Steel Caliban: A New Etymological and Alchemical Inquiry into The Tempest
2023; Routledge; Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/17450918.2023.2241858
ISSN1745-0926
Autores Tópico(s)History of Medicine Studies
ResumoABSTRACTAs one of the most inextricable enigmas of Shakespeare's theatre, Caliban's name channels the intrinsically indefinite nature of the character that bears it. As an addition to the explanations that have already been suggested, in this essay I offer a new possible etymological origin, that is, chalybs, the Latin word for ‘steel'. This etymological connection might resonate with many core features of Caliban, which achieve further meanings if addressed in relation to the pervasive alchemical imagery of The Tempest. The role of Caliban within the plays' complex alchemical architecture has received much less critical attention than Prospero's or Ariel's but, if we think of his name as coming from chalybs, a completely new alchemical role seems to be in store for him. As I argue, Caliban seems to be the only character to be excluded from Prospero's alchemical project, since he as chalybs only embodies a flawed version of a pure metal that cannot be transformed. Torn from his natural state, forged, hardened, and turned into a man-serving and deadly weapon, steel Caliban can thus be construed as the ‘dross' of Prospero’s opus, the discarded version of something known and pure, the earthly dregs separated during the process of purification.KEYWORDS: The TempestetymologyCaliban’s namealchemy and The Tempestalchemical dross AcknowledgementsHeartfelt thanks to the Italian Association of Shakespearean and Early Modern Studies for the residency fellowship that allowed me to carry out most of the research for this article at the Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Study, University of London, in December 2022. I would also like to thank Maria Del Sapio Garbero, Domenico Lovascio and Alessandra Marzola for generously commenting on earlier versions of this article. I am also grateful to the anonymous referees of Shakespeare for their valuable suggestions.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 The first inquiry into Caliban’s name can be found in Farmer, Essay on the Learning.2 Vaughan and Vaughan, Shakespeare’s Caliban, 27.3 Ibid., 26.4 Montaigne, ‘Of the Caniballes’, 100.5 Ibid., 102.6 Vaughan and Vaughan, ‘Introduction’, 32.7 Cf. Vaughan and Vaughan, Shakespeare’s Caliban, 26–36; Vaughan and Vaughan, ‘Introduction’, 31–32.8 Elze, ‘Die Insel der Sycorax’, 252.9 Resources as recently discussed by John Drakakis, that is, as a range of ‘conjunctural texts … that exert pressure on other texts and that are contemporary to them’ and so allow ‘for connections with what was available to Shakespeare from non-literary resources, narratives and techniques that circulated as part of a communal cultural memory’. Drakakis, Shakespeare’s Resources, 34–35.10 Vaughan, ‘Supersubtle Venetians’, 19–32.11 ‘All along that coast of Africk which the Moores call Mahomedia … caused those cities to submit themselues to the gouernment of Mull King of Tunes. … These cities are at this day called Calibia, Susa, Mahometa, Monastarium, Sfaxia and Africa’. Knolles, Generall Historie, 705; see also 226, 448.12 Although chalybs is the standard spelling in classical Latin, the word was also spelled in Renaissance texts as calibs, chalib, chalyb, or chalyps. The ‘ch’ morpheme in chalybs (/ˈkalɪbs/) is pronounced with the same voiceless velar plosive sound as in Caliban (/ˈkalɪban/).13 For instance, by the Spanish doctor Giovan Serava and by the famous Paduan anatomist Gabriele Falloppio, or in John Banister’s An antidotarie chyrurgicall (1589) in England. Sarava, Quattro Libri, 104; Falloppio, ‘De metallis, seu fossilibus’, 312, 357. A basic search on Early English Books Online (EEBO) TCP shows 92 records for chalybs, 25 for chalyb, 4 for chalib, 1 for calibs, and 1 for chalyps.14 Cf. Lily, Lily’s Grammar, 1; Burrow, Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity, 24. In the Latin section of the grammar, chalybs is mentioned in an example of syllepsis, ‘calibs at aurum sunt in fornace probati’ (‘steel and gold are prepared in the furnace’). Lily, Institutio compendiaria totivs grammaticæ, 67.15 For instance, in Titus Andronicus (4.2.20–23), Love’s Labour’s Lost (4.2.79–80), and Much Ado About Nothing (4.1.20–21). All quotations from works by Shakespeare other than The Tempest are from Shakespeare, Complete Works. See Martindale, ‘Shakespeare and Virgil’, 95.16 In Virgil’s Aeneid (8:446), Pliny’s Natural History (34:14:41, 142), and Seneca’s Hercules Oetaeus (152).17 All quotations from the play refer to Shakespeare, The Tempest.18 Seed, ‘“This Island’s Mine”’, 210.19 Even though nowadays the name refers to iron alloys containing no more than 1.7% of carbon, in early modern English it was a much more flexible term employed for any variety of iron.20 Such high demand for alchemical texts was also a result of the spread of the printing press, increasing literacy, the rise of population in urban centres, and the expansion of the merchant class. Cf. Rampling, The Experimental Fire, 205–207. On alchemy in early modern European and British culture see, among others, Newman, Promethean Ambitions; Linden, Mystical Metal of Gold; Healy, Shakespeare, Alchemy; Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy; Eggert, Disknowledge; Rampling, The Experimental Fire; Zamparo, Alchemy, Paracelsianism.21 No matter how popular alchemy was at the time, it was legally forbidden in England until 1689, when Henry IV’s statute against the so-called ‘multipliers’ (1403–1404) was repealed. Moreover, even Elizabeth I’s and James I’s approach towards alchemical research was ambiguous, at times contradictory. On key figures of Renaissance English alchemy see Rampling, The Experimental Fire, 135–246; Zamparo, Alchemy, Paracelsianism, 33–105. On Paracelsus see also Healy, Shakespeare, Alchemy, 14–56; Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, 107–36.22 Zamparo, Alchemy, Paracelsianism, 13.23 The same applies to seventeenth-century writers such as John Donne, Andrew Marvell, John Milton, and John Dryden. For an overview of the topic see Linden, Darke Hierogliphicks, 62–259.24 Perhaps also via his son-in-law, the physician John Hall, who employed new Paracelsian remedies despite the disapproval of the Royal College of Physicians. Cf. Iyengar, Shakespeare’s Medical Language, 247.25 According to Zamparo, another play by Shakespeare that possibly features an alchemical structure is The Winter’s Tale. Cf. Zamparo, Alchemy, Paracelsianism.26 See Yates, The Occult Philosophy; Mebane, ‘Magic as Love’; Srigley, ‘The Furnace of Tribulation’.27 Mebane, ‘Magic as Love’, 181.28 See definitions of ‘chemical wedding’, ‘king’, and ‘queen (white)’ in Abraham, Dictionary, 35–38, 110–13, 161–62. On how the union between Ferdinand and Miranda reflected in the world of fiction the momentous role of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Frederick Elector Palatine, see Srigley, ‘The Furnace of Tribulation’, 40; Kronbergs, ‘Significance of Court Performance’.29 Cf. Simonds, ‘“My charms crack not”’, 542–60; see also Srigley, ‘The Furnace of Tribulation’, 31–34.30 Lellock ‘Boiled Brains’, 129; Crawforth, Dustagheer and Young, Shakespeare in London, 213–19; Roulon, ‘Music and Magic’, 195; Roulon, ‘Alchemy in Shakespeare’s Tempest’.31 See the definition of ‘Mercurius’ in Abraham, Dictionary, 124–28. Among the earliest accounts of Ariel as alchemical Mercurius see Johnson, ‘The Genesis of Ariel’; Reed, ‘Probable Origin of Ariel’; Srigley, ‘The Furnace of Tribulation’, 43–46.32 Srigley, ‘The Furnace of Tribulation’, 45.33 Cf. Simonds, ‘“My charms crack