"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?"
The idea that the devil assumed the form of a dead friend in order to
procure the "tinsell" of both body and soul of his victim is here
vividly before the minds of the speakers of these passages.[1]
[Footnote 1: See ante, § 55.]
The subsequent scene with the ghost convinces Hamlet that he is not the
victim of malign influences--as far as he is capable of conviction, for
his very first words when alone restate the doubt:
"O all you host of heaven! O earth! _What else?_ And shall I couple
hell?"[1]
and the enthusiasm with which he is inspired in consequence of this
interview is sufficient to support his certainty of conviction until the
time for decisive action again arrives. It is not until the idea of the
play-test occurs to him that his doubts are once more aroused; and then
they return with redoubled force:--
"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."[2]
And he again alludes to this in his speech to Horatio, just before the
entry of the king and his train to witness the performance of the
players.[3]
[Footnote 1: I. v. 92.]
[Footnote 2: II. ii. 627.]
[Footnote 3: III. ii. 87.]
59. This question was, in Shakspere's time, quite a legitimate element
of uncertainty in the complicated problem that presented itself for
solution to Hamlet's ever-analyzing mind; and this being so, an apparent
inconsistency in detail which has usually been charged upon Shakspere
with regard to this play, can be satisfactorily explained. Some critics
are never weary of exclaiming that Shakspere's genius was so vast and
uncontrollable that it must not be tested, or expected to be found
conformable to the rules of art that limit ordinary mortals; that there
are many discrepancies and errors in his plays that are to be condoned
upon that account; in fact, that he was a very careless and slovenly
workman. A favourite instance of this is taken from "Hamlet," where
Shakspere actually makes the chief character of the play talk of death
as "the bourne from whence no traveller returns" not long after he has
been engaged in a prolonged conversation with such a returned traveller.
Now, no artist, however distinguished or however transcendent his
genius, is to be pardoned for insincere workmanship, and the greater the
man, the less his excuse. Errors arising from want of information (and
Shakspere commits these often) may be pardoned if the means for
correcting them be unattainable; but errors arising from mere
carelessness are not to be pardoned. Further, in many of these cases of
supposed contradiction there is an element of carelessness indeed; but
it lies at the door of the critic, not of the author; and this appears
to be true in the present instance. The dilemma, as it presented itself
to the contemporary mind, must be carefully kept in view. Either the
spirits of the departed could revisit this world, or they could not. If
they could not, then the apparitions mistaken for them must be devils
assuming their forms. Now, the tendency of Hamlet's mind, immediately
before the great soliloquy on suicide, is decidedly in favour of the
latter alternative. The last words that he has uttered, which are also
the last quoted here,[1] are those in which he declares most forcibly
that he believes the devil-theory possible, and consequently that the
dead do not return to this world; and his utterances in his soliloquy
are only an accentuate and outcome of this feeling of uncertainty. The
very root of his desire for death is that he cannot discard with any
feeling of certitude the Protestant doctrine that no traveller does
after death return from the invisible world, and that the so-called
ghosts are a diabolic deception.
[Footnote 1: § 58, p. 59.]
60. Another power possessed by the evil spirits, and one that excited
much attention and created an immense amount of strife during
Elizabethan times, was that of entering into the bodies of human beings,
or otherwise influencing them so as utterly to deprive them of all
self-control, and render them mere automata under the command of the
fiends. This was known as possession, or obsession. It was another of
the mediaeval beliefs against which the reformers steadily set their
faces; and all the resources of their casuistry were exhausted to expose
its absurdity. But their position in this respect was an extremely
delicate one. On one side of them zealous Catholics were exorcising
devils, who shrieked out their testimony to the eternal truth of the
Holy Catholic Church; whilst at the same time, on the other side, the
zealous Puritans of the extremer sort were casting out fiends, who bore
equally fervent testimony to the superior efficacy and purity of the
Protestant faith. The tendency of the more moderate members of the
party, therefore was towards a compromise similar to that arrived at
upon the question how the devils came by the forms in which they
appeared upon the earth. They could not admit that devils could actually
enter into and possess the body of a man in those latter days, although
during the earlier history of the Church such things had been permitted
by Divine Providence for some inscrutable but doubtless satisfactory
reason:--that was Catholicism. On the other hand, they could not for an
instant tolerate or even sanction the doctrine that devils had no power
whatever over humanity:--that was Atheism. But it was quite possible
that evil spirits, without actually entering into the body of a man,
might so infest, worry, and torment him, as to produce all the symptoms
indicative of possession. The doctrine of obsession replaced that of
possession; and, once adopted, was supported by a string of those
quaint, conceited arguments so peculiar to the time.[1]
[Footnote 1: Dialogicall Discourses, by Deacon and Walker, 3rd
Dialogue.]
61. But, as in all other cases, the refinements of the theologians had
little or no effect upon the world outside their controversies. To the
ordinary mind, if a man's eyes goggled, body swelled, and mouth foamed,
and it was admitted that these were the work of a devil, the question
whether the evil-doer were actually housed within the sufferer, or only
hovered in his immediate neighbourhood, seemed a question of such minor
importance as to be hardly worth discussing--a conclusion that the lay
mind is apt to come to upon other questions that appear portentous to
the divines--and the theory of possession, having the advantage in time
over that of obsession, was hard to dislodge.
62. One of the chief causes of the persistency with which the old belief
was maintained was the utter ignorance of the medical men of the period
on the subject of mental disease. The doctors of the time were mere
children in knowledge of the science they professed; and to attribute a
disease, the symptoms of which they could not comprehend, to a power
outside their control by ordinary methods, was a safe method of
screening a reputation which might otherwise have suffered. "Canst thou
not minister to a mind diseased?" cries Macbeth to the doctor, in one of
those moments of yearning after the better life he regrets, but cannot
return to, which come over him now and again. No; the disease is beyond
his practice; and, although this passage has in it a deeper meaning than
the one attributed to it here, it well illustrates the position of the
medical man in such cases. Most doctors of the time were mere empirics;
dabbled more or less in alchemy; and, in the treatment of mental
disease, were little better than children. They had for co-practitioners
all who, by their credit with the populace for superior wisdom, found
themselves in a position to engage in a profitable employment. Priests,
preachers, schoolmasters--Dr. Pinches and Sir Topazes--became so
commonly exorcists, that the Church found it necessary to forbid the
casting out of spirits without a special license for that purpose.[1]
But as the Reformers only combated the doctrine of possession upon
strictly theological grounds, and did not go on to suggest any
substitute for the time-honoured practice of exorcism as a means for
getting rid of the admittedly obnoxious result of diabolic interference,
it is not altogether surprising that the method of treatment did not
immediately change.
[Footnote 1: 72nd Canon.]
63. Upon this subject a book called "Tryal of Witchcraft," by John
Cotta, "Doctor in Physike," published in 1616, is extremely instructive.
The writer is evidently in advance of his time in his opinions upon the
principal subject with which he professes to deal, and weighs the
evidence for and against the reality of witchcraft with extreme
precision and fairness. In the course of his argument he has to
distinguish the symptoms that show a person to have been bewitched, from
those that point to a demoniacal possession.[1] "Reason doth detect,"
says he, "the sicke to be afflicted by the immediate supernaturall power
of the devil two wayes: the first way is by such things as are subject
and manifest to the learned physicion only; the second is by such things
as are subject and manifest to the vulgar view." The two signs by which
the "learned physicion" recognized diabolic intervention were: first,
the preternatural appearance of the disease from which the patient was
suffering; and, secondly, the inefficacy of the remedies applied. In
other words, if the leech encountered any disease the symptoms of which
were unknown to him, or if, through some unforeseen circumstances, the
drug he prescribed failed to operate in its accustomed manner, a case of
demoniacal possession was considered to be conclusively proved, and the
medical man was merged in the magician.
[Footnote 1: Ch. 10.]
64. The second class of cases, in which the diabolic agency is palpable
to the layman as well as the doctor, Cotta illustrates thus: "In the
time of their paroxysmes or fits, some diseased persons have been seene
to vomit crooked iron, coales, brimstone, nailes, needles, pinnes, lumps
of lead, waxe, hayre, strawe, and the like, in such quantities, figure,
fashion, and proportion as could never possiblie pass down, or arise up
thorow the natural narrownesse of the throate, or be contained in the
unproportionable small capacitie, naturall susceptibilitie, and position
of the stomake." Possessed persons, he says, were also clairvoyant,
telling what was being said and done at a far distance; and also spoke
languages which at ordinary times they did not understand, as their
successors, the modern spirit mediums, do. This gift of tongues was one
of the prominent features of the possession of Will Sommers and the
other persons exorcised by the Protestant preacher John Darrell, whose
performances as an exorcist created quite a domestic sensation in
England at the close of the sixteenth century.[1] The whole affair was
investigated by Dr. Harsnet, who had already acquired fame as an
iconoclast in these matters, as will presently be seen; but it would
have little more than an antiquarian interest now, were it not for the
fact that Ben Jonson made it the subject of his satire in one of his
most humorous plays, "The Devil is an Ass." In it he turns the
last-mentioned peculiarity to good account; for when Fitzdottrell, in
the fifth act, feigns madness, and quotes Aristophanes, and speaks in
Spanish and French, the judicious Sir Paul Eithersides comes to the
conclusion that "it is the devil by his several languages."
[Footnote 1: A True Relation of the Grievious Handling of William
Sommers, etc. London: T. Harper, 1641 (? 1601). The Tryall of Maister
Darrell, 1599.]
65. But more interesting, and more important for the present purpose,
are the cases of possession that were dealt with by Father Parsons and
his colleagues in 1585-6, and of which Dr. Harsnet gave such a highly
spiced and entertaining account in his "Declaration of Egregious Popish
Impostures," first published in the year 1603. It is from this work that
Shakspere took the names of the devils mentioned by Edgar, and other
references made by him in "King Lear;" and an outline of the relation of
the play to the book will furnish incidentally much matter illustrative
of the subject of possession. But before entering upon this outline, a
brief glance at the condition of affairs political and domestic, which
partially caused and nourished these extraordinary eccentricities, is
almost essential to a proper understanding of them.
66. The year 1586 was probably one of the most critical years that
England has passed through since she was first a nation. Standing alone
amongst the European States, with even the Netherlanders growing cold
towards her on account of her ambiguous treatment of them, she had to
fight out the battle of her independence against odds to all appearances
irresistible. With Sixtus plotting her overthrow at Rome, Philip at
Madrid, Mendoza and the English traitors at Paris, and Mary of Scotland
at Chartley, while a third of her people were malcontent, and James the
Sixth was friend or enemy as it best suited his convenience, the outlook
was anything but reassuring for the brave men who held the helm in those
stormy times. But although England owed her deliverance chiefly to the
forethought and hardihood of her sons, it cannot be doubted that the
sheer imbecility of her foes contributed not a little to that result. To
both these conditions she owed the fact that the great Armada, the
embodiment of the foreign hatred and hostility, threatening to break
upon her shores like a huge wave, vanished like its spray. Medina
Sidonia, with his querulous complaints and general ineffectuality,[1]
was hardly a match for Drake and his sturdy companions; nor were the
leaders of the Babington conspiracy, the representatives and would-be
leaders of the corresponding internal convulsion, the infatuated
worshippers of the fair devil of Scotland, the men to cope for a moment
with the intellects of Walsingham and Burleigh.
[Footnote 1: Froude, xii. p. 405.]
67. The events which Harsnet investigated and wrote upon with
politico-theological animus formed an eddy in the main current of the
Babington conspiracy. For some years before that plot had taken definite
shape, seminary priests had been swarming into England from the
continent, and were sedulously engaged in preaching rebellion in the
rural districts, sheltered and protected by the more powerful of the
disaffected nobles and gentry--modern apostles, preparing the way before
the future regenerator of England, Cardinal Allen, the would-be Catholic
Archbishop of Canterbury. Among these was one Weston, who, in his
enthusiastic admiration for the martyr-traitor, Edmund Campion, had
adopted the alias of Edmonds. This Jesuit was gifted with the power of
casting out devils, and he exercised it in order to prove the divine
origin of the Holy Catholic faith, and, by implication, the duty of all
persons religiously inclined, to rebel against a sovereign who was
ruthlessly treading it into the dust. The performances which Harsnet
examined into took place chiefly in the house of Lord Vaux at Hackney,
and of one Peckham at Denham, in the end of the year 1585 and the
beginning of 1586. The possessed persons were Anthony Tyrell, another
Jesuit who rounded upon his friends in the time of their tribulation;[1]
Marwood, Antony Babington's private servant, who subsequently found it
convenient to leave the country, and was never examined upon the
subject; Trayford and Mainy, two young gentlemen, and Sara and Friswood
Williams, and Anne Smith, maid-servants. Richard Mainy, the most
edifying subject of them all, was seventeen only when the possession
seized him; he had only just returned to England from Rheims, and, when
passing through Paris, had come under the influence of Charles Paget and
Morgan; so his antecedents appeared somewhat open to suspicion.[2]
[Footnote 1: The Fall of Anthony Tyrell, by Persoun. See The Troubles of
our Catholic Forefathers, by John Morris, p. 103.]
