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Discoverie of Witchcraft |
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There are some who look upon
Macbeth as a primarily political play, concerning itself solely with the
themes of greed, ambition, morality and a lust for power. The protagonist
is often described as a weak willed man who finally meets his downfall
after much nagging from a stronger minded wife. However, to enter into
that mode of thinking and to ignore the supernatural elements (embodied
as the three witches) is to miss the fundamental driving force of the
play, that which starts our cen- tral character on his rollercoaster spiral
to damnation and death. The witches pre-empt all that happens, they prophesy
Macbeth's ascension to the throne and by also foreseeing Banquo's progeny's
succession, ensure his downfall. There is also strong hints that Macbeth
and before him his wife are dabbling in witchcraft - Lady Macbeth's lines
of I:5 beginning "...Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts..."
and later macbeth in III2 with "Come, sealing night, scarf up the tender
eye of pitiful day..." are hugely ritualistic, and wholly in keeping with
pacts struck between witches and Spirits. Most especially, the way Macbeth
handles and commands the witches in IV.1 (though they mock him at every
turn) shows that he has a more than passing acquaintance with the black
arts of witchcraft, observing as he does formal modes of command. The
classic definition of a witch is one given to the service of the devil,
and it is usual to consider anyone who has entered into a pact as either
a witch or a warlock.
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However, the witch trials that
were so formative of popular beliefs about witchcraft appear to have based
many of their judgments on the doctrine that someone might be a witch
not only without the direct influence of the Devil but even subconsciously.
One of the most comprehensive definitions of the acts stemming from witch-
craft is that contained in the famous Bull of Pope Innocent VIII of 1484
which prefaced the MALLEUS MALEFICARUM. A shorter definition from this
book is one who attempts to induce the fallen angels to work evil wonders'.
Bodin's famous definition of a witch is one who by commerce There may
be no doubt, however, that the majority of people who were hanged or burned
for practising witchcraft were far from being witches in any of these
technical senses and at the height of the witch-hunting fervour it was
clear that virtually any socially unacceptable individual might be accused
of witchcraft and killed - usually after considerable torture. Reginald
Scotts description of the typical witch might bear this out: women which
be commonly old, lame, blear- eyed, pale, fowle, and full of wrinkles;
poore, sullen, superstitious, and papists; or such as knowe to the left
are no religion: in whose drousie minds the divell hath goten a fine seat.
. . .' This poor creature is a cent people to far cry from the energetic
heretics who raised the idea of the witchcraft purges in the minds of
dles, giving th priests during the early fifteenth century. It also is
a contradiction to the witches own statement in bodkin to the the very
opening scene "fair is foul and foul is fair" which here we may take to
describe the basic cannot slide b seduction of evil. We could never be
attracted to or by something that seemed repulsive.
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Belief in witchcraft arises basically
from the notion that the Devil or his demons cannot wreak havoc in the
world save through human agency, therefore
the Devil seeks to bind into his service (by both treachery and pact)
humans who will do this for him; the basis of witchcraft is a pact.
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The Bull of Pope Innocent VIII tells
us: Many persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and straying
from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and
succubi and by their incantations, spells, conjurations and other accursed
charms and crafts, enormities and horrid offences, have slain infants
yet in the mother's womb, as also the offsprin of cattle, have blasted
the produce of the earth, the grapes of the vine, the fruits of trees,
nay, men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-blasts, as well as animals
of other kinds, vineyards, orchards meadows, pas- tureland, corn, wheat
and all other cereals; these wretches furthermore afflict and torment
men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other
kind, with terrible and piteous pains and sore diseases, both internal
and external; they hinder men from performing the sexual act and women
from conceiving, whence husbands cannot know their wives nor wives receive
their husbands; over and above this they blasphemously renounce the Faith
which is theirs by the Sacrament of Baptism and at the instigation of
the Enemy of Mankind they do not shrink from committing and perpetrating
the foulest
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aboininations and filthiest excesses
to the deadly peril of their own souls, whereby they outrage Divine Majesty
and are acause of scandal and danger to the very many. The images of witchcraft
were designed to foster this idea of bestial creatures surround- ed by
diabolic agencies. We see there- fore that witchcraft is based on what
may be described as possession, since the witch is supposed to be temporarily
or permanently under the control of the Devil himself. Therefore the witches
in Macbeth may be seen as the Devil's rep- resentation on earth, just
as the King would have been regarded as God's.
Thus with flux and
reflux, first through tur- moil and then the restoration of order we see
an illustration of the mythical struggle between good and evil which has
no real winner, only a return to balance |
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