Folk-lore of Shakespeare

“If there be any good thing to be done,That may to thee do ease and grace to me,Speak to me.”

And in a later scene (i. 4) Hamlet says:

“Say, why is this? wherefore? What should we do?”

The Greeks believed that such as had not received funeral rites would be excluded from Elysium; and thus the wandering shade of Patroclus appears to Achilles in his sleep, and demands the performance of his funeral. The younger Pliny tells a story of a haunted house at Athens, in which a ghost played all kinds of pranks, owing to his funeral rites having been neglected. A further reference to the superstition occurs in “Titus Andronicus” (i. 1), where Lucius, speaking of the unburied sons of Titus, says:

“Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths,That we may hew his limbs, and, on a pile,Ad manes fratrum sacrifice his flesh,Before this earthy prison of their bones;That so the shadows be not unappeased,Nor we disturbed with prodigies on earth.”

In olden times, spirits were said to have different allotments of time, suitable to the variety and nature of their agency. Prospero, in the “Tempest” (i. 2), says to Caliban:

“Be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchinsShall, for that vast77 of night that they may work,All exercise on thee.”

According to a popular notion, the presence of unearthly beings was announced by an alteration in the tint of the lights which happened to be burning – a superstition alluded to in “Richard III.” (v. 3), where the tyrant exclaims, as he awakens:

“The lights burn blue. – It is now dead midnight,Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh —*****Methought the souls of all that I had murder’dCame to my tent.”

So in “Julius Cæsar” (iv. 3), Brutus, on seeing the ghost of Cæsar, exclaims:

“How ill this taper burns! Ha! who comes here?”

It has been a widespread belief from the most remote period that ghosts cannot bear the light, and so disappear at the dawn of day; their signal being the cock-crow.78 The ghost of Hamlet’s father says (i. 5):

“But, soft! methinks I scent the morning air;Brief let me be” —

and —

“Fare thee well at once.The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,And ’gins to pale his uneffectual fire:Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me.”

Again, in “King Lear” (iii. 4), Edgar says: “This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock.”

The time of night, as the season wherein spirits wander abroad, is further noticed by Gardiner in “Henry VIII.” (v. 1):

“Affairs, that walk,As they say spirits do, at midnight.”

It was a prevalent notion that a person who crossed the spot on which a spectre was seen became subject to its malignant influence. In “Hamlet” (i. 1), Horatio says, in reference to the ghost:

“But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!I’ll cross it, though it blast me.”

Lodge, in his “Illustrations of British History” (iii. 48), tells us that among the reasons for supposing the death of Ferdinand, Earl of Derby (who died young, in 1594), to have been occasioned by witchcraft, was the following: “On Friday there appeared a tall man, who twice crossed him swiftly; and when the earl came to the place where he saw this man, he fell sick.”

Reginald Scot, in his “Discovery of Witchcraft” (1584), enumerates the different kinds of spirits, and particularly notices white, black, gray, and red spirits. So in “Macbeth” (iv. 1), “black spirits” are mentioned – the charm song referred to (like the one in act iv.) being found in Middleton’s “Witch” (v. 2):

“Black spirits and white,Red spirits and gray;Mingle, mingle, mingle,You that mingle may.”

A well-known superstition which still prevails in this and foreign countries is that of the “spectre huntsman and his furious host.” As night-time approaches, it is supposed that this invisible personage rides through the air with his yelping hounds; their weird sound being thought to forbode misfortune of some kind. This popular piece of folk-lore exists in the north of England under a variety of forms among our peasantry, who tenaciously cling to the traditions which have been handed down to them.79 It has been suggested that Shakespeare had some of these superstitions in view when he placed in the mouth of Macbeth (i. 7), while contemplating the murder of Duncan, the following metaphors:

“And pity, like a naked new-born babe,Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubim, horsedUpon the sightless couriers of the air,Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,That tears shall drown the wind!”

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 hell-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 jointsWith dry convulsions; shorten up their sinewsWith aged cramps; and more pinch-spotted make themThan pard or cat o’ mountain.Ariel. Hark, they roar!Prospero. Let them be hunted soundly.”

TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS

Shakespeare has several references to the old superstitious 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 faithTo hold opinion with PythagorasThat souls of animals infuse themselvesInto the trunks of men: thy currish spiritGovern’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 desiresAre wolfish, bloody, 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 snatches 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

Again, in “Twelfth Night” (iv. 2), there is another reference in the amusing passage 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 nobly 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 woodcock lest thou dispossess the soul of thy grandam.”

