SHAKSPERE'S "LEAD APES IN HELL" AND THE BALLAD OF "THE MAID AND THE PALMER " 1 BY ERNEST KUHL I Though the ways of a proverb are many and strange, few expressions have probably had a more interesting and varied career than "lead apes in hell." For centuries this phrase has lived on the lips of English men and women: first apparently among the unlettered folk, and afterwards with the cultivated as well. The saying eventually found its way to this country where it was employed at least as early as the eighteenth century; and it has, to all appearances, remained alive to the present day. Even more astonishing is the fact that the expression, in spite of its warm reception among English-speaking peoples, has no Romance or Teutonic relatives. Indeed, as far as is known, no examples of it 3 1 Read before the Johns Hopkins Philological Club, May 17, 1923. 2 a * Diary of a Boston School Girl (i. e., Anna Green Winslow: cf. Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 72, 1893, 218). Rebecca Salisbury (1731-1811), high spirited young woman, was taunted by a rejected lover with, The proverb old-You know it well That women dying maids, lead apes in hell; whereupon her witty reply, Lead apes in hell-'tis no such thing— The story's told to fool us. But better there to hold a string, Than here let monkeys lead us. To Professor F. N. Robinson, whose erudition can be appreciated only by those who have sat under him, I am indebted for this reference, as well as for his kindly interest in this paper. Bartlett Whiting, Esq., of Harvard College, was kind enough to copy the above passage for me. It turned up recently in an American short story-in the Metropolitan Magazine for March, 1919 (p. 32). "Professor Kittredge thinks that the phrase is still in common use" (cf. H. E. Rollins, A Pepysian Garland, 1922, 132). Cf. also Charlotte P. Gilman, Women and Economics, 7th Ed., 1915, 88; Sabatini, The Carolinian, 1925, 131. See further infra. have been found elsewhere. It is as indigenous to the English race as Chaucer and Shakspere. Hence since the phrase has fascinated generations of men, no excuse, it is hoped, is necessary for discussing its origin and history. Whatever was of interest to the "ballad muse"; whatever found immediate acceptance as a proverb in Shakspere's day; whatever furnished a theme for an Elizabethan lyrist; whatever is alluded to often ingeniously expanded-by a long line of English writers, including one of the Romanticists; whatever inspired Shakspere to compose one of the most brilliant speeches in his comedies; whatever, finally, has commanded the interest and attention of the most distinguished students of Shakspere and the English ballad from Steevens to the present day needs no apology even in an intolerant age. 6 Twice in Shakspere occurs the allusion to leading apes in ® hell. Beatrice says that she praises God daily for sending her no husband, and concludes with: "therefore I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bear-'ard, and lead his apes in hell" (Much Ado, II, i, 28 ff.). Katharine, accusing her father of favoring her younger sister, scornfully utters: I must dance barefoot on her wedding day, And for your love to her lead apes in hell (The Shrew, II, i, 31 f.). The usual interpretations to one or the other of these speeches are (a) "that women who refused to bear children, should, after death, be condemned to the care of apes in leading-strings, might have been considered as an act of posthumous retribution ";" (b) "punishment of old maids." The former does not interpret 8 Members of the Club (cf. n. 1) were unacquainted with it in other languages. H. G. Bohn (A Polyglot of Foreign Proverbs) does not mention it. 66 In' and 'into' as well as 'to' occur. Steevens, ed. Chalmers, 1805, IV, 39. Schmidt (all three eds.), Onions, A S. Glossary, and various modern editors. Cf. Farmer and Henley, Dict. of Slang and its Analogues, 1909; Brewer, Reader's Handbook; Brewer, Dict. of Phrase and Fable; W. Carew Hazlitt, English Proverbs. Some of the Elizabethan writers who refer to the phrase are: Brathwait, Barnabae itinerarium, ed. Haslewood, new ed. by W. C. Hazlitt L 4 (Prof. G. L. Hamilton was kind enough to furnish me with this reference). Kate's remark, and it is doubtful if Beatrice's statement, since it is humorous, can be thus defined. What is the origin of the saying? The earliest instance cited by the New Eng. Dict. is from Lyly's Euphues (1579), where the meaning is as above in (b). Halliwell-Phillipps, in his 16-volume edition of Shakspere, gives many examples from Elizabethan and later writers not found in the New Eng. Dict. Among them are two earlier than Lyly: Churchyard's Chippes (1578), and Stanihurst's Description of Ireland (1577). Croll and Clemons in their edition of Euphues 10 note its occurrence in Gascoigne's The Adventures of Master F. J. (1572). It also occurs, though seemingly not pointed out hitherto, in Pettie's A Petite Pallace of Pettie his Pleasure (1576). No one apparently has found earlier examples in Elizabethan literature.12 It is obvious that the ex 11 "Two Angry Women of Abington" (Percy Soc. Pubs., v, 34; Gayley, Representative English Comedies, 1903, 562). Florio, Ital. Dictionary, 1611, 297 (under Mammola '). Florio, Second Frutes, 1591 (cited by Halliwell-Phillipps: cf. n. 9). "The Wit of a Woman," 1604, 1. i. 121 (The Malone Society Reprints, 1913). Middleton, The Family of Love, ш, ii, 110 (given me by Miss Marie L. Linthicum of the Johns Hopkins University). Houghton, Englishmen for my Money, 1. 