HUNTING
Professor Baynes, in his article on Shakespeare in the Encyclopædia Britannica, says: "It is clear that in his early years the poet had some experience of hunting, hawking, coursing, wild-duck shooting, and the like. Many of these sports were pursued by the local gentry and the yeomen together; and the poet, as the son of a well-connected burgess of Stratford, who had recently been mayor of the town and possessed estates in the county, would be well entitled to share in them, while his handsome presence and courteous bearing would be likely to ensure him a hearty welcome."
His love for dogs and horses is illustrated by many passages in his works. There was never a more graphic description of hounds than he puts into the mouth of Theseus in the Midsummer-Night's Dream (iv. 1. 108):—
"Theseus. Go, one of you, find out the forester;
For now our observation is perform'd:
And since we have the vaward of the day,
My love shall hear the music of my hounds.
Uncouple in the western valley; let them go!—
Despatch, I say, and find the forester.—
We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,
And mark the musical confusion
Of hounds and echo in conjunction.
Hippolyta. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,
When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear
With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear
Such gallant chiding: for, besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seem'd all one mutual cry. I never heard
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
Theseus. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
Crook-knee'd, and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;
Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells
Each under each. A cry more tuneable
Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:
Judge when you hear."
GARDEN AT NEW PLACE
The talk of the hunters about the dogs in The Taming of the Shrew (ind. 1. 16) is in the same vein:—
"Lord. Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds—
Brach Merriman, the poor cur, is emboss'd—
And couple Clowder with the deep-mouth'd brach.
Saw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good
At the hedge corner, in the coldest fault?
I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.
1 Hunter. Why, Bellman is as good as he, my lord;
He cried upon it at the merest loss,
And twice to-day pick'd out the dullest scent:
Trust me, I take him for the better dog.
Lord. Thou art a fool: if Echo were as fleet,
I would esteem him worth a dozen such.
But sup them well, and look unto them all;
To-morrow I intend to hunt again."
In the Merry Wives of Windsor (i. 1. 96) Page defends his greyhound against the criticisms of Slender, and Shallow takes his part:—
"Slender. How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard say, he was outrun on Cotsall.
Page. It could not be judged, sir.
Slender. You'll not confess, you'll not confess.
Shallow. That he will not.—'T is your fault, 't is your fault: 't is a good dog.
Page. A cur, sir.
Shallow. Sir, he 's a good dog, and a fair dog; can there be more said? he is good and fair."
Cotsall (or Cotswold) is an allusion to the Cotswold downs in Gloucestershire, celebrated for coursing (hunting the hare), for which their fine turf fitted them, and also for other rural sports.
The description of the horse in Venus and Adonis (259), a youthful work of Shakespeare's, is famous:—
"But, lo, from forth a copse that neighbours by,
A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,
Adonis' trampling courser doth espy,
And forth she rushes, snorts, and neighs aloud;
The strong-neck'd steed, being tied unto a tree,
Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.
Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,
And now his woven girths he breaks asunder;
The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds,
Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven's thunder;
The iron bit he crushes 'tween his teeth,
Controlling what he was controlled with.
His ears up-prick'd; his braided hanging mane
Upon his compass'd crest now stand on end;
His nostrils drink the air, and forth again,
As from a furnace, vapours doth he send;
His eye, which scornfully glisters like fire,
Shows his hot courage and his high desire.
Sometime he trots, as if he told the steps,
With gentle majesty and modest pride;
Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps,
As who should say, 'Lo! thus my strength is tried;
And this I do to captivate the eye
Of the fair breeder that is standing by.'
What recketh he his rider's angry stir,
His flattering 'Holla', or his 'Stand, I say'?
What cares he now for curb or pricking spur,
For rich caparisons, or trapping gay?
He sees his love, and nothing else he sees,
Nor nothing else with his proud sight agrees.
Look, when a painter would surpass the life,
In limning out a well-proportion'd steed,
His art with nature's workmanship at strife,
As if the dead the living should exceed;
So did this horse excel a common one,
In shape, in courage, colour, pace, and bone.
Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,
Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,
High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing strong,
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide:
Look, what a horse should have he did not lack,
Save a proud rider on so proud a back.
Sometime he scuds far off, and there he stares;
Anon he starts at stirring of a feather;
To bid the wind a base he now prepares,
And whether he run or fly they know not whether;
For thro' his mane and tail the high wind sings,
Fanning the hairs, who wave like feather'd wings."
In Richard II. (v. 5. 72) the dialogue between the Groom and the King could have been written only by one who knew by experience the affection that one comes to feel for a favorite horse:—
"Groom. I was a poor groom of thy stable, king,
When thou wert king; who, travelling towards York,
With much ado at length have gotten leave
To look upon my sometimes royal master's face.
O, how it yearn'd my heart, when I beheld,
In London streets, that coronation day,
When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary,
That horse that thou so often hast bestrid,
That horse that I so carefully have dress'd!
King Richard. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,
How went he under him?
Groom. So proud as if he had disdain'd the ground.
King Richard. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!
That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;
This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.
Would he not stumble? Would he not fall down,—
Since pride must have a fall,—and break the neck
Of that proud man that did usurp his back?
Forgiveness, horse! why do I rail on thee,
Since thou, created to be awed by man,
Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse;
And yet I bear a burden like an ass,
Spur-gall'd and tir'd by jauncing Bolingbroke."
The description of hare-hunting in Venus and Adonis (679) must also have been based on actual experience in the sport:—
"And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,
Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles
How he outruns the winds, and with what care
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:
The many musits through the which he goes,
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.
"Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,
And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,
To stop the loud pursuers in their yell,
And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer;
Danger deviseth shifts, wit waits on fear:
"For there his smell with others being mingled,
The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,
Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled
With much ado the cold fault cleanly out;
Then do they spend their mouths; Echo replies,
As if another chase were in the skies.
"By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,
Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear,
To hearken if his foes pursue him still:
Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;
And now his grief may be compared well
To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell.
"Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch
Turn, and return, indenting with the way;
Each envious brier his weary legs doth scratch,
Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:
For misery is trodden on by many
And being low never reliev'd by any."
Mr. John R. Wise comments on this passage as follows: "This description of the run is wonderfully true; how the 'dew-bedabbled wretch' betakes herself to a flock of sheep to lead the hounds off the scent; how she stops to listen, and again makes another double. Mark, too, the beauty and aptness of the epithets, 'the hot scent-snuffing' hounds, and the 'earth-delving' conies; but more especially mark the pity that the poet feels for the poor animal, showing that he possessed a true feeling heart, without which no line of poetry can ever be written."