The Mysteries of All Nations Part 9

Receive me, my friends, from night."

The fourth bard takes up the theme thus:

"Night is calm and fair; blue, starry, settled is night. The winds, with the clouds, are gone. They sink behind the hill. The moon is up on the mountain. Trees glister; streams s.h.i.+ne on the rock. Bright rolls the settled lake; bright the stream of the vale. I see the trees overturned; the shocks of corn on the plain.

The wakeful hind rebuilds the shocks, and whistles on the distant field. Calm, settled, fair is night! Who comes from the place of the dead? That form with the robe of snow; white arms with dark-brown hair! It is the daughter of the chief of the people--she that lately fell! Come, let us view thee, O maid! thou that hast been the delight of heroes! The blast drives the phantom away; white, without form, it ascends the hill. The breeze drives the blue mist slowly over the narrow vale. It rises on the hill, and joins its head to heaven. Night is settled, calm, blue, starry, bright with the moon. Receive me not, my friends, for lovely is the night."

The fifth bard chants:

"Night is calm, but dreary. The moon is in a cloud in the west. Slow moves that pale beam along the shaded hill. The distant wave is heard. The torrent murmurs on the rock. The c.o.c.k is heard from the booth. More than half the night is past. The housewife, groping in the gloom, rekindles the settled fire. The hunter thinks the day approaches, and calls his bounding dogs. He ascends the hill, and whistles on his way. A blast removes the clouds. He sees the starry plough of the north. Much of the night is to pa.s.s. He nods by the mossy rock. Hark! the whirlwind is in the woods! A low murmur in the vale! It is the mighty army of the dead returning from the air. The moon rests behind the hill. The beam is still on the lofty rock. Long are the shadows of the trees. Now it is dark all over.

Night is dreary, silent, and dark. Receive me, my friends, from the night."

The chief replies:

"Let clouds rest on the hills, spirits fly, and travellers fear. Let the winds of the woods arise, the sounding storms descend. Roar streams, and windows flap, and green-winged meteors fly! Let the pale moon, from behind the hills, enclose her head in clouds!

Night is alike to me, blue, stormy, or gloomy the sky.

Night flies before the beam when it is poured on the hill. The young day returns from his clouds, but we return no more.... Raise the song, and strike the harp; send round the sh.e.l.ls of joy. Suspend a hundred tapers on high. Maids and youths, begin to dance. Let some grey bard be near me to tell the deeds of other times, of kings renowned in our land, of chiefs we behold no more. Thus let the night pa.s.s until morning shall appear on our hills. Then let the bow be at hand, the dogs, the youths of the chase. We shall ascend the hill with day, and awake the deer."

From the foregoing, we obtain a glimpse of the superst.i.tions and customs of remote ages. Greek mythology is confessedly the creation of poets; and to the bards of our own country we are indebted for some of our strangest fictions. Fletcher of Saltoun must have been fully aware of the poetic influence; for he expressed himself as willing to let any one who pleased make the laws, if he were permitted to compose the national ballads.

CHAPTER XVII.

Shakspeare--An Outline of his Composition--"The Tempest"--s.h.i.+p at Sea in a Storm--Miranda beseeching Prospero to allay the Wild Waters--Ariel's Readiness to serve his Master--The Witch Sycorax--Ariel kept in a Cloven Pine twelve years--Caliban's Evil Wish--Mischief by Ariel--Neptune chased--Charmed Circle--Miracles--"Midsummer Night's Dream"--Exploits of a Fairy--Doings of Puck--Charmed Flower--t.i.tania and her Attendants--Ghosts and Spirits--Song--"Macbeth"--Weird Sisters--Hecate and the Witches--Magic Arts--Macbeth's Doom--Witches'

Caldron--Macbeth admonished by Spirits--Eight Kings and Banquo's Spirit--n.o.blemen warned by a Spirit--"Antony and Cleopatra"--Dreadful Apparition--King's Death avenged.

Shakspeare, the immortal English poet, born in the year 1564, has a.s.sisted in no small degree to spread the knowledge of superst.i.tion.

So opportunely do his works come to support our statements, that we are induced to give, in prose and verse, an outline of certain portions of his compositions touching the many mysterious subjects on which he wrote.

In the _Tempest_ there is a s.h.i.+p at sea in a storm, with thunder and lightning. On board are the master, boatswain, mariners, Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Ferdinand, Gonzalo, and others. The s.h.i.+p is thought to be in danger; but Gonzalo tells his companions to take comfort, for he thought the boatswain had no drowning mark upon him, his complexion being perfectly gallows-like. "If," said Gonzalo, "he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable." The mariners thought all was lost, and went to prayers.

Miranda beseeched Prospero, whom she addressed as father, to allay the wild waters in their roar, and not suffer a brave vessel that had n.o.ble creatures in her to sink. Prospero laid aside his magic garment; and while Miranda slept, Ariel declared his readiness, at the request of Prospero, to swim, to dive into the fire, to ride on the curled clouds. In answer to Prospero's inquiry whether the spirit had directed the tempest according to instructions, Ariel answered that he had boarded the s.h.i.+p, joined Jove's lightnings, and made Neptune's bold waves tremble. Ariel, who thought his services were most valuable to his master, craved his liberty; for Ariel was a bound servant of Prospero for a specified time. Prospero reminded the spirit that he had freed him from torment; and asked if he remembered the witch Sycorax, famed for her sorceries, and who had, by the aid of her most potent ministers, put him (Ariel) into a cloven pine, within whose rift he remained imprisoned for twelve years, tormented so greatly that his groans made the wolves howl, and penetrated the breast of every bear. Sycorax could not, proceeded Prospero, undo what she had done; it was his art alone that made the pine gape and set him free.

Then he threatened the spirit that if he again murmured, he would send an oak, and peg him in its knotty trunk till he had howled away twelve winters. The spirit asked pardon, and declared his readiness to obey Prospero's commands. Prospero promised that if he did so, he would discharge him in two days. "Go," said Prospero, "make thyself like to the nymph o' the sea; be subject to no sight but mine; invisible to every eye-ball else. Go take this shape, and hither come in't: hence with diligence." Miranda having been awakened, was invited by Prospero to visit his slave Caliban, son of Sycorax, then dead. Ariel here came before his master, who was pleased with his appearance.

On Prospero calling to Caliban, "Thou poisonous slave, got by the Devil himself," to come forth, Caliban appeared and said, "As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd with raven's feather from unwholesome fen, drop on you both!" For this, replied Prospero, thou shalt be tortured this night.

Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, Adrian, and Francisco escaped to an island, which to them seemed to be a desert. Caliban found them; and a conspiracy was entered into to kill Prospero and secure the person of Miranda. Solemn and strange music was heard, and several strange shapes appeared at a banquet. Thunder rolled, and lightning flashed: Ariel, in the form of a harpy, clapped his wings upon the table, and the banquet vanished. Prospero gave Ferdinand a rich compensation to make amends for past austere punishments; and that compensation was nothing less than the hand of Miranda. He recommended them to be prudent before their nuptials, and told them that if they disregarded his injunctions in this respect, they would have hate and discord between them. Ariel, by an unseen power, induced Caliban and others whom Prospero desired to have in his cell, to repair thither; but before reaching it they were hunted by divers spirits in the shape of hounds, that chased them to the lime groves, where they were secured as prisoners.

Prospero, addressing the elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves, those that on the sands with printless foot chased the ebbing Neptune, the demi-puppets that by moons.h.i.+ne made the sour-green ringlets which ewes would not bite, those whose pastime was to make midnight mushrooms, reminded them that he had, among other mighty deeds, by their aid, rifted. Jove's stout oak, plucked up the pine and cedar, and roused sleepers in the grave. But this rough magic, he informed them, he would abjure, after working his airy charms. This being done, he would break his staff, bury it deep in the earth, and drown his book. Ariel re-entered, and after him Alonso, Gonzalo, Sebastian, Antonio, Adrian, and Francisco, and stood charmed within a circle which Prospero had made.

Gonzalo exclaimed, "All torment, trouble, wonder, and amazement inhabit here! Some heavenly power guide us out of this fearful country!" Prospero made himself known to the king as the wronged Duke of Milan. Pardon was sought, and the dukedom resigned. Alonso craved, that if he were Prospero, he should give them particulars of his preservation, and how he met them there, having, but three hours before, been wrecked upon the sh.o.r.e, where he had lost his dear son Ferdinand. A door was opened, and Ferdinand and Miranda were discovered playing at chess. Sebastian declared this to be a most high miracle. Ariel, who had been instructed by Prospero to go to the s.h.i.+p and bring the master and boatswain to him, entered with these worthies. In answer to the question, "What is the news?" the boatswain answered, "The best news is, that we have safely found our king and company; the next, our s.h.i.+p--which, but three gla.s.ses since, we gave out split--is tight and yare, and bravely rigged, as when we first put out to sea." The boatswain, in answer to another query how they came thither? replied, if he were awake, he would strive to tell. He remembered hearing strange noises--roaring, shrieking, howling, jingling chains, and more diversity of sounds, all horrible; and when they were wakened (for they had been asleep), they found themselves at liberty. Prospero, pointing out Caliban, told his friends, "This mis-shapen knave's mother was a witch; and one so strong that she could control the moon, make flows and ebbs." Prospero invited the king and his train to take rest in his cell, where he would tell the story of his life, and in the morning bring them to their s.h.i.+p and give them auspicious gales; then, addressing Ariel, he concluded, "Chick, that is thy charge; to the elements, be free, and fare thee well!"

In the _Midsummer Night's Dream_ Shakspeare brings forward a fairy at a wood near Athens. The fairy, in answer to Puck's question whither it wandered, replied that it went over hill, over dale, through bush, through brier, over park, over pale, through flood, through fire. It wandered everywhere, swifter than the moon's sphere; it served the fairy queen to dew her orbs upon the green. Puck told the fairy that the king would keep revels there that night, and advised that the queen should not come within his sight; for Oberon was fell and wroth, because she, as her attendant, had a lovely boy, a sweet changeling, and that jealous Oberon would have the child to be a knight of his train to trace the forests.

The fairy asked Puck if he was not the knavish spirit that frightened the maidens of the villagery, that skimmed milk, and sometimes laboured in the green, and bootless made the housewife churn, and sometimes made the drink to bear no barm, and whether Puck did not mislead night wanderers, and then laugh at their harm, and do the work of hobgoblins? Puck acknowledged that the fairy spoke aright; said he was the merry wanderer of the night, playing pranks, and making people laugh. A smart angry discussion took place between Oberon and t.i.tania as to which of them was to have the little changeling boy. They parted in rage, Oberon threatening to torment t.i.tania. Oberon summoned Puck to attend him, and bring the herb he once showed him, the juice of which, laid on sleeping eyelids, made man or woman dote upon the next creature seen. Having this herb's juice, Oberon would watch t.i.tania when she was asleep, and drop the liquor into her eyes, that when she wakened she might pursue the first object she cast eyes on with the soul of love, whether it should be lion, bear, wolf, or bull, or meddling monkey, or busy ape. The delusion accomplished, he would give her another herb to remove the charm, but not before she gave up the boy.

Puck found the charmed flower; and while Oberon was to streak t.i.tania's eyes with some of the juice thereof, Puck was to anoint the eyes of the disdainful youth with another quant.i.ty of it, that he might be compelled to adore a sweet Athenian lady in love with him.

Puck was then dismissed with instructions to meet Oberon before the first c.o.c.k-crow. t.i.tania, in another part of the wood, distributed her attendants, some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds, some to war with bats for their leathern wings to make small elves' coats, and some to keep back the clamorous owl that nightly hooted at the quaint spirits. Having given her instructions, she fell asleep. This was Oberon's opportunity--and one he did not neglect. He squeezed the flower on t.i.tania's eyelids, and disappeared.

t.i.tania wakened with eyes fixed on Bottom, who, by Puck's art, had an a.s.s's head. Nevertheless, she thought him wise and beautiful. She instructed her attendant fairies to be kind and courteous to the gentleman, and to feed him with apricots, dewberries, purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries. Then they were to steal the honey-bags from b.u.mble bees for his service, and to crop their waxen thighs, and light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes, to show her love to bed; and further, to pluck the wings from b.u.t.terflies, to fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes. By Puck's mistake, the love juice was laid in absence of the fair Athenian lady, and so the object desired was not obtained. In consequence of this, much confusion and misunderstanding followed. To prevent a fight, Oberon, whom Puck addressed as "king of shadows," ordered the night to be overcast with drooping fog, that the rivals might be led astray. Other instructions were given, which Puck suggested should be done quickly, as in the distance shone Aurora's harbinger, at whose approach ghosts, wandering here and there, trooped home to churchyards. d.a.m.ned spirits, he said, that had burial in cross-ways and floods, had already gone to their wormy beds, lest day should look on their shame. Oberon began to pity t.i.tania, and, touching her eyes with an herb, her love for the loathsome visage she had admired for ever vanished.

The _Midsummer Night's Dream_ concludes with the following song, if we except Puck's address:

"Now, until the break of day, Through this house each fairy stray, To the best bride-bed will we, Which by us shall blessed be; And the issue, there create, Ever shall be fortunate.

So shall all the couples three Ever true and loving be: And the blots of nature's hand Shall not in their issue stand; Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar, Nor mark prodigious such as are Despised in nativity, Shall upon their children be,-- With this field-dew consecrate, Every fairy take his gait; And each several chamber bless, Through this palace with sweet peace: E'er shall it in safety rest, And the owner of it blest.

Trip away, Make no stay; Meet me all by break of day."

In gleaning from _Macbeth_, we shall pa.s.s over the weird sisters'

predictions as lightly as possible, without breaking the connecting links, though we are greatly tempted to incorporate a considerable part of this play into our collection of tales and traditions, seeing that, in our opinion, none of Shakspeare's works bring out more graphically the superst.i.tion of past ages than the poet's _Macbeth_.

The play is represented as beginning in an open place, where, in a thunder-storm, three witches appeared and disappeared without doing any important deed of darkness. They met again on a heath, in another thunder-storm. One of them told the other hags that she had been away killing swine. Another told tales of a sailor's wife who had gone to Aleppo, and threatened to sail thither in a sieve. Macbeth and Banquo discovered the witches and saluted them. Through the women's subtlety, the fiend entered Macbeth's heart, and induced him to form the b.l.o.o.d.y plans of removing all obstacles in the way of his obtaining the crown, and handing it down to his descendants. First one victim, and then another, fell under his treachery. He was sorely troubled: the ghost of Banquo haunted him.

Hecate joined the witches on the heath, and upbraided them for trading and trafficking with Macbeth without consulting her, the mistress of their charms. Away the witches were sent, with instructions to meet at the pit of Acheron in the morning. There Macbeth was to know his destiny. Vessels and spells the hags were to provide, while Hecate was to catch a vaporous drop that hung on the corner of the moon, before it touched the ground. That drop, distilled by magic sleights, would raise such sprites, that by the strength of their illusion would draw Macbeth to confusion. Such, Hecate declared, would be his doom for spurning fate, scorning death, and bearing his hopes above wisdom, grace, and fear.

The three witches met in a dark cave, and, while the thunder rolled without, they boiled a cauldron of h.e.l.lish soup, the ingredients of which may be gathered from the following lines:--

1 _Witch_. "Thrice the brindled cat hath mew'd.

2 _Witch_. Thrice; and once the hedge-pig whined.

3 _Witch_. Harper cries: 'Tis time, 'tis time.

1 _Witch_. Round about the cauldron go; In the poison'd entrails throw.-- Toad, that under coldest stone, Days and nights has thirty-one Swelter'd venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.

_All._ Double, double toil and trouble; Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble.

2 _Witch_. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a h.e.l.l-broth boil and bubble.

_All._ Double, double toil and trouble; Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble.

3 _Witch_. Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf; Witches' mummy; maw and gulf Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark; Root of hemlock, digg'd i' the dark; Liver of blaspheming Jew; Gall of goat; and slips of yew, Silver'd in the moon's eclipse; Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips; Finger of birth-strangled babe, Ditch delivered by a drab,-- Make the gruel thick and slab: Add thereto a tiger's chaudron, For the ingredients of our cauldron.

_All._ Double, double toil and trouble; Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble.

2 _Witch_. Cool it with a baboon's blood; Then the charm is firm and good.

_Hecate._ O, well done! I commend your pains; And every one shall share i' the gains.

And now about the cauldron sing, Like elves and fairies in a ring, Enchanting all that you put in.

SONG.

'Black spirits and white, Red spirits and grey; Mingle, mingle, mingle, You that mingle may.'

2 _Witch_. By the p.r.i.c.king of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes:-- Open, locks, whoever knocks."

Macbeth appeared and demanded what the midnight hags were about. The reply was, "A deed without a name." He entreated them, by that which they professed, to answer him. One of the witches asked whether he would rather have his answer from their mouths or from their masters'.

On Macbeth desiring to see the masters, witch No. 1 directed that the blood of a sow that had eaten her nine farrow, and grease that had been sweaten from the murderer's gibbet, should be thrown into the flame. Accompanied by a clap of thunder, an armed head rose, and admonished Macbeth to beware of Macduff. Another demon, more potent, in the shape of a b.l.o.o.d.y child, rose and bade Macbeth be courageous; to laugh to scorn the power of man, for none born of woman could harm him. A second child, after the first had descended into the bowels of the earth, told the king that he would not be vanquished till great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill should come against him. The monarch was admonished to ask no more, but he disregarded the warning.