Archibald Geikie

“ While Shakespeare, like his poetical predecessors and contemporaries, regarded the whole tribe of birds as a great vocal assemblage, a delightful section of animated Nature, that gives life and charm to the countryside, his Poems and Plays stand apart for the remarkable extent to which he singles out individual birds by name, often with such detailed reference to their habits as to show that he well knew them in their native haunts. ”

“ Coming anew to these poems from a prolonged perusal of Shakespeare, we are first struck by the fact that although so distinct from each other in thought as well as in music, they are akin in being not mere references to the birds, but actual addresses to particular members of the feathered tribes. In each case the ode is no cold description, but a monologue, glowing with appreciation and love, and spoken as it were directly to the subject itself. The birds are recognised as, like ourselves, “travellers between life and death.” ”

“ A recent and most able writer on Shakespeare has stated as his opinion that “the wild creatures of the fields and woods, because they have never run the risk of familiarity with man, are outside the circle of Shakespeare’s sympathetic observation.” I venture to think that a more mistaken judgement could hardly have been pronounced. Shakespeare was not a man of science, but he obviously had some of the best qualities of a naturalist—quickness and accuracy of eye and sympathy with life, not of man only, but of every creature that lives and feels. ”

“ In many passages, to some of which I shall presently allude, the poet heightens the gloom of night by allusion to the nocturnal birds which screech or moan in the dark, or he lightens its eeriness with the pensive melody of the nightingale. ”

“ In the time of Elizabeth the kite (or Puttock) , now one of the rarest of our birds, was quite common in this country. It was particularly abundant in London, where it fed on the garbage of the streets, and even of the Thames, and where, together with the raven, it was protected by law as a useful scavenger without pay. The frequency of Shakespeare’s allusions to this bird is good evidence of how familiar it must then have been. It is always referred to in some disparaging way. The “hungry kite” did not scruple to carry off any living creature it could overcome even from the very farm-yard. ”

“ The birds of the CROW family are well represented in Shakespeare’s works. Chief among them comes the RAVEN, to which frequent and effective allusion is made. The remarkably dark hue of the bird, including even his bill and his feet, has made his name proverbial as a type of the deepest blackness in Nature. ”

“ Recognising in these creatures traits that remind him of the feelings and actions of mankind, he makes varied and effective use of them as symbols and illustrations with which to enrich his vivid picture of the great drama of human life. The naturalist, interested in noting the attitude of the greatest poet of all time towards living creatures, feels no surprise that Shakespeare’s knowledge of natural history is sometimes inaccurate, or that he should have taken on trust some of the fabulous legends in that subject, which were current in his day. ”

“ List of Illustrations
[Pg 1] The Birds of Shakespeare
From the infancy of mankind no tribe of living creatures has awakened more sympathy in the human heart than the Birds of the Air. Their pairing, their nesting, their sedulous care of their young, their arrival in spring and disappearance in autumn, the endless variety of their notes, and the manifold diversity of their habits and dispositions, often so suggestive of analogies with those of human nature, have arrested the attention of even the most unobservant men. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Each envious brier his weary legs doth scratch,
Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay. [26]
The poet’s feeling of pity descends even to small and fragile forms of living things, to which most people are indifferent or even hostile. Perhaps he may sometimes have credited these feeble creatures with greater sensitiveness to pain than a modern naturalist would allow, as where Isabella in Measure for Measure tells her brother that
The poor beetle, that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies. ”

“ The owl plays a large part in Shakespeare’s references to bird-life. He does not discriminate between the different members of the large family probably included under this name, though he distinguishes some of their respective cries. He heightens the feeling of the eeriness of night by introducing the remarkable sound of the owl’s voice, and most effectively when some deed of villainy is on foot, or as one of the signs popularly supposed to portend coming disaster. He includes the owl also in that fairy world which he has made so real. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Shakespeare’s acquaintance with the family of HAWKS was manifestly of the most intimate kind. These birds were common natives of the country, and in great request for the sport of falconry. His writings prove him to have had a detailed knowledge of the terminology of this sport, and he was probably himself a keen falconer in his early years, if not throughout his life. His Plays are full of [Pg 37] the technical language of hawking, which he employs by way of similitude in matters of a wholly different nature. ”

“ Parrot and the Ostrich. As one result of the many voyages of discovery in his day, both in the Old and the New World, the PARROT had become a familiar bird in England. Its loud and harsh clamour, its docility, its clever imitation of human speech, but at the best, the paucity of its vocabulary, are duly noted by our dramatist. In one scene we are told how Falstaff was pleased to have “his poll clawed like a parrot,” [84] in another, a lady declares that in her jealousy she will be “more clamorous than a parrot against rain.” ”

