FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165  
166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   >>   >|  
mmanded to cause a horn to be sounded, that it might not appear as if they had intended to steal the game." In "Merry Wives of Windsor" (v. 5), Falstaff, using the terms of the forest, alludes to the perquisites of the keeper. Thus he speaks of the "shoulders for the fellow of this walk," _i. e._, the keeper. [404] See Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," 1876, p. 65. Shakespeare has several pretty allusions to the tears of the deer, this animal being said to possess a very large secretion of tears. Thus Hamlet (iii. 2) says: "let the strucken deer go weep;" and in "As You Like It" (ii. 1) we read of the "sobbing deer," and in the same scene the first lord narrates how, at a certain spot, "a poor sequester'd stag That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt Did come to languish; ... ... and the big round tears Coursed one another down his innocent nose In piteous chase." Bartholomaeus[405] says, that "when the hart is arered, he fleethe to a ryver or ponde, and roreth cryeth and wepeth when he is take."[406] It appears that there were various superstitions connected with the tears of the deer. Batman[407] tells us that "when the hart is sick, and hath eaten many serpents for his recoverie, he is brought unto so great a heate that he hasteth to the water, and there covereth his body unto the very eares and eyes, at which time distilleth many tears from which the [Bezoar] stone is gendered."[408] Douce[409] quotes the following passage from the "Noble Art of Venerie," in which the hart thus addresses the hunter: "O cruell, be content, to take in worth my tears, Which growe to gumme, and fall from me: content thee with my heares, Content thee with my hornes, which every year I new, Since all these three make medicines, some sickness to eschew. My tears congeal'd to gumme, by peeces from me fall, And thee preserve from pestilence, in pomander or ball. Such wholesome tears shedde I, when thou pursewest me so." [405] "De Proprietate Rerum," lib. xviii. c. 30. [406] Cf. Vergil's description of the wounded stag in "AEneid," bk. vii. [407] Commentary on Bartholomaeus's "De Proprietate Rerum." [408] The drops which fall from their eyes are not tears from the lachrymal glands, but an oily secretion from the inner angle of the eye close to the nose.--Brewer's "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable," p. 217. [409] "
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165  
166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Proprietate

 

Bartholomaeus

 
content
 

hunter

 

secretion

 
keeper
 

addresses

 
cruell
 
Bezoar
 

covereth


hasteth
 

serpents

 

recoverie

 

brought

 

distilleth

 

passage

 

Venerie

 

quotes

 

gendered

 
Commentary

AEneid
 

Vergil

 

wounded

 
description
 
lachrymal
 

Brewer

 

Dictionary

 
Phrase
 

glands

 

medicines


sickness
 

hornes

 

Content

 
eschew
 

wholesome

 

shedde

 

pursewest

 

pomander

 

pestilence

 
congeal

peeces

 
preserve
 

heares

 
fleethe
 
Pastimes
 

Shakespeare

 
Sports
 

Strutt

 

pretty

 
Hamlet