Shakespeare’s Barnacles.

John Turnbull/Wikimedia Commons

In This Series:

• Shakespeare’s Barnacles.
• Giraldus Cambrensison the Myth of the Barnacle (c. 1188).
• Dietary Rules for Barnacles: Innocent III to Gordon Ramsey.

In Act IV, Sc. I, of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Caliban urges the shipwrecked serving men Trinculo and Stephano to go together with him to murder the wizard Prospero.  They are more interested in teasing him with reasons for delay.  At last, Caliban cries out:

I will haue none on't: we shall loose our time,

And all be turn'd to Barnacles, or to Apes

With foreheads villanous low.

Prospero will wake, he fears, before they can murder him, and will cast a spell on them.

Like most serving men in Shakespeare, Caliban is intended to be the source of comic moments in this play.  His thoughts are colorful with fractured imaginings.  As is his name: an anagram of the word “Cannibal” (itself originally a demotic pronunciation of the South Sea native Caribs’ name for themselves).

Here he has shown some grasp of early modern phrenology vis-à-vis the almost-human ape so fascinating then to the English public.  Low foreheads, he teaches us, in passing, were already considered a sign of villainy — low behavior.  Villains, in his opinion, were little more than apes.  There’s a joke in this.  Even Caliban, on his way to murder his master, feels superior to villains and apes for their sloping foreheads.

But why “barnacles”?  Why crustaceans that cling all their adult lives to the hulls of ships?

Well, for another century or so, still, barnacles would only tangentially refer to those crustaceans.  Certain types of what we now call “Barnacles” were actually thought to be strange eggs.  They were opened by the curious to discover what appeared to be the fetuses of birds of some sort.  The body of those barnacles, with its long lacy cirri,  look much like a feathered hatchling.  Some variations even included long black almost goose-like necks.  The ends of the necks were shaped like a beak.

At least as early as the 12^th century (from which we have the account of Giraldus Cambrensis [link]), the Scots and Irish connected these observations to yet another mystery.  Each winter small geese[1] appeared in the land.  No one had ever seen these geese mate or lay eggs.[2]  Curious minds wondered where were the eggs from which surely all geese emerge?

At the same time, the many trees that toppled over from age and water-saturation along the sea shore, during the warmer months during which the geese were absent, were discovered to be populated with shells that displayed living flesh quite similar to the morphology of an egg fetus within them when pried open.  There seemed clearly to be (1) eggs the birds from which were never seen and (2) geese the eggs of which were never seen.  Voilà!  The mysterious geese generations had called “barnacles”[3] were now explained.  They hatched from the shells that appeared on the fallen trees and logs along the sea shore.  The shells were barnacle eggs.

This marvel was so striking that it remained an exotic source of astonishment to mankind until the end of the 17^th century even though the myth was soundly debunked by both Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon.  Many Latin pages of the profoundest medieval learning were spent discussing the stunning “fact” of nature and its implications.  Not only that, but the original downed trees and logs were transformed in time through the magic of learned scholarship into living, standing trees, called “Barnacle Trees” or “Goose Trees”. 

How mysterious the ways of God!  Barnacles were born from heavily shelled eggs that grew on trees.

Even the early exponent of direct scientific observation, the august botanist John Gerarde, ended his famous 1597 Herball[4], centuries later, with his eye witness account of the Barnacle:

many of these shels I brought with me to London, which after I had opened, I founde in them liuing things without forme or shape; in others which were neerer come to ripenes, I found liuing things that were very naked, in shape like a Birde; in others, the Birds covered with soft downe, the shell halfe open, and the Birde readie to fall out, which no doubt were the foules called Barnakles.

…we conclude and ende our present volume, with this woonder of England. For which Gods name be euer honored and praised.

While he had not seen the hatchlings move, he had seen the actual fledged chicks nestled in the egg.  In  his eyes it was definite confirmation of the tales of the Barnacle Geese hatching from seawater shells.

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[1] Dresser, H. E.  A Manual Of Palaearctic Birds. (1902). 596.  Bernacle Goose. Branta Leucopsis.  “Hind-crown, lores, nape, hind-neck, breast, and upper back deep black; rest of the head and upper throat white;… wing 15.8”.

[2] Ibid.  Even in 1902, the nesting habits and location of this diminuitive goose were uncertain.  “scarcely

anything is known respecting its nidification, but it probably breeds in Greenland.”  It is also said to breed in Iceland and Northern Sweden.  It winters in Scotland, Ireland and Northern Europe.

[3] Ibid.   “Oie-bemache, French ; Weisswangcngans, German ; Brandgans, Dutch ; Bramgaas, Dan. ; Hvidkindct Gaas, Nonv. ; Hvitkindad Gas, Swed.”

Max Muller lists the common medieval names in his wonderful Lectures On The Science Of Language. (1885). II. n603-4.  English: Bernacle, Scoth goose, Tree Geese, Brant Geese. Scotch: Clakis or claiks, clak-guse, claik-gees, Barnacle. Orcades: Rodgans. Dutch: Ratgans. German: Baumgans. Danish: Ray-gaas, Radgaas. Norwegian: Raatne-gans, goul, gagl. Iceland: Helsingen. French: Bernache, Cane a collier. Nonnette, Religieuse; Macquerolle, (?) Macreuse. (?)

Latin: Bernicula, Bernacula, Bernacla, Bernicla, Bernecla, Bernecela (Fred. II. Imp., de Arte Venandi), Bernaca, Bernicha, Bernecha, Berneca, Bernichia, Branta (ab atro colore anser scoticus), Bernesta, Barneta (Gervasius Tilb.,) Barnaces (Brompton, p. 1072), Barliata (Isidorus) Barbata (Albertus Magnus). Barbata (or Bar-hates) may be misread for Barliata or Bachadae.

Cf. Ducange, s. v. Menage, s.v. Bernache. Diefenbach, Glossarium Latino- Germanicum: ‘ Galli has aves Macquerolles et Macreuses appellant, et tempore Quadragesimali ex Normannia Parisios deferunt. Sed

revera deprehensum est a Batavis, anseres hosce ova parere,’ &c. (Willoughby).

Another name is given by Scaliger. Julius Caesar Scaliger, ad Arist. de Plantis, lib. i.:—‘Anates (inquit, melius dixisset Anseres) Oceani, quas Armorici partim Crabrans, partim Bernachias vocant. Eae creantur ex putredine naufragiorum, pendentque rostro a matrice, quoad absolutae decidant in subjectas aquas, unde sibi statim victum quaerunt: visendo interea spectaculo pensiles, motitantesque tum pedes, tum alas.’

[4] Gerarde, John.  The Herball or General Historie of Plantes Gathered by John Gerarde of London Master in Chirurgurie (1597). 1392.

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• Hedingham Castle 1485-1562 with Virtual Tour Link.  January 29, 2019. “Mr. Sheffeld told me that afore the old Erle of Oxford tyme, that cam yn with King Henry the vii., the Castelle of Hengham was yn much ruine,…”
• Why Shakespeare Appears on Title Pages from 1598.  November 20, 2018.  ‘These he finds unconvincing.  The author’s name having appeared in a number of title pages after 1598, he continues, “it would seem foolish for publishers not to attach the Shakespeare brand to his previously unattributed plays—unless they had other reasons not to do so.”’ 
• The Battle Over Shakespeare's Early and Late Plays. September 24, 2018. “The answers to the post-Oxford dilemma, of course, are three.”
• Edward de Vere Changes the Course of History: Christmas, 1580. September 17, 2018. “First Secretary to the Queen, Sir Francis Walsingham, had been pressing the Queen since at least the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, in France, in 1573, to recognize that Catholicism was, by its nature, unalterably inimical to her person and her throne.”
• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.

 

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