The Demonic Metaphysics of "Macbeth"

Author(s): Walter Clyde Curry

Source: Studies in Philology, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Jul., 1933), pp. 395-426
Published by: University of North Carolina Press
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Studies
Volume XXX

in

Philology

JULY, 1933

THE DEMONIC METAPHYSICS

Number 3

OF MACBETH

BY WALTER CLYDE CURRY

As dramatic symbols, Shakespeare's Weird Sisters seem to be

preeminently adequate and successful. In appearance, speech, and
action they seem intended to suggest accurately such witches and
witchcraft as were familiar to the Elizabethan public. They are
desiccated, hag-like creatures with choppy fingers, skinny lips, and
beards, who dwell preferably in the murk of desert places and rejoice in upheavals of [Link]. Upon occasion, indeed, they themselves brew storms on land 'nd tempests at sea, thus destroying the
products of men's hands at home and distressing or sinking ships
abroad. Their sail-boats are sieves. Associated with them in ceremonial dances-conducted under the influence of the magic number
three and its multiples-are evil spirits in the form of cats and
toads or sometimes in the likeness of a woman; they employ parts
of dismembered dead bodies, toads, and adders in winding up their
necromantic charms. Compacts with the devil and his angels assure
them a certain prophetic power, though they are likely to accomplish their ends by means of half-truths. All the hocus-pocus of
magic rites seems to be familiar to them. And such, we are told,1
1

See Lilian Winstanley, Macbeth, King Lear, and Contemporary History

(Cambridge, 1922), pp. 104-115; T. A. Spalding, Elizabethan Demonology
(London, 1880), pp. 90ff.; Howard Furness, Variorum Macbeth, notes on
the witch-scenes; Margaret L-cy, Shakespeare and the Supernatural (Liverpool, 1906), pp. 11-16, Bibliography by William Jaggard; Edwin Wiley,
A Study of the Supernatural in Three Plays of Shakespeare, University of
California Chronicle, XV (1913), No. 4, pp. 40-2; C. E. Whitmore, The
Supernatural in Tragedy (Cambridge, 1915), pp. 255-6; Lily B. Campbell,
Shakespeare's Tragic Heroes, Slaves of Passion (Cambridge, 1930), pp.
87-89; Mildred Tonge, " Black Magic and Miracles in Macbeth," Jour. Eng.

395

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396

The Demonic Metaphysics of " Macbeth "

is the very form and fashion of Elizabethan witches. Like all fully
sufficient dramatic symbols, they may be described as being true to
nature. But, as most critics are agreed, they are not merely
witches.
There is a curious majesty and even sublimity about the wayward creatures who meet Macbeth and Banquo upon the heath that
is not at all characteristic of ordinary witches. Among them they
seem to know the past, present, and something of the future; they
possess the power of vanishing like bubbles into thin air. Holinshed speaks of "three women in strange and wild apparell, resembling creatures of elder world.

. . either the weird sisters,

that is (as ye would say) the goddesses of destinie, or else some

nymphs or feiries, indued with knowledge of prophesie by their
necromanticall science." For some of Shakespeare's critics his
Weird Sisters seem to have properties in common with Urda, Verdandi, and Skulda, the Nornae of Scandinavian mythology; 2 for
others they suggest the classical Parcae or the enchantress, Circe.3
Possibly Shakespeare's figures are all of these and more.4 The
symbols through which a great dramatic artist concretes his abstract thought are never simple. They are usually immensely complex and therefore the more stimulating, compounded out of many
contradictory elements, assimilated and fused by the artistic imagination into a unified whole. Thus the Weird Sisters of earlier
scenes and the evidently vulgar witches who appear later are merely
different elements, or views, or aspects of the same dramatic symbol. They possess in their own right a certain dignity and
mysterious quality which inspires awe in the beholder and compels
contemplation. But the wise man will not limit his attention to
Germ. Philol., XXXI (1932), 234-46; E. E. Stoll, Shakespeare Studies
(New York, 1927), p. 228; Montague Summers, The History of Witchcraft
and Demonology (London, 1926), pp. 289-90. Cf. G. L. Kittredge, Witchcraft in Old and New England (Cambridge, 1928), passim; King James I,
Demonologie, ed. G. B. Harrison (London, 1924) (Bodley Head Quartos);
Reginald Scot, Discoverie of Witchcraft, ed. with A Discourse of Devils
and Spirits, B. Nicholson (London, 1886), passim.
2Charlotte
Carmichael, Academy, 8 Feb., 1879; Furness, p. 9; A. H.
Tolman, "Notes on Macbeth," PMLA, XI (1896), 200-12, etc.
s A. C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy (New York, 1922), p. 342;
Tonge, op. cit., p. 236, etc.
' Spalding, op. cit., p. 93.

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Walter Clyde Curry

397

the symbol as such, however fascinating it may be. He will submit

himself fully to its influence, without doubt, but with the idea of
achieving through it an aesthetic experience as nearly like that of
the author as possible. In other words, he will recognize that the
function of the dramatic symbol is to stimulate his imagination to
the point of grasping some underlying emotional, moral, or intellectual content.
That the Weird Sisters possess in this capacity a perennial and
astounding vitality is attested by the whole sweep of Shakespearean
criticism. All hands seem to be convinced that they symbolize or
represent evil in its most malignant form, though there is to be
found little unanimity of opinion regarding the precise nature of
that evil, whether it is subjective or objective or both, whether
mental or metaphysical. For example, modernists will have it that
the Weird Sisters are nothing more than the objectification upon
the stage of Macbeth's evil passions and desires; 5 They are simply
the embodiment of inward temptation; they come in storm and
vanish in air, like corporeal impulses, which, originating in the
blood, cast up bubbles of sin and ambition in the soul." One man
finds that these "repulsive things . . . are here a symbol of the
hostile powers which operate in nature";7 and another is of the
opinion that "theirs is an independent vitality of evil whirling
through the universe till it finds asylum in the soul where germs
of sin lie ready to be quickened to life." 8 Bradley supposes that
they "must represent not only the evil slumbering in the hero's
soul, but all those obscurer influences of evil around him in the
world which . . . are as certain, momentous, and terrifying facts
as the presence of inchoate evil in the soul itself." 9 They have at
various times been characterized as concrete symbols of that element of negation and destructiveness that is opposed to all order
and growth,1 spirits of evil in its most malignant form, the materialization of a spiritual cosmos of evil,ll Macbeth's crime nightLucy, op. cit., p. 16; Furness, p. 408.
Commentaries, trans. F. E. Bunnett, 5th
ed. (London, 1892), p. 592.
7
A. W. Schlegel, Furness, p. 430.
8 Frederick Boas, Shakespeare and His Predecessors (New York, 1902),
10Wiley, op. cit., p. 50.
p. 413.
9 A. C.
llIbid., p. 48.
Bradley, op. cit., p. 348.
6

6 G. G.
Gervinus, Shakespeare

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398

The Demonic Metaphysics of "Macbeth"

mare projected into action,12 limbs of Satan,13 representatives of

hellish Power,l4 infernal spirits,15 and demons.16 For Pastor
Moritz Petrie they seem to symbolize " a secret world of evil spirits
that with Satanic cunning lie in wait for human souls, conquering
the unguarded heart and rejoicing in hurling their victim to the
dust in the misery of sin. Under this weight of demoniac influences lies Macbeth when the drama opens." 17 One cannot help
observing, while reviewing criticisms of Shakespeare's Macbeth,
that these commentators have been excited and stimulated, through
the instrumentality of powerful dramatic symbols, to achieve
imaginatively some sort of marvellous experience. Each exuberantly interprets the symbol according to his nature and ways of
thinking; each creates, in a measure, and possesses his own Macbeth
and proceeds to tell the world about it with enthusiasm. This is
precisely as it should be. Indeed, each is so enamoured of his own
experience and so delighted with his proper Macbeth that he is
likely to conclude: Such and no other must have been Shakespeare's Macbeth. This is perhaps understandable but not as it
should be. For some lack adequate knowledge of the Elizabethan
age and so are unable to experience the full effects of the stimuli
which urged Shakespeare to create; others are so immersed in the
possible stimuli of the age that they can recognize little beyond
dramatic symbols as such. Shakespeare's Macbeth still is, and no
doubt must always remain, a mystery. But the flood of Macbeths
created and described by a host of critics still bears witness to the
efficacy of his dramatic symbols.
Now the present writer offers no criticism either of Shakespeare's
Macbeth or of his own; it would be difficult, therefore, for what he
has to say to be brought into conflict with the work of Shakespeare's
critics. He has perhaps possessed his own Macbeth, but the experience is not revealed here. The single purpose of this study is to
examine, as thoroughly as possible, the nature of that evil which
the Weird Sisters are said to symbolize or represent, and to repro2

G. Wilson Knight, The Wheel of Fire (London, 1930), p. 161.

Stoll, op. cit., p. 228.
4 Franz Horn, Furness,
p. 431.
16 J. L. F. Flathe, Furness, p. 446.
16Whitmore, op. cit., p. 256.
17
See Furness, p. 453.
13

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Walter Clyde Curry

399

duce one aspect at least of the metaphysical groundwork of the

drama. It presupposes that in Shakespeare's 'time evil was considered to be both subjective and, so far as the human mind is concerned, a non-subjective reality; that is to say, evil manifested
itself subjectively in the spirits of men and objectively in a metaphysical world whose existence depended in no degree upon the
activities of the human mind. This objective realm of evil was
not governed by mere vague and irrational forces; it was peopled
and controlled by the malignant wills of intelligences-evil spirits,
devils, demons, Satan-who had the ability to project their power
into the workings of nature and to influence the human spirit.
Such a system of evil was raised to the dignity of a science and
a theology. The wisest of men-with the exception of a small
minority who, like Bruno, sat in the seats of the Sadducees-believed in the world of evil spirits: Sir Matthew Hale, Bishop Hall,
Richard Baxter, Dr. Henry More, Dr. Willis, Glanville, Lavater, Sir
Thomas Browne, Catholics and Protestants alike, physicians, philosophers, theologians, kings.18 Even the scientist, Sir Francis
Bacon, classifies knowledge of angels and unclean spirits under
Natural Theology, and concludes:
The same is to be understood of revolted or unclean spirits: conversation with them, or using their assistance, is unlawful; and much more
in any manner to worship or adore them: but the contemplation and
knowledge of their nature, power, and illusions, appears from Scripture,
reason, and experience, to be no small part of spiritual wisdom.l9

And that skeptic and militant Calvinist, Reginald Scot, while

opposing the Sadducees on the one hand and the Neo-platonists
on the other, confesses with Augustine that these matters are above
his capacity:
And yet so
that they are
are the Lords
in this world,
come.20

farre as Gods word teacheth me, I will not sticke to saie,

living creatures, ordeined to serve the estate, yet that they
ministers, and executioners of his wrath, to trie and tempt
and to punish the reprobate in hell fier in the world to

Cf. Stoll, op. cit., p. 237.

of Learning, Bk. III, ch. ii, ed. Joseph Devy (London, 1904), p. 122.
20
Op. cit., p. 453.
18

19 The Advancement

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The Demonic Metaphysics of "Macbeth "

Since, then, this belief was so universal at the time, we may reasonably suppose that Shakespeare's Weird Sisters are intended to
symbolize or represent the metaphysical world of evil spirits.
Whether one considers them as human witches in league with the
powers of darkness, or as actual demons in the form of witches,
or as merely inanimate symbols, the power which they wield or
represent or symbolize is ultimately demonic. Let us, therefore,
exercise wisdom in the contemplation of the nature, power, and
illusions of unclean spirits.
In the meantime, we may conveniently assume that in essence the
Weird Sisters are demons or devils in the form of witches. At
least their control over the primary elements of nature, the rationes
seminales, would seem to indicate as much.21 Why, then, should
Shakespeare have chosen to present upon his stage these witch-likenesses rather than devils in devil-forms? Two equally valid reasons may be suggested. In the first place, the rather sublime devil
and his angels of the earlier drama, opponents of God in the cosmic
order and destroyers of men, had degenerated in the hands of later
dramatists into mere comic figures; by Shakespeare's time folk
conception 22 had apparently so dominated dramatic practice and
tradition that cloven hoof, horns, and tail became associated in the
popular imagination only with the ludicrous. As Whitmore says:
"We thus see that devil-plays after Faustus progress steadily in
the direction of comedy, a movement which reaches its logical conclusion in the monumental humours of Jonson's The Devil is an
Ass." 23 For Shakespeare's audience, therefore, the presentation of
actual devils upon the stage could suggest only dimly, if at all, the
terror and sublimity of a metaphysical world of evil. In the
second place, witches had acquired no such comic associations.
They were essentially tragic beings who, for the sake of certain
abnormal powers, had sold themselves to the devil. As we have
seen, everybody believed in them as channels through which the
malignity of evil spirits might be visited upon human beings.
Here, then, were terrifying figures, created by a contemporary public at the most intense moment of witchcraft delusion, which Shake21
See W. C. Curry, "Tumbling Nature's Germens," Studies in Philology,
XXIX (1932), 15-28.
22E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, II, 91, 147-8.
28Op. cit.,
pp. 256, 263-266. Cf. Summers, op cit., pp. 276-312.

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401

speare found ready to his hand. Accordingly he appropriately employed witch-figures as dramatic symbols, but the Weird Sisters
are in reality demons, actual representatives of the world of darkness opposed to good.24
But of precisely what class or order or system of demons they are
representatives is a profoundly vexing question. The Renaissance,
with its apparently omnivorous appetite for the occult, welcomes
its demons from every quarter of the universe and herds them into
a chaos and confusion resembling that of Pandemonium. Here
the devils of popular folk superstition, created in the imaginations
of many peoples by terror of the unknown, rub shoulders with the
demons of many respectable philosophical systems and with the
fallen angels of Christian theology. As Postellus remarks: " In
nulla re major fuit altercatio, major obscuritas, minor opinionum
concordia, quam de daemonibus et substantiis separatis." 25 Here
appear again the monstrous offspring of Adam and Lilith,26 consorting with the progeny of wayward sons of God and the seductively fair daughters of men27 and the spawn of incubi and
succubi.28 Pythagorean souls of departed good and wicked men,
cherished and perpetuated by the Stoics, still flit about the earth,
24
Whitmore says: "Shakespeare avails himself of this universally held
belief, and presents his Weird Sisters at first under the guise of witches.
. . . The Sisters do not derive their might from any covenant with the
powers of evil, but are themselves such powers, owing their sinister capacities only to themselves," op. cit., p. 256.
25
Quoted from footnote to Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy,
Part I, Sect. II, Mem. I, Subs. ii (Bohn ed., I, 205).
2 Ibid., I, 206; Maximilian Rudwin, The Devil in Legend and Literature (Chicago, 1931), pp. 94-104; The Talmud, Midrashim, and Kabbala,
trans. in Universal Classics Library, with Intro. by M. H. Harris (Washington, 1901), pp. 76, 182, 186.
27
Rudwin, op. cit., p. 19; The Works of Flavius Josephus, trans. W.
Whiston, Antiquities, lib. I, cap. iii, 1 (London, 1872), p. 32; The Book of
Enoch, VI-VIII, ed. R. H. Charles, in Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of
the Old Testament, II, 193-194, and notes; Lactantius, The Divine Institutes, II, c. xv, trans. W. Fletcher, Ante-Nicene Christian Library, I, 12628; Justin Martyr, The Second Apology, trans. M. Dods, Ante-Nicene
Chris. Lib., p. 75 (see for a discussion of demonology in the early fathers,
Bishop John Kaye, Some Account of the Writings and Opinions of Justin
Martyr [London, 1855], pp. 201-10);
Athenagoras, Writings, trans. in
Ante-Nicene Chris. Lib., p. 407, etc.
28
Burton, loc. cit.; Rudwin, op. cit., p. 23, etc.

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The Demonic Metaphysics of " Macbeth"

persecuting or ministering to mortals;29 Socrates' good daemon

and Plato's sons of gods by nymphs or other mothers, intermediaries between men and gods,30meet themselves after centuries transformed and fused with the Roman genius or with the creatures of
the Neo-platonic imagination.31 Christianity brings to the Renaissance all the gods of ancient paganism,32 together with the malignant powers of conquered heathenism,33 metamorphosed into devils

and demons. And the legions of devils, a third part of all the
angels of heaven who fell with Lucifer when he fell, still lord it
over hell and the regions of the earth.34 Elizabethan England is
acquainted with an infinite variety of demons: eudaemons and
cacodaemons, rulers of the planets, demons of fire, air, water, earth,
and spaces under the earth; aristocratic and plebeian devils; legions
of devils that come when called by name with incantations and
suffumigations to serve men in evil capacities; demons corporeal
and incorporeal, that take what shapes they please. As Burton
says:
They will have no place void but full of Spirits, Devils, and other
inhabitants. . . . Not so much as an hair breadth empty in heaven, earth,
or waters, above or under the earth. The air is not so full of flies in
summer, as it is at all times of invisible spirits.36

