parties. It was therefore, in the year 1577, ordained by Pierre de Gondi, archbishop of Paris, that the ceremony of blessing the nuptial bed should for the future be performed in the day time, or at least _before supper_, and in the presence only of the bride and bridegroom, and of their nearest relations.

There is a singularity in this cut which may well excuse a short digression. This is the _horned_ head-dress of the bride, a fashion that prevailed in England during the reign of Henry the Sixth, and for a short time afterwards. Lydgate has left us an unpublished ditty, in which he complains of it. As it is, like most of his other poetry, very dull and very tedious, a couple of stanzas may suffice; each concludes with a line to recommend the _casting away of these horns_.

"Clerkys recorde by gret auctorite, Hornys were yove to beestys for diffence; A thyng contrary to femynyte To be made sturdy of resistence. But arche wyves egre in ther violence, Fers as tygre for to make affray, They have despyt and ageyn conscience Lyst nat of pryde ther _hornys cast away_.

Noble pryncessys, this litel shoort ditee Rewdly compiled lat it be noon offence To your womanly merciful pitie, Thouh it be rad in your audience; Peysed ech thyng in your just advertence, So it be no displesaunce to your pay, Undir support of your patience Yevyth example _hornys to cast away_."

_Harl. MS._ No. 2255.

In France, this part of female dress was a frequent subject of clerical reprehension. Nicholas de Claminges, a doctor of the Sorbonne, and contemporary with Lydgate, compares it to the horns of oxen. "Tenduntur hinc et inde mira et inaudita deformitate gemina cornua bipedali prope intervallo à se distantia, majorique latitudine caput fœmineum diffundunt quam bubalinum longitudine distenditur. Auro ac gemmis omnia rutilant. Stibio et cerusa pinguntur facies; patent colla; nudantur pectora." Nicolai de Clemangiis _opera_, Lugd. Batavor. 1613, 4to, p. 144. And again, in his letters, "quid de _cornibus_ et caudis loquar, quas illic jam vulgo matronæ gestant, qua in re naturam videntur humanam reliquisse, bestialemque sibi ultro adscivisse. Adde quod _in effigie cornutæ fœminæ Diabolus plerumque pingitur_." We cannot but admire the pious writer's ingenuity in the latter declaration, and how well it was calculated to terrify the ladies out of this preposterous fashion.

SCENE 2. Page 171.

OBE. With this field-dew _consecrate_ Every fairy take his gait; And _each several chamber bless_, Through this palace with sweet peace.

Thus in the _Merry wives of Windsor_, Act V. Scene 5:

"Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out: Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room."

In the first line of Oberon's speech there seems to be a covert satire against holy water. Whilst the popular confidence in the power of fairies existed, they had obtained the credit of occasionally performing much good service to mankind; and the great influence which they possessed gave so much offence to the holy monks and friars, that they determined to exert all their power to expel the above imaginary beings from the minds of the people, by taking the office of the fairies' benedictions entirely into their own hands. Of this we have a curious proof in the beginning of Chaucer's admirable tale of the _Wife of Bath_:

"I speke of many hundred yeres ago; But now can no man see non elves mo, For now the grete charitee and prayeres Of limitoures and other holy freres That serchen every land and every streme. As thikke as motes in the sonne beme, _Blissing halles, chambres, kichenes, and boures, Citees and burghes, castles highe and toures, Thropes and bernes, shepenes and dairies, This maketh that ther ben no faeries: For ther as wont to walken was an elf, Ther walketh now the limitour himself_."

The other quotation from Chaucer, which Mr. Steevens has given, is not to the present purpose. The _fairies' blessing_ was to bring _peace_ upon the house of Theseus; the _night-spell_ in the _Miller's tale_, is pronounced _against the influence of elves_, and those demons, or evil spirits, that were supposed to occasion the night-mare, and other nocturnal illusions. As this is a subject that has never been professedly handled, it may be worth while to bring together a few facts that relate to it; to do it ample justice would require an express dissertation.