“ The spontaneous and irresistible joy of the human soul in the varied beauty of Nature, and not least in the bird-music of the fields and woods, is as marked in Shakespeare’s works as it was in those of Chaucer ”

“ The WILD DUCK or MALLARD is taken by Shakespeare as a symbol of cowardice and uxoriousness. Falstaff, after robbing the travellers on the highway, without the help of the two chief members of the gang, declares,
An the Prince and Poins be not two arrant cowards, there’s no equity stirring: there’s no more valour in that Poins than in a wild duck. ”

“ Pity for the humblest Creatures Shakespeare elsewhere alludes to our [Pg 21] prevalent insensibility towards the insect world, from our youth upward.
As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods;
They kill us for their sport. [28] In maturer life men will do “a thousand dreadful things as willingly as one would kill a fly.” [29] But the poet’s pity extended even to the fly. In a spirited picture of a superb charger he tells how the animal proudly “stamps and bites the poor flies in his fume.” ”

“ In the other group, the nightingale takes its natural place as one of our familiar English songsters. There was a Greek myth that Philomela, the daughter of an Attic King, after being cruelly treated by her brother Tereus, was compassionately changed by the gods into a nightingale, and that thereafter she spent her life among woods lamenting in mournful notes the fate that had befallen her. Her name came to be given to the bird. Shakespeare, following this legend, introduces the bird as Philomel into his separate Poems and into the lyrics included in his dramas. ”

“ The Kite
The Vulture
The vulture, not infrequently mentioned by Shakespeare, is not a British bird, though at rare intervals it has appeared as a migrant in this country. The poet most likely never saw one, his allusions to it being obviously based on its reputation for [Pg 47] voracity, and partly also on the legend of Prometheus and the eagle. In one passage a speaker asserts “there cannot be that vulture in you to devour so many.” [80] The expressions “vulture thought” and “vulture folly” are used in the Poems. ”

“ Greater familiarity with bird-life had been attained, and much more was known about the habits of birds. [Pg 112] Of this knowledge use was made by way of simile and illustration in regard to human life. How often and how vividly, for instance, does Shakespeare, by means of an analogy from the world of birds, portray the depth of man’s feelings,—his joy, his sorrow and his suffering!
Birds in later Poetry
The law of evolution, which has been so supreme in the history of organised life on the globe, does not leave the human mind outside of its influence. ”

“ The approach of the Shakespeare Tercentenary having brought the poet and his writings more closely to the mind, it appeared to me not inappropriate that a company of naturalists should be asked to consider how one branch of the subjects in which they are more specially interested had been treated by the greatest poet of all time. ”

“ No better a musician than the wren. [237]
Progress of English Poetry
The lapse of two centuries from the time of Chaucer witnessed a change in the mood of English poetry in regard to its treatment of birds. The simple and unaffected joy in the voices of the grove, so conspicuous in the poems of the author of the Canterbury Tales, had not become less, but it had been accompanied by the growth of a more observant and contemplative spirit. While bird-music was as much appreciated as ever, a much wider field of interest in the feathered tribes had been entered upon. ”

“ 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 [Pg 99] 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]
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! ”

“ And in nearly the last strains that reach us before the drama closes, the carol of the birds comes in again:
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
Sweet lovers love the spring. [21]
It will be remembered that the contemplation of the woodland peace and happiness of the Forest of Arden inspired the poet with one of the most pregnant passages to be found in his works. Though the quotation has become rather hackneyed from constant use, it deserves to be treasured in the heart of everyone to whom the study of Nature is dear ”

“ 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.” ”

“ More especially does he appear to have mastered the whole craft of falconry, then so much in vogue; for his writings are full of the vocabulary of its technical terms. The frequency and detail of the poet’s allusions to the various methods of bird-capture suggest the experience of one who speaks from personal practice. He is fond of introducing these allusions in illustration of the plots and wiles of man with regard to his fellow-men. ”

“ I cannot tell: the world is grown so bad
That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch. [53] And Hastings in the same Play remarks
More pity that the eagle should be mew’d
While kites and buzzards prey at liberty. [54] Among Shakespeare’s political allusions in which the eagle appears there is one of some interest as a reminiscence of a far-off unhappy time in our history when the southern half of the island could be likened to the king of birds, while the northern portion was compared to a destructive kind of vermin. ”

“ True hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings;
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings. [223] The rapidity with which this bird can pursue its course, even close to the ground, had not escaped the poet’s notice. Titus, in praise of his stud, affirms
I have horse will follow where the game
Makes way, and run like swallows o’er the plain. [224] When Falstaff was rebuked for his dilatory journey to the field of battle, he justified himself thus ”