not”’, 547.34 See Ibid., 560–65.35 Ibid., 563.36 Abraham, Dictionary, 153.37 Cf. Srigley, ‘The Furnace of Tribulation’, 41–43; Simonds, ‘“My charms crack not”’, 560–65.38 Lupton, ‘Creature Caliban’, 8. On Caliban’s shapeless deformity, cf. Compagnoni, I mostri di Shakespeare, 34–43.39 As recalled by Margaret Jones-Davies, another alchemical sign of the stage of putrefaction or nigredo was ‘a nasty smell’, a distinctive element that also characterises Caliban, who ‘smells like a fish, a very / ancient and fish-like smell’ (2.2.25–26) and whom Ariel leaves with Trinculo and Stephano ‘I’th’ filthy-mantled pool beyond [Prospero’s] cell, / There dancing up to th’ chins, that the foul lake / O’erstunk their feet’ (4.1.182–84). Cf. Jones-Davies, ‘Saving Perfection’, 111.40 Abraham, Dictionary, 164.41 This name may derive from the Greek words sys (‘sow’) and korax (‘raven’), both animals being associated with witchcraft. See Shakespeare, The Tempest, 189n. Interestingly, the alembic in which nigredo took place and the philosopher’s stone was produced was often symbolised by the womb. Cf. ‘womb’ in Abraham, Dictionary, 219.42 Simonds, ‘“My charms crack not”’, 565.43 Abraham, Dictionary, 214.44 Ibid., 76.45 The theory on the formation and growth of metals of the alchemist and natural philosopher Michael Sendivogius (1556–1636), mainly explained in the twelve treatises of his Novum lumen chymicum (published in Latin from 1604 onwards and translated into English by John French as A New Light of Alchymie in 1650) was of great interest to English readers and exerted a powerful influence on sixteenth-century alchemical speculation. On the alchemical role of chalybs according to Sendivogius, cf. Dobbs, Foundations, 157–61.46 Abraham, Dictionary, 65.47 Cf. Simonds, ‘“My charms crack not”’, 543.48 Cf. ‘sulphur’ in Abraham, Dictionary, 192–94.49 Abraham, Dictionary, 122. Each of the seven known metals was associated with a particular planet: gold/Sun, silver/Moon, copper/Venus, iron/Mars, tin/Jupiter, lead/Saturn, and mercury/Mercury. Cf. Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, 111.50 See also Prospero’s comment at 1.2.479–82.51 With reference to 3.3.60–68, cf. Maisano, ‘Shakespeare’s Revolution’, 184.52 ‘The vessel with the ingredients should be immersed in saltwater, and then the divine water will be perfected. It is, so to speak, gestated in the womb of the sea-water’. Turba philosophorum, included in a 1593 collection of alchemical texts entitled Artis Auriferae, quoted in Simonds, ‘“My charms crack not”’, 544.53 Lellock, ‘Boiled Brains’, 128.54 According to the assumptions of classical physiognomy, widely revived in early modern medical culture, ‘the body is perceived as a legible “text”, which openly communicates a person’s character and provides an insight into the disposition of man’. Baumbach, ‘Physiognomy’, 582.55 Abraham, Dictionary, 2. The generation of the philosopher’s stone from the chemical wedding was often compared to the birth of a child or chick.56 See the fourth meaning of ‘mole’ in the O.E.D. as ‘An abnormal mass within the uterus, spec. one formed as a result of the death and degeneration of the fetus early in gestation or by the proliferation of trophoblast’ (c.1425). On Caliban as an embodiment of the mola, cf. Compagnoni, ‘Monstrous/Bestial Corporealities’.57 Cf. Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, 108. This is also in line with Sendivogius’ previously mentioned idea of ‘Chalybs’ not as a metal to be transformed but rather as a matrix to draw out the seed – that is, the celestial and terrestrial virtues – of gold. Cf. Dobbs, Foundations, 158–59.58 Abraham, Dictionary, 61. See also Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, 128.59 Three common synonyms for ‘dross’ in the alchemical language. Cf. Abraham, Dictionary, 61.
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