The Birds of Shakespeare 
to the NIGHTINGALE. ‘These are numerous 
and may be divided into two groups. In 
one of them the style is somewhat arti- 
ficial in tone, reflecting not the poet’s 
own experience of the bird, but the 
legendary interpretation of its song that 
had been handed down from remote 
antiquity. ; Inthe ‘other’ group, )tie 
nightingale takes its natural place as one 
of our familiar English songsters. There 
was a Greek myth that Philomela, the 
daughter of an Attic King, after being 
cruelly treated by her brother Tereus, was 
compassionately changed by the gods into 
a nightingale, and that thereafter she 
spent her life among woods lamenting in 
mournful notes the fate that had befallen 
her. Her name came to be given to the 
bird. Shakespeare, following this legend, 
introduces the bird as Philomel into his 
separate Poems and into the lyrics in- 
cluded in his dramas. In the ordinary 
dialogue of the Plays, however, dropping 
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