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The Horoscope in Webster's The Duchess of Malfi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Johnstone Parr
Johnstone Parr*
Affiliation:
University of Alabama
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Extract

In almost all the plays of the Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists one finds an abundance of astrological jargon used metaphorically and as sheer literary garnish, showing no particular knowledge of the complex technicalities of astrology. Occasionally, however, a Jacobean dramatist's delineation of a horoscope involves such astrological technicalities that he and his audience must have fully appreciated the various manifestations of horoscopy. Such is the case in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi. My purpose in this paper is to present an adequate explanation of the horoscope employed at one of the critical moments in this play.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 60 , Issue 3 , September 1945 , pp. 760 - 765
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1945

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References

1 ii. ii. 92. All citations from the play are from The Complete Works of John Webster, ed. F. L. Lucas (London, 1927), ii. Professor Lucas (p. 151) is amused that Antonio, immediately after a lecture from Delio on superstition, should hurry away to cast a horoscope. But Webster apprently knew what recent research is beginning to clearly show: that in the early sixteenth century the children of a Duchess always had their horoscopes cast, and that this manifestation received virtually as much serious consideration as did the child's christening. Cf. Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science (New York, 1923-1941), v, 159 ff.; Don Cameron Allen, The Star-Crossed Renaissance (Duke University Press, 1941), p. 52.

2 ii. iii. 72-80.

3 Op. cit., ii, 147, 153.

4 See an Ephemeris for any year.

5 Although a horoscope with Capricorn ascending requires that Leo govern the eighth house, yet the revolution of the signs through the houses makes it possible that some degrees of Virgo (which, when Capricorn ascends, rules the ninth house) actually rule a portion of the eighth house; and should Mars, in our case, have just entered Virgo, his position in the horoscope would be in Virgo and in the eighth house rather than in the ninth.

6 A Learned Astronomical Discourse on the Judgement of Nativities, trans. Thomas Kelway (London, 1593), pp. 43, 49, 9. We may notice, in regard to the last statement, that in our case Saturn is in his “owne house,” Capricorn.

7 (Lugduni, 1581), i, 379.

8 Christian Astrology (London, 1647). I cite from Zadkiel's 1852 edition entitled An Introduction to Astrology by William Lilly (London, 1939), pp. 83, 317.

9 Ferrier, op. cit., pp. 24, 25, 46. Cf. also Lilly, op. cit., p. 251: “The manner of death … is chiefly shewn by the lord of the 8th house, or any planet therein… . If evil planets be there, they shew violent death, or fevers, and long and painful illnesses; … The Dragon's Tail with the significator of death is very evil.”

10 Quadripartitum or Tetrabiblos, trans. J. M. Ashmand (London, 1822; Chicago, 1935), Bk. iv, ch. ix. The Latin in Melanchthon's edition (Basileae, 1553) reads: “Mars autem cum Solem infaustum, aut Lunam quadrato adspectu aut opposito adspicit, in signis humanis significat neces in seditionibus civilibus, aut interficiendos ab hostibus, aut sua manu.”

11 Op. cit., p. 477.

12 Op. cit., ii, 151.

13 Op. cit., p. 85.

14 v. v. 135-138.

15 Cf. Thorndike, op. cit., v, 351-352.

16 Johannes Muller von Konigsburg (Regiomontanus), Ephemerides … ab 1504 (Venice, 1484). (Harvard Library copy.)

17 It is, of course, quite possible that Webster simply lifted the horoscope from one of the astrology texts of the sixteenth century which were replete with illustrative horoscopes and the nativities of famous personages; and, by merely changing its date to coincide with that of the Duchess' history, infused it into his play. With this idea in mind, I searched in vain through the fifth book of Luke Guarico's Tractatus astrologicus (which contains forty-six horoscopes presaging violent death); the De centum genituram and all the other astrological treatises in volume v of Jerome Cardan's Opera Omnia; Rudolphus Goclenius' Acroteleuticon astrologicum (Francofurti, 1608); and Francisco Junctinus' Speculum astrologiae (which contains almost one thousand horoscopes).

18 The author wishes to express his gratitude to the University of Alabama Research Committee for the purchase of microfilms of some of the rare books used in the preparation of this paper.