Note 195 — Chapter I · THE EVIL EYE AND THE SCARING OF GHOSTS.
Reading edition
The fly here represents the spirit, an idea very common in folk-lore, where an insect often appears as the Life Index. An English lady has been known in India to stop playing lawn-tennis because a butterfly settled in the court. In Cornwall wandering spirits take the form of moths, ants, and weasels.195 We have the same idea in Titus Andronicus, when Marcus, having been rebuked for killing a fly, gives as his reason,—