[Footnote 2: He was examined by the Government as to his connection with
the Paris conspirators.--See State Papers, vol. clxxx. 16, 17.]
68. With the truth or falsehood of the statements and deductions made by
Harsnet, we have little or no concern. Western did not pretend to deny
that he had the power of exorcism, or that he exercised it upon the
persons in question, but he did not admit the truth of any of the more
ridiculous stories which Harsnet so triumphantly brings forward to
convict him of intentional deceit; and his features, if the portrait in
Father Morris's book is an accurate representation of him, convey an
impression of feeble, unpractical piety that one is loth to associate
with a malicious impostor. In addition to this, one of the witnesses
against him, Tyrell, was a manifest knave and coward; another, Mainy, as
conspicuous a fool; while the rest were servant-maids--all of them
interested in exonerating themselves from the stigma of having been
adherents of a lost cause, at the expense of a ringleader who seemed to
have made himself too conspicuous to escape punishment. Furthermore, the
evidence of these witnesses was not taken until 1598 and 1602, twelve
and sixteen years after the events to which it related took place; and
when taken, was taken by Harsnet, a violent Protestant and almost
maniacal exorcist-hunter, as the miscellaneous collection of literature
evoked by his exposure of Parson Darrell's dealings with Will Sommers
and others will show.
69. Among the many devils' names mentioned by Harsnet in his
"Declaration," and in the examinations of witnesses annexed to it, the
following have undoubtedly been repeated in "King Lear":--Fliberdigibet,
spelt in the play Flibbertigibbet; Hoberdidance called Hopdance and
Hobbididance; and Frateretto, who are called morris-dancers; Haberdicut,
who appears in "Lear" as Obidicut; Smolkin, one of Trayford's devils;
Modu, who possessed Mainy; and Maho, who possessed Sara Williams. These
two latter devils have in the play managed to exchange the final vowels
of their names, and appear as Modo and Mahu.[1]
[Footnote 1: In addition to these, Killico has probably been corrupted
into Pillicock--a much more probable explanation of the word than either
of those suggested by Dyce in his glossary; and I have little doubt that
the ordinary reading of the line, "Pur! the cat is gray!" in Act III.
vi. 47, is incorrect; that Pur is not an interjection, but the
repetition of the name of another devil, Purre, who is mentioned by
Harsnet. The passage in question occurs only in the quartos, and
therefore the fact that there is no stop at all after the word "Pur"
cannot be relied upon as helping to prove the correctness of this
supposition. On the other hand, there is nothing in the texts to justify
the insertion of the note of exclamation.]
70. A comparison of the passages in "King Lear" spoken by Edgar when
feigning madness, with those in Harsnet's book which seem to have
suggested them, will furnish as vivid a picture as it is possible to
give of the state of contemporary belief upon the subject of
possession. It is impossible not to notice that nearly all the allusions
in the play refer to the performance of the youth Richard Mainy. Even
Edgar's hypothetical account of his moral failings in the past seems to
have been an accurate reproduction of Mainy's conduct in some
particulars, as the quotation below will prove;[1] and there appears to
be so little necessity for these remarks of Edgar's, that it seems
almost possible that there may have been some point in these passages
that has since been lost. A careful search, however, has failed to
disclose any reason why Mainy should be held up to obloquy; and the
passages in question were evidently not the result of a direct reference
to the "Declaration." After his examination by Harsnet in 1602, Mainy
seems to have sunk into the insignificant position which he was so
calculated to adorn, and nothing more is heard of him; so the references
to him must be accidental merely.
[Footnote 1: "He would needs have persuaded this examinate's sister to
have gone thence with him in the apparel of a youth, and to have been
his boy and waited upon him.... He urged this examinate divers times to
have yielded to his carnal desires, using very unfit tricks with her.
There was also a very proper woman, one Mistress Plater, with whom this
examinate perceived he had many allurements, showing great tokens of
extraordinary affection towards her."--Evidence of Sara Williams,
Harsnet, p. 190. Compare King Lear, Act iii. sc. iv. ll. 82-101; note
especially l. 84.]
71. One curious little repetition in the play of a somewhat unimportant
incident recorded by Harsnet is to be found in the fourth scene of the
third act, where Edgar says--
"Who gives anything to poor Tom? whom the foul fiend hath led through
fire and through flame, and through ford and whirlpool, o'er bog and
quagmire; _that hath laid knives under his pillow, and halters in his
pew_; set ratsbane by his porridge," etc.[1]
[Footnote 1: l. 51, et seq.]
The events referred to took place at Denham. A halter and some
knife-blades were found in a corridor of the house. "A great search was
made in the house to know how the said halter and knife-blades came
thither, but it could not in any wise be found out, as it was pretended,
till Master Mainy in his next fit said, as it was reported, that the
devil layd them in the gallery, that some of those that were possessed
might either hang themselves with the halter, or kill themselves with
the blades."[1]
[Footnote 1: Harsnet, p. 218.]
72. But the bulk of the references relating to the possession of Mainy
occur further on in the same scene:--
"_Fool._ This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.
"_Edgar._ Take heed o' the foul fiend: obey thy parents; keep thy word
justly; swear not; commit not with man's sworn spouse;[1] set not thy
sweet heart on proud array: Tom's a-cold.
"_Lear._ What hast thou been?
"_Edgar._ A serving-man, proud in heart and mind, that curled my hair,
wore my gloves in my cap, served the lust of my mistress' heart, and did
the act of darkness with her;[2] swore as many oaths as I spake words,
and broke them in the sweet face of heaven; one that slept in the
contriving of lust, and waked to do it; wine loved I deeply; dice
dearly; and in women out-paramoured the Turk: false of heart, light of
ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in greediness,
dog in madness, lion in prey. Let not the creaking of shoes, nor the
rustling of silks, betray thy poor heart to woman; keep thy foot out of
brothels, thy hand out of plackets,[3] thy pen from lenders' books, and
defy the foul fiend."[4]
[Footnote 1: Cf. § 70, and note.]
[Footnote 2: Cf. § 70, and note.]
[Footnote 3: Placket probably here means pockets; not, as usual, the
slip in a petticoat. Tom was possessed by Mahu, the prince of stealing.]
[Footnote 4: l. 82, et seq.]
This must be read in conjunction with what Edgar says of himself
subsequently:--
"Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of lust, as Obidicut;
Hobbididance, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of stealing; Modo, of murder;
Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing; who since possesses
chamber-maids and waiting-women."[1]
[Footnote 1: Act IV. i. 61.]
