Shakespeare And Astrology

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In the first part of Henry VI, there is the following reference to comets and their portent:



"Hung ye the heavens with black, yield day to night,

Comets, importing change of times and states,

Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky,

And with them scourge the bad revolting stars

That have consented to Henry's death."





In the same play, Talbot thus addresses his son:



"I did send for thee

To tutor thee in stratagems of war

But O malignant and ill-boding stars

Now thou art come to the feast of death,

A terrible and unavoided danger."

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In All's Well That Ends Well, Helena and Monsieur Parolles have the following conversation:



Helena.  "Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.

Parolles.  Under Mars, I.

Helena.  I especially think under Mars.

Parolles.  Why under Mars?

Helena.  The wars have so kept you under, that you needs be born under Mars.

Parolles.  When he was predominant?

Helena.  When he was retrograde, I think, rather."





The retrogression of a planet, which was said to have an oppressive effect, may also have been
alluded to by the King in Hamlet, when he observes, "


"It is most retrograde to our desire."

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In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo rebels against the astral destiny of his beloved, when he hears the
news of her death:



"Is it even so?  Then I defy you stars . . . "





Later, in the tomb, he exclaims:



"O here

Will I set up my everlasting rest

And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars from this world-wearied flesh."

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Conversely, in The Tempest, Prospero alluding to his lucky star says:



"I find my Zenith doth depend upon

A most auspicious star; whose influence,

If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes

Will ever after droop."

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Overall, we find Shakespeare knowledgeable about astrology, but also skeptical as to its efficacy. 

Perhaps the bard expressed this best not in any of his plays, but in Sonnet XIV:






Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck;

And yet methinks I have astronomy,

But not to tell of good or evil luck,

Of plagues, or dearths or seasons quality.

Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell

Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind,

Or say with princes if it shall go well,

By oft predict that I in heaven find;

But from thine eyes my knowledge I desire,

And constant stars, in them I read such art

As truth and beauty shall together thrive.

If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert

Or else of thee this I prognosticate

Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.

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Notes:



1.  There are a number of interesting things to comment upon in Gloster's remarks.  First, he makes the point, as most good astrologers do, that "the stars incline, they do not compel."  Second, he refers to both the time of his conception and the time of his birth as being astrologically significant.  And third, he does not state what astrological sign he was born under, but rather which fixed star (or, in this case, constellation) he was born under.



2.  It is difficult to know exactly what Shakespeare thought of astrology, but I have often been struck by the fact that his knowledge of it was fairly deep, and that this fact in and of itself might be a clue as to whether or not Bacon might have been the actual author of at least a portion of those works attributed to Shakespeare. 

 

Original text by C. J. S. Thompson, revised, edited and with additional remarks by D. J. McAdam



http://www.djmcadam.com/astrology-shakespeare.html

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                                                          Shakespeare and Astrology






Shakespeare, Astrology, and Alchemy:

A Critical and Historical Perspective



By Philip Brown

(originally published in The Mountain Astrologer, Feb./Mar. 2004)

 

 

As we move into the 21st Century, the plays of William Shakespeare continue to undergo rediscovery and transformation. In the past, much has been written about universal themes in Shakespeare’s plays, but what has received far less attention is the universal language of astrology—and its Renaissance complement, alchemy—that Shakespeare used to support his themes. Astrology and alchemy have rarely been used as springboards into literature, although both are symbolic languages and would thus seem naturally suited for unlocking the deeper meanings in Shakespeare’s plays. This is not to say that no one has tried to link literature with either of these two ancient sciences. Several writers, some of whom will be cited in this article, have successfully related one or the other to images from literature. However, if astrology works well in so many other areas, why not apply it to a close study of Shakespeare? Alchemy, at one time linked closely with the planets, also provides a wonderful language for deconstructing literature. Romeo and Juliet provides for a particularly rich inquiry because it is one of Shakespeare’s best-known plays; the author seems to have drawn heavily from both astrology and alchemy. As seen through our 21st Century glasses, we can apply multiple levels of astrology and alchemy—historical, psychological, and spiritual—to Shakespeare’s plays.

 

Shakespeare was adept at creating cosmic imagery in his writing, and the symbolic associations of astrology and alchemy with his plays’ contents helped to broaden some of his themes. Indeed, Shakespeare used astrology in profound ways that go well beyond oft-quoted references to “the stars.” John Addey has written that “Shakespeare constantly makes use of his astrological allusions…” as a way of showing that human behavior should mirror the ideal order and harmony of the universe.1  Martin Lings maintains that Shakespeare was familiar with many of the esoteric and occult doctrines that also fascinated contemporaneous writers (Philip Sydney and John Donne, to name but two).2

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Romeo and Juliet
 


In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, written around 1596 and set in Verona, Italy, Juliet is about to turn fourteen—her first Saturn opposition (imagine an eighth-grade girl today).

She was born, says the Nurse in the play, on Lammas Eve, July 31 by the old Julian calendar (which would convert to August 10 on the Gregorian calendar, although this was not officially adopted in Great Britain until the mid 1700s). Juliet was therefore a Leo (in either calendar).

We don’t know Romeo’s age, but as we shall see, Romeo may be associated with a star that was considered at the time to be a “second Sun,” the fixed star Sirius, also known as the Prince.

The metal associated with Leo, the Sun, and royalty is gold.

At the end of the play, the fathers of the entombed Romeo and Juliet vow to build memorial statues
of the symbolic metal, gold.

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Lammas and Lughnasa
 


Lammas, celebrated on August 1, was a Christian adaptation of a Celtic pagan festival called Lughnasa. The god Lugh (whose named means “shining one”) was an Irish Sun deity.

Astrologically, Lammas/Lughnasa was the midpoint between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox and was therefore vested with powerful symbolism. Astrologer Palden Jenkins writes that, at the time of this zodiacal power point,

 

Nature ripens, the young grow bigger, and each explores the maximum possibilities inherent in his or her reach. Green moves to gold, and summer matures. But we individuals collide and interfere with each other in our apparent freedome, and underneath all this, at Lammas, lies a hidden concern that perhaps it has all gone too far—yet, also, we must exhaust our need for individuality before we can do anything else.

 

            The Christian Lammas means literally “loaf mass,” a feast day meant to consecrate the grain harvest baked into bread. Shakespeare lets us know that the action of the play develops approximately two weeks before Lammas. Therefore, Juliet—who, along with Romeo, is an only child—dies just shy of her fourteenth birthday, during her Saturn opposition. Beside Romeo and Juliet, several other young people are killed during the play: Romeo’s friend Mercutio (Mercury); Juliet’s suitor Paris; and Juliet’s cousin Tybalt (referred to in the play as a “Prince of cats”; Tybalt is related to our modern word “tabby”—thus reinforcing the Leo symbolism of the Capulet household).



                       

                         LEO - CHILDREN



All are “harvested” in the midst of their youthful passions; at the end of the play, the older generation is left to sort through their grief and construct memorials. How often have we seen similar scenes, of youth extinguished as it flames the brightest, played out on the stages of our own local, national, and world communities!

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Golden Statues

 

            The golden statues of the slain lovers represent the final alchemical process in the play.

According to Martin Lings, writing in The Sacred Art of Shakespeare, there is a likelihood that



“…the symbolism of Romeo and Juliet…is alchemical,

the more so in that the two lovers are as it were transmuted into gold after their deaths…”4



Shakespeare’s plays, however, were never one-dimensional.

They were filled with paradox and irony:



Romeo and Juliet is, after all, a tragedy,

and golden statues will not bring the dead back to life;

they are actually rather meaningless gestures from

two such wealthy families as the Capulets and the Montagues.

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Two Houses of the Zodiac

 

The earliest known edition of Romeo and Juliet is called the First Quarto; it was published in 1597 and has generally been recognized as a corrupted form of the actual play, perhaps assembled from actors who performed the roles—although scholars now consider it possible that the “bad” First Quarto was actually Shakespeare’s first written draft of the play.

The title page of the First Quarto states that Romeo and Julietisa “conceited tragedy”, in which
“conceit” means an elaborate metaphor. It is entirely possible that this elaborate metaphor was partly astrological and that Shakespeare introduced his “conceit” in the very first line of the Prologue:


“Two households, both alike in dignity…” (Prologue, line 1).


The commonly held meaning of this line is


“Two families, equally ealthy and powerful…”


However, we can just as easily ascribe astrological meaning to the line, as in


“Two houses of the zodiac, both containing planets in their dignity…”


If Juliet is the Sun, she would indeed be dignified in the house of Leo. However, the


                                                         “second Sun,”


Sirius, which we shall soon see is identified with Romeo, has strong associations with the lunar 4th house.

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Mercutio and Hermetic Philosophy

 

            One of the pivotal characters in Romeo and Juliet is Romeo’s friend Mercutio.

Mercutio’s death in Act III leads to Romeo’s climactic slaying of Tybalt (Juliet’s cousin and—since by then Romeo is already secretly married to Juliet—perforce Romeo’s in-law).

