VI. NOTE UPON THE ELF-LOCKS IN ROMEO AND JULIET (I. iv. 91 and 92). BY J. WICKHAM LEGG, M.D., F.S.A. (Read at the 18th Meeting of the Society, held on Oct. 8, 1875.) I HAVE little doubt that the Elf-locks described in the following lines are the appearance known to physicians as the plica polonica1: And bakes the Elf-locks in foule sluttish haires, The reasons which I have for this belief are the following: i. The plica is thought to be due to some supernatural cause. ii. The plica is due simply to lack of cleanliness. After long discussion, this seems to be granted by nearly all physicians of the present time. This is not the place for giving reasons for this statement, but those who wish to inquire further into the subject may find all about the plica, looked at from a medical point of view, in Hebra's Hautkrankheiten. (In Virchow's Handb. d. sp. Path. u. Ther. My search amongst travels in Poland for a description of the plica has been hitherto fruitless. I have looked through Hakluyt's 'Collection,' as far as it pertains to Russia, and find nothing; neither can I find anything in the Hakluyt Society's publications. I have also looked through all they say they have in the Bodleian of Travels in Poland published before the first Quarto of Romeo and Juliet, but to no purpose. 2 Cf. Lear, II. iii. 10 : Whiles I may 'scape, I will preserve myself and am bethought That ever penury, in contempt of man, Brought near to beast: my face I'll grime with filth ; Blanket my loins; elf all my hair in knots; And with presented nakedness out-face The winds and persecutions of the sky. Bd. III., Theil II., Lief. I., Erlangen, 1870, 2te Auflage, p. 52.) The plica is common amongst savages all over the world, and amongst all who neglect cleansing and combing the hair. It is thus likely enough to have been common in England until the rise of Puritanism made cleanliness a virtue. Of this there is some evidence. Glisson (De Rachitide, Lond. 1650, Cap. I.) speaks of the plica polonica, together with other diseases, now known not to be new, as being sprung up within the last age. And in the Philosophical Transactions, 1747, vol. xliv., Part II. p. 556, there is an account of a woman, affected with a plica, whose mother likewise suffered from the same disorder, and was born in 1645. This last date brings us near to Shakspere's time. iii. The possession of a plica has been looked upon by the peasants for past ages as a sure guard against all kinds of evil. At the present day the same superstition prevails in the east of Europe. If, during a long illness, a plica form, the peasants believe that all will go well. It is a sure forerunner, so they think, of recovery. If cut off, or otherwise taken away, they look for madness, apoplexy, and every kind of evil. I have read of an unhappy lady in Hungary, who suffered from an incurable disorder, buying a plica at a great price from a peasant and concealing it in her head-dress as a charm or amulet. Sir Thomas Browne (Pseudoxia Epidemica, Lond., 1650, Sec. Ed., p. 226.) likewise speaks of "the fears of poling1 Elve-locks or complicated haires of the head." It will be thus seen that the Elf-locks correspond with the plica in all the particulars given: that they are due to some faery or supernatural influence; to foul sluttish habits, and in this Shakspere shows himself in advance of some physicians, even of our own day; and that their disentanglement bodes much misfortune. I do not think the comparison can be more complete. Mr P. A. Daniel, in the Revised Edition of Romeo and Juliet published by our Society, prefers to read once entangled' instead of once untangled,' the reading of the first two Quarto Editions and of the Folio Edition, because it is the entanglement, and not the dis entanglement, which is inauspicious. I trust I have shown that if there be an allusion in these lines to the plica polonica, it is absolutely necessary to accept the early reading 'untangled.' If we accept entangled' as the reading, then we must reject any allusion under the name of 'Elf-locks' to the plica: for the entanglement of the plica boded no misfortune; it was a piece of great good fortune, which lasted for ever if the hairs did not become untangled.' Oct. 8, 1875. [Scraps to fill up gaps.—F.] 'brach': 1 Hen. IV., III. i. 240. "And albeit some of this sort [Bloodhounds] in English be called Brache, in Scotish, Rache, the cause thereof resteth in the she-sex, and not in the general kinde. For we Englishmen call Bitches belonging to the hunting kind of Dogs, by the tearms above mentioned."-J. Cay's English Dogs, in Topsell's Four-footed Beasts (1607), p. 131, ed. 1658. "buttons": "'tis in his buttons; he will carry 't" (Host, of young master Fenton winning sweet Anne Page).-Merry Wives, III. ii. 71. I suspect a double entendre for the groundlings. Compare also, "Lappe, il culo gli fa lappe, his taile makes buttons, his buttocks goes a twitter twatter."-1598; Florio. " Convey': the wise it call.-Merry Wives, I. iii. 32. "Inuolare, to steale, to filch, to purloine, to pilfre, to conueigh away. Inuolatore, a theefe, a stealer, a filcher, a purloiner, a conueigher away."-1598; Florio. 'England': King John, last three lines. "I do maruel greatly how the Saxsons should conquere Englonde, for it is but a smalle contre to be compared to Englond; for I think, if all the world were set against Englond, it might never be conquerid, they beyng treue within them selfe."-1542-1547; Andrew Boorde, Introduction of Knowledge, p. 164; ed. F. J. Furnivall, E. E. Text Soc. 1870. 'face painting': L. L. Lost, Sonnets, &c. There was then (as there is now) another reason why honest women shouldn't paint. Pipkin. The gentlewoman of the old house, that is as well known by the colour she lays on her cheeks, as an alehouse by the painting is laid on his lattice; she that is, like homo, common to all men: she that is beholden to no trade, but lives of herself."-1602; How a man may choose a good Wife from a bad. Dodsley, ix. 53. Compare Marston's "I am not as well known by my wit as an alehouse by a red lattice."-ib. p. 510. Another has been pointed out to me by a friend, in the 'stake down' of the Merchant of Venice, III. ii. 194 VII. GRUACH (LADY MACBETH), BY THE COUNTESS OF CHARLEMONT. (Read at the 21st Meeting of the Society, held January 14, 1876.) It seems as if it would be mere repetition to say or to write more on the subject of Macbeth and his wife than has been already said and written. Their characters have been put under the microscope of criticism and handled in every possible way. And yet there are a few remarks relative to Lady Macbeth that I do not remember having met with. Sir Bernard Burke, in the beginning of his Peerage, gives an interesting account of the Royal Houses of England and Scotland. In the commencement of the latter, we find that in the eleventh century Macbeth married the Lady Gruach, granddaughter of King Kenneth IV., who had been deposed in the year 1003 by Malcolm, son of Kenneth III. This Malcolm was succeeded by his grandson Duncan, who was murdered in the year 1039 by his cousin Macbeth, who then ascended the throne of Scotland. We may suppose that the quarrels about the succession to the throne took place between kinsmen more or less nearly related. May not there have been a relationship between Kenneth IV. and Duncan? And may not one of the strange likenesses that come and go in families, have appeared between Kenneth's son and Duncan, causing Lady Macbeth to say of the latter, "Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had don't?" And had not hatred to the man whose grandsire had not only deposed hers-depriving her father of his throne-but had also burnt her first husband in his castle, with fifty of his friends, and slain her only brother and her second husband's (Macbeth's) father, anything to say to Duncan's fate, though Clark and Wright's Clarendon Press Edition, 1871, p. xlii. Shakspere has not weakened her primary motive by hinting at her secondary one? Mrs Jameson-like many others gives Lady Macbeth credit for home affections. We learn from Gervinus, that German "Romanticists have made Lady Macbeth a heroine of virtue." Others have looked upon her and upon her husband as an ancient Mr and Mrs Manning. The question is-Was Lady Macbeth only a woman, or, very woman and devil? There may be a meaning in our poet-of whom great Goethe says "Nature prophesied through Shakspeare "1-that would explain something of her character. Many good qualities, when carried to excess, topple over and become faults. Generosity turns into extravagance, economy into stinginess, unselfishness becomes weakness; and an affectionate disposition .... well!.... has to be wretched. Does the Tragedy of Macbeth suggest that the familiar household affections may be turned into the handmaidens of Sin? Gruach had evidently loved her father: a look on a sleeping face that reminded her of him 'shook' her fell purpose' and stopped her 'keen knife.' She had been a tender mother; but the essence of her being was devoted to her husband. Gervinus describes this devotion in a masterly manner. All for Macbeth ;-Gruach's lord a throne won for him, and a world—ay, a heaven-well lost for her. She sees, feels, acts, but for him. Remember the age in which she lived. The letter telling of the witches and of their prophecy, seemed to her no more than the foreshadowing of Destiny. Then after her reading of Macbeth's letter, comes her incantation to the Powers of Evil. The die is cast. The man she loves is to be 'King hereafter;' and to the beckoning hand of Fate she blindly bows herself. The throne for Macbeth by the sacrifice of a life: so be it! She looks not beyond. Afterwards, when to secure his personal safety, her husband flies to other crimes, her soul-rending cry is-fearing to hear the answer— "What 's to be done?" The parts are changed. She now is passive; Macbeth active. All through the ordeal of the Coronation banquet, she bears up bravely; but, seeing the weakness of her husband, her spirit begins to fail. 'Lewes's "Life of Goethe." Translation of Goethe's Oration on Shakspeare. |