the sun"
("Richard III.," i. 2); "the sacred radiance of the sun" ("King Lear,"
i. 1); "sweet tidings of the sun's uprise" ("Titus Andronicus," iii. 1),
etc. Then, again, how often we come across passages replete with pathos,
such as "thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west" ("Richard II.," ii. 4);
"ere the weary sun set in the west" ("Comedy of Errors," i. 2); "the
weary sun hath made a golden set" ("Richard III.," v. 3); "The sun, for
sorrow, will not show his head" ("Romeo and Juliet," v. 3), etc.
Although, however, Shakespeare has made such constant mention of the
sun, yet his allusions to the folk-lore connected with it are somewhat
scanty.

According to the old philosophy the sun was accounted a planet,[89] and
thought to be whirled round the earth by the motion of a solid sphere,
in which it was fixed. In "Antony and Cleopatra" (iv. 13), Cleopatra
exclaims:

"O sun,
Burn the great sphere thou mov'st in! darkling stand
The varying shore o' the world."

[89] Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. x. p. 292.

Supposing this sphere consumed, the sun must wander in endless space,
and, as a natural consequence, the earth be involved in endless night.

In "1 Henry IV." (i. 2), Falstaff, according to vulgar astronomy, calls
the sun a "wandering knight," and by this expression evidently alludes
to some knight of romance. Mr. Douce[90] considered the allusion was to
"The Voyage of the Wandering Knight," by Jean de Cathenay, of which the
translation, by W. Goodyeare, appeared about the year 1600. The words
may be a portion of some forgotten ballad.

[90] "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, pp. 255, 256.

A pretty fancy is referred to in "Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 5), where
Capulet says:

"When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;
But for the sunset of my brother's son
It rains downright."

And so, too, in the "Rape of Lucrece:"

"But as the earth doth weep, the sun being set."

"That Shakespeare thought it was the air," says Singer,[91] "and not the
earth, that drizzled dew, is evident from many passages in his works.
Thus, in 'King John' (ii. 1) he says: 'Before the dew of evening fall.'"
Steevens, alluding to the following passage in "A Midsummer-Night's
Dream" (iii. 1), "and when she [_i. e._, the moon] weeps, weeps every
little flower," says that Shakespeare "means that every little flower is
moistened with dew, as if with tears; and not that the