The Moon in Shakespeare

Let's begin by looking at the suggestion that the Moon was in the thrall of witches. Will Shakespeare would have been familiar with a book entitled Apuleius (1596, trans. Adlington). In it, there is a passage that reads: "Witches in old time were supposed to be of such power, that they could put downe the moone by their enchantment."

Latching on to this belief, dear old Bill gives Prospero the following line in The Tempest (speaking of Caliban):
"His mother was a witch, and one so strong
That could control the moon."

(He also has Trinculo refer to Caliban as a "moon-calf", alluding to the once-held outrageous belief that a false conception, or foetus imperfectly formed, was a direct consequence of the influence of the moon.)

While a lunar eclipse was considered an unlucky time for most people, it was clearly believed to be the best time for certain occult goings-on and hanky-panky! One of the witches in Macbeth, while dropping delicious morsels into her caulron, cackles:
"Gall of goat, and slips of yew,
Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse."

And Hecate herself appears to make reference to the mythical "virus lunare", a foam which the Moon allegedly dripped onto certain herbs when solicited by enchantment:
"Upon the corner of the moon
There hangs a vaporous drop profound,"

Furthermore, in The Merchant of Venice, when Lorenzo mentions that the moon is shining brightly, Jessica responds:
"In such a night
Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs,
That did renew old Æson."

(Medea being an enchantress from Greek mythology, often depicted as a priestess of the goddess Hecate or a witch)

Picture credit: Magickal Graphics

An ancient legend has it that the Moon is inhabited by a man who must carry a bundle of sticks on his back for all eternity. This is his punishment for the "crime" of gathering sticks on the Sabbath, which comes from an Old Testament reference. (One German version of the tale gives him a female partner, whose offence was to churn butter on a Sunday)

Shakespeare's take on this myth is somewhat mocking; the bundle of sticks has become a bush and he introduces a dog into the equation as a companion, rather than a woman. In The Tempest, Caliban asks Stephano whether he has "not dropp'd from heaven?", to which he answers, "Out o' the moon, I do assure thee: I was the man i' the moon when time was." Whereupon Caliban says:
"I have seen thee in her and I do adore thee:
My mistress show'd me thee and thy dog and thy bush."

And in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" during the performance of the play of "Pyramus and Thisbe," Moonshine (or "Moon") is represented "with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn." Describing his own character, later in the play, the ridiculous Moonshine says:
"All that I have to say, is, to tell you that the lanthorn is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog."

It's not the Moon's fault, any more than it is womankind's: both have a monthly cycle, and indeed, they have been arbitrarily linked throughout history. These two natural phenomena have received the blame for all manner of "strange" behaviour, while in fact it is NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MONTHLY CYCLE, OK?!!

Ahem.

Excuse me.

So, although it was normal practice to swear by the moon in Shakespeare's day, the young heroine of Romeo and Juliet is far from satisfied by her lover's vow of eternal devotion when he uses this standard. Clearly unconcvinced by the lad's promises and looking for a bit more commitment, she says:
"O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable."

Really - you'd think a female would be less ready to issue this damning indictment ... but then, she was created by a bloke.

~

[Picture credit: www.skyegg.com/moon phases chart]

She just can't win! Whatever phase, colour or position in the heavens the Moon was in, our Billy-boy decided it spelled disaster and would bring about some dire consequence for somebody, somewhere ... sometime.

As mentioned previously, a lunar eclipse was believed to be a particluarly dodgy time to be making any major plans. In Antony, and Cleopatra, Antony says:-
"Alack, our terrene moon
Is now eclipsed; and it portends alone
The fall of Antony!"

While in Hamlet Horatio notes that: "the moist star upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands, was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse" and in King Lear, Gloster remarks that: "These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us,"

Ok, so even those of us not well-versed in Shakespearean language can work out what these speeches mean: that the futures of big, tough guys like Antony, Hamlet and Lear hang on nothing more, nor less, than the eclipse of the Moon!

Edmund's reply to Gloster (which we will look at a little later) is apparently dismissive of this superstition; however, Edmund himself displays a certain reluctance to fly in the face of this widely-held belief - that eclipses of either the sun or moon portended evil - when he tries to give Edgar a warning:
Edmund: I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read the other day what should follow these eclipses.
Edgar: Do you busy yourself with that?
Edmund: I promise you the effects he writes of succeed unhappily.

Yet in A Midsummer Night's Dream it is the paleness of the Moon that is spoken of as an unpropitious sign; and its sanguine colour is mentioned as an indication of coming disasters in Richard II, when the Welsh captain remarks how "The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth."

In fact, it seems that any old moonlight is likely to cause some sort of problem, according to Wills. Again in A Midsummer Night's Dream the faerie king, Oberon, greets his love with the line: "Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania," ... and you just know that things are not going to go well!

Picture credit: Magickal Graphics

Is there anything that the Moon is not responsible for? Not in old Shakey's opinion, it would seem!

He certainly linked her to great sadness, as in Antony and Cleopatra, when Antony's buddy, Enobarbus, invokes the moon as the "sovereign mistress of true melancholy", and in Richard III, when Queen Elizabeth says:
"That I, being govern'd by the watery moon,
May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world."

Crikey!

More subtly in Timon of Athens, Timon says: "The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves The moon into salt tears."

Furthermore, get the Moon in a bad mood and she will send sickness to the earth, as Titania notes in A Midsummer Night's Dream:
"Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound."

Watch out for Moon 'flu, everyone!

And then, of course, there is insanity. La lune ... luna ... lunacy ... lunatic ... Yes, the Moon has a long association with craziness and - not surprisingly - William Shakespeare did not omit to reference this connection! In Othello the great star is held, by the king himself, to be responsible for the madness that surrounds him:
"It is the very error of the moon;
She comes more nearer earth than she was wont,
And makes men mad.

Indeed.

Picture credit: Dr Jas Bhopal

Never one to shy away from sexual innuendo, Wills indulges in a bit of saucy fun in the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet.

Bearing in mind the association of the moon-goddess Diana (or Artemis) with virginity, Romeo's speech has more than a little double intendre contained within its lines:
"Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou her maid art far more fair than she.
Be not her maid, since she is envious.
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off."

To "kill the envious moon" could easily be interpreted as a plea for Juliet to be rid of her virginity; likewise "be not her maid" has de-flowering implications, but these are both open to dispute. Much more overt, however, is the reference to the robes of ancient Roman Vestal Virgins ("vestal livery") and the "green-sickness" ("sick and green") that affected young women and could only be cured by lovemaking!

So, in entreating her to "cast it off", the lusty lover-boy is making a dual request: cast off your clothes and cast off your chastity!

No, it's not all bad ... the Bard did give the Moon a break now and then!

While still investing the Moon with supernatural powers, Shakespeare occasionally inferred that she could be a force for good. In Antony and Cleopatra, for example, Enobarbus (again) requests: "Be witness to me, O thou blessed moon." and in Love's Labours Lost the king says:
"Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine,
Those clouds removed, upon our watery eyne."

Shakespeare must have had some doubts, though, as we see the odd speech in which he questions the belief that the Moon affects either human behaviour or the roll of Fortune's dice. In King Lear the eponymous hero, in his old age, ponders upon the notion that the stars have an influence on the destiny of man:
"And take upon's [upon us] the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies and we wear out
In a wall'd prison pacts and sects of great ones
That ebb and flow by the Moon."

And, returning to Edmund's reply to Gloster's concerns over eclipses in the same play (as mentioned earlier), we find a long-winded speech that clearly displays Shakespeare's doubts in regard to lunar superstitions.

"This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeit of our own behavior) we make gaiety of our disasters the sun, the moon and the stars; as if we were by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence, and all that we are evil in by a divine thrusting-on, and admirable evasion of a man to lay his goatish deposition to the charge of a star."

Fools by heavenly compulsion? Well, by "heavenly compulsion" or not, William Shakespeare was no fool and knew exactly how to use the beliefs and superstitions of his day to add a frisson of excitement to his plots ... it just seems a shame that the Moon got such a bad press!

Picture credit: Christina Bachman Buttons