A belief in the influence of evil spirits has been common to all nations, and in the remotest periods of the human history. The gross superstitions of the middle ages, which even exceeded those in Pagan times, had given birth to a variety of imaginary beings, who were supposed to be perpetually occupied in doing mischief to mankind. The chief of these were the _Incubus_, or _night-mare_, and certain _fairies of a malignant nature_. It therefore became necessary to check and counteract their operations by spells, charms, and invocations to saints. Some of these have been preserved. The lines given to Mad Tom in _Lear_, beginning

"Saint Withold footed thrice the wold,"

is one of them; and in the notes belonging to it, as well as in those by Mr. Tyrwhitt on the _Canterbury tales_, vol. iv. 242, others have been collected. To these may be added the following in Cartwright's play of _The Ordinary_, Act III. Scene 1:

"Saint Francis, and Saint Benedight, Blesse this house from wicked wight, From the night-mare and the goblin, That is hight _good fellow Robin_. Keep it from all evil spirits, Fayries, weezels, rats and ferrets, From curfew time To the next prime."

This indeed may be rather considered as satirical, but it is a parody on those which were genuine. Sinclair, in his _Satan's invisible world discovered_, informs us that "At night, in the time of popery, when folks went to bed, they believed the repetition of this following prayer was effectual to preserve them from danger, and the house too."

"Who sains the house the night, They that sains it ilka night. Saint Bryde and her brate, Saint Colme and his hat, Saint Michael and his spear, Keep this house from the weir; From running thief, And burning thief; And from an ill Rea, That be the gate can gae; And from an ill weight, That be the gate can light Nine reeds about the house; Keep it all the night, What is that, what I see So red, so bright, beyond the sea? 'Tis he was pierc'd through the hands, Through the feet, through the throat, Through the tongue; Through the liver and the lung. Well is them that well may Fast on Good-friday."

As darkness was supposed to be more immediately adapted to the machinations of these malicious spirits, it was natural that, on retiring to rest, certain prayers should be chosen to deprecate their influence, which was often regarded as of a _particular kind_. To this Imogen alludes when she exclaims,

"To your protection I commend me, Gods! From fairies, and the _tempters of the night_ Guard me, beseech ye!"

_Cymbeline_, Act II. Scene 2.

So Banquo in _Macbeth_:

"Restrain in me the _cursed thoughts that nature Gives way to in repose_."

An ancient hymn by Saint Ambrose goes to the same point:

"Procul recedant somnia Et noctium phantasmata: Hostemque nostrum comprime Ne _polluantur corpora_."

The demon who was supposed to have particular influence in these nocturnal illusions, was Asmodeus, the lame devil of whom Mons. Le Sage has made such admirable use. In expelling him, the sign of the cross was most efficacious; a very old practice on similar occasions, as we learn from the following lines in Prudentius:--

"Fac, cum _vocante somno Castum petis cubile_ Frontem, locumque cordis _Crucis_ figura signes. Crux pellit omne crimen, Fugunt crucem tenebræ: Tali dicata signo Mens fluctuare nescit. Procul, ô procul _vagantum Portenta somniorum_, Procul esto pervicaci Præstigiator astu."

Relics of saints, images of the holy Virgin, sanctified girdles, and a variety of other amulets were resorted to on the same occasion, exhibiting a lamentable proof of the imbecility of human nature.

SCENE 2. Page 172.

PUCK. _Give me your hands_, if we be friends.

Thus in the _epilogue_ to Stubbes's excellent play of _Senile odium_,

"... jam _vestræ quid valeant manus_ Nimis velim experiri: ab illis enim vapulare, munus erit."

FOOTNOTES:

[11] It has not been recollected to what poet these lines belong.

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 181.

KING. Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives, Live register'd upon our _brazen tombs_.

It was the fashion in Shakspeare's time, and had been so from the thirteenth century, to ornament the tombs of eminent persons with figures and inscriptions on _plates of brass_: to these the allusion seems rather to be made, than to monuments that were entirely of brass, such being of very rare occurrence.

SCENE 1. Page 182.

_Long._ Fat paunches have lean pates.

From the Latin _pinguis venter non gignit sensum tenuem_. See Ray's _Proverbs_. The rest of Longaville's speech, "and dainty bits," &c. merely repeats the same sentiment for the sake of a rhime.

SCENE 1. Page 183.

BIRON. If study's gain be _thus_, and this be so.

Mr. Ritson would read, _If study's gain be this_. There is no occasion for any change. _Thus_ means _after this manner_; but the poet would not write _this_, in order to avoid a cacophony.

SCENE 1. Page 191.

KING. This _child of fancy_, that Armado hight, For interim to our studies shall relate, In high-horn words, the worth of many a knight From _tawny_ Spain, lost in the world's debate.

The context seems to indicate that _child of fancy_ is here used precisely in the sense in which Milton applied it to Shakspeare, from whom he probably borrowed it. The meaning of this controverted speech may be as follows: "this child of _invention_ shall relate to us, in his bombastic language, the worthy deeds of many a Spanish knight which are now forgotten amidst those topics that engage the attention of mankind." The expression _tawny Spain_ may refer to the Moors in that country; for although they had been expelled from thence almost a century before the time of Shakspeare, it was allowable on the present occasion to refer to the period when they flourished in Spain; or he might only copy what he found in the original story of the play.

SCENE 2. Page 198.

ARM. Why, sadness is one and the self same thing, dear _imp_.

This word, which is well explained by Mr. Ritson, was often, as in the present instance, used to _pages_. Thus Urquhart in his _Discovery of a jewel_, &c. p. 133, calls a person of this description "a hopeful youth and tender _imp_ of great expectation."

SCENE 2. Page 200.

MOTH ... the _dancing horse_ will tell you.

The best account of Banks and his famous horse Morocco is to be found in the notes to a French translation of Apuleius's _Golden ass_ by Jean de Montlyard, Sieur de Melleray, counsellor to the Prince of Condé. This work was first printed in 1602, 8vo, and several times afterwards. The author himself had seen the horse, whose master he calls a _Scotishman_, at Paris, where he was exhibited in 1601, at the Golden Lion, Rue Saint Jaques. He is described as a _middle-sized bay English gelding, about 14 years old_. A few quotations from the work itself may not be unacceptable. "Son maistre l'appelle _Moraco_.... Nous avons vu son maistre l'interroger combien de francs vaut l'escu: et luy, donner trois fois du pied en terre. Mais chose plus estrange, parce que l'escu d'or sol et de poids vaut encor maintenant au mois de Mars 1601, plus que trois francs: l'Escossois luy demanda combien de sols valoit cest escu _outre_ les trois francs; et Moraco frappa quatre coups, pour denoter les quatre sols que vaut lescu de surcroist." In which remark the counsellor shows himself less sagacious than the horse he is describing. He proceeds: "Après un infinité de tours de passe-passe, il luy fait danser les _Canaries_ avec beaucoup d'art et de dexterité." The rest of the numerous tricks performed by this animal are much the same as those practised by the horses educated under the ingenious Mr. Astley. We also learn from this French work, that the magistrates, conceiving that all this could not be done without the aid of magic, had some time before imprisoned the master, and put the horse under sequestration; but having since discovered that every thing was effected by mere art and the making of signs, they had liberated the parties and permitted an exhibition. The Scotchman had undertaken to teach any horse the same tricks in a twelvemonth. It is said that both the horse and his master were afterwards burned at Rome as magicians; nor is this the only instance of the kind. In a little book entitled _Le diable bossu_, Nancy, 1708, 18mo, there is an obscure allusion to an English horse, whose master had taught him to know the cards, and which was burned alive at Lisbon in 1707; and Mr. Granger, in his _Biographical history of England_, vol. iii. p. 164, edit. 1779, has informed us that within his remembrance a horse which had been taught to perform several tricks was, with his owner, put into the Inquisition. The author of the life of Mal Cutpurse, 1662, 12mo, mentions her "fellow humourist _Banks the vintner in Cheapside_, who taught his horse to dance and shooed him with silver." In the eighth book of Markham's _Cavalarice or the English horseman_, 1607, 4to, there is a chapter "how a horse may be taught to doe and tricke done by _Bankes his curtall_." It is extremely curious, and towards the end throws light upon the second line of Bastard's epigram quoted by Mr. Steevens.

SCENE 2. Page 203.

ARM. _Green_, indeed, is the colour of _lovers_.

_Green eyes_, _jealousy_, and _the willow_, have been mentioned as the subjects of this allusion; but it is, perhaps, to _melancholy_, the frequent concomitant of love. Thus in _Twelfth night_, "And with a _green_ and yellow _melancholy_;" certainly in that instance, the effect of love.

SCENE 2. Page 206.

DULL. She is allowed for the _day_-woman.

See more on the word _dey_ in Mr. Tyrwhitt's edition of _The Canterbury tales_, iii. 287, who supposes that a _dey_ originally meant a day labourer, however it came afterwards to be applied to the _dairy_: yet this conjecture must give way to Dr. Johnson's statement that _day_ is an old word for milk. The doctor has not indeed produced any authority, and the original Saxon word seems lost; but in the Swedish language, which bears the greatest affinity to our own of any other, as far as regards the Teutonic part of it, _dia_ signifies _to milk_, and _deie_, in Polish, the same. _Die_, in Danish, is _the breast_. The nearest Saxon word that remains is _diende_, _sucklings_; and there can be no doubt that we have the term in question from some of our northern ancestors. The _dey_ or dairy maid is mentioned in the old statutes that relate to working people; and in that of 12 Ric. II. the annual wages of this person are settled at six shillings.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 221.