The following are the chief parts of the account given by Harsnet of the
exorcism of Mainy by Weston--a most extraordinary transaction,--said to
be taken from Weston's own account of the matter. He was supposed to be
possessed by the devils who represented the seven deadly sins, and "by
instigation of the first of the seven, began to set his hands into his
side, curled his hair, and used such gestures as Maister Edmunds present
affirmed that that spirit was Pride.[1] Heerewith he began to curse and
to banne, saying, 'What a poxe do I heare? I will stay no longer among a
company of rascal priests, but goe to the court and brave it amongst my
fellowes, the noblemen there assembled.'[2] ... Then Maister Edmunds did
proceede againe with his exorcismes, and suddenly the sences of Mainy
were taken from him, his belly began to swell, and his eyes to stare,
and suddainly he cried out, 'Ten pounds in the hundred!' he called for a
scrivener to make a bond, swearing that he would not lend his money
without a pawne.... There could be no other talke had with this spirit
but money and usury, so as all the company deemed this devil to be the
author of Covetousnesse....[3]
[Footnote 1: "A serving-man, proud of heart and mind, that curled my
hair," etc.--l. 87; cf. also l. 84. Curling the hair as a sign of
Mainy's possession is mentioned again, Harsnet, p. 57.]
[Footnote 2: "That ... swore as many oaths as I spake words, and broke
them in the sweet face of heaven."--l. 90.]
[Footnote 3: "Keep ... thy pen out of lenders' books."--l. 100.]
"Ere long Maister Edmunds beginneth againe his exorcismes, wherein he
had not proceeded farre, but up cometh another spirit singing most
filthy and baudy songs: every word almost that he spake was nothing but
ribaldry. They that were present with one voyce affirmed that devill to
be the author of Luxury.[1]
[Footnote 1: "Wine loved I deeply; dice dearly; and in women
out-paramoured the Turk."--l. 93.]
"Envy was described by disdainful looks and contemptuous speeches;
Wrath, by furious gestures, and talke as though he would have fought;[1]
Gluttony, by vomiting;[2] and Sloth,[3] by gasping and snorting, as
though he had been asleepe."[4]
[Footnote 1: "Dog in madness, lion in prey."--l. 96.]
[Footnote 2: "Wolf in greediness."--Ibid.]
[Footnote 3: "Hog in sloth."--l. 95.]
[Footnote 4: Harsnet, p. 278.]
A sort of prayer-meeting was then held for the relief of the distressed
youth: "Whereupon the spirit of Pride departed in the forme of a
Peacocke; the spirit of Sloth in the likenesse of an Asse; the spirit of
Envy in the similitude of a Dog; the spirit of Gluttony in the forme of
a Wolfe."[1]
[Footnote 1: The words, "Hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in
greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey," are clearly an imperfect
reminiscence of this part of the transaction.]
There is in another part of "King Lear" a further reference to the
incidents attendant upon these exorcisms Edgar says,[1] "The foul fiend
haunts poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale." This seems to refer 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.
This 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[2] had taken the bird
out of the cage, and killed it in despite of Maister Dibdale."[3]
[Footnote 1: Act III. sc. vi. l. 31.]
[Footnote 2: Sara Williams.]
[Footnote 3: Harsnet, p. 225.]
73. The treatment to which, in consequence of his belief in possession,
unfortunate persons like Mainy and Sommers, who were probably only
suffering from some harmless form of mental disease, were subjected, was
hardly calculated to effect a cure. The most ignorant quack was
considered perfectly competent to deal with cases which, in reality,
require the most delicate and judicious management, combined with the
profoundest physiological, as well as psychological, knowledge. The
ordinary method of dealing with these lunatics was as simple as it was
irritating. Bonds and confinement in a darkened room were the specifics;
and the monotony of this treatment was relieved by occasional visits
from the sage who had charge of the case, to mumble a prayer or mutter
an exorcism. Another popular but unpleasant cure was by flagellation; so
that Romeo's
"Not mad, but bound more than a madman is,
Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
Whipped and tormented,"[1]
if an exaggerated description of his own mental condition is in itself
no inflated metaphor.
[Footnote 1: I. ii. 55.]
74. Shakspere, in "The Comedy of Errors," and indirectly also in
"Twelfth Night," has given us intentionally ridiculous illustrations of
scenes which he had not improbably witnessed, in the country at any
rate, and which bring vividly before us the absurdity of the methods of
diagnosis and treatment usually adopted:--
_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 extasy!
_Pinch._ Give me your hand, and let me feel your pulse.[1]
_Ant. E._ There is my hand, and let it feel your ear.
_Pinch._ I charge thee, Satan, housed within this man,
To yield possession to my holy prayers,
And to thy state of darkness his thee straight;
I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven.
_Ant. E._ Peace, doting wizard, peace; I am not mad.
_Pinch._ O that thou wert not, poor distressed soul![2]
After some further business, Pinch pronounces his opinion:
"Mistress, both man and master are possessed;
I know it by their pale and deadly looks:
They must be bound, and laid in some dark room."[3]
But "good doctor Pinch" seems to have been mild even to feebleness in
his conjuration; many of his brethren in art had much more effective
formulae. It seems that devils were peculiarly sensitive to any
opprobrious epithets that chanced to be bestowed upon them. The skilful
exorcist took advantage of this weakness, and, if he could only manage
to keep up a flow of uncomplimentary remarks sufficiently long and
offensive, the unfortunate spirit became embarrassed, restless,
agitated, and finally took to flight. Here is a specimen of the
"nicknames" which had so potent an effect, if Harsnet is to be
credited:--
"Heare therefore, thou senceless false lewd spirit, maister of devils,
miserable creature, tempter of men, deceaver of bad angels, captaine of
heretiques, father of lyes, fatuous bestial ninnie, drunkard, infernal
theefe, wicked serpent, ravening woolfe, leane hunger-bitten impure sow,
seely beast, truculent beast, cruel beast, bloody beast, beast of all
blasts, the most bestiall acherontall spirit, smoakie spirit, Tartareus
spirit!"[4] Whether this objurgation terminates from loss of breath on
the part of the conjurer, or the precipitate departure of the spirit
addressed, it is impossible to say; it is difficult to imagine any
logical reason for its conclusion.
[Footnote 1: The cessation of the pulse was one of the symptoms of
possession. See the case of Sommers, Tryal of Maister Darrell, 1599.]
[Footnote 2: IV. iv. 48, 62.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid. 95.]
[Footnote 4: Harsnet, p. 113.]
