The Occult As a Dramatic Device in Shakespearean Tragedy

Home , Doctor Faustus (play), Ghost (Hamlet), The dogs of war (phrase)

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

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 development of mankind's cultural history. What is important to note at this point is that as far back as Greek drama, playwrights 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 manifestations 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 phenomena 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 manifestations in Shakespeare's tragedies become devices that give form to the play and become part of established stage techniques and patterns.

A study of this kind must, of necessity, take into account 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 historical 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 dramatic device. Chapter IV gives a brief history of witchcraft 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 definitions 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 supernatural 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 prologue 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 occult 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, believing 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 represent, 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 device . 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 supernatural he achieves only a decorative device. In__the next play, however, he creates the idea for two dramatic devices-- 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 comparison 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 devices. 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 witchcraft 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 character 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 appears 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 delivered 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 committed 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 coherence 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 addition 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 supernatural. 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 punishment 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- 19 appear with garments "sprinkled with blood." The word blood or 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 occult 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 believe in demonic possession. Robert R. Reed believes that the most remarkable aspect of Marlowe's tragedy is the masterful blend of the two opposed 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 characters; 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 dramatists 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 sympathetic 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 returning 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 accused 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 supernatural. 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 occult 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 playwrights. 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 underworld 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 attempts 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 devices 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 necessary 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 appear 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 unnatural 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 begin 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 foreshadowing. 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 appearance 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 dramaturgical 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 manifestations, 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 beginning, 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 foreboding. 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 motivating 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 person. The occult phenomena are more pronounced and more numerous in Julius Caesar, as witness the use of the soothsayer 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 religious 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 considered 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 human 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 purgatory: 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 important 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 phenomena. 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 appears 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 appearance 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 beginning 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 beginning 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 traditional 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 to 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 himself 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 metaphysical 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 witchcraft, 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;.''however, 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 i 'ca%t~"''suok----up,C)n':the• body •''o'f-" thi'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-

i come lame. The familiars of Shakespeai^ ^r-¥eIr

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 arethe 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 concoct 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 different 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 dismembered 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 command because of her jealousy in not being consulted about "traffic" with Macbeth in the beginning. The witches acknowledge" "that they have superiors, superiors in the forms of their familiars known to be demons, but also Hecate is recognized as their superior. 3^t 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 resolution 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 account 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 "fruitless 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 motivation 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 motion 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 thematic 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

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-.

That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, Ibid.. I, iii, 130-142. 30 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 itself, 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, supernaturalism has had a prominent place on the stage. In Greek drama the playwrights made considerable use of occult phenomena, 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 supernaturalism 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 influence 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 occultism, 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, superficial, 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 playwrights. 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 appearances 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 occult 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 dramatic 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 become 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 details drawn from life. Shakespeare's use of the ghost is in keeping with the expectations of his audience. The prevailing view of the time was that ghosts were spirits, sometimes 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 accomplished 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 instances, 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 distinction, 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 remains at all times integral to the main action. The Hamlet ghost, finally, is the primary motivator of the forward movement of the plot and of the character of the hero.

The evil presence of the Weird Sisters is felt throughout 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 framework 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^"

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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.