Chapter Erragon to Errors of Authors of E by Brewer's Readers Handbook

(48) Shakespeare. Althœa and the Fire-brand. Shakespeare says (2 Henry IV. act ii. sc. 2) that Althæ a drea mt she was delivered of a fire-brand.” It was not Althæa but Hecuba who dreamed, a little before Paris was born, that her offspring was a brand that consumed the kingdom. The tale of Althæa is that the Fates laid a log of wood on a fire, and told her that her son would live till that log was consumed; whereupon she snatched up the log and kept it from the fire, till one day her son Meleager offended her, when she flung the log on the fire, and her son died, as the Fates predicted.

Bohemia’s Coast. In the Winter’s Tale the vessel bearing the infant Perdita is “driven by storm on the coast of Bohemia;” but Bohemia has no seaboard at all.

In Coriolanus Shakespeare makes Volumnia the mother, and Virgilia the wife, of Coriolanus; but his wife was Volumnia, and his mother Veturia.

§ Delphi an Island. In the same drama (act iii. sc. 1) Delphi is spoken of as an island; but Delphi is a city of Phocis, containing a temple to Apollo. It is no island at all.

Elsinore. Shakespeare speaks of the “beetling cliff of Elsinore,” whereas Elsinore has no cliffs at all.

What if it [the ghost] tempts you to the flood … Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o’er its base into the sea?
   —Hamlet, act i. sc. 4.

§ The Ghost, in Hamlet, is evidently a Roman Catholic: he talks of purgatory, absolution, and other catholic dogmas; but the Danes at the time were pagans.

St. Louis. Shakespeare, in Henry V. act i. sc. 2, calls Louis X. “St. Louis,” but “St. Louis” was Louis IX. It was Louis IX. whose “grandmother was Isabel,” issue of Charles de Lorraine, the last of the Carlovingians. Louis X. was the son of Philippe IV. (le Bel), and grandson of Philippe III. and “Isabel of Aragon,” not Isabel “heir of Capet, of the line of Charles the duke of Lorain.”

Macbeth was no tyrant, as Shakespeare makes him out to be, but a firm and equitable prince, whose title to the throne was better than that of Duncan.

§ Duncan’s Murder. Macbeth did not murder Duncan in the castle of Inverness, as stated in the play, but at “the smith’s house,” near Elgin (1039).

§ Again, Macbeth was not slain by Macduff at Dunsi nane, but made his escape from the battle, and was slain, in 1056, at Lumphanan.—Lardner: Cabinet Cyc., 17–19.

In The Winter’s Tale, act v. sc. 2, one of the gentlemen refers to Julio Romano, the Italian artist and architect (1492–1546), certainly some 800 years or more before Romano was born.

In Twelfth Night, the Illyrian clown speaks of St. Bennet’s Church, London. “The triplex, sir, is a good tripping measure, or the bells of St. Bennets sure may put you in mind: one, two, three” (act v. sc. 1); as if the duke was a Londoner!

(49) Spenser. Bacchus or Saturn? In the Faërie Queene, iii . 11, Britomart saw in the castle of Busirane a picture descriptive of the love of Saturn, who had changed himself into a centaur out of love for Eri gonê. It was not Saturn but Bacchus who loved Erigonê, and he was not transformed to a centaur, but to a horse.

Benonê or Œnonê? In bk. vi. 9 (Faërie Queene) the lady-love of Paris is called Benonê, which ought to be Œnonê. The poet says that Paris was “by Plexipus’ brook” when the golden apple was brought to him; but no such brook is mentioned by any classic author.

Critias and Socrates. In bk. ii. 7 (Faërie Queene) Spenser says, “The wise Soc ratês … poured out his life … to t