Chapter VI: Act V: SCENE 1. Page 140

PRO. Ye _elves_ of hills----

The different species of the fairy tribe are called in the Northern languages _ælfen_, _elfen_, and _alpen_, words of remote and uncertain etymology. The Greek ολβιος, _felix_, is not so plausible an original as the Teutonic _helfen_, _juvare_; because many of these supernatural beings were supposed to be of a mischievous nature, but all of them might very properly be invoked to assist mankind. Some of the northern nations regarded them as the souls of men who in this world had given themselves up to corporeal pleasures, and trespasses against human laws. It was conceived therefore that they were doomed to wander for a certain time about the earth, and to be bound in a kind of servitude to mortals. One of their occupations was that of protecting horses in the stable. See Olaus Magnus _de gentibus septentrionalibus_, lib. iii. cap. xi. It is probable that our fairy system is originally derived from the Fates, Fauns, Nymphs, Dryads, Deæ matres, &c., of the ancients, in like manner as other Pagan superstitions were corruptedly retained after the promulgation of Christianity. The general stock might have been augmented and improved by means of the crusades and other causes of intercourse with the nations of the East.

SCENE 1. Page 141.

PRO. ... you demy-puppets, that
By moonshine do the _green-sour_ ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites----

_Green sour_, if the genuine reading, should be given, as in the first folio, without a hyphen; for such a _compound_ epithet will not elsewhere be easily discovered. Though a real or supposed acidity in this kind of grass will certainly warrant the use of _sour_, it is not improbable that Shakspeare might have written _greensward_, i. e. the green surface of the ground, from the Saxon ꞅƿeaꞃꝺ, skin.

SCENE 1. Page 158.

PRO. His mother was a witch; and one so strong
_That could control the moon_.

So in a former scene, Gonzalo had said, "You are gentlemen of brave mettle; you would _lift the moon out of her sphere_, &c." In Adlington's translation of _Apuleius_ 1596, 4to, a book well known to Shakspeare, a marginal note says, "Witches in old time were supposed to be of such power that they could pul downe _the moone by their inchauntment_." In Fleminge's _Virgil's Bucolics_ is this line, "Charms able are from heaven high to fetch the moone adowne;" and see Scot's _Discoverie of witchcraft_ 1584, 4to, pp. 174, 226, 227, 250.

But all the above authorities are from the ancients, the system of modern witchcraft not affording any similar instances of its power. The Jesuit Delrio is willing to put up with any notice of this superstition among heathen writers, but is extremely indignant to find it mentioned by a Christian; contending that it exclusively belongs to the ancients. _Disquis. magic._ lib. ii. quæst. xi. The following classical references may not be unacceptable. The earliest on the list will be that in Aristophanes's _Clouds_, where Strepsiades proposes the hiring of a Thessalian witch to bring down the moon and shut her in a box that he might thus evade paying his debts by the month.

"Quæ sidera excantata voce Thessalâ
_Lunamque cœlo deripit_."

Horat. _epod._ v.

"_Deripere lunam_ vocibus possum meis."

Horat. _epod._ xvii.

"Et jam _luna negat toties descendere cœlo_."

Propert. II. _el._ 28.

"Cantus et _é curru lunam deducere_ tentat
Et faceret, si non ære repuisa sonent."

Tibull. I. _el._ 8. and see _el._ 2.

... "_Phœbeque serena_
Non aliter diris verborum obsessa venenis
Palluit, et nigris, terrenisque ignibus arsit,
Et patitur tantos _cantu depressa_ labores
Donec suppositas propior despumet in herbas."[2]

Lucan vi.

"Mater erat Mycale; quam _deduxisse canendo_
Sæpe reluctanti constabat _cornua lunæ_."

Ovid. _Metam._ I. xii.

"Illa reluctantem _curru deducere lunam_
Nititur"

Ovid. _epist._ vi.

"Sic _te_ regentem frena nocturni ætheris
_Detrahere_ nunquam _Thessali cantus_ queant."

Senec. _Hippolyt._ Act. 2.

"Mulieres etiam lunam deducunt."

Petron. Hadrianid. 468.

In the same author the witch Enothea, describing her power, says, "_Lunæ descendit imago, carminibus deducta meis._" p. 489.

It is said that Menanda wrote a play called _the Thessalian_, in which were contained the several incantations used by witches to draw the moon from the heavens.

So when the moon was eclipsed, the Romans supposed it was from the influence of magical charms; to counteract which, as well as those already enumerated, they had recourse to the sound of brazen implements of all kinds. Juvenal alludes to this practice when he describes his talkative woman.

"... Jam nemo tubas, nemo æra fatiget,
Una laboranti _poterit succurrere lunæ_."

_Sat._ vi. 441.

And see particularly Macrob. _Saturna._ l. v. c. 19. It is not improbable that the rattling of the sistrum by the priests of Isis, or the moon, may be in some way or other connected with this practice, or have even been its origin.

In proportion to the advance of science, it will, no doubt, be found that the Greeks and Romans borrowed more than is commonly imagined from the nations of the East, where the present practice seems to have been universal. Thus the Chinese believe that during eclipses of the sun and moon these celestial bodies are attacked by a great serpent, to drive away which they strike their gongs or brazen drums; the Turks and even some of the American Indians entertain the same opinion. This is perhaps a solution of the common subject on Chinese porcelain, of a dragon pursuing a ball of fire, the symbol of the sun. The Hindoos suppose that a serpent, born from the head of a giant slain by Vishnu, is permitted by that deity to attack the sun. Krishna the Hindoo sun is sometimes represented combating this monster, whence the Greek story of Apollo and the serpent Python may have been derived.

THE FOOL.

The character of Trinculo, who in the _dramatis personæ_ is called a _jester_, is not very well discriminated in the course of the play itself. As he is only associated with Caliban and the drunken butler, there was no opportunity of exhibiting him in the legitimate character of a professed fool; but at the conclusion of the play it appears that he was in the service of the king of Naples as well as Stephano. On this account therefore, and for the reasons already offered in page 20, he must be regarded as an allowed domestic buffoon, and should be habited on the stage in the usual manner.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Malone's _Shaksp._ vol. i. part i. p. 379.

[2] The last line is a good comment on the "lunam despumari" of Apuleius speaking of the effects of magical mutterings.

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.