Back to main EN3012 page: EN3012.htm
This German woodcut depicts the Pope as a devil, with a curved pitchfork instead of a cross, a noose draped round it. These were not eucumenical times ...
Dekker's play was written in the early years of King James's reign, and published in 1607. It looks back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, presented in the play as Titania, the Fairy Queen. The play is fiercely anti-Catholic, and is mainly concerned with presenting Elizabeth/Titania's repeated providential escapes from attempts to assassinate or dethrone her, culminating in the Spanish Armada. In this brief extract from the play, Dekker presents the attempt to use image magic against the queen which created a sensation in 1578. Wax images of the queen and two of her privy counsellors were found in an Islington dunghill, with pig bristles stuck through their hearts. The heat generated by the fermentation of the dunghill would have gradually melted the images had they not been found, and the image magic was clearly intended at the gradual wasting away of the victims. The authorities consulted Dr John Dee on counter measures to this treasonous malefice. No-one was arrested, however, unlike the capture red-handed of the magician/male witch presented in the play. Dekker brings up an incident almost 30 years old to associate treason with witchcraft, and Catholics with both. 'Campeius' is a dissident scholar-malecontent, the 3rd King is Philip II, King of Spain (though not named as such). Both act as agents of the Whore of Babylon (who enters the action on her seven-headed beast)..
At this grove,
And much about this hour, a slave well moulded,
In profound, learned villainy, gave oath
To meet me: Art thou come! Can thy black Arte
This wonder bring to pass?
See, it is done.
Titania's picture right.
This virgin wax,
Bury I will in slimy putrid ground,
Where it may piece-meal rot: As this consumes,
So shall she pine, and (after languor) die.
These pins shall stick like daggers to her heart,
And eating through her breast, turn there to gripings
Cramp-like Convolutions, shrinking up her nerves,
As into this they eat.
Thou art fam'd for ever,
If these thy holy labours well succeed,
Statues of molten brass shall rear thy name,
The Babylonian Empress shall thee honour.
And (for this) each day shalt thou go in chains.
Where wilt thou bury it?
On this dunghill.
Good:
And bind it down with most effectual charms,
That whosoever with unhallowed hands,
Shall dare to take it hence, may rave and die.
Leave me.
Farewell and prosper: be blind you skies,
You look on things unlawful with sore eyes.
Dumb show. The Hautbois sound, and whilst he is burying the picture, Truth
and Time enter, Fideli, Parthenophil, Elstron, and a Guard following aloof.
They discover the fellow, he is taken, the picture found, he kneels for
mercy, but they making signs of refusal, be snatcheth at some weapon to kill
himself, is prevented, and led away.