Although this primitive superstition 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 superstitious belief in demonology was part of the great system of witchcraft. Many of the popular delusions of this terrible form of superstition have been in a masterly manner exposed by Shakespeare; and the scattered allusions which he has given, illustrative of it, are indeed sufficient to prove, if it were necessary, what a highly elaborate creed it was. Happily, Shakespeare, like the other dramatists of the period, has generally treated the subject with ridicule, showing that he had no sympathy with the grosser opinions shared by various classes in those times, whether held by king or clown. According to an old belief, still firmly credited in the poet’s day, it was supposed that devils could at any moment assume whatever form they pleased that would most conduce to the success of any contemplated enterprise they might have in hand; and hence the charge of being a devil, so commonly brought against innocent and harmless persons in former years, can easily be understood. Among the incidental allusions to this notion, given by Shakespeare, Prince Hal (“1 Henry IV.,” ii. 4) tells Falstaff “there is a devil haunts thee in the likeness of an old fat man;” “an old white-bearded Satan.” In the “Merchant of Venice” (iii. 1) Salanio, on the approach of Shylock, says: “Let me say ‘amen’ betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer, for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew.”

Indeed, “all shapes that man goes up and down in” seem to have been at the devil’s control, a belief referred to in “Timon of Athens” (ii. 2):

“Var. Serv. What is a whoremaster, fool?

Fool. A fool in good clothes, and something like thee. ’Tis a spirit: sometime ’t appears like a lord; sometime like a lawyer; sometime like a philosopher, with two stones moe than’s artificial one: he is very often like a knight; and, generally, in all shapes that man goes up and down in from fourscore to thirteen, this spirit walks in.”

A popular form assumed by evil spirits was that of a negro or Moor, to which Iago alludes when he incites Brabantio to search for his daughter, in “Othello” (i. 1):

“Zounds, sir, you are robb’d; for shame, put on your gown;Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;Even now, now, very now, an old black ramIs tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise!Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you.Arise, I say.”

On the other hand, so diverse were the forms which devils were supposed to assume that they are said occasionally to appear in the fairest form, even in that of a girl (ii. 3):

“When devils will the blackest sins put on,They do suggest at first with heavenly shows.”

So in “The Comedy of Errors” (iv. 3) we have the following dialogue:

“Ant. S. Satan, avoid! I charge thee, tempt me not!

Dro. S. Master, is this mistress Satan?

Ant. S. It is the devil.

Dro. S. Nay, she is worse, she is the devil’s dam; and here she comes in the habit of a light wench; and thereof comes that the wenches say, ‘God damn me;’ that’s as much as to say, ‘God make me a light wench.’ It is written, they appear to men like angels of light.”

(Cf. also “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” iv. 3.) In “King John” (iii. 1) even the fair Blanch seemed to Constance none other than the devil tempting Lewis “in likeness of a new untrimmed bride.”

Not only, too, were devils thought to assume any human shape they fancied, but, as Mr. Spalding remarks,81 “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.

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 eyesWere 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.”82

Even the shape of a fly was a favorite one with evil spirits, so much so, that the term “fly” was a popular synonym for a familiar. In “Titus Andronicus” (iii. 2) there is an allusion to this belief, where Marcus, being rebuked by Titus for having killed a fly, gives as his reason:

“It was a black ill-favour’d fly,Like to the empress’ Moor: therefore I kill’d him.”

Mr. Spalding gives the following illustrations of the superstition: “At the execution of Urban Grandier, the famous magician of Loudun, in 1634, a large fly was seen buzzing about the stake; and a priest promptly seizing the opportunity of improving the occasion for the benefit of the onlookers, declared that Beelzebub had come in his own proper person to carry off Grandier’s soul to hell. In 1664 occurred the celebrated witch trials which took place before Sir Matthew Hale. The accused were charged with bewitching two children, and part of the evidence against them was that flies and bees were seen to carry into their victims’ mouths the nails and pins which they afterwards vomited.”

Once more, another form devils assumed was that of a dead friend. Thus “Hamlet” (i. 4), when he confronts the apparition, exclaims:

“Angels and ministers of grace defend us!Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn’d,Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell,Be thy intents wicked, or charitable,Thou com’st in such a questionable shapeThat I will speak to thee” —

for, as Mr. Spalding remarks, “it cannot be imagined that Hamlet imagined that a ‘goblin damned’ could actually be the spirit of his dead father; and, therefore, the alternative in his mind must be that he saw a devil assuming his father’s likeness – a form which the Evil One knew would most incite Hamlet to intercourse.”

The same idea seems present in Horatio’s mind:

“What, if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff,That beetles o’er his base into the sea,And there assume some other horrible form,Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,And draw you into madness?”

