ASTROLOGY The references in various plays to astrology are interesting not only to the student of the occult but also as showing how commonly astrological expressions were employed in Shakespeare's day. In Scene II, Act V, Much Ado About Nothing, Benedick says of his inability to write well: I was not born under a riming planet, Don John, in that play, remonstrates with Conrade for his lack of a philosophical view of human nature and his failure to understand why he, Don John, is sad without present cause for it: I wonder that thou, being-as thou say'st thou art-born under Saturn, goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am. When the Duke in Twelfth Night sends Viola on the courting mission to Olivia he remarks: I know thy constellation is right apt For this affair. In that distressing scene in The Winter's Tale in which the king gives way to blind rage on account of his groundless jealousy and orders the queen to prison, she protests her innocence and then adds with patient resignation: There's some ill planet reigns: I must be patient till the heavens look When Richard the Third is proposing to Queen Elizabeth, widow of his brother Edward, that her daughter Elizabeth marry him and is hypocritically swearing that he loves her daughter, he says: Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours! Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest! To my proceeding, if, with pure heart's love, I tender not thy beauteous princely daughter! Reminded that he is the murderer of her brothers, he excuses himself with Lo! at their births good stars were opposite! In Scene II, Act I, Julius Caesar, Cassius says: Men at some time are masters of their fates: Warwick says to King Henry, Scene VI, Act IV, Third Part of King Henry VI: Your Grace hath still been famed for virtuous; By spying and avoiding Fortune's malice; To which the duke replies: No, Warwick, thou art worthy of the sway, A speech by Ulysses in Scene III, Act I, Troilus and Cressida, contains the following: The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre Observe degree, priority, and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, In evil mixture to disorder wander, What plagues, and what portents, what mutiny, Commotion in the winds, frights, changes, horrors, The first words spoken in the First Part of King Henry VI are by the Duke of Bedford: Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to Comets, importing change of times and states, And with them scourge the bad revolting stars, In the same scene the Duke of Exeter exclaims: What! shall we curse the planets of mishap Prospero, the adept, in Scene II, Act I, The Tempest, speaks thus: By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune, Brought to this shore; and by my prescience A most auspicious star, whose influence If now I court not but omit, my fortunes Will ever after droop. Just before the two Talbots were slain in the First Part of King Henry VI, Lord Talbot says to his son in Scene V, Act IV: O young John Talbot! I did send for thee |