The evil spirit, too, has been likened by one of our master bards to the toad, as a semblance of all that is devilish and disgusting (“Paradise Lost,” iv. 800):
“Him they found,
Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve,
Assaying with all his devilish art to reach
The organs of her fancy.”
In “Macbeth” (i. 1), the paddock or toad is made the name of a familiar spirit:
“Paddock[586] calls.—Anon!”
Wasp. So easily, we are told,[587] is the wrathful temperament of this insect aroused, that extreme irascibility can scarcely be better expressed than by the term “waspish.” It is in this sense that Shakespeare has applied the epithet, “her waspish-headed son,” in the “Tempest” (iv. 1), where we are told that Cupid is resolved to be a boy outright. Again, in “As You Like It” (iv. 3), Silvius says:
“I know not the contents; but, as I guess
By the stern brow and waspish action
Which she did use as she was writing of it,
It bears an angry tenor.”
Again, in the “Taming of the Shrew” (ii. 1), Petruchio addresses his intended spouse in language not highly complimentary:
“Pet. Come, come, you wasp; i’ faith, you are too angry.
Kath. If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
Pet. My remedy is, then, to pluck it out.”