In the opening scene of the opening act in William Shakespeare’s brilliant comedy Much Ado About Nothing, the famous verbal dual between Benedick and Beatrice ends thusly:
BENEDICK
I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and
so good a continuer. But keep your way, i’ God’s
name; I have done.
BEATRICE
You always end with a jade’s trick: I know you of old.
Many modern day readers are often perplexed by Beatrice’s reply. Just what is a “jade’s trick?” And how does Beatrice know it “of old.”
In a little known early draft of the play, Shakespeare depicted Beatrice as an avid amateur lepidopterist with a particular interest in moths. Consequently, she would have well known “of old” the intricately camouflaged Jade Hawkmoth (Daphnis hypothous) which can quickly disappear to the observer the moment it lands upon a patch of foliage. Consequently, when Benedick abruptly disengages from the verbal joust, “disappearing” from the conversation, Beatrice is logically reminded of the Jade Hawkmoth’s ability to likewise make itself invisible.
I jest, of course – a “jade’s trick” is a behavior exhibited by a horse, often a young one, when it disagrees with and refuses to do what its trainer or rider wishes it to.
However James Lowen, jocular fellow though he is, is in absolute earnest about his own fascination with moths. So much so that he undertook a quest to see – no, not all the moths in the UK; that would be madness given the number of species – a well chosen selection of those species, each with a particular significance to the quest, to be found there.
Now, having completed his journeys, he has compiled his adventures and reflections upon them in his recently published book Much Ado About Mothing; A Year Intoxicated by Britain’s Rare and Remarkable Moths. It is a book I have been very eager to read ever since I first learned of its intended publication O so long ago (at least it seems that way), and now that a copy has finally reached me, I have begun doing so with great enthusiasm. I shall, of course, report back once I’ve finished.
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