THE OCCULT AS A DRAMATIC DEVICE IN

SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY

APPROVED:

Major Professor

IJL1 Minor Professor

£ S - vu Director of epartment of English

/ Dean of the Graduate School

THE OCCULT AS A DRAMATIC DEVICE IN

SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY

THESIS

Presented, to the Graduate Council of the

North Texas State University in Partial

Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

By

Myrtle Seldon Gray, B. A.

Denton, Texas

August, 1967

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page

I. INTRODUCTION AND CLASSICAL BACKGROUND . . 1

II. THE OCCULT TRADITION IN ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 16

III. GHOSTLY VISITATIONS 3^

IV. THE WEIRD SISTERS 60

V. CONCLUSION 83

BIBLIOGRAPHY 92

iii

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION AND CLASSICAL BACKGROUND

Supernatural manifestations commonly occur in literary

history; moreover, they are a commonplace of tragedy. Such

manifestations have since ancient times had a strange and

alluring appeal to human curiosity. Occult phenomena hold a

fascination for mankind too widespread and too far-reaching

to need documentation here. It is not surprising in a

literary genre as ancient and elemental as drama that occult

phenomena should have had a prominent place. In almost

every age when drama flourishes, supernatural manifestations

are present on the stage. The original motivation for the

use of occult phenomena on the stage is lost in the develop-

ment of mankind's cultural history. What is important to

note at this point is that as far back as Greek drama, play-

wrights made considerable use of occult phenomena, not only

for special effects somewhat external to the drama, but in

many cases as an integral part of the structure and thematic

fabric of the play.

It is one of the commonplaces of scholarship ttigt

things occult were prominent on the Elizabethan stage, aiil,

that of all the Elizabethan playwrights Shakespeare was

most adept at employing various kinds of occult devices.

Shakespeare's use of such phenomena has been widely docu-

mented, and it is not the purpose of this thesis to tread

old ground or to belabor the obvious. What this study will

demonstrate is that Shakespeare's use of occult manifesta-

tions is not as superficial as it is sometimes said to be.

On the contrary, it is the contention of this study that,

especially in certain of the major tragedies, occult phenom-

ena are integral to the main action, provide the play with

essential motivation, and, in fact, are indispensable to a

proper resolution. At their best, these occult manifesta-

tions in Shakespeare's tragedies become devices that give

form to the play and become part of established stage tech-

niques and patterns.

A study of this kind must, of necessity, take into ac-

count manifestations of the occult in tragic drama that are

antecedent to Shakespeare. It will, however, in no way be

an attempt to trace the historical use of the occult since

Greek times, nor will it document specific influences from

the classical past. Nonetheless, Shakespeare did not work

in a vacuum. Stage techniques and dramaturgical influences

were well established by the time he appeared on the histor-

ical scene, and it is inevitable that he would work within

the framework of a continuing tradition, even though in the

end he might modify or depart from the tradition. Chapter I

of this thesis examines classical drama in order to gain an

insight into the early uses of occult manifestations and to

learn what implications they had for later dramatists.

Chapter II explores several Renaissance plays that were di-

rectly or indirectly influenced by the classical tragedies

and which set certain precedents. Chapter III deals with

the ghosts in Shakespeare's major tragedies and shows that

although the ghosts were not an innovation of Shakespeare,

it was Shakespeare who developed the ghost as a genuine dra-

matic device. Chapter IV gives a brief history of witch-

craft as a setting and then discusses in detail Shakespeare's

use of the Weird Sisters as a dramatic device.

In order to discuss the use of the occult phenomena as

a dramatic device, it is necessary to include concrete defi-

nitions of the terms used throughout the paper. The term

occult phenomena is used synonymously with supernaturalism,

preternaturalism, and occultism. The term dramatic device

is used to mean an indispensable element and an integral

part of the drama that motivates the plot and makes the

drama coherent. The dramatic device can be more clearly

distinguished when it is compared with the mechanical and

decorative devices used in classical and early Renaissance

tragedies that deal with supernaturalism. The mechanical

device in its most effective use may motivate the plot, but

it is not indispensable to the plot. An example of a super-

natural character used as a mechanical device is Seneca's

Juno in Hercules Furens. At the beginning of the drama Juno,

the wife and sister of Jupiter, is angry because Jupiter

favors his mortal loves. She calls upon the furies and

other spirits to make Hercules, Jupiter's favorite son, go

1

insane and slay his family. Juno's appearance in the pro-

logue motivates the plot in Act IV: Hercules goes mad,

slays his family, but in Act V, returns to his senses. Juno

has served only as a mechanical device to set the play in

motion. Her part in the play could easily be dispensed with

without weakening the fabric of the drama.

In Sophocles' Oedipus Rex the Delphic oracle is an oc-

cult phenomenon. The oracle warns Laius and Jocasta, the

King and Queen of Thebes, that a son would be born to them

who would kill his father and marry his mother. A son was

born, and in order to avert the tragedy the child is given

to a shepherd to be killed. The shepherd first pierced the

child's feet, but being unable to carry through the murder,

he gave it to another shepherd. The child was subsequently

adopted by Polybus and Merope, King and Queen of Corinth,

who named him Oedipus, which meant swollen-foot. When

Oedipus reached manhood, he learned from the oracle that he

was fated to kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus

was never told of his adoption, and, as a consequence, be-

lieving Polybus and Merope to be his real parents, he left

Corinth determined to avoid his horrible fate. On his way

to Thebes he meets a stranger with whom he quarrels and

Thomas Newton, Seneca and His Tenne Tragedies (Bloomington, i960), pp. 9-12.

afterwards slays. Continuing to Thebes, Oedipus meets the

Sphinx and answers her riddle, whereupon she kills herself,

and Oedipus becomes the savior of Thebes. Shortly after the

news of Laius' death, Oedipus marries Jocasta, Laius' wife,

and is proclaimed King of Thebes. After many years and the

births of four children Oedipus learns that the man he slew

at the place.where three roads meet was Laius. Realizing

now that the Delphic oracle concerning his fate had been

fulfilled, Oedipus rushes to Jocasta for the purpose of

killing her. Finding her already dead by suicide, he takes

2

the brooches from her robe and blinds himself. The oracle

provides the antecedent action to the play, provides the

initial motivation for the play and is brought in during the

development of the play. The oracle is indispensable to the

play and serves as a genuine dramatic device.

The decorative device does not motivate the plot, as

the mechanical device might do, nor is it an integral part

of the structure of the drama. An example of the decorative

device is found in Euripides1 The Troades. The play opens

with Neptune and Minerva serving as prologue gods. They

discuss the fall of Troy, a favorite city of Neptune, and

the fact that Minerva's altar has been insulted.-^ Because of

2 Meyer Reinhold, editor, Classical Drama (New York,

1959), PP. 51-55. 3 ^Theodore A. Buckley, translator, The Tragedies of

Euripides (New York, 1877), pp. ^3-^5.

these things they wish to make the Greeks' journey homeward

as difficult as possible. After the prologue, the business

of the play is concerned with the sufferings of the women of

Troy. The wrath of the gods toward the Greeks is not in-

corporated into the dramatic action of the play. The role

of the gods in this play is not structurally necessary; they

have no intrinsic value; they simply decorate the drama.

Comparing the mechanical device with the decorative device,

it is apparent that the former is more important to the

drama. The mechanical device, even when it is represented

by sliding walls, trap doors, and sudden appearances of gods

or devils, is more functional than the decorative device.

C. E. Whitmore says that the influence on the characters is

k

the sole criterion of the intrinsic supernatural. A ghost

for example may have many appearances in the drama and still

not affect the progress of the action. On the other hand it

may have a few appearances and yet dominate the action from

beginning to end. When this is the case, the author has

created a dramatic device.

The large body of occultism to be found in tragic drama

from Greco-Roman times until the present day is sufficient

to attest to the fact that mankind has been preoccupied with

an acute interest in the supernatural. The appearance of

supernaturalism in Greek drama was an outgrowth of religion. JLL C. E. Whitmore, Supernatural in Tragedy (London, 1915)t

p. 11.

In fact, Greek drama had its origins in Greek religion, and

certain supernatural elements of Greek drama were probably

inevitable from the beginning. The Greeks believed that

their gods made their wills known through soothsayers,

dreams, and oracles. Their great tragedians made frequent

use of these elements in their dramas. When one thinks of

Greek drama the names of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides

immediately come to mind. These writers, then, will repre-

sent, in this part of the study, the Greek contribution to

the use of the occult as a dramatic device. The purpose of

this investigation will be to determine in brief how the

classical dramatists employed the occult as a dramatic de-

vice .

Aeschylus is from the very beginning, by dint of being

Greek, concerned with the supernatural world. The earliest

of his extant plays, The Suppliants, deals with Zeus, the

chief of the Olympian gods. The play concerns the right and

obligation of sanctuary even at the risk of war.-' Danaus

and his fifty daughters flee from Egypt to Argos to avoid

marriage to the fifty sons of Danaus' brother. Pleasgus,

the King of Argos, knowing the wrath of Zeus if he refused

sanctuary to the suppliants, finally agrees to let them

stay. The fifty sons and their father, Aegyptus, follow the

suppliants to Argos, or Argolis as it is also called, and

^Buckner B. Trawick, editor, World Literature (New York, 1955), I, 63.

8

insist upon the marriages. Each daughter was instructed by

her father to carry a dagger and murder her husband on their

wedding night. Forty-nine obey the order, the other spares

her husband's life. There are several myths about the fate

of the daughters who murdered their husbands. Some say that

Danaus found suitors so scarce after this that he was com-

pelled to give them to the contestants in a race. Others

say that Lynceus, the brother who was spared, killed them

all to avenge his brothers. Zeus, the only supernatural

element in the play, is used superficially as an avenging

spirit; thus in Aeschylus' first attempt in using the super-

natural he achieves only a decorative device. In__the next

play, however, he creates the idea for two dramatic de-

vices-- the prophetic_dream and the ghost. In The Persians,

whose theme is the humiliation of the Persians after their

defeat at Salamis, Atossa has an ominous dream and seeks the

Chorus for advice. The Chorus sings an incantation to call

up the shade of Darius. The ghost hears and rises out of

its tomb. Darius, who, according to the general rule for

ghosts, knows nothing of contemporary happenings in the

world of the living, thinks of the situation in terms of his

own day, when no risky expeditions were undertaken. His

first idea, therefore, is that some internal disaster has

taken place. When he hears of the expedition led by his son

Jessie M. Tatlock, Greek and Roman Mythology (New York, 1917). PP. 199-200.

7

Xerxes against Greece he at once condemns it as folly. He

confirms the fulfillment of the prophecy that the anger of

Zeus will strike his son. The ghost in The Persians proved

so successful that it was used in other of Aeschylus' plays.

Whitmore believes that the chief interest of The Persians

lies in the fact that it is the first known play in European

literature to "bring the supernatural into even external con-8

nection with the action. The plays of Aeschylus do not

contain occult devices that fit the definitions set forth in

this thesis. But Aeschylus must be given credit for being

the innovator of the idea of the prophetic dream, the ghost,

and the gift of prophecy. Proof of the value of the use of

prophecy when it is developed into a dramatic device lies in

Sophocles' masterful use of this device in his Oedipus Rex,

as indicated earlier in this chapter.

The second epoch for consideration of occult phenomena

in tragedy is the Roman period, and Roman tragedy is synony-

mous, in the modern mind at least, with Senecan tragedy.

Seneca's tragedies are adaptations from Greek tragedies, yet

his handling of the material is different enough in many

respects to be accurately titled "Senecan tragedy." A com-

parison of Greek tragedies with Senecan adaptations will

show the use of occult phenomena that Seneca accepted, 7 'H. J. Rose, A Commentary on the Surviving Plays of

Aeschylus (New York, 1957)» pT 1^1. ®Whitmore, p. 25.

10

rejected, or modified. It will also show what additions, if

any, Seneca made to the occult phenomena as dramatic de-

vices. In Medea by Euripides, Medea is a sorceress who has

helped her lover Jason complete a dangerous mission. She

slays her brother in order that she and Jason might escape

to Corinth for sanctuary. Later she causes the death of

Jason's uncle. Medea and Jason live in Corinth for ten

years and have two sons. When the King of Corinth promises

to further Jason's ambition by offering his daughter in

marriage to Jason, Jason consents to the marriage. When

Medea learns of the marriage she is furious and threatens

vengeance or suicide. Her ultimate plan is to use her

powers as a sorceress and kill Jason's wife and. all who

touch her. In addition she will kill her own sons, whom

Jason loves so well, in an attempt to make him regret his

leaving her. After the murder of the king and his daughter

is accomplished and the children return to Medea, she learns

that the people of Corinth and Jason are now ready to take

vengeance upon her. She rushes inside the house and slays

her sons. Just as Jason enters she appears above the house

in a kind of deus ex machina, a chariot drawn by dragons,

with the bodies of her slain children and flies off to

Athens for sanctuary.

In Seneca's adaptation of this play the powers of Medea

as a sorceress are made more prominent. The idea of witch-

craft is developed to the point of describing the ingredients

11

of her magic potion that will kill Creusa and Creon. The

murder of her sons is vicious. She slays the children in

full view of the audience. One son is slain before Jason

arrives and the other after Jason has had a chance to plead

for his life. Medea and the bodies of her children are

carried off to Athens in a chariot drawn by dragons.

Euripides' version of the play makes Medea a pathetic char-

acter showing her to be the wronged wife and a mother who is

torn between love for her children and hate for her husband

who has deserted her. Seneca's version shows Jason to be

the pathetic character and Medea to be a cold-blooded crimi-

nal. The deus ex machina in Euripides' Medea remains un-

changed in Seneca's adaptation of the play. Although the

powers of witchcraft are elaborated in Seneca's version the

elaboration is not sufficient enough to create a dramatic

device. Medea's supernatural powers are used to cause the

tragic act of murder and to provide an escape for her at the

end of the play. As such, her supernatural powers can only

be called mechanical.

Ghosts appear on stage in three of Seneca's dramas, and

they are described in three others. The ghosts in Agamemnon

and Thyestes are prologue ghosts. In Octavia the ghost ap-

pears in the middle of the play. The ghost of Laius in

Oedipus and the ghosts of Achilles and Hector in The Troades

are described by other characters but do not appear on stage.

The ghost of Hector appears to his wife, Andromache, in

12

a dream. In Agamemnon "by Aeschylus, the prologue is de-

livered by a watchman. In Seneca's version of this same play

the prologue is delivered by the ghost of Thyestes. Seneca's

handling of the prologue is more effective, for Thyestes has

more of an interest in the action. He is the father of

Aegisthus by an incestuous relationship with his daughter.

The ghost of Tantalus in Thyestes is accompanied by a Furie.

