ck is called the peajock. Some have
proposed to read _paddock_, and in the last scene Hamlet bestows this
opprobrious name upon the king. It has been also suggested to read
_puttock_, a kite.[294] The peacock has also been regarded as the emblem
of pride and arrogance, as in "1 Henry VI." (iii. 3):[295]

"Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while,
And, like a peacock, sweep along his tail;
We'll pull his plumes, and take away his train."

[294] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 645; Singer's
"Notes," vol. ix. p. 228.

[295] Cf. "Troilus and Cressida," iii. 3.

_Pelican._ There are several allusions by Shakespeare to the pelican's
piercing her own breast to feed her young. Thus, in "Hamlet" (iv. 5),
Laertes says:

"To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms;
And like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood."

And in "King Lear," where the young pelicans are represented as piercing
their mother's breast to drink her blood, an illustration of filial
impiety (iii. 4), the king says:

"Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers
Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
Judicious punishment! 'Twas this flesh begot
Those pelican daughters."[296]

[296] Cf. "Richard II." i. 1.

It is a common notion that the fable here alluded to is a classical one,
but this is an error. Shakespeare, says Mr. Harting, "was content to
accept the story as he found it, and to apply it metaphorically as the
occasion required." Mr. Houghton, in an interesting letter to "Land and
Water"[297] on this subject, remarks that the Egyptians believed in a
bird feeding its young with its blood, and this bird is none other than
the vulture. He goes on to say that the fable of the pelican doubtless
originated in the Patristic annotations on the Scriptures. The
ecclesiastical Fathers transferred the Egyptian story from the vulture
to the pelican, but magnified the story a hundredfold, for the blood of
the parent was not only supposed to serve as food for the young, but was
also able to reanimate the dead offspring. Augustine, commenting on
Psalm cii. 6--"I am like a pelican of the wilderness"--remarks: "These
birds [male pelicans] are said to kill their offspring by blows of their
beaks, and then to bewail their death for the space of three days. At
length, however, it is said that the mother inflicts a severe wound on
herself, pouring the flowing blood over the dead y