75. Occasionally other, and sometimes more elaborate, methods of
exorcism than those mentioned by Romeo were adopted, especially when the
operation was conducted for the purpose of bringing into prominence some
great religious truth. The more evangelical of the operators adopted the
plan of lying on the top of their patients, "after the manner of Elias
and Pawle."[1] But the Catholic exorcists invented and carried to
perfection the greatest refinement in the art. The patient, seated in a
"holy chair," specially sanctified for the occasion, was compelled to
drink about a pint of a compound of sack and salad oil; after which
refreshment a pan of burning brimstone was held under his nose, until
his face was blackened by the smoke.[2] All this while the officiating
priest kept up his invocation of the fiends in the manner illustrated
above; and, under such circumstances, it is extremely doubtful whether
the most determined character would not be prepared to see somewhat
unusual phenomena for the sake of a short respite.
[Footnote 1: The Tryall of Maister Darrell, 1599, p. 2.]
[Footnote 2: Harsnet, p. 53.]
76. Another remarkable method of exorcism was a process termed "firing
out" the fiend.[1] The holy flame of piety resident in the priest was so
terrible to the evil spirit, that the mere contact of the holy hand with
that part of the body of the afflicted person in which he was resident
was enough to make him shrink away into some more distant portion; so,
by a judicious application of the hand, the exorcist could drive the
devil into some limb, from which escape into the body was impossible,
and the evil spirit, driven to the extremity, was obliged to depart,
defeated and disgraced.[2] This influence could be exerted, however,
without actual corporal contact, as the following quaint extract from
Harsnet's book will show:--
"Some punie rash devil doth stay till the holy priest be come somewhat
neare, as into the chamber where the demoniacke doth abide, purposing,
as it seemes, to try a pluck with the priest; and then his hart sodainly
failing him (as Demas, when he saw his friend Chinias approach), cries
out that he is tormented with the presence of the priest, and so is
fierd out of his hold."[3]
[Footnote 1: This expression occurs in Sonnet cxliv., and evidently with
the meaning here explained; only the bad angel is supposed to fire out
the good one.]
[Footnote 2: Harsnet, pp. 77, 96, 97.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid. p. 65.]
77. The more violent or uncommon of the bodily diseases were, as the
quotation from Cotta's book shows[1], attributed to the same diabolic
source. In an era when the most profound ignorance prevailed with regard
to the simplest laws of health; when the commoner diseases were
considered as God's punishment for sin, and not attributable to natural
causes; when so eminent a divine as Bishop Hooper could declare that
"the air, the water, and the earth have no poison in themselves to hurt
their lord and master man,"[2] unless man first poisoned himself with
sin; and when, in consequence of this ignorance and this false
philosophy, and the inevitable neglect attendant upon them, those
fearful plagues known as "the Black Death" could, almost without notice,
sweep down upon a country, and decimate its inhabitants--it is not
wonderful that these terrible scourges were attributed to the
malevolence of the Evil One.
[Footnote 1: See §§ 63, 64.]
[Footnote 2: I Hooper, p. 308. Parker Society.]
78. But it is curious to notice that, although possessing such terrible
powers over the bodies and minds of mortals, devils were not believed to
be potent enough to destroy the lives of the persons they persecuted
unless they could persuade their victims to renounce God. This theory
probably sprang out of the limitation imposed by the Almighty upon the
power of Satan during his temptation of Job, and the advice given to the
sufferer by his wife, "Curse God, and die." Hence, when evil spirits
began their assaults upon a man, one of their first endeavours was to
induce him to do some act that would be equivalent to such a
renunciation. Sometimes this was a bond assigning the victim's soul to
the Evil One in consideration of certain worldly advantages; sometimes a
formal denial of his baptism; sometimes a deed that drives away the
guardian angel from his side, and leaves the devil's influence
uncounteracted. In "The Witch of Edmonton,"[1] the first act that Mother
Sawyer demands her familiar to perform after she has struck her bargain,
is to kill her enemy Banks; and the fiend has reluctantly to declare
that he cannot do so unless by good fortune he could happen to catch him
cursing. Both Harpax[2] and Mephistophiles[3] suggest to their victims
that they have power to destroy their enemies, but neither of them is
able to exercise it. Faust can torment, but not kill, his would-be
murderers; and Springius and Hircius are powerless to take Dorothea's
life. In the latter case it is distinctly the protection of the guardian
angel that limits the diabolic power; so it is not unnatural that
Gratiano should think the cursing of his better angel from his side the
"most desperate turn" that poor old Brabantio could have done himself,
had he been living to hear of his daughter's cruel death.[4] It is next
to impossible for people in the present day to have any idea what a
consolation this belief in a good attendant spirit, specially appointed
to guard weak mortals through life, to ward off evils, and guide to
eternal safety, must have been in a time when, according to the current
belief, any person, however blameless, however holy, was liable at any
moment to be possessed by a devil, or harried and tortured by a witch.
[Footnote 1: Act II. sc. i.]
[Footnote 2: The Virgin Martyr, Act III. sc. iii.]
[Footnote 3: Dr. Faustus, Act I. sc. iii.]
[Footnote 4: Othello, Act V. sc. ii. 204.]
79. This leads by a natural sequence to the consideration of another and
more insidious form of attack upon mankind adopted by the evil spirits.
Possession and obsession were methods of assault adopted against the
will of the afflicted person, and hardly to be avoided by him without
the supernatural intervention of the Church. The practice of witchcraft
and magic involved the absolute and voluntary barter of body and soul to
the Evil One, for the purpose of obtaining a few short years of
superhuman power, to be employed for the gratification of the culprit's
avarice, ambition, or desire for revenge.
80. In the strange history of that most inexplicable mental disease, the
witchcraft epidemic, as it has been justly called by a high authority on
such matters,[1] we moderns are, by the nature of our education and
prejudices, completely incapacitated for sympathizing with either the
persecutors or their victims. We are at a loss to understand how
clear-sighted and upright men, like Sir Matthew Hale, could consent to
become parties to a relentless persecution to the death of poor helpless
beings whose chief crime, in most cases, was, that they had suffered
starvation both in body and in mind. We cannot understand it, because
none of us believe in the existence of evil spirits. None; for although
there are still a few persons who nominally hold to the ancient faith,
as they do to many other respectable but effete traditions, yet they
would be at a loss for a reason for the faith that is in them, should
they chance to be asked for one; and not one of them would be prepared
to make the smallest material sacrifice for the sake of it. It is true
that the existence of evil spirits recently received a tardy and
somewhat hesitating recognition in our ecclesiastical courts,[2] which
at first authoritatively declared that a denial of the existence of the
personality of the devil constituted a man a notorious evil liver, and
depraver of the Book of Common Prayer;[3] but this was promptly reversed
by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, under the auspices of
two Low Church law lords and two archbishops, with the very vague
proviso that "they do not mean to decide that those doctrines are
otherwise than inconsistent with the formularities of the Church of
England;"[4] yet the very contempt with which these portentous
declarations of Church law have been received shows how great has been
the fall of the once almost omnipotent minister of evil. The ancient
Satan does indeed exist in some few formularies, but in such a
washed-out and flimsy condition as to be the reverse of conspicuous. All
that remains of him and of his subordinate legions is the ineffectual
ghost of a departed creed, for the resuscitation of which no man will
move a finger.
[Footnote 1: See Dr. Carpenter in _Frazer_ for November, 1877.]
[Footnote 2: See Jenkins v. Cooke, Law Reports, Admiralty and
Ecclesiastical Cases, vol. iv. p. 463, et seq.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid. p. 499, Sir R. Phillimore.]
[Footnote 4: Law Reports, I Probate Division, p. 102.]
81. It is perfectly impossible for us, therefore, to comprehend,
although by an effort we may perhaps bring ourselves to imagine, the
horror and loathing with which good men, entirely believing in the
existence and omnipresence of countless legions of evil spirits, able
and anxious to perpetrate the mischiefs that it has been the object of
these pages in some part to describe, would regard those who, for their
own selfish gratification, deliberately surrendered their hopes of
eternal happiness in exchange for an alliance with the devils, which
would render these ten times more capable than before of working their
wicked wills. To men believing this, no punishment could seem too sudden
or too terrible for such offenders against religion and society, and no
means of possible detection too slight or far-fetched to be neglected;
indeed, it might reasonably appear to them better that many innocent
persons should perish, with the assurance of future reward for their
undeserved sufferings, than that a single guilty one should escape
undetected, and become the medium by which the devil might destroy more
souls.
82. But the persecuted, far more than the persecutors, deserve our
sympathy, although they rarely obtain it. It is frequently asserted that
the absolute truth of a doctrine is the only support that will enable
its adherents successfully to weather the storms of persecution. Those
who assent to this proposition must be prepared to find a large amount
of truth in the beliefs known to us under the name of witchcraft, if the
position is to be successfully maintained; for never was any sect
persecuted more systematically, or with more relentlessness, than these
little-offending heretics. Protestants and Catholics, Anglicans and
Calvinists, so ready at all times to commit one another to the flames
and to the headsman, found in this matter common ground, upon which all
could heartily unite for the grand purpose of extirpating error. When,
out of the quiet of our own times, we look back upon the terrors of the
Tower, and the smoke and glare of Smithfield, we think with mingled pity
and admiration of those brave men and women who, in the sixteenth
century, enriched with their blood and ashes the soil from whence was to
spring our political and religious freedom. But no whit of admiration,
hardly a glimmer of pity, is even casually evinced for those poor
creatures who, neglected, despised, and abhorred, were, at the same
time, dying the same agonizing death, and passing through the torment of
the flames to that "something after death--the undiscovered country,"
without the sweet assurance which sustained their better-remembered
fellow-sufferers, that beyond the martyr's cross was waiting the
martyr's crown. No such hope supported those who were condemned to die
for the crime of witchcraft: their anticipations of the future were as
dreary as their memories of the past, and no friendly voice was raised,
or hand stretched out, to encourage or console them during that last sad
journey. Their hope of mercy from man was small--strangulation before
the application of the fire, instead of the more lingering and painful
death at most;--their hope of mercy from Heaven, nothing; yet, under
these circumstances, the most auspicious perhaps that could be imagined
for the extirpation of a heretical belief, persecution failed to effect
its object. The more the Government burnt the witches, the more the
crime of witchcraft spread; and it was not until an attitude of
contemptuous toleration was adopted towards the culprits that the belief
died down, gradually but surely, not on account of the conclusiveness of
the arguments directed against it, but from its own inherent lack of
vitality.[1]
[Footnote 1: See Mr. Lecky's elaborate and interesting description of
the demise of the belief in the first chapter of his History of the Rise
of Rationalism in Europe.]
83. The history and phenomena of witchcraft have been so admirably
treated by more than one modern investigator, as to render it
unnecessary to deal exhaustively with a subject which presents such a
vast amount of material for arrangement and comment. The scope of the
following remarks will therefore be limited to a consideration of such
features of the subject as appear to throw light upon the
supernaturalism in "Macbeth." This consideration will be carried out
with some minuteness, as certain modern critics, importing mythological
learning that is the outcome of comparatively recent investigation into
the interpretation of the text, have declared that the three sisters who
play such an important part in that drama are not witches at all, but
are, or are intimately allied to, the Norns or Fates of Scandinavian
paganism. It will be the object of the following pages to illustrate the
contemporary belief concerning witches and their powers, by showing that
nearly every characteristic point attributed to the sisters has its
counterpart in contemporary witch-lore; that some of the allusions,
indeed, bear so strong a resemblance to certain events that had
transpired not many years before "Macbeth" was written, that it is not
improbable that Shakspere was alluding to them in much the same
off-hand, cursory manner as he did to the Mainy incident when writing
"King Lear."
84. The first critic whose comments upon this subject call for notice is
the eminent Gervinus. In evident ignorance of the history of witchcraft,
he says, "In the witches Shakspere has made use of the popular belief in
evil geniuses and in adverse persecutors of mankind, and has produced a
similar but darker race of beings, just as he made use of the belief in
fairies in the 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' This creation is less
attractive and complete, but not less masterly. The poet, in the text of
the play itself, calls these beings witches only derogatorily; they call
themselves weird sisters; the Fates bore this denomination, and the
sisters remind us indeed of the Northern Fates or Valkyries. They appear
wild and weather-beaten in exterior and attire, common in speech,
ignoble, half-human creatures, ugly as the Evil One, and in like manner
old, and of neither sex. They are guided by more powerful masters, their
work entirely springs from delight in evil, and they are wholly devoid
of human sympathies.... They are simply the embodiment of inward
temptation; they come in storm and vanish in air, like corporeal
impulses, which, originating in the blood, cast up bubbles of sin and
ambition in the soul; they are weird sisters only in the sense in which
men carry their own fates within their bosoms."[1] This criticism is so
entirely subjective and unsupported by evidence that it is difficult to
deal satisfactorily with it. It will be shown hereafter that this
description does not apply in the least to the Scandinavian Norns,
while, so far as it is true to Shakspere's text, it does not clash with
contemporary records of the appearance and actions of witches.
[Footnote 1: Shakspere Commentaries, translated by F.E. Bunnert, p.
591.]
