Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 14

[105] "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages," 1877, p. 197.

[106] Douce's "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 10.

From the very earliest times the moon has not only been an object of popular superst.i.tion, but been honored by various acts of adoration. In Europe,[107] in the fifteenth century, "it was a matter of complaint that some still worshipped the new moon with bended knee, or hood or hat removed. And to this day we may still see a hat raised to her, half in conservatism and half in jest. It is with deference to silver as the lunar metal that money is turned when the act of adoration is performed, while practical peasant wit dwells on the ill-luck of having no piece of silver when the new moon is first seen." Shakespeare often incidentally alludes to this form of superst.i.tion. To quote one or two out of many instances, En.o.barbus, in "Antony and Cleopatra" (iv. 9), says:

"Be witness to me, O thou blessed moon!"

[107] For further information on this subject, see Tylor's "Primitive Culture," 1873, vol. i. pp. 288, 354-356; vol. ii.

pp. 70, 202, 203.

In "Love's Labour's Lost" (v. 2) the king says:

"Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine, Those clouds, removed, upon our watery eyne."

Indeed, it was formerly a common practice for people to address invocations to the moon,[108] and even at the present day we find remnants of this practice both in this country and abroad. Thus, in many places it is customary for young women to appeal to the moon to tell them of their future prospects in matrimony,[109] the following or similar lines being repeated on the occasion:

"New moon, new moon, I hail thee: New moon, new moon, be kind to me; If I marry man or man marry me, Show me how many moons it will be."

[108] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," vol. iii. pp. 142, 143.

[109] See "English Folk-lore," pp. 43, 44.

It was also the practice to swear by the moon, to which we find an allusion in "Romeo and Juliet" (ii. 2), where Juliet reproves her lover for testifying his affections by this means:

"O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable."

And again, in "The Merchant of Venice" (v. 1), where Gratiano exclaims:

"By yonder moon I swear you do me wrong."

We may note here that the inconstancy[110] of the moon is the subject of various myths, of which Mr. Tylor has given the following examples: Thus, an Australian legend says that Mityan, the moon, was a native cat, who fell in love with some one else's wife, and was driven away to wander ever since. A Slavonic legend tells us that the moon, king of night, and husband of the sun, faithlessly loved the morning star, wherefore he was cloven through in punishment, as we see him in the sky.

The Khasias of the Himalaya say that the moon falls monthly in love with his mother-in-law, who throws ashes in his face, whence his spots.[111]

[110] "Primitive Culture," 1873, vol. i. pp. 354, 355.

[111] The words "moonish" ("As You Like It," iii. 2) and "moonlike" ("Love's Labour's Lost," iv. 3) are used in the sense of inconstant.

As in the case of the sun, an eclipse of the moon was formerly considered ominous. The Romans[112] supposed it was owing to the influence of magical charms, to counteract which they had recourse to the sound of brazen instruments of all kinds. Juvenal alludes to this practice in his sixth Satire (441), when he describes his talkative woman:

"Jam nemo tubas, nemo aera fatiget, Una laboranti poterit succurrere lunae."

[112] See Douce's "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 18.

Indeed, eclipses, which to us are well-known phenomena witnessing to the exactness of natural laws, were, in the earlier stages of civilization, regarded as "the very embodiment of miraculous disaster." Thus, the Chinese believed that during eclipses of the sun and moon these celestial bodies were attacked by a great serpent, to drive away which they struck their gongs or brazen drums. The Peruvians, entertaining a similar notion, raised a frightful din when the moon was eclipsed,[113]

while some savages would shoot up arrows to defend their luminaries against the enemies they fancied were attacking them. It was also a popular belief that the moon was affected by the influence of witchcraft, a notion referred to by Prospero in "The Tempest" (v. 1), who says:

"His mother was a witch, and one so strong That could control the moon."

[113] Tylor's "Primitive Culture," vol. i. p. 329.

In a former scene (ii. 1) Gonzalo remarks: "You are gentlemen of brave mettle; you would lift the moon out of her sphere." Douce[114] quotes a marginal reference from Adlington's translation of "Apuleius" (1596), a book well known to Shakespeare: "Witches in old time were supposed to be of such power that they could put downe the moone by their inchantment."[115] One of the earliest references to this superst.i.tion among cla.s.sical authorities is that in the "Clouds" of Aristophanes, where Strepsiades proposes the hiring of a Thessalian witch, to bring down the moon and shut her up in a box, that he might thus evade paying his debts by a month. Ovid, in his "Metamorphoses" (bk. xii. 263), says:

"Mater erat Mycale; quam deduxisse canendo Saepe reluctanti constabat cornua lunae."

[114] "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 16.

[115] See Scot's "Discovery of Witchcraft," 1584, pp. 174, 226, 227, 250.

Horace, in his fifth Epode (45), tells us:

"Quae sidera excantata voce Thessala, Lunamque caelo deripit."[116]

[116] For further examples, see Douce's "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakespeare," p. 17.

Reverting again to the moon's eclipse, such a season, being considered most unlucky for lawful enterprises, was held suitable for evil designs.

Thus, in "Macbeth" (iv. 1), one of the witches, speaking of the ingredients of the caldron, says:

"Gall of goat, and slips of yew, Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse."

As a harbinger of misfortune it is referred to in "Antony and Cleopatra," where (iii. 13), Antony says:

"Alack, our terrene moon Is now eclipsed; and it portends alone The fall of Antony!"

Milton, in his "Paradise Lost" (bk. i. 597), speaks much in the same strain:

"as when the sun new-risen Looks through the horizontal misty air Shorn of his beams, or from behind the moon In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations."

And in "Lycidas," he says of the unlucky ship that was wrecked:

"It was that fatal and perfidious bark Built in the eclipse."

Its sanguine color is also mentioned as an indication of coming disasters in "Richard II." (ii. 4), where the Welsh captain remarks how:

"The pale-faced moon looks b.l.o.o.d.y on the earth."

And its paleness, too, in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (ii. 2), is spoken of as an unpropitious sign.

According to a long-accepted theory, insane persons are said to be influenced by the moon: and many old writers have supported this notion.

Indeed, Shakespeare himself, in "Oth.e.l.lo" (v. 2), tells how the moon when

"She comes more nearer earth than she was wont, And makes men mad."

Dr. Forbes Winslow, in his "Light: its Influence on Life and Health,"

says that "it is impossible altogether to ignore the evidence of such men as Pinel, Daquin, Guislain, and others, yet the experience of modern psychological physicians is to a great degree opposed to the deductions of these eminent men." He suggests that the alleged changes observed among the insane at certain phases of the moon may arise, not from the direct, but the indirect, influence of the planet. It is well known that certain important meteorological phenomena result from the various phases of the moon, such as the rarity of the air, the electric conditions of the atmosphere, the degree of heat, dryness, moisture, and amount of wind prevailing. It is urged, then, that those suffering from diseases of the brain and nervous system, affecting the mind, cannot be considered as exempt from the operation of agencies that are admitted to affect patients afflicted with other maladies. Dr. Winslow further adds, that "an intelligent lady, who occupied for about five years the position of matron in my establishment for insane ladies, has remarked that she invariably observed among them a greater agitation when the moon was at its full." A correspondent of "Notes and Queries" (2d series, xii. 492) explains the apparent aggravated symptoms of madness at the full moon by the fact that the insane are naturally more restless on light than on dark nights, and that in consequence loss of sleep makes them more excitable. We may note here, that in "Antony and Cleopatra" (iv. 9) En.o.barbus invokes the moon as the "sovereign mistress of true melancholy."

The moisture of the moon is invariably noticed by Shakespeare. In "Hamlet" (i. 1) Horatio tells how

"the moist star, Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands, Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse."