Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 60

The natives of Africa have been supposed to be possessed of the secret how to temper poisons with such art as not to operate till several years after they were administered. Their drugs were then as certain in their effect as subtle in their preparation.[626] Thus, in "The Tempest"

(iii. 3), Gonzalo says:

"All three of them are desperate: their great guilt, Like poison given to work a great time after, Now 'gins to bite the spirits."

[626] Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. i. p. 65.

The belief in slow poisoning was general in bygone times, although no better founded on fact, remarks Dr. Bucknill,[627] than the notion that persons burst with poison, or that narcotics could, like an alarum clock, be set for a certain number of hours. So, in "Cymbeline" (v. 5), Cornelius relates to the king the queen's confession:

"She did confess, she had For you a mortal mineral; which, being took, Should by the minute feed on life, and, lingering, By inches waste you."

[627] "Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare," p. 226.

_Pomander._ This was either a composition of various perfumes wrought in the shape of a ball or other form, and worn in the pocket or hung about the neck, and even sometimes suspended to the wrist; or a case for containing such a mixture of perfumes. It was used as an amulet against the plague or other infections, as well as for an article of luxury.

There is an allusion to its use in the "Winter's Tale" (iv. 3), by Autolycus, who enumerates it among all his trumpery that he had sold.

The following recipe for making a pomander we find in an old play:[628]

"Your only way to make a pomander is this: take an ounce of the purest garden mould, cleans'd and steep'd seven days in change of motherless rose-water. Then take the best labdanum, benjoin, with storaxes, ambergris, civet, and musk. Incorporate them together, and work them into what form you please. This, if your breath be not too valiant, will make you smell as sweet as any lady's dog."

[628] Quoted in Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 671.

_Rheumatism._ In Shakespeare's day this was used in a far wider sense than nowadays, including, in addition to what is now understood by the term, distillations from the head, catarrhs, etc. Malone quotes from the "Sidney Memorials" (vol. i. p. 94), where the health of Sir Henry Sidney is described: "He hath verie much distempored divers parts of his bodie; as namelie, his heade, his stomack, &c., and thereby is always subject to distillacions, coughes, and other rumatick diseases." Among the many superst.i.tions relating to the moon,[629] one is mentioned in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (ii. 1), where t.i.tania tells how the moon,

"Pale in her anger, washes all the air, That rheumatic diseases do abound."

[629] See p. 74.

The word "rheumatic" was also formerly used in the sense of choleric or peevish, as in "2 Henry IV." (ii. 4), where the Hostess says: "You two never meet but you fall to some discord: you are both, in good troth, as rheumatic as two dry toasts." Again, in "Henry V." (ii. 3), the Hostess says of Falstaff: "A' did in some sort, indeed, handle women; but then he was rheumatic,[630] and talked of the wh.o.r.e of Babylon."

[630] Malone suggests that the hostess may mean "then he was lunatic."

_Serpigo._ This appears to have been a term extensively used by old medical authors for any creeping skin disease, being especially applied to that known as the _herpes circinatus_. The expression occurs in "Measure for Measure" (iii. 1), being coupled by the Duke with "the gout" and the "rheum." In "Troilus and Cressida" (ii. 3), Thersites says: "Now, the dry serpigo on the subject."

_Sickness._ Sickness of stomach, which the slightest disgust is apt to provoke, is still expressed by the term "queasy;" hence the word denoted _delicate_, _unsettled_; as in "King Lear" (ii. 1), where it is used by Edmund:

"I have one thing, of a queasy question, Which I must act."

So Ben Jonson employs it in "Seja.n.u.s" (i. 1):

"These times are rather queasy to be touched."

_Sigh._ It was a prevalent notion that sighs impair the strength and wear out the animal powers. Thus, in "2 Henry VI." (iii. 2), Queen Margaret speaks of "blood-drinking sighs." We may, too, compare the words of Oberon in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (iii. 2), who refers to "sighs of love, that cost the fresh blood dear." In "3 Henry VI." (iv.

4), Queen Elizabeth says:

"for this I draw in many a tear, And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs."

Once more, in "Hamlet" (iv. 7), the King mentions the "spendthrift sigh, that hurts by easing." Fenton, in his "Tragical Discourses" (1579), alludes to this notion in the following words: "Your scorching sighes that have already drayned your body of his wholesome humoures."

It was also an ancient belief that sorrow consumed the blood and shortened life. Hence Romeo tells Juliet (iii. 5):

"And trust me, love, in my eye so do you: Dry sorrow drinks our blood."

_Small-pox._ Such a terrible plague was this disease in the days of our ancestors, that its name was used as an imprecation. Thus, in "Love's Labour's Lost" (v. 2), the Princess says: "A pox of that jest."

_Saliva._ The color of the spittle was, with the medical men of olden times, an important point of diagnosis. Thus, in "2 Henry IV." (i. 2), Falstaff exclaims against fighting on a hot day, and wishes he may "never spit white again," should it so happen.[631]

[631] Bucknill's "Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare," p. 150.

_Sterility._ The charm against sterility referred to by Caesar in "Julius Caesar" (i. 2) is copied from Plutarch, who, in his description of the festival Lupercalia, tells us how "n.o.ble young men run naked through the city, striking in sport whom they meet in the way with leather thongs,"

which blows were commonly believed to have the wonderful effect attributed to them by Caesar:

"The barren, touched in this holy chase, Shake off their sterile curse."

_Suicide._ Cominius, in "Coriola.n.u.s" (i. 9), arguing against Marcius's overstrained modesty, refers to the manner in which suicide was thought preventable in olden times:

"If 'gainst yourself you be incens'd, we'll put you, Like one that means his proper harm, in manacles, Then reason safely with you."

_Toothache._ It was formerly a common superst.i.tion-and one, too, not confined to our own country-that toothache was caused by a little worm, having the form of an eel, which gradually gnawed a hole in the tooth.

In "Much Ado About Nothing" (iii. 2), Shakespeare speaks of this curious belief:

"_Don Pedro._ What! sigh for the toothache?

_Leonato._ Where is but a humour, or a worm."

This notion was, some years ago, prevalent in Derbys.h.i.+re,[632] where there was an odd way of extracting, as it was thought, the worm. A small quant.i.ty of a mixture, consisting of dry and powdered herbs, was placed in some small vessel, into which a live coal from the fire was dropped.

The patient then held his or her open mouth over the vessel, and inhaled the smoke as long as it could be borne. The cup was then taken away, and in its place a gla.s.s of water was put before the patient. Into this gla.s.s the person breathed hard for a few moments, when it was supposed the grub or worm could be seen in the water. In Orkney, too, toothache goes by the name of "the worm," and, as a remedy, the following charm, called "wormy lines," is written on a piece of paper, and worn as an amulet, by the person affected, in some part of his dress:

"Peter sat on a marble stone weeping; Christ came past, and said, 'What aileth thee, Peter?'

'O my Lord, my G.o.d, my tooth doth ache.'

'Arise, O Peter! go thy way; thy tooth shall ache no more.'"

[632] See "English Folk-Lore," p. 156.

This notion is still current in Germany, and is mentioned by Thorpe, in his "Northern Mythology" (vol. iii. p. 167), who quotes a North German incantation, beginning,

"Pear tree, I complain to thee; Three worms sting me."

It is found, too, even in China and New Zealand,[633] the following charm being used in the latter country:

"An eel, a spiny back True indeed, indeed: true in sooth, in sooth.

You must eat the head Of said spiny back."

[633] See Shortland's "Traditions and Superst.i.tions of the New-Zealanders," 1856, p. 131.

A writer in the _Athenaeum_ (Jan. 28, 1860), speaking of the Rev. R. H.

Cobbold's "Pictures of the Chinese, Drawn by Themselves," says: "The first portrait is that of a quack doctress, who pretends to cure toothache by extracting a maggot-the cause of the disorder. This is done-or, rather, pretended to be done-by simply placing a bright steel pin on the part affected, and tapping the pin with a piece of wood. Mr.

Cobbold compares the operation to procuring worms for fis.h.i.+ng by working a spade backwards and forwards in the ground. He and a friend submitted to the process, but in a very short time compelled the doctress to desist, by the excessive precautions they took against imposition." We may further note that John of Gatisden, one of the oldest medical authors, attributes decay of the teeth to "a humour or a worm." In his "Rosa Anglica"[634] he says: "Si vermes sint in dentibus, ? s.e.m.e.n porri, seu lusquiami contere et misce c.u.m cera, pone super carbones, et fumus recipiatur per embotum, quoniam sanat. Solum etiam s.e.m.e.n lusquiami valet coctum in aqua calida, supra quam aquam patiens palatum apertum si tenuerit, cadent vermes evidenter vel in illam aquam, vel in aliam quae ibi fuerit ibi posita. De myrrha et aloe ponantur in dentem, ubi est vermis: s.e.m.e.n caulis, et absinthium, per se vermes interficit."

[634] Liber Secundus-"De Febribus," p. 923, ed. 1595.

_Tub-fast._ In years past "the discipline of sweating in a heated tub for a considerable time, accompanied with strict abstinence, was thought necessary for the cure of venereal taint."[635] Thus, in "Timon of Athens" (iv. 3), Timon says to Timandra: