Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 101

Among the many instances recorded to establish the truth of this idea, it is said that the hair and beard of the Duke of Brunswick whitened in twenty-four hours upon his hearing that his father had been mortally wounded in the battle of Auerstadt. Marie Antoinette, the unfortunate queen of Louis XVI., found her hair suddenly changed by her troubles; and a similar change happened to Charles I., when he attempted to escape from Carisbrooke Castle. Mr. Timbs, in his "Doctors and Patients" (1876, p. 201), says that "chemists have discovered that hair contains an oil, a mucous substance, iron, oxide of manganese, phosphate and carbonate of iron, flint, and a large proportion of sulphur. White hair contains also phosphate of magnesia, and its oil is nearly colourless. When hair becomes suddenly white from terror, it is probably owing to the sulphur absorbing the oil, as in the operation of whitening woollen cloths."

Hair was formerly used metaphorically for the color, complexion, or nature of a thing. In "1 Henry IV." (iv. 1), Worcester says:

"I would your father had been here, The quality and hair of our attempt Brooks no division."

In Beaumont and Fletcher's "Nice Valour" it is so used:

"A lady of my hair cannot want pitying."

_Hands._ Various superst.i.tions have, at different times, cl.u.s.tered round the hand. Thus, in palmistry, a moist one is said to denote an amorous const.i.tution. In "Oth.e.l.lo" (iii. 4) we have the following allusion to this popular notion:

"_Oth.e.l.lo._ Give me your hand. This hand is moist, my lady.

_Desdemona._ It yet has felt no age, nor known no sorrow.

_Oth.e.l.lo._ This argues fruitfulness, and liberal heart."

Again, in "Antony and Cleopatra" (i. 2), Iras says: "There's a palm presages chast.i.ty;" whereupon Charmian adds: "If an oily palm be not a fruitful prognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear." And, in the "Comedy of Errors" (iii. 2), Dromio of Syracuse speaks of barrenness as "hard in the palm of the hand."

A dry hand, however, has been supposed to denote age and debility. In "2 Henry IV." (i. 2) the Lord Chief Justice enumerates this among the characteristics of such a const.i.tution.[917]

[917] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 179.

In the "Merchant of Venice" (ii. 2), Launcelot, referring to the language of palmistry, calls the hand "the table," meaning thereby the whole collection of lines on the skin within the hand: "Well, if any man in Italy have a fairer table, which doth offer to swear upon a book, I shall have good fortune." He then alludes to one of the lines in the hand, known as the "line of life:" "Go to, here's a simple line of life."

In the "Two n.o.ble Kinsmen" (iii. 5) palmistry is further mentioned:

"_Gaoler's Daughter._ Give me your hand.

_Gerrold._ Why?

_Gaoler's Daughter._ I can tell your fortune."

It was once supposed that little worms were bred in the fingers of idle servants. To this notion Mercutio refers in "Romeo and Juliet" (i. 4), where, in his description of Queen Mab, he says:

"Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat, Not half so big as a round little worm p.r.i.c.k'd from the lazy finger of a maid."

This notion is alluded to by John Banister, a famous surgeon in Shakespeare's day, in his "Compendious Chyrurgerie" (1585, p. 465): "We commonly call them worms, which many women, sitting in the suns.h.i.+ne, can cunningly picke out with needles, and are most common in the handes."

A popular term formerly in use for the nails on the ten fingers was the "ten commandments," which, says Nares,[918] "doubtless led to the swearing by them, as by the real commandments." Thus, in "2 Henry VI."

(i. 3), the d.u.c.h.ess of Gloster says to the queen:

"Could I come near your beauty with my nails I'd set my ten commandments in your face."

[918] "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 871.

In the same way the fingers were also called the "ten bones," as a little further on in the same play, where Peter swears "by these ten bones."

The phrase "of his hands" was equivalent to "of his inches, or of his size, a hand being the measure of four inches." So, in the "Merry Wives of Windsor" (i. 4), Simple says: "Ay, forsooth: but he is as tall a man of his hands as any is between this and his head," "the expression being used probably for the sake of a jocular equivocation in the word tall, which meant either bold or high."[919]

[919] Ibid. vol. i. p. 402.

Again, in the "Winter's Tale" (v. 2), the Clown tells the Shepherd: "I'll swear to the prince, thou art a tall fellow of thy hands, and that thou wilt not be drunk; but I know thou art no tall fellow of thy hands, and that thou wilt be drunk; but I'll swear it, and I would thou wouldst be a tall fellow of thy hands."

A proverbial phrase for being tall from necessity was "to blow the nail." In "3 Henry VI." (ii. 5) the king says:

"When dying clouds contend with growing light, What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails, Can neither call it perfect day, nor night."

It occurs in the song at the end of "Love's Labour's Lost:"

"And d.i.c.k the shepherd blows his nail."

"To bite the thumb" at a person implied an insult; hence, in "Romeo and Juliet" (i. 1), Sampson says: "I will bite my thumb at them; which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it."

The thumb, in this action, we are told, "represented a fig, and the whole was equivalent to a _fig_ for you."[920] Decker, in his "Dead Term" (1608), speaking of the various groups that daily frequented St.

Paul's Church, says: "What swearing is there, what shouldering, what justling, what jeering, what byting of thumbs, to beget quarrels?"

[920] See page 218.

_Hare-lip._ A cleft lip, so called from its supposed resemblance to the upper lip of a hare. It was popularly believed to be the mischievous act of an elf or malicious fairy. So, in "King Lear" (iii. 4), Edgar says of Gloster: "This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he ... squints the eye, and makes the hare-lip." In "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (v. 2), Oberon, in blessing the bridal-bed of Theseus and Hippolyta, says:

"Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,

Shall upon their children be."

The expression "hang the lip" meant to drop the lip in sullenness or contempt. Thus, in "Troilus and Cressida" (iii. 1), Helen explains why her brother Troilus is not abroad by saying: "He hangs the lip at something." We may compare, too, the words in "1 Henry IV." (ii. 4): "a foolish hanging of thy nether lip."

_Head._ According to the old writers on physiognomy, a round head denoted foolishness, a notion to which reference is made in "Antony and Cleopatra" (iii. 3), in the following dialogue, where Cleopatra, inquiring about Octavia, says to the Messenger:

"Bear'st thou her face in mind? Is't long, or round?

_Messenger._ Round, even to faultiness.

_Cleopatra._ For the most part, too, they are foolish that are so."

In Hill's "Pleasant History," etc. (1613), we read: "The head very round, to be forgetful and foolish." Again: "The head long, to be prudent and wary."

_Heart._ The term "broken heart," as commonly applied to death from excessive grief, is not a vulgar error, but may arise from violent muscular exertion or strong mental emotions. In "Macbeth" (iv. 3), Malcolm says:

"The grief, that does not speak, Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break."

We may compare, too, Queen Margaret's words to Buckingham, in "Richard III." (i. 3), where she prophesies how Gloster

"Shall split thy very heart with sorrow."

Mr. Timbs, in his "Mysteries of Life, Death, and Futurity" (1861, p.

149), has given the following note on the subject: "This affection was, it is believed, first described by Harvey; but since his day several cases have been observed. Morgagni has recorded a few examples: among them, that of George II., who died suddenly of this disease in 1760; and, what is very curious, Morgagni himself fell a victim to the same malady. Dr. Elliotson, in his Lumleyan Lectures on Diseases of the Heart, in 1839, stated that he had only seen one instance; but in the 'Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine' Dr. Townsend gives a table of twenty-five cases, collected from various authors."