New Light on Maids "Leading Apes in Hell"

Abstract

PROBABLY no Elizabethan proverb has been subject of more conjecture than They that die maids, lead apes in hell. Scholars of Shakespeare, of apes, and of maids have all contributed their share. Because proverb is mentioned in The Taming of Shrew and in Much Ado About Nothing, many of Shakespeare's editors since eighteenth century have inquired about its meaning, origin, and usage. Conveniently for us, Ernest Kuhl in I9251 and B. J. Whiting in I9352 have summarized previous research, compiled lists of allusions, and presented theories concerning proverb's origin. In Apes and Ape Lore in Middle Ages and Renaissance, 1952, H. W. Janson gives enlightening information about ape symbolism, seriously questions validity of Kuhl's argument, and presents his own theory of origin. Apparently neither Kuhl nor Janson, however, thought of proverb's having a religious significance which, if established, would help explain its origin and first meaning. Whiting does observe that the saying may be somewhat degenerate relic of a serious tenet in popular faith.3 The present discussion aims to show that proverb did possess a religious as well as a secular meaning and that it probably originated in Protestant feeling against celibacy. All evidence so far collected points to proverb's rise during English Reformation-sometime between I530 and I570, perhaps about mid-century. According to Kuhl, its first recorded appearance was probably in I560, its currency developed in I570's, and its popularity made it by turn of century proverb.4 The I560 date, however, is highly doubtful; proverb's earliest unquestioned written use, so far discovered, is 1572. Although proverb is now generally understood to express destined punishment of maids, its actual wording did not contain term old until I670. From early references, we find that phrasing which emphasized maids (i.e., virginity) rather than age was commonly accepted form until mid-seventeenth century. Samuel Rowlands in I602 phrases it, Such as die Maydes, doe all lead Apes in hell.5 The London Prodigal (I603?) observes, Women dying maids lead apes in hell,6 while John Donne quotes, They that dy maids, must lead Apes in Hell.7 In 1659 James Howell gives two variant forms: Coy Mayds lead Apes in Hell and Maydens above twenty lead apes in hell.8 A woman after twenty evidently must face her single fate; and by I670 John Ray's Collection of Proverbs specifically asserts Old maids lead apes in hell.9 Since this explicit use of term old is concurrent with social recognition of maid as a perennial type figure,'1 it is not surprising that Ray's wording then became common form and was thereafter used more and more in reference to elderly virgins. Nor is it surprising that this phrasing for next three centuries led some scholars mistakenly to connect proverb's origin with disagreeable attributes attached to stereotype maid. Francis Douce in I807 in his Illustrations of Shakespeare observed, It is perhaps an ill-natured, though a very common presumption, that single state of maids originates either in prudery or in real aversion to