The Ornithology of Shakespeare Part 25

"The public body ...

... feeling in itself A lack of Timon's aid, hath sense withal Of _it_ own fall."

Again, in _Winter's Tale_ (Act ii. Sc. 3):--

... "to _it_ own protection."

And--

"The innocent milk in _it_ most innocent mouth."

_Winters Tale_, Act iii. Sc. 2.

[Sidenote: THE HEDGE-SPARROW AND CUCKOO.]

The popular notion referred to by the poet in _King Lear_, is again mentioned by Worcester in _Henry IV._--

"And, being fed by us, you us'd us so As that ungentle gull, the _cuckoo's bird_,[79]

Useth the sparrow; did oppress our nest, Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk, That even our love durst not come near your sight, For fear of swallowing."

_Henry IV._ Part I. Act v. Sc. 1.

The ingrat.i.tude of the young cuckoo, which is said to turn out the young of its foster parent as soon as it is sufficiently strong, has given rise in France to the proverb "Ingrat comme un coucou."

The word "gull" above mentioned is usually applied to the person "gulled," _i.e._ beguiled. Here it must either mean the "guller," or it must have a special application to the voracity of the cuckoo, as the sea-gull is supposed to be so called from _gulo--onis_.

We gather from Decker's "English Villanies" that formerly the sharpers termed their gang a _warren_, and their simple victims _rabbit-suckers_, or _conies_. At other times their confederates were called _bird-catchers_, and their prey _gulls_; and hence it was common to say of any person who had been swindled or hoaxed, that he was _coney-catched_ or _gulled_.

"Why, 'tis a _gull_, a fool!"--_Henry V._ Act iii. Sc. 6.

In a subsequent chapter we shall have occasion to refer to various other pa.s.sages in which the word _gull_ is thus employed. But to return to the cuckoo, and its foster parent the hedge-sparrow:--

"Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud, Or hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrows' nests?"--_Lucrece._

The solution of this question is the more puzzling from the fact that this parasitical habit is not common to all species of the genus cuckoo. An American species builds a nest for itself, and hatches its own eggs.

[Sidenote: THE CUCKOO.]

The habits of our English bird must always be as much a marvel to us as its remarkable voice.

"He knows me, as the blind man knows the cuckoo, By the bad voice."

_Merchant of Venice_, Act v. Sc. 1.

"The plain song cuckoo gray, Whose note full many a man doth mark, And dares not answer, nay--

for, indeed, who would set his wish to so foolish a bird? who would give a bird the lie, though he cry 'cuckoo' never so?"--_Midsummer Night's Dream_, Act iii. Sc. 1.

This pa.s.sage always brings to our recollection those beautiful lines which Wordsworth addressed "To the Cuckoo," and which must be so well known to all.

The cuckoo, as long ago remarked by John Heywood,[80] begins to sing early in the season with the interval of a minor third; the bird then proceeds to a major third, next to a fourth, then a fifth, after which its voice breaks, without attaining a minor sixth. It may, therefore, be said to have done much for musical science, because from this bird has been derived the minor scale, the origin of which has puzzled so many; the cuckoo's couplet being the minor third sung downwards. Kircher, however,[81] gives it thus:--

[Music]

In Gardiner's "Music of Nature" it is rendered as follows:--

[Music: Cuc-koo, Cuc-koo.]

A friend of Gilbert White's found upon trial that the note of the cuckoo varies in different individuals. About Selborne Wood he found they were mostly in D. He heard two sing together, the one in D, the other in D sharp, which made a very disagreeable duet. He afterwards heard one in D sharp, and about Wolmer Forest some in C.

Gungl, in his "Cuckoo Galop," gives the note of the cuckoo as B natural and G sharp. Dr. Arne, in his music to the cuckoo's song in _Love's Labour's Lost_, gives it as C natural and G.

And now "will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled in praise of the owl and the cuckoo? This side is Hiems, Winter; this Ver, the Spring; the one maintained by the owl, the other by the cuckoo.

"Ver, begin:--

I.

"When daisies pied,[82] and violets blue, And lady-smocks[83] fall silver white, And cuckoo-buds[84] of yellow hue, Do paint the meadows with delight; The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men, for thus sings he, Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo, O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear.

II.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks; When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws; And maidens bleach their summer smocks; The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men, for thus sings he, Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo, O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear."

In the old copies the four first lines of the first stanza are arranged in couplets thus:--

"When daisies pied, and violets blue, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, And lady-smocks all silver white, Do paint the meadows with delight."

But, as in all the other stanzas the rhymes are alternate, this was most probably an error of the compositor. The transposition now generally adopted was first made by Theobald.

The notion which couples the name of the cuckoo with the character of the man whose wife is unfaithful to him, appears to have been derived from the Romans, and is first found in the middle ages in France, and in the countries of which the modern language is derived from the Latin. We are not aware that it existed originally amongst the Teutonic race, and we have doubtless received it from the Normans. The opinion that the cuckoo made no nest of its own, but laid its eggs in that of another bird, which brought up the young cuckoo to the detriment of its own offspring, was well-known to the ancients, and is mentioned by Aristotle and Pliny.

So in _Antony and Cleopatra_ (Act ii. Sc. 6):--

"Thou dost o'ercount me of my father's house; But since the cuckoo builds not for himself, Remain in 't as thou may'st."

But the ancients more correctly gave the name of the bird, not to the husband of the faithless wife, but to her paramour, who might justly be supposed to be acting the part of the cuckoo. They gave the name of the bird in whose nest the cuckoo's eggs were usually deposited--"_curruca_"--to the husband. It is not quite clear how, in the pa.s.sage from cla.s.sic to mediaeval, the application of the term was transferred to the husband.[85] In allusion to this are the following lines of Shakespeare:--

"For I the ballad will repeat, Which men full true will find; Your marriage comes by destiny, Your cuckoo sings by kind."

_All's Well that Ends Well_, Act i. Sc. 3.

This would appear to be only a new version of an old proverb, for in "Grange's Garden," 4to, 1577, we have--

"Content yourself as well as I, Let reason rule your minde, As cuckoldes come by destinie, So cuckowes sing by kinde."

[Sidenote: CUCKOO SONGS.]

If Shakespeare is to be believed, marriage is not the only thing that goes by destiny:--