"grind their joints
With dry convulsions; shorten up their sinews
With aged cramps; and more pinch-spotted make them
Than pard or cat o' mountain.

_Ariel._ Hark, they roar!

_Prospero._ Let them be hunted soundly."

[80] "Shakespeare and His Times," vol. i. p. 378.

_TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS._

Shakespeare has several references to the old superstitious belief in
the transmigration of souls, traces of which may still be found in the
reverence paid to the robin, the wren, and other birds. Thus, in "The
Merchant of Venice" (iv. 1), Gratiano says to Shylock:

"Thou almost makest me waver in my faith
To hold opinion with Pythagoras
That souls of animals infuse themselves
Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit
Govern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter,
Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,
And, whilst thou lay'st in thy unhallow'd dam,
Infused itself in thee; for thy desires
Are wolfish, bloody, starved, and ravenous."

Caliban, when remonstrating with the drunken Stephano and Trinculo, for
delaying at the mouth of the cave of Prospero, instead of taking the
magician's life ("Tempest," iv. 1), says:

"I will have none on't: we shall lose our time,
And all be turn'd to barnacles, or to apes."

In "Hamlet" (iv. 5), in the scene where Ophelia, in her mental
aberration, quotes snatches of old ballads, she says: "They say the owl
was a baker's daughter! Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we
may be."[81]

[81] See _Owl_, chap. vi.

Again, in "Twelfth Night" (iv. 2), there is another reference in the
amusing passage where the clown, under the pretence of his being "Sir
Topas, the curate," questions Malvolio, when confined in a dark room, as
a presumed lunatic:

"_Mal._ I am no more mad than you are: make the trial of it in
any constant question.

_Clo._ What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl?

_Mal._ That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a
bird.

_Clo._ What thinkest thou of his opinion?

_Mal._ I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his
opinion.

_Clo._ Fare thee well. Remain thou still in darkness: thou
shalt hold the opinion of Pythagoras ere I will allow of thy
wits, and fear to kill a woodcock lest thou dispossess the
soul of thy grandam."

Although this primitive supers