79 



Hymenoptera. — Shakespeare's ideas of the honey-bee seem to have been 

 somewhat confused. He was misled probably by the old-world learning newly 

 revived in his day ; and, in his allusions to the *' magnanimous leaders, the man- 

 ners and employments, the tribes and battles of the race," he seems to have fol- 

 lowed in the footsteps of Virgil (Georgics, Book IV.), or of writers who were 

 acquainted with Virgil. His Archbishop of Canterbury in King Henry V. speaks 

 of the head of the hive as a " King." The passage in which this occurs is very 

 fine ; and I am tempted to give it in its entirety. 



So work the honey-bees ; 



Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach 

 The act of order to a peopled kingdom. 

 They have a king, and officers of sorts : 

 Where some, like magistrates, correct at home : 

 Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad ; 

 Others, like soldiers, armei in their stings 

 Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds ; 

 Which pillage they with merry march bring home 

 To the tent-royal of their emperor : 

 Who, busied in his majesty, surveys 

 The singing masons building roofs of gold ; 

 The civil citizens kneading up the honey ; 

 The poor mechanic porters crowding in 

 Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate ; 

 The sad ey'd justice, with his surly hum, 

 Delivering o'er to executor's pale 

 The lazj' yawning drone. 



Act I. sc. 1. 



It would seem too that the strange story told by Virgil — how Aristseus, son 

 of Gyrene, sacrificed cattle and left the carcases exposed till, " wondrous to relate, 

 bees through all the belly hum amidst the putrid bowels of the cattle, pour forth 

 with fermenting juices from the burst sides, and in immense clouds roll along, 

 then swarm together on a top of a tree and hang down from the bending boughs " 

 (Georgics, Bk. IV.) — had left an impression upon his mind, for he puts in the 

 mouth of King Henry IV., who is lamenting the behaviour of Prince Henry of 

 Monmouth, the words : 



'Tis seldom when the bee doth leave the comb 

 In the dead carrion. 



Act IV., sc. 4. 



His observations of the bees however were, in many points, correct. He 

 noticed that they " gather'd honey from the weed " (Henry V., Act IV., sc. 1) ; 

 that they took " toll from every fiower " (2nd Part K. Henry IV., Act IV., sc. 4) ; 

 that " drones " rob the hives (Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Act IL, sc. 1 ; Merchant of 

 Venice, Act II., sc. 5 ; 2nd Part K. Henry VI,, Act IV., sc. 1) ; that the wasps 

 steal the honey and kills the bees (Two Gent, of Verona, Act I., sc. 2, and Titus 

 Andronicus, Act II., sc. 3) ; that the swarm deprived of its leader becomes vindic- 

 tive : 



The commons like an angry hive of bees 

 That want their leader, scatter up and down 

 And care not who they sting in his revenge. 



2nd Part K. Henry VI., Act III., sc. 2. 



With the methods pursued by the bee-masters of his day he was acquainted. 

 Eolingbroke says : 



like the bee tolling from every flower the virtuous sweets, 



Our thighs pack'd with wax, our mouths with honey 

 We bring it to the hive ; and like the bees 

 Are murder'd for our pains. 



2nd Part K. Henry IV., Act IV., sc. 4. 



And Talbot in 1st Part of K. Henry VI., Act I., sc. 5 : 



So bees with smoke and doves with noisome stench 

 Are from their hives and houses driven away. 



The " Red-hipped humble-bee " of Shakespeare is Bomhus lapidarius. This 



