Folk-lore of Shakespeare. Dyer Thomas Firminger Thiselton

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Her. As merry as you will.

      Mam. A sad tale’s best for winter:

      I have one of sprites and goblins.

      Her. Let’s have that, good sir.

      Come on, sit down: Come on, and do your best

      To fright me with your sprites: you’re powerful at it.

      Mam. There was a man, —

      Her. Nay, come, sit down; then on.

      Mam. Dwelt by a churchyard: I will tell it softly;

      Yond crickets shall not hear it.

      Her. Come on, then,

      And give’t me in mine ear.”

      The important part which Shakespeare has assigned to the ghost in “Hamlet” has a special value, inasmuch as it illustrates many of the old beliefs current in his day respecting their history and habits. Thus, according to a popular notion, ghosts are generally supposed to assume the exact appearance by which they were usually known when in the material state, even to the smallest detail of their dress. So Horatio tells Hamlet how, when Marcellus and Bernardo were on their watch (i. 2),

      Further on, when the ghost appears again, Hamlet addresses it thus:

      In the graphic description of Banquo’s ghost in “Macbeth” (iii. 4), we have a further allusion to the same belief; one, indeed, which is retained at the present day with as much faith as in days of old.

      Shakespeare has several allusions to the notion which prevailed in days gone by, of certain persons being able to exorcise or raise spirits. Thus, in “Cymbeline” (iv. 2), Guiderius says over Fidele’s grave:

      In “Julius Cæsar” (ii. 1), Ligarius says:

      In “All’s Well that Ends Well” (v. 3) the king says:

      This superstition, it may be added, has of late years gained additional notoriety since the so-called spiritualism has attracted the attention and support of the credulous. As learning was considered necessary for an exorcist, the schoolmaster was often employed. Thus, in the “Comedy of Errors” (iv. 4), the schoolmaster Pinch is introduced in this capacity.

      Within, indeed, the last fifty years the pedagogue was still a reputed conjurer. In “Hamlet” (i. 1), Marcellus, alluding to the ghost, says:

      And in “Much Ado About Nothing” (ii. 1), Benedick says:

      For the same reason exorcisms were usually practised by the clergy in Latin; and so Toby, in the “Night Walker” of Beaumont and Fletcher (ii. 1), says:

      It was also necessary that spirits, when evoked, should be questioned quickly, as they were supposed to be impatient of being interrogated. Hence in “Macbeth” (iv. 1) the apparition says:

      The spirit, likewise, in “2 Henry VI.” (i. 4) utters these words:

      Spirits were supposed to maintain an obdurate silence till interrogated by the persons to whom they made their special appearance.75 Thus Hamlet, alluding to the appearance of the ghost, asks Horatio (i. 2):

      Whereupon he replies:

      The walking of spirits seems also to have been enjoined by way of penance. The ghost of Hamlet’s father (i. 5) says:

      And further on (iii. 2) Hamlet exclaims:

      This superstition is referred to by Spenser in his “Fairy Queen” (book i. canto 2):

      According to a universal belief prevalent from the earliest times, it was supposed that ghosts had some particular reason for quitting the mansions of the dead, “such as a desire that their bodies, if unburied, should receive Christian rites of sepulture, that a murderer might be brought to due punishment,” etc.76 On this account Horatio (“Hamlet,” i. 1) invokes the ghost:

      And in a later scene (i. 4) Hamlet says:

      The Greeks believed that such as had not received funeral rites would be excluded from Elysium; and thus the wandering shade of Patroclus appears to Achilles in his sleep, and demands the performance of his funeral. The younger Pliny tells a story of a haunted house at Athens, in which a ghost played all kinds of pranks, owing to his funeral rites having been neglected. A further reference to the superstition occurs in “Titus Andronicus” (i. 1), СКАЧАТЬ