Ape. In addition to Shakespeare’s mention of this animal as a common term of contempt, there are several other allusions to it. There is the well-known phrase, “to lead apes in hell,” applied to old maids, mentioned in the “Taming of the Shrew” (ii. 1)—the meaning of this term not having been yet satisfactorily explained.[341] (It is further discussed in the [chapter on Marriage].)
In “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4), the word is used as a term of endearment, “Alas, poor ape, how thou sweat’st.”
Ass. Beyond the proverbial use of this much ill-treated animal to denote a silly, foolish person, Shakespeare has said little about it. In “Troilus and Cressida” (ii. 1), Thersites uses the word assinego, a Portuguese expression for a young ass, “Thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows; an assinego may tutor thee.” It is used by Beaumont and Fletcher in the “Scornful Lady” (v. 4): “All this would be forsworn, and I again an assinego, as your sister left me.”[342] Dyce[343] would spell the word “asinico,” because it is so spelled in the old editions of Shakespeare, and is more in accordance with the Spanish word.[344] In “King Lear” (i. 4), the Fool alludes to Æsop’s celebrated fable of the old man and his ass: “thou borest thine ass on thy back o’er the dirt.”
Bat. The bat, immortalized by Shakespeare (“The Tempest,” v. 1) as the “delicate Ariel’s” steed—
“On the bat’s back I do fly,”
—has generally been an object of superstitious dread, and proved to the poet and painter a fertile source of images of gloom and terror.[345] In Scotland[346] it is still connected with witchcraft, and if, while flying, it rise and then descend again earthwards, it is a sign that the witches’ hour is come—the hour in which they are supposed to have power over every human being who is not specially shielded from their influence. Thus, in “Macbeth” (iv. 1) the “wool of bat” forms an ingredient in the witches’ caldron. One of its popular names is “rere-mouse,” which occurs in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 2), where Titania says:
“Some, war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,
To make my small elves coats.”
This term is equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon, hrére-mús, from hreran, to stir, agitate, and so the same as the old name “flitter-mouse.”[347] The early copies spell the word reremise.[348] It occurs in the Wicliffite version of Leviticus xi. 19, and the plural in the form “reremees” or “rere-myis” is found in Isaiah ii. 20. At Polperro, Cornwall,[349] the village boys call it “airy-mouse,” and address it in the following rhyme:
“Airy mouse, airy mouse! fly over my head,
And you shall have a crust of bread;
And when I brew, and when I bake,
You shall have a piece of my wedding-cake.”
In Scotland[350] it is known as the Backe or Bakie bird. An immense deal of folk-lore has clustered round this curious little animal.[351]