“But the upper half their hue retained still,
And their sweet skill in wonted melody;
Which ever after they abused to ill
To allure weak travellers, whom gotten they did kill.”
Book ii. cant. cxii.
Shakespeare charmingly pictures Oberon in the moonlight, fascinated by the graceful form and the melodious strains of the mermaid half reclining on the back of the dolphin:
“Oberon: ... Thou rememberest
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the sea-maid’s music.”
Commentators of Shakespeare find in this passage (and subsequent parts) certain references to Mary Queen of Scots, which they consider beyond dispute. She was frequently referred to in the poetry of the time under this title. She was married to the Dauphin (or Dolphin) of France. The rude sea means the Scotch rebels, and the shooting stars referred to were the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, who, with others of lesser note, forgot their allegiance to Elizabeth out of love to Mary.
“Few eyes,” says Sir Thomas Browne, “have escaped the picture of a mermaid with a woman’s head above and a fish’s extremity below.” In those old days when reading and writing were rare accomplishments, pictured signboards served to give “a local habitation and a name” to hostelries and other places of business and resort. Among the most celebrated of the old London taverns bearing this sign,[31] that in Bread Street stands foremost.
We find this “Mermayde” mentioned as early as 1464. In 1603 Sir Walter Raleigh established a literary club in this house, and here Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and the choice intellectual spirits of the time used to meet, and there took place those wit combats which Beaumont has commemorated and Fuller described. It is frequently alluded to by Beaumont and Fletcher in their comedies, but best known is that quotation from a letter of Beaumont to Ben Jonson:
“What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid? heard words that have been
So nimble and so full of subtle flame,
As if that any one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And had resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life; then when there had been thrown
Wit able enough to justify the town
For three days past; wit that might warrant be
For the whole city to talk foolishly,
Till that were cancell’d; and when that was gone,
We left an air behind us, which alone
Was able to make the next two companies
(Right witty, though but downright fools) more wise.”
