ESOP'S FABLES.

Gloucester's hint, in 3. Henry VI., Act V, v, 23, that the masculine queen, Margaret, should have always "worn the petticoat, And "ne'er have stol'n the breech from Lancaster", is met by the young Prince with the following caustic retort, containing an allusion to Gloucester's figure crooked like that of Esop:

Let Æsop fable in a winter's night;

His currish riddles sort not with this place.

Strange to say, Henry Green' infers from this passage that Shakespeare had a low estimate of Esop's fables. But the expression "His currish "[=malicious] riddles" in no wise warrants this inference. The words must be taken cum grano salis as referring to what Gloucester had just remarked, and not as derogatory from Æsop. The apt illustrations which Shakespeare drew from the famous fables leave no doubt that the poet had no mean opinion of them.

2

1. The fable of the Countryman and a Snake is alluded to in 2. Henry VI., Act III, 1, 343:

I fear me you but warm the starved snake,

Who, cherish'd in your breasts, will sting your hearts.

Compare, too, Richard II., Act III, 11, 129-131:

K.-Rich. O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption! ...
Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd that sting my heart!

And Act V, III, 57:

Forget to pity him, lest thy pity prove

A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.

1

2. The Crow and the Borrowed Feathers is alluded to by Shakespeare (who, by the way, was himself once called 'an upstart crow,',

2

1 Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers, 1870, p. 302.

Agricola & Anguis. Repertum anguem frigore penè mortuum agricola misericordia motus, fovere sinu, & subter alas recondere. Anguis recreatus calore, vires recepit, ac confirmatus, agricolae, pro merito ipsius summo, letale vulnus inflixit.-Fabula demonstrat eam mercedem, quam rependere pro beneficiis mali

consuevere.

I quote this from an edition of Æsop published in 1592, with forewords by Philippus Melanchthon, with the following title: Fabellae Aesopicae quaedam, notiores, et in scholis usitatae . . . a J. Camerario. 1592. Lipsiae. The fable is of course, also contained in other editions of Esop of the sixteenth century, some of which I have examined.

Anders, Shakespeare's books.

2

'beautified with our feathers', by the dying Greene) in 2. Henry VI., Act III, 1, 69 ff.

King . . . Our Kinsman Gloucester is as innocent

From meaning treason to our royal person

As is the sucking lamb or harmless dove .

Queen... Seems he a dove? his feathers are but borrow'd.

For he's disposed as the hateful raven:

Is he a lamb? etc. (cf. below.)

And again in Timon of Athens, II, 1, 28:

I do fear,

When every feather sticks in his own wing,

Lord Timon will be left a naked gull,'

Which flashes now a phoenix.

The allusion is not very plain if we think of the fable in the version with which we are probably most familiar. Here a jackdaw assumes the feathers of a peacock and is stripped bare by the birds. it imitated. The allusion in Timon, however, becomes more pertinent if we compare the fable as it is told, for example, in the Latin Æsop (p. 17) referred to above.

De Cornice superbiente aliarum avium pennis. Cornicula collectas pennas de reliquis avibus sibi commodaverat, & superba varietate illa, reliquas omnes prae se aviculas contemnebat. Tum fortè hirundo notatā suā pennā, advolans illam aufert, quo facto & reliquae postea aves quaeq. suam ademere cornici: ita illa risum movit omnibus, furtivis nudata coloribus, ut ait Horatius.Significat fabula, commendicatam speciem neq. diu durare, & perlevi momento dissolvi.

3. The Ass in a Lion's Skin. This fable we find referred to in King John, II, I, 139-146:

...

Bastard . . . I'll smoke your skin-coat, an I catch you right . .
Blanch. 0, well did he become that lion's robe

That did disrobe the lion of that robe!

Bast. It lies as sightly on the back of him

As great Alcides' shows upon an ass:

But, ass, I'll take that burthen from your back,

Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack.

4. The Wolf in a Sheep's Skin' seems to be referred to in 2. Henry VI., Act III, 1, 77-9:

2 Lupus. Induerat pellem ovis lupus, atq. cum ita ignoraretur, aliquantisper impunè in gregem fuit grassatus. Sed pastor mox animadversa fraude, necatum

Is he a lamb? His skin is surely lent him,
For he's inclined as is the ravenous wolf.

Wo cannnot steal a shape that means deceit?

But perhaps it is better to suppose that Shakespeare had in mind Matthew VII, 15.

5. The Fox and the Grapes. This well-known fable is alluded to in All's Well, II, 1, 71 ff:

Lafeu ... Will you be cured of your infirmity?

King. No.

Laf. 0, will you eat no grapes, my royal fox?
Yes, but you will my noble grapes, an if

My royal fox could reach them.

6. The Hunter and the Bear, is probably the fable Shakespeare had in mind, when he wrote Henry V., Act IV, 1, 91-94:

Bid them achieve me and then sell my bones.

Good God! why should they mock poor fellows thus?
The man that once did sell the lion's skin

While the beast lived, was killed with hunting him.

