PEACOCK:

Peacock Pavo cristatus, Paon bleu.

6 occurrences (3 peacock, 1 peacocks, 1 peacock's, 1 pajock)

• TMP 4 1 74 To come and sport: - her peacocks fly amain:

• ERR 4 3 77 Fly pride, says the peacock; mistress, that you know.

• H5 4 1 207 p with fanning in his face with a peacock's feather.

• 1H6 3 3 6 And like a peacock sweep along his tail;

• TRO 3 3 250 p Why, a stalks up and down like a peacock,a

• HAM 3 2 278 A very, very - pajock.

The Peacock was brought from India to England through Greece a long time ago.

Bids thee leave these; and with her sovereign grace,

JUNO descends.

Here on this grass-plot, in this very place,

To come and sport: - Her peacocks fly amain:

(TMP 4 1 72-74)

Here Shakespeare associates the Peacock with Juno and "her sovereign grace", perhaps because peacock's crests used to be among the ornaments of the Kings of England.

The peacock is the embodiment of pride (TILLEY P157), in a more majestic way, as we have seen, than the turkey (see TURKEY), but both birds display their feathers and often belong to the same image cluster (see chart p. 17).

Hamlet says "pajock" instead of "ass" as Horatio remarked in the following line "You might have rhymed" (3 2 279). OED gives the following commentary: "Hamlet was going to say 'a very, very ass" but checked himself at the last word and substituted it.

Harold JENKINS, editor of the Arden Hamlet notes that "pajock" is "often supposed to be for 'peacock', but more probably a form of 'patchcock', a base contemptible fellow, a savage". But ARMSTRONG's theory of Image Clusters provides us with evidence to support the "peacock" interpretation: enough of the elements required to belong to the "Pistol-Turkey Image Cluster" are found (see chart p. 17). Anyway it would not be the last of Shakespeare quibbles.