Thus philosophy, theology, and religion have joined themselves

with theosophy,36theurgy, and, thaumaturgy,37 with superstitious
29 Dean W. R. Inge, The Philosophy of Plotinus
(London, 1929), II,
198; Burton, loc. cit.; Lynn Thorndike, The History of Magic and Experimental Science (New York, 1923), I, 204, etc.
0 Inge, op. cit., II, 199; Thorndike, op. cit., II, 55, 208, 227, 461.
See Apuleius, The God of Socrates, Trans. in Bohn, pp. 350-373; K.
Svoboda, La Demonologie de Michael Psellos, Brno, 1927; Scot, op. cit.,
pp. 508-18; Thorndike, op. cit., II, 55, 104, 285, 317, 357; lamblichus, The
Mysteries of the Egyptians, trans. Thomas Taylor (London, 1895), pp.
78, 82, 97-8, 160, 198, 220-3, 313ff., 340, 364; Plotinus, Opera omnia, ed.
Fred. Creuzer (Oxonii, 1835), see Index for Plotinus' conception of
daemons and for Ficino's commentaries; Inge, op. cit., II, 197 ff.
82 Rudwin, op. cit.,
p. 21 ff.
83 Ibid., p. 22; Minor White Latham, The Elizabethan Fairies
(New
York, 1930), pp. 23-64.
S4 Rudwin, op. cit., pp. 5-8; King James, op. cit., Bk. i, cap. vi; Scot,
op. cit., pp. 421 ff.
85Op. cit.,
I, 214.
6 See Christian D. Ginsburg, The Kabbalah (1925), pp. 83-114.
S7Iamblichus,
op. cit., pp. 220-1, 343-47; on the theurgy of Porphyry,

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Walter Clyde Curry

403

legend, classical and folk mythology, black magic and other occult
sciences, in creating for the Renaissance mind a spiritual world of
evil intelligences. And each demonic system seems to be colored,
to some extent, by constant interplay of influences between itself
and other systems.
In spite of the astounding disorder in Renaissance classification
of demons, however, the thoughtful student must recognize in them
the outlines of at least two important systems of philosophy,
namely, the Neo-platonic and the Christian. He will recall that
in the complicated history of philosophy human minds have set
themselves to solve the problem of God's relation to his universe, a
problem involving the contradiction between God's Oneness and the
world's heterogeneity, the dualism between spirit and substance,
good and evil. In the attempt to conciliate these extremes, there
have evolved two systems of cosmology, creationism and emanationism, each of which employs a series of mediators to bridge the
chasm between God and the world. On the one hand, Neoplatonism, as best represented in the works of Plotinus, conceives
of the world as emanating from God through three successive
spheres of activity: First, there is God the Absolute, the transcendent One, undetermined, unchangeable in essence, and plural
only in his workings. This first principle of divine activity expresses itself according to the necessity of its essence in a second
sphere called Rational Spirit (vov), which is differentiated into
the duality of thought and being; this Rational Spirit causes to
emanate from itself Universal Soul (tvx,), which receives the
world of Ideas from Spirit and uses them as archetypes after which
it, as active principle, creates the cosmos, or world of sense. From
Soul, therefore, proceeds the formative power of Nature (wrtsm)
and individual souls. Now from the World Soul emanate the
bright gods; and from Nature emanate daemons. Thus the divine
power of God is likened to Light, which shines into the darkness
and decreases in intensity in proportion to the distance from the
source until it is finally swallowed up in darkness. The ultimate
Iamblichus, and Proclus, see W. Windelband, A History of Philosophy,
trans. J. H. Tufts (New York, 1931), p. 250. On magic see Thorndike,
op. cit., passim; Martino del Rio, Disquisitionum magicarum libri sex
(Lvgdvni, 1608), passim; Scot, op. cit., Appendix, I, pp. 471-91; H. LittleGhosts and Fairies; Witchcraft and
dale, "Folklore and Superstitions:
Devils," in Shakespeare's England (Oxford, 1926), I, 516 ff.

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The Demonic Metaphysics of "Macbeth"

darkness in which this Light loses itself is Matter (vXA), the

opposite and negation of Spirit therefore Evil. " Evil is not itself
something positively existent; it is want or deficiency; it is lack
of Good, Non-being." 38 Daemons may be said to represent the
ultimate scattering forth of Spirit activities; they are the lower
order of divine beings whose sphere of activity is below the spiritual
world. They are "powers proceeding from the Soul as a dweller
on earth; their power is confined to the region 'below the moon.'
They are everlasting and can behold the spiritual world above
them; but they have bodies of 'spiritual matter,' and can clothe
themselves in fiery or airy integuments; they can feel and remember, and hear petitions." 39 It is quite clear that the human
soul intent upon absorption back into the Absolute must pass in
reverse through these successive spheres of activity, and it can
reach the realm of the gods above the moon only by climbing first
the ladder represented by the hierarchy of daemonic powers. Daemons are, therefore, necessary mediators between gods and men;
they are divine beings who look upon the spiritual world, though
they cannot inhabit it, and reveal its mysteries to human beings.
This spiritual doctrine of the nature and function of daemons
is debased by later Neo-platonists into a fantastic system of mythology and theurgy. In the hands of Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus,
and Olympiodorus the number of stages through which the Absolute streams forth the world is increased; the gods of various religions are absorbed and accommodated in the system;40 good and
88 Windelband, op. cit., p. 247; see also pp. 244-251.
Cf. Inge, op. cit.,
II, 104-163 (The Absolute), II, 36-103 (Spirit), I, 200-264 (World Soul
and derivatives), I, 153-162 (Nature), I, 122-150 (Matter).
This paragraph is taken from Windelband and Inge, though I have consulted the
works of Plotinus, ed. cit.
89 Inge, op. cit., II, 198.
' See
Windelband, op. cit., p. 250; Maurice De Wulf, History of
Mediaeval Philosophy, I, 132, on Proclus: "From this undetermined One
comes forth the nous, but this emanation is only possible because of
intermediate units, which Proclus looks upon as personal gods (JamThe nous divides itself into three spheres, which in their turn
blichus).
are subdivided into triads and hebdomads in such a way that they constitute a framework adapted to pagan Pantheism.
Matter is a direct
product of one of the triads of the nous, and not at all a final emanation
of the world-soul as Plotinus held," Note 2. On the development of Neoplatonism into the mysticism of the Middle Ages, see ibid., I, 83 (Pseudo-

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Walter Clyde Curry

405

evil spirits of the Persians, Jews, Chaldees, Greeks and Romans,

and the demons of folk belief are welcomed somewhere within the
six ranks of Neo-platonic sublunary daemons. These divine powers
are no longer to be merely worshiped; they may under certain circumstances be coerced by the will of man to accomplish wonders
for his satisfaction. According to Olympiodorus, for example,
there are six genera of daemons placed under the mundane gods:
The highest of these subsists according to the one of the Gods, and is
called an unific and divine genus of daemons. The next subsists according to the intellect which is suspended from deity, and is called intellectual. The third subsists according to the soul, and is called rational.
The fourth, according to nature, and is demoninated physical. The fifth
And the sixth,
according to the body, and is called corporeal-formed.
according to matter, and this is demoninated material.

Or if one cares to classify them according to habitat,

It may be said that some of these are celestial, others ethereal, others
aerial, others aquatic, others terrestrial, and others subterranean.41

And Psellus, following the later Neo-platonists and under the

influence of Christian thought, is also aquainted with six classes
of demons: fiery demons, or those dwelling in the air above us
near the moon; aerial demons, or those dwelling in the air about
us; terrestrial, aquatic, subterranean demons, and lucifugi, or
those that dwell in darkness and flee the light.4 All of them hate
both God and man, though those belonging to the last three classes
are more vicious than others because, doubtless, they have closer
affinities with matter. The demons of Psellus have bodies, which
Dionysius the Areopagite), 85 (Macrobius), 87 (Boethius), 132 (John
On Neo-platonism as the
Scotus Eriugena), 191 (School of Chartres).
basis of Cabbalism, see Ginsburg, op. cit., pp. 187-88. For Cabbalists
"the demons, constituting the second class of angels, which are the grossest and most deficient of all forms, and are the shells of being, inhabit
the third habitable or Assiatic World. They, too, form ten degrees . . .
in which darkness and impurity increase with the descent of each degree,"
ibid., p. 110.
41 Quoted from
Taylor's translation of Iamblichus, op. cit., p. 339. Cf.
Svoboda, op. cit., pp. 11-17, where he traces this classification from Plato
through Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus.
4
Svoboda, op. cit., p. 9. (Scot, op. cit., pp. 414-15, faithfully reproduces this classification; cf. Burton, loc. cit.).

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The Demonic Metaphysics of "Macbeth"

they are able to change into whatever shapes please their imagination; they eat, produce their kind, and suffer death; they may
address any man in his own language, tempting him either waking
or asleep to sin; they possess the bodies and the spirits of the
unwary; they may be controlled by incantations and sacrifices.43
Thus the philosophy of Plotinus has degenerated into a species of
magic, which is dignified only as it reflects its original source and
Christian coloring. Though the Neo-platonic cosmology is well
known to the Renaissance, I cannot find any evidence that Shakespeare's Weird Sisters symbolize the conception of evil which it
elaborates.
Christian philosophy, on the other hand, attempts to explain the
relation between God and the world, as well as the origin of evil,
by employing the conception of free, creative action. The Original
Being is a personality; he created the world in time, not in accordance with the necessity of his essence, but by a supreme act of
the creative will. Creation is, therefore, not an eternal process but
an accomplished fact; and since the world was created out of nothing by God, it must in the beginning have been universally good.
But the fact of evil in the world cannot be ignored. How, then,
did evil come into the world of God's creating? Christian philosophy solves the problem of the duality of good and evil by
assuming that God originally provided angelic spirits and human
souls with a freedom similar to his own and that evil resulted from
the opposition of the creature's will to the divine will. Matter,
therefore, is not the principle of evil; but the inclination toward
matter and the sensuous on the part of free ceatures, the bestowal
of love upon God's creations rather than upon God himself, constitutes a secondary element in evil. Thus the Christian conception of evil combines the negative element of departure from God,
the absence of good, with a positive element involving the rebellion
of the perverted finite will against the infinite will.44 Now Christian philosophy recognizes two tragedies of cosmic importance:
(1) The fall of Lucifer and a third part of the angelic hosts, who
rebelled against God and were cast out;45 and (2) the fall of
'8 Ibid., passim.
" This paragraph is largely a paraphrase of Windelband's beautiful exposition, op. cit., pp. 251-255. Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica,
I-lxiii, entire.
'4 See for example, Anselm, Dialogus de Gasu Diaboli, Migne, Patr. Lat.,
156: 326-360.

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Adam, who was originally endowed with perfection and freedom

but who set his will against God's will and so brought sin and
limited freedom upon mankind.
A third aspect of the Christian conception of good and evil
must not be overlooked, namely, resolution of the spiritual kingdom as if into two diametrically opposed realms, the world of good
and the world of evil. Here Christianity acknowledges the influence of Manichaeism, a system of religion based upon Persian
mythology and Gnostic belief. According to lIani, it will be remembered, the two realms of light and darkness, good and evil,
peace and strife, are eternally opposed the one to the other; and
God and Satan, like the ancient Persian Ormazd and Ahriman,
rule over these realms respectively.46 Now when Augustine comes
to formulate Christian doctrine, he cannot quite escape his Manichaean heritage. He accepts evil as the result of a desire on the
part of God's creatures for absolute self-determination; and since
through Adam's sin all men lost the power of free-choice, only
through God's grace can they be saved from perdition. His doctrine of predestination destroys man's free will: God chooses
whom he will unto salvation and unto destruction. For Augustine "the whole course of history falls apart into two spheresthe realm of God and the realm of the devil. To the former belong
the angels that have not fallen, and the men whom God has chosen
for his grace; the other embraces, together with evil demons, all
those men who are not predestined to redemption . . .; the one is
the kingdom of heaven, the other that of the world." 47 As Windelband concludes: " Among the Manichaeans the antithesis of good
and evil is held to be original and indelible; with Augustine this
antithesis is regarded as one that has come into being, but yet one
that is ineradicable. The omnipotent, omnisicent, supremely benevolent God has created a world which is divided forever into his
own realm and that of Satan." 48 It is precisely this conception of
46
Windelband, op. cit., pp. 239-40. Cf. Augustine's controversy with the
Manichaeans, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers.
47 Windelband, op.
cit., pp. 283-85.
'l Ibid., p. 286. For Plutarch's conception of the origin of evil, which
resembles that of the Manichaeans, see Inge, op. cit., I, 90: " The imperfection of the world cannot come from God; for to make God the author
of evil is to contradict the idea of God. We must therefore assume two
principles, hostile to each other; this hypothesis alone can account for the

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The Demonic Metaphysics of " Macbeth"

two worlds which the Renaissance inherits from the Middle Ages.
It is implicit in the Calvin-Arminian controversy over predestination, in Luther's doctrine of sin and free grace, and in Catholic
theology as transmitted through the Dominicans, notably through
Thomas Aquinas.49 It must be emphasized that, for the Middle
Ages and for the Renaissance, evil reveals itself in two modes or
categories: Subjectively as original or other sin in the human
spirit, and objectively as the malignant activity of demons or
fallen angels. In this study we are not concerned with the inner
or subjective aspect of evil. Let us rather inspect the unclean
spirits of Christian theology, with the idea of determining their
essence, their powers over nature and the spirits of men, and their
function in the moral and cosmic orders.
Now in God's ordering of his created universe we must observe
two steps, the reason of order and the execution of order. The
type of things ordered toward an end in the mind of God may
properly be called Providence; the execution of the providential
design is Government. As to the design of government, God governs all things immediately, and nothing escapes from him as
universal cause. But in the matter of execution of design, he
governs through a mediate chain of secondary causes inherent in
the nature of the things created.50 In this respect God stands outside his universe and intervenes only when he works miracles or
extends divine grace to men. Since in the execution of providence
inferior things are always governed by superior, there emerges in
Christian thinking a hierarchy of causes, identified for the most
part with a chain of superior and inferior beings, which bridges
strife and confusion which we find everywhere in the world. The evil
principle cannot be Matter, for we find evil to be a positive, active thing,
such as could not proceed from anything so characterless and indeterminate as Matter. There must be a spiritual power of evil, which may
be best designated as an evil World-Soul. From this evil principle proceeds all that is destructive in nature and all that is perverse in man."
This conception of an evil World-Soul also reaches the Renaissance.
49 See The
Encyclopedia Britannica, 14th ed., s. v. Predestination;
Windelband, op. cit., pp. 353, 363-66; Philip Schaff, Saint Augustin,
Melanchthon, and Neander (New York, 1886), pp. 96-106.
50Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English
Dominican Province, 1-22-1, 2, 3, 4; 1-103-6. In my expositions from
Thomas Aquinas I quite frequently use, without further acknowledgement,
the very felicitous phrasing of the Dominican Fathers.

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the chasm between God and the world. That is to say, the executors of divine providence are angels, who employ in their ministry
the secondary causes inherent in the natures of things. Of the
angels there are, according to Dionysius, three hierarchies comprising each three orders: In the first hierarchy there are the
Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones; in the second, Dominations,
Virtues, and Powers; in the third, Principalities, Archangels and
Angels.51 Gregory agrees with this graduation, except that he
places Principalities below Dominations and above Powers, and
Virtues below Powers and above Archangels.52 Now regarding
their natures and offices, we may say that the Seraphim excel all
others in that they are united with God himself; the Cherubim
know the divine secrets; and the Thrones know immediately the
types of things in God. Dominations appoint those things which
are to be done; Virtues give the power of execution and rule over
corporeal nature in the working of miracles; Powers order how
what has been commanded can be accomplished, and coerce evil
spirits. Principalities and Archangels are the leaders in execution, and Angels simply perform what is to be done.53
According, then, to the order of nature the angels are between
God and men, and according to the common law not only human
affairs are administered by them, but also all corporeal matters.5
In the corporeal world, angels exercise control both indirectly and
directly: They are the spiritual substances that move the heavenly
bodies, i. e., the stars and planets, which in turn govern all the
natural operations of inferior bodies on the earth; and they exert
an immediate power over those actions of inferior bodies for which
the movements of the heavenly bodies are not sufficient explanation.55 As Augustine says: " Every visible thing in this world
has an angelic power placed over it"; and Origen concludes that
"the world has need of angels who preside over beasts, and over
the birth of animals, and over the increase of all other things." 56
6l Ibid., 1-108-5, where he characterizes the orders further.
(Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, trans. W. Moore and H. A. Wilson, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,
V, 199; John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Bk. II, ch.
iii, trans. R. S. D. Salmond, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, IX, 20.)
65 Ibid.
6 Quoted from Thomas, 1-108-8, ad 2.
5
Ibid., 1-110-1.
66 Both quoted from Thomas, ibid.
52 Quoted from
Thomas, 1-108-6.

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The Demonic Metaphysics of "Macbeth"

But angels must always bring their regency within the limits prescribed by the natural laws of the things controlled. Thus they
may not perform miracles or coerce the wills of men whom they
guard.
Now demons, though cast out of heaven, are still spiritual substances; though fallen angels, they are still angels. All their
natural powers remain unimpaired; the natural gifts which God
bestowed upon them as angels, says Dionysius, have not been
changed at all, but remain entire and most brilliant.57 For
example,
The knowledge which comes of nature has neither been taken away nor
lessened in the demons. For it follows from the very nature of the angel,
who, according to his nature, is an intellect or mind: since on account of
the simplicity of his substance, nothing can be withdrawn from his nature,
so as to punish him by subtracting from his natural powers ....
Consequently, their natural knowledge was not diminished.68

In this sense the fallen angels still belong to the original orders
of angels from which they fell; and, since the superior rules the
inferior, there is precedence and authority among them.59 Only
the knowledge and powers which come of grace are lessened in
them. Consequently, these intellectual substances are still superior
to that rational substance, man, and may influence him to his destruction or salvation. Indeed, the function of demonic powers
in the cosmic order is to participate in the working out of man's
destiny. For God in his divine providence so disposes man's welfare that he is brought to good and withheld from evil directly
through the offices of good angels. But lest demons should cease to
be of service in the natural order, God disposes that they provide
opposition to the good in man, so that, through exercise in fighting against evil, the human soul may indirectly be perfected unto
salvation. Their place of punishment is twofold: in hell, where
they serve as the executioners of God's wrath upon wicked men;
and in the darksome atmosphere of this world,60where they act as
God's ministers in what Origen calls " a training school of
67 Quoted from Thomas, 1-64-1, ob. 5.

68Ibid., I-64-lc.
69Ibid., 1-109-2 (Cf. Cassian, Conferences, VIII, Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers, 2nd Ser., XI, 381).
60Ibid., 1-64-4, and 1-109-4, ad. 2.

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411

virtue." 61 Thus divine Wisdom suffers bad angels to do some

evil in the world-but only so much as he permits-for the sake
of the good that follows. But he restrains and straitly limits their
activities by subjecting them to the coercion of that order of the
angelic hierarchy called Powers.02
With this limitation of activities in mind, let us look more
closely into the demonic nature and powers. Since fallen angels
are still intellectual substances or subsisting forms, it is impossible
for their substances to be corruptible (I-50-5c) 63or to be naturally
joined to bodies (I-51-1c). They recognize and converse with one
another through mental concepts, and upon these activities local
distance places no restraints (I-107-4c). They are able to assume
bodies of air, condensing it by virtue of their angelic natures in
so far as is necessary for the forming of assumed bodies (I-51-2,
ad. 3); but these bodies of air are not capable of performing vital
functions (I-51-3c), such as sensation (1-51-3, ad. 6), eating and
assimilating food (1-51-3, ad. 5), or reproducing their kind (I-513, ad. 6). Properly speaking, demons do not talk through their
assumed bodies; yet there is a semblance of speech, in so far as
they fashion sounds in the air like human voices, which may be
heard by human ears (1-51-3, ad. 4). As I have shown elsewhere
(op. cit.), everything that happens outwardly among men is known
to them, not because, like the human mind, they abstract intelligible
species of things from them as they unfold, but because the species
of things are connatural in spiritual substances. Understanding
the causes of things, they know the future development of events
conjecturally though not absolutely. And some know more than
others (1-55-3). All of themn are clairvoyant, however, their
knowledge being quite indifferent to what is near or distant; nevertheless, their local movements from place to place are not on that
account without purpose, because they move from place to place
not to gain knowledge but to act (I-55-2, ad. 3). Their local movements, moreover, are not subject to the laws governing movement
in time which obtain in the corporeal world. That is to say, a
1 Against Celsus, vi, 44, trans. Fr. Crombie, Ante-Nicene Christian
Library, XXIII, 384.
2
Thomas, I-108-6c; 1-109-4, contra.
68 References
within parentheses in the following paragraphs are to
Thomas's Summa Theologica.

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The Demonic Metaphysics of "Macbeth "

demon's movement is not continuous; in going from one place to

another he does not necessarily pass through all intermediate
places. His substance is not subject to place as contained thereby,
but is above it as containing it; hence it is under his control to
apply himself to any place he wills, either through or without the
intervening place (I-53-2c). Nor is he subject to that time which
is the measure of the movement of corporeal things. A demon,
therefore, can be in one place in one instant and in another place,
say a thousand miles away, in the next instant without any time
intervening (I-53-3c and ad. 3). In addition, he can work apparent miracles in the natural order by the simple process of
manipulating in local movement the seeds of things; anything that
nature can produce through long or short travail, a demon can
achieve instantly through his knowledge of the active and passive
principles of things.64 He may even intervene in the working of
that law determining that superior bodies govern inferior bodies;
since as a spiritual substance he may govern bodies directly, he can
work effects independently of the heavenly bodies, such as the
creation of tempests and the condensation of the clouds into rain,
and such like (I-110-1c, 3c; 112-2c).
And finally, demonic powers have the ability to move man's
senses and imagination and will, sometimes to his destruction. For
the senses can be changed in two ways: from without, as when
affected by a sensible object; and from within, as when they are
affected by disturbed spirits and humours. Now demons can work
a change in the human senses in both ways; they can offer the
senses a sensible object from without, formed by nature or by the
demons themselves. Likewise they can move the spirits and
humors from within so that the senses are changed in various
ways (I-111-4c). They also move the human imagination. Imaginative apparitions are sometimes caused in men by the local
movements of spirits and humours, and demons by controlling and
directing such movements are enabled to induce in the imaginations of men, either waking or asleep, whatever visions and hallucinations they please (I-111-3c). And they move the human
will both by persuasion and by stirring up passions residing in the
sensitive appetite. They cannot know the inmost thoughts of the
human mind except through interpretation of outward bodily signs;
*6 See

my article, loc. cit.

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413

and they cannot plant thoughts in the mind. But they may incite
to thought and kindle desire by way of persuasion or by rousing the
passions (I-111-2, ad. 2). Thus evil spirits tempt man in two
ways: first, from within by working on his imagination and senses,
so that something seems otherwise than it is. Secondly, from without; for just as they can form from the air a body of any form or
shape, and assume it and appear in it visibly: so in the same way
can they clothe any corporeal thing with any corporeal form, so as
to appear therein (1-114-4, ad. 2). As we have intimated above,
demons have the will and the power to enter into, and utterly possess, the human body; and they may gain control over the spirit by
seizing upon those members in which the vigor of the soul resides.
This outline, then, may be said to represent the demonic
metaphysics of Christian theology, which the Renaissance inherits
from the Middle Ages. Properly speaking, this is not superstition; even a congenital Methodist, such as the present writer, must
recognize that it is a superb rationalization of an almost universal
belief incorporated into a logical system of philosophy. Protestant
reformers may attack this system in minor or major details; they
may go so far as to reduce the principle of evil to the personality
of the Devil alone or to personifications of the human vices.65
But not even Deering, Scot, and Calvin can escape the devil-lore
of the Bible; and besides, St. Augustine is always with them.66
And the Catholic Church espouses the philosophy of Thomas
Aquinas.67 But whatever may be the Protestant view regarding
evil spirits, it seems to be this mediaeval system of metaphysics
which manifests itself everywhere in Shakespeare's Macbeth.
For example, in the light of this exposition the Weird Sisters take
on a dignity, a dark grandeur, and a terror-inspiring aspect which
is in no way native to the witch-symbol as such. In the first place,
they are clairvoyant in the sense that whatever happens outwardly
among men is immediately known to them. In the thunder and
lightning of a desert place they look upon the distant battle, in
which Macbeth overcomes the King's enemies, and conjecture that
65 See
Rudwin, op. cit., pp. 23-24; Sigmund Feyerabend, Theatrum diabolorum (1569); Spalding, op. cit., pp. 43-46.
66 See Scot, op. cit.,
pp. 420 ff. passim; Windelband, op. cit., p. 353;
G. W. Osmun, Augustine: The Thinker (New York, 1906), pp. 241 ff.
87 Council of Trent, 1563.

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The Demonic Metaphysics of " Macbeth"

it will be lost and won before the day ends. They do not travel
to the camp near Forres where Duncan receives news of the battle,
but when Macbeth is created Thane of Cawdor they seem to know
it instantly. They must be aware that it is Macbeth who murders
Duncan, because Hecate berates them for having trafficked with
him in affairs of death without her help.68 All the events of the
drama-the murder of Banquo and the escape of Fleance, the striking down of Lady Macduff and her children, Macbeth's accumulating sins and tragic death-must, as they unfold in time, be immediately perceived by these creatures in whom the species of these
things are connatural. Moreover, by virtue of their spiritual substance they are acquainted with the causes of things and, through
the application of wisdom gained by long experience, are able to
prognosticate future events 69 in relation to Macbeth and Banquo:
Macbeth shall be king, none of woman born shall harm him, he
shall never be overcome until Birnam wood shall come against him
to Dunsinane; Banquo shall be no king, but he shall beget kings.
The external causes upon which these predictions are based may
to a certain extent be manipulated by these demonic forces; but
the internal causes, i. e., the forces which move the will of Macbeth
to action, are imperfectly known and only indirectly subject to
their influence. They cannot read his inmost thoughts-only God
can do that-but from observation of facial expression and other
bodily manifestations,70 they surmise with comparative accuracy
what passions drive him and what dark desires of his await their
fostering. Realizing that he desires the kingdom, they prophesy
that he shall be king, thus arousing his passions and inflaming his
68
III, v. In this scene, often considered un-Shakespearean, we have an
illustration of precedence among demons. On this point see Thomas, I109-AA 1-4, where he quotes Augustine and the Bible; John Cassian, Conferences, VIII, loc. cit., p. 381; King James, op. cit., p. 201.
69 See my article, loc. cit.; Aquinas, I-57-3c; Augustine, De divinatione
daemonum, in Opera omnia, castigata, etc. Monachorum ordinis Sancti
Benedicti, Parisiis, 1837, VI, cap. iii-v; King James, op. cit., p. 45.
70Augustine, op. cit., cap. vi; Aquinas, 1-114-2, ad. 2, I-57-4c; King
James, op. cit., p. 8: "For that olde and craftie Serpent, being a spirite,
hee easilie spyes our affections, and so conformes himself thereto, to
deceaue vs to our wracke," and p. 21: "to reueale to them the secrets of
anie persons, so being they bee once spoken, for the thought none knowes
but GOD; except so far as yee may ghesse by their countenance, as one
who is doubtleslie learned inough in the Physiognomie."

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415

imagination to the extent that nothing is but what is not. This

influence gained over him is later augmented when they cause to
appear before him evil spirits, who condense the air about them
into the shapes of an armed Head, a bloody Child, and a crowned
Child. These demonic presences materialize to the sound of
thunder and seem to speak to him with human voices, suggesting
evil and urging him toward destruction with the pronouncement
of half-truths. These are illusions created by demonic powers,
objective appearances with a sensible content sufficient to arouse
his ocular and auditory senses.
Indeed, the Weird Sisters are always illusions when they appear
as such upon the stage; that is to say, their forms clothe the demonic powers which inform them.71 This is suggested by the
facility with which they materialize to human sight and disappear.
King James suspects that the Devil is able to render witches invisible when he pleases,72 but these Weird Sisters seem of their
own motion to melt into thin air and vanish like a dream. Instead
of disappearing with the swift movement which characterizes
demonic transportation of bodies, they simply fade into nothingness. This suggests that their movements from place to place
are not continous necessarily. Though one of them plans to sail
to Aleppo in a sieve, we feel that for the most part they appear in
one place at one instant and at another place the next instant, or
at whatever time pleases them, without being subject to the laws
of time and place. I would not, however, force this point. At
any rate, all their really important actions in the drama suggest
that they are demons in the guise of witches.
But the witch-appearances constitute only a comparatively small
part of the demonic manifestations in Macbeth. Many of the
natural occurrences and all of the supernatural phenomena may be
attributed to the activities of the metaphysical world of evil spirits.
Whether visible or invisible these malignant substances insinuate
themselves into the essence of the natural world and hover about
the souls of men and women; they influence and in a measure
71

Cf. Augustine, De Trinitate, IV, xi, loc. cit., col. 1255.

Op. cit., p. 39: "For if the deuil may forme what kinde of impressiones he pleases in the aire . . . why may he not far easilier thicken &
obscure so the air, that is next about them by contracting it strait together, that the beames of any other mans eyes cannot pearce thorow the
same, to see them ?" Cf. Spalding, op. cit., p. 103.
72

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The Demonic Metaphysics of "Macbeth "

direct human thought and action by means of illusions, hallucinations, and inward persuasion. For example, since they are able
to manipulate nature's germens and control the winds, we may
reasonably suppose that the storm which rages over Macbeth's
castle and environs in Act II is no ordinary tempest caused by the
regular movements of the heavenly bodies, but rather a manifestation of demonic power over the elements of nature. Indeed,
natural forces seem to be partly in abeyance; o'er the one half
world nature seems dead. A strange, mephitic atmosphere hangs
over and pervades the castle and adjacent country-side; an unnatural darkness, for ages the melieu of evil forces, blots out the
stars and in the morning strangles the rising sun. Where Lennox
lies-evidently not far distinct-the night is so unruly that chimneys are blown down, lamentings and strange screams of death are
heard in the air; and the firm-set earth is so sensitized by the all
pervading demonic energy that it is feverous and shakes. Macbeth
senses this magnetization, and fears that the very stones will prate
of his whereabouts. As the drunken Porter feels, Macbeth's castle
is literally the mouth of hell through which evil spirits emerge in
this darkness to cause upheavals in nature. Within the span of
his seventy years the Old Man has experienced many strange and
dreadful things, but they are as trifles in comparison with the
occurrences of this rough night. Demonic powers are rampant in
nature.
They also fill the imaginations of sleeping men with the shapes
of unholy visions. Honest Banquo has kept his bosom franchised
and his allegiance clear; but when his conscious mind is asleep and
his will quiescent, he cannot help dreaming of the three Weird
Sisters. This vision, and no doubt others like it, are so terrifying
that he would not willingly sleep again, though a heavy summons
to natural rest lies like lead upon him. He prays for divine protection against such dreams, recognizing apparently that their ultimate origin is demonic. At least, in his extremity he importunes
precisely that order of angels which God, in his providence, has
deputed to be concerned especially with the restraint and coercion
of demons, namely, Powers. Says Banquo:
Merciful Powers,
Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose.

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Moreover, immediately after Macbeth stabs the King, the spiritual

world is so shaken by the evil deed that two men sleeping in an
adjoining room are abused by wicked dreams. One laughs in his
sleep and one cries " Murder," so that they wake each other. Conscious then of the demonic forces still vibrant about them, one
cries " God bless us," and the other, "Amen." Such dreams may
be explained upon purely natural grounds, but under the circumstances they may the more reasonably be attributed to the influence
of bad angels. As Thomas Aquinas explains the matter:
Corporeal nature obeys the angel as regards local movement, so that
whatever can be caused by the local movement of bodies is subject to the
natural powers of the angels. Now it is manifest that imaginative apparitions are sometimes caused in us by the local movements of animal spirits
and humours. Hence Aristotle says, when assigning a cause of visions in
dreams, that 'when an animal sleeps, the blood descends in abundance to
the sensitive principle, and movements descend with it,' that is the impressions left from the movements of sensible things, which movements are
preserved in the animal spirits, 'and move the sensitive principle'; so that
a certain appearance ensues, as if the sensitive principle were being
changed by external objects themselves.
Indeed, the commotion of the
spirits and humours may be so great that such appearances may even occur
to those who are awake, as is seen in mad people, and the like. So as
this happens by a natural disturbance of the humours, and sometimes also
by the will of man who voluntarily imagines what he previously experienced, so also the same may be done by the power of a good or a bad angel,
sometimes with alienation from bodily senses, sometimes without such
alienation (I-lll-3c).

This exposition also offers a basis for judgment concerning the

nature of Macbeth's vision of a bloody dagger, which seems to swim
in the air and marshal him to the murder of Duncan. It may be
either an illusion or an hallucination, but more likely the latter. If
it is an illusion, the source of it is demonic; for, says James, "the
deuil may forme what kinde of impressiones he pleases in the
aire." If the air-drawn dagger is an hallucination,73 the cause of
it may be either simple or complex. Whatever the complication
may be, it is in that case a false creation of the mind proceeding
immediately from the local movements of humours in the heatoppressed brain of Macbeth. It is in appearance just such a dagger
as he is to use presently. If anyone likes to have it so, the tense
78 As most critics are agreed:
pp. 105, 199, etc.

see Bradley, op. cit., p. 492; Stoll, op. cit.,

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The Demonic Metaphysics of "Macbeth "

state of Macbeth's mind in this situation accounts sufficiently and

fully for the phenomenon, and there is psychological evidence
from Aristotle to Shakespeare in support of this interpretation.
But, as most writers on hallucinations in the Middle Ages and in
the Renaissance also agree, it is just these disordered bodily humours that the devil and his angels find to be the best media
through which they may impose upon man's senses, deceive his
imagination, becloud his reason, and so lead him to his destruction.74

As Nashe says:

So the Devill when with any other sickness or malladie the faculties of
our reason are enfeebled and distempered, will be most busie to disturbe
us and torment us. . . . Children, fooles, sicke-men, or mad-men hee is
most familiar with . . . and to whom he boldly revealeth the whole
astonishing treasurie of his wonders.75

We may safely conclude, then, that Macbeth's vision of a dagger

is an hallucination caused immediately, indeed, by disturbed bodily
humours and spirits but ultimately by demonic powers, who have
so controlled and manipulated these bodily forces as to produce
the effect they desire. And a like explanation may be offered of
the mysterious voice which Macbeth seems to hear after the murder,
crying exultantly to all the house, " Sleep no more! Macbeth does
murder sleep."

76

Entrance of Banquo's ghost precipitates a most intricate problem. What exactly is the nature of this particular ghost? Any
adequate answer to this question involves consideration of enlightened opinion regarding ghosts in Shakespeare'stime. Realists
of the age would say that Banquo's ghost is nothing more than
an hallucination, a creature of Macbeth's imagination, produced
by the perturbation

of humours through fear;

77

others with a

7* Cf.
Burton, loc. cit., I, 228, where he quotes from Biarmannus in his
Oration against Bodine: "He (the devil) begins first with the phantasy,
& moves that so strongly that no reason is able to resist. Now he moves
the phantasy by mediation of humours; although many Physicians are of
the opinion, that the Devil can alter the mind, and produce this disease
of himself." Cf. Augustine, De Trinitate, IV, xi, loc. cit., col. 1255.
76 Thomas Nashe, The Terrors of the Night, or A Discourse of Apparitions (London, 1594), pp. 223-4; quoted from Campbell, op. cit., p. 91.
76 Or it may equally well be the voice-illusion
or hallucination-of
Macbeth's guardian angel departing from him. See Thomas, I-113-6c.
77 For the statement of three
important positions, see Campbell, op. cit.,
pp. 84-92, 121.

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Walter Clyde Curry

419

senitiveness to the occult would hold, however, that the hallucination so produced is ultimately to be attributed to the activities of
demonic powers, as in the case of the dagger and the voice. Both
Protestants and Catholics would agree that it is possible for a
human being to imagine seeing a ghost under these circumstances.
But Professor Stoll's arguments against hallucination as an explanation of Banquo's ghost are, it seems to me, unanswerable.78
Further, this particular ghost can be considered, in the light of
Catholic faith from Aquinas to Le Loyer, as either the actual
spirit of Banquo returned from Purgatory to take revenge upon
the murderer, or as an illusion in his likeness created out of air
by the devil or his angels.79 Protestants, on the other hand, would
say that it cannot be the spectre of Banquo at all; barring hallucination, it must be in reality the Devil in an illusory form resembling Banquo's, or that same evil spirit animating (though
not vitalizing) Banquo's dead body.80 It must be observed that
even the Catholics, though they affirm the possibility of the soul's
return from Purgatory, are quick to admit that there is nothing
in nature to account for it; such apparitions are miracles wrought
by the will of God and do not often occur.81 Thus in Shakespeare's time all parties (except realists) seem to be convinced
that in the great majority of instances ghost appearances are in
reality illusions created by good or bad angels. Even when the
ghost seems gentle, one cannot be sure that a good angel is responsible for it; for demons have the power of assuming shapes
which might ordinarily be attributed to the good angels.82 We
may logically conclude, then, that Banquo's ghost is an infernal
78
79

Op. cit., pp. 199-217.

For a splendid exposition of Catholic faith upon the matter of ghosts,
see May Yardley, The Catholic Position in the Ghost Controversy of the
Sixteenth Century, in Lewes Lavater, Of Ghostes and Spirites Walking by
Nyght, ed. J. Dover Wilson and May Yardley (Oxford, 1929), pp. 221-251.
Miss Yardley gives an excellent resume of Pierre Le Loyer's IIII Livres
des Spectres (1585), written in answer to Lavater's Of Ghostes.
80 On the Protestant
position, see Lavater, op. cit., passim, but especially Part II; Scot, A Discourse of Devils and Spirits, ch. xxvii, ed. cit.,
pp. 446-47; Yardley, op. cit., pp. 248-250; Iohn Deacon and Iohn Walker,
Dialogicall Discourses of Spirits and Deuils (1601), pp. 132, 153; King
James, op. cit., pp. 59-61; Spalding, op. cit., pp. 44, 53-60.
81 See Yardley, op. cit., pp. 223-4, 242, 245.
8S Ibid., pp. 246-48.

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The Demonic Metaphysics of "Macbeth"

illusion, created out of air by demonic forces and presented to

Macbeth's sight at the banquet in order that the murderer may be
confused and utterly confounded. The second appearance of Banquo's ghost, together with the show of eight kings (IV, i, 112), is
undoubtedly the result of demonic machinations. Having persuaded and otherwise incited Macbeth to sin and crime, the Devil
and his angels now employ illusions which lead to his betrayal and
final destruction.
And finally, certain aspects of Lady Macbeth's experience indicate that she is possessed of demons. At least, in preparation for
the coming of Duncan under her battlements, she calls upon precisely those metaphysical forces which have seemed to crown Macbeth. The murdering ministers whom she invokes for aid are
described as being sightless substances, i. e., not evil thoughts and
"grim imaginings" but objective substantial forms, invisible bad
angels, to whose activities may be attributed all the unnatural
occurrences of nature. Whatever in the phenomenal world becomes beautiful in the exercise of its normal function is to them
foul, and vice versa; they wait upon nature's mischief. She recognizes that they infest the filthy atmosphere of this world and the
blackness of the lower regions; therefore she welcomes a night
palled in the dunnest smoke of hell, so dense that not even heaven
may pierce the blanket of the dark and behold her projected deed.
Her prayer is apparently answered; with the coming of night her
castle is, as we have seen, shrouded in just such a blackness as she
desires. She knows also that these spiritual substances study
eagerly the effects of mental activities upon the human body, waiting patiently for evidences of evil thought which will permit them
entrance past the barriers of the human will into the body to possess it. They tend on mortal thoughts. For, says Cassian: "It
is clear that unclean spirits cannot make their way into those
whose bodies they are going to seize upon, in any other way than
by first taking possession of their minds and thoughts." 83 Thus
instead of guarding the workings of her mind against the assaults
of wicked angels, Lady Macbeth deliberately wills that they subtly
invade her body and so control it that the natural inclinations of
the spirit toward goodness and compassion may be completely extirpated. Says she:
88John Cassian, Conferences, VII, ch. xxiv, loc. cit., XI, 371.

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Walter Clyde Curry

421

Come you spirits,

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood,
Stop up th'access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th'effect and it. Come to my woman's breasts
And take my milk for gall, you murth'ring ministers,
Where-ever, in your sightless substances,
You wait on nature's mischief (I, v, 45-55).

And without doubt these ministers of evil do actually take possession of her body even in acordance with her desire. As Mrs. Siddons remarks: "Having impiously delivered herself up to the
excitements of hell, the pitifulness of heaven itself is withdrawn
from her, and she is abandoned to the guidance of the demons
whom she has invoked." 84
Possession of Lady Macbeth's body enables these forces of evil
to control her spirit. As Cassian says: "It is a fact that those
men are more grievously and severely troubled who, while they
seem to be very little affected by them in the body, are yet possessed
in spirit in a far worse way, as they are entangled in their sins." 85
We must not imagine that this possession of spirit is accomplished
by the infusion of the demonic substance in such a way that it
actually penetrates the substance of the soul-only the spirit of
God may be fused in this manner with the spirit of man. Rather
the unclean spirits overwhelm the intellectual nature of man only
when they are permitted to seize upon those members in which the
vitality of the soul resides.86 This is what happens to Lady Macbeth. The forces which take possession of her body do unsex her
and fill her from crown to toe, top-full of direst cruelty; they
thicken her blood and so stop up the passage to remorse. She becomes, for the most part, the fiend-like queen in thought and action.
"Not

a single sentiment

of repentance is betrayed

...

in the

course of her whole criminal career. Nothing like remorse can

be discovered from her expressions. In truth, the only feeling of
84 See Furness, p. 473; for a description of Mrs. Siddons' acting of the
part, see ibid., p. 303.
86Loc. cit.,
p. 371.
86 Cassian, loc. cit., p. 366.

