1902 Some Birds in Shak spear 281 



frequently appears in Shakspear, who speaks of him as " the 

 hateful raven — the fatal raven " — or in a more developed 

 form (" Macbeth," i. 5)— 



" The raven itself is hoarse, 

 That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 

 Under my battlements." 



Or, as one finds in *' Hamlet," in the play scene (iv. 2), 

 "The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge"; or again 

 ("3 Henry VI.," v. 3), an interesting passage where Henry 

 is talking of Richard, he says — 



" The owl shrieked at thy birth, 

 The night crow cried, aboding luckless time, 

 The raven rooked her, on the chimney-pot." 



As to what the Raven did on this occasion there is a great 

 division of heart. Dr Johnson, who has a way of stepping 

 in where angels fear to tread, changes the text to " rocked 

 her," which is an unlikely movement on the part of the 

 Raven. I shall have occasion to speak later on the word 

 "rooky." Some are inclined to connect the two words 

 here, in which case it would mean, looked her blackest, as 

 one finds in " Troilus and Cressida" (ii. 3), the Raven 

 chides blackness. But I have no doubt that it simply means 

 croaked, a view which is borne out by Skeat's derivation of 

 the word rook as the croaking bird,^ 



There is another point about the Raven, that it rarely 

 attacks living animals, though it is not so fond of putrescence 

 as many birds. What it likes is a carcass from which the 

 life has just gone out. In a little valley in Norway which I 

 frequent I never saw a raven till this year, and then put up 

 six, who were discussing a sheep that had lately died. 

 As Canon Tristram describes, it will often watch a dying 

 animal, and then experiment on it by digging out its eye. 

 This habit Shakspear notices (" Othello," iv. i) — 



" It comes o'er my memory as doth a raven o'er an infected house." 



Or again (" K. John," iv. 3) — 



" Vast confusion waits, 

 As doth a raven o'er a sick-fallen beast." 



^ Nares's Glossary gives rook or ruck, meaning to squat. 



