Folk-lore of Shakespeare by Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer (year 2 reading books .txt) đź“–
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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) Enobarbus 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
Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.”
In “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1) Titania says:
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound.”
And in “The Winter’s Tale” (i. 2) Polixenes commences by saying how:
The shepherd’s note, since we have left our throne
Without a burthen.”
We may compare, too, the words of Enobarbus in “Antony and Cleopatra” (iv. 9), who, after addressing the moon, says: “The poisonous damp of night disponge upon me.” And once more, in “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 4), we read of the “moonshine’s watery beams.”
The same idea is frequently found in old writers. Thus, for instance, in Newton’s “Direction for the Health of Magistrates and Studentes” (1574), we are told that “the moone is ladye of moisture.” Bartholomæus, in “De Proprietate Rerum,” describes the moon as “mother of all humours, minister and ladye of the sea.”[117] In Lydgate’s prologue to his “Story of Thebes” there are two lines not unlike those in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream,” already quoted:
That many shoure fro heaven made availe.”
Of course, the moon is thus spoken of as governing the tides, and from its supposed influence on the weather.[118] In “1 Henry IV.” (i. 2) Falstaff alludes to the sea being governed “by our noble and chaste mistress, the moon;” and in “Richard III.” (ii. 2) Queen Elizabeth says:
May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world.”
We may compare, too, what Timon says (“Timon of Athens,” iv. 3):
The moon into salt tears.”
The expression of Hecate, in “Macbeth” (iii. 5):
There hangs a vaporous drop profound,”
seems to have been meant for the same as the virus lunare of the ancients, being a foam which the moon was supposed to shed on particular herbs, when strongly solicited by enchantment. Lucan introduces Erictho using it (“Pharsalia,” book vi. 669): “Et virus large lunare ministrat.”
By a popular astrological doctrine the moon was supposed to exercise great influence over agricultural operations, and also over many “of the minor concerns of life, such as the gathering of herbs, the killing of animals for the table, and other matters of a like nature.” Thus the following passage in the “Merchant of Venice” (v. 1), it has been suggested, has reference to the practices of the old herbalists who attributed particular virtues to plants gathered during particular phases of the moon and hours of the night. After Lorenzo has spoken of the moon shining brightly, Jessica adds:
Medea gather’d the enchanted herbs,
That did renew old Æson.”
And in “Hamlet” (iv. 7) the description which Laertes gives of the weapon-poison refers to the same notion:
So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,
Collected from all simples that have virtue
Under the moon, can save the thing from death.”
The sympathy of growing and declining nature with the waxing and waning moon is a superstition widely spread, and is as firmly believed in by many as when Tusser, in his “Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry,” under “February” gave the following advice:
Who soweth them sooner, he soweth too soon,
That they with the planet may rest and arise,
And flourish, with bearing most plentifull wise.”
Warburton considers that this notion is alluded to by Shakespeare in “Troilus and Cressida” (iii. 2), where Troilus, speaking of the sincerity of his love, tells Cressida it is,
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate.”
There is a little doubt as to the exact meaning of plantage in this passage. Nares observes that it probably means anything that is planted; but Mr. Ellacombe, in his “Plant-lore of Shakespeare” (1878, p. 165), says “it is doubtless the same as plantain.”
It appears that, in days gone by, “neither sowing, planting, nor grafting was ever undertaken without a scrupulous attention to the increase or waning of the moon.”[119] Scot, in his “Discovery of Witchcraft,” notes how “the poore husbandman perceiveth that the increase of the moone maketh plants fruitful, so as in the full moone they are in best strength; decaieing in the wane, and in the conjunction do utterlie wither and vade.”
It was a prevailing notion that the moon had an attending star—Lilly calls it “Lunisequa;” and Sir Richard Hawkins, in his “Observations in a Voyage to the South Seas in 1593,” published in 1622, remarks: “Some I have heard say, and others write, that there is a starre which never separateth itself from the moon, but a small distance.” Staunton considers that there is an allusion to this idea in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iv. 3), where the king says:
She an attending star, scarce seen a light.”
The sharp ends of the new moon are popularly termed horns—a term which occurs in “Coriolanus” (i. 1)—
As they would hang them on the horns o’ the moon.”
It is made use of in Decker’s “Match me in London” (i.):
Sharp hornes doe threaten windy weather.”
When the horns of the moon appear to point upwards the moon is said to be like a boat, and various weather prognostications are drawn from this phenomenon.[120] According to sailors, it is an omen of fine weather, whereas others affirm it is a sign of rain—resembling a basin full of water about to fall.
Among other items of folk-lore connected with the moon we may mention the moon-calf, a false conception, or fœtus imperfectly formed, in consequence, as was supposed, of the influence of the moon. The best account of this fabulous substance may be found in Drayton’s poem with that title. Trinculo, in “The Tempest” (ii. 2), supposes Caliban to be a moon-calf: “I hid me under the dead moon-calf’s gaberdine.” It has been suggested that in calling Caliban a moon-calf Shakespeare alluded to a superstitious belief formerly current, in the intercourse of demons and other non-human beings with mankind. In the days of witchcraft, it was supposed that a class of devils called Incubi and Succubi roamed the earth with the express purpose of tempting people to abandon their purity of life. Hence, all badly deformed children were suspected of having had such an undesirable parentage.[121]
A curious expression, “a sop o’ the moonshine,” occurs in “King Lear” (ii. 2), which probably alludes to some dish so called. Kent says to the steward, “Draw, you rogue; for, though it be night, yet the moon shines; I’ll make a sop o’ the moonshine of you.”
There was a way of dressing eggs, called “eggs in moonshine,” of which Douce[122] gives the following description: “Eggs were broken and boiled in salad oil till the yolks became hard. They were eaten with slices of onion fried in oil, butter, verjuice, nutmeg, and salt.” “A sop in the moonshine” must have been a sippet in this dish.[123]
Planets. The irregular motion of the planets was supposed to portend some disaster to mankind. Ulysses, in “Troilus and Cressida” (i. 3), declares how:
In evil mixture, to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents! what mutiny!
What raging of the sea! shaking of earth!
Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixture.”
Indeed, the planets themselves were not thought, in days gone by, to be confined in any fixed orbit of their own, but ceaselessly to wander about, as the etymology of their name demonstrates. A popular name for the planets was “wandering stars,” of which Cotgrave says, “they bee also called wandering starres, because they never keep one certain place or station in the firmament.” Thus Hamlet (v. 1), approaching the grave of Ophelia, addresses Laertes:
Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers?”
In Tomkis’s “Albumazar” (i. 1) they are called “wanderers:”
Holds all the marks of the other wanderers.”
According to vulgar astrology, the planets, like the stars, were supposed to affect, more or less, the affairs of this world, a notion frequently referred to by old writers. In “Winter’s Tale” (ii. 1), Hermione consoles herself in the thought—
I must be patient till the heavens look
With an aspect more favourable.”
In “1 Henry VI.” (i. 1), the Duke of Exeter asks:
That plotted thus our glory’s overthrow?”
Again, King Richard (“Richard III.,” iv. 4):
To my proceeding.”
And once more, in “Hamlet” (i. 1), Marcellus, speaking of the season of our Saviour’s birth, says, “then no planets strike.”
That diseases, too, are dependent upon planetary influence is referred to in “Timon of Athens” (iv. 3):
Will o’er some
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