The Dabchick and Raven
The DABCHICK, DIVE-DAPPER or LITTLE GREBE is portrayed in a dainty little vignette in the Venus and Adonis, which brings the bird before our eyes, as it may be seen on many a stream or lake in this country and even on artificial waters, such as those of St. James’s Park. The passage represents Venus vowing to her unresponsive mortal “by her fair immortal hand”:
Upon this promise did he raise his chin
Like a dive-dapper peering through a wave
Who, being look’d on, ducks as quickly in.[134]
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. In one of the Sonnets it is said that
In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name;
But now is black beauty’s successive heir:
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