I’d drive you cackling home to Camelot.”
King Lear, Act ii. Sc. 2.
There appears to be some difference of opinion as to what place is meant by the ancient name Camelot. Selden, in his notes to Drayton’s “Polyolbion,” says:—“By South Cadbury is that Camelot; a hill of a mile compass at the top; four trenches encircling it, and betwixt every of them an earthen wall; the contents of
it within about twenty acres full of ruins and relics of old buildings.”
In the “History of King Arthur” (Chap. 26), Camelot is located in the west of England, Somersetshire; while in Chapter 44, it is related that Sir Balen’s sword “swam down the stream to the citie of Camelot, that is, in English, Winchester.” When Caxton finished the printing of the “Mort d’Arthur,”[113] he says of the hero:—“He is more spoken of beyond the sea, … and yet of record remain witness of him in Wales, in the town of Camelot, the great stones and marvelous works,” &c. Tennyson, in his “Mort d’Arthur,” twice mentions Camelot, and in his “Lady of Shalott” frequently alludes to “many-tower’d Camelot,” but in neither poem is any clue to its precise situation given.
THE WILD-GOOSE CHASE.
“Mercutio. Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done; for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits, than, I am sure, I have in my whole five. Was I with you there for the goose?
Romeo. Thou wast never with me for anything, when thou wast not there for the goose.
Mer. I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.
Rom. Nay, good goose, bite not.
Mer. Thy wit is very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce.
Rom. And is it not well served in to a sweet goose?
Mer. O, here’s a wit of cheverel, that stretches from an inch narrow to an ell broad!
Rom. I stretch it out for that word—broad: which, added to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.”
Romeo and Juliet, Act ii. Sc. 4.
The “wild-goose chase” above alluded to was a reckless sort of horserace, in which two horses were started together, and the rider who first got the lead, compelled the other to follow him over whatever ground he chose.[114]
Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” 1660, gives us a general view of the sports most prevalent in the seventeenth century, and after naming the “common recreations of country folks,” he alludes to “riding of great horses, running at rings, tilts and tournaments, and wild-goose chases, which are disports of greater men and good in themselves, though many gentlemen by such means gallop quite out of their fortunes.”
Shakespeare has many observations relating to Ducks, but as his remarks illustrate more appropriately what we shall have to say under the head of “wild-fowl,” we reserve them accordingly for a future chapter.