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n Let’s return again to Shakespeare, but for andifferent reason. In Act 1, Scene 2 of Love’s Labour’s Lost, thencharacter Moth, speaking about some simple arithmetic, says,
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n“The dancingnhorse will tell you.”n
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nThis is a reference to a well-known horse in Shakespeare’snday. He was a bay gelding called Morocco (or Marocco) belonging to a Scotsmanncalled Banks, who had trained him to perform a number of tricks. Sir Kenelm Digby, in his Treatise on the Nature of Bodies (1645) describes Morocco,n
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n“… what feats Bankes his horfe would doe; how he would restore a glove tonthe due owner, after his master had whifpered that mans name in his eare; hownhe would tell the juft number of pence in any piece of filver coyne barelynfhewed him by his mafter.”n
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| Kenelm Digby – Treatise on the Nature of Bodies – 1645 |
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nBanks showed his marvellous horse in the tavernnyard of the Belle Savage Inn, with the audience watching from thengalleries surrounding the yard. Morocco would tap out the number of coins shownnto him or the numbers on the faces of dice, he would prance on his hind-legsnand, shod in silver, would dance the ‘Canaries’, a popular dance of thentime. In 1596, Banks took his horse back to Scotland and Patrick Anderson, thenauthor, records,
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n“This man [Banks] would borrow from 20 to 30 of thenspectators a piece of gold or silver, put all in a bag, and shuffle themntogether; thereafter he would bid the horse give every gentleman his own piecenof money again.”n
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nAnother story concerns Tarleton, the favourite jester atnElizabeth I’s court, who went to see Morocco perform at the Cross Keys tavern.nBanks spotted Tarleton and asked Morocco to, “…go fetch me the veriest foolnin the company,” whereupon the horse went into crowd and, with his mouth,nchose Tarleton and led him out to the front. As he went forward, Tarletonncalled out, “God a mercy, Horse,” which instantly became a popularncatchphrase, heard all across London. At first, Tartleton was amused but soonnbecame annoyed with the mockery from the crowd and said to Banks that he wouldnhave the horse bring him the greatest whoremaster in the company. Banksnaddressed Morocco and gave him that instruction, and the horse went straight tonhis master and brought him forward, causing the crowd to erupt with morenlaughter, none more than Tarleton himself.
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| Banks and Morocco |
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nMorocco became very famous, a balladn(now lost) was written about him, as was a tract Maroccus Extaticus or,nBankes Bay Horse in a Trance (1595) a dialogue that has little to do withnthe horse itself. The fame of Morocco spread further when, in 1600, he wasntaken up the spire of Old St Paul’s cathedral. A jest-book says that a servingnman rushed into the church, urging his master who was inside to come outsidenand see the horse on the roof. “Away, you fool!” came the answer,
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n“Whatnneed I go so far to see a horse on the top, when I can see so many asses at thenbottom!”n
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nThe following year, Banks took his horse across the Channel butnvery nearly came to grief when the Capuchin monks of Orleans accused Banks andnMorocco of magical practices and of being in league with the Devil. The astutenScotsman got the horse to select a gentleman from the crowd who had a cross onnhis hat, to bow and kneel before the holy symbol and to kiss it. Nothingndiabolic could possibly manage to be so close to something so sacred, henargued.
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| Morocco and Banks |
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nWhen Banks returned to London, he became a vintner – he was mentionednin Moll Cutpurse’s autobiography,
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n“I shall never forget my fellow humouristnBanks, the vintner in Cheapside, who taught his horse to dance and shooed himnwith silver.”n
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nThere was story that Banks and Morocco had been burnt as hereticsnin Rome on the orders of the Pope, something to which Ben Jonson alludes in hisnA Voyage Abroad,
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n“But ‘mongst these Tiberts, who do you think therenwas?n
nOld Banks the juggler, our Pythagoras,n
nGrave tutor to the learned horse;nboth which,n
nBeing, beyond sea, burned for one witch,n
nTheir spiritsntransmigrated to a cat.”n
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| Ben Jonson – A Voyage Abroad |
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nEdward Kelley, assistant to Dr John Dee, thenElizabethan astrologer, had his performing horse burnt as a heretic in Praguenon the orders of Emperor Rudolph. In 1707, another English horse that had beenntaught by its owner to play cards was also burnt at Lisbon. Yet another case,nlater in the eighteenth century, was recorded by James Granger in his BiographicalnHistory of England (1775),
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n“In my remembrance a horse which had beenntaught to tell the spots upon cards, the hour of the day, &c., bynsignificant tokens, was together with his owner put into the Inquisition as ifnthey had both dealt with the devil, but the supposed human criminal soonnconvinced the Inquisition that he was an honest Juggler, and that his horse wasnas innocent as any beast in Spain.”n
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| James Granger – Biographical History of England – 1775 |
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