Eurasian Skylark
Painting by Missy Dunaway. Created with acrylic ink on paper. 30x22 inches (76x56 cm)
Painting Key
Fauna: 3 Eurasian skylarks (Alauda arvensis), 2 common toads
Objects: 9 Eurasian skylark feathers, red fabric on a string
Plants mentioned by Shakespeare: Grass, honeysuckle, poppy
Shakespeare’s Lark
Occurrences in text: 27
Plays: All's Well That Ends Well, Cymbeline, Henry V, Henry VIII, King Lear, Love's Labor's Lost, Merchant of Venice, Midsummer Night's Dream, Richard II, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, Troilus and Cressida, The Winter's Tale
Poems: “Sonnet 29,” “Venus and Adonis”
Name as it appears in the text: "lark"
JULIET: It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
Some say the lark makes sweet division.
This doth not so, for she divideth us.
Some say the lark and loathèd toad changed eyes.
O, now I would they had changed voices too,
Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day.
O, now begone. More light and light it grows.Romeo and Juliet (Act III, Scene 5, line 27)
The lark is Shakespeare's herald of dawn and a foil to his nocturnal songstress, the nightingale. Of the lark’s twenty-seven appearances, nearly all remark on its song. The lark’s enchanting melody was well-known and also described in the work of Geoffrey Chaucer, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Milton, and William Browne. But Shakespeare's lark presents some surprises beyond the familiar: a folktale involving a toad, and a hunting trick from early modern husbandry manuals.
The skylark is a small, plain-looking songbird that delivers a complicated melody in a remarkable "song flight," for which it hovers up to 1,000 feet above ground to project its voice over its territory.[1] Like the eagle, the lark was believed to ascend such great heights that it could fly to heaven.[2] This image is called to mind in Cymbeline, Romeo and Juliet, and Sonnet 29.
"Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings."
Sonnet 29 (line 9)
Shakespeare’s characters appreciate the lark for its musical talent, while occasionally making slights against its appearance. According to early modern folklore, the lark traded its eyes with the toad, resulting in the lark having homely eyes and the toad having beautiful ones.[3] Juliet mentions this strange and charming fable in the third act of Romeo and Juliet. The lark’s song, so beautiful to others, is loathed by Juliet because it signals when she and Romeo must separate. Expressing her dismay, Juliet exclaims "O, now I would they had changed voices too." That way, the lark’s voice would not signal Romeo’s departure. Juliet references the lark more than any other Shakespearean character. Four references are credited to her name.
Juliet mentions the lark more than any other Shakespearean character. Illustration by Felix Octavius Carr Darley (circa 1884). Folger Shakespeare Library
Larks were abundant in Shakespeare's lifetime and well-known in rural communities because of England's bountiful meadows and fields, the lark’s preferred habitat. They were hunted and roasted for food or kept in the home as caged pets. Shockingly, some caged larks were blinded due to a superstition that doing so would enhance their voice.[4] Early modern husbandry manuals dedicate a significant amount of ink to listing the many ways to capture larks. In Henry VIII, the Earl of Surrey gives us one method. He urges his peers to ignore a corrupt cardinal's words and not be swayed by his red robes, the emblem of his office. Surrey mocks the cardinal for brandishing his red hat before his followers as though they were larks. Because larks are attracted to red, 17th-century farmers lured them within range using a scarlet cloth before trapping them in a net.[5]
SURREY: Can you endure to hear this arrogance?
And from this fellow? If we live thus tamely,
To be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet,
Farewell, nobility. Let his Grace go forward
And dare us with his cap, like larks.Henry VIII (Act III, Scene 2, line 338)
Through folklore, husbandry practices, and natural behaviors, the lark provided Shakespeare with a lot of material, and he used all of it. But the song mattered most. Shakespeare's lark is proof that a plain bird, if it sings well enough, can still represent daybreak, heaven, and a lover's parting, all at once.
A lark's nest is discovered in stalks of corn ripe for reaping in this illustration of Aesop's fable, "The Lark's Nest in the Corn," from 1666. Folger Shakespeare Library
Endnotes
[1] The Wildlife Trusts, ‘Skylark’, The Wildlife Trusts, https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/birds/larks-sparrows-pipits-wagtails-and-dunnock/skylark (accessed 28 July 2026).
[2] Harting, J. The Birds of Shakespeare. London, John Van Voorst, 1871. pp. 130-136.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] John Worlidge, Systema Agriculturae: The Mystery of Husbandry Discovered…and Dictionarium Rusticum, or, The Interpretation of Rustick Terms (London: Printed by T. Johnson for Samuel Speed, 1669).