7. The Oak and the Reed. Of this fable, relating the overthrow of the oak which resisted the tempest, while the yielding reed (or the willow, according to other versions) received no harm, there may be a possible reminiscence, as Green suggests, in Cymbeline, VI, 11, 267: To thee the reed is as the oak

and in Love's Lab. Lost, IV, 11, 112:

Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bow'd.—
It is hardly necessary to refer to such general allusions as:
A lion and a king of beasts. (Rich. II., Act V, 1, 34).

And to passages like,

or,

thou hast entertain'd

A fox to be the shepherd of thy lambs (Gentlemen, IV, Iv, 96),

The fox barks not when he would steal the lamb

(2. Henry VI., Act III, 1, 55), we might easily cite illustrative passages from Esop. The Greek fable writer, however, makes wolves, not foxes, the dangerous enemies of the lambs.

hunc de arbore suspendit. Hoc qui pelle decipiebantur admirantibus: Pellis quidem est, pastor inquit, ovis, sed sub hac lupus latebat.-Habitus et vultus indicia non habenda pro certis, fabula docet: ideoq. facta & rem spectari oportere.

From the above remarks it is clear that Shakespeare was familiar with some Æsopian fables. I regret to say that I could not meet with a Latin edition of them printed in England in the sixteenth century, excepting the editions of 1502 and 1503, in the British Museum.

MANTUANUS.

The Bucolica of Battisto Spagnuoli, a Carmelite monk (d. 1516), called Mantuanus after his birthplace Mantua, enjoyed much popularity, and was established as a text-book in many schools both in England and on the Continent. The opening words of the first eclogue are quoted by Holofernes in Love's Labour's Lost, IV, 11, 95:

Fauste, precor, gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra Ruminat,—and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice;

Venetia, Venetia,

Chi non ti vede non ti pretia.

Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not.

CÆSAR.

The following passage in 2. Henry VI., Act IV, vii, 65–68:
Kent, in the Commentaries Cæsar writ,

Is term'd the civil'st place of all this isle:
Sweet is the country, because full of riches;
The people liberal, valiant, active, wealthy-

seems to contain a reminiscence of an early school book, the Commentaries or De Bello Gallico. In the fourteenth chapter of the Fifth Book, which gives an account of the second Invasion of Britain by Cæsar together with a short description of the Island, we find the following sentence, obviously alluded to:

Ex his omnibus longe sunt humanissimi, qui Cantium incolunt.'

To the Commentaries we find another reference in Richard III., Act III, 1, 84

That Julius Cæsar was a famous man;

With what his valour did enrich his wit,
His wit set down to make his valour live:
Death makes no conquest of this conqueror;
For now he lives in fame, though not in life.

Lyly, in his Euphues (Arber, p. 247), repeats Cæsar's remark: 'Of al the 'Inhabitants of this Isle, the Kentish men are most civilest'. But the author of 2. Henry VI. knows that this is from Caesar's Commentaries.

CICERO.

1) In 2. Henry VI, Act IV, 1, 108, there is a reference to "Bargulus "the strong Illyrian pirate",' of whom Shakespeare may have read in Cicero's 'De Officiis': 'Bargulus, Illyricus latro, de quo est apud "Theopompum magnas opes habuit'. Malone, in his Variorum Edition, II, 104 n., points out that this book was much read in schools. 11) In Titus Andronicus, IV, 1, 12-14, Titus says of Lavinia: Ah, boy, Cornelia never with more care

Read to her sons than she hath read to thee

Sweet poetry and Tully's Orator.

The title, at least, of Cicero's De Oratore was therefore familiar to the author of Titus Andronicus. I need scarcely remark that "Tully', and not 'Cicero', was the usual name by which the Roman author was known in Shakespeare's days.

OVID.

It is my purpose to show that Ovid,' a favourite author with Shakespeare, was known to him both in the original and in the English translation, and to supply further evidence of his familiarity with the Roman poet.

1) OVID IN THE ORIGINAL.

On the title-page of 'Venus and Adonis' Shakespeare put as a proud motto the following couplet from Ovid's Amorum Lib. I., Eleg. XV, 35: Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua.

From Metamorphoses' (1, 150) is derived:

Terras Astræa reliquit. (Titus, VI, 111, 4).

From Heroides (II, 66):

Di faciant, laudis summa sit ista tuae!

From Heroid. (I, 33):

(3. Henry VI., Act I, 111, 48).

Hic ibat Simois; hic est Sigeia tellus;

Hic steterat Priami regia celsa senis. (Shrew, III, 1, 28).

The Quartos read: "mighty Abradas, the great Macedonian pirate”.

In the Bodleian Library there is a copy of Ovid's Metamorphoses in the Latin text, printed by Aldus, Venice, 1502. On the title-page is the signature W.m Sh.r. (cp. Shakesp. Jahrb. XVI, 367). It is not certain whether the autograph is genuine.