Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 12

(iii. 1), where Salanio says: "Let me say 'amen' betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer."

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

_Amaimon_ is one of the chief, whose dominion is on the north side of the infernal gulf. He might be bound or restrained from doing hurt from the third hour till noon, and from the ninth hour till evening. In the "Merry Wives of Windsor" (ii. 2) Ford mentions this devil, and in "1 Henry IV." (ii. 4) Falstaff says: "That same mad fellow of the north, Percy; and he of Wales, that gave Amaimon the bastinado, and made Lucifer cuckold."[87]

[87] See Scot's "Discovery of Witchcraft," 1584, p. 393; Douce's "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakespeare," p. 264.

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

"Under the lordly monarch of the north."

_Barbason._ This demon would seem to be the same as "Marbas, alias Barbas," who, as Scot[88] informs us, "is a great president, and appeareth in the forme of a mightie lion; but at the commandment of a conjurer cometh up in the likeness of man, and answereth fullie as touching anything which is hidden or secret." In the "Merry Wives of Windsor" (ii. 2) it is mentioned by Ford in connection with Lucifer, and again in "Henry V." (ii. 1) Nym tells Pistol: "I am not Barbason; you cannot conjure me."

[88] Ibid. p. 378.

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

_Flibbertigibbet_, one of the fiends that possessed poor Tom, is, we are told (iv. 1), the fiend "of mopping and mowing, who since possesses chambermaids and waiting-women." And again (iii. 4), "he begins at curfew, and walks till the first c.o.c.k; 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 h.e.l.l; and yet, for good manners' sake, he was contented of his good nature to make show, that himself was under the check of Modu, the graund devil in Ma(ister) Maynie."

_Obidicut_, another name of the fiend known as Haberdicut (iv. 1).

_Smulkin_ (iii. 4). This is spelled Smolkin by Harsnet.

Thus, in a masterly manner, Shakespeare has ill.u.s.trated and embellished his plays with references to the demonology of the period; having been careful in every case-while enlivening his audience-to convince them of the utter absurdity of this degraded form of superst.i.tion.

CHAPTER V.

NATURAL PHENOMENA.

Many of the most beautiful and graphic pa.s.sages in Shakespeare's writings have pictured the sun in highly glowing language, and often invested it with that sweet pathos for which the poet was so signally famous. Expressions, for instance, such as the following, are ever frequent: "the glorious sun" ("Twelfth Night," iv. 3); "heaven's glorious sun" ("Love's Labour's Lost," i. 1); "gorgeous as the sun at midsummer" ("1 Henry IV.," iv. 1); "all the world is cheered by the sun"

("Richard III.," i. 2); "the sacred radiance of the sun" ("King Lear,"

i. 1); "sweet tidings of the sun's uprise" ("t.i.tus Andronicus," iii. 1), etc. Then, again, how often we come across pa.s.sages replete with pathos, such as "thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west" ("Richard II.," ii. 4); "ere the weary sun set in the west" ("Comedy of Errors," i. 2); "the weary sun hath made a golden set" ("Richard III.," v. 3); "The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head" ("Romeo and Juliet," v. 3), etc.

Although, however, Shakespeare has made such constant mention of the sun, yet his allusions to the folk-lore connected with it are somewhat scanty.

According to the old philosophy the sun was accounted a planet,[89] and thought to be whirled round the earth by the motion of a solid sphere, in which it was fixed. In "Antony and Cleopatra" (iv. 13), Cleopatra exclaims:

"O sun, Burn the great sphere thou mov'st in! darkling stand The varying sh.o.r.e o' the world."

[89] Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. x. p. 292.

Supposing this sphere consumed, the sun must wander in endless s.p.a.ce, and, as a natural consequence, the earth be involved in endless night.

In "1 Henry IV." (i. 2), Falstaff, according to vulgar astronomy, calls the sun a "wandering knight," and by this expression evidently alludes to some knight of romance. Mr. Douce[90] considered the allusion was to "The Voyage of the Wandering Knight," by Jean de Cathenay, of which the translation, by W. Goodyeare, appeared about the year 1600. The words may be a portion of some forgotten ballad.

[90] "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakespeare," 1839, pp. 255, 256.

A pretty fancy is referred to in "Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 5), where Capulet says:

"When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew; But for the sunset of my brother's son It rains downright."

And so, too, in the "Rape of Lucrece:"

"But as the earth doth weep, the sun being set."

"That Shakespeare thought it was the air," says Singer,[91] "and not the earth, that drizzled dew, is evident from many pa.s.sages in his works.

Thus, in 'King John' (ii. 1) he says: 'Before the dew of evening fall.'"

Steevens, alluding to the following pa.s.sage in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (iii. 1), "and when she [_i. e._, the moon] weeps, weeps every little flower," says that Shakespeare "means that every little flower is moistened with dew, as if with tears; and not that the flower itself drizzles dew."

[91] Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. viii. p. 208.

By a popular fancy, the sun was formerly said to dance at its rising on Easter morning-to which there may be an allusion in "Romeo and Juliet"

(iii. 5), where Romeo, addressing Juliet, says:

"look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east; Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops."

We may also compare the expression in "Coriola.n.u.s" (v. 4):

"The trumpets, sackbuts, psalteries, and fifes, Tabors, and cymbals, and the shouting Romans, Make the sun dance."

Mr. Knight remarks, there was "something exquisitely beautiful in the old custom of going forth into the fields before the sun had risen on Easter Day, to see him mounting over the hills with tremulous motion, as if it were an animate thing, bounding in sympathy with the redeemed of mankind."[92]

[92] See Knight's "Life of Shakespeare," 1843, p. 63.

A cloudy rising of the sun has generally been regarded as ominous-a superst.i.tion equally prevalent on the Continent as in this country. In "Richard III." (v. 3), King Richard asks:

"Who saw the sun to-day?

_Ratcliff._ Not I, my lord.

_K. Richard._ Then he disdains to s.h.i.+ne; for, by the book He should have braved the east an hour ago: A black day will it be to somebody."

"The learned Moresin, in his 'Papatus,'" says Brand,[93] "reckons among omens the cloudy rising of the sun." Vergil, too, in his first Georgic (441-449), considers it a sign of stormy weather:[94]

"Ille ubi nascentem maculis variaverit ortum Conditus in nubem, medioque refugerit orbe, Suspecti tibi sint imbres; namque urget ab alto Arboribusque satisque Notus pecorique sinister, Aut ubi sub lucem densa inter nubila sese Diversi rumpent radii, aut ubi pallida surget, t.i.thoni croceum linquens Aurora cubile, Heu, male tum mitis defendet pampinus uvas: Tam multa in tectis crepitans salit horrida grando."

[93] "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 241.

[94] See Swainson's "Weather-Lore," 1873, p. 176, for popular adages on the Continent.