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Saturday, April 06, 2024

Shakespeare and Bees, Pt. 1.

In this series:

Beginning on October 29, 1891, an anonymous editor of the British Bee Journal, Bee-Keepers' Record and Advisor1 began a longish multi-issue essay on Shakespeare and Bees. Like so many of such editorial projects in that day it was direct and genuinely informative. We present it here, in Virtual Grub Street, in the spirit of the original.

Most of the references to bees in Shakespeare come from where such references come in the works of all Tudor authors. They come from Book XI of Pliny the Elder's 1st century A.D. Natural History.

There was very little scientific study in medieval and Tudor times. Instead the educated members of societies took the word of various Greek and Roman observers of ancient times. Thus Shakespeare repeats Pliny's mistake of identifying the dominant member of the hive as its king rather than its queen. Also the mistake of identifying drones as lazy parasites upon a hive's honey. If a writer repeats these mistakes the reader can be sure he learned his “facts” from Pliny or from Book IV of Virgil's Georgics, or both.


SHAKESPEARE AND BEES .


In his plays Shakespeare frequently alludes to bees and honey. Some of these we have selected

for mention . In The Tempest, Act V. , Scene 1 , the delicate Ariel expresses his enjoyment by saying :-

'Where the bee sucks, there suck I.'

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Bottom the Weaver gives orders to his new attendants in the following words :-

'Monsieur Cobweb; good monsieur, get your

weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped

humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good

monsieur, bring me the honey- bag.'

Act IV., Scene I.

Drones are also mentioned. Shylock, in speaking of his servant Launcelot, after describing him as a ‘huge feeder ,' adds : -

'Drones hive not with me.'

Shakespeare knew that a hive contains a queen, workers, and drones, for he says :-

Like stinging bees in hottest summer's day,

Led by their master to the flower'd fields .'

Titus Andronicus, Act V. , Scene 1 .

True, he calls the queen 'Master,' but this is still used in some places, and in some parts of Sussex the queen is still called the 'master-bee.' 'Drones hive not with me ' has already been alluded to, and the workers are described in the following lines :-

'So work the honey bees;

Creatures, that, by a rule of nature, teach

The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

They have a king, and officers of sorts :

Where some , like magistrates, correct at home ;

Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad ;

Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,

Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds ;

Which pillage they with merry march bring home

To the tent-royal of their emperor :

Who, busied in his majesty, surveys

The singing masons building roofs of gold ;

The civil citizens kneading up the honey ;

The poor mechanic porters crowding in

Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate ;

The sad-ey'd justice, with his surly hum,

Delivering o'er to executors pale

The lazy yawning drone.'

Henry V., Act I. , Scene II.

In the Second Part of Henry VI. the following passage occurs : -

'How quickly nature falls into revolt

When gold becomes her object.

For this, the foolish over-careful fathers

Have broke their sleep with thought, their brains with care,

When, like the bees, tolling from every flower,

The virtuous sweets,

Our thighs are pack'd with wax, our mouths with honey :

We bring it to the hive; and, like the bees,

Are murdered for our pains.'

Act IV., Scene 4.


In another part of the same play this murder is described , and in it we recognise the old method of the brimstone pit . When the English troops are being repulsed by Joan of Arc, Talbot says:-

'So bees with smoke, and doves with noisome stench ,

Are from their hives and houses driven away.'

Act I., Scene 5 .

Wax is brought forward as a material for sealing in the following passage:-

'Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment ? That parchment , being scriblled o'er, should undo a man? Some say, the bee stings: but I say, ' tis the bee's-wax: for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since .'

2 Henry VI., Act IV., Scene 2 .


Leave, gentle wax ; and, manners, blame us not :

To know our enemies' minds, we'd rip their hearts ;

Their papers , is more lawful.'

King Lear, Act IV. , Scene 6.

And again :-

'Good wax, thy leave, bless'd be

Yon bees, that make these locks of counsel Lovers

And men in dangerous bonds pray not alike

Though forfeiters you cast in prison yet,

You clasp young Cupid's tables .'

Cymbeline , Act III , Scene 2 .

It was at one time thought that pollen was wax, and Shakespeare adopted this idea:

'Our thighs are pack'd with wax.'

Honey is of frequent occurrence, and King Henry V. at Agincourt is made to say:

There is some soul of goodness in things evil,

Would men observingly distil it out :

*

Thus may we gather honey from the weed.

Act IV. , Scene 1 .


Shakespeare did love bee-imagery. It can be found throughout the plays. We will finish the anonymous account in Part 2.



1 British Bee Journal, Bee-Keepers' Record and Advisor. Volume IX (1891).


Was Shakespeare Gay? What do the sonnets really say?

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