Topic: Academic Papers
While camping last summer, my daughter and I were struck by the beauty of the birds? morning choir in our little wooded area. Then, as in historic times, birds served as our alarm clock, waking us at sunrise each day, as if they were concerned that we should not miss one moment of the day dawning on us. How we delighted in their song! They were our constant companions on hikes through the woods, ever present on our swims in the lake and the subject of much discussion between me and my nine-year-old daughter. She recognized immediately that birds are unlike any other animal. As the monkey is to man, the sparrow is to eagle and, save fish, no other class of animal is as diverse as the bird.
Birds fill us with a mixture of emotion ranging from joy to longing to mental irritation. A cloud of starlings in their swarming movement can take our breath away. Angels may reflect our deep human longing to experience flight, or freedom, both considered reverently by us. And anyone who has been kept awake by a hooting owl or a woodpecker?s pecks; or awakened in the middle of a perfectly good morning dream by the screech of blue jays outside their window; or had to scrape bird waste from their car windows will understand what it means to be annoyed by birds. The point is that observation of birds is an instinctively emotive experience for humans.
What then is mankind?s relationship with birds? How has that relationship changed over time? Writers from our earliest recorded history have observed and written about birds and about their relationship with us. From Samaria to Egypt and Greece to Celtic Ireland, birds have been used as affecting image, metaphor and symbol in nature poems. A long list of recognizable names from literature such as Dante, Petrarch and Chaucer have all used birds to populate their literature with realism, symbolism and metaphor (Armstrong 30). William Shakespeare, however, may have used birds more frequently, in both flock and individual bird, than any other author of which we are aware.
But how, one may ask, was Shakespeare influenced in his use of birds and where did he get his information? What is the extent of his use of birds in his plays and poems, which birds does he use, and what were their implied meanings to audiences of his time and ours? These are important questions for any budding Shakespearean scholar and for others not aiming for scholarly knowledge but who are nevertheless interested in the unique crossroad between nature and literature that is characteristic of Shakespeare?s work.
The Elizabethan Age straddled two distinct periods in European history, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance?the former characterized in part by religious and often superstitious beliefs and practices, the latter characterized by an expanded world view and a deep curiosity from which emerged the discipline of scientific observation. Accordingly, in Shakespeare?s youth the reigning authority on the nature and habits of birds was Friar Bartholomew, and his book Liber de Proprietibus Rerum, first published in 1485, was almost certainly familiar to him. The book was not, however, the most accurate authority and its fallacies are reflected in a variety of literature, Shakespeare?s among them, one example being Cade?s threat to Iden in Henry VI to make him eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword like a great pin (2. IV. x.). It did not constitute the sole source of his information, however, a great deal probably came from his youth growing up in Stratford-on-Avon, a relatively rural area, and by the literature published during his life by various nature and bird enthusiasts (Armstrong 32).
The birds that Shakespeare made reference to in his poems and plays number 52, according to Sir Archibald Geikie in his important book The Birds of Shakespeare (28). This number is only the record of variety and does not indicate the number of times he referenced a particular bird or any of his application of general bird imagery.
Blackbird 2
Bunting 1
Buzzard 4
Chough 8
Cormorant 4
Crow 45
Cuckoo 22
Dabchick *
Domestic Cock 30
Dove/Pigeon 65
Eagle 40
Falcon/Hawk 15
Finch 1
Goose 40
Halcyon/Kingfisher 2
Hedge Sparrow 1
House Martin *
House Sparrow 9
Jackdaw *
Jay 5
Kestrel *
Kite 17
Lapwing 4
Lark 29
Loon 3
Magpie 6
Nightingale 14
Osprey 2
Ostrich 2
Owl 25
Parrot 9
Partridge 2
Peacock 5
Pelican 3
Pheasant 1
Quail 2
Raven 35
Robin 17
Rook 2
Snipe 1
Sparrow Hawk 1
Starling 1
Swallow 10
Swan 14
Thrush 3
Turkey-Cock 6
Turtle Dove 1
Vulture 7
Wagtail 1
Wild Duck 12
Wren 9
The above list of birds are cited by Shakespeare along with the number of citations, compiled from information from the The Oxford Edition of the Compete Works of William Shakespeare and the The Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare.
A full discussion of all 52 varieties of bird and their application in Shakespeare?s poems and plays could fill volumes and indeed, as the list of book references suggests, has already. Various writers at one time or another have been moved to broach the subject of Shakespeare?s birds and many ornithology books include citations from the Bard for aesthetic or historical purposes. For our purposes we?ll discuss generally, or use one or two examples from, each of these categories: domesticated birds, game birds, birds of prey, crows, owls, water birds and small songbirds.
Domesticated Birds
Cocks crow frequently in Shakespeare?s plays and that is no surprise when one considers the decided lack of accurate or alarm-equipped timepieces at the time. Much of England was still rural: the technologies, knowledge and worldly sophistication that resulted from the availability of New World resources and the scientific discoveries of the Renaissance were just beginning to emerge in England?s urban centers, and only to the rich or those with status; thus roosters were still widely used as morning time keepers. In Shakespeare?s England cocks were thought to have supernatural power, specifically it was believed that the crowing of the cock caused faeries and ghosts to disappear or lose their power over humans. Earlier association of the cock with eternal life or afterlife in the Christian church may have influenced this belief, since its likeness was etched or engraved as such a symbol on early Christian burial monuments (Rowland 24).
All of this was common knowledge in England and the rooster was a common sight?everyone had seen a cock, most close up. Contrast that with today when, save for the occasional small farm and breeding farms, cocks are a rarity and are known more for their cacophony than their metaphysical prowess. To us, they are reminiscent of a past time.
Probably the most famous passage that refers to the cock is the scene where the ghost appears to Hamlet and his friends. Before the ghost could speak:
?the cock crew.
And then is startled like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet of morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill sounding
Awake the god of day, and at his warning
Whether in seas or in fire, in earth or
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine: and the truth herein
This present object made probation:
It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say that that ever ?gainst that
Wherein our Savior?s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir
The nights are wholesome, then no
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to
So hallowed and so gracious is the time.
~Hamlet I. i. 147-164
The peacock is that exotic bird which brings out the envy in us, so lovely is his feathery ensemble. He is a symbol of pride, as Ther implies of Hector to Achil in Troilus and Cressida:
Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock, a stride and a stand; ruminates like a hostess that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning; bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should say ?There were wit in this head, an ?twould out;? and so there is, but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking. The man?s undone for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i? the combat, he?ll break ?t himself in vainglory.
~ Troilus and Cressida, III. iii. 164-169
The peacock has been the subject of more negative conjecture for most of our recorded history and Shakespeare?s use demonstrates that he was clearly familiar with the literary standard. Always there is pride, jealousy or ostentation afoot when a peacock appears in one of Shakespeare?s works and he is usually accurate to make the comparison between the character and the bird male to male. In recent times, however, authors such as D. H. Lawrence have used the elaborately feathered and colored male peacock to symbolize vanity in women, an idea that seems to have spread, despite the inaccuracy.
Game Birds
In addition to being a food prop that often implied class or status, Shakespeare loved using game birds and the tools of the sport as metaphor in his plays. Bird-capture is aptly suited for his complex tales of power struggle by deceit like Comedy of Errors and Othello. He names the woodcock, pheasant, partridge and quail in his various schemes. Interestingly, he used the mallard, or wild duck, as a symbol of what we might today call a hen-pecked male mate, as in Antony and Cleopatra:
The noble ruin of her magic, Antony,
Claps on his sea-wing, and like a doting mallard,
leaving the flight in height, flies after her.
~III. x. 19-21
As often as he mentioned particular game birds to imply a character is the target of a contrived plot, he used words like lime, gins, springes and decoys to suggest the same?all bird sporting terms. As we will see in the next section, he also uses the tools of falconry to identify the plot-planners and their trickery. Most of these terms are not in common use today like they were in Shakespeare?s lifetime. Audiences in 17th Century England would have understood immediately what Henry VI meant when he said:
The bird that hath been limed in a bush,
With trembling wing misdoubteth every bush;
~V. vi. 13, 14
though it is improbable that a modern reader will know without reading the footnote at the bottom of the page. Even then, where the Elizabethan audience would have immediately had a solid image, more than likely the modern reader has to work to get that experience.
Birds of Prey
Birds of prey were used for a variety of purposes, depending upon the individual bird. Eagles were usually good, often royal, as in the Duke of York?s observation that the eye of Richard II is as bright as is the eagle?s, lightens forth, controlling majesty (III. iii 68-9). Hawks symbolized confidence or cunning, the latter informs Petruchio?s speech on how to address the problem with his wife by metaphorically comparing her to a falcon being trained:
My falcon now is sharp and passing empty;
And till she stoop she must not be full-gorged,
For then she never looks upon her lure.
~ Taming of the Shrew IV. i. 174-176
The kite, also called a puttock, was a common and annoyingly numerous bird in Elizabethan England, though they are extremely rare today. Like the starling, they thrived in urban centers because they were excellent scavengers, though they preyed on weaker animals and fed on carrion as well (Armstrong 157). They were used by Shakespeare to completely reproving effect, suggesting either the lowest kind of thievery or that the offending character was opportunistic with those s/he perceived as weaker characters. In Henry VI, for instance, York likens appointing Duke Humphrey to protect the king to sending an empty [not fed] eagle to guard the chicken from the hungry kite (III. i. 245-6). The rarity of this bird in England today has caused a change of status so that it is now considered to be beautiful and graceful, a change which is sure to confound modern British readers even as the meaning may be lost altogether on the American reader (Rowland 93).
Crows
Of the crow family, the raven is probably the most widely used example. The reader may recall that passage of longing spoken by Juliet as she waited for her Romeo in the orchard, which employed the raven?s impressive blackness as a contrast to the wings of night, which were whiter than new snow on a raven?s back (III. ii. 18-9). Color, however, seems to be their only good quality. Shakespeare used the raven to portend powerful, often fatal events, hence Lady Macbeth?s remark that the raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements (I. v. 35-6). Known for their opportunistic killing of smaller or crippled and wounded animals, there is a reference in King John to a raven on a sick-fallen beast, the imminent decay of wrested pomp (IV. iii. 153-4). Also thought to be charlatans for their aesthetic beauty and their repulsive survival skills, Juliet again employs the raven, this time as metaphor for being just opposite of what thou justly seem using the term dove-feathered raven to get her point across (III. ii. 76-7).
Owls
The reputation of the owl has been that of a trichotomized nature throughout history. Until the early Middle Ages, the owl enjoyed a good reputation?it symbolized success and the Athenians revered it for its preternatural powers. It was this preternatural reputation, however, which would prove its downfall and lead Beryl Rowland to describe the owl as the avis turpissima, the most evil bird on earth, in the book Birds With Human Souls (115). Finally, there is the owl?s reputation as that of a sage?a being so alert, so erudite, and so calm that he can only be described as wise. The Athenian legend must have been unknown to Shakespeare, as would be the wise owl since that is a more recent development. Shakespeare has no benign references to the owl save those that are there simply to denote the time, which would be night. All other citations play on the negative occult angle or are used as symbols to portend disaster, especially involving death. The latter was especially true if the owl appeared by day as it did prior to the assassination of Julius Caesar when the bird of night did sit, even at noon-day, upon the market-place hooting and shrieking (I. iii. 26-8).
Water Birds
The Elizabethan belief that pelicans feed their young with their own blood had its roots in a Greek myth whereby a devoted maternal pelican caresses her children with her claws in such passionate expression of that devotion that she kills them. Three days later the father turns up, and in his grief he rips his chest open and the blood flows on his dead children and revives them (Borges). Of the three times the bird is mentioned by the Bard, all three of them make reference to this fable: Once in King Lear, where Edgar refers to Lear?s daughters as those pelican daughters (III. iv. 74); once in Hamlet, Laertes makes mention of the kind, life-rendering pelican, repast them with my blood (IV. v. 143-4); and once in King Richard II, where John of Gaunt notes that blood already, like the Pelican, hast thou tapp'd out and drunkenly caroused (II. i.).
Loons in the 17th century did not enjoy the reputation they do today as a symbol of insanity. Everyone has probably heard the phrase, ?crazy as a loon,? which is even enshrined in song, for instance Johnny Mercer?s song Skylark uses that exact phrase. Shakespeare, however, used the loon to symbolize a scoundrel or a scamp, as when Macbeth says to a servant, the devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon! Also used as lown as in Othello when, compared to the worthiness of King Stephen, Iago calls the tailor a lown and considers him of low degree (II. iii.).
Small Song Birds
The house martin and the sparrow are two of Shakespeare?s favorite songsters, outside of the nightingale, of course. Swallows were seasonal indicators, either through their presence, absence or departure, as their migratory habits lend themselves to that purpose. They were also used as symbols of rapidity, as in Richard III when Richmond adds, almost as an afterthought to his marching order, true hope is swift, and flies with swallows wings (III. v. 23). In Henry VI Falstaff inquires of his lord, do you think me a swallow, an arrow, or a bullet (IV. iii.)?
Shakespeare used the house martin or martlet to denote valor or thrifty survival. In the Merchant of Venice Arragon says of the martlet that it pries not to the interior, but?builds in the weather on the outward wall even in the force and road of casualty (II. ix.).
Lastly, that sparrow which is the herald of providence was much maligned in Shakespeare?s day and its reputation is vastly improved today, perhaps in part as a result of our misunderstanding of the use of the symbol in his work. The most famous allusion to the sparrow may be Hamlet?s melancholy observation that there?s special providence in the fall of a sparrow (V. ii.). The entire passage that includes this line implies the existence of a higher being that Hamlet feels is operating behind the scenes, controlling them all and having a good laugh about it, as he suggests in the follow-up, if it be now ?tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, it yet will come and one might as well surrender to one?s fate because the readiness is all (V. ii.). The misunderstanding may come when modern readers, influenced by the positive image of a sparrow and the equation of providence with the presence of God, think of this passage as a hopeful one rather than the hopeless one it actually is.
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Much of Shakespeare?s use of bird imagery as metaphor or symbol in his writings, particularly in his plays, may be lost on the modern reader without some sort of explanation; people of Elizabethan England would have understood almost all of them perfectly, being influenced by the same sort of intellectual input as was our Bard. As much difficulty as the new Shakespearean audience may have with the use of archaic language and language structure, even the most linguistically well-versed scholar may not understand fully the implied meanings of bird usage in his works. In those few instances where the symbolism is obvious, it is because we have either enshrined the bird as a tool or staple of a particular time, as in the rooster, or because Shakespeare himself has created a new meaning with his use and our misunderstanding, or through the natural evolution of myth whereby some are dropped or forgotten. Either way, the root cause is the change in our relationship with birds from that of being closely connected with everyday life through constant exposure via food, sport or ecological presence in Shakespeare?s time, to the present where our non-agrarian culture keeps us isolated and disconnected from birds and leave us with only vestiges of our reverent idealism of birds in general.
Posted by Anna Belle
at 11:54 AM EST
