DEMONOLOGY AND DEVIL-LORE.
The state of popular feeling in past centuries with regard to the active
agency of devils has been well represented by Reginald Scot, who, in his
work on Witchcraft, has shown how the superstitious belief in demonology
was part of the great system of witchcraft. Many of the popular
delusions of this terrible form of superstition have been in a masterly
manner exposed by Shakespeare; and the scattered allusions which he has
given, illustrative of it, are indeed sufficient to prove, if it were
necessary, what a highly elaborate creed it was. Happily, Shakespeare,
like the other dramatists of the period, has generally treated the
subject with ridicule, showing that he had no sympathy with the grosser
opinions shared by various classes in those times, whether held by king
or clown. According to an old belief, still firmly credited in the
poet's day, it was supposed that devils could at any moment assume
whatever form they pleased that would most conduce to the success of any
contemplated enterprise they might have in hand; and hence the charge of
being a devil, so commonly brought against innocent and harmless persons
in former years, can easily be understood. Among the incidental
allusions to this notion, given by Shakespeare, Prince Hal ("1 Henry
IV.," ii. 4) tells Falstaff "there is a devil haunts thee in the
likeness of an old fat man;" "an old white-bearded Satan." In the
"Merchant of Venice" (iii. 1) Salanio, on the approach of Shylock, says:
"Let me say 'amen' betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer, for here he
comes in the likeness of a Jew."
Indeed, "all shapes that man goes up and down in" seem to have been at
the devil's control, a belief referred to in "Timon of Athens" (ii. 2):
"_Var. Serv._ What is a whoremaster, fool?
_Fool._ A fool in good clothes, and something like thee. 'Tis
a spirit: sometime 't appears like a lord; sometime like a
lawyer; sometime like a philosopher, with two stones moe
than's artificial one: he is very often like a knight; and,
generally, in all shapes that man goes up and down in from
fourscore to thirteen, this spirit walks in."
A popular form assumed by evil spirits was that of a negro or Moor, to
which Iago alludes when he incites Brabantio to search for his daughter,
in "Othello" (i. 1):
"Zounds, sir, you are robb'd; for shame, put on your gown;
Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise!
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,
Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you.
Arise, I say."
On the other hand, so diverse were the forms which devils were supposed
to assume that they are said occasionally to appear in the fairest form,
even in that of a girl (ii. 3):
"When devils will the blackest sins put on,
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows."
So in "The Comedy of Errors" (iv. 3) we have the following dialogue:
"_Ant. S._ Satan, avoid! I charge thee, tempt me not!
_Dro. S._ Master, is this mistress Satan?
_Ant. S._ It is the devil.
_Dro. S._ Nay, she is worse, she is the devil's dam; and here
she comes in the habit of a light wench; and thereof comes
that the wenches say, 'God damn me;' that's as much as to say,
'God make me a light wench.' It is written, they appear to men
like angels of light."
(Cf. also "Love's Labour's Lost," iv. 3.) In "King John" (iii. 1) even
the fair Blanch seemed to Constance none other than the devil tempting
Lewis "in likeness of a new untrimmed bride."
Not only, too, were devils thought to assume any human shape they
fancied, but, as Mr. Spalding remarks,[82] "the forms of the whole of
the animal kingdom appear to have been at their disposal; and, not
content with these, they seem to have sought for unlikely shapes to
appear in"--the same characteristic belonging also to the fairy tribe.
[82] "Elizabethan Demonology," p. 49.
Thus, when Edgar is trying to persuade the blind Gloucester that he has
in reality cast himself over the cliff, he describes the being from whom
he is supposed to have just departed:
"As I stood here below, methought his eyes
Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses,
Horns whelk'd and wav'd like the enridged sea:
It was some fiend."
Again, Edgar says ("King Lear," iii. 6): "The foul fiend haunts poor Tom
in the voice of a nightingale"--the allusion probably being to the
following incident related by Friswood Williams: "There was also another
strange thing happened at Denham about a bird. Mistris Peckham had a
nightingale which she kept in a cage, wherein Maister Dibdale took great
delight, and would often be playing with it. The nightingale was one
night conveyed out of the cage, and being next morning diligently sought
for, could not be heard of, till Maister Mainie's devil, in one of his
fits (as it was pretended), said that the wicked spirit which was in
this examinate's sister had taken the bird out of the cage and killed it
in despite of Maister Dibdale."[83]
[83] Harsnet's "Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures," p. 225.
Even the shape of a fly was a favorite one with evil spirits, so much
so, that the term "fly" was a popular synonym for a familiar. In "Titus
Andronicus" (iii. 2) there is an allusion to this belief, where Marcus,
being rebuked by Titus for having killed a fly, gives as his reason:
"It was a black ill-favour'd fly,
Like to the empress' Moor: therefore I kill'd him."
Mr. Spalding gives the following illustrations of the superstition: "At
the execution of Urban Grandier, the famous magician of Loudun, in 1634,
a large fly was seen buzzing about the stake; and a priest promptly
seizing the opportunity of improving the occasion for the benefit of the
onlookers, declared that Beelzebub had come in his own proper person to
carry off Grandier's soul to hell. In 1664 occurred the celebrated witch
trials which took place before Sir Matthew Hale. The accused were
charged with bewitching two children, and part of the evidence against
them was that flies and bees were seen to carry into their victims'
mouths the nails and pins which they afterwards vomited."
Once more, another form devils assumed was that of a dead friend. Thus
"Hamlet" (i. 4), when he confronts the apparition, exclaims:
"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked, or charitable,
Thou com'st in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee"--
for, as Mr. Spalding remarks, "it cannot be imagined that Hamlet
imagined that a 'goblin damned' could actually be the spirit of his dead
father; and, therefore, the alternative in his mind must be that he saw
a devil assuming his father's likeness--a form which the Evil One knew
would most incite Hamlet to intercourse."
The same idea seems present in Horatio's mind:
"What, if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff,
That beetles o'er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form,
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,
And draw you into madness?"
Once more, in the next act (ii. 2), Hamlet again expresses his doubts:
"The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and, perhaps,
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me."
In the Elizabethan times, too, no superstitious belief exerted a more
pernicious and baneful influence on the credulous and ignorant than the
notion that evil spirits from time to time entered into human beings,
and so completely gained a despotic control over them as to render them
perfectly helpless. Harsnet, in his "Declaration of Egregious Popish
Impostures" (1603), has exposed this gross superstition; and a
comparison of the passages in "King Lear," spoken by Edgar when feigning
madness, with those given by Harsnet, will show that Shakespeare has
accurately given the contemporary belief on the subject. Mr. Spalding
also considers that nearly all the allusions in "King Lear" refer to a
youth known as Richard Mainey, a minute account of whose supposed
possession has been given by Harsnet.
Persons so possessed were often bound and shut up in a dark room,
occasionally being forced to submit to flagellation--a treatment not
unlike that described in "Romeo and Juliet" (i. 2):
"Not mad, but bound more than a madman is;
Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
Whipp'd and tormented."
In the "Comedy of Errors" (iv. 4) we have an amusing scene, further
illustrative, probably, of the kind of treatment adopted in
Shakespeare's day:
"_Courtesan._ How say you now? is not your husband mad?
_Adriana._ His incivility confirms no less--
Good doctor Pinch, you are a conjurer;
Establish him in his true sense again,
And I will please you what you will demand.
_Luciana._ Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks!
_Courtesan._ Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy!
_Pinch._ Give me your hand, and let me feel your pulse.
_Ant. E._ There is my hand, and let it feel your ear.
_Pinch._ I charge thee, Satan, hous'd within this man,
To yield possession to my holy prayers,
And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight:
I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven."
Pinch further says:
"They must be bound, and laid in some dark room."
As Brand remarks,[84] there is no vulgar story of the devil's having
appeared anywhere without a cloven foot. In graphic representations he
is seldom or never pictured without one. In the following passage, where
Othello is questioning whether Iago is a devil or not, he says (v. 2):
"I look down towards his feet;--but that's a fable.--
If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee."
[84] "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. ii. pp. 517-519.
Dr. Johnson gives this explanation: "I look towards his feet to see if,
according to the common opinion, his feet be cloven."
In Massinger's "Virgin Martyr" (iii. 3), Harpax, an evil spirit,
following Theophilus in the shape of a secretary, speaks thus of the
superstitious Christian's description of his infernal enemy:
"I'll tell you what now of the devil:
He's no such horrid creature; cloven-footed,
Black, saucer-ey'd, his nostrils breathing fire,
As these lying Christians make him."
GOOD AND EVIL DEMONS.
It was formerly commonly believed that not only kingdoms had their
tutelary guardians, but that every person had his particular genius or
good angel, to protect and admonish him by dreams, visions, etc.[85]
Hence, in "Antony and Cleopatra" (ii. 3), the soothsayer, speaking of
Cæsar, says:
"O Antony, stay not by his side:
Thy demon,--that's thy spirit which keeps thee,--is
Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable,
Where Cæsar's is not; but, near him, thy angel
Becomes a fear, as being o'erpower'd."
[85] Ibid. vol. i. pp. 365-367.
Thus Macbeth (iii. 1) speaks in a similar manner in reference to Banquo:
"There is none but he
Whose being I do fear; and, under him,
My Genius is rebuked; as, it is said,
Mark Antony's was by Cæsar."
So, too, in "2 Henry IV." (i. 2), the Chief-justice says:
"You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel."
We may quote a further reference in "Julius Cæsar" (iii. 2), where
Antony says:
"For Brutus, as you know, was Cæsar's angel."
"In the Roman world," says Mr. Tylor, in his "Primitive Culture" (1873,
vol. ii. p. 202), "each man had his 'genius natalis,' associated with
him from birth to death, influencing his action and his fate, standing
represented by its proper image, as a _lar_ among the household gods and
at weddings and joyous times, and especially on the anniversary of the
birthday when genius and man began their united career, worship was paid
with song and dance to the divine image, adorned with garlands, and
propitiated with incense and libations of wine. The demon or genius was,
as it were, the man's companion soul, a second spiritual Ego. The
Egyptian astrologer warned Antonius to keep far from the young Octavius,
'For thy demon,' said he, 'is in fear of his.'"
The allusion by Lady Macbeth (i. 5), in the following passage, is to the
spirits of Revenge:
"Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty!"
In Nash's "Pierce Pennilesse" we find a description of these spirits and
of their office. "The second kind of devils which he most employeth are
those northern _Martii_, called the _Spirits of Revenge_, and the
authors of massacres and seed-men of mischief; for they have commission
to incense men to rapine, sacrilege, theft, murder, wrath, fury, and all
manner of cruelties; and they command certain of the southern spirits to
wait upon them, as also great Arioch, that is termed the Spirit of
Revenge." In another passage we are further told how "the spirits of the
aire will mixe themselves with thunder and lightning, and so infect the
clime where they raise any tempest, that suddenly great mortalitie shall
ensue of the inhabitants." "Aerial spirits or devils," according to
Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," "are such as keep quarter most part in
the aire, cause many tempests, thunder and lightnings, tear oakes, fire
steeples, houses, strike men and beasts," etc. Thus, in "King John"
(iii. 2), the Bastard remarks:
"Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot;
Some airy devil hovers in the sky,
And pours down mischief."
It was anciently supposed that all mines of gold, etc., were guarded by
evil spirits. Thus Falstaff, in "2 Henry IV." (iv. 3), speaks of
learning as "a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil." This superstition
still prevails, and has been made the subject of many a legend. Thus, it
is believed by the peasantry living near Largo-Law, Scotland, that a
rich mine of gold is concealed in the mountain. "A spectre once appeared
there, supposed to be the guardian of the mine, who, being accosted by a
neighboring shepherd, promised to tell him at a certain time and on
certain conditions, where 'the gowd mine is in Largo-Law,' especially
enjoining that the horn sounded for the housing of the cows at the
adjoining farm of Balmain should not blow. Every precaution having been
taken, the ghost was true to his tryst; but, unhappily, when he was
about to divulge the desired secret, Tammie Norrie, the cowherd of
Balmain, blew a blast, whereupon the ghost vanished, with the
denunciation:
'Woe to the man that blew the horn,
For out of the spot he shall ne'er be borne.'
The unlucky horn-blower was struck dead, and, as it was found impossible
to remove the body, a cairn of stones was raised over it."[86]
[86] See Jones's "Credulities, Past and Present," 1880, p. 133.
Steevens considers that when Macbeth (iii. 2) says:
"Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;
Whiles night's black agents to their preys do rouse,"
he refers to those demons who were supposed to remain in their several
places of confinement all day, but at the close of it were released;
such, indeed, as are mentioned in "The Tempest" (v. 1), as rejoicing "to
hear the solemn curfew," because it announced the hour of their freedom.
Among other superstitions we may quote one in the "Merchant of Venice"
(iii. 1), where Salanio says: "Let me say 'amen' betimes, lest the devil
cross my prayer."
Of the devils mentioned by Shakespeare may be noted the following:
_Amaimon_ is one of the chief, whose dominion is on the north side of
the infernal gulf. He might be bound or restrained from doing hurt from
the third hour till noon, and from the ninth hour till evening. In the
"Merry Wives of Windsor" (ii. 2) Ford mentions this devil, and in "1
Henry IV." (ii. 4) Falstaff says: "That same mad fellow of the north,
Percy; and he of Wales, that gave Amaimon the bastinado, and made
Lucifer cuckold."[87]
[87] See Scot's "Discovery of Witchcraft," 1584, p. 393;
Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," p. 264.
The north was always supposed to be the particular habitation of bad
spirits. Milton, therefore, assembles the rebel angels in the north. In
"1 Henry VI." (v. 3), La Pucelle invokes the aid of the spirits:
"Under the lordly monarch of the north."
_Barbason._ This demon would seem to be the same as "Marbas, alias
Barbas," who, as Scot[88] informs us, "is a great president, and
appeareth in the forme of a mightie lion; but at the commandment of a
conjurer cometh up in the likeness of man, and answereth fullie as
touching anything which is hidden or secret." In the "Merry Wives of
Windsor" (ii. 2) it is mentioned by Ford in connection with Lucifer, and
again in "Henry V." (ii. 1) Nym tells Pistol: "I am not Barbason; you
cannot conjure me."
[88] Ibid. p. 378.
The names of the several fiends in "King Lear," Shakespeare is supposed
to have derived from Harsnet's "Declaration of Egregious Popish
Impostures" (1603).
_Flibbertigibbet_, one of the fiends that possessed poor Tom, is, we are
told (iv. 1), the fiend "of mopping and mowing, who since possesses
chambermaids and waiting-women." And again (iii. 4), "he begins at
curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives the web and the pin."
_Frateretto_ is referred to by Edgar (iii. 6): "Frateretto calls me; and
tells me, Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness. Pray, innocent, and
beware the foul fiend."
_Hobbididance_ is noticed as "prince of dumbness" (iv. 1), and perhaps
is the same as Hopdance (iii. 6), "who cries," says Edgar, "in Tom's
belly for two white herring."
_Mahu_, like _Modo_, would seem to be another name for "the prince of
darkness" (iii. 4), and further on (iv. 1) he is spoken of as the fiend
"of stealing;" whereas the latter is described as the fiend "of murder."
Harsnet thus speaks of them: "Maho was general dictator of hell; and
yet, for good manners' sake, he was contented of his good nature to make
show, that himself was under the check of Modu, the graund devil in
Ma(ister) Maynie."
_Obidicut_, another name of the fiend known as Haberdicut (iv. 1).
_Smulkin_ (iii. 4). This is spelled Smolkin by Harsnet.
Thus, in a masterly manner, Shakespeare has illustrated and embellished
his plays with references to the demonology of the period; having been
careful in every case--while enlivening his audience--to convince them of
the utter absurdity of this degraded form of superstition.