by Thomas Nashe
These know how to dissociate the love of brethren, and to break wedlock bands with such violence that they may not be united, and are predominant in many other domestical mutinies; of whom if thou list to hear more, read the thirty ninth chapter of Ecclesiasticus. The prophet Esay336 maketh mention of another spirit, sent by God to the Egyptians, to make them stray and wander out of the way, that is to say, the spirit of lying, which they call Bolychym. The spirits that entice men to gluttony and lust are certain watery spirits of the West, and certain southern spirits as Nefrach and Kelen, which for the most part prosecute unlawful loves and cherish all unnatural desires. They wander through lakes, fish-ponds, and fens, and overwhelm ships, cast boats upon anchors, and drown men that are swimming. Therefore are they counted the most pestilent, troublesome, and guileful spirits that are; for by the help of Alrynach, a spirit of the West, they will raise storms, cause earthquakes, whirlwinds, rain, hail, or snow in the clearest day that is; and if ever they appear to any man, they come in women’s apparel. The spirits of the air will mix themselves with thunder and lightning, and so infect the clime where they raise any tempest, that suddenly great mortality shall ensue to the inhabitants from the infectious vapours which arise from their motions. Of such St John maketh mention in the ninth chapter of the Apocalypse. Their patron is Mereris, who beareth chief rule about the middle time of the day.
The spirits of the fire have their mansions under their regions of the moon, that whatsoever is committed to their charge they may there execute, as in their proper consistory,337 from whence they cannot start. The spirits of the earth keep, for the most part, in forests and woods, and do hunters much noyance, and sometime in the broad fields, where they lead travellers out of the right way, or fright men with deformed apparitions, or make them run mad through excessive melancholy, like Ajax Telemonius,338 and so prove hurtful to themselves, and dangerous to others. Of this number the chief are Samaab and Achymael, spirits of the East, that have no power to do any great harm, by reason of the unconstancy of their affections. The under-earth spirits are such as lurk in dens and little caverns of the earth, and hollow crevices of mountains, that they may dive into the bowels of the earth at their pleasure. These dig metals and watch treasures, which they continually transport from place to place, that none should have use of them. They raise winds that vomit flames and shake the foundation of buildings; they dance in rounds in pleasant lawns and green meadows, with noises of music and minstrelsy, and vanish away when any comes near them. They will take upon them any similitude but of a woman, and terrify men in the likeness of dead men’s ghosts in the night-time; and of this quality and condition the necromancers hold Gaziel, Fegor, and Anarazel, southern spirits, to be.
Besides, there are yet remaining certain lying spirits, who, although all be given to lie by nature, yet are they more prone to that vice than the rest, being named Pythonists, of whom Apollo comes to be called Pytheus. They have a prince as well as other spirits, of whom mention is made in the Third Book of Kings, when he saith he will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all Ahab’s prophets; from which those spirits of iniquity do little differ, which are called the vessels of wrath, that assist Belial (whom they interpret a spirit without yoke or controller) in all damnable devices and inventions. Plato reports them to be such as first devised cards and dice, and I am in the mind that the monk was of the same order, that found out the use of gunpowder and the engines of war thereto belonging. Those that write of these matters call this Belial Chodar of the East, that hath all witches’ and conjurers’ spirits under his jurisdiction, and gives them leave to help jugglers in their tricks, and Simon Magus339 to do miracles; always provided they bring a soul home to their master for his hire.
Yet are not these all, for there are spirits called spies and tale-carriers, obedient to Ascaroth, whom the Greeks call daimona, and St John, the accuser of the brethren: also tempters, who, for their interrupting us in all our good actions are called our evil angels. Above all things they hate the light and rejoice in darkness, disquieting men maliciously in the night and sometimes hurt them by pinching them or blasting them as they sleep. But they are not so much to be dreaded as other spirits, because if a man speak to them they flee away and will not abide. Such a spirit Plinius Secundus telleth of, that used to haunt a goodly house in Athens that Athenodorus hired. And such another Suetonius describeth to have long hovered in Lamianus’ garden, where Caligula lay buried, who, for because he was only covered with a few clods and unreverently thrown amongst the weeds, he marvellously disturbed the owners of the garden, and would not let them rest in their beds, till by his sisters, returned from banishment, he was taken up and entombed solemnly.
Pausanias avoucheth, amongst other experiments, that a certain spirit called Zazilus doth feed upon dead men’s corses, that are not deeply interred in the earth as they ought. Which to confirm, there is a wonderful accident set down in the Danish history of Asuitus and Asmundus, who, being two famous friends well known in those parts, vowed one to another, that which of them two outlived the other should be buried alive with his friend that first died. In short space Asuitus fell sick and yielded to nature; Asmundus, compelled by the oath of his friendship, took none but his horse and his dog with him, and transported the dead body into a vast cave under the earth, and there determined, having victualled himself for a long time, to finish his days in darkness and never depart from him that he loved so dearly.
Thus shut up and enclosed in the bowels of the earth, it happened Ericus, King of Sweveland, to pass that way with his army, not full two months after; who, coming to the tomb of Asuitus, and suspecting it a place where treasure was hidden, caused his pioneers with their spades and mattocks to dig it up. Whereupon was discovered the loathsome body of Asmundus, all to-besmeared with dead men’s filth, and his visage most ugly and fearful; which, imbrued340 with congealed blood and eaten and torn like a raw ulcer, made him so ghastly to behold that all the beholders were affrighted. He, seeing himself restored to light, and so many amazed men stand about him, resolved their uncertain perplexity in these terms.
“Why stand you astonished at my unusual deformities, when no living man converseth with the dead but is thus disfigured? But other causes have effected this change in me; for I know not what audacious spirit, sent by Gorgon from the deep, hath not only most ravenously devoured my horse and my dog, but also hath laid his hungry paws upon me, and tearing down my cheeks, as you see, hath likewise rent away one of mine ears. Hence is it that my mangled shape seems so monstrous, and my human image obscured with gore in this wise. Yet scaped not this fell harpy from me unrevenged; for as he assailed me, I raught his head from his shoulders, and sheathed my sword in his body.”’
‘Have spirits their visible bodies,’ said I, ‘that may be touched, wounded, or pierced? Believe me, I never heard that in my life before this.’
‘Why,’ quoth he, ‘although in their proper essence they are creatures incorporal, yet can they take on them the induments341 of any living body whatsoever, and transform themselves into all kind of shapes, whereby they may more easily deceive our shallow wits and senses. So testifies Basilius, that they can put on a material form when they list. Socrates affirmeth that his dæmon did oftentimes talk with him, and that he saw him and felt him many times. But Marcus Cherronesius, a wonderful discoverer of devils, writeth that those bodies which they assume are distinguished by no difference of sex, because they are simple, and the discernance of sex belongs to bodies compound. Yet are they flexible, motive342 and apt for any configuration; but not all of them alike, for the spirits of the fire and air have this power above the rest. The spirits of the water have slow bodies resembling birds and women, of which kind the Naiads and Nereids343 are much celebrated amongst poets. Nevertheless, however they are restrained to their several similitudes, it is certain that all of them desire no form or figure so much as the likeness of a man, and do think themselves in heaven when they are enfeoffed in that hue; wherefore I know no other
reason but this, that man is the nearest representation to God, insomuch as the scripture saith, “He made man after his own likeness and image;” and they, affecting by reason of their pride to be as like God as they may, contend most seriously to shroud themselves under that habit.’
‘But, I pray, tell me this, whether are there (as Porphyrius holdeth) good spirits as well as evil?’
