PUNISHMENTS.
Shakespeare has not omitted to notice many of the punishments which were in use in years gone by; the scattered allusions to these being interesting in so far as they serve to illustrate the domestic manners and customs of our forefathers. Happily, however, these cruel tortures, which darken the pages of history, have long ago passed into oblivion; and at the present day it is difficult to believe that such barbarous practices could ever have been tolerated in any civilized country. The horrible punishment of “boiling to death,” is mentioned in “Twelfth Night” (ii. 5), where Fabian says: “If I lose a scruple of this sport, let me be boiled to death with melancholy.” In “Winter’s Tale” (iii. 2), Paulina inquires:
“What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?
What wheels? racks? fires? What flaying? boiling
In leads or oils? What old or newer torture
Must I receive?”
There seems to be an indirect allusion to this punishment in “The Two Noble Kinsmen” (iv. 3), where the Gaoler’s Daughter in her madness speaks of those who “are mad, or hang, or drown themselves, being put into a caldron of lead and usurer’s grease, and there boiling like a gammon of bacon that will never be enough.”
The practice of holding burning basins before the eyes of captives, to destroy their eyesight, is probably alluded to by Macbeth (iv. 1), in the passage where the apparitions are presented to him by the witches:
“Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo; down!
Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs.”[841]
In “Antony and Cleopatra” (ii. 4), soaking in brine as a punishment is referred to by Cleopatra, who says to the messenger:
“Thou shalt be whipp’d with wire, and stew’d in brine,
Smarting in lingering pickle.”
Drowning by the tide, a method of punishing criminals, is probably noticed in “The Tempest” (i. 1), by Antonio:
“We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.
This wide-chapp’d rascal—would thou might’st lie drowning
The washing of ten tides!”