Throughout history, in literature and theatre, willow trees have been connected with sadness. In many works of fine art, a willow….a “weeping willow”—how sad it that? is depicted.
“On the willows there, we hung up our harps,” sang the Psalmist and, centuries later, the casts of the musical “Godspell.” Shakespeare let Ophelia drown after falling out of a willow tree and in “Othello,” suffering from blighted affection, Desdemona sang “Willow, Willow, Willow.”
Presumably taking his cue from Shakespeare, to describe unrequited love in “The Mikado”, W.S. Gilbert had Ko-Ko, sing “on a tree by a river a little tom-tit, sang willow, titwillow, titwillow.”
Though almost everybody knows this song, most fail to see the humor. But when the operetta was first produced in London, it would have been hilarious.
You see, in England, there are a number of birds in the tit family—among them great tits, blue tits and willow tits. I am not making this up.
Willow tits look very much like our black-capped chickadees, which are also in the tit family. Like chickadees, willow tits feed on caterpillars, small insects and seeds instead of “rather tough worms.”
And willow tits live in wetlands which rarely have billowy waves. But it’s unlikely that a small songbird would commit suicide due to unrequited love. Large birds sometimes appear to mourn the loss of a mate, but songbirds usually remate almost immediately.
I’m thinking, that rather than a nature lesson, Gilbert was alluding to two tragic Shakespearean women when he had the perishing dicky-bird exclaim "Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow!"
