In an earlier play, 2 Henry IV. (act iv. sc. 5, l. 75, vol. iv. p. 454), the comparison is taken from the bee-hive,—
“When, like the bee, culling from every flower
The virtuous sweets,
Our thighs pack’d with wax, our mouths with honey,
We bring it to the hive; and like the bees,
Are murdered for our pains.”
In the foregoing extracts on the bee-king, the plea is inadmissible that Shakespeare and Whitney went to the same fountain; for neither of them follows Alciatus. The two accounts of the economy and policy of these “creatures small” are almost equally excellent, and present several points of resemblance, not to name them imitations by the more recent writer. Whitney speaks of the “Master bee,” Shakespeare of the king, or “emperor,”—both regarding the head of the hive not as a queen, but a “born king,” and holding forth the polity of the busy community as an admirable example of a well-ordered kingdom or government.
The conclusion of Whitney’s reflections on those “that suck the sweete of Flora’s bloomes,” conducts to another parallelism; and to show it we have only to follow out his idea of returning home after “absence manie a yeare,” “when happe some goulden honie bringes.” Here is the whole passage (p. 201),—
“And as the bees, that farre and neare doe straye,
And yet come home, when honie they haue founde: