Shakspeare--An Outline of his Composition--"The
Tempest"--Ship at Sea in a Storm--Miranda beseeching
Prospero to allay the Wild Waters--Ariel's Readiness
to serve his Master--The Witch Sycorax--Ariel kept in
a Cloven Pine twelve years--Caliban's Evil
Wish--Mischief by Ariel--Neptune chased--Charmed
Circle--Miracles--"Midsummer Night's Dream"--Exploits
of a Fairy--Doings of Puck--Charmed Flower--Titania
and her Attendants--Ghosts and
Spirits--Song--"Macbeth"--Weird Sisters--Hecate and
the Witches--Magic Arts--Macbeth's Doom--Witches'
Caldron--Macbeth admonished by Spirits--Eight Kings
and Banquo's Spirit--Noblemen warned by a
Spirit--"Antony and Cleopatra"--Dreadful
Apparition--King's Death avenged.
Shakspeare, the immortal English poet, born in the year 1564, has
assisted in no small degree to spread the knowledge of superstition.
So opportunely do his works come to support our statements, that we
are induced to give, in prose and verse, an outline of certain
portions of his compositions touching the many mysterious subjects on
which he wrote.
In the _Tempest_ there is a ship at sea in a storm, with thunder and
lightning. On board are the master, boatswain, mariners, Alonso,
Sebastian, Antonio, Ferdinand, Gonzalo, and others. The ship is
thought to be in danger; but Gonzalo tells his companions to take
comfort, for he thought the boatswain had no drowning mark upon him,
his complexion being perfectly gallows-like. "If," said Gonzalo, "he
be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable." The mariners thought
all was lost, and went to prayers.
Miranda beseeched Prospero, whom she addressed as father, to allay the
wild waters in their roar, and not suffer a brave vessel that had
noble creatures in her to sink. Prospero laid aside his magic garment;
and while Miranda slept, Ariel declared his readiness, at the request
of Prospero, to swim, to dive into the fire, to ride on the curled
clouds. In answer to Prospero's inquiry whether the spirit had
directed the tempest according to instructions, Ariel answered that he
had boarded the ship, joined Jove's lightnings, and made Neptune's
bold waves tremble. Ariel, who thought his services were most valuable
to his master, craved his liberty; for Ariel was a bound servant of
Prospero for a specified time. Prospero reminded the spirit that he
had freed him from torment; and asked if he remembered the witch
Sycorax, famed for her sorceries, and who had, by the aid of her most
potent ministers, put him (Ariel) into a cloven pine, within whose
rift he remained imprisoned for twelve years, tormented so greatly
that his groans made the wolves howl, and penetrated the breast of
every bear. Sycorax could not, proceeded Prospero, undo what she had
done; it was his art alone that made the pine gape and set him free.
Then he threatened the spirit that if he again murmured, he would send
an oak, and peg him in its knotty trunk till he had howled away twelve
winters. The spirit asked pardon, and declared his readiness to obey
Prospero's commands. Prospero promised that if he did so, he would
discharge him in two days. "Go," said Prospero, "make thyself like to
the nymph o' the sea; be subject to no sight but mine; invisible to
every eye-ball else. Go take this shape, and hither come in't: hence
with diligence." Miranda having been awakened, was invited by Prospero
to visit his slave Caliban, son of Sycorax, then dead. Ariel here came
before his master, who was pleased with his appearance.
On Prospero calling to Caliban, "Thou poisonous slave, got by the
Devil himself," to come forth, Caliban appeared and said, "As wicked
dew as e'er my mother brush'd with raven's feather from unwholesome
fen, drop on you both!" For this, replied Prospero, thou shalt be
tortured this night.
Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, Adrian, and Francisco escaped to
an island, which to them seemed to be a desert. Caliban found them;
and a conspiracy was entered into to kill Prospero and secure the
person of Miranda. Solemn and strange music was heard, and several
strange shapes appeared at a banquet. Thunder rolled, and lightning
flashed: Ariel, in the form of a harpy, clapped his wings upon the
table, and the banquet vanished. Prospero gave Ferdinand a rich
compensation to make amends for past austere punishments; and that
compensation was nothing less than the hand of Miranda. He recommended
them to be prudent before their nuptials, and told them that if they
disregarded his injunctions in this respect, they would have hate and
discord between them. Ariel, by an unseen power, induced Caliban and
others whom Prospero desired to have in his cell, to repair thither;
but before reaching it they were hunted by divers spirits in the shape
of hounds, that chased them to the lime groves, where they were
secured as prisoners.
Prospero, addressing the elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and
groves, those that on the sands with printless foot chased the ebbing
Neptune, the demi-puppets that by moonshine made the sour-green
ringlets which ewes would not bite, those whose pastime was to make
midnight mushrooms, reminded them that he had, among other mighty
deeds, by their aid, rifted. Jove's stout oak, plucked up the pine and
cedar, and roused sleepers in the grave. But this rough magic, he
informed them, he would abjure, after working his airy charms. This
being done, he would break his staff, bury it deep in the earth, and
drown his book. Ariel re-entered, and after him Alonso, Gonzalo,
Sebastian, Antonio, Adrian, and Francisco, and stood charmed within a
circle which Prospero had made.
Gonzalo exclaimed, "All torment, trouble, wonder, and amazement
inhabit here! Some heavenly power guide us out of this fearful
country!" Prospero made himself known to the king as the wronged Duke
of Milan. Pardon was sought, and the dukedom resigned. Alonso craved,
that if he were Prospero, he should give them particulars of his
preservation, and how he met them there, having, but three hours
before, been wrecked upon the shore, where he had lost his dear son
Ferdinand. A door was opened, and Ferdinand and Miranda were
discovered playing at chess. Sebastian declared this to be a most high
miracle. Ariel, who had been instructed by Prospero to go to the ship
and bring the master and boatswain to him, entered with these
worthies. In answer to the question, "What is the news?" the boatswain
answered, "The best news is, that we have safely found our king and
company; the next, our ship--which, but three glasses since, we gave
out split--is tight and yare, and bravely rigged, as when we first put
out to sea." The boatswain, in answer to another query how they came
thither? replied, if he were awake, he would strive to tell. He
remembered hearing strange noises--roaring, shrieking, howling,
jingling chains, and more diversity of sounds, all horrible; and when
they were wakened (for they had been asleep), they found themselves at
liberty. Prospero, pointing out Caliban, told his friends, "This
mis-shapen knave's mother was a witch; and one so strong that she
could control the moon, make flows and ebbs." Prospero invited the
king and his train to take rest in his cell, where he would tell the
story of his life, and in the morning bring them to their ship and
give them auspicious gales; then, addressing Ariel, he concluded,
"Chick, that is thy charge; to the elements, be free, and fare thee
well!"
In the _Midsummer Night's Dream_ Shakspeare brings forward a fairy at
a wood near Athens. The fairy, in answer to Puck's question whither it
wandered, replied that it went over hill, over dale, through bush,
through brier, over park, over pale, through flood, through fire. It
wandered everywhere, swifter than the moon's sphere; it served the
fairy queen to dew her orbs upon the green. Puck told the fairy that
the king would keep revels there that night, and advised that the
queen should not come within his sight; for Oberon was fell and wroth,
because she, as her attendant, had a lovely boy, a sweet changeling,
and that jealous Oberon would have the child to be a knight of his
train to trace the forests.
The fairy asked Puck if he was not the knavish spirit that frightened
the maidens of the villagery, that skimmed milk, and sometimes
laboured in the green, and bootless made the housewife churn, and
sometimes made the drink to bear no barm, and whether Puck did not
mislead night wanderers, and then laugh at their harm, and do the work
of hobgoblins? Puck acknowledged that the fairy spoke aright; said he
was the merry wanderer of the night, playing pranks, and making people
laugh. A smart angry discussion took place between Oberon and Titania
as to which of them was to have the little changeling boy. They parted
in rage, Oberon threatening to torment Titania. Oberon summoned Puck
to attend him, and bring the herb he once showed him, the juice of
which, laid on sleeping eyelids, made man or woman dote upon the next
creature seen. Having this herb's juice, Oberon would watch Titania
when she was asleep, and drop the liquor into her eyes, that when she
wakened she might pursue the first object she cast eyes on with the
soul of love, whether it should be lion, bear, wolf, or bull, or
meddling monkey, or busy ape. The delusion accomplished, he would give
her another herb to remove the charm, but not before she gave up the
boy.
Puck found the charmed flower; and while Oberon was to streak
Titania's eyes with some of the juice thereof, Puck was to anoint the
eyes of the disdainful youth with another quantity of it, that he
might be compelled to adore a sweet Athenian lady in love with him.
Puck was then dismissed with instructions to meet Oberon before the
first cock-crow. Titania, in another part of the wood, distributed her
attendants, some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds, some to war
with bats for their leathern wings to make small elves' coats, and
some to keep back the clamorous owl that nightly hooted at the quaint
spirits. Having given her instructions, she fell asleep. This was
Oberon's opportunity--and one he did not neglect. He squeezed the
flower on Titania's eyelids, and disappeared.
Titania wakened with eyes fixed on Bottom, who, by Puck's art, had an
ass's head. Nevertheless, she thought him wise and beautiful. She
instructed her attendant fairies to be kind and courteous to the
gentleman, and to feed him with apricots, dewberries, purple grapes,
green figs, and mulberries. Then they were to steal the honey-bags
from bumble bees for his service, and to crop their waxen thighs, and
light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes, to show her love to bed; and
further, to pluck the wings from butterflies, to fan the moonbeams
from his sleeping eyes. By Puck's mistake, the love juice was laid in
absence of the fair Athenian lady, and so the object desired was not
obtained. In consequence of this, much confusion and misunderstanding
followed. To prevent a fight, Oberon, whom Puck addressed as "king of
shadows," ordered the night to be overcast with drooping fog, that the
rivals might be led astray. Other instructions were given, which Puck
suggested should be done quickly, as in the distance shone Aurora's
harbinger, at whose approach ghosts, wandering here and there, trooped
home to churchyards. Damned spirits, he said, that had burial in
cross-ways and floods, had already gone to their wormy beds, lest day
should look on their shame. Oberon began to pity Titania, and,
touching her eyes with an herb, her love for the loathsome visage she
had admired for ever vanished.
The _Midsummer Night's Dream_ concludes with the following song, if we
except Puck's address:
"Now, until the break of day,
Through this house each fairy stray,
To the best bride-bed will we,
Which by us shall blessed be;
And the issue, there create,
Ever shall be fortunate.
So shall all the couples three
Ever true and loving be:
And the blots of nature's hand
Shall not in their issue stand;
Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,
Nor mark prodigious such as are
Despised in nativity,
Shall upon their children be,--
With this field-dew consecrate,
Every fairy take his gait;
And each several chamber bless,
Through this palace with sweet peace:
E'er shall it in safety rest,
And the owner of it blest.
Trip away,
Make no stay;
Meet me all by break of day."
In gleaning from _Macbeth_, we shall pass over the weird sisters'
predictions as lightly as possible, without breaking the connecting
links, though we are greatly tempted to incorporate a considerable
part of this play into our collection of tales and traditions, seeing
that, in our opinion, none of Shakspeare's works bring out more
graphically the superstition of past ages than the poet's _Macbeth_.
The play is represented as beginning in an open place, where, in a
thunder-storm, three witches appeared and disappeared without doing
any important deed of darkness. They met again on a heath, in another
thunder-storm. One of them told the other hags that she had been away
killing swine. Another told tales of a sailor's wife who had gone to
Aleppo, and threatened to sail thither in a sieve. Macbeth and Banquo
discovered the witches and saluted them. Through the women's subtlety,
the fiend entered Macbeth's heart, and induced him to form the bloody
plans of removing all obstacles in the way of his obtaining the crown,
and handing it down to his descendants. First one victim, and then
another, fell under his treachery. He was sorely troubled: the ghost
of Banquo haunted him.