‘Nay, certainly,’ quoth he, ‘we are all evil, let Porphyrius, Proclus, Apuleius, or the Platonists dispute to the contrary as long as they will; which I will confirm to thy capacity by the names that are everywhere given us in the scripture. For the devil, which is the summum genus344 to us all, is called diabolus, quasi deorsum ruens, 345 that is to say, falling downward, as he that, aspiring too high, was thrown from the top of felicity to the lowest pit of despair; and Satan, that is to say, an adversary, who, for the corruption of his malice, opposeth himself ever against God, who is the chiefest good; in Job, Behemoth and Leviathan; and in the ninth chapter of the Apocalypse, Apolyon, that is to say, a subverter, because the foundation of those virtues, which our high maker hath planted in our souls, he undermineth and subverteth; a serpent for his poisoning, a lion for his devouring, a furnace, for that by his malice the elect are tried, who are vessels of wrath and salvation; in Esay, a siren, a lamia, a screech-owl, an ostrich; in the Psalms, an adder, a basilisk, a dragon; and lastly in the gospel, Mammon, Prince of this World, and the Governor of Darkness. So that, by the whole course of condemning names that are given us, and no one instance of any favourable title bestowed upon us, I positively set down that all spirits are evil. Now, whereas the divines attribute unto us these good and evil spirits, the good to guide us from evil, and the evil to draw us from goodness, they are not called spirits, but angels; of which sort was Raphael, the good angel of Tobias, who exiled the evil spirit Asmodeus into the desert of Egypt, that he might be the more secure from his temptation.’
‘Since we have entered thus far into the devil’s commonwealth, I beseech you certify me thus much, whether have they power to hurt granted them from God, or from themselves; can they hurt as much as they will?’
‘Not so,’ quoth he, ‘for although that devils be most mighty spirits, yet can they not hurt but permissively, or by some special dispensation. As, when a man is fallen into the state of an outlaw, the law dispenseth with them that kill him, and the Prince excludes him from the protection of a subject, so, when a man is a relapse from God and his laws, God withdraws his providence from watching over him, and authoriseth the devil, as his instrument, to assault him and torment him, so that whatsoever he doth is limitata potestate, 346 as one saith; insomuch as a hair cannot fall from our heads, without the will of our heavenly father.
The devil could not deceive Ahab’s prophets, till he was licensed by God, nor exercise his tyranny over Job till he had given him commission, nor enter into the herd of swine till Christ bade them go. Therefore need you not fear the devil any whit, as long as you are in the favour of God, who reineth him so strait, that except he let him loose he can do nothing. This manlike proportion, which I now retain, is but a thing of sufferance, granted unto me to plague such men as hunt after strife, and are delighted with variance.’
‘It may be so very well, but whether have you that skill to foretell things to come, that is ascribed unto you?’
‘We have,’ quoth he, ‘sometimes. Not that we are privy to the eternal counsel of God, but for that by the sense of our airy bodies, we have a more refined faculty of foreseeing than men possibly can have that are chained to such heavy earthly moulder; or else for that by the incomparable pernicity347 of those airy bodies, we not only outstrip the swiftness of men, beasts, and birds, whereby we may be able to attain to the knowledge of things sooner than those that by the dullness of their earthly sense come a great way behind us. Hereunto may we adjoin our long experience in the course of things from the beginning of the world, which men want, and therefore cannot have that deep conjecture that we have. Nor is our knowledge any more than conjecture; for prescience only belongeth to God, and that guess that we have, proceedeth from the compared disposition of heavenly and earthly bodies, by whose long observed temperature we do divine many times as it happens; and therefore do we take upon us to prophesy, that we may purchase estimation to our names, and bring men in admiration with that we do, and so be counted for gods. The miracles we work are partly contrived by illusion, and partly assisted by that supernatural skill we have in the experience of nature above all other creatures.’
‘But against these illusions of your subtlety, and vain terrors you inflict, what is our chief refuge?’
‘I shall be accounted a foolish devil anon if I bewray the secrets of our kingdom, as I have begun; yet I speak no more than learned clerks have written, and as much as they have set down will I shew thee.
