The friendless bodies of unburied men.”
Izaak Walton, in his “Compleat Angler,” 1653, speaks of “the honest robin that loves mankind, both alive and dead.” Possibly Shakespeare intended only to refer to the ancient and beautiful custom of strewing the grave with flowers.
With all birds it is the habit of the male to sing while
courting the female. So, when Valentine asks Speed, “How know you that I am in love?” he gives, amongst other reasons, that he had learnt “to relish a love-song like a robin-redbreast.”—Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act ii. Sc. 1.
The meaning of the following dialogue does not seem quite clear:—
“Hotspur. Come, sing.
Lady Percy. I will not sing.
Hotspur. ’Tis the next way to turn tailor or be redbreast teacher.”
Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Possibly the allusion may be to the “recorder,” by which instrument birds were taught to sing.[77] Hotspur pays a high compliment to the vocal powers of Lady Percy by insinuating that her voice would excel the recorder; and as the bird most frequently taught to pipe is the bullfinch, it is not improbable that this was the bird intended under the title of “redbreast,” and not the robin.