Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/420

 392 The Folklore of Shakespeare.

The staff, b\' which he could make his opponent's weapon drop, was broken and buried :

" Bury it certain fathoms in the earth.''

Prospero is relieved when he has abjured his magic, as he says, in the Epilogue :

" Now my charms are all o'erthrown, And what strength I have's mine own."

Owen Glendower (i Henry IV. iii. i), like Prospero, claiins to be an enchanter, but Hotspur denies his claim.

" Glen. I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the devil. Hotspur. And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil By telling truth."

7. Ghosts and Apparitions.

A mine of information respecting the folklore of ghosts is to be found in the plays of Shakespeare. The appari- tions of the most world-wide fame are those of Julius Caesar, who appeared to Brutus at Philippi {J.C iv. 3), and Hamlet's father.

Pompey, in Antony and Cleopatra (ii. 6), refers to Julius Caesar, " who the good Brutus ghosted." This is an uncommon verb used also by Burton in his Anatomy of MelancJioly.

Hamlet's father was committed to Purgatory, and for- bidden to tell the secrets of his prison-house ; but he had sufficient to tell of his "foul murder" and of his hard lot until his death had been avenged :

" Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night, And for the day, confin'd to fast in fires Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature, Are burn'd and purg'd away."