Chickens--WDSS (What Does Shakespeare Say?)

Some of the most vexing questions in life involve chickens. Which came first—the chicken or the egg? Why did the chicken cross the road? In a recent blog, “Fowl question—Chicken or Cock?” I address another perplexing question—why does English have two words for the domestic fowl, “chicken” and “cock”? To add some perspective to these questions, I have posed another: What Does Shakespeare Say About Chickens?

Contrary to popular belief, Shakespeare did not write in “Old English” but instead wrote in Early Modern English—the same English that we speak today, although the language has continued to evolve. When Shakespeare was writing, French was waning as an influence on English. It makes sense that Shakespeare uses “cock” more than he uses “chicken” in his works, according to entries in Alexander Schmidt’s “Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary,” because “cock” evolved in the English and French traditions and “chicken” in the Germanic tradition.

Many of the usages of “cock” in Shakespeare’s works involve their alarm clock function, crowing cocks. In “Hamlet,” the crowing of the cock sends the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father away. In “The Tempest,” Sebastian describes the rather verbose Gonzalo as “The old cock” and his prattling as “crowing.” In “Two Gentlemen of Verona,” Speed tells Valentine that he can tell when Valentine is in love because [you are] wont, when you laughed, to crow like a cock.” In “The Taming of the Shrew,” Petruchio and Kate have the following conversation early in his attempt to woo Kate:

Kate: What is your crest? A coxcomb? (fool’s hat)

Petruchio: A combless cock (gentle rooster), so Kate will be my hen.

Kate: No cock of mine; you crow too like a craven. (a chicken chicken, that is one who will not fight)

Shakespeare makes very few references to chickens, and most of those are metaphoric. In Sonnet 143, he employs a simile of housewife leaving her child aside in order to chase an errant chicken to evoke the feeling of neglect that an ignored lover might feel. Near the end of “Macbeth,” MacDuff, after receiving the news that his wife and children have been slaughtered, utters in disbelief, “What, all my pretty chickens and their dam/ At one fell swoop?”

As the consummate artist, Shakespeare even addresses both the chicken and the egg in one fell swoop. When Pandarus and Cressida discuss whether Troilus loves Helen of Troy, Pandarus asserts, “Troilus? Why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an addle [spoiled] egg.” Cressida replies, “If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head, you would eat chickens in the shell.”

As a lover of chickens, especially rubber chickens, I would be remiss not to mention Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale.  This tale, widely acclaimed as perhaps the most artful one in the Canterbury Tales, has chickens in major roles, although I must also admit the tale includes reports of some smoking chicken sex. However, in the interest of family-friendliness, I will say no more about Chanticleer’s conjugal life with his many chicken wives.

In closing, I will leave you with a little chicken trivia. The first known appearance of the chicken crossing the road joke goes back to “The Knickerbocker” (The New York Monthly) magazine in March, 1847. Also, Harvard physicist David Morin imagines how famous physicists might answer the question. Finally, an anonymous site offers answers that famous philosophically minded characters—both real and fictional--might provide to the question. Hamlet offers my favorite: “That is not the question.”

Fowl Question—Chicken or Cock?

The approach of Halloween reminds me of my days as a costumer in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s and how I fell in love with rubber chickens. The boss told me that he had ordered some rubber chickens for one of the big seasons—Halloween or Mardi Gras. I thought “How disgusting.” However, when I opened the box, my first gander at the chicken resulted in love. I grabbed one of the rubber chickens by the neck, and when my friends dropped by to visit, I thrust it at them, asking “Had lunch?”

So taken was I with rubber chickens that I made up a song about them, “Flying Rubber Chicken,” to the tune of “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” I created a mailing sticker which featured a flying rubber chicken with the motto “Fare is fowl and fowl is fare.” In addition, I designed and made a rubber chicken costume which I wore every Halloween for about 20 years. Each year, I put a slight twist to the costume. One year, I added a guitar to become Chicken a la King (Elvis). Another year, I added a Hunny Pot and red Pooh tunic to become Chicken Pooh. Another Halloween I put a big question mark on the front of the costume and carried an egg around to become the “which came first” question.

Sadly, I gave up the chicken costume for two reasons: (1) I wore it and a replacement out; (2) public secondary schools do not take kindly to their English teachers showing up in chicken costumes on Halloween. (In other words, I finally had to get out of that chicken outfit.)

So what is the connection between chicken outfits and “Be-Worded”? A friend, who will remain unnamed, recently became enamored of the word “cockalorum.” The “Oxford English Dictionary” describes the word as an informal usage, deriving from “cock” and apparently intended as “playful and arbitrary,” with the definition “Applied to a person: = Little or young cock, bantam; self-important little man.”  Many side comments went around about the opening syllable of that word. As I try to keep “Be-Worded” somewhat family-friendly, I will not discuss the colloquial associations with “cock,” but I will note that the “Chambers Slang Dictionary” devotes three and a half pages to “cock” and compound words beginning with “cock.”

Also, how did English end up with two words, chicken and cock, for the “domestic fowl”? Why did I fall in love with a rubber chicken and not a rubber cock? (Remember: family-friendly!) Why did my friend become enamored with the word “cockalorum” and not “chickenalorum”? As best as I can tell, both “chicken” and “cock” can be traced back to the same Teutonic, that is Germanic, root word. Evidently, “chicken” evolved and became more popular in Germanic circles, while “cock” evolved and became more popular in English and French circles. Therefore, English ended up with two different words for the same fowl.

If all of this information is not thrilling enough, stayed tuned, Faithful Readers! In my next installment on “Be-Worded,” I will address What Does Shakespeare Say—About Chickens. (Also, Chaucer features chickens in his Nun’s Priest’s Tale, which I will discuss, as well.)

Sylvan sylvanias--or what's in those woods?

In “Ode on a Grecian Urn” Keats addresses in line 3 the “Sylvan historian” who tells a tale of eternal beauty and truth, truth and beauty. On our recent road trip from Berkeley to Seattle, that “Sylvan historian” magically guided Richard and me on a somewhat unplanned sojourn through beauty and truth. We left Berkeley with the plan to drive north. As we headed to I-5, our Sylvan GPS took over. The first part of our trip went through the sere Sacramento Valley fields. Leaving I-5, on a whim we headed east toward the splendor of the Cascades and Mount Shasta, where our rental car chugged as far up the mountain as the paved road.

Our Sylvan Guide then led us up blue highway 97 to Klamath Falls, Oregon, where we set our sights on visiting another truly gorgeous area, Crater Lake. After Crater Lake, we enjoyed even more superb scenery until we hooked back up with I-5 at Eugene. Just south of Olympia, Washington, I noted a road sign for Millersylvania State Park. The unique combination of “Miller” and “sylvania” intrigued me, as I thought of “Transylvania” and its sinister connotations.

I commented to Richard, the neuroscientist, that I have heard of Pennsylvania and Transylvania, but Millersylvania? His response knocked Ms. Be-Worded off her linguistic pedestal.

“Of course, ‘sylvan’ as in the woods.” 

Fascinated, once home I consulted my “American Heritage Dictionary” which defines “sylvan” in its adjectival form as “relating to or characteristic of woods or forest regions”; “located in or inhabiting a wood or forest”; and “abounding in trees; wooded.” The history of the word goes back to the “Latin Silvānus, god of the woods, from silva, forest.” According to dictionary.com, the –ia suffix provides a word-forming element in names of countries.

Then, I thought of as many “sylvanias” as I could and with the help of a very un-sylvanlike guide, Google, I found out the following information.

Sylvania: towns named “Sylvania” exist in both Ohio and Alabama. Portland (Oregon) Community College has a Sylvania campus. (Too bad I did not stumble upon my interest in “Sylvania” until we had driven past that geographic area.) Sylvania also refers to a line of electronics. I discovered that the television in our kitchen is a Sylvania – which has not yet changed colors and lost its leaves!

Millersylvania:  Millersylvania State Park, south of Olympia, Washington, was once owned, not surprisingly, by the Miller family. The family gave the 842-acres of land to Washington State in 1921. In 1935, the Civilian Conservation Corps built the park. Originally, the parcel went by “Miller’s Glade,” but at some point, someone decided that “Millersylvania” (Miller’s Woods) better suited the place. While the name does catch the eye, it does not exactly roll off the tongue.

Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania, as most school children know, was named after William Penn. King Charles II gave the land to Penn as a land grant. Penn wanted to name the land simply “Sylvania.” However, King Charles overruled him, specifying that the name legally be “Pennsylvania,” Penn’s Woods.

Spotsylvania: You will find Spotsylvania County, not in Pennsylvania, but in nearby Virginia off of I-95. Founded in 1721 and named after Alexander Spotswood, the lieutenant governor, Spotsylvania County hosted four major Civil War battles. Most infamously, Stonewall Jackson died by friendly fire in Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania County. Since “Spotsylvania” means “Spots Woods,” why not just name the county after its namesake?

Transylvania: Perhaps the creepiest of the “sylvanias,” with its associations with vampires and Dracula, the name “Transylvania” is seemingly harmless on the surface. The prefix “trans-,“ in this instance “beyond,” coupled with “sylvania,” gets us “Beyond the Woods.” In terms of fairy tales, such as “Hansel and Gretel” or “Little Red Riding Hood,” going beyond the woods can be quite hazardous.

NOTE: On our road trip, we passed through Weed, California, which Steinbeck mentions in “Of Mice and Men.” I deeply regret not stopping and having Richard take my picture in front of the mural which reads “Welcome to Weed” as a souvenir for all of my former 9^th graders who snickered at the town’s name when we studied that novel.