The Fury begins to enumerate the crimes that will be com-

mitted by Tantalus' descendants and urges Tantalus to put a

curse on the house of Pelops. The ghost of Agrippina in

Octavia seeks revenge for her own death. The ghost of Laius

in Oedipus seems to be a throw-back to the incantation to the

ghost of Darius in The Persians by Aeschylus. But Seneca's

description of the incantation and the appearance of the ghost

is more elaborate than that of Aeschylus. The ghost of Darius

rises without ceremony and simply foretells the anger of Zeus.

The ghost of Laius names Oedipus as his murderer and the de-

filer of Jocasta's bed. In the original play of The Troades

by Euripides as in Seneca's version of this same play, the

ghost of Achilles does not appear on stage, but the Senecan

description of the ghost as reported by Talthybius is far

more melodramatic than Euripides' description. According to

Clarence W. Mendell, the key to understanding Seneca's

use of the supernatural is understanding Seneca's flair for

13

9

the melodramatic. Seneca's ghosts are used to warn loved-

ones of impending danger. They demand recognition. They

may be the personification of wickedness. As in Greek

tragedy, they may demand revenge. None of Seneca's plays is

without supernatural elements, but none has the religious

overtones that were present in Greek tragedy. Seneca's use

of the supernatural is always melodramatic, theatrical,

showy, a rather extraneous adornment except when it is used 10

to manage the plot quickly and easily. His dreams,

oracles, curses, and magic are usually legitimate dramatic

devices when they help to motivate the plot and give co-

herence to the drama. The Greeks used the occult for

religious purposes. Seneca rejects any religious connection

with the gods and uses them to decorate the drama or for

sensationalism. Greek murders were always committed off-

stage. Seneca has his murders committed in full view of the

audience in order to show that his characters want not only

revenge, but bloody revenge. The Greeks used supernatural

forces to guide human experiences. Seneca uses them to

produce horror, violence, and gruesome scenes.

By the time of the demise of the Roman theater, occult

phenomena of many types had become traditional in tragedy.

In their earliest manifestation the occult phenomena were

^Clarence W. Mendell, Our Seneca (New Haven, 19^1)» p. 14-2.

1QIbid.. p. 1^7.

14

religiously oriented. In The Suppliants the fifty maidens

pray to Zeus, the only supernatural element in the play, for

divine intervention to keep them from having to marry their

fifty cousins. The Persians contains the first supernatural

interference in Greek tragedy. Attosa by a simple prayer

succeeds in calling forth the shade of her husband, Darius,

who makes a prediction that Zeus will punish his son Xerxes

for his excessive pride. In Agamemnon Cassandra the proph-

etess foretells the murder of Agamemnon, but she does not

instigate it nor can she prevent it. Sophocles underplays

the use of prayer for divine intervention and emphasizes the

use of the oracles. In Oedipus Rex he succeeds in creating

a dramatic device of the Delphic oracle wherein the entire

play is contingent upon the prophecy of the oracle.

Euripides was unorthodox from the dramatic as well as the

religious standpoints. His plays reflect his increasing

rejection of the gods as motivators of human affairs. The

gods in his plays are regularly placed in the prologue and

have no direct connection with the action of the play. For

example, Neptune and Minerva, two prologue gods, have no real

effect upon the action of The Troades. Seneca's primary

model for his adaptations of the Greek plays was Euripides.

In Seneca's handling of the supernatural he rejects all

religious motive of the gods. The one divinity used in

Senecan dramas, Juno in Hercules Furens based on Euripides'

play by the same title, serves as a mechanical device to

15

cause Hercules to go insane and. slay his family. In addi-

tion she sets the atmosphere of gloom that Seneca thought

was indispensable to tragedy. Seneca adds ghosts to plays

that did not have them; he gives more forceful roles to

specters he accepts; he increases the importance of the

sorcerers and the soothsayers; he emphasizes the powers of

witchcraft, and. he is overly concerned with violence and

blood-revenge. Seneca is best remembered, and imitated for

his revenge ghost. When classical drama was re-discovered

in the Renaissance, for better or for worse, it was the

Roman models that were most influential. It is only to be

expected that occult and supernatural phenomena, which had

loomed so large in the Greek and Roman tragedies, should

make their way into classically oriented Renaissance tragedy.

CHAPTER II

THE OCCULT TRADITION IN ELIZABETHAN DRAMA

About fourteen centuries elapsed between the classical

use of the occult phenomena to its revival in Renaissance

England. Before the revival of tragedy, however, England

had other kinds of dramas. Early English drama, like Greek

and Roman, began in the Church. Just as with its Greek

counterparts there began an increasing secularization of

English drama, especially as it was taken over by secular 1

organizations. The very terms attached to these plays-

miracle, mystery—indicate their concern with the super-

natural. Although many of the later miracle plays and the

morality plays virtually became comedies, the deeply

religious Englishmen were still moved by the pictorial and

musical presentation of the scenes which illustrated beliefs

fundamental to their lives—the reality of hell, the punish-

ment of sin, and the need for repentence. ¥. T. H. Jackson

says the justification for dramatic presentation, so far as

the Church was concerned, lay in the fact that it intensified 2

such beliefs in a way that a mere sermon could not.

1 Phillip Marsh, English Literature, A Concise History

(Austin, 1951)» P« 17. 2 W. T. H. Jackson, The Literature of the Middle Ages

(New York, 1962), p. 320.

16

17

The decline of the religious drama was simultaneous with the

revival of classical drama in Renaissance England.

The dramatists of the Renaissance have sometimes been

called mundane, but the term is misused if it is taken to

mean that the playwrights were concerned only with worldly

things. It is true that the Renaissance dramatists preferred

classical models to the native religious drama. They also

contributed to the increasing secularization of the drama.

Nonetheless, there was an evident preoccupation with the

supernatural both in life and on the Elizabethan stage. The

English playwrights capitalized on the native superstitions

and beliefs in the occult by weaving these ideas into their

plays; moreover, they emphasized these elements with the

blood-thirsty elements of Senecan tragedy, which had become

readily available in translation around the middle of the

sixteenth century. As Italy was the center of the Renaissance

movement, scholars from all countries flocked there. H. C.

Schweikert says that the eager study of the old things so

stimulated mental activity that new ideas or broadened

3

literary ideals were bound to result. He notes that the

scholars returned to their homes not only with the direct

results of their studies but also as missionaries eager to

impart the new learning. The colleges and universities of

- H. C. Schweikert, editor, Early English Plays (New York, 1877), PP. 38-39.

Ibid., p. 39.

18

the various countries not only accepted, the learning of the

scholars, they also went back to the original classics.

The so-called "University Wits" of England accepted Seneca

as their model for classical drama. At the beginning of the

Senecan revival his plays were still being produced in Latin

at the universities. Around 1559« when the plays were

translated into English, they readily found many imitators.

The earliest English tragedy in the Senecan style is

Gorboduc. by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville. In fact,

Gorboduc is identical in plot to Seneca's Thebalis. Although

Gorboduc has no overt supernatural element, the dumb show—a

pantomime which showed the audience what action would follow—

has at the beginning of Act IV a suggestion of the occult:

There came forth from under the stage, as though out of hell three Furies, Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, clad in black garments sprinkled with blood and flames, their bodies girt with snakes, their heads spread with serpents instead of hair, the one bearing in her hand a snake, the other a whip, and the third a burning fire-brand, each driving before them a king and a queen; which, moved by Furies unnaturally had slain their own children. The names of the kings and queens were these, Tantalus, Medea, Athamas, Ino, Cambyses, Althea. After that the Furies and these had passed about the stage thrice, they departed, and then the music ceased. Here-by was signified the unnatural murders to follow; that is to say, Porrex slain by his own mother, and of king Gorboduc and queen Videna, killed by their own subjects.^

It is a logical assumption that Tantalus, Medea, and the

others were ghosts. The authors of Gorboduc followed the

Senecan pattern of revenge tragedies by having the ghost

^Schweikert, p. 275-

1 9

appear with garments "sprinkled with blood." The word blood

o r bloody is a stock word in Senecan tragedy. It is used

frequently in Gorboduc. In Act IV immediately after the

dumb show which lets the audience know that children in this

family will be slain by their own parents, Videna laments

the murder of her favorite son Ferrex by his brother Porrex;

now she plots to kill Porrex:

Thou, Porrex, thou this damned deed hast wroght! Thou, Porrex, thou shalt dearly bye the same. • • * • • • • • • « # • • * • • • • • • • • • • #

And here in earth this hand shall take revenge On thee, Porrex, thou false and caitiff wight. If after blood so eager were thy thirst, And murderous mind had so possessed thee, If such hard heart of rock and stony flint Lived in thy breast, that nothing else could like 1

Thy cruel tyrant's thought but death and blood, Wild savage beasts, might not their slaughter serve To feed thy greedy will, and in the midst Of their entrails to stain thy deadly hands g With blood deserved, and drink thereof thy fill?

As the ghost in the dumb show predicts, Videna slays Porrex.

The authors of Gorboduc unlike Seneca have the murders take

place off-stage. Another departure from the Senecan style

is having the dumb show precede the acts to explain their

significance. Seneca, on the other hand, used the chorus to

7

review events and to anticipate the catastrophe. A third

departure from Seneca is that in Gorboduc the Furies take

revenge upon the ghost of parents who murder their children.

6Ibid., pp. 276-277.

7 'J. W. Cunliffe, "Italian Prototypes of the Masque and

Dumb Show," PMLA. XXII (March-December, 1907), 155.

20

The use of the occult in Gorboduc is minor, but crudely

effective. It signals the advent of a more mature handling

of the occult in English Renaissance tragedy.

A later play with Senecan earmarks is Kyd's The Spanish

Tragedy. This play is a real drama of revenge. The play

opens with the ghost-of Andrea and Revenge-.serving, as the

Chorus. Andrea reveals that he was slain and thereby

separated from his love Bel-imperia. Balthasar, slayer of

Andrea and a captive at the Spanish court, falls in love

with Bel-imperia. She spurns his love in favor of Horatio,

who she believes will help her revenge Andrea's death.

Lorenzo, Bel-imperia's brother, is in favor of Balthasar's

suit and is willing, at all costs, to help him win his

sister's love. In order to get rid of Horatio as a rival,

Lorenzo and Balthasar hang him to a tree and murder him.

Bel-imperia rushes to Hieronimo, Horatio's father, to tell

him of the dreadful deed. Hieronimo dedicates his life to

revenge. The action of the play is conceived by Revenge who

predicts to Andrea the deaths of his enemies, and they both

sit back to watch the action. At the end of the play the

ghost of Andrea summarizes all that has happened:

Horatio murdered in his Fathers bower; Wilde Serberine by Pedringano slaine; False Pedringano hangd by quaint deuice; Faire Isabella by her selfe misdone; Prince Balthasar by Bel-imperia stabd; The Duke of Castile and his wicked Sonne Both done to death by olde Hieronimo;

21

My Bel-imperia falne as Dido fell, g And good Hieronimo slaine by himselfe.

All of the major characters are dead at the end of the play.

All of them met a violent death. The ghost of Andrea is

pleased at the turn of events and tells Revenge that he

would like to be the judge and doom his enemies to unrest

in Hades; the worst punishment of course will be given to

Balthasar and Pedringano.

The Senecan technique of handlings the revenge ghost has

changed considerably in the hands of Kyd. TJie actions of

the ghost are less restricted, and it ffl.QXe. appearances

than do Seneca's ghosts. Unlike_ £he

ghost of Andrea has many human qualities. It is lacking in

the awesome grandeur of the Senecan ghost. For example,

when Hieronimo learns that Lorenzo and Balthasar are the

murderers of his son and pretends friendship with them, the

ghost mistakenly thinks that Hieronimo has formed an alliance

with his enemies and tries to wake Revenge so that Revenge

might set things straight again. In spite of its human

qualities, the ghost of Andrea is clearly a revenge ghost.

He is satisfied with the mass murders that occur and his last

speech shows that he wants to continue his revenge in Hades.

The ghost is combined with the personification of Revenge to

cast a loose framework about the play and to provide some of

O Frederick S. Boas, editor, The Works of Thomas Kyd

(Oxford, 1962), p. 98.

22

the motivation. Bel-imperia cannot live or love unless

Andrea's death is revenged. After the death of Horatio,

Hieronimo lives only for revenge. Kyd's use of the ghost

is a dramatic device that approaches the skill of Shake-

speare's use. In the end, however, the supernatural

scaffolding of The Spanish Tragedy may "be omitted without

seriously altering the play.

Kyd's play is both an example and a harbinger. By the

middle of the last decade of the sixteenth century English

Renaissance plays contain abundant examples of the occult

and supernatural. Some of these examples occur in comedy

and fall outside the province of this thesis. Among the

writers of tragedy those who belong to or are on the pe-

riphery of the University Wits are of major importance. Kyd

has already been cited. Marlowe, who set the tone for so

much of Elizabethan tragedy, deserves more extended comment.

Doctor Faustus, considered one of the world's most

exotic dramas, was largely an invention of the Renaissance.

To the boastful charlatan, once he had died, his younger

g

colleagues attributed almost every known act of necromancy.

The people of the Renaissance were eager to believe the oc-

cult phenomena presented in the mysterious, magical acts of

Faustus. Marlowe rejected much of what was considered

extravagant in the original legend of the Faustbuch, but

^Robert R. Reed, The Occult on the Tudor Stage (Boston, 1965), P. 89.

23

knowing the temperament of his times, he kept what he knew

would be plausible to his audience. Although thj. afeeX.ial-

ization of demons is a notion completely alien to twentieth-

century audiences, it was a part of the everyday belief of

Elizabethans.. In fact it would have been a. contradiction

of religious doctrine in the sixteenth century not to be-

lieve in demonic possession.

Robert R. Reed believes that the most remarkable aspect

of Marlowe's tragedy is the masterful blend of the two op-

posed supernatural doctrines that center upon Faustus—

namely the Good Angel and the Evil Angel who contend for

10

Faustus' soul. To the Elizabethans the two angels probably

represented man's divine and diabolic impulses respectively,

and they have close parallels in the old morality plays. Ac-

cording to Reed, "Mephistophilis" is a secular and not a

religious product. He is summoned to earth by a sixteenth-

century conjuror in the worldly fashion, that is, in response 11

to the making of both a circle and a formal invocation.

Making a compact with the Devil was the deadliest of sins to

the Elizabethans. Still, because of his practical jokes,_ it

is difficult to think of Faustus as an evil man.

In some respects a critical study of Faustus can be a

fruitless job because of the general agreement of scholars 10Ibid.. p. 92.

11 Ibid.

2^

that no satisfactory text of the play has come down to us.

