Folk-lore of Shakespeare. Dyer Thomas Firminger Thiselton

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      Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell,

      Be thy intents wicked, or charitable,

      Thou com’st in such a questionable shape

      That I will speak to thee” —

      for, as Mr. Spalding remarks, “it cannot be imagined that Hamlet imagined that a ‘goblin damned’ could actually be the spirit of his dead father; and, therefore, the alternative in his mind must be that he saw a devil assuming his father’s likeness – a form which the Evil One knew would most incite Hamlet to intercourse.”

      The same idea seems present in Horatio’s mind:

      Once more, in the next act (ii. 2), Hamlet again expresses his doubts:

      In the Elizabethan times, too, no superstitious belief exerted a more pernicious and baneful influence on the credulous and ignorant than the notion that evil spirits from time to time entered into human beings, and so completely gained a despotic control over them as to render them perfectly helpless. Harsnet, in his “Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures” (1603), has exposed this gross superstition; and a comparison of the passages in “King Lear,” spoken by Edgar when feigning madness, with those given by Harsnet, will show that Shakespeare has accurately given the contemporary belief on the subject. Mr. Spalding also considers that nearly all the allusions in “King Lear” refer to a youth known as Richard Mainey, a minute account of whose supposed possession has been given by Harsnet.

      Persons so possessed were often bound and shut up in a dark room, occasionally being forced to submit to flagellation – a treatment not unlike that described in “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 2):

      In the “Comedy of Errors” (iv. 4) we have an amusing scene, further illustrative, probably, of the kind of treatment adopted in Shakespeare’s day:

      To yield possession to my holy prayers,

      And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight:

      I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven.”

      Pinch further says:

      As Brand remarks,83 there is no vulgar story of the devil’s having appeared anywhere without a cloven foot. In graphic representations he is seldom or never pictured without one. In the following passage, where Othello is questioning whether Iago is a devil or not, he says (v. 2):

      Dr. Johnson gives this explanation: “I look towards his feet to see if, according to the common opinion, his feet be cloven.”

      In Massinger’s “Virgin Martyr” (iii. 3), Harpax, an evil spirit, following Theophilus in the shape of a secretary, speaks thus of the superstitious Christian’s description of his infernal enemy:

      GOOD AND EVIL DEMONS

      It was formerly commonly believed that not only kingdoms had their tutelary guardians, but that every person had his particular genius or good angel, to protect and admonish him by dreams, visions, etc.84 Hence, in “Antony and Cleopatra” (ii. 3), the soothsayer, speaking of Cæsar, says:

      Thus Macbeth (iii. 1) speaks in a similar manner in reference to Banquo:

      So, too, in “2 Henry IV.” (i. 2), the Chief-justice says:

      We may quote a further reference in “Julius Cæsar” (iii. 2), where Antony says:

      “In the Roman world,” says Mr. Tylor, in his “Primitive Culture” (1873, vol. ii. p. 202), “each man had his ‘genius natalis,’ associated with him from birth to death, influencing his action and his fate, standing represented by its proper image, as a lar among the household gods and at weddings and joyous times, and especially on the anniversary of the birthday when genius and man began their united career, worship was paid with song and dance to the divine image, adorned with garlands, and propitiated with incense and libations of wine. The demon or genius was, as it were, the man’s companion soul, a second spiritual Ego. The Egyptian astrologer warned Antonius to keep far from the young Octavius, ‘For thy demon,’ said he, ‘is in fear of his.’”

      The allusion by Lady Macbeth (i. 5), in the following passage, is to the spirits of Revenge: