Part 4

In Shakespeare’s day the CHOUGH must have been a much commoner bird in our islands than it is now. At present it is not known to breed on the south coast of England further east than the cliffs of Dorset. Three hundred years ago, however, it seems to have been abundant about the chalk headlands of Kent. That it was a familiar English bird may be inferred from various passages in our poet’s writings. The most striking scene depicted by him, wherein this bird plays a conspicuous part, is his picture of Dover cliffs, drawn so vividly, as from an actual visit to the place:

How fearful And dizzy ’tis to east one’s eyes so low! The crows and choughs that wing the midway air Show scarce so gross as beetles: half way down Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade! Methinks he seems no bigger than his head: The fishermen that walk upon the beach Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark Diminish’d to her cock; her cock, a buoy Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge, That on the unnumber’d idle pebbles chafes, Cannot be heard so high.[150]

It is interesting to notice that while birds are here taken as a help to the eye in estimating the height of the precipice as seen from the summit, a bird is again used as a guide to gauge the height as seen from below:

Look up a-height; the shrill-gorged lark so far Cannot be seen or heard.[151]

The habits of the chough were not unknown to the poet, since he chose the bird as a symbol for a certain courtier of whom it was said that “it was a vice to know him”:

’Tis a chough, but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.[152]

The chough’s continuous and unmusical chatter is more than once contemptuously invoked to describe the talk of some men. When Antonio in _The Tempest_ tempts Sebastian to assassinate the honest old Counsellor Gonzalo, he speaks of

Lords that can prate As amply and unnecessarily As this Gonzalo; I myself could make A chough of as deep chat.[153]

In a passage in _All’s Well that Ends Well_ where the ambush party are concocting some sort of gibberish to deceive the vainglorious Parolles, they agree to talk “Choughs’ language, gabble enough and good enough.”[154] When Puck recounts to Oberon what happened to the rustics when Bottom reappeared among them wearing the ass’s head, he gives an excellent description of the effect of the discharge of a fowling-piece at a bird-haunted cliff:

When they him spy, As russet-pated choughs, many in sort, Rising and cawing at the gun’s report, Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky: So, at his sight, away his fellows fly.[155]

The Chough together with the other members of the Crow family was thought to have a supernatural prophetic gift, and a faculty of revealing hidden deeds. Macbeth’s evil conscience was troubled with the thought that

Stones have been known to move and trees to speak; Augures and understood relations have By maggot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth The secret’st man of blood.[156]

The STARLING is mentioned only once by Shakespeare, in a passage which shows that in his time this bird, which has so remarkable a power of imitation, was taught to say some words. The fiery Hotspur declares that although the King had forbidden him to speak of Mortimer he would find his Majesty

When he lies asleep, And in his ear I’ll holla ‘Mortimer!’ Nay, I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak Nothing but ‘Mortimer,’ and give it him, To keep his anger still in motion.[157]

[Sidenote: _The Jackdaw and Magpie_]

The JACKDAW appears occasionally in the dramas as obviously a familiar bird, but no outstanding characters are assigned to it, except that it was common and looked upon as somewhat stupid. Reference has already been made to the comparison of the lower orders of society to “crows and daws.” When, in the Temple Garden, the Earl of Warwick was asked to decide a legal point between the supporters of the White Rose and those of the Red Rose, he replied, that if the question had been one of hawks, sword-blades, horses or merry-eyed girls,

I have perhaps some shallow spirit of judgement; But in these nice sharp quillets of the law, Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.[158]

The MAGPIE or Maggot-pie has already been alluded to. Macbeth associates it with choughs and rocks as a prophet or discoverer of evil. It is named by King Henry VI. among the boding portents that attended the birth of his murderer Gloucester:

Dogs howl’d, and hideous tempest shook down trees; The raven rook’d her on the chimney’s top, And chattering pies in dismal discords sung.[159]

The JAY is referred to five times by Shakespeare. In the enchanted isle Caliban offers to guide the drunken Trinculo and Sebastian to some of the dainties of the place:

I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts: Show thee a jay’s nest, and instruct thee how To snare the nimble marmoset.[160]

The name of the bird is used as an uncomplimentary epithet for some women, as where Mrs. Ford, in reference to Falstaff’s addresses, declares “we’ll teach him to know turtles from jays,”[161] and where Imogen affirmed, “Some jay of Italy hath betrayed him.”[162] But perhaps the most interesting appearance of the bird in the Plays occurs in the scene of the _Taming of the Shrew_, where after the tailor has been sent about his business, taking with him the cap and gown which had been ordered for Katharine, and with which she was well pleased, her husband addresses her thus:

Well, come, my Kate; we will unto your father’s Even in these honest mean habiliments: Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor; For ’tis the mind that makes the body rich; And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, So honour peereth in the meanest habit. What is the jay more precious than the lark Because his feathers are more beautiful? Or is the adder better than the eel, Because his painted skin contents the eye?[163]

[Sidenote: _Birds of the Farm-yard_]

The various BIRDS OF THE FARM-YARD have received due attention from the great dramatist. Chief among them, the cock is frequently cited, especially as a recognised chronometer of the morning hours, for in Elizabethan days this mode of indicating time had not gone out of popular use. We all remember the unhappy experience of the carrier in the inn at Rochester “since the first cock.”[164] We also recall how Capulet, bustling among his household, gave them a three-fold indication of the time:

Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crow’d, The curfew-bell hath rung, ’tis three o’clock.[165]

Shakespeare brings the cock’s shrill clarion even into his fairyland, for Ariel’s song breaks off at this signal:

Hark, hark! I hear The strain of strutting chanticleer Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow.[166]

But the most detailed and impressive reference to this familiar bird occurs in the memorable scene on the platform before the Castle of Elsinore. The ghost had just appeared to Hamlet’s friends and

[Sidenote: _The Cock and Goose_]

Was about to speak when the cock crew. And then it started like a guilty thing Upon a fearful summons. I have heard, The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the god of day, and at his warning, Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, The extravagant and erring spirit hies To his confine: and of the truth herein This present object made probation: It faded on the crowing of the cock. Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long: And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad, The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm; So hallowed and so gracious is the time.[167]

The GOOSE, so frequently alluded to in the Plays, usually appears there as the recognised symbol of human stupidity and cowardice. How far this character, if really deserved by the bird, is the result of domestication and association with man for many centuries, is a question for ornithological psychologists. There can be no doubt that the wild-goose does not deserve the reputation attributed to his degenerate kinsman in the farm-yard. Shakespeare was aware how active and vigilant that bird was among the fens which it haunted. He refers to the sudden uprise and flight of

The wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,[168]

and to the autumnal movement of these fowl to the larger waters, a fact known even to Lear’s fool, who remarks:

The winter’s not gone yet if the wild geese fly that way.[169]

The rapidity with which these birds disappear when they take wing was likewise familiar knowledge. The melancholy Jaques claims that if a man whom he censures does not deserve reproof,

Why then my taxing, like a wild goose, flies, Unclaim’d of any man.[170]

The difficulty of circumventing the bird is conveyed in the proverbial expression “a wild-goose chase,” which was well known in the time of Elizabeth. Mercutio retorts to Romeo:

Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have done; for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five.[171]

[Sidenote: _The Swan_]

The SWAN, perhaps in Shakespeare’s day more abundant in this country than it is now, was then regarded as a “Bird Royal” which nobody could keep without a licence from the Crown, and provision for making a certain mark on the bird’s bill to denote its ownership. Our Sovereigns still maintain the Royal Swans on the Thames, and the young birds are regularly taken up in summer to receive the mark. To this bird full recognition has been paid by our dramatist. He places it before us in its usual watery domain, where its nest serves as a symbol of Britain set in the midst of the sea, “like a swan’s nest in a great pool.”[172] He lets us see

The swan her downy cygnets save, Keeping them prisoner underneath her wings.[173]

We watch the bird’s ungainly gait on land and are told that

All the water in the ocean Can never turn the swan’s black legs to white, Although she lave them hourly in the flood.[174]

The perfect stillness of the surface of a sheet of water is marked by

The swan’s down-feather, That stands upon the swell at full of tide And neither way inclines.[175]

Again, we watch

A swan With bootless labour swim against the tide And spend her strength with overmatching waves.[176]

The time-honoured legend that the “death-divining swan” utters a musical note or wail at the time of dying is repeatedly alluded to by the poet, and sometimes as if it were a reality. Lucrece, at her approaching death, like a

Pale swan in her watery nest, Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending.[177]

Prince Henry, son of King John, when told that his dying father had been singing, muses thus:

’Tis strange that death should sing: I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death.[178]

In the scene wherein Othello discovers the double-dyed villainy of Iago, a touching incident is the wandering language of the faithful dying Emilia, whose mind goes back to her beloved mistress:

What did thy song bode, lady? Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan, And die in music. [_Singing_] Willow, willow, willow.[179]

More cheerful is the use of the legend by Portia when Bassanio stands before the caskets, and she, deeply interested in the result, commands

Let music sound while he doth make his choice; Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end, Fading in music.[180]

[Sidenote: _The Turkey-cock and Peacock_]

The TURKEY-COCK, introduced into Europe from the New World in the early part of the sixteenth century, had become quite naturalised in the farm-yards of England by the time of Elizabeth. It is several times alluded to by Shakespeare, sometimes as a symbol of conceited ostentation, and also as an article of food. When in _King Henry V._ Gower sees Pistol approaching, he exclaims to Fluellen “Here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock,” to which the Welshman, who had resolved to make the braggart eat the leek, replies, “’Tis no matter for his swellings nor his turkey-cocks.”[181] Not less appropriately is the comparison used of Malvolio, who, as Maria said, had been “yonder i’ the sun practising behaviour to his own shadow this half hour.” As the three concealed onlookers watch him strutting down the walk, talking to himself, they can scarcely restrain themselves. Fabian entreats silence:

O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him: how he jets under his advanced plumes.[182]

It will be remembered that among the produce on its way to London in the carts of the two carriers at the Rochester inn there was a pannier of live turkeys.[183]

The PEACOCK is alluded to several times in the Plays as the accepted personification of pride. Joan of Arc is represented as counselling the Princes:

Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while And like a peacock sweep along his tail; We’ll pull his plumes and take away his train.[184]

Thersites says of Ajax that he “goes up and down the field asking for himself; he stalks up and down like a peacock――a stride and a stand.”[185] When King Henry V. mingles incognito among his soldiers in France, one of them tells him:

That’s a perilous shot out of an elder-gun, that a poor and a private displeasure can do against a monarch! you may as well go about to turn the sun to ice with fanning in his face with a peacock’s feather.[186]

“‘Fly pride,’ says the peacock,” is a pithy proverb put into the mouth of Dromio of Syracuse.[187]

[Sidenote: _Doves and Pigeons_]

The DOVE and the PIGEON are often mentioned in Shakespeare’s writings, without any essential distinction being drawn between them. Thus, we read in one passage that “Venus yokes her silver doves,”[188] while in another place the birds appear as “Venus’ pigeons.”[189] Again, in a less poetical sphere, they are even interchanged as articles of food. On the one hand we find Justice Shallow ordering “some pigeons” and any other “pretty little tiny kickshaws” for the entertainment of Falstaff,[190] and on the other hand, we note that old Gobbo, when he wanted Bassanio to take his son into service, presents to that gentleman “a dish of doves.”[191]

The Dove is typically pure white, and stands as the recognised emblem of gentleness, purity and innocence. Yet in direst emergencies this timid bird may show fight in defence of its young. We are told that

The smallest worm will turn being trodden on, And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.[192]

It was believed that when “frighted out of fear” the dove would peck the ostrich,[193] and it had probably been actually observed in hawking experience, that as

Cowards fight when they can fly no further So doves do peck the falcon’s piercing talons.[194]

The TURTLE-DOVE, long the accepted symbol of conjugal affection and loving tenderness, has an honoured place in Shakespeare’s pages.[195] We there read of “a pair of loving turtle-doves that could not live asunder day or night.”[196] Florizel takes Perdita’s hand in _Winter’s Tale_, with the significant assertion:

So turtles pair That never mean to part.[197]

And at the end of the same Play, the widowed Paulina, when all around her has at last ended happily, desires to retire into solitude:

I, an old turtle, Will wing me to some wither’d bough and there My mate, that’s never to be found again, Lament till I am lost.

The Pigeon is not only presented as an article of food; but is sometimes slightingly alluded to, with reflections on its mode of feeding and its timidity. Of the “honey-tongued Boyet” it was remarked

This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons pease And utters it again when God doth please.[198]

And Hamlet, reflecting on his slowness to avenge his father’s murder, reproaches himself as “pigeon-liver’d and lacking gall.”[199]

[Sidenote: _The Smaller Birds_]

I have reserved for the last section of this Essay the smaller birds, including the songsters, as these are noticed in Shakespeare’s Poems and Dramas. A number of them are grouped together by Bottom in the ditty, singing which he wakes the sleeping Fairy Queen:

The ousel-cock so black of hue, With orange-tawny bill, The throstle with his note so true, The wren with little quill;

The finch, the sparrow, and the lark, The plain-song cuckoo gray, Whose note full many a man doth mark And dares not answer nay.[200]

[Sidenote: _The Lark_]

Of the birds recounted in this song, Shakespeare’s favourite, if we may judge from the frequency and appreciation with which he mentions it, was the LARK. He makes this bird a rival to Chanticleer in the honour of setting the day agoing. He calls it “the morning lark,” “the herald of the morn,” specially associated with the brightness and glory of dawn.

Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest, From his moist cabinet mounts up on high, And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast The sun ariseth in his majesty.[201]

Again

The busy day, Waked by the lark, hath roused the ribald crows.[202]

The blithe sound of the bird’s carol is commemorated in the line

The merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks.

How joyfully does this feeling find expression in the exquisite song in _Cymbeline_:

Hark, hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings, And Phoebus ’gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies; And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes; With every thing that pretty is, My lady sweet arise: Arise, arise![203]

The bird-melodies of night and morning were never more delicately commingled than in the garden scene where Juliet, from her window above, would fain persuade her lingering lover that it was not yet near day:

_Jul._ Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day: It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear; Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate-tree: Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

_Rom._ It was the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale; look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east: Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops: I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

_Jul._ Yond light is not day-light, I know it, I: It is some meteor that the sun exhales, To be to thee this night a torch-bearer, And light thee on thy way to Mantua: Therefore stay yet; thou needst not to be gone.

_Rom._ Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death; I am content, so thou wilt have it so. I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye, ’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow. Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat The vaulty heaven so high above our heads: How is’t my soul? let’s talk: it is not day.

_Jul._ It is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away! It is the lark that sings so out of tune. * * * * * * * Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes; O, now I would they had changed voices too![204]

[Sidenote: _The Ouzel and Throstle_]

The BLACKBIRD or OUZEL, depicted in Bottom’s song as “so black of hue, with orange-tawny bill,” though one of our most melodious songsters, receives no commendation from Shakespeare. It is only once again mentioned by him, when its name is used with a rather uncomplimentary meaning. When Justice Shallow enquires of his brother magistrate regarding his god-daughter, Silence replies, “Alas, a black ousel, cousin Shallow.”[205] It is a pity that the old and distinctive name ouzel for this bird has become obsolete, though it may still be heard in use in Scotland. On the other side of the Tweed, also, where so many linguistic relics of the old alliance with France still remain, the blackbird is likewise known by its French name of merle, while the common name of the thrush is _mavis_, likewise from the French _mauvis_.

The THRUSH or THROSTLE, another of our most musical warblers, is cited thrice by Shakespeare without any further comment on his voice than the compliment in Bottom’s song――“with his note so true.” The bird comes into one of Autolycus’ songs:

The lark, that tirra-lyra chants, With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay, Are summer songs for me and my aunts, While we lie tumbling in the hay.[206]

Our great dramatist refers to the WREN no fewer than nine times in his different Plays. Its small size is noticed, and the bird is credited with an amount of courage disproportionate to its stature. When Macduff flees to England his wife bitterly complains that he should have left her and his children without his protection:

He loves us not; He wants the natural touch; for the poor wren, The most diminutive of birds, will fight, Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.[207]

When Imogen, recovering in the cave, hardly knows where she is, she muses With herself and prays:

I tremble still with fear: but if there be Yet left in heaven as small a drop of pity As a wren’s eye, fear’d gods, a part of it![208]

Shakespeare hardly does justice to the notes of the wren, which are louder, sweeter and more varied than might have been looked for in so tiny a bird. Portia thought that if the nightingale sang by day it would be thought no better than the wren.[209] And, in another passage, words of consolation “from a hollow breast” are likened to “the chirping of a wren.”[210]

[Sidenote: _The Wagtail and Bunting_]

The WAGTAIL is alluded to once by the poet, when its name is used in contempt by Kent towards Goneril’s steward:

Thou zed! thou unnecessary letter! I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar. Spare my gray beard?――you wagtail![211]

There is one reference by Shakespeare to the BUNTING, probably the common corn-bunting or bunting-lark, which is not unlike the lark, and further resembles that bird in nesting on the ground. In _All’s Well that Ends Well_, the old lord Lafeu, when assured by Bertram that he had mistaken the character of Parolles, remarks; “Then my dial goes not true; I took this lark for a bunting.”[212]

The REDBREAST or RUDDOCK is most fully referred to in _Cymbeline_. Arviragus enters, bearing in his arms Imogen, seemingly dead, and as he lays the body down he thus addresses it:

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 azured harebell, like thy veins; no, nor The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander Out-sweetened not thy breath: the ruddock would With charitable bill,――O bill, sore shaming Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie Without a monument!――bring thee all this; Yea, and furr’d moss besides, when flowers are none, To winter-ground thy corse.[213]