But it is relatively easy to illustrate Marlowe's use of the

occult as a dramatic device. At the beginning of the play

Faust decides that necromancy is the only study that will

give full scope to his ambition. He has been reading the

Bible, which he throws aside and picks up a book on necromancy,

Faust: These metaphysics of magicians And necromantic books are heavenly; Lines, circles, scenes, letters, and char-acters; Ay, these are those that Faustus .most desires.^

Faustus immediately calls for two of his friends, Valdes and

Cornelius, and soon learns that they are also dabblers in

witchcraft. Cornelius confesses that he has conjured the

spirits and that they have obeyed and have come:

Corn: The spirits tell me they can dry the sea, And fetch the treasure of all foreign wracks, Yea, all the wealth that our forefathers hid Within the massy entrails of the earth . . . . 3

But it is clear that Cornelius and. Valdes have not made use

of this newly found, power. Obviously they are fearful of

running the risk of everlasting damnation for meddling in

the affairs of the occult, but they are more than eager to

help Faustus learn the art. And Faustus is eager to learn.

Valdes: Then haste thee to some solitary grove, And bear wise Bacon's and Albanus' works, The Hebrew Psalter, and New Testament;

12 E. H. C. Oliphant, editor, Shakespeare and His Fellow

Dramatists (New York, 1929). p. 158. 13Ibid., p. 160.

25

And whatsoever else is requisite We will inform thee ere our conference cease . . , . ^

After assuring Faustus that he will be greater than they are,

his two friends, having served their dramatic purpose—that

of luring Faustus into the hands of Mephistophilis—disappear

from the play.

Faustus is alone when he conjures the spirits.

Faust: Faustus, begin thine incantations, And try if devils will obey thy hest Seeing thou hast prayed and sacrificed to them. Within this circle is Jehovah's name, Forward and backward anagrammatized, The breviated names of holy saints, Figures of every adjunct to the Heavens, And characters of signs and erring stars, By which the spirits are enforced to rise: Then fear not, Faustus, but be resolute,

And try the uttermost magic can perform.^5

Mephistophilis appears before him, but Faustus sends him

•away because "Thou art too ugly to attend on me." Mephis-

tophilis appears the second time dressed as a Franciscan

Friar.

Faustus first had the noble thought of using his powers

in the service of his country. But once he had made a pact

with the Devil, his lofty ideas about humanity disappear

and he does the Devil's work. Faustus seems to realize his

own weaknesses for he declares, "The god thou serv'st is

thine own appetite . . . ." The question of whether Faustus'

1 if. 1 Ibid.

15Ibid.', p. 161.

26

soul can be .saved by repentance is never given a definite

answer. At the closing of the twenty-four-year term Paustus

declares:

Faust: But Faustus' offences can ne'er be pardoned: the serpent that tempted Eve may be saved, but not Faustus.

Marlowe's use of magic and the evil spirit, Mephistophilis,

represent the supernatural and the occult phenomena in

Doctor Faustus. It_ is principally the supernatural character

Mephistophilis who represents a genuine dramatic device.

Faustus becomes the animated puppet of Mephistophilis without

whom there would be no supernaturalism, and indeed, no play.

The tricksy feats of magic in the play that have rightly

offended so many readers and playgoers not only mar the

dramaturgical aspects of the play, but they are decorative

and mechanical aspects of the supernatural. Most of these

episodes are not integral to the main action and could be

omitted without loss. In other words, Mephistophilis is a

vital and indispensable dramatic device. The tricks are not.

In The Jew of Malta Marlowe uses neither witchcraft,

nor sorcerer, nor ghost, but with masterful handling of

theatrical effects he creates an eerie atmosphere of blood-

revenge. The action of the play, the characters, and the

stage techniques are so intertwined that it is an impossible

job to try to separate one from the others. The time of the

l6Ibid.. p. 179.

27

action is immediately after the war between the men of Malta

and the Turks in which the Turks are victorious, and they

demand of the Govenor of Malta the ten years' tribute that

was due them. Ferneze, the govenor of Malta, answers that

he needs time to collect the money, whereupon he sends for

Barabas and other Jews. Barabas is a very wealthy man and a

very miserly and cunning man; but even though he feigns

stupidity and poverty, his property is confiscated by the

Govenor of Malta. Although Barabas has hidden sacks of gold

and jewels in his house in the event that something like

this should happen, he swears to take revenge on all Chris-

tians for the loss of part of his fortune. The plot then

takes a direction that is both intricate and melodramatic

and it does not need to be recounted here. It is useful to

this study primarily in a negative way. It is evident in

all of Marlowe's plays that he rejects the Senecan revenge-

ghost. In fact, he does not use a ghost at all. In The Jew

of Malta, however, he creates one scene that gives a ghostly

feeling. There is an eerie atmosphere in the scene where

Barabas is an intruder in his former home--now a nunnery—

where he awaits his daughter's arrival with his bags of

jewels and gold.

Now I remember those old women's words, Who in my wealth would tell me winter's tales, And speak of spirits and ghosts that glide by night About the place where treasure hath been hid: And now methinks that I am one of those:

28

For whilst I live, here lives my soul's sole hope, And when I die, here shall my spirit walk.1?

J. B. Steane in his critical study of Christopher Marlowe

says one has to search hard to find any comparable virtues

in the world dramatized in The Jew of Malta. "The little,

congested room of Malta is in fact presided over by Riches,

the dumb god who creates men after his own image, hard,

sparkling and fiery like the jewels they possess or are 1 R

possessed by.11 Barabas, to be sure, has a lust for gold.

After Abigail has secured his money from the convent he

exclaims:

My gold, my fortune, my felicity! Strength to my soul, death to mine enemy!

Welcome the first beginner of my bliss 1-9

It is somewhat paradoxical that there is no trace of Senecan

dramatic devices in Marlowe's The Jew of Malta, and that

what remains is largely Senecan stylistic techniques, such

as the use of hyperbole, as when Barabas gloats over the safe

arrival of his ships and his riches of Persian silks, gold,

and orient pearls: These are the blessings promis'd to the Jews, And herein was old Abram's happiness! What more may Heaven do for earthly man Than thus to pour out plenty in their laps, Ripping the bowels of the earth for them,

17 'Leo Kirschbaum, editor, The Plays of Christopher

Marlowe (New York, 1962), p. 412. 1 R J. B. Steane, Marlowe, A Critical Study (Cambridge,

1964), p. 167.

^Kirschbaum, p. 413.

29

Making the seas their servants, and the winds

To drive their substance with successful blasts?

And as it has already been noted, Kydian tragedy is

similar to Senecan revenge tragedy. When murder is committed

in the Kydian tragedy the revenger is dubbed "murderer" by a

medium which he distrusts; delay results until additional

facts corroborate the ascription, but then the revenger is hampered by the counterdesigns of his enemy and all perish in

21

the catastrophe. Marlowe conceives his play on an entirely

different basis. The main concern of the characters in the

play is the siege of Malta. Barabas1 crimes are committed

in the first part of the play and the principal characters

are unaware of a revenge scheme. The catastrophe in this 22

play is an unmotivated revenge. What comes to light when

the total body of Marlowe's plays is taken into account is

that there are remarkably few occult and supernatural elements

for a playwright who has the reputation of being about the

most "Senecan" of all Elizabethan playwrights. His Doctor

Faustus is the only one of his plays where such elements are

important.

Another play that uses the occult as a diamatic device

is Dekker's The Witch of Edmonton. In collaboration with

William Rawley and John Ford, Dekker gives us a comprehensive 20Ibid., p. 400.

2^Steane, p. 104.

22Ibid., p. 105.

30

study of the Elizabethan idea of witchcraft. Typical

Elizabethan ideas of witchcraft brought out are the witches'

familiars in the forms of mice, rats, dogs, and weasels; the

compact with the devil; and the imps.

The main character in Dekker's play is said to have

been a real person. She was "poor, deform1d, and ignorant/

And like a Bow buckl'd and bent together.Elizabeth

Sawyer was accused of being a witch, tried, and executed in

London in 1621. Her testimony was recorded by Henry Goodcole,

and it was from this record that Dekker and his fellow dra-

matists draw their witch of Edmonton. In the play Mother

Sawyer complains that

Some call me Witch; And being ignorant of my self, they go About to teach me how to be one: urging, That my bad tongue (by their bad usage made so) Porespeaks their Cattle, doth bewitch their Corn, pij. Themselves, their Servants, and their Babes at nurse.

She concludes that she may as well be a witch as to be called

one. She curses Old Bank and immediately a demon in the

guise of a dog comes to make a compact with her. Mother

Sawyer will be served by the demon, but in return she must

"make a deed of gift—her body and her soul" to the Devil.

Dekker's portrayal of the witch is probably the most sym-

pathetic in literary history. His witch, like the real

^Fredson Bowers, editor, The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker (Cambridge, 1958). Ill, 505-

2^Ibid.. p. 506.

31

Elizabeth Sawyer, was reluctant to commit herself to the

Devil. Sympathetic she may "be, but by comparison with

Shakespeare's witches and the uses to which they are put she

is a crude device. By 1622, when this play was written,

Shakespeare was dead, of course, and his art had long since

gone much beyond the skill of Dekker and his collaborators.

Shakespeare's earliest use of the occult in tragedy is

in Titus Andronicus. It has been called both Senecan and

Marlovian, and one taight expect it to show heavy traces of

the influence of the two earlier writers. The setting is

ancient Rome. At the beginning of the play Titus is re-

turning home from the Gothic wars. He brings, as captives,

Tamora, Queen of the Goths, and the three sons. The

Andronici sacrifice one of the sons in order to appease the

souls of their dead countrymen. Titus is offered, as a

reward for his victories, the imperial crown. He refuses it

and supports the claim of Saturninus, the elder son of the

former Emperor. Saturninus accepts Titus' support and pro-

poses to make Titus' daughter Lavinia the Empress. Bassianus,

the younger brother of Saturninus, is in love with Lavinia and

abducts her to prevent the marriage. Titus is so outraged

by this act that he kills one of his own sons who blocks the

pursuit of Lavinia. Tamora finds favor in the eyes of the

Emperor, and although she does not love him, she marries him

to promote her revenge for the death of her son.

32

Tamora's real love is Aaron, the villainous Moor who

incites Tamora's sons, Demetrius and Chiron, to ravish

Lavinia and to insure her silence by tearing out her tongue

and cutting off her hands. Demetrius and Chiron slay

Bassianus, satisfy their lust for Lavinia, and pervert the

evidence so that Titus' sons, Martius and Quintus, are ac-

cused of the murder'. Aaron deceitfully brings Titus word

that his sons will be freed if he will chop off one of his

hands and send it as evidence of his good faith. Titus with

Aaron's aid cuts off his hand and sends it to the Emperor;

the hand is scornfully returned with the heads of Titus' two

sons. In spite of her mutilation, Lavinia manages to con-

vey to her father and her uncle the full story of her wrongs.

She uses the tragic story of Philomena to show what happened,

and she holds a stick in her mouth and writes the names of

her offenders in the sand. Meanwhile, Tamora gives birth to

Aaron's child, and a white baby is substituted so that

Saturninus will not know of her infidelity. Titus arranges

a banquet, before which he slays Tamora's sons, carves the

bodies, and serves them to Tamora. Then Titus slays Lavinia,

to end her shame, and slays Tamora. Saturninus kills Titus,

and Titus' son, Lucius, kills Saturninus. Lucius then tells

the people the true story of his father's tragedy and is

proclaimed Emperor. Aaron, the breeder of the crimes, is

condemned to death by torture.

33

The recounting of the plot materials of Titus Andronicus

can only remind the reader of the wild improbability and the

blatant melodrama of the play. In view of the multitude of

melodramatic stage devices that are obviously influenced by

the Senecan tradition,' it is surprising that the play does

not contain much in the way of occult phenomena. Of course,

underlying the whole plot is the tradition of blood revenge

and retribution of the gods which have elements of the super-

natural. This tradition allows, in turn, for .foreshadowing,

portents, and prophetic utterances. But the fact remains

that the only scene in the play that has elements of the oc-

cult is the scene late in the play when Tamora, Chiron, and

Demetrius disguise themselves as apparitions representing

Revenge, Rape, and Murder. The scene is effective stage

business and good melodrama, but it also is integral in that

it motivates Titus and points toward the denouement. It was

not until some years after Titus Andronicus that Shakespeare

was to employ the occult and supernatural with sophistication

and in ways that are not only dramatically effective but

integral to the structural plan of the play.

CHAPTER III

GHOSTLY VISITATIONS

In the early years of Shakespeare's career as a writer

the spectral visitor had become a well-established stage

character. From the earliest surviving appearance of the

ghost in classical tragedy—the ghost of Darius in The

Persians by Aeschylus—to the early Renaissance drama it is

obvious that the ghost has an important function in tragedy,

and especially in revenge tragedy. When the Renaissance

writers turned to the classical models of tragedy, they

turned primarily to Seneca. It is a modification of the

Senecan ghost that thrived on the Elizabethan stage. Seneca

had used his ghosts primarily in the prologue, giving them

tremendously long speeches that were to create an atmosphere

of gloom and foreboding. Their motive was clearly revenge.

The early Renaissance tragedians did little more than imitate

Seneca, with minor modifications. Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy,

as has been noted, is typical of the Elizabethan adaptation.

Kyd makes a few departures, however, in his handling of the

ghost of Andrea. The only innovation that can be ascribed to.

Kyd is the use of the ghost as a chorus. The chorus itself,

of course, was a long-established tradition in classical

drama, but Kyd's adaptation of the ghost to the uses of the

3^

35

chorus is a departure from classical practice. By not con-

fining the ghost of Andrea to the prologue but having it

appear elsewhere in the drama, Kyd made another departure

from the Senecan ghost that was to be followed by later play-

wrights. In most of the later tragedies that employ the

ghost, it appears several times during the play and appears

to and speaks with whomever it pleased.

The primary reason for giving the ghost more freedom,

that is, not restricting it to a soliloquy in the prologue,

was, no doubt, to bring the ghost into closer harmony with

the contemporary religious and folk beliefs of the time.

Senecan ghosts were pagan ghosts, who, when they appeared on

stage, showed the physical marks of having come from an under-

world where they were doomed to torture, and they did not

hesitate to give the full, gory details of the kind of torture

they suffered. The contemporary ghosts of the Renaissance

are Christian. Instead of being shades of a hell of torture,

they are shades of purgatory, who must walk the earth until

the crimes against them have been revenged. Early Christian

doctrine considers the ghost to be one who comes from a

mysterious underworld and one who is forbidden to reveal the

nature of its torments. The Elizabethan audience had pre-

conceived ideas concerning ghosts, and the plays that dealt

with ghosts, in order to be successful on the Elizabethan

stage, had to conform to those ideas. It can be expected that

36

Shakespeare and. his fellow playwrights would modify the ghost

to conform to prevailing beliefs and attitudes.

In Richard III and Julius Caesar Shakespeare is young

in manipulating the supernatural character of the ghosts, and

they are hidden, in a manner of speaking, in the dreams of

the characters who encounter them. But even these first at-

tempts are more effective and more sophisticated than the use

of the ghost in Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy or the plays of

other early Elizabethan writers. The use of the ghosts in

Richard III is consistent with the idea that dreams have an

intimate relationship with reality. In spite of the fact

that Richard III is often thought of as a conscienceless

villain in the Machiavellian tradition, it is his conscience

that troubles Richard in his sleep and causes him to see the

ghosts of the eleven people that he has murdered. Each ghost

in its turn tells Richard "Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-

morrow!" or gives him the advice "despair and die!" The

first to appear is the ghost of Prince Edward:

Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow! Think how thou stab'dst me in my prime of youth At Tewksbury: despair, therefore, and die!

Next the ghost of Henry the Sixth enters:

When I was mortal, my anointed body By thee was punched full of deadly holes: Think on the Tower and me: despair, and die! Harry the Sixth bids thee despair and die!

Enter the ghost of Clarence:

Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow! I, that was wash'd to death with fulsome wine,

37

Poor Clarence, by thy guile betrated to death! To-morrow in the battle think on me, .

And fall thy edgeless sword: despair, and die!--

The ghost of Clarence is followed in turn by the ghosts of

Rivers, Grey, Vaughn, Hastings, the two young Princes, Lady

Anne, and Buckingham, each condemning him for his evil deeds

and prophesying disaster and death. In contrast, each ghost

in turn gives the Earl of Richmond hope and a prophfecy that

he shall be king and that he shall be the father of a long

line of kings. In the best Christian tradition they tell

Richmond that God and good angels fight on his side.

When Richard is suddenly awakened from his dream, it

takes some time before he is certain whether he has actually

seen the ghosts or whether he has been dreaming. He awakes

with the words, "Give me another horse: bind up my wounds."

At first he is living the continuation of the dream, and the

words are, in reality, a prophecy. Richard notes upon waking

that "the light burns blue. It is now dead midnight,/ Cold

fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh." All of these

details were signs to the Elizabethans that there had been a

ghostly visitation. Ghosts were thought to appear in the

dead of night, when the weather is cold, and to avoid bright

light at all costs.

i William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of Shakespeare,

edited by Hardin Craig (New York] 1951)» Richard III. V, iii, 118-120; 12^-127; 131-135* All subsequent references from Shakespeare will come from this edition.

38

On the other hand., when Richmond is awakened and asked

how he slept the night, he replies:

The sweetest sleep, and fairest-boding dreams That ever enter'd in a drowsy head, Have I since your departure had, my lords. Methought their souls, whose bodies Richard murder'd Came to my tent, and cried on victory: I promise you, my soul is very jocund ~

In the remembrance of so fair a dream.

The ghosts that appear to Richard and Richmond are as real

in their dreams as if they had appeared in human form.

It is one of the paradoxes of the play Richard III that

a play which in some ways is so crudely melodramatic is at

the same time so dramatically effective. The dream-ghost'

scenes are part of the crude machinery of the play. The

scenes are dramatically effective, but they are not genuine

dramatic devices. The scenes are external to the action and

could be omitted without marring the play. It may be argued

that the ghosts motivate the main characters in the final act

of Richard III, but the motivation comes too late for the

ghosts to be considered dramatic devices. The dramatic de-

vices must be an integral part of the play from beginning to

end. The appearance of the ghosts is, nonetheless, a natural

consequence of the actions that precede it. The parade of

the ghosts is good melodrama, but in the last analysis, the

ghosts are mechanical devices that are not absolutely neces-

sary to the structure of the drama.

2Ibid.. V, iii, 227-233.

39

The mature tragedy Julius Caesar is the earliest play

that shows Shakespeare employing occult phenomena with the

skill and sophistication that approaches that of the late

great tragedies. The play is remarkable also for the variety

of occult devices employed. To begin with, Caesar's spirit

(as distinct from his ghost) broods over the whole play.

In the first part of the play, it is Caesar himself that

dominates the play. In the second half the ghost of Caesar

is the motivator of the action. C. E. Whitmore indicates

that Caesar's spirit finds expression in the first part of

the play even before Caesar's physical death. On the night

when the conspirators meet in Brutus' orchard, Brutus per-

suades the conspirators against Cassius' idea of killing

Antony along with Caesar. He feels that having to kill

Caesar is bloody enough and he wishes himself and the others

to be known as sacrificers and not butchers. Instead of

cold-blooded murder he prefers to think

We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar: And in the spirit of men there is no blood; 0 that we then could come by Caesar's spirit, And not dismember Caesar!. But, alas,

Caesar must bleed for it. "

This reference to Caesar's spirit would not seem to be

significant if it stood alone, but many such references ap-

pear throughout the play. Another example of Caesar's

•^Whitmore, pp. 2^6-2^7.

h Julius Caesar, II, i, 167-170.

bo

spirit making itself felt before Caesar's death is the un-

natural happenings on the eve of Caesar's death. Casca

reports:

. . . never till to-night, never till now, Did I go through a tempest dropping fire. Either there is a civil strife in heaven, Or else the world, too saucy with the gods, Incenses them to send destruction.

A common slave—you know him well "by sight— Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn Like twenty torches join'd, and yet his hand, Not sensible of fire, remain'd unscortch'd. Besides--I ha' not since put up my sword— Against the Capitol! I met a lion, Who glared upon me, and went surly by, Without annoying me: and there were drawn Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women, Transformed with their fear; who swore they saw Men all in fire walk up and down the streets. And yesterday the bird of night did sit Even at noon-day upon the market-place, Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies Do so conjointly meet, let not men say 'These are theirs; they are natural; For, I believe, they are portentous things Unto the climate that they point upon.5

Casca regards these signs as omens foretelling disaster for

the Romans. Shakespeare's audience was familiar with the

technique of foreshadowing, and in Julius Caesar it is

especially effective. Moreover, disturbances of the weather

such as thunder, lightning, rain storms, and unruly winds, to

Elizabethans, were signs of wickedness in the earth. To be-

gin with, such signs and portents reflect the theme that the

evil in man is reflected in the earth and in the elements.

In addition, even when they appear only in the dialogue

5Ibid.. I, iii, 5-13; 15-33-

such passages provide atmosphere and increase the dramatic

effectiveness of the play.

Calpurnia's dream is still another instance of fore-

shadowing. Calpurnia, too, has heard of weird happenings

during the night, perhaps from one of the servants. She

tells her husband of these portents and of her dream.

Caesar, speaking to Decius, uses the dream as his reason for

not going to the Capitol:

Calpurnia here, my wife, stays me at home: She dreamt to-night she saw my statua, Which, like a fountain with an hundred spouts, Did run pure blood; and many lusty Romans Came smiling, and bathe their hands in it: And these does she apply for warnings, and. portents,

And evils imminent . . . .°

The cumulative effect of the signs and portents is enhanced

finally by the prognostication of the soothsayer. By this

time in the play it can be seen that the various kinds of

occult phenomena have begun to affect the action of the play

and to affect the behavior of the characters. When Caesar

brushes aside the soothsayer, the Elizabethan audience with

its beliefs in metaphysics must have thought Caesar fool-

hardy for ignoring a prophetic warning. Prom this point

the play becomes a fascinating contest between man in his

attempt to control the forces of destiny and the external

and supernatural forces that the gods of retribution have

pitted against him. Antony's attitude at the death of Caesar

6Ibld.. II, ii, 75-82.

4-2

signals a turning point. Antony stands over the dead body

of Caesar and makes the prophecy that

Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge, With Ate by his side come hot from hell, Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice 7

Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war . . . .

Antony here is using the term spirit figuratively; he cer-

tainly does not expect to see Caesar's ghost ranging for

revenge. But he is sure that he can incite the citizens to

avenge Caesar's death by a plan which even now he has in

mind.

With the appearance of Caesar's ghost in Brutus' tent

at a camp near Sardis, Shakespeare employs a genuine dramatic

device. Brutus is reading and he notices that the light of

the candle begins to fade. Suddenly he is aware of the ghost:

Ha! who comes here? I think it is the weakness of mine eyes That shapes this monstrous apparition. It comes upon me. Art thou any thing? Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil, That makest my blood cold and my hair to stare? Speak to me what thou art.8

Brutus' reaction is strangely calm by comparison with other

ghost scenes. In answer to the question of "what are thou?"

the ghost answers: "Thy evil spirit, Brutus." Brutus then

asks why it came and the answer is that the ghost will meet

Brutus at Philippi. Brutus' calm reply, "Why, I will see

thee at Philippi then," shows that once he realizes that it

7Ibid.. Ill, i, 270-273.

8Ibid,. IV, iii, 275-281.

^3

is Caesar's ghost he accepts it as a matter of fact. Per-

haps Shakespeare's purpose here was to show the stolidity and

courage of the Roman soldier. It may have been only that he

chose to show Brutus as weary and phlegmatic. Brutus seems to

"be resigned to his own death; not only does he take the ap-

pearance of Caesar's ghost calmly, he waits some time before

telling anyone about the apparition. When he learns that

Cassius is dead and how he died, he says:

0 Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet! Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords In our own proper entrails.9

Later in another part of the field he confides to Volumnis:

The ghost of Caesar hath appear'd to me Two several times by night; at Sardis once, And, this last night, here in Philippi fields:

1 know my hour is come.^O

Then Brutus, unlike Macbeth who also knew when his hour had

come, has Strato to hold his sword so that he can commit

suicide. His final words are addressed to Caesar's ghost:

"Caesar, now be still:/ I kill'd not thee with half so good

a will."

The play Julius Caesar signals the advent of the great

tragedies. Shakespeare's writing skills and his drama-

turgical techniques had continued to improve at a remarkable

pace. Among these techniques his increased adeptness with

occult phenomena of all types is apparent. The pattern of

9Ibid., V, iii, 9^-96.

10Ibid., V, v, 18-21.

it4

development shows that in his use of supernatural manifesta-

tions, just as with other traditional stage devices, Shake-

speare comes very early to show a range and a flexibility that

go beyond any of his contemporaries. Almost from the be-

ginning, and especially in Richard III and Julius Caesar.

Shakespeare's techniques with occult phenomena show devia-

tions from the established patterns. All of the ghosts are

somewhat different in type from the pagan Senecan ghosts.

They make no reference to Hades, nor does their appearance

show signs that they have come from a place of torment. Un-

like the Senecan ghosts and the early Renaissance adaptations

of the Senecan ghosts, they do not appear as prologue ghosts

whose purpose it is to set an atmosphere of gloom and fore-

boding. However, in keeping with the ghost of pre-Shake-

spearean types, they are definitely revenge ghosts. The

ghosts in Richard III and the ghost of Caesar appear in the

dreams of the victims of the revenge. They appear in the

dead of night; and in both instances the lights are mys-

teriously dimmed. What some of these changes amount to is

that Shakespeare adapted the ghost to conform to prevailing

religious beliefs and superstitions. But he was not always

consistent in his practice. The matter of ghosts speaking

is a case in point. Caesar's ghost does not speak until it

is spoken to. On the other hand, the long line of ghosts

chard. Ill need no prompting for their melodramatic

speeches. The spontaneous speech of the ghosts in Richard III

^5

seems to "be more in keeping with the idea of the Senecan

revenge ghost; otherwise it is highly probable that the

ghost may never have a chance to reveal its purpose. Every-

thing considered, the ghost in Julius Caesar is infinitely

superior to the ghosts in Richard III. Not only does Caesar's

spirit make itself felt throughout the play, thereby moti-

vating the action from beginning to end, it also accomplishes

its revenge by making its victims commit suicide. This kind

of revenge is much more subtle than the revenge of Andrea in

The Spanish Tragedy, where the stage is piled with dead

bodies because of the initial desire for revenge on one per-

son. The occult phenomena are more pronounced and more

numerous in Julius Caesar, as witness the use of the sooth-

sayer and the prophetic dream. They are, however, more

skillfully used and more integral in the total fabric of the

play than had been apparent in Elizabethan drama up to the

time of Julius Caesar. From Julius Caesar Shakespeare was

ready to go on to Hamlet, in which appears what surely must

be the most controversial ghost in all literature and cer-

tainly the ghost that has become the touchstone for judging

all other dramatic specters.

Nineteenth-century criticism concerning the ghosts in

Elizabethan drama started a trend of philosophical criticism

that is still actively being pursued. Apparently the only

result of almost a hundred years of critical evaluation of

the subject is the fact that the problem has become

k6

more narrow. Scholars have now boiled the problem down to

the question of whether or not the ghosts are objective or

subjective. Robert Hunter West said in 1939.

Pointing the answers to these questions within the play world are three classes of indices of varying authority: (1) the opinions of the persons of the play world as displayed in speech and action; (2) the unquestioned facts of the play world as revealed in its events; and (3) the general philosophical and theological cast of the play world as revealed in its historical and re-ligious setting, lo-

west believed the second method to be the best because it is the most authoritative. Robert R. Reed, a later critic,

12

considers some of West's theories abstruse and controversial.

In 1950> West wrote an article for PMLA entitled "King Hamlet's

Ambiguous Ghost," which shows that he, too, is now convinced

that it is useless to do anything except "simply receive the

dramatic force as it reaches us and be content.""^ A study of

the subjectivity or objectivity of the ghost is important to

an understanding of the plays that deal with this supernatural

element, but this paper will concern itself with this matter

only incidentally.

Although the tragedies may contain ghosts that are

spectacular or sensational, such as the Senecan ghosts, or

the ghosts may become humanized, such as the ghost of Andrea

11 Robert Hunter West, The Invisible World (Athens,

Georgia, 1939). PP. 63-6^.

12 Reed, p. 11.

13 -'Robert Hunter West, "King Hamlet's Ambiguous Ghost,"

PMLA. LXX (December, 1950), 1117.

^7

in The Spanish Tragedy, they are not necessarily to be con-

sidered dramatic devices in the sense that this paper employs

that term. In order to toe considered dramatic devices, the

supernatural elements must serve as an integral part of the

plot; they must motivate the plot and make it coherent. The

ghosts in Hamlet and Macbeth do just that.

The most notable aspect of the ghost in Hamlet to the

superficial reader is that in every respect it conforms to

the prevailing Elizabethan beliefs. Much research has been

done to document the "conformity" of the Hamlet ghost to the

lore and superstition of the time, and, indeed, the ghost in

Hamlet meets all the requirements for the ghosts of popular

superstition: it walks at night; it cannot speak unless it

is spoken to; it appears in winter, and so on. Marcellus

tells the educated Horatio: "Thou art a scholar; speak to

it, Horatio." According to the popular superstitions the

exorcists were supposed to speak in Latin. Horatio does not

use the Latin language in addressing the apparition, but

being learned, it can be assumed that he knows Latin.

From the very first sighting of the specter it is clear

to the officers that the ghost is in the guise of the dead

king. The officers report to Hamlet:

Two nights together had these gentlemen, Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch, In the dead vast and middle of the night, Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father, Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pie. . . .

^Hamlet, I, ii, 197-201.

It was believed that ghosts walked not only when it was dark,

but also when the weather was cold, thus the statements:

"The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold." and "It is a nip-

ping and an eager air." Within this setting the ghost

enters. The striking resemblance to Hamlet's father and the

knowledge that ghosts appear before some great crisis in hu-

man affairs make Hamlet involuntarily and spontaneously plead:

"Angels and ministers of grace defend us." The Elizabethans

believed that ghosts left their graves for the purpose of

giving a warning of impending danger to a loved one or to

their country, or that they left their graves to seek revenge

or to give someone information concerning a hidden treasure.

It is apparent that the ghost of Hamlet wished to speak to

Hamlet alone. Against the wishes and the strength of his

friends Hamlet follows the ghost. During the interview the

ghost reveals that his motive is revenge:

List, list, 0, list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love— .^ Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

The ghost also tells Hamlet that his soul has been in purga-

tory:

My hour is almost come, When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames Must render up myself.

I am thy father's spirit, Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night, And for the day confined to fast in fires,

^Ibid.. I, v, 22-2*1-.

if-9

Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purged away.-*-°

The ghost of Hamlet departs with the words: "Adieu, adieu!

Hamlet, remember me." When the ghost vanishes Hamlet re-

flects :

0 all you host of heaven! 0 earth! what else? And shall I couple hell? 0, fie! Hold, hold, my heart; And you, my sinews, grow not instant old, But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee! Ay, thou, poor ghost, while memory holds a seat In this distracted globe. Remember thee! Yea, from the table of my memory I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, That youth and observation copied there; And thy commandment all alone shall live Within the book and volume of my brain . . . . '

The repetition of the words, "Remember thee!" shows Hamlet's

thoughtfulness about his father's ghost. He vows that his

only thoughts will be those that the shade has given him.

There is a touch of irony in the statement that his father's

commandment will live within his brain, for that is exactly

where it lives—and dies. The ghost could barely get back

to its sulphurous region before Hamlet begins to regret his

task, and he says: "The time is out of joint: 0 cursed

spite,/ That ever I was born to set it right!" In Act II,

Hamlet begins to doubt that he has really seen his father's

ghost and he expresses his doubt by saying:

The spirit that I have seen May be the devil; and the devil hath power

l6Ibid., I, v, ^-6; 9-13.

17Ibid., I, v, 91-102.

50

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.1"

It is not until after Hamlet has had the play-within-the-

play staged that he believes that he had truly seen and heard

his father's shade.

These details just recounted are interesting in that

they allow a reconstruction of Elizabethan beliefs and

practices in regard to ghostly visitations. They are im-

portant also in that they allow Hamlet to be placed in the

context of the popular Elizabethan Revenge play. For the

purposes of this paper these details and the acts and scenes

from which they are drawn are more important for the light

they throw on Shakespeare's developing dramatic techniques

and most especially on his mature handling of occult phe-

nomena. It can be seen from Hamlet that Shakespeare was no

longer content to follow the melodramatic and somewhat crude

Senecan models. It can be seen also that in the handling of

the ghost he is much more sophisticated in Hamlet than he

was in Richard III or even in Julius Caesar. He was not

content, as were many of his Senecan models, to have the

ghost announce itself in advance of the action. Nor did he

feel it adequate, as he had in his own earlier plays, to

rely merely on a dramatically effective but mechanical parade

of spirits at or near the end of the play. His skill is

l8Ibld.. II, ii, 627-732.

51

shown in Hamlet in that he prepares the audience well in

advance for the appearance of the ghost before it ever ap-

pears on stage near the end of Act I. In addition he subtly

misleads the audience as to the real reason for the appearance

of the ghost. When the ghost does appear it has a tremendous

impact. That the appearance of the ghost in Hamlet is a

genuine dramatic device, as opposed to a mere mechanical or

decorative device, is indicated best by the fact that onc'e

the ghost appears and lays the obligation of vengeance on

Hamlet, most of the main action of the play hinges on this"'

admonition, and Hamlet, himself, acts, reacts, or fails to

act, almost solely in response to it. ' " " v - ' :

The final appearance of the ghost is in Gertrude's

closet. The ghost appears to remind Hamlet that he has yet

to avenge his father's murder and also to show Hamlet that

no harm is to come to Gertrude.

Do not forget: this visitation Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose. But, look, amazement on thy mother sits: 0, step between her and her fighting soul: Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works: Speak to her, Hamlet.^9

Shakespeare chose this instant—the only time in the play

when Hamlet is truly angry—to heighten the dramatic effect

of the ghost. It was apparent by this time that Hamlet

needed to be motivated. The ghost furthers the plot by

indicating to the audience that Hamlet now must win his mother

19Ibid.. Ill, iv, 110-115.

52

to repentance for her sins, and he furnishes, as he had not

in his first appearance, a clue as to how Hamlet's task may

20

be accomplished. In seeking to save his mother's soul,

Hamlet must destroy the evil Claudius. The anticipation of

the ghost, the first appearance of the ghost, and the ap-

pearance of the ghost in Gertrude's closet represent the

progressive effectiveness of the ghost as a dramatic device.

The ghost in Macbeth is an effective dramatic device,

although it is thought by Allardyce Nicoll and other critics

to be an hallucination. "The ghost of Banquo is a material

vision in the sense that it rises upon the stage; and yet it 21

is but an hallucination of Macbeth's own mind." The ghost

of Banquo has the dramatic function of motivating the plot

from the time of its appearance until the end of the drama.

It is the sight of the ghost that makes Macbeth realize that

he is "in blood/ Stepped in so far that, should /he? wade

no more,/ Returning were as tedious as go o'er." It is the

sight of the ghost that makes Macbeth "bent to know,/ By the

worst means, the worst." The worst means is, of course, by

the conjuration of the Weird Sisters. The significant thing

here is that for the first time Macbeth is now seeking the

Weird Sisters, and that he was motivated by the sight of the

ghost of Banquo to seek them. When Macbeth sees the ghost, 20 Irving Ribner, Patterns in Shakespearian Tragedy

(London, 1962), p. ?8. 21 Allardyce Nicoll, Studies in Shakespeare (New York,

1927), p. 123.

53

he is completely unnerved and not responsible for his speech:

"Thou canst not say I did it; never shake/ Thy gory locks at

me." The fact that the ghost appears only to Macbeth has

been explained by some as an hallucination, and has been

compared with the air-drawn dagger that Macbeth sees just

prior to the murder of Duncan. Macbeth says of the dagger,

"There is no such thing;/ It is the bloody business which

informs/ Thus to mine eyes." In other words, he admits that

the dagger is an hallucination, but he does not dismiss the

ghost of Banquo as easily; instead he says:

Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, The armed rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger; Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves Shall never tremble. ^

Macbeth believes that he is really seeing the ghost of

Banquo; moreover, he sees the ghost just as the First Mur-

derer describes Banquo as he lay in the ditch. Whitmore

says, "That the ghost should appear to him /Macbeth/ alone

is perfectly explicable; he is merely using the power of

'selective apparition' to present himself to the person with

whom he is most concerned."2-^ After the guests have departed

Macbeth tries to convince himself that his unusual behavior

is that which is to be expected of one inexperienced in

crime, but he does not convince the audience of this because

he has not really convinced himself.

22Macbeth. Ill, iv, 100-103.

2^Whitmore, p. 257.

5^

The ghost of Banquo drives him to the Weird Sisters,

and in their cavern apparitions appear to him again. The

First Apparition is an armed head—indicative of a soldier,

perhaps Macbeth or Macduff. It tells him to beware of

Macduff. The Second Apparition is a bloody child; this

might be Macduff as an infant. It tells him that "none of

woman born shall harm Macbeth." Macbeth is excited and

pleased over this prediction and shouts, "Then live Macduff."

The implication of that statement was that Macbeth had

already made a decision to kill Macduff as soon as he had

heard the words of the First Apparition. The Third Appari-

tion is a child with a crown on its head and a tree in its

hand. This apparition may be Malcolm. The crown rightfully

belongs to Malcolm, and it was he who devised that his

soldiers should carry boughs of the trees up Dunsinane hill

to conceal the numbers of the soldiers. Upon Macbeth's in-

sistence the witches show him a fourth apparition—a show of

eight kings. This sight once again puts Macbeth into a

state of frenzy:

Horrible sight! Now, I see, 'tis true; For the blood-bolter'd Banquo smiles upon me,

And points at them for his.

Banquo's ghost smiling at him torments Macbeth so that he

decides, "the very firstlings of my heart shall be/ the

firstlings of my hand." It is obvious that the apparitions

Macbeth, IV, i, 121-123-

55

are mechanical devices similar to the parade of ghosts in

Richard III. But it is also equally obvious that the parade

of apparitions here is subtler and much more complex than in

Richard III. It is noteworthy, also, that even though these

apparitions in Macbeth come late in the play, they do more

than pronounce anathema on Macbeth. In fact, they provide

the motivation for Macbeth's last bloody deeds. In this,

they act upon him much as the Weird Sisters had near the be-

ginning of the play. When Macbeth learns that Macduff has

fled to England the "firstling" of his heart is to

Seize upon Fife; give to the edge o' the sword His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls That trace him in his line.^5

Macbeth's erratic behavior in the banquet scene and his

bloodthirsty action since caused many of his noblemen to

desert him. When the avenging armies attack at Dunsinane,

he is protected by only a few men who have remained faithful

to him. What that number is, we do not know, but once again

the ghost of Banquo has had its dramatic effect upon the

plot. The ghost of Banquo led him to the witches who in turn

showed him the apparitions which told him to be bloody, bold,

and resolute and never fear harm from any human being. Mac-

beth's first act after his visit to the witches is bloody;

he remains bold to the very end, and would "Hang those who

would talk of fear." Yet he is a pathetic character in the

2%bld.. IV, i, 151-153.

56

soliloquy

I have lived long enough; my way of life Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf; And that which should accompany old age, As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but, in their stead, Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath, .

Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.^"

In Act V Macbeth's mind is occupied with thoughts of his

wife's suicide, the desertion of his soldiers, and the "fiend

that lies like truth." In one breath he seems ready to give

up; in the next, to fight until the very end. • He says in

the same speech, "I 'gin to be aweary of the sun," and "Blow

wind! come, wrack!/ At least we'll die with harness on our

back."

Macduff is determined to be the one to kill Macbeth in

order that the ghosts of his wife and children might not

haunt him: "If thou be'st slain and with no stroke of mine,/

My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still." Even

when Macbeth realizes that the witches have "lied like truth"

and that he is vulnerable to mortals he remains resolute. His

last words are those of a brave soldier: Before my body

I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, And damned be him that first cries, "Hold, enough!" '

With Macbeth's death Banquo's ghost is avenged along with the

ghosts of Macduff's wife and children.

26Ibid.. V, iii, 22-28.

27Ibid.. V, viii, 32-3^.

57

The paramount motive of the ghosts in Richard III.

Julius Caesar, Hamlet. and Macbeth is revenge. Yet each

ghost has a dramatic effect that is different from its

Senecan ancestor and different from one another. Richard III

is more nearly Senecan than the other tragedies discussed.

The ghosts in Richard III are seeking Richard's blood and, as

if that were not enough, they are waiting to see his soul in

torment. Ribner says of Richard III: "Richard is more than

the stock villain-hero of Senecan revenge drama. We see this

in the remorse of conscience which he suffers on the evening

before Bosworth Field and in the valor with which he goes pO

forth to meet his death." It is through Richard's conscience

that the ghosts have a dramatic effect upon the play. Had

Richard been as insensitive as Barabas in The Jew of Malta,

the ghosts would have been entirely ineffectual. As has been

noted, Shakespeare's handling of occult materials in Julius

Caesar was more mature, less derivative, and more complex than

in Richard III. One of his tasks in Julius Caesar was to

maintain at least a modicum of historical accuracy, while at

the same time making the play plausible and the motivation of

his characters acceptable to his Elizabethan audience. He

skillfully adapted the occult devices he found in Plutarch to

conform to his own time. He makes effective use of the signs

and portents for the purpose of foreshadowing. According to

2®Ribner, pp. 23-24.

58

Virgil K. Whitaker, the unnatural and supernatural events of

Julius Caesar belong in the same category as the cannibal

29

horses and other portents in Macbeth. x Most important he

casts the brooding spirit of Caesar about the whole play and

thereby gives it a dimension it would not have had otherwise.

When the ghost of Caesar does appear to Brutus in a dream,

it is almost an anti-climax, but an intentional one.

Having served his apprenticeship in the occult in

Richard III and Julius Caesar, Shakespeare was well prepared

to mold supernatural phenomena to his own devices in his

great tragedies. In Hamlet Shakespeare takes the cumbersome

old Senecan Revenge ghost and in the guise of Hamlet's father

turns it into the most important single dramatic device of

the play. The ghost of Hamlet dominates the plot from be-

ginning to end. It motivates the plot; it is an integral

part of the structure; and it gives the play coherence. It

is not much of an exaggeration to say that without the ghost

of King Hamlet the play would have no form, the characters

no motivation.

The ghost in Hamlet becomes the model for all tradi-

tional stage ghosts. It might reasonably have been expected

to be the best that Shakespeare could offer in his use of

occult phenomena as dramatic devices. If value judgments

must be made, that distinction would probably have to go

^Virgil K. Whitaker, The Mirror up to Nature (Cali-fornia, 1965)» 125.

59

t o Macbeth. In that play Shakespeare adds a dimension in

the Weird Sisters that puts it almost in a class "by itself.

They are sufficiently striking and sufficiently original in

concept to deserve a separate emphasis.

CHAPTER IV

THE WEIRD SISTERS

There are scholars who claim along with Simon A. Black-

more that Shakespeare's belief in witches was common to his

1

times. C. E. Whitmore believes that Shakespeare avails him-

self of the "universally" held belief in witchcraft, or was 2

otherwise pandering to a superstitious audience. Harold C.

Goddard firmly believes that only one convinced of the

reality of supernatural forces could conceivably have im-3

parted such overwhelming sense of their presence. This

study of Shakespeare's use of the occult phenomena as a

dramatic device cannot concern itself except incidentally

with the numerous arguments about the author's belief in the

occult. Shakespeare may have used the witches in Macbeth

because he believed in witches, or because he was catering

to the tastes his audience and to King James I, who was a

sincere believer in witches and witchcraft, or he may have

used them simply because they appeared in his source material,

This point is not important. The important fact is that the Simon A. Blackmore, A Great Soul in Conflict (New York,

1910), pp. 218-219. ^Whitmore, pp. 255-257«

-^Harold C. Goddard, The Meaning of Shakespeare (Chicago, 1963), II, 118-119.

60

61

Weird Sisters do serve as an effective dramatic device and

that no discussion of the play is complete without them.

Macbeth is the shortest but also the darkest tragedy-

written by Shakespeare. The tragedy gets its blackness and

gloom from the most effective dramatics Shakespeare ever

used—the Weird Sisters. The appearances of the witches in

the play are few, but their evil presence is felt throughout.

They seem to be lurking in the crevices of every scene and

^n. , h ,h;e rts:;-of;;those. whp... h©ve , spoken wit|i;t.,1j)iem.' >-Their ,

words cannot be forgotten by Macbeth nor Banquo. Their evil

purpose cannot be forgotten by the .audie&c&i The entire play

is acted in a half-light atmosphere where gloom and darkness

give way to the evil forces in man and nature. Macbeth's

world is a world of metaphysical evil propelled by strange

and unnatural creatures. Shakespeare took full advantage of

the temperament of the times when he wrote Macbeth. Not only

does he give his audience the Weird Sisters and the ghost of

Banquo, he fills the play from beginning to end with meta-

physical evil. Believing :.th',t Macbeth is fantastical and

imaginative beyond other tragedies, G. Wilson Knight says

"the play leaves one with an overpowering knowledge of

suffocating, conquering evil, and fixed by the basilisk eye L

of nameless terror. Knight agrees with A. C. Bradley that

ultimate ...in ,his genius. In, making

^G. Wilson Knight, The Wheel of Fire (London, 1930), p. 155.

62

Macbeth $ d grk and desolate drama. The audience is led to

feel from the very beginning that something evil is about

when the play opens with the witches. The question, "When

shall we three meet again . . .?" indicates that the witches

have just had a meeting to see what mischief they could con-

ceive , and it clearly implies that the audience, as well as

Macbeth, will meet them again. The next few lines make clear

the fact that something wicked will happen to Macbeth as the

witches plan their next meeting.with Macbeth. To Elizabethan

play-goers the very setting indicates that the drama will be

controlled by preternatural as well as by physical blackness.

If Shakespeare were a product of his times and, therefore,

aware of popular belief in witchcraft as Blackmore believes

he was, his belief in the powers of evil and their threat to

the soul was more acute than that of his fellow countrymen.

The poet seems almost depressed by the idea that evil powers

do exist and that they have a physical and moral influence

on the lives of men.

The Elizabethans had heard many tales of witchcraft and

from all indications they believed them all. George Lyman

Kittredge tells of an actual case history that occurred in

1601 which parallels an episode in Shakespeare's Macbeth.

The story, which Kittredge'calls a typical case of witch-

craft, is about the examination of William Tompson of Dart-

mouth. William was a sailor. Late one night he and a

comrade chanced to meet Alice Trevisard who was dressed in

63

the manner of a priest. The two sailors asked, her what she

was doing in the street at that time of night and an alterca-

tion followed. Alice—thought to be a priest—was roughly

handled. No sooner had the sailors attempted to leave than

William fell and almost broke his neck. After other insults

and beatings, Alice placed a curse on William, which caused

his ship to be wrecked at sea. She also made predictions to

Tompson's wife'that other misfortunes would happen to William,

Her predictions came true.-' Tompson's case against Alice

Trevisard could not have been far removed from Shakespeare's

mind when he wrote Macbeth around 1606. Giving his witches

the actions and speech similar to a real case history of a

witch-trial, Shakespeare has one of his Weird Sisters meet a

sailor's wife, become involved in an argument over some

trivial conversation, and prophesy the sailor's misfortune.

This artifice lends conviction to the reality of Shake-

speare ' s witches.^

The Weird Sisters in Macbeth have familiars that put

them in an established tradition. According to Margaret

Murray there are four ways of obtaining familiars: (1) by

gift from the devil; (2) by gift from a fellow witch; (3) by

inheritance; and (4) by magical ceremonies. The gift of a

familiar from the devil was sometimes a divining familiar

and sometimes a domestic familiar. As a divining familiar

z ^George Lyman Kittredge, Witchcraft in Old and New

England (New York, 1956), PP* 12-1^.

64

it represented the devil himself, and the devil dictated

what species of animal the familiar should be. The domestic

familiar was usually small. ^t^haS^''.but ..,npt-:mll, of

the "powers of the divining familiar. The domestic familiar

was the only kind that could be given by a fellow witch, for

the devil had the sole authority over the divining familiar.

Witchcraft was thought to run in families; it was not un-

common for a mother to give her daughter a familiar or to

leave the familiar to her as a legacy. When a familiar is

obtained by magical ritual, it is assumed, to be the divining

familiar, for the witch must, upon its appearance, renounce

her faith in Christianity and swear fealty to the familiar.^

It is not clear whether Greymalkin, a cat, and Paddock, a

toad, are divinijag or. domes.tic familiars. .¥evdo-Kknow;v;.''how-

ever, that'the witches are quick to answer their calls.

Pe0or4s of witchcraft almost always associate the witch

with a cat as her familiar. Christina Hole tells of a cat-

familiar that belonged to one Dorothy Ellis, a Cambridgeshire

witch who in 3.6 7 confessed to Thomas Castell that

. . . ••si,n'c''e, shee-"being much troubled in hir minde, there appeared unto hir the Devell in the liknes of a great datt and speak to this examinant and demanded of hir hir blodde, which she gave him©^. after which the spirit in the liknes of a 'ca%t~"''suok----up,C)n':the• body •''o'f-"

ithi's'••examinant'."'

^Margaret Alice Murray, The Witchcult in Western Europe (Oxford, 1921), pp. 222-223.

^Christina Hole, Witchcraft in England (New York, 19^7)» P. 51.

65

After that event the cat became her familiar and helped her

to commit many malefic acts. ;She supposedly aWnge^'herself

upon the family of' Slater

girl to have violent fits and by causing the mother to. be-

come lame. The familiars of Shakespeai i r-¥eIr<i-..SiB:t!-gr,s -were

just what the audience expected. In fact it. is doubtful that

his audience would have put any credulity in the witches had

the familiars been omitted. There were certain things the

'Elizabethans and "Jacobeans believed'about the""wl1?6Ke")Sr<

they expected an accurate representation of their beliefs in

contemporary literature.,/ Shakespeare's treatment of the ' ' /

Weird Sisters is so masterful that the audience could im-

mediately upon seeing them and hearing the first ten lines of

the play fill in certain unspecified background details. The

audience assumes that the witch must renounce the Catholic

faith and take a vow to serve the devil; she must destroy her

rosary and trample on the Holy Cross; she must drop her name

and take a grotesque nickname; she must request that the

devil cross out her name from Christ's book and write it in

his own book; she must pay homage to the devil periodically,

never less than once a month; she must receive from the devil

some mark of identification, and try hard to win other souls

over to the devil. Just the sight of Shakespeare's Weird

Sisters summoned these and many more superstitions about

witches to the minds of his audience.

66

In>Sha,ke spear e ' s day in-England, every Village .had its

w-tfco&.f>,;ior jcpYen,,_of,-;w,itches. The Elizabethan witches were

considered ignorant and coarse in their practice of magic;

their malevolence was feared to a degree that is incompre-

hensible to the modern mind. The entire English people-king

and subjects1, believed that witches were old women who were

poor and ragged, skinny and hideous, and full of vulgar

gpite. These women had sold their souls to the devil for the

purpose of fulfilling some personal desire. After having

made a pact with Satan, the witches were able to perform or

to have their familiars perform whatever malefic act they

might command. Witches were thought to be able to control

the wind, raise tempests, fly through the air, concoct magic

potions, and call forth evil spirits from the underworld.

According to Kittredge, the Elizabethans did not import their

ideas or practices of witchcraft from the Continent. They

inherited these ideas from their forefathers in an unbroken O

line of tradition. He says that although witches may be

either whjte or black—beneficent or malefic—there is

usually a tendency among theologians to:condemn both as those Q

who deal with evil spirits. Beatrice White says, in the

introduction to George Gifford's A Dialogue..Concerning. Witches

and Witchcraft, "It is obvious that the witches of Macbeth O

Kittredge, p. 23.

9Ibid.

67

a r e t h e common or garden ./sic/ witch

wi.th- her>,jLiap3: in pots ...of wool . under -her bed.." And indeed

-are. Shakespeare's Weird Sisters are similar to the

common witches of the day whose main purpose it was to con-

coct charms and potions, to foretell the future, and, at

worst, to injure with the "evil-eye." These similarities

made them recognizable to his audience. But they are dif-

ferent enough from the English witches and the Scandinavian

Norms of Scottish witch-lore to be considered the creation

of the poet. If the Weird Sisters had been nothing more than

the vulgar old women common to the popular idea of witches,

Banquo's words upon seeing them would have been superfluous.

What are these So wither'd, and so wild in their attire, That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth, And yet are on't. Live you? or are you aught Than man may question?H

It is only after the witches have vanished and the two mes-

sengers have brought Macbeth the news that he is indeed the

Thane of Cawdor in addition to the Thane of Glamis that the

full impact of the powers of the weird creatures really hits

him, and he cries: "What, can the devil speak true?"

It is well to note here just how little material Shake-

speare used from the Holinshed Chronicle to create his Weird

Sisters, and how much he used from records of Scottish

10 George Gifford, A Dialogue Concerning Witches and

Witchcraft, edited by G. B. Harrison (Oxford, 1931)V p. vii. 1 Macbeth, I, iii, 39-^3.

68

witch-trials. Holinshed says that the two generals were

passing through "woods and. fields," when three women met

them. The women were dressed in strange and wild apparel,

"resembling creatures of an elder world." They gave their

prophecies to Macbeth and Banquo and then disappeared.

12

Further mention was made that the prophecies all came true.

Holinshed gives no more information or elaboration than this.

All of the details, actions, and words of Shakespeare's

witches are the poet's own imaginative creation from actual

case histories of witches. And he intends that the audience

accept his creation as real and not figments of Macbeth's

and Banquo's minds. In order to give his Weird Sisters the

reality he seeks, Shakespeare draws further details from the

Scottish witch-trials connected with Francis, Earl Bothwell.

Bothwell's witches had familiar spirits not unlike those of

Shakespeare's witches.1-^ Graymalkin calls to one of the

Weird Sisters; Paddock to another. In the cavern scene

Harpier, another familiar not identified, cries, "'Tis time,

'tis time." The witches of the Scottish witch-trials were

accused of having the gift of prophecy. Agnes or Anny

Sampsoun (tried January 27th, 1590) was supposed to have

"foreknown by the spirit that the Queen's Majesty would never

1 ? Allardyce and Josephine Nicoll, editors, Holinshed

Chronicle {New York, 1927), pp. 207-210.

^Lilian Winstanley, Macbeth, King Lear & Contemporary History (Cambridge, 1922), p. 205.

69

come in this country unless the king fetched her." Agnes

was also accused of delaying the coming of Anne of Denmark

by raising storms at sea. §h&-kesp ar.e,rs.'!wi.tcKW'"will'•jcausfc

a ship to "be "tempest-tosse'tK" The Scottish witches were

known to each other by the term sister. Nowhere in the play

Macbeth is the word witch used; rather they are called the

weird sisters, the weird women, or sister. When the witches

meet for the second time in Act I, Scene iii, the first

witch asks, "Where hast thou been, sister?" The third witch

asks, "Sister, where thou?" When Macbeth is bent on learning

the worst news that can come to him in Act III, Scene iv, he

says, "Betimes I will to the weird sisters." The Scottish

witches could travel over the land and through the air. fchey-s

could transform themselves into animal's, but usually the tail

of the animal would be missing. Singing and dancing were

important parts of Scottish witch ceremonies. Shakespeare's

Weird Sisters sing and dance when they know that Macbeth is

coming:

A drum, a drum! Macbeth doth come. The weird sisters, hand in hand ^

Posters of the sea and land . . . . ^

And when the sailor's wife will not give chestnuts to the

witch, the witch will have revenge by punishing the sailor: iZj, •Ibid.

1^Macbeth. I, iii, 30-33.

70

Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger, But in a sieve 1111 thither sail, And, like a rat without a tail,

I'll do, I'll do, I'll do.

The ingredients in the cauldron seem to have been sug-

gested by certain details from the Scottish witch-trials. At

the trial of Patrick Loucy we find him accused of . . . consorting with one Janet Hunter, a notorious witch, and who was executed to the death for sorcery and witchcraft . . . . Janet and the said Patrick . . . convened themselves upon the common waste sandhills in Kyle . . . where the Devil appeared to them and con-ferred with them . . . . There appeared to them a devilish spirit in the likeness to a woman and calling herself Helen M'bune . . . . At diverse times thereafter they assembled themselves in diverse kirks and kirk-yards; where the said Patrick and his associates afore-said, raised and took up sundry dead persons out of their graves, and dismembered the said dead corpses for the practising of their witchcraft and sorcery.17

The main interest in this trial is that it occurred just a

short time before the date of Macbeth. Just as in the witch-

trial of Patrick Loucy, Macbeth and Banquo meet the witches

upon a blasted heath. Later in the play the witches use dis-

membered corpses for their cauldron:

Liver of blaspheming Jew; . . . Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips; .o

Finger of birth-strangled babe . . . .

Another important element in the Bothwell witch-trial is

dancing. The witch scenes in Macbeth give full play to

singing and dancing. At the beginning of Act IV the witches

l6Ibid., I, iii, 7-10.

"^Winstanley, p. 108.

1^Macbeth, IV, i, 25, 27, 30.

71

can be certain that Macbeth will visit them:

Round about the cauldron go;

In the poison'd entrails throw.19

The witches sing and dance as they brew their hideous hell-

broth, and when they have finished Hecate enters:

0, well done! I commend your pains; And every one shall share i1 the gains: And now about the cauldron sing, Like elves and fairies in a ring. Enchanting all that you put in.^0

The stage directions at this point call for music and song.

When the witches wish to make their charms more potent, they

sing or chant as they dance in a circle.

..Blackmore believes that the witches in Act IV are baser

witches than those found at the beginning of the play. It seems highly improbable that so excellent an

artist would without reason,.debase, those preternatural beings,, the "Fates," or Weird Sisters, to the low level

'common type. 21

He sees such action as the dancing and incantation as a

degradation and uncalled for.

^awesomeness of the witches.

At the beginning of the play the Weird Sisters were mysterious

beings whose place of abode was unknown, and whose powers were

mysterious. In the latter part of the play their action seems

demeaning to some critics and Hecate an awkward interpolation.

19Ibid., IV, i, 4-5.

20Ibid. . IV, i, 39-^:

^Blackmore, p. 206.

72

Cumberland Clark believes that the Hecate scene is "meaning-

less and superfluous" and that, it serves no dramatic purpose.

He finds her inconsistent with the other supernatural beings.

Clark says scholars are now nearly all agreed that some other

22

hand than Shakespeare's meddled with the tragedy. Perhaps

this is true, but the passages that Clark believes to be

interpolations (Act I, Scenes i and iii; Act III, Scene v,

and the appearance of Hecate in Act IV, Scene i) all have an

intrinsic value to the play. For example Act I, Scene i,

sets the mood of gloom and foreboding; it gives the audience

to know that this is going to be a play replete with evil,

full of natural and supernatural phenomena. Act I, Scene iii,

shows the evil nature of the witches. Hecate's appearance

in Act III, Scene v, supports the next appearance of the

witches and explains why the witches are now making a cauldron

to drive Macbeth to his own destruction. It is Hecate's com-

mand because of her jealousy in not being consulted about

"traffic" with Macbeth in the beginning. The witches ac-

knowledge" "that they have superiors, superiors in the forms

of their familiars known to be demons, but also Hecate is

recognized as their superior.

3t wourd"not be germane for this study to become in.-...

v6W^a'"TfT^lie^a3gumerits about possible interpolations. A.

point "tci"T5 c"n6ted, however, is that Macbeth, .as late as

22 Cumberland Clark, Shakespeare and the Supernatural

(London, 1931). P. 8?»

73

Act IV, never doubts the powers of the witches. Determined.

to know','¥^1r'iM^'>&h,ead for him, Macbeth conjures them by-

all the powers they are known to possess.

I conjure, you, by that which you profess, Kowe'er you come to know it, answer me: Though^©u-iuhtie -the winds and" let them fight Against the .churches; though the yesty waves Confpufi(i;'arid swallow navigation up; Though bladed corn toe lodged and trees blown down; Though , ca'stles. topple oh their warders' heads; Though palaces and•pyramids .do slope Thair iieStds to their' foundations; though the treasure Of nature's 'germens tumble all together, Ev.e. ::, rlJi:--d'estruction - sicken; answer me

Td'-vWimt I ask you.23

This passage, and. others, reveal that the witch scenes are

still a powerful force even late in the play, and they still

provide'' motivation that is indispensable to the final resolu-

tion of the play.

It has been of value in this study to recount in some

detail the specific attributes of witches and witchcraft.

This review has helped establish the authenticity of the

witches in Macbeth and has demonstrated that they were, in

effect, lifted out of the witch-trials of the time. There

are embodied in them practically all of the beliefs and

practices of demonology contemporary with Shakespeare. The

witch scenes have the added, if rather obvious, value of

providing an atmosphere for the evil machinations in the play.

In addition, the theatrical effectiveness of the witch scenes

would seem to be beyond question. No one of these things

23Macbeth, IV, i, 50-61.

7^

cited here would be sufficient, however, in itself, to ac-

count for the general excellence of the play. And unless

there were an added dimension in Shakespeare's use of the

occult in Macbeth, it would be redundant, to say the least,

to merely rehearse what has been stated many times before.

This added dimension is in the area of structure. Like the

ghost scenes in Hamlet, the witch scenes in Macbeth provide

the play with a genuine dramatic device that is integral to

the action of the play and provides the initial and continuing

motivation.

The first set of prophecies stimulates the already am-

bitious Macbeth to seize the throne "by the nearest means."

Soon after the third witch prophesies that Macbeth "shalt be

king hereafter" the audience realizes that Macbeth's ambition

exists before the play begins. Banquo notes that Macbeth

gives a start or an uncontrolled gesture of surprise when the

prophecy of kingship is made.

Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear gij.

Things that do sound so fair?

A guilty start is a natural reaction in such a circumstance,

especially when innermost longings have been voiced. The

subsequent murder of Banquo was brought about by his in-quisitiveness and as an indirect result of his question to

the Weird Sisters:

Ibid.. I, iii, 51.

75

If you can look into the seeds of time, And say which grain will grow and which will not, Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear Your favours nor your hate.25

When the prophecy that Banquo's descendants will be kings is

added to the prophecy that Macbeth is to receive a "fruit-

less crown," Banquo's death warrant was sealed.

The predictions of the Weird Sisters are fulfilled to

the smallest particular. There is, however, nothing sur-

prising •iH:^M'SlCC?OTr:transcendingi,mortals.. in -perfection of

.natl3re and of 'irit'eTrect, the ;witches. can,;perceiv.e-many-,,..tilings-,

that are obscure .or unknown to us. Their greater intelli-

gence is owed to the greater excellence of their spiritual

nature, and its excellence is proportioned to their nearer

approach to the Deity. Supernatural beings are purported

to be clairvoyant in the sense that whatever happens out-

wardly among men is immediately known to them. Act I,

Scene i, reveals that the battle will be lost and won before

the set of sun. The witches know that Macbeth and his

forces will be the victors, and they make plans to meet with

Macbeth. There is no passage in the text to indicate that

the witches were present or even near the camp at Forres when

Duncan tells his soldiers Ross and Angus to find Macbeth and

greet him by. the title "Thane of Cawdor," yet the witches

know that this has happened, and they greet Macbeth by

25Ibid., I, iii, 58-61.

26 Blackmore, p. *1-3•

76

that title. The- witches hear, a drum and know that Macbeth

is apprpaeatei ng. These and other passages indicate that

Shakespeare employs the witches in a manner approaching the

use of the oracles and other devices for prognostication in

Greek drama. In this context the term "weird" sometimes

applied to them becomes more significant. Henry N. Paul

explains that Theobald changed the word we.yward in the First

Folio to weird and justified his change by the reference in

Holinshed that says that some people thought the women on

the heath to be "the weird sisters, that is, as ye would say,

27

the Goddesses of Destiny." The term weird suggests the

supernatural or evil spirits, ghosts or any of the Fates.

The Fates of Greek and Roman mythology were believed to be

able to control human destiny. As a dramatic device, the'

Weird Sisters in Macbeth are an approximation to the Greek

concept of Fate or destiny,

©AUQfeerpart^to the-classical chorus. The chorus was employed

to"• give" tft'fe background of the drama,> to interpret the actions

of the characters, and to anticipate coming -events. Shake-,

speare's Weird Sisters in Act I represent what- is comparable

to ttoe-Greek prologue. In Act III, Scene v, the Hecate

"scene; they anticipate the action that,.is to-..follow-. As ,

aias ady 'fid't'ed the prophecy of he Weird Sisters i-s comparable

^Henry Neill Paul, The Royal Play of Macbeth (New York. 1950), p. 159.

77

to the prophecies of the oracles in Greek tragedy,, and Mac-

beth is no more bound by the prophecy than is Oedipus. It

is not surprising to find such strong classical overtones in

a play which has been called Shakespeare's most classical.

The architectonic and structural aspects of the witch

scenes continue to be apparent in the body of the play. The

ideas set in motion in Act I continue to germinate, of course,

but beyond that Shakespeare returns to the witches for moti-

vation of even the final catastrophic ending. In Act IV,

Scene i, Macbeth has demanded that the witches let him know

what lies ahead for him. They acknowledge their "masters" in

this scene, .asking Macbeth if he would rather know the future

from their masters. From this point the witches set into mo-

tion the second set of prophecies and pronouncements. Mac-

beth should beware of Macduff. No one of woman.born shall

harm Macbeth. Macbeth need not fear danger until Birnam Wood

march up the hill to Dunsinane. It is notable that in the

first set of prophecies the witches do not prescribe a line

of action for Macbeth to follow. But in Act IV when they wish

to make him destroy himself, they tell him to "Be bloody, bold,

and resolute; laugh to scorn/ The power of man . . . ." The

witches know that "security is mortals' chieftest enemy."

Macbeth believes the words of the apparitions because he wants

to believe them. In reality the witches do not lie to Mac-

beth. Macbeth was slain by Macduff; Macduff was "from his

mother's womb untimely ripped." The Eiigl'l'lK-

78

forces cut limbs from the trees of Birnam Wood to camouflage

their numbers thus making Birnam Wood march up the hill to ......

Dunsina»e. When Macbeth finally realizes that the witches

have deceived him, that most of his men have deserted him, and

that his wife has committed suicide, he is at the nadir of his

despair.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more . . . .2°

These lines just quoted may be said to sum up the main the-

matic threads of the play. They state succinctly what the

scenes with the weird sisters are all about. But this speech

of Macbeth's is just an epilogue to Banquo's when he advised

Macbeth that . . . oftentimes, to win us to our harm The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray's

In deepest consequence.^9

The basilisk eye bf nameless terror thatKnightspeaks

of is manifested in mood, tone, and atmospher e-of . the <irama.

The mood is one o f f ear .• The tone is one of continual un-

certainty as the characters incessantly question one another

and themselves. The atmosphere is dark and evil. The witches

2^Macbeth. V, v, 19-26.

29 Ibid.. I, iii, 123-126.

79

act upon Macbeth who, in turn, sets the mood, of the play.

In Act I, Macbeth shows fear, or at least apprehension, after

the Weird Sisters hail him King of Scotland. The fear of

this prophecy stems in part from the fact that Banquo has

heard it. Macbeth's fear is in part also that his inner

thoughts have been exposed. He fears his own ambition and

his leaning toward the supernatural in order to achieve his

ambition:

This supernatural soliciting Cannot-.<be',ill-cannot• be^.good; if ill, Why hath it given me earnest of success, Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor; If good, why do I yield to that suggestion Whose- horrid image doth unfix my hair" And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, Against the, use-of nature?,.. Present fears Are less than horrible imaginings;' ' My thought, .whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man that function Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is But what is not.30

Macbeth fears his evil thoughts can be read when he hears

Duncan proclaim his eldest son Malcolm Prince of Cumberland:

Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires; The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.

Lady Macbeth knows her husband's fears and her own fears be-

come intertwined with his:

Yet do I fear thy nature;

What thou wouldst highly,

That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,

30 Ibid.. I, iii, 130-142.

31Ibid., I, iv, 50-53.

80

And yet wouldst wrongly win. Thou 'ldst have, great Glamis,

That which cries, "Thus thou must do, if thou have it";

And that which rather thou dost fear to do Than wishest should be undone.32

It is fear that at first makes Macbeth decide against the

murder of Duncan. He fears the very stones will prate his

"whereabout" as he steals toward Duncan's chamber to murder

him. He is afraid to go back to Duncan's chambers to return

the daggers and smear the grooms with blood. Refusing to

follow through in the murder plot he says: "I am afraid to

think what I have done; look on't again I dare not." After

Duncan's body has been discovered, it is fear that causes

Macbeth's speech to become verbose and unnatural. Macbeth's

fear turns to terror when he sees the ghost of Banquo. - He;c,;.

•i' '-'iMable.'.to nd^x^tantl^vhy^.^tiy^Macbe-th'^oS

ruby of her cheeks when his are blanched with fear. . These

/fears are cumulative, and it is appalling to see the Man-

disintegrate before us. Macbeth's fears are dissipated after

he has seen the apparitions in the witches' cavern and has

heard their prophecy that he should be bloody, bold, and

resolute. From this point in the play until the end, the

audience no longer shares the fears with Macbeth; they are

fearful of him and what crimes he may commit. The scene in

the witches' cavern sets Macbeth off on the last grotesque

course of action.

32Ibid.. I, v, 17, 21-26.

81

Shakespeare makes his audience feel the presence of

evil when Lady Macbeth so earnestly invokes the evil spirits;

- - . . , Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe-" top full Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood; Stop up the .access-and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell4purpose, nor keep peace.-between The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts, And take my milk forvK J -,; you murdering' ministers, Wherever in your'";sIg#t$es^ substances You wait on nature's mischief'.33

Evil is felt hovering about the dagger scene and again when

Macbeth hears voices that tell him to "sleep no more."

Demonic spirits trouble Banquo's sleep; Duncan laughs in his

sleep; and Lady Macbeth is unable to sleep without a candle.

Even nature is disturbed by the presence of demons. Macbeth

fears that the stones under his feet will prate his whereabout

as he steals to Duncan's chamber. An owl, an ill omen in it-

self, shrieks just before Duncan's murder. The Old Man

reports

'Tis unnatural, Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last A falcon, towering in her pride of place, , Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed.^

Ross adds his information concerning unnatural happenings to

that of the Old Man. He had witnessed Duncan's horses,

"minions of their race," turn wild and eat each other. .Evil.

spi?r4*fe«r of evil spirits are omnipresent in

33 Ibid.. I, v, M-51.

3^Ibid.. II, iv, 10-13.

82

Some of the spirits are consciously invoked, as

with Lady Macbeth; others appear involuntarily. The

presences of the Weird Sisters permeate the whole play to an

extent that the play cannot be comprehended, without them.

Through them and the scenes in which they appear Shakespeare

creates a dramatic device using occult phenomena that is the

most effective he ever employed. Through this dramatic

device Shakespeare adds another dimension to the play that at

times transcends the worldly altogether.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

In almost every age where drama has flourished, super-

naturalism has had a prominent place on the stage. In Greek

drama the playwrights made considerable use of occult phe-

nomena, not only for special effects, but also as an integral

part of the structure of the play. Supernaturalism in Greek

drama, at its best, was a natural extension of occult beliefs

and practices in Greek life and religion. In almost every

instance when it appears in the drama it is integral to the

plot; it motivates character; and it is an extension of the

theme. It must be pointed out and stressed that supernatu-

ralism itself is not automatically a dramatic device, nor

can it become one until the author deliberately uses the

phenomena to motivate the plot and to make it coherent. The

Greek playwrights did not come automatically and intuitively

to an effective use of the occult. The Suppliants of

Aeschylus is an example of the supernatural being used merely

as a decorative detail. Although Pleasgus aids the Sup-

pliants because he fears the wrath of Zeus, Zeus has no in-

fluence on the structure of the play. This play, the earliest

extant by Aeschylus, shows the rudiment of occultism in

tragedy. Prom this small beginning evolves a more elaborate

83

84

and a more mature handling of occultism in tragedy. The

Persians, another play by Aeschylus, is important in the

history of occultism in tragedy because it was the first to

make use of the prophetic dream and the ghost. This play

made innovations which broadened the scope of the use of oc-

cultism, and according to C. E. Whitmore, it was the first

known play in the literature of Western culture to bring the

supernatural even into external connection with the action.

Although the handling of the occult in The Persians is more

meaningful than it is in The Suppliants, Aeschylus does not

make the prophetic dream and the ghost an integral part in

the drama. By the time Sophocles appears on the scene Greek

playwrights had begun to use the occult in tragedy with great

sophistication. In Oedipus Rex the oracle at Delphi is a

dramatic device which dominates and motivates the entire

action and theme of the play. The subtlety with which the

occult is developed in Oedipus Rex is not to be matched again

until Shakespeare reaches the height of his powers in Hamlet

and Macbeth.

