The Witch

:"This article is about the play. For other uses, see Witch (disambiguation)."

"The Witch" is a Jacobean play, a tragicomedy written by Thomas Middleton. The play was acted by the King's Men at the Blackfriars Theatre. It is thought to have been written sometime between 1609 and 1616; [Terence P. Logan and Denzell S. Smith, eds., "The Popular School: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama," Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1975; p. 69.] it was not printed in its own era, and existed in manuscript until it was published by Isaac Reed in 1778.

The manuscript

The still-extant manuscript (since 1821, "MS. Malone 12" in the collection of the Bodleian Library), a small quarto-sized bundle of 48 leaves, is in the hand of Ralph Crane, [W. W. Greg, "Some Notes on Crane's manuscript of "The Witch"," "The Library," 4th series, Vol. 22 (1942), pp. 208-22.] the professional scribe who worked for the King's Men in this era, and who prepared several texts for the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays, as well as two of the survivng manuscripts of Middleton's "A Game at Chess", plus other King's Men's works. Since Middleton wrote for the King's Men in this period, the Crane connection is unsurprising. The manuscript bears Middleton's dedication to Thomas Holmes, Esq. There, Middleton refers to the play as "ignorantly ill-fated." This was long taken to mean that the play failed with the audience; but modern critics allow the possibility that the play was pulled from performance for legal or censorship reasons. [Nicholas Brooke, ed., "Macbeth," Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990; p. 64.]

"Macbeth"

"The Witch" is known chiefly because parts of the play were incorporated into Shakespeare's "Macbeth", perhaps around 1618. The added text involves Hecate and the Three Witches, and is found in "Macbeth", Act III, scene v, and Act IV, scene i, lines 39-43 and 125-32, and includes two songs, "Come away, come away" and "Black spirits." [G. Blakemore Evans, textual editor, "The Riverside Shakespeare," Boston, Houghton and Mifflin, 1974; pp. 1340-1.] Middleton's text gives the full lyrics of the songs, which are represented in "Macbeth" by their first lines; they are the only songs in the First Folio that occur in this abbreviated form.

Witches

Middleton's primary source for material on witches was the "Discovery of Witchcraft" of Reginald Scot (1584), [Logan and Smith, p. 66.] from which the playwright drew invocations, demons' names, and potion ingredients. Middleton, however, ignores Scot's skeptical attitude toward much witchcraft lore, and merely mines his book for exploitable elements. He also borrowed the situation of a historical Duke and Duchess of Ravenna, related in the "Florentine History" of Niccolò Machiavelli and in the fiction of Matteo Bandello.

Witchcraft was a topical subject in the era Middleton wrote, and was the subject of other works like "The Witch of Edmonton" and "The Late Lancashire Witches." Middleton's chief witch is a 120-year-old practitioner called Hecate. Her magic adheres to the Classical standard of Seneca's "Medea"; she specializes in love and sex magic, giving one character a charm to cause impotence. (In forming this aspect of the play's plot, Middleton may have been influenced by the contemporaneous real-life divorce scandal of Lady Frances Howard and the Earl of Essex, which involved charges of magic-induced impotence.) [A. A. Bromham, "The Date of "The Witch" and the Essex Divorce Case." "Notes and Queries" Vol. 225 (1980), pp. 149-52.]

Middleton's Hecate has a son (and incestuous lover) called Firestone, who serves as the play's clown. She leads a coven of four other witches, Stadlin, Hoppo, Hellwayn, and Prickle. The occult material in "The Witch" occurs in only three scenes:

* Act I, scene ii introduces the coven and contains abundant witchcraft exotica, to establish the macabre mood — fried rats and pickled spiders, the flesh of an "unbaptized brat," a cauldron boiling over a blue flame, "Urchins, elves, hags, satyrs, Pans, fawns...Tritons, centaurs, dwarfs, imps...", "the blood of a flittermouse," and much much more. At one point, a cat enters playing a fiddle (a role probably filled by a musician in feline costume).

* III,iii features the song "Come away" that was added to "Macbeth", and deals the witches' flight through the air: at one point "A Spirit descends in the shape of a Cat," and Hecate is shown "Ascending with the Spirit."

* V,ii contains the song "Black spirits," also inserted into "Macbeth".

Middleton's witches "are lecherous, murderous and perverse in the traditional demonological way, but they are also funny, vulnerable and uncomfortably necessary to the maintenance of state power and social position by those who resort to them." [Marion Gibson, "Witchcraft and Society in England and America, 1550–1750," Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 2003; p. 97.] Middleton's choice to set the play in Italy may reflect an element of satire against witchcraft beliefs and practices in Roman Catholic societies of his era. [Gibson, p. 98.]

ynopsis

The play opens with the protagonist Sebastian conversing with his friend Fernando. Sebastian has been absent from Urbino, soldiering in the wars of northern Italy, for three years; but he has falsely been reported killed. His fiancée Isabella has, that day, married the powerful aristocrat Antonio. In the context of the Medieval and Renaissance custom of handfast, Sebastian regards Isabella as his wife in the sight of Heaven; he plans to do whatever he must to reclaim her. To that end, he is masquerading as "Celio," a servant in Antonio's household. In that guise, he witnesses a banquet attended by the Duke and Duchess of Ravenna. The Duke has a bad habit that has alienated his wife: he has had a goblet made from the skull of the Duchess's father (a defeated enemy), and uses the skull goblet to pledge toasts, passing it around among the assembled guests. The Duchess conceals her disgust; she has already decided upon her revenge.

The play's second scene introduces the witches. Sebastian comes to their "Habitation," where he obtains a charm (made from the skins of lizards and snakes) that will make Antonio impotent with Isabella. After he leaves, a drunken gentleman named Almachildes stumbles in; he gets a love charm from the witches, in the form of a multi-colored ribbon.

The impotence charm works its effect, spoiling Antonio's wedding night with Isabella. The virtuous Isabella does not find this a problem; Antonio seeks out folk remedies for his infirmity. Curiously, Antonio is impotent only with Isabella; his relationship with his lover Florida is not affected. Antonio's sister Francisca also has a lover, named Aberzanes; but she has become pregnant, and sneaks away to deliver her baby. When she returns, Francisca realizes that Isabella has guessed her secret; to protect herself against exposure, Francisca tells Antonio that Isabella is having as affair with his servant Gasparo.

The Duchess orders her waiting-woman Amoretta to solicit Almachildes to murder the Duke. Amoretta dislikes the task, but changes her attitude once Almachildes slips the ribbon love charm onto her person. When the ribbon falls away, Amoretta's revulsion returns; but the Duchess picks up the ribbon, and (literally) falls under Almachildes's spell. Almachildes becomes the Duchess's lover — or so he believes; and he is shown regretting his role in the reported death of the Duke. He sensibly fears that he is next to be murdered; and indeed the Duchess goes to Hecate to obtain a poison for him.

Antonio tries to attain revenge for his dishonors — but without much success. He confronts his sister's lover Aberzanes; but the man (cowardly or sensibly) refuses to fight him. Antonio's attempt at using poison is frustrated by a virtuous servant. In his "Celio" disguise, Sebastian manipulates events to save Isabella from Antonio's wrath. In darkness, Antonio stabs two people he believes are Isabella and Gasparo; in fact he has stabbed his lover Florida. While searching for his wife in the night, Antonio falls through a trap door to his death. Both Gasparo and Florida survive their wounds.

In the play's final scene, the local Governor confronts the Duchess with charges of adultery and murder. The play's tragicomic reversal comes when the supposedly deceased Duke sits up on his funeral bier; Almachildes, it turns out, was not enough of a villain to actually kill him. The Duchess is also absolved of the charge of adultery: the woman to whom Almachildes made love in the dark, thinking she was the Duchess, was a prostitute. Isabella and "Celio" also face charges of adultery — which vanish when Sebastian reveals his true identity. Gasparo admits that he and Antonio had knowingly spread false word of Sebastian's death, so that Antonio could marry Isabella.

In the rather rushed and perfunctory conclusion of the play, several plot holes are left unaddressed. Most notably, the witches are forgotten; they are not apprehended or punished for their infernal practices, and apparently are free to fly through the skies and conduct their business as before.

References

External links

* [http://www.tech.org/~cleary/witch.html The Text of Middleton's "The Witch".]