1273. Greene, Never too Late to Mend (given by H.-Phillipps, op. cit.). Dekker, Satiromastix (Dramatic Works, 1873, 1, 186, 208); London Chanticleers (Hazlitt's Dodsley, XII, 327). Massinger, City Madam, 11, ii. Peele, The Arraignment of Paris, IV, i, 10 (ed. Bullen, 1, 52). Professor T. W. Baldwin, my colleague, has supplied me with the last two examples. Other instances may be found in Walsh, Hand-book of Literary Curiosities; Halliwell-Phillipps (op. cit.); Roxburgh Ballads, ed. Chappell, 1871, 1, 379; Gaidoz, Mélusine, IX, 1898-9, 62 f. Bishop Percy Folio MS., II, 46 f. (Prof. Rollins, in answer to my query, dates this before 1600). Rollins, A Pepysian Garland, 1922, 132. The proverb is very common in the 18th century from Addison on. Allan Ramsay, (Poems (1848), II, 244, 253) likewise employs it in "The Bob of Dunblane" and in " Bonny Tweed-side." 9 VI, 381. A pictorial illustration of an ape-leader from a 12th c. Ms. is also given. 10 Euphues, 1916, 60. Cf. Lean's Collectanea; Gascoigne, ed. Cunliffe, 1907, 1, 430. Lyly used the expression three times (Croll, pp. 60, 72, 263), and always in reference to women. 11 Ed. by Gollancz, 1908, 1, 81. 12 See Mrs. Stopes infra. Gruterus, Florilegium Ethicopolticum (1611) hasn't it (cf. A. Taylor, "Proverbia Britannia," in Washington Univ. Studies, XI (1924), 409 ff. pression, introduced almost simultaneously by various writers in the 1570's, sprang into immediate popularity; and (as will be seen) it spread with the rapidity of a plague. This of course is not surprising, for its picturesqueness would appeal instantly to Shakspere and his contemporaries. Though in Shakspere the phrase is applied exclusively to women, that is not the only use to which it was put in that day. Stanihurst, for example, gives: "He seemed to stand in no better steede than to lead apes in hell." In Chapman's Mayday (1611), V, ii, likewise, one finds: "I am beholding to her; she was loth to have me lead apes in hell." An entertaining example of the way the idea was played with is to be found in Dekker's The Raven's Almanac (1609).13 The Lord appeared in a vision to a chickenhearted husband and said that he "that hath an ill wife and will not beat her, shall lead apes in hell." Equally amusing is Dekker's fanciful origin of the expression in Patient Grissel (c. 1603).14 Julia, in reply to the entreaties of a suitor, remarks that those who marry are destined to lead a life "in a kind of hell." Thomas Campion was moved to pen an uninspired verse: 15 All you that love or loved before, The fairy-queen Proserpina Bids you increase that loving humour more: On delight amorous, She vows that they shall lead Apes in Avernus. Since no reference was made to the length of time that the punishment in hell was to last, it was but natural that someone should ask what eventually would happen. Cartwright 16 gave one solution when he wrote that women on ceasing to be old maids left hell to lead apes in heaven. At least one Elizabethan love lyric was built around the idea. In a collection of madrigals published in 1612 17 are the following verses: 13 Huth Library, IV, 255 f. of the play. Dekker ridicules almanac makers. Dekker was probably not the sole author 15 In A Book of Aires (1601); cf. Works ed. Bullen, 1889, 22. 16 In Siedge or Loves Convert, 1651; cf. H.-Phillipps, op. cit., 381. 17 Fellowes, English Madrigal Verse (1588-1632), 1920, 400. From Wm. Away, away! Call back what you have said! Than undergo such shame. No tongue can tell These lines, in addition to revealing a fondness for conceits, show how the proverb ran the gauntlet. No longer is the unyielding maid merely to lead apes in hell, but also to dance about with them when there. And the ape is now-for the first and, to all appearances, for the last time-graced with a bobtail. Surely we that are true poets run into strange capers! Though the proverb, as we have seen, was juggled with, by the Elizabethans in general the expression was associated with the destiny of unmarried women. Substantiation of this is seen in Rowlands' Tis Merrie when Gossips meete (1602, C4): There's an old grave Proverbe tell's vs that Likewise, three years later, from the London Prodigal: 18 'Tis an old proverb, and you know it well, It is to be observed, moreover, that in both these instances the phrase is termed a proverb, even an old one.19 If the expression was not current before 1570 or thereabouts-and such seems to be Corkine's Second Book of Aires (1612). Cf. also Fellowes, English Madrigal Composers, 1921, 87, 324. 18 I, ii. The Rowlands allusion was given me by Mr. Rollins. Another example of novelty, which Mr. Baldwin calls my attention to, is in Eastward Ho! Here Beatrice, a dumb character, actually leads a monkey on the stage, probably, as Baldwin suggests to me, a dramatization of the expression. It has been suggested that this was intended to ridicule Beatrice of Much Ado, but as Schelling says ("Jonson" in Belles-Lettres Series, Heath and Co., 1905, 148) this is "fanciful." 19 Cf. also Florio (n. 8). |