Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 10

Again, in "The Tempest" (iv. 1), Prospero and Ariel are represented as setting on spirits, in the shape of hounds, to hunt Stephano and Trinculo. This species of diabolical or spectral chase was formerly a popular article of belief. As Drake aptly remarks,[80] "the h.e.l.l-hounds of Shakespeare appear to be sufficiently formidable, for, not merely commissioned to hunt their victims, they are ordered, likewise, as goblins," to-

"grind their joints With dry convulsions; shorten up their sinews With aged cramps; and more pinch-spotted make them Than pard or cat o' mountain.

_Ariel._ Hark, they roar!

_Prospero._ Let them be hunted soundly."

[80] "Shakespeare and His Times," vol. i. p. 378.

_TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS._

Shakespeare has several references to the old superst.i.tious belief in the transmigration of souls, traces of which may still be found in the reverence paid to the robin, the wren, and other birds. Thus, in "The Merchant of Venice" (iv. 1), Gratiano says to Shylock:

"Thou almost makest me waver in my faith To hold opinion with Pythagoras That souls of animals infuse themselves Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit Govern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter, Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet, And, whilst thou lay'st in thy unhallow'd dam, Infused itself in thee; for thy desires Are wolfish, b.l.o.o.d.y, starved, and ravenous."

Caliban, when remonstrating with the drunken Stephano and Trinculo, for delaying at the mouth of the cave of Prospero, instead of taking the magician's life ("Tempest," iv. 1), says:

"I will have none on't: we shall lose our time, And all be turn'd to barnacles, or to apes."

In "Hamlet" (iv. 5), in the scene where Ophelia, in her mental aberration, quotes s.n.a.t.c.hes of old ballads, she says: "They say the owl was a baker's daughter! Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be."[81]

[81] See _Owl_, chap. vi.

Again, in "Twelfth Night" (iv. 2), there is another reference in the amusing pa.s.sage where the clown, under the pretence of his being "Sir Topas, the curate," questions Malvolio, when confined in a dark room, as a presumed lunatic:

"_Mal._ I am no more mad than you are: make the trial of it in any constant question.

_Clo._ What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl?

_Mal._ That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.

_Clo._ What thinkest thou of his opinion?

_Mal._ I think n.o.bly of the soul, and no way approve his opinion.

_Clo._ Fare thee well. Remain thou still in darkness: thou shalt hold the opinion of Pythagoras ere I will allow of thy wits, and fear to kill a woodc.o.c.k lest thou dispossess the soul of thy grandam."

Although this primitive superst.i.tion is almost effete among civilized nations, yet it still retains an important place in the religious beliefs of savage and uncivilized communities.

CHAPTER IV.

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 superst.i.tious belief in demonology was part of the great system of witchcraft. Many of the popular delusions of this terrible form of superst.i.tion have been in a masterly manner exposed by Shakespeare; and the scattered allusions which he has given, ill.u.s.trative 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 cla.s.ses 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 a.s.sume 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 wh.o.r.emaster, 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 a.s.sumed by evil spirits was that of a negro or Moor, to which Iago alludes when he incites Brabantio to search for his daughter, in "Oth.e.l.lo" (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 a.s.sume 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, 'G.o.d d.a.m.n me;' that's as much as to say, 'G.o.d 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 a.s.sume 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 "t.i.tus Andronicus" (iii. 2) there is an allusion to this belief, where Marcus, being rebuked by t.i.tus 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 ill.u.s.trations of the superst.i.tion: "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 h.e.l.l. 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 a.s.sumed was that of a dead friend. Thus "Hamlet" (i. 4), when he confronts the apparition, exclaims: