Pe 83 
mona speaks of herself as a “moth of peace,” Act I, se. 3; and in Coriolanus, 
“You would be another Penelope, yet they say all the yarn she spun, in Ulysses’ 
absence, did but fill Ithaca full of moths,” Act I., se. 4, The reference in this last 
passage is probably to the tapestry moth, Time tapetzellu. 
. DiererA—tThe most numerous of Shakespeare’s entomological allusions are 
to the two-winged flies. As a fitting image of littleness and meanness he makes 
use of the gnat, as where Simonides says that princes who are not given to hos- 
; Are like to gnats which make a sound, but killed, 
Are wondered at. 
Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Act IL., sc. 3. 
And where Biron mocking at the love-sick King of Navarre: 
O me, with what strict patience have I sat 
To see a king transformed to a gnat. 
Love’s labour’s lost, Act IV., sc. 3. 
But the diminutive is used with much feeling and affection, where Imogen, 
speaking of the departure of her banished lord, says : 
TI would have broke my eye-strings ; crack’d them, but 
To look upon him ; till the diminution 
Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle, 
Nay, follow’d him, till he had melted from 
The smallness of a gnat to air. 
‘*Cymbeline,” Act I., sc. 4. 
There is knowledge both of human nature and of natural history, in the re- 
buke which Antipholus of Syracuse administered to Dromio of Syracuse. 
Because that I familiarly sometimes 
Do use you for my fool, and chat with you, 
Your sauciness will jest upon my love, 
And make a common of my serious hours. 
When the sun shines, let foolish gnats make sport, 
But creep in crannies, when he hides his beams. 
Comedy of Errors, Act II., se. 2. 
The Flea (Pulex irritans) is spoken of in at any rate seven passages :—“Henry 
Vz,” Act II., se. 3,and Act IIL, se. 7; “ Merry Wives of Windsor,” Act IV.,” se. 
2; “Twelfth Night,” Act IIL, sc. 4; “ All’s Well that Ends Well,” Act IV., se.3; 
“Taming the Shrew,” Act V.,sc. 3, and Ist Part K. Henry IV., Act II, sc. 1; 
always in a trifling sense. 
Shakespeare’s allusions to the breeze-fly or gad-fly of the ox (Tabanus 
bovinus) are forcible. In Troilus and Cressida Nestor, replying to Agamemnon, 
to illustrate the difference between “ valour’s show” and “ valour’s worth,” says 
that in Fortune’s 
ray and brightness 
The herd hath more annoyance by the brize 
Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind 
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks, 
And flies flee under shade, why then the thing of courage 
As rous’d with rage, with rage doth sympathize. 
Act I., se. 3. 
And in Antony and Cleopatra, Scarus cries out against the Egyptian Queen 
who was hastening from the fight off Actium: 
Yon ribald-rid nag of Egypt 
The brize upon her like a cow in June 
Hoists sails and flies. 
__ Of the many allusions to flies made by Shakespeare, some are used ina 
slighting and contemptuous sense, as when Timon of Athens calls his false friends 
Most smiling, smooth, detested parasites, 
Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears, 
You fools of fortune, trencher friends, time’s flies. 
Act IIL., se, 6. 
