POLECAT/FITCHEW

23rd February 2024

Photo Credit: Dave Collins (Getty Images), CANVA

QUOTATION

CASSIO: ‘Tis such another fitchew - marry, a perfumed one!

What do you mean by this haunting of me?

BIANCA: Let the devil and his dam haunt you! What did you

mean by that same handkerchief you gave me even now?

I was a fine fool to take it!

CASSIO & BIANCA: Othello, Act 4, Scene 1

POLECAT or FITCHEW (Mustela pustorius)

In the quotation above Fitchew is used an an insult from Cassio to Bianca and the other examples in Troilus and Cressida, King Lear and the Merry Wives of Windsor, are also intended as insults.

Polecats were considered vermin in Elizabethan England and the species was almost exterminated in Britain by the early 20th century. The Polecat is beginning to recover in Wales and in other parts of the country.

More Information

Folger Shakespeare Library: Search Shakespeare’s Works

Mammal Society: Polecat

Vincent Wildlife Trust: Polecat

Wildlife Trusts: Polecat