Because of the obvious influence of Seneca upon Eliza-

bethan tragedy, it is natural to assume that much of the

occultism on the Elizabethan stage derives from Seneca alone.

Seneca was undoubtedly important but the influences are more

varied than at first supposed. Seneca's contribution to the

occult in tragedy is primarily in the form of revenge

ghosts, divination, and mechanical devices. Seneca departed

85

from Greek decorum by having his murders committed on stage.

The Grecian specters were used primarily to prophesy and to

motivate and were rarely vindictive. On the other hand,

revenge is the main purpose of the Senecan ghosts. Medea is

not untypical of Seneca's plays. In it appears a chariot

drawn by dragons that aids Medea in her escape from Corinth.

This kind of use of supernaturalism is mechanical, super-

ficial, and melodramatic. Although many critics believe that

Seneca's dramatic technique is poor, that his characters are

unreal, and that he relies upon horror for dramatic effect,

it cannot be denied that Seneca's adaptations of the Greek

tragedies had a great influence upon the Renaissance play-

wrights. Shakespeare and his contemporaries reflect the

Senecan influence in the division of the play into five acts,

the use of the prologue, chorus, ghosts, long soliloquies,

and the use of magic, horror, and revenge.

The playwrights of the early Elizabethan period ignored

the supernaturalism found in English medieval drama and

focused their attention on Senecan tragedy. Although they

found their English audience ready to accept the occultism

found in Senecan tragedy, the early Elizabethan playwrights

were not prepared to improve upon the use of supernatural

elements and convert them into genuine dramatic devices that

were indispensable to the action and structurally integrated

into the play as a whole. For example Sackville and Norton

make superficial use of the occult in Gorboduc by having

86

Magaera arid, her sister furies appear in a dumb show to

prophesy the downfall of the royal family. Choosing this

kind of setting, the authors imply the external nature of

the occult phenomena. The ghost of Andrea in Thomas Kyd's

The Spanish Tragedy is different in some respects from the

Senecan ghost, "but it is not an improvement upon the ghost

as a dramatic device. The ghost of Andrea makes three ap-

pearances in the play; it is made to appear more human than

the Grecian or Senecan ghost; it does not set an atmosphere

of terror. At times it comes dangerously close to being a

comic figure. Andrea is accompanied by Revenge who is the

real motivator of the plot. But the lack of seriousness on

the part of both supernatural beings makes it difficult to

believe that the tragic deaths are caused by their influence.

Even Shakespeare's early attempts at using the supernatural

fall short of being authentic dramatic devices. In Richard

III the parade of the ghosts of Richard's victims prophesying

his defeat comes too late in the play to be considered a

dramatic device. The dramatic device must motivate at least

the major portion of the drama and be an integral part of

the structure. This study has made no special attempt to

establish priorities, but Christopher Marlowe's Doctor

Faustus was among the first plays to use the occult as an

authentic dramatic device. The play employs a number of oc-

cult elements that are only decorative and mechanical, such

as the magic tricks and even the Good Angel and the Bad Angel.

8?

In the character of Mephistophilis, however, Marlowe has

developed a supernatural character that has affinities to

the Greek oracle and one which is an integral, vital dra-

matic device.

Although supernatural!sm and the occult are present in

many of Shakespeare's tragedies, they can be judged as

genuine dramatic devices in only three--Julius Caesar, Hamlet,

and Macbeth. In these plays Shakespeare uses the ghosts and

the witches with all the superstitions they imply and weaves

them into the structure of the dramas so well that they be-

come indispensable to the plot. By the time of these plays

the spectral visitor is of ancient lineage. That Shakespeare

was able to inject new life into the ghostly visitor is as

remarkable as it is obvious. He is able to breathe new life

into the ghost in part because of his close reliance on de-

tails drawn from life. Shakespeare's use of the ghost is in

keeping with the expectations of his audience. The pre-

vailing view of the time was that ghosts were spirits, some-

times good, more often evil, that had returned from hell or

purgatory. The spirit was believed to have had some mission

on earth that could only be carried out by some supernatural

force. The uneducated believed that the ghost was actually

the spirit of some deceased person who left his grave in

order to appear on earth to impart a message of impending

danger, civil strife, or personal harm to someone. They also

believed that the ghost of one who had been murdered was

88

doomed to walk the earth until the murder was avenged. If

this air of contemporaneity were all that Shakespeare ac-

complished with his ghosts, he would be little better in this

device than a number of his contemporaries.

The main contention of this thesis is that at the height

of his dramatic maturity Shakespeare was able to transform

what had become rather crude and hackneyed treatment of the

occult into an employment of occult phenomena that transcends

anything that was being written in his time. In his plays

where the occult is used most extensively and most skillfully

the various supernatural manifestations have, in most in-

stances, ceased to be merely superficial and melodramatic

decorative and mechanical devices. In Julius Caesar, Hamlet,

and Macbeth the occult phenomena have been transformed, in

terms of the terminology adopted by this study, into authentic

dramatic devices. On the most obvious and superficial level

this means that the occult manifestations are so carefully

interwoven into the fabric of the play that to alter or omit

them would be to materially alter the play. A key distinc-

tion, then, is that when the supernatural element is integral

and indispensable it becomes a genuine dramatic device in-

corporated into the structure of the play and having a direct

bearing on the motivation of the play.

The distinctions which this thesis makes are perhaps

best indicated through comparison and contrast. The central

chapters of the thesis have examined in detail Shakespeare's

89

Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and Macbeth in order to demonstrate

that in the employment of the occult they are a distinct

advancement in technique over what was being written in Shake-

speare's time and over Shakespeare's earlier plays such as

Titus Andronicus and Richard III. This study has concen-

trated on two main supernatural manifestations: the ghostly

visitation, which culminated and reached its zenith in

Hamlet; and the Weird Sisters of Macbeth.

With the ghostly visitor Shakespeare was working in an

already well-established tradition. He was not content in

Hamlet, however, to accept the somewhat crude Senecan ghost

without modification. The ghost of Hamlet's father is more

than just another revenge ghost. The influence of the ghost

permeates the play, much as Caesar's spirit had dominated the

earlier play. The Hamlet ghost acts as chorus and commentator

in a manner reminiscent of the classical chorus, yet it re-

mains at all times integral to the main action. The Hamlet

ghost, finally, is the primary motivator of the forward move-

ment of the plot and of the character of the hero.

The evil presence of the Weird Sisters is felt through-

out the entire play. They, like the ghosts, are limited in

their appearances on stage in the drama, but the audience is

ever mindful that they control the plot. The Weird Sisters

fulfilled the expectations of an audience that believed in

witchcraft as much as it believed in life and death. Shake-

speare must have been thoroughly acquainted with the current

90

beliefs and superstitions about witchcraft or he could not

have created a dramatic device such as his Weird Sisters who,

in three appearances and somewhat less than one hundred and

fifty lines, could give the play an atmosphere of dreadful

foreboding. The overwhelming influence of the witches on the

play is a work of genius. Everything considered, Macbeth

shows better than any other of Shakespeare's plays his con-

summate skill with the occult and supernatural. The play is

almost inconceivable except as worked out within the frame-

work of the prophecies of the witches.

An investigation of the uses of the occult in tragedies

from classical to modern times shows that the two periods in

which this device was used most effectively are the Attic

Greek and the Elizabethan. Comparing Oedipus and Macbeth,

and considering that each was developed in the context of its

own time, one finds that they have remarkable similarities.

The underlying ideas of both plays include the belief that

life is basically tragic, that every man has a personal re-

sponsibility for his sins, that man has limitations and must

subordinate himself to those limitations, and that excessive

pride will be punished. Oracular forces are important in

both plays, but the final destinies are in the hands of the

hero. Shakespeare seems intuitively to have reverted to a

dramatic technique with occult phenomena that is more nearly

Sophoclean than Senecan. That he was right is indicated by

the fact that in plays like Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and

91

Macbeth the modern audience is able to transcend its tendency

to disbelieve and accepts the supernatural mechinery almost

without question, whereas in Seneca, Kyd, and even Marlowe the

occult devices remain at best quaint anachronisms.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Baker, George P., The Development of Shakespeare as a Drama-tist, New York, The Macmillan Company, 1907«

I, Blackmore, Simon A., A Great Soul in Conflict, New York, Scott Poresman and Company, 1910.

Boas, Frederick, editor, The Works of Thomas Kyd, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1962.

Bowers, Predson, editor, The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, Cambridge, The University Press, 1958.

Bradley, A. C., Shakespearean Tragedy, New York, The Macmillan C ompany, 19^9•

Buckley, Theodore Alois, translator, The Tragedies of Euripides, New York, Longmans, Green, & Co., 1877.

Clark, Cumberland, Shakespeare and Science, Birmingham, England, Cornish Bros., Ltd., 1929.

Shakespeare and the Supernatural, London, London, Williams and Norgate, Ltd., 1931-

, A Study of Macbeth, London, Stratford, Shakespeare Head Press, 1926.

Craig, Hardin, The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Chicago, Scott Foresman and Company, 1951.

Cunliffe, John W., The Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy, New York, G. E. Stechert, 1925.

Curry, W. C., Shakespeare's Philosophical Patterns, Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1959.

Dowden, Edward, Shakespeare, A Critical Study of His Mind and Art, New York, Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1918.

Elliott, G. R., Dramatic Providence in Macbeth, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 195^"

92

93

Flatter, Richard, Shakespeare1s Producing Hand, New York, W. W. Norton & Co., 1948.

f Gifford, George, A Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcraft, edited by G. B. Harrison, London, Oxford University Press, 1931*

| Goddard, Harold C., The Meaning of Shakespeare, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 19&3-

Granville-Barker, Harley, Prefaces to Shakespeare, New Jersey, Princeton University Press-] 19^7•

Green, Robert, The Honorable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. in Shakespeare and His Fellow Dramatists, edited by E. H. C. Oliphant, New York, Prentice-Hall, 1929-

it Hole, Christina, Witchcraft in England, New York, Scribners' Sons, 19^7.

Jackson, W. T. H., The Literature of the Middle Ages, New York, Columbia University Press, 1962.

Kirschbaum, Leo, editor, The Plays of Christopher Marlowe, New York, World Publishing Co., 1962.

/ Kittredge, George L., Witchcraft in Old and New England, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1956.

/ Knight, G. Wilson, The Wheel of Fire, London, Oxford Uni-versity Press, 1930-

Marsh, Phillip, English Literature, A Concise History, Austin, The Steck Company, 1951.

Matthews, Brander, Shakespeare as a Playwright, New York, Scribner's Sons, 1913'

Mendell, Clarence W., Our Seneca, New Haven, Yale University Press, 19^1.

Moulton, Richard, Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1929.

I Murray, Margaret Alice, The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1921.

Newton, Thomas, Seneca and His Tenne Tragedies, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, i 960 .

94

f Nicoll, Allardyce and Josephine Nicoll, editors, Holinshed Chronicle, New York, E. P. Dutton & Company, 1927.

Nicoll, Allardyce, Studies in Shakespeare, New York, Har-court, Brace, and Company, 1927.

Norton, Thomas and Thomas Sackville, Gorboduc, in Early English Plays, edited by H. C. Schweikert, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1877.

Oliphant, E. H. C., editor, Shakespeare and His Fellow Drama-tists, New York, Prentice-Hall, 1929.

Parrott, Thomas Marc, A Short View of Elizabethan Drama, New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1958.

r Paul, Henry Neill, The Boyal Play of Macbeth, New York, Mac-millan, 1950.

Quiller-Couch, A. T., Shakespeare's Workmanship, Cambridge, The University Press, 1931.

Reed, Robert R., The Occult on the Tudor Stage, Boston, The Christopher Publishing House, 1965.

Reinhold, Meyer, Classical Drama, New York, Barron's Educa-tional Series, Inc., 1959*

Ribner, Irving, Patterns in Shakespearean Tragedy, London, Methuen and Company, 19^0.

* Rogers, L. W., The Ghosts in Shakespeare, Chicago, Theo Book Company, 19^9•

Rose, H. J., A Commentary on the Surviving Plays of Aeschylus, Amsterdam, New York, Noord-Hollandsche, 1957.

Schweikert, H. C., Early English Plays, New York, Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1877-

• Stauffer, Donald A., Shakespeare 1s World of Images, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 19^9•

Steane, J. B.. , Marlowe, A Critical Study, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 196^.

Stoll, E. E., Art and Artifice in Shakespeare, New York, Barnes & Noble, 1933*

95

Tatlock, Jessie M., Greek and. Roman Mythology, New York, Appleton Century Crofts, 1917.

Thompson, James A. K., Shakespeare and the Classics, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1952.

Trawick, Buckner B., editor, World Literature, New York, Barnes & Noble, 1955*

West, Robert Hunter, The Invisible World, Athens, University of Georgia Press, 1939.

Whitaker, Virgil K., The Mirror Up to Nature, Los Angeles, Anderson, Ritchie, and Simon, 1965.

Whitmore, C. E., The Supernatural in Tragedy, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1915-

Winstanley, Lillian, Macbeth, King Lear & Contemporary History, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1922.

Articles

Bernard, M. A., "Five Tragedies in Macbeth," Shakespeare Quarterly, XIII (Autumn-Winter, 1962), 49-61.

Blissett, William, "The Secret'st Man of Blood, A Study of Dramatic Irony in Macbeth," Shakespeare Quarterly, X (Summer, 1959), 397-^08.

Cunliffe, J. W., "Italian Prototypes of the Masque and Dumb Show," Publications of the Modern Language Association, XXII (March, 1907), 1^0-156.

Curry, Walter Clyde, "The Demonic Metaphysics of Macbeth," Studies in Philology, XXX (July, 1933), 395-^26.

Doran, Madeleine, "That Undiscovered Country," Philological Quarterly, XX (July, 19^1), ^13-^27.

Dyson, J. P., "Structural Function of the Banquet Scene in Macbeth," Shakespeare Quarterly, XIV (Autumn, 1963), 369-378.

Nosworthy, J. M., "The Hecate Scenes in Macbeth," Review of English Studies, XXIV (April, 19^8), I38-I39.

Smith, Warren D., "The Elizabethan Rejection of Judicial Astrology and Shakespeare's Practice," Shakespeare Quarterly, IX (Spring, 1958), 159-176.

96

Stoll, E. E., "The Objectivity of the Ghost in Shakespeare," Publications of the Modern Language Association. XXII (December,190?), 201-233.

West, Robert H., "King Hamlet's Ambiguous Ghost," Publica-tions of the Modern Language Association, LXX (December. 1950), 1107-1117.