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The Demonic Metaphysics of " Macbeth"

human nature which she, at any time, exhibits, and that alone
which redeems her from being an incarnate fiend, is the tender
remembrance of her father, which prevented her plunging the
poniard into the body of her sleeping sovereign, as she quitted her
chamber purposely to do." 87 Though this compunctious visiting
of nature does not shake her ultimate purpose of having the king
murdered, still it indicates that demonic powers have not gained
absolute control over her soul; no human being can become completely evil.88

What happens to Lady Macbeth in the course of Act IV is not

immediately clear. Apparently there is a steady deterioration of
her demon-possessed body until, at the beginning of Act V, the
organs of her spirit are impaired to the point of imminent dissolution. Such a great perturbation of nature has seized upon her
that she walks night after night in slumbery agitation, with eyes
wide open but with the senses shut. There appears a definite cleavage in her personality. Her will, which in conscious moments
guards against any revelation of her guilty experiences, is submerged; and her infected mind is forced to discharge its secrets
in the presence of alien ears. Her symptoms in these circumstances resemble those of the ordinary somnambulist,89 but the
violence of her reactions indicates that her state is what may be
called " somnambuliform possession" or "demoniacal somnambulism." As Professor Oesterreich says:
distinguished from ordinary somnambulistic
Typical possession is...
states by its intense motor and emotional excitement, so much so that we
might hesitate to take it for a form of somnambulism but for the fact that
possession is so nearly related to the ordinary form of these states that it
is impossible to avoid classing them together.90
Tweedie, quoted from Furness, p. 308.
Thomas Aquinas, I-II-18-9, ad. 1.
89 See
Pfeil, Deutsche Revue, Feb. 1894, p. 239, quoted by Furness, p.
304. The best analysis of the ordinary somnambulistic state is that by
W. B. Carpenter, Mental Physiology (New York, 1877), pp. 591-501.
90 T. K. Oesterreich, Possession Demoniacal and Other, Among Primitive
Races, in Antiquity, The Middle Ages, and Modern Times, trans. D. Ibberson (New York, 1930), p. 39. This is an excellent investigation of the
fact of "demonic possession "-however one cares to interpret it; " cases "
are presented from many sources. For other cases, see Jean Wier (Johan
Wier or Weyer), Histoires, disputes et discours des illusions et impostures
des diables, des magiciens infames, sorcieres et empoisonneurs, des ensor87

88

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Walter Clyde Curry

423

The most outstanding characteristic of this demoniacal somnambulism, which in the course of history has been more common than
any other form of possession, is that the normal individuality disappears and seems to be replaced by a second personality, which
speaks through the patient's mouth. This strange individuality
always confesses wrong-doing, and sometimes relates a sort of lifehistory consisting frequently of the patient's reminiscences or
memories.9l Now the physician to Lady Macbeth recognizes these
symptoms in his patient.92 Sometimes, to be sure, he has known
those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in
their beds. But this disease is beyond his practice; this heart
sorely charged with perilous stuff needs the divine more than the
physician. The demonic substances she welcomed into her body
now employ her bodily functions to disclose her criminal experiences. As Professor Tolman well says: " In this scene . . . it is
the invisible world of moral reality which is made strangely manifest before our eyes. Lady Macbeth would not reveal those guilty
Her feet, her
secrets for all the wealth of all the world. ...
In
her.
the
her
hands,
presence of the awful,
lips conspire against
unseen Power that controls her poor, divided self, we hush the
breath and bow the head." 93
Shakespeare's age would undoubtedly have pronounced Lady
Macbeth's sleep-walking an instance of demoniacal somnambulism.
Practically everybody, so far as may be determined, accepted demonic possession as an established fact. The New Testament
affirmed it; the Church Fathers had elaborated and illustrated it;
the Catholic Church made of it a firm article of faith and proceeded to exorcise demons by means of recognized rituals involving holy-water and cross, bell, book, and candle; and Protestants
could not consistently deny it, or if some of them did, preemptory
experience forced them to take a doubtful refuge in the conception
of obsession, which produced the effects of possession.94 Martin
celez et demoniaques et de la guerison d'iceusc (Paris, 1885); Bodinus, De
magorum Daemonomania (Hamburg, 1698), etc.
91 Oesterreich, op. cit., pp. 31-32, 35, 39 passim.
92
Spalding, op. cit., p. 63.
98A. H. Tolman, The Atlantic Monthly,
LXIX, 245.
9' On the Renaissance attitude toward possession, see Spalding, op. cit.,
pp. 61-70, and on Shakespeare's use of Harsnet's book, ibid., pp. 70-82;
Scot, op. cit., ch. xv, p. 431.

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424

The Demonic Metaphysics of "Macbeth"

Luther certainly considered "all mental affections as possession,

and suicide as one of their consequences. In these circumstances
he cannot, of course, have rejected the interpretation of true states
of possession as such; he rather personally undertook exorcisms of
the possessed (1545) . . . with 'prayer and contempt.'"95 He
and other Protestants, however, opposed the Papist doctrine of
exorcism on the grounds that it concentrates too much power in
the hands of man; God's servants should rather fast and pray without ceasing until God hears their prayer.96 King James prepared
for Philomathes a list of infallible symptoms, by which one might
distinguish diabolical possession from ordinary insanity.97 Physicians were likely to attribute diseases they did not understand to
the activities of devils.98 It does not seem necessary to revive here
the bitter controversy, which shook Elizabethan England, regarding the efficacy of Popish exorcism of unclean spirits.99 But
vehement charges of fraud and countercharges of blasphemy, theological chop-logic and hair-splitting, serve to emphasize the importance of demonic possession for the Elizabethan mind.100 Fortunately Shakespeare has spared us, in the case of Lady Macbeth,
a representation of the more disgusting physical symptoms of the
diabolically possessed, such as astounding contortions of the body
and fantastic creations of the delirious mind.'10 He merely suggests these horrors in the report of the Doctor that the Lady is
troubled with thick-coming fancies and in the expressed opinion
of some that she took her own life by self and violent hands. He
6 Oesterreich, op. cit., p. 186 ff. Cf. Erich Klingner, Luther und der
deutsche Volksaberglaube, Palaestra, LVI (1912), 34-38.
98
Ibid., p. 187. Cf. Deacon and Walker, op. cit., 3rd Dialogue; James,
op. cit., p. 72.
97
cit., pp. 71-73.
Op.
98 Spalding, op. cit., p. 64.
99See a
spirited review of the controversy in Summers, op. cit., pp. 225234.
100
Spalding, op. cit., pp. 61-63.
101See the cases in Summers, op. cit., pp. 198-269; Oesterreich, op. cit.,
passim; Burton, loc. cit., I, 227-230, with a bibliography; James, op. cit.,
p. 72; Felix Minucius, The Octavian, cap. 27, trans. R. E. Wallis, AnteNicene Fathers, IV, 289-90; Clement, The Recognitions, Bk. V, caps. xxxiixxxiii, trans. Thos. Smith, Ante-Nicene Fathers, VIII, 151: "By the
friendship of demons, men are brought to disgraceful and base deeds, so
that, as is well known, some have laid violent hands upon themselves."

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Walter Clyde Curry

425

is interested primarily in presenting not so much the physical as

the spiritual disintegration of this soul-weary creature possessed
of devils.
In this manner, it seems to me, Shakespeare has informed Macbeth with the Christian conception of a metaphysical world of
objective evil. The whole drama is saturated with the malignant
presences of demonic forces; they animate nature and ensnare
human souls by means of diabolical persuasion, by hallucination,
infernal illusion, and possession. They are, in the strictest sense,
one element in that Fate which God in his providence has ordained
to rule over the bodies and, it is possible, over the spirits of men.
And the essence of this whole metaphysical world of evil intelligences is distilled by Shakespeare's imagination and concentrated
in those marvellous dramatic symbols, the Weird Sisters. The
story of evil in Macbeth, however, is not with these considerations
complete. We have scarcely touched upon that subjective evil,
whose origin lies somewhere in the perverted will of man. Before
a basis for full interpretation of the drama can be established,
therefore, it will be necessary to consider the nature of Macbeth
as man and individual, the quality of his moral responsibilities
and derelictions, and to trace the pattern of his relationship to
such an objective world of evil as we have described.02
From the present study, however, we may deduce the persistent
implication that Renaissance civilization was not born of classical
culture without benefit and participation of mediaeval influences.
The old order did not suddenly or completely change into the new
and modern. English poets, dramatists, and philosophers did not
escape discipline in the great systems of fundamental ideas originating in the Middle Ages; these traditions and principles, now
built into the very character and consciences of the English people,
furnished stability in the midst of the influx of new ideas and
traditions. As Mr. Alien Tate astutely observes in another connection: "The source of a poet's true culture . . . cannot be consciously created. It is simply an available source of ideas that
were imbedded in a complete and homogeneous society. The poet
finds himself balanced upon the moment when such a world is
about to fall, when it threatens to run out into looser and less selfsufficient impulses. This world order is assimilated ... as mediae102

See my forthcoming article, " Macbeth's Changing Character."

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426

The Demonic Metaphysics of " Macbeth"

valism was in Shakespeare, to the poetic vision; it is brought down

from abstraction to personal feeling. .. . With reasonable cerHe
tainty we unearth the elements of Shakespeare's culture. ...
appeared at the collapse of the mediaeval system as a rigid pattern
of life, but that pattern remained in Shakespeare, and in all men,
what Shelley called a 'fixed point of reference' for their sensibilities." '0 It is therefore not surprising to find that Shakespeare, when he came to embody in Macbeth his tragic perception of
life, should have employed as the integrating principle of his
dramatic materials that mediaeval ontology which he and his age
had more or less unconsciously assimilated.
Vanderbilt University.

10o8"New England Culture and Emily Dickinson," The Symposium,

April,
1932, pp. 221-222.

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