Once more, in the next act (ii. 2), Hamlet again expresses his doubts:

“The spirit that I have seenMay be the devil: and the devil hath powerTo assume a pleasing shape; yea, and, perhaps,Out of my weakness and my melancholy,As he is very potent with such spirits,Abuses me to damn me.”

In the Elizabethan times, too, no superstitious belief exerted a more pernicious and baneful influence on the credulous and ignorant than the notion that evil spirits from time to time entered into human beings, and so completely gained a despotic control over them as to render them perfectly helpless. Harsnet, in his “Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures” (1603), has exposed this gross superstition; and a comparison of the passages in “King Lear,” spoken by Edgar when feigning madness, with those given by Harsnet, will show that Shakespeare has accurately given the contemporary belief on the subject. Mr. Spalding also considers that nearly all the allusions in “King Lear” refer to a youth known as Richard Mainey, a minute account of whose supposed possession has been given by Harsnet.

Persons so possessed were often bound and shut up in a dark room, occasionally being forced to submit to flagellation – a treatment not unlike that described in “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 2):

“Not mad, but bound more than a madman is;Shut up in prison, kept without my food,Whipp’d and tormented.”

In the “Comedy of Errors” (iv. 4) we have an amusing scene, further illustrative, probably, of the kind of treatment adopted in Shakespeare’s day:

“Courtesan. How say you now? is not your husband mad?Adriana. His incivility confirms no less —Good doctor Pinch, you are a conjurer;Establish him in his true sense again,And I will please you what you will demand.Luciana. Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks!Courtesan. Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy!Pinch. Give me your hand, and let me feel your pulse.Ant. E. There is my hand, and let it feel your ear.Pinch. I charge thee, Satan, hous’d within this man,

To yield possession to my holy prayers,

And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight:

I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven.”

Pinch further says:

“They must be bound, and laid in some dark room.”

As Brand remarks,83 there is no vulgar story of the devil’s having appeared anywhere without a cloven foot. In graphic representations he is seldom or never pictured without one. In the following passage, where Othello is questioning whether Iago is a devil or not, he says (v. 2):

“I look down towards his feet; – but that’s a fable. —If that thou be’st a devil, I cannot kill thee.”

Dr. Johnson gives this explanation: “I look towards his feet to see if, according to the common opinion, his feet be cloven.”

In Massinger’s “Virgin Martyr” (iii. 3), Harpax, an evil spirit, following Theophilus in the shape of a secretary, speaks thus of the superstitious Christian’s description of his infernal enemy:

“I’ll tell you what now of the devil:He’s no such horrid creature; cloven-footed,Black, saucer-ey’d, his nostrils breathing fire,As these lying Christians make him.”

GOOD AND EVIL DEMONS

It was formerly commonly believed that not only kingdoms had their tutelary guardians, but that every person had his particular genius or good angel, to protect and admonish him by dreams, visions, etc.84 Hence, in “Antony and Cleopatra” (ii. 3), the soothsayer, speaking of Cæsar, says:

“O Antony, stay not by his side:Thy demon, – that’s thy spirit which keeps thee, – isNoble, courageous, high, unmatchable,Where Cæsar’s is not; but, near him, thy angelBecomes a fear, as being o’erpower’d.”

Thus Macbeth (iii. 1) speaks in a similar manner in reference to Banquo:

“There is none but heWhose being I do fear; and, under him,My Genius is rebuked; as, it is said,Mark Antony’s was by Cæsar.”

So, too, in “2 Henry IV.” (i. 2), the Chief-justice says:

“You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel.”

We may quote a further reference in “Julius Cæsar” (iii. 2), where Antony says:

“For Brutus, as you know, was Cæsar’s angel.”

“In the Roman world,” says Mr. Tylor, in his “Primitive Culture” (1873, vol. ii. p. 202), “each man had his ‘genius natalis,’ associated with him from birth to death, influencing his action and his fate, standing represented by its proper image, as a lar among the household gods and at weddings and joyous times, and especially on the anniversary of the birthday when genius and man began their united career, worship was paid with song and dance to the divine image, adorned with garlands, and propitiated with incense and libations of wine. The demon or genius was, as it were, the man’s companion soul, a second spiritual Ego. The Egyptian astrologer warned Antonius to keep far from the young Octavius, ‘For thy demon,’ said he, ‘is in fear of his.’”

The allusion by Lady Macbeth (i. 5), in the following passage, is to the spirits of Revenge:

“Come, you spiritsThat tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-fullOf direst cruelty!”

In Nash’s “Pierce Pennilesse” we find a description of these spirits and of their office. “The second kind of devils which he most employeth are those northern Martii, called the Spirits of Revenge, and the authors of massacres and seed-men of mischief; for they have commission to incense men to rapine, sacrilege, theft, murder, wrath, fury, and all manner of cruelties; and they command certain of the southern spirits to wait upon them, as also great Arioch, that is termed the Spirit of Revenge.” In another passage we are further told how “the spirits of the aire will mixe themselves with thunder and lightning, and so infect the clime where they raise any tempest, that suddenly great mortalitie shall ensue of the inhabitants.” “Aerial spirits or devils,” according to Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy,” “are such as keep quarter most part in the aire, cause many tempests, thunder and lightnings, tear oakes, fire steeples, houses, strike men and beasts,” etc. Thus, in “King John” (iii. 2), the Bastard remarks:

“Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot;Some airy devil hovers in the sky,And pours down mischief.”

It was anciently supposed that all mines of gold, etc., were guarded by evil spirits. Thus Falstaff, in “2 Henry IV.” (iv. 3), speaks of learning as “a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil.” This superstition still prevails, and has been made the subject of many a legend. Thus, it is believed by the peasantry living near Largo-Law, Scotland, that a rich mine of gold is concealed in the mountain. “A spectre once appeared there, supposed to be the guardian of the mine, who, being accosted by a neighboring shepherd, promised to tell him at a certain time and on certain conditions, where ‘the gowd mine is in Largo-Law,’ especially enjoining that the horn sounded for the housing of the cows at the adjoining farm of Balmain should not blow. Every precaution having been taken, the ghost was true to his tryst; but, unhappily, when he was about to divulge the desired secret, Tammie Norrie, the cowherd of Balmain, blew a blast, whereupon the ghost vanished, with the denunciation:

‘Woe to the man that blew the horn,For out of the spot he shall ne’er be borne.’

The unlucky horn-blower was struck dead, and, as it was found impossible to remove the body, a cairn of stones was raised over it.”85

Steevens considers that when Macbeth (iii. 2) says:

“Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse,”

he refers to those demons who were supposed to remain in their several places of confinement all day, but at the close of it were released; such, indeed, as are mentioned in “The Tempest” (v. 1), as rejoicing “to hear the solemn curfew,” because it announced the hour of their freedom.

Among other superstitions we may quote one in the “Merchant of Venice” (iii. 1), where Salanio says: “Let me say ‘amen’ betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer.”

Of the devils mentioned by Shakespeare may be noted the following:

Amaimon is one of the chief, whose dominion is on the north side of the infernal gulf. He might be bound or restrained from doing hurt from the third hour till noon, and from the ninth hour till evening. In the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (ii. 2) Ford mentions this devil, and in “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 4) Falstaff says: “That same mad fellow of the north, Percy; and he of Wales, that gave Amaimon the bastinado, and made Lucifer cuckold.”86

The north was always supposed to be the particular habitation of bad spirits. Milton, therefore, assembles the rebel angels in the north. In “1 Henry VI.” (v. 3), La Pucelle invokes the aid of the spirits:

“Under the lordly monarch of the north.”

Barbason. This demon would seem to be the same as “Marbas, alias Barbas,” who, as Scot87 informs us, “is a great president, and appeareth in the forme of a mightie lion; but at the commandment of a conjurer cometh up in the likeness of man, and answereth fullie as touching anything which is hidden or secret.” In the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (ii. 2) it is mentioned by Ford in connection with Lucifer, and again in “Henry V.” (ii. 1) Nym tells Pistol: “I am not Barbason; you cannot conjure me.”

The names of the several fiends in “King Lear,” Shakespeare is supposed to have derived from Harsnet’s “Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures” (1603).

Flibbertigibbet, one of the fiends that possessed poor Tom, is, we are told (iv. 1), the fiend “of mopping and mowing, who since possesses chambermaids and waiting-women.” And again (iii. 4), “he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives the web and the pin.”

Frateretto is referred to by Edgar (iii. 6): “Frateretto calls me; and tells me, Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness. Pray, innocent, and beware the foul fiend.”

Hobbididance is noticed as “prince of dumbness” (iv. 1), and perhaps is the same as Hopdance (iii. 6), “who cries,” says Edgar, “in Tom’s belly for two white herring.”

Mahu, like Modo, would seem to be another name for “the prince of darkness” (iii. 4), and further on (iv. 1) he is spoken of as the fiend “of stealing;” whereas the latter is described as the fiend “of murder.” Harsnet thus speaks of them: “Maho was general dictator of hell; and yet, for good manners’ sake, he was contented of his good nature to make show, that himself was under the check of Modu, the graund devil in Ma(ister) Maynie.”