154 THE CUCKOO. 



amongst the Teutonic race, and we have doubtless 

 received it from the Normans. The opinion that the 

 cuckoo made no nest of its own, but laid its eggs in that 

 of another bird, which brought up the young cuckoo to 

 the detriment of its own offspring, was well-known to the 

 ancients, and is mentioned by Aristotle and Pliny. 

 So in Antony and Cleopatra (Act ii. Sc. 6) : — 



" Thou dost o'ercount me of my father's house ; 

 But since the cuckoo builds not for himself, 

 Remain in 't as thou may'st. ' 



But the ancients more correctly gave the name of the 

 bird, not to the husband of the faithless wife, but to her 

 paramour, who might justly be supposed to be acting the 

 part of the cuckoo. They gave the name of the bird in 

 whose nest the cuckoo's eggs were usually deposited 

 — " curruca" — to the husband. It is not quite clear how, 

 in the passage from classic to mediaeval, the application of 

 the term was transferred to the husband* In allusion to 

 this are the following lines of Shakespeare : — 



" For I the ballad will repeat, 



Which men full true will find ; 

 Your marriage comes by destiny; 

 Your cuckoo sings by kind." 



All's Well that Ends Well, Act i. Sc. 3. 



* See Chambers's " Book of Days," i. 531. 



