Chapter XXXVI: Act III: Scene 2

His contemporaries have usually given it properly. Thus Spenser in the _Fairy queen_,

"As Hĕcătē, in whose almighty hand."

B. vii. Canto 6.

Ben Jonson has, of course, always been correct. Mr. Malone observes, in a note on _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 5, that Marlowe, though a scholar, has used the word _Hecate_ as a dissyllable. It may be added that Middelton and Golding have done the same; the latter in his translation of Ovid, book vii. has used it in both ways.

SCENE 2. Page 168.

PUCK. I am sent with broom before,
To sweep the dust behind the door.

In confirmation of Dr. Johnson's remark that fairies delight in cleanliness, two other poems shall be quoted. The first is the _Fairy queen_, printed in Percy's Ancient Ballads, iii. 207, edit. 1775.

"But if the house be swept,
And from uncleanness kept,
We praise the household maid," &c.

The other is the _Fairies farewell_, by Bishop Corbet, printed also in Percy's collection, iii. 210, from his _Poetica stromata_, 1648, 18mo. It is also in a preceding edition of the bishop's poems, 1647, 18mo.

"Farewell rewards and fairies!
Good housewives now may say;
For now foule sluts in dairies
Doe fare as well as they:
And though they sweepe their hearths no less
Than mayds were wont to doe,
Yet who of late for cleanliness
Finds sixepence in her shoe?"

SCENE 2. Page 170.

OBE. To the best _bride bed_ will we,
Which by us shall _blessed_ be.

Mr. Steevens remarks that the ceremony of blessing the bed was observed at the marriage of a _princess_. It was used at _all_ marriages. This was the form, copied from the Manual for the use of Salisbury. "Nocte vero sequente cum sponsus et sponsa _ad lectum pervenerint_, accedat sacerdos et benedicat thalamum, dicens: Benedic, Domine, thalamum istum et omnes habitantes in eo; ut in tua pace consistant, et in tua voluntate permaneant: et in amore tuo vivant et senescant et multiplicentur in longitudine dierum. Per Dominum.--Item _benedictio super lectum_. Benedic, Domine, hoc _cubiculum_, respice, quinon dormis neque dormitas. Qui custodis Israel, custodi famulos tuos in hoc lecto quiescentes _ab omnibus fantasmaticis demonum illusionibus_: custodi eos vigilantes ut in preceptis tuis meditentur dormientes, et te per soporem sentiant: ut hic et ubique defensionis tuæ muniantur auxilio. Per Dominum.--Deinde fiat benedictio _super eos in lecto_ tantum cum Oremus. Benedicat Deus corpora vestra et animas vestras; et det super vos benedictionem sicut benedixit Abraham, Isaac, et Jacob, Amen.--His peractis _aspergat eos aqua benedicta_, et sic discedat et dimittat eos in pace." We may observe on this strange ceremony, that the purity of modern times stands not in need of these holy aspersions to lull the senses and dissipate the illusions of the Devil. The married couple would, no doubt, rejoice when the benediction was ended. In the French romance of _Melusine_, the bishop who marries her to Raymondin blesses the nuptial bed. The ceremony is there represented in a very ancient cut, of which a copy is subjoined. The good prelate is sprinkling the parties with holy water. Sometimes during the benediction the married couple only _sat_ upon the bed; but they generally received a portion of consecrated bread and wine. It is recorded in France, that on frequent occasions the priest was improperly detained till the hour of midnight, whilst the wedding guests rioted in the luxuries of the table, and made use of language that was extremely offensive to the clergy, and injurious to the salvation of the parties. It was therefore, in the year 1577, ordained by Pierre de Gondi, archbishop of Paris, that the ceremony of blessing the nuptial bed should for the future be performed in the day time, or at least _before supper_, and in the presence only of the bride and bridegroom, and of their nearest relations.

There is a singularity in this cut which may well excuse a short digression. This is the _horned_ head-dress of the bride, a fashion that prevailed in England during the reign of Henry the Sixth, and for a short time afterwards. Lydgate has left us an unpublished ditty, in which he complains of it. As it is, like most of his other poetry, very dull and very tedious, a couple of stanzas may suffice; each concludes with a line to recommend the _casting away of these horns_.

"Clerkys recorde by gret auctorite,
Hornys were yove to beestys for diffence;
A thyng contrary to femynyte
To be made sturdy of resistence.
But arche wyves egre in ther violence,
Fers as tygre for to make affray,
They have despyt and ageyn conscience
Lyst nat of pryde ther _hornys cast away_.

Noble pryncessys, this litel shoort ditee
Rewdly compiled lat it be noon offence
To your womanly merciful pitie,
Thouh it be rad in your audience;
Peysed ech thyng in your just advertence,
So it be no displesaunce to your pay,
Undir support of your patience
Yevyth example _hornys to cast away_."

_Harl. MS._ No. 2255.

In France, this part of female dress was a frequent subject of clerical reprehension. Nicholas de Claminges, a doctor of the Sorbonne, and contemporary with Lydgate, compares it to the horns of oxen. "Tenduntur hinc et inde mira et inaudita deformitate gemina cornua bipedali prope intervallo à se distantia, majorique latitudine caput fœmineum diffundunt quam bubalinum longitudine distenditur. Auro ac gemmis omnia rutilant. Stibio et cerusa pinguntur facies; patent colla; nudantur pectora." Nicolai de Clemangiis _opera_, Lugd. Batavor. 1613, 4to, p. 144. And again, in his letters, "quid de _cornibus_ et caudis loquar, quas illic jam vulgo matronæ gestant, qua in re naturam videntur humanam reliquisse, bestialemque sibi ultro adscivisse. Adde quod _in effigie cornutæ fœminæ Diabolus plerumque pingitur_." We cannot but admire the pious writer's ingenuity in the latter declaration, and how well it was calculated to terrify the ladies out of this preposterous fashion.

SCENE 2. Page 171.

OBE. With this field-dew _consecrate_
Every fairy take his gait;
And _each several chamber bless_,
Through this palace with sweet peace.

Thus in the _Merry wives of Windsor_, Act V. Scene 5:

"Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out:
Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room."

In the first line of Oberon's speech there seems to be a covert satire against holy water. Whilst the popular confidence in the power of fairies existed, they had obtained the credit of occasionally performing much good service to mankind; and the great influence which they possessed gave so much offence to the holy monks and friars, that they determined to exert all their power to expel the above imaginary beings from the minds of the people, by taking the office of the fairies' benedictions entirely into their own hands. Of this we have a curious proof in the beginning of Chaucer's admirable tale of the _Wife of Bath_:

"I speke of many hundred yeres ago;
But now can no man see non elves mo,
For now the grete charitee and prayeres
Of limitoures and other holy freres
That serchen every land and every streme.
As thikke as motes in the sonne beme,
_Blissing halles, chambres, kichenes, and boures,
Citees and burghes, castles highe and toures,
Thropes and bernes, shepenes and dairies,
This maketh that ther ben no faeries:
For ther as wont to walken was an elf,
Ther walketh now the limitour himself_."

The other quotation from Chaucer, which Mr. Steevens has given, is not to the present purpose. The _fairies' blessing_ was to bring _peace_ upon the house of Theseus; the _night-spell_ in the _Miller's tale_, is pronounced _against the influence of elves_, and those demons, or evil spirits, that were supposed to occasion the night-mare, and other nocturnal illusions. As this is a subject that has never been professedly handled, it may be worth while to bring together a few facts that relate to it; to do it ample justice would require an express dissertation.

A belief in the influence of evil spirits has been common to all nations, and in the remotest periods of the human history. The gross superstitions of the middle ages, which even exceeded those in Pagan times, had given birth to a variety of imaginary beings, who were supposed to be perpetually occupied in doing mischief to mankind. The chief of these were the _Incubus_, or _night-mare_, and certain _fairies of a malignant nature_. It therefore became necessary to check and counteract their operations by spells, charms, and invocations to saints. Some of these have been preserved. The lines given to Mad Tom in _Lear_, beginning

"Saint Withold footed thrice the wold,"

is one of them; and in the notes belonging to it, as well as in those by Mr. Tyrwhitt on the _Canterbury tales_, vol. iv. 242, others have been collected. To these may be added the following in Cartwright's play of _The Ordinary_, Act III. Scene 1:

"Saint Francis, and Saint Benedight,
Blesse this house from wicked wight,
From the night-mare and the goblin,
That is hight _good fellow Robin_.
Keep it from all evil spirits,
Fayries, weezels, rats and ferrets,
From curfew time
To the next prime."

This indeed may be rather considered as satirical, but it is a parody on those which were genuine. Sinclair, in his _Satan's invisible world discovered_, informs us that "At night, in the time of popery, when folks went to bed, they believed the repetition of this following prayer was effectual to preserve them from danger, and the house too."

"Who sains the house the night,
They that sains it ilka night.
Saint Bryde and her brate,
Saint Colme and his hat,
Saint Michael and his spear,
Keep this house from the weir;
From running thief,
And burning thief;
And from an ill Rea,
That be the gate can gae;
And from an ill weight,
That be the gate can light
Nine reeds about the house;
Keep it all the night,
What is that, what I see
So red, so bright, beyond the sea?
'Tis he was pierc'd through the hands,
Through the feet, through the throat,
Through the tongue;
Through the liver and the lung.
Well is them that well may
Fast on Good-friday."

As darkness was supposed to be more immediately adapted to the machinations of these malicious spirits, it was natural that, on retiring to rest, certain prayers should be chosen to deprecate their influence, which was often regarded as of a _particular kind_. To this Imogen alludes when she exclaims,

"To your protection I commend me, Gods!
From fairies, and the _tempters of the night_
Guard me, beseech ye!"

_Cymbeline_, Act II. Scene 2.

So Banquo in _Macbeth_:

"Restrain in me the _cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose_."

An ancient hymn by Saint Ambrose goes to the same point:

"Procul recedant somnia
Et noctium phantasmata:
Hostemque nostrum comprime
Ne _polluantur corpora_."

The demon who was supposed to have particular influence in these nocturnal illusions, was Asmodeus, the lame devil of whom Mons. Le Sage has made such admirable use. In expelling him, the sign of the cross was most efficacious; a very old practice on similar occasions, as we learn from the following lines in Prudentius:--

"Fac, cum _vocante somno
Castum petis cubile_
Frontem, locumque cordis
_Crucis_ figura signes.
Crux pellit omne crimen,
Fugunt crucem tenebræ:
Tali dicata signo
Mens fluctuare nescit.
Procul, ô procul _vagantum
Portenta somniorum_,
Procul esto pervicaci
Præstigiator astu."

Relics of saints, images of the holy Virgin, sanctified girdles, and a variety of other amulets were resorted to on the same occasion, exhibiting a lamentable proof of the imbecility of human nature.

SCENE 2. Page 172.

PUCK. _Give me your hands_, if we be friends.

Thus in the _epilogue_ to Stubbes's excellent play of _Senile odium_,

"... jam _vestræ quid valeant manus_
Nimis velim experiri: ab illis enim vapulare, munus erit."

FOOTNOTES:

[11] It has not been recollected to what poet these lines belong.

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST