Birthdays happen. It’s a
fact of life. They pile up like dirty laundry, and like dirty laundry,
birthdays are going to keep on happening, regardless of how many loads you wash.
Recently, I was perusing birthday cards to send to some of my numerous friends
and family who have had birthdays recently when the question popped into my
mind—what does Shakespeare say about birthdays?
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| Elf and Hermia at a basset birthday | party. |
Part 1: What does
Shakespeare say about birthdays?
Since
my print concordance to the works of Shakespeare lives at Schroon Lake, I
consulted the on-line Concordance
of Shakespeare’s complete works. There, I found that Shakespeare
mentions “birth-days” three times in his works: in Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Pericles.
The
earliest mention is in Julius Caesar,
written around 1599 to 1600. At the beginning of Act 5, before heading into
battle, Cassius says, “Messala/ This is my birth-day; as this very day/ Was
Cassius born.” (5.1.74-6) After this astute definition of “birth-day,” Cassius
goes on to observe that even though it is his “birth-day,” he is compelled to
“set/ Upon one battle” (5.1.78-9)—not most people’s first choice of how to
spend a birthday. Many workplaces grant employees a day off for their birthday,
but the valiant Cassius chooses to forge ahead into battle. Unfortunately for
Cassius, due to some misinformation about battle results, he dies—not the best
outcome for a “birth-day.”
Little did
Shakespeare know when he penned Julius
Caesar that he himself would die on his birthday, April 23, 1616, at the
tender age of 52. Mystery surrounds Shakespeare’s cause of death. My favorite
theory involves a probable birthday celebration. Sometime around 1610, Shakespeare
retired from the London theatre scene and returned to Stratford-upon-Avon.
Occasionally, he would return on horseback to London, a journey of about 100
miles, to visit his friends. One theory holds that Shakespeare rode to London
in April--a cold, rainy time of year— for birthday celebrations, caught a cold,
and died. I like to believe that Shakespeare died from partying with his chums.
The next mention
of “birth-days” comes in Antony and
Cleopatra, written around1606 to 1607. Near the end of Act 3, Antony and
Cleopatra are embroiled in a lover’s quarrel yet again. Antony gets over a fit
of jealousy to reunite with Cleopatra. She announces, “It is my birth-day/ I
had thought to have held it poor.” (3.13.188-90) However, much to her pleasant
surprise, she can celebrate happily because Antony has come back to her. And
celebrate they do. Yet, the end of that story is not a happy one, either.
The final mention
of “birth-days” appears in Pericles,
written around 1608 to 1609 near the end of Shakespeare’s career. Pericles must
flee his homeland. The ship carrying him wrecks and he is cast ashore. He runs
across three fishermen, who tell him he is in Pentapolis. One fisherman informs
Pericles that the king is Simonides, “and I’ll tell you, he hath a fair
daughter, and to-morrow is her birth-day; and there are princes and knights
come from all parts of the world to [joust] and tourney for her love.”
(2.1.108-12) What a party! Ultimately, Pericles wins the girl. I will simply
leave the story there, as they do not live happily ever after.
On the whole, the
picture Shakespeare paints of “birth-days” is not a happy one. He depicts war
and death and lovers’ quarrels during politically tenuous times. He depicts a woman
held up as a prize on her birthday although the initial outcome is happy. It is
too bad that Shakespeare does not portray a “birth-day” somewhere in one of his
comedies. Maybe in As You Like It, in
the Forest of Arden Shakespeare could throw Jacques a birth-day party to cheer
him up. Or maybe in A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, Oberon could orchestrate a birth-day party in the woods to ease the
tension among the four young lovers.
Whenever your
birthday falls, I wish you a happy, healthy one, in spite of how Shakespeare
presents “birth-days”!
Part 2: The word itself (brief
version)
If you
are not a big fan of etymology, you may want to stop reading now. However, you
never know what fun-filled trivia you might pick up for when you finally make
it onto Jeopardy! or for trivia night
at the local pub or for enlivening boring parties or for scaring away
uninteresting dates or even telemarketers. It captured my imagination to see
that Shakespeare spelled “birthday” with a hyphen. I did a little digging in my
Oxford English Dictionary (OED), to
find that in the earliest usages, “birthday” was not a compound word but two
separate words, birth day, day of birth. Shakespeare is among the first writers
to use the hyphenated form, “birth-day.” Finally, around 1755 the word became
the compound “birthday” that we use today.
Part 3: The word itself (if
you are still reading)
In examining the etymology of “birthday” in order to
understand why Shakespeare may have hyphenated the word, I researched hyphen
usage. “The Punctuation Guide”
discusses three types of compound terms: open, hyphenated, and closed. Open
compound terms are those such as “printing press” in which the adjective, “printing,”
is necessary to convey the full meaning of the noun, “press”, denoting a press
that transfers images to paper. A press in itself could be any number of items,
such as a garlic press. “Birth day” in early usage was an open compound. The
words were dating but not committed.
Hyphenated compounds, such as “eye-opener,” make a
stronger connection between the noun and its modifier. In this instance, the
two words are cohabitating but not yet married. With “printing press,” we can
take the modifier “printing” away from the noun “press.” They can date other
words. In hyphenated compounds, the modifier is not going anywhere. The hyphen
is a betrothal.
In closed compounds, such as “bookstore,” the marriage is
complete. Unless you come to the end of a written line and need to hyphenate
onto the following line, the modifier is there. The union has been formally sanctioned.
As an added complication in the history, William Caxton
did not introduce the printing press into England until 1476. For perspective,
Shakespeare was born in 1564, so he began writing less than 100 years after the
printing press first appeared in England. Shakespeare wrote for the theatre. He
composed all of his plays by hand. He did not write for publication. Later,
others decided to print his plays. Therefore, spelling was not a major concern
of his. One of the many glorious things that the printing press did for the
reading public was to freeze word forms, so spelling became set, allowing for
the creation of the dictionary.
For
whatever reasons, writers and more likely editors decided that the closed
compound form of “birthday” better fit the meaning of the word. Clearly, the
word “birthday” came to denote a special event and not just any old day with a
modifier stuck in front of it. It is not an occasion to be hyphenated, but a
day to be celebrated, despite Shakespeare’s mostly glum depiction of
“birth-days.”
Quotations from Shakespeare’s
play come from The Complete Works of
Shakespeare, 4th edition, edited by David Bevington, published
by Harper Collins, 1992.