Mercury assumed great importance in the Renaissance, primarily through a text entitled Hermes Trismegistus (“Mercury Thrice-great”). Hermes was the Greek name for Mercury or Mercurius. Francis Yates asserts that Renaissance readers of this text believed Hermes Trismegistus to be the divinely inspired words of an ancient Egyptian prophet, deified as the god Thoth, rather than what it was: a compilation of reworked Greek philosophy.

This misunderstanding gave rise to the hugely influenctial Renaissance Hermetic philosophy, based on the writings in Hermes Trismegistus. The Hermetic texts presented astrology to the Western world as part of a broader philosophy, thus making it much easier for the common man and woman to accept.

Some of this text had to do with astrology, astral magic, and “the secret virtues of plants and stones.”6 Shakespeare was undoubtedly familiar with Hermetic philosophy. For example, Friar Laurence, an important character in Romeo and Juliet, seems to reflect Hermetic philosophy when he remarks that there is

                    “powerful grace that lies/ In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities”

(Act 2, Scene 3, lines 15-16).

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Mercutio and Alchemy

 

Mercury, besides being a god and a planet, is also a metal and the primary ingredient in the alchemical preparation.

The character Mercutio embodies all the qualities of alchemical Mercury, transmuting the base lead of language into pure gold. Mercury’s “death,” like Mercutio’s, is a fundamental part of the alchemical transmutation.

Liz Greene adds that alchemical Mercury represents not only the “gold which is our true essence,”
but also

                         “the base, smelly, devilish, and conflict-ridden animal in us all.”7

The character Mercutio personifies this dual nature: As well as scaling the lofty heights of quicksilver language, he also descends into the sordid depths of verbal bawdiness.

 

                               In alchemy, Mercury has both male and female aspects:

Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet is androgynous—there are even suggestions in the play that he is gay
(the word “hermaphrodite,” meaning both sexes in one body, is a fusion of Hermes and Aphrodite).

In Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film, William Sheakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio is actually portrayed
as a cross-dresser.

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Sirius and Canis Major

 

Feminist scholar Philippa Berry suggests that understanding the importance of Sirius in Shakespeare’s time is a key to the deeper astrological meaning of the play.

During the Renaissance, the heliacal rising of Sirius (heliacal means the first visible rising of a star after it has been invisible due to conjunction with the Sun) was coincident with the summer months, or “dog days” of the play.

Sirius is in the “dog constellation,” Canis Major.

Sirius was referred to as a “double (or second) Sun” because of its brightness and its association with hot summer days (it has since been discovered to be a binary star). The placement of the star Sirius in the mouth of the dog constellation created for classical astrologers an image “…like a fiery torch [or] a fiery devouring mouth…As the heat of the sun was doubled…[it] was the final conflagration...”8

This image recurs in Romeo and Juliet, when Romeo holds up a torch in order to light what he calls the “maw” (5.3.45: the mouth of a devouring beast)—a striking metaphor for the entrance to a tomb “gorged with the dearest morsel [Juliet]” (5.3.46). When Romeo unseals the tomb, he is taken aback by the “feasting presence full of light” (5.3.86). Near the end of the play, the Prince refers to the same entrance as “the mouth of outrage” (5.3.224).

These passages, along with the time setting (the “dog days”) of the play, would appear to suggest that Shakespeare indeed used the fiery and devouring imagery associated with the dog star Sirius.
This imagery not only heightened the play’s tragic outcome, but also invested Romeo (referred to in
the play as “the dog’s name” and “a dog of the house of Montague”) with astrological and alchemical significance.

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                ...........AND JULIET IS THE SUN........









The greater coniunctio

 

In alchemy, the greater coniunctio occurs when two opposites have been subjected to repeated
purifications and undergo a final, transcendent union, often personified in alchemy as a marriage.

Romeo and Juliet are, of course, from “opposing” houses and undergo three unions in the play:
first, a sacramental (though secret) marriage in church; second, a physical union; and third, a
mystical marriage in death.

 

Strict adherence to the symbolic formulae of alchemy would indicate that Juliet is the Moon and
Romeo the Sun: True opposites could then unite in an alchemical marriage. Although convenient,
this symbolism is not borne out by the actual text of the play. Romeo even says, in the famous
balcony scene where Juliet is symbolically ascendant on her balcony, “Juliet is the sun” (2.2.3).
Juliet’s entire character is solar. She is radiant, ardent, and inspiring.

Martin Lings notes the seeming awkwardness of an alclhemcial union of two similar, rather than opposite, bodies. He sees both Romeo and Juliet as the Sun, explaining that the symbol of an alchemical marriage “cannot be limited to one level only.”9 That is, marriage is, by its very nature,


“a symbol of all the complementary pairs that lie above it.”