Illustrations of Shakspeare, and of Ancient Manners: / with Dissertations on the Clowns and Fools of Shakspeare; on a Collection of Popular Tales Entitled Gesta Romanorum; and on the English Morris dance.

by Francis Douce

ACT IV.

Scene 1. Page 497.

1. Witch. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.

Dr. Warburton has adduced classical authority for the connexion between Hecate and this animal, with a view to trace the reason why it was the agent and favourite of modern witches. It may be added, that among the Egyptians the cat was sacred to Isis or the Moon, their Hecate or Diana, and accordingly worshipped with great honour. Many cat idols are still preserved in the cabinets of the curious, and the sistrum or rattle used by the priests of Isis is generally ornamented with the figure of a cat with a crescent on its head. We know also that the Egyptians typified the Moon by this animal, as the Chinese and some of the people of India do now by the rabbit; but the cause is as likely to remain a mystery as their hieroglyphic mode of writing. Some of the ancients have amused themselves with guessing at the reason. They have supposed that the cat became fat or lean with the increase or wane of the Moon; that it usually brought forth as many young as there are days in a lunar period; and that the pupils of its eyes dilated or contracted according to the changes of the planet.

Scene 1. Page 503.

3. Witch. ... slips of yew.

The reason for introducing this tree is, that it was reckoned poisonous. See Batman Uppon Bartholome, 1. xvii. c. 161.

Scene 1. Page 505.

Macb. Though you untie the winds, and let them fight
Against the churches.

The influence of witches over the winds had been already discussed by Mr. Steevens in a former note on Act I. Scene 3, and it might be well supposed that their formidable power would be occasionally directed by these mischievous beings against religious edifices. It is therefore by no means improbable that in order to counteract this imaginary danger, the superstitious caution of our ancestors might have planted the yew-tree in their church-yards, preferring this tree not only on account of its vigour as an evergreen, but as independently connected, in some now forgotten manner, with the influence of evil powers. Accordingly in a statute made in the latter part of the reign of Edward I., to prevent rectors from cutting down trees in church-yards, we find the following passage: "verum arbores ipsæ, propter ventorum impetus ne ecclesiis noceant, sæpe plantantur." This is at least sufficient for the purpose of disproving what has been so often asserted respecting the plantation of yews in church-yards for the purpose of making bows; for although these weapons were sometimes made of English yew, the more common materials employed were elm and hazel, either on account of the comparative scarcity of English yew, or more probably from its inadequacy, in point of toughness, for constructing such bows as our robust and skilful archers were famed for using. Indeed modern experience has proved the truth of the latter supposition; and therefore, whenever yew was used for making the best sort of bows, it was of foreign growth: many of our ancient statutes very carefully provide for the importation of that commodity, which appears to have been chiefly Italian, with other merchandise.

Scene 1. Page 506.

1. Witch. ... grease that's sweaten
From the murderer's gibbet.

Apuleius in describing the process used by the witch, Milo's wife, for transforming herself into a bird, says that "she cut the lumps of flesh of such as were hanged." See Adlington's translation, p. 49, edit. 1596, 4to, a book certainly used by Shakspeare on other occasions.

Scene 3. Page 540.

Rosse. ... to relate the manner,
Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer,
To add the death of you.

"Quarry," says Mr. Steevens, "is a term used both in hunting and falconry. In both sports it means the game after it is killed." So far this is just, and serves partly to explain the passage before us, as well as this in Coriolanus, Act I. Scene 1:

"And let me use my sword, I'd make a quarry
With thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as high
As I could pitch my lance."

What follows respecting the etymology of the word may not appear quite so correct. Mr. Steevens cites the MS. Mayster of game, in which the old English term querre is used for the square spot wherein the dead game was deposited. It is simply the French carré, but not, as Mr. Steevens conceived, the origin of quarry. It is necessary to state that quarry not only signified the game that was killed, but, in falconry, the bird that was pursued or sought after. The same term is used to express the flight of the hawk after its prey. In these senses it is probable that the word has been formed from the French querir, to seek after, and that the game sought after would be called in that language querie, whence our English quarrie, the old and correct orthography. The more modern French term in falconry for pursuing the game is charrier. See René François, Essay des merveilles de nature, 1626, 4to, p. 48.

It is conceived therefore that in both the passages in Shakspeare quarry signifies the spot or square in which the heaps of dead game were placed. Not so in the quotation from Massinger's Guardian; for there quarry is evidently the bird pursued to death.