Origen, in his treatise against Celsus, saith there is nothing better for him that is vexed with spirits, than the naming of Jesu, the true God, for he avoucheth he hath seen divers driven out of men’s bodies by that means. Athanasius, in his book De variis questionibus, saith, “The presentest remedy against the invasion of evil spirits, is the beginning of the sixty seventh Psalm, Exsurgat Deus, et dissipentur inimici eius.”348 Cyprian counsels men to adjure spirits only by the name of the true God. Some hold that fire is a preservative for this purpose, because when any spirit appeareth, the lights by little and little go out, as it were of their own accord, and the tapers are by degrees extinguished; others by invocating upon God by the name of Vehiculum ignis superioris,349 and often rehearsing the articles of our faith. A third sort are persuaded that the brandishing of swords is good for this purpose, because Homer feigneth that Ulysses, sacrificing to his mother, wafted his sword in the air to chase the spirits from the blood of the sacrifice; and Sibylla, conducting Æneas to hell, begins her charm in this sort:
Procul, o procul, este, prophani:
Tuque invade viam, vaginaque erripe ferrum.350
Philostratus reporteth, that he and his companions meeting that devil which artists entitle Apollonius,351 as they came one night from banqueting, with such terms as he is cursed in holy writ, they made him run away howling. Many in this case extol perfume of calamentum, pæonia, menta, palma Christi and appius.352 A number prefer the carrying of red coral about them, or of artemisia, hypericon, ruta, verbena: and to this effect many do use the jingling of keys, the sound of the harp, and the clashing of armour. Some of old time put great superstition in characters, curiously engraved in their pentagonon, but they are all vain, and will do no good, if they be otherwise used than as signs of covenant between the devil and them. Nor do I affirm all the rest to be infallible prescriptions, though sometime they have their use; but that the only assured way to resist their attempts is prayer and faith, gainst which all the devils in hell cannot prevail.’
‘Enough, gentle spirit, I will importune thee no further, but commit this supplication to thy care; which, if thou deliver accordingly, thou shalt at thy return have more of my custom; for by that time I will have finished certain letters to divers orators and poets, dispersed in your dominions.’
‘That as occasion shall serve; but now I must take leave of you, for it is term time, and I have some business. A gentleman, a friend of mine that I never saw before, stays for me, and is like to be undone if I come not in to bear witness on his side: wherefore Bazilez manus,353 till our next meeting.’
Gentle reader, tandem aliquando354 I am at leisure to talk to thee. I dare say thou hast called me a hundred times dolt for this senseless discourse: it is no matter, thou dost but as I have done by a number in my days. For who can abide a scurvy peddling poet to pluck a man by the sleeve at every third step in Paul’s Churchyard,355 and when he comes in to survey his wares, there’s nothing but purgations and vomits wrapped up in waste paper. It were very good the dog-whipper356 in Paul’s would have a care of this in his unsavoury visitation every Saturday; for it is dangerous for such of the Queen’s liege people,
as shall take a view of them fasting.
Look to it, you booksellers and stationers, and let not your shops be infected with any such goose giblets or stinking garbage, as the jigs of newsmongers. And especially such of you as frequent Westminster Hall, let them be circumspect what dunghill papers they bring thither: for one bad pamphlet is enough to raise a damp that may poison a whole term, or at the least a number of poor clients, that have no money to prevent ill air by breaking their fasts ere they come thither. Not a base ink-dropper, or scurvy plodder at Noverint,357 but nails his asses’ ears on every post, and comes off with a long circumquaque358 to the gentlemen readers; yea, the most excrementory dish-lickers of learning are grown so valiant in impudency, that now they set up their faces (like Turks) of gray paper, to be spit at for silver games359 in Finsbury Fields.360
Whilst I am talking, methinks I hear one say, ‘What a fop is this, he entitles his book A Supplication to the Devil, and doth nothing but rail on idiots, and tells a story of the nature of spirits!’ Have patience, good sir, and we’ll come to you by and by. Is it my title you find fault with? Why, have you not seen a town surnamed by the principal house in the town, or a nobleman derive his barony from a little village where he hath least land? So fareth it by me in christening of my book. But some will object, ‘Whereto tends this discourse of devils, or how is it induced?’ Forsooth, if thou wilt needs know my reason, this it is. I bring Pierce Penniless to question with the devil, as a young novice would talk with a great traveller, who, carrying an Englishman’s appetite to enquire of news, will be sure to make what use of him he may, and not leave anything unasked, that he can resolve him of. If then the devil be tedious in discoursing, impute it to Pierce Penniless that was importunate in demanding; or, if I have not made him so secret and subtle in his art as devils are wont, let that of Lactantius be mine excuse, lib. 2. cap. 16. de Origenis errore, 361 where he saith, the devils have no power to lie to a just man, and if they adjure them by the majesty of the high God, they will not only confess themselves to be devils, but also tell their names as they are.