85. The next writer to bring forward a view of this character was the
Rev. F.G. Fleay, the well-known Shakspere critic, whose ingenious
efforts in iconoclasm cause a curious alternation of feeling between
admiration and amazement. His argument is unfortunately mixed up with a
question of textual criticism; for he rejects certain scenes in the play
as the work of the inferior dramatist Middleton.[1] The question
relating to the text will only be noticed so far as it is inextricably
involved with the argument respecting the nature of the weird sisters.
Mr. Fleay's position is, shortly, this. He thinks that Shakspere's play
commenced with the entrance of Macbeth and Banquo in the third scene of
the first act, and that the weird sisters who subsequently take part in
that scene are Norns, not witches; and that in the first scene of the
fourth act, Shakspere discarded the Norns, and introduced three
entirely new characters, who were intended to be genuine witches.
[Footnote 1: Of the witch scenes Mr. Fleay rejects Act I. sc. i., and
sc. iii. down to l. 37, and Act III. sc. v.]
86. The evidence which can be produced in support of this theory, apart
from question of style and probability, is threefold. The first proof is
derived from a manuscript entitled "The Booke of Plaies and Notes
thereof, for Common Pollicie," written by a somewhat famous
magician-doctor, Simon Forman, who was implicated in the murder of Sir
Thomas Overbury. He says, "In 'Macbeth,' at the Globe, 1610, the 20th
April, Saturday, there was to be observed first how Macbeth and Banquo,
two noblemen of Scotland, riding through a wood, there stood before them
three women fairies, or nymphs, and saluted Macbeth, saying three times
unto him, 'Hail, Macbeth, King of Codor, for thou shalt be a king, but
thou shalt beget no kings,'" etc.[1] This, if Forman's account held
together decently in other respects, would be strong, although not
conclusive, evidence in favour of the theory; but the whole note is so
full of inconsistencies and misstatements, that it is not unfair to
conclude, either that the writer was not paying marvellous attention to
the entertainment he professed to describe, or that the player's copy
differed in many essential points from the present text. Not the least
conspicuous of these inconsistencies is the account of the sisters'
greeting of Macbeth just quoted. Subsequently Forman narrates that
Duncan created Macbeth Prince of Cumberland; and that "when Macbeth had
murdered the king, the blood on his hands could not be washed off by
any means, nor from his wife's hands, which handled the bloody daggers
in hiding them, by which means they became both much amazed and
affronted." Such a loose narration cannot be relied upon if the text in
question contains any evidence at all rebutting the conclusion that the
sisters are intended to be "women fairies, or nymphs."
[Footnote 1: See Furness, Variorum, p. 384.]
87. The second piece of evidence is the story of Macbeth as it is
narrated by Holinshed, from which Shakspere derived his material. In
that account we read that "It fortuned as Makbeth and Banquho journied
toward Fores, where the king then laie, they went sporting by the waie
togither without other companie, saue onlie themselues, passing thorough
the woods and fields, when suddenlie in the middest of a laund there met
them three women in strange and wild apparell, resembling creatures of
elder world, whome when they attentivelie beheld, woondering much at the
sight, the first of them spake and said; 'All haile, Makbeth, thane of
Glammis' (for he had latelie entered into that dignitie and office by
the death of his father Sinell). The second of them said; 'Haile,
Makbeth, thane of Cawder.' But the third said; 'All haile, Makbeth, that
heereafter shall be King of Scotland.' ... Afterwards the common opinion
was that these women were either the weird sisters, that is (as ye would
say) the goddesses of destinie, or else some nymphs or feiries, indued
with knowledge of prophesie by their necromanticall science, because
everiething came to passe as they had spoken."[1] This is all that is
heard of these "goddesses of Destinie" in Holinshed's narrative. Macbeth
is warned to "beware Macduff"[2] by "certeine wizzards, in whose words
he put great confidence;" and the false promises were made to him by "a
certeine witch, whome he had in great trust, (who) had told him that he
should neuer be slaine with man borne of anie woman, nor vanquished till
the wood of Bernane came to the castell of Dunsinane."[3]
[Footnote 1: Holinshed, Scotland, p. 170, c. 2, l. 55.]
[Footnote 2: Macbeth, IV. l. 71. Holinshed, p. 174, c. 2, l. 10.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid. l. 13.]
88. In this account we find that the supernatural communications adopted
by Shakspere were derived from three sources; and the contention is that
he has retained two of them--the "goddesses of Destinie" and the
witches; and the evidence of this retention is the third proof relied
on, namely, that the stage direction in the first folio, Act IV. sc. i.,
is, "Enter Hecate and the _other_ three witches," when three characters
supposed to be witches are already upon the scene. Holinshed's narrative
makes it clear that the idea of the "goddesses of Destinie" was
distinctly suggested to Shakspere's mind, as well as that of the
witches, as the mediums of supernatural influence. The question is, did
he retain both, or did he reject one and retain the other? It can
scarcely be doubted that one such influence running through the play
would conduce to harmony and unity of idea; and as Shakspere, not a
servile follower of his source in any case, has interwoven in "Macbeth"
the totally distinct narrative of the murder of King Duffe,[1] it is
hardly to be supposed that he would scruple to blend these two
different sets of characters if any advantage were to be gained by so
doing. As to the stage direction in the first folio, it is difficult to
see what it would prove, even supposing that the folio were the most
scrupulous piece of editorial work that had ever been effected. It
presupposes that the "weird sisters" are on the stage as well as the
witches. But it is perfectly clear that the witches continue the
dialogue; so the other more powerful beings must be supposed to be
standing silent in the background--a suggestion so monstrous that it is
hardly necessary to refer to the slovenliness of the folio stage
directions to show how unsatisfactory an argument based upon one of them
must be.
[Footnote 1: Ibid. p. 149. "A sort of witches dwelling in a towne of
Murreyland called Fores" (c. 2, l. 30) were prominent in this account.]
89. The evidence of Forman and Holinshed has been stated fully, in order
that the reader may be in possession of all the materials that may be
necessary for forming an accurate judgment upon the point in question;
but it seems to be less relied upon than the supposition that the
appearance and powers of the beings in the admittedly genuine part of
the third scene of the first act are not those formerly attributed to
witches, and that Shakspere, having once decided to represent Norns,
would never have degraded them "to three old women, who are called by
Paddock and Graymalkin, sail in sieves, kill swine, serve Hecate, and
deal in all the common charms, illusions, and incantations of vulgar
witches. The three who 'look not like the inhabitants o' th' earth, and
yet are on't;' they who can 'look into the seeds of time, and say which
grain will grow;' they who seem corporal, but melt into the air, like
bubbles of the earth; the weyward sisters, who make themselves air, and
have in them more than mortal knowledge, are not beings of this
stamp."[1]
[Footnote 1: New Shakspere Society Transactions, vol. i. p.342; Fleay's
Shakspere Manual, p. 248.]
90. Now, there is a great mass of contemporary evidence to show that
these supposed characteristics of the Norns are, in fact, some of the
chief attributes of the witches of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. If this be so--if it can be proved that the supposed
"goddesses of Destinie" of the play in reality possess no higher powers
than could be acquired by ordinary communication with evil spirits, then
no weight must be attached to the vague stage direction in the folio,
occurring as it does in a volume notorious for the extreme carelessness
with which it was produced; and it must be admitted that the "goddesses
of Destinie" of Holinshed were sacrificed for the sake of the witches.
If, in addition to this, it can be shown that there was a very
satisfactory reason why the witches should have been chosen as the
representatives of the evil influence instead of the Norns, the argument
will be as complete as it is possible to make it.
91. But before proceeding to examine the contemporary evidence, it is
necessary, in order to obtain a complete conception of the mythological
view of the weird sisters, to notice a piece of criticism that is at
once an expansion of, and a variation upon, the theory just stated.[1]
It is suggested that the sisters of "Macbeth" are but three in number,
but that Shakspere drew upon Scandinavian mythology for a portion of the
material he used in constructing these characters, and that he derived
the rest from the traditions of contemporary witchcraft; in fact, that
the "sisters" are hybrids between Norns and witches. The supposed proof
of this is that each sister exercises the special function of one of the
Norns. "The third is the special prophetess, whilst the first takes
cognizance of the past, and the second of the present, in affairs
connected with humanity. These are the tasks of Urda, Verdandi, and
Skulda. The first begins by asking, 'When shall we three meet again?'
The second decides the time: 'When the battle's lost or won.' The third,
the future prophesies: 'That will be ere set of sun.' The first again
asks, 'Where?' The second decides: 'Upon the heath.' The third, the
future prophesies: 'There to meet with Macbeth.'" But their _rôle_ is
most clearly brought out in the famous "Hails":--
_1st. Urda._ [Past.] All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of
Glamis!
_2nd. Verdandi._ [Present.] All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane
of Cawdor!
_3rd. Skulda._ All hail, Macbeth! thou shalt be king hereafter.[2]
This sequence is supposed to be retained in other of the sisters'
speeches; but a perusal of these will soon show that it is only in the
second of the above quotations that it is recognizable with any
definiteness; and this, it must be remembered, is an almost verbal
transcript from Holinshed, and not an original conception of
Shakspere's, who might feel himself quite justified in changing the
characters of the speakers, while retaining their utterances. In
addition to this, the natural sequence is in many cases utterly and
unnecessarily violated; as, for instance, in Act I. sc. iii., where
Urda, who should be solely occupied with past matters, predicts, with
extreme minuteness, the results that are to follow from her projected
voyage to Aleppo, and that without any expression of resentment, but
rather with promise of assistance, from Skulda, whose province she is
thus invading.
[Footnote 1: In a letter to _The Academy_, 8th February, 1879, signed
"Charlotte Carmichael."]
[Footnote 2: I have taken the liberty of printing this quotation as it
stands in the text. The writer in _The Academy_ has effected a
rearrangement of the dialogue by importing what might be Macbeth's
replies to the three sisters from his speech beginning at l. 70, and
alternating them with the different "Hails," which, in addition, are not
correctly quoted--for what purpose it is difficult to see. It may be
added here that in a subsequent number of _The Academy_, a long letter
upon the same subject appeared from Mr. Karl Blind, which seems to prove
little except the author's erudition. He assumes the Teutonic origin of
the sisters throughout, and, consequently, adduces little evidence in
favour of the theory. One of his points is the derivation of the word
"weird" or "wayward," which, as will be shown subsequently, was applied
to witches. Another point is, that the witch scenes savour strongly of
the staff-rime of old German poetry. It is interesting to find two
upholders of the Norn-theory relying mainly for proof of their position
upon a scene (Act I. sc. i.) which Mr Fleay says that the very statement
of this theory (p. 249) must brand as spurious. The question of the
sisters' beards too, regarding which Mr. Blind brings somewhat
far-fetched evidence, is, I think, more satisfactorily settled by the
quotations in the text.]
92. But this latter piece of criticism seems open to one grave
objection to which the former is not liable. Mr. Fleay separates the
portions of the play which are undoubtedly to be assigned to witches
from the parts he gives to his Norns, and attributes them to different
characters; the other mixes up the witch and Norn elements in one
confused mass. The earlier critic saw the absurdity of such a
supposition when he wrote: "Shakspere may have raised the wizard and
witches of the latter parts of Holinshed to the weird sisters of the
former parts, but the converse process is impossible."[1] Is it
conceivable that Shakspere, who, as most people admit, was a man of some
poetic feeling, being in possession of the beautiful Norn-legend--the
silent Fate-goddesses sitting at the foot of Igdrasil, the mysterious
tree of human existence, and watering its roots with water from the
sacred spring--could, ruthlessly and without cause, mar the charm of the
legend by the gratuitous introduction of the gross and primarily
unpoetical details incident to the practice of witchcraft? No man with a
glimmer of poetry in his soul will imagine it for a moment. The
separation of characters is more credible than this; but if that theory
can be shown to be unfounded, there is no improbability in supposing
that Shakspere, finding that the question of witchcraft was, in
consequence of events that had taken place not long before the time of
the production of "Macbeth," absorbing the attention of all men, from
king to peasant, should set himself to deal with such a popular subject,
and, by the magic of his art, so raise it out of its degradation into
the region of poetry, that men should wonder and say, "Can this be
witchcraft indeed?"
[Footnote 1: Shakspere Manual, p. 249.]
93. In comparing the evidence to be deduced from the contemporary
records of witchcraft with the sayings and doings of the sisters in
"Macbeth," those parts of the play will first be dealt with upon which
no doubt as to their genuineness has ever been cast, and which are
asserted to be solely applicable to Norns. If it can be shown that these
describe witches rather than Norns, the position that Shakspere
intentionally substituted witches for the "goddesses of Destinie"
mentioned in his authority is practically unassailable. First, then, it
is asserted that the description of the appearance of the sisters given
by Banquo applies to Norns rather than witches--
"They look not like the inhabitants o' th' earth,
And yet are on't."
This question of applicability, however, must not be decided by the
consideration of a single sentence, but of the whole passage from which
it is extracted; and, whilst considering it, it should be carefully
borne in mind that it occurs immediately before those lines which are
chiefly relied upon as proving the identity of the sisters with Urda,
Verdandi, and Skulda.