The Birds of Shakespeare 
The snipe is only once mentioned and 
the name is used as a contemptuous, 
epithet. Iago, as he soliloquises after 
an interview with the “gulled gentle- 
man” Rodrigo, affirms 
I mine own gain’d knowledge should profane 
If I would time expend with such a snipe, 
But for my sport and profit. 
The guait is likewise referred to in 
two of the Plays dealing with Greek and 
Roman history. Antony, comparing his 
chances in life with Octavius Caesar’s, 
confesses to himself 
The very dice obey him: if we draw lots he speeds ; 
His cocks do win the battle still of mine; : 
His quails ever beat mine, inhoop’d, at odds.” 
Thersites speaks thus slightingly of a great 
walrior : 
1 Othello, 1. iii. 379. In Shakespeare’s time the bird was 
also called snite, under which form it is referred to by his 
contemporary poet, Drayton, who speaks of 
The witless woodcock and his neighbour snite. 
The use of the word “snipe” as a disparaging epithet for 
an individual is not yet extinct in the north. 
2 Antony and Cleopatra, it. il. 34. 
66 