PRIN. Good wits will be jangling: but gentles agree.

These alliterative and anapæstic lines are in the manner of Tusser, who has many such; for example,

"At Christmas of Christ many carols we sing."

It will be admitted that the construction of this sort of verse is rather less adapted to a court than a cottage; but it is presumed that none will be inclined to find Shakspeare guilty of such poetry, which a good deal resembles the halfpenny book style of

"Here's N. with a nag that is prancing with pride, And O. with an owl hooping close by his side."

SCENE 1. Page 222.

BOVET. His heart like an agate with your print impressed.

An allusion either to the figures of the human face often found in agates and other stones, or to an engraved gem.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 225.

MOTH. Master, will you win your love with a French _brawl_.

The word _brawl_ in its signification of a dance is from the French _branle_, indicating a shaking or swinging motion. The following accounts of this dance may be found more intelligible than that cited from Marston. It was performed by several persons uniting hands in a circle, and giving each other continual shakes, the steps changing with the tune. It usually consisted of three _pas_ and a _pied-joint_, to the time of four strokes of the bow; which being repeated was termed a _double brawl_. With this dance balls were usually opened. _Le branle du bouquet_ is thus described in _Deux dialogues du nouveau langage François, Italianizé_, &c. Anvers, 1579, 24mo:--"Un des gentilhommes et une des dames, estans les premiers en la danse, laissent les autres (qui cependant continuent la danse) et se mettans dedans la dicte compagnie, _vont baisans par ordre toutes les personnes qui y sont_: à sçavoir le gentil-homme les dames, et la dame les gentils-hommes. Puis ayans achevé leurs baisemens, au lieu qu'ils estoyent les premiers en la danse, se mettent les derniers. Et ceste façon de faire se continue par le gentilhomme et la dame qui sont les plus prochains, jusques à ce qu'on vienne aux derniers."--P. 385. It is probably to this dance that the puritan Stubbes alludes in the following words: "for what clipping, what culling, what _kissing and bussing, what smouching and slabbering one of another_: what filthy groping and unclean handling is not practised every where in these dauncings? Yea the very deed and action itselfe which I will not name for offending chaste eares, shall bee purtrayed and shadowed foorth in their bawdy gestures of one to another."--_Anatomie of abuses_, p. 114, edit. 1595, 4to. And John Northbrooke, another writer _ejusdem farinæ_, in his invective called _A treatise wherein dicing, dauncing, vaine plaies or enterludes_, &c. 1579, 4to, exclaims that "the Pagans were better and more sad than wee be, they never knewe this newe fashion of dauncing of ours, and uncleanely handling and groping, and _kissings_, and a very kindling of lechery: whereto serveth all that _bassing_, as were pigeons the birdes of Venus?" And again; "they daunce with disordinate gestures, and with monstrous thumping of the feete, to pleasant soundes, to wanton songues, to dishonest verses, maidens and matrons are groped and handled with unchaste hands, _and kissed and dishonestly embraced_," fo. 64, 66. Amidst a great variety of _brawls_ mentioned in the very curious treatise on dancing by Thoinot Arbeau, entitled _Orchesographie_, Lengres, 1588, 4to, there is a _Scotish brawl_, with the music, which is here given as a specimen of an old Scotish tune.

[Music]

The facetious macaronic poet Antony Sablon, or de Arena, whose work Camden says he "kept as a jewel," has left the following description of a brawl:--

_Modus dansandi branlos._

"Ipse modis branlos debes dansare duobus, Simplos et duplos usus habere solet. Sed branlos duplos, passus tibi quinque laborent. Tres fac avantum, sed reculando duos, Quattuor in mensura ictus marchabis eundo, Atque retornando quattuor ipse dabis."

This dance continued in fashion in our own country so late as the year 1693, when Playford published a book of tunes in which a _brawl_ composed by Mons. Paisable occurs; and see many of the little French pieces in the _Theatre de la foire_, 1721.

SCENE 1. Page 225.

MOTH. _Canary_ it with your feet.