Freitag, 1579.
Si habitauerit aduena in terra veſtra, & moratus fuerit inter vos, non exprobretis ei.
Lev. 19. 33.
i.e.
“And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.”
Shakespeare, no doubt, was familiarly acquainted with the figure and habits of the Turkey, and yet may have seized for description some of the expressive delineations and engravings which occur in the Emblem writers. Freitag’s turkey he characterises with much exactness, though the sentiment advanced is more consistent with the lines from Camerarius. In the Twelfth Night (act ii. sc. 5, lines 15, 27, vol. iii. p. 257), Malvolio, as his arch-tormenter Maria narrates the circumstance, “has been yonder i’ the sun practising behaviour to his own shadow this half hour;” he enters on the scene, and Sir Toby says to Fabian, “Here’s an overweening rogue!” to which the reply is made, “O peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him; how he jets under his advancing plumes!”
The same action is well hit off in showing the bearing of the “pragging knave, Pistol,” as Fluellen terms him (Henry V., act v. sc. 1, l. 13, vol. iv. p. 591),—
“Gow. Why here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock.
Flu. ’Tis no matter for his swellings, nor his turkey-cocks. God pless you, Aunchient Pistol! you scurvy, lousy knave, God pless you!”