Hecate joined the witches on the heath, and upbraided them for trading
and trafficking with Macbeth without consulting her, the mistress of
their charms. Away the witches were sent, with instructions to meet at
the pit of Acheron in the morning. There Macbeth was to know his
destiny. Vessels and spells the hags were to provide, while Hecate was
to catch a vaporous drop that hung on the corner of the moon, before
it touched the ground. That drop, distilled by magic sleights, would
raise such sprites, that by the strength of their illusion would draw
Macbeth to confusion. Such, Hecate declared, would be his doom for
spurning fate, scorning death, and bearing his hopes above wisdom,
grace, and fear.
The three witches met in a dark cave, and, while the thunder rolled
without, they boiled a cauldron of hellish soup, the ingredients of
which may be gathered from the following lines:--
1 _Witch_. "Thrice the brindled cat hath mew'd.
2 _Witch_. Thrice; and once the hedge-pig whined.
3 _Witch_. Harper cries: 'Tis time, 'tis time.
1 _Witch_. Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.--
Toad, that under coldest stone,
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.
_All._ Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble.
2 _Witch_. Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
_All._ Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble.
3 _Witch_. Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf;
Witches' mummy; maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark;
Root of hemlock, digg'd i' the dark;
Liver of blaspheming Jew;
Gall of goat; and slips of yew,
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse;
Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips;
Finger of birth-strangled babe,
Ditch delivered by a drab,--
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.
_All._ Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble.
2 _Witch_. Cool it with a baboon's blood;
Then the charm is firm and good.
_Hecate._ O, well done! I commend your pains;
And every one shall share i' the gains.
And now about the cauldron sing,
Like elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.
SONG.
'Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and grey;
Mingle, mingle, mingle,
You that mingle may.'
2 _Witch_. By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes:--
Open, locks, whoever knocks."
Macbeth appeared and demanded what the midnight hags were about. The
reply was, "A deed without a name." He entreated them, by that which
they professed, to answer him. One of the witches asked whether he
would rather have his answer from their mouths or from their masters'.
On Macbeth desiring to see the masters, witch No. 1 directed that the
blood of a sow that had eaten her nine farrow, and grease that had
been sweaten from the murderer's gibbet, should be thrown into the
flame. Accompanied by a clap of thunder, an armed head rose, and
admonished Macbeth to beware of Macduff. Another demon, more potent,
in the shape of a bloody child, rose and bade Macbeth be courageous;
to laugh to scorn the power of man, for none born of woman could harm
him. A second child, after the first had descended into the bowels of
the earth, told the king that he would not be vanquished till great
Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill should come against him. The
monarch was admonished to ask no more, but he disregarded the warning.
"Why sinks that cauldron? and what noise is this?" he asked. Eight
kings, and Banquo following, appeared to Macbeth's vision. The whole
vision, if such it could be called, surprised him greatly; but no part
of it so much as the spirit of Banquo, whom he had cruelly put to
death with the intention of frustrating destiny, as revealed to him by
the weird sisters, when he first met them on the heath. Seeing the
king dejected, the witches, to cheer him, danced and sang for a time,
and then suddenly disappeared.
Before Macbeth had time to recover from his reverie, a messenger
arrived to inform him that Macduff, whom he dreaded, had fled to
England. So greatly was he exasperated by the tidings, that he
declared his intention of seizing Macduff's castle, giving to the
sword his wife, babes, and all his other relations of whatever degree.
This threat he partly carried into execution.
The day of vengeance was near. Macbeth, mad with fear and ambition,
strove to avert the evil brooding over him, but he could not succeed.
The fiat had gone forth: he was king, as the weird sisters had
foretold he would be, but all his bloody deeds, and the scheming of
his queen, unscrupulous like himself, could not change the decree.
Birnam wood seemed to come to Dunsinane, and Banquo's seed came in due
time to inherit the throne the fates had reserved for them.
In _King Henry the Sixth_ more light is thrown on the doings of evil
spirits. On a deep dark night, the time when owls cried, dogs howled,
spirits walked, and ghosts broke up their graves, a spirit rose, in
compliance with certain ceremonies for making demons appear.
Bolingbroke inquired of the evil one what would become of the king?
The reply was, "The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose. But him
outlive, and die a violent death." In answer to the question, "What
fate awaits the Duke of Suffolk?" came the reply, "By water shall he
die." The Duke of Somerset was advised by the spirit to shun castles.
Having thus delivered itself, the evil spirit descended to the burning
lake. Farther on in the piece we are told of a witch that was
condemned to be burned at Smithfield.
Passing from _Henry the Sixth_, we come to _Antony and Cleopatra_, and
proceed to glean a few sentences bearing on superstition.
Charmian, addressing Alexas in a flattering manner, asked where was
the soothsayer he praised so much. The soothsayer, who was immediately
forthcoming, told those who listened to him that he knew "things" from
nature's book of secrecy. A banquet was prepared, at which Charmian
asked the soothsayer to give him good luck. "I make not, but foresee,"
was the response. Charmian, Alexas, and their companions seek to hear
their fortunes told, but the soothsayer did not choose to reveal
anything important at that time.
We shall take leave of Shakspeare by noticing, in a few sentences, the
ghost of Hamlet's father.
Bernardo, Marcellus, and Horatio were met at a late hour to talk over
a dreadful apparition that had disturbed the two former on the
previous night, when they were startled by the same apparition--a
ghost making its appearance. They observed it resembled the king who
was dead. Horatio charged it to speak, but it stalked away without
deigning a reply. It reappeared, but suddenly vanished on hearing the
cock crow. How long elapsed we are not informed; but on a certain
night, just after the clock had struck twelve, Hamlet, Horatio, and
Marcellus were engaged in earnest conversation when they were alarmed.
The first entreats the ghost to say wherefore it visited them. It
beckoned to Hamlet to follow it; and he did so, despite those who were
with him, and saw the spirit as well as he did. The ghost's tongue was
unloosed, and thus it spake: "Lend thy serious hearing to what I shall
unfold: My hour is almost come, when I must render up myself to
sulphurous and tormenting flames. I am thy father's spirit; and, for
the day, confined to fast in fires, till the foul crimes, done in my
days of nature, are burnt and purged away. Were I not forbidden to
tell the secrets of my prison-house, I could a tale unfold that would
harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood; make thy eyes start; and
make thy locks part like quills upon the fretful porcupine: but this
eternal blazon must not be. If ever thou didst love thy father,
revenge his foul and most unnatural murder." "Murder!" exclaimed
Hamlet. "Murder," said the ghost, "most foul, as in the best it is."
"Reveal it," gasped Hamlet, "that I may with swift wings sweep to my
revenge." "Thou shouldst be duller than the fat weed that rots itself
on Lethe's wharf, wert thou not to stir in this," ejaculated the
spirit. The ghost continued: "It has been given out, that, when
sleeping in mine orchard, a serpent stung me to death; but know thou
that the serpent that did sting thy father now wears his crown....
Sleeping within my orchard, as my custom was in the afternoon, on my
secure hour thy uncle stole with cursed juice of hebenon in a vial,
and did pour the leprous distilment into mine ears, that curdled my
blood. Thus was I, by a brother's hand, despatched from crown and
queen; cut off in the blossoms of my sin, unprepared, disappointed,
and, without extreme unction, sent to my account with all my
imperfections on my head. O, horrible! most horrible! Let not the
royal bed be a couch for luxury and damned incest. Farewell; the
glow-worm shows the morning to be near, and begins to pale his
ineffectual fire: Adieu! Remember me." The king's death was avenged.
The treacherous queen, and he who murdered the monarch, drank a
poisoned cup, and thus received measure for measure.