Shakespeare, Astrology, and Alchemy:
A Critical and Historical Perspective
By Philip Brown
(originally published in The Mountain
Astrologer, Feb./Mar. 2004)
As
we move into the 21st Century, the plays
of William Shakespeare continue to undergo rediscovery
and transformation. In the past, much has been written
about universal themes in Shakespeare’s plays,
but what has received far less attention is the
universal language of astrology—and its Renaissance
complement, alchemy—that Shakespeare used
to support his themes. Astrology and alchemy have
rarely been used as springboards into literature,
although both are symbolic languages and would thus
seem naturally suited for unlocking the deeper meanings
in Shakespeare’s plays. This is not to say
that no one has tried to link literature with either
of these two ancient sciences. Several writers,
some of whom will be cited in this article, have
successfully related one or the other to images
from literature. However, if astrology works well
in so many other areas, why not apply it to a close
study of Shakespeare? Alchemy, at one time linked
closely with the planets, also provides a wonderful
language for deconstructing literature. Romeo
and Juliet provides for a particularly rich
inquiry because it is one of Shakespeare’s
best-known plays; the author seems to have drawn
heavily from both astrology and alchemy. As seen
through our 21st Century glasses, we
can apply multiple levels of astrology and alchemy—historical,
psychological, and spiritual—to Shakespeare’s
plays.
Shakespeare was adept at creating cosmic
imagery in his writing, and the symbolic associations
of astrology and alchemy with his plays’ contents
helped to broaden some of his themes. Indeed, Shakespeare
used astrology in profound ways that go well beyond
oft-quoted references to “the stars.”
John Addey has written that “Shakespeare constantly
makes use of his astrological allusions…”
as a way of showing that human behavior should mirror
the ideal order and harmony of the universe.1
Martin Lings maintains that
Shakespeare was familiar with many of the esoteric
and occult doctrines that also fascinated contemporaneous
writers (Philip Sydney and John Donne, to name but
two).2
Romeo
and Juliet
In
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, written
around 1596 and set in Verona, Italy, Juliet is
about to turn fourteen—her first Saturn opposition
(imagine an eighth-grade girl today). She was born,
says the Nurse in the play, on Lammas Eve, July
31 by the old Julian calendar (which would convert
to August 10 on the Gregorian calendar, although
this was not officially adopted in Great Britain
until the mid 1700s). Juliet was therefore a Leo
(in either calendar). We don’t know Romeo’s
age, but as we shall see, Romeo may be associated
with a star that was considered at the time to be
a “second Sun,” the fixed star Sirius,
also known as the Prince. The metal associated with
Leo, the Sun, and royalty is gold. At the end of
the play, the fathers of the entombed Romeo and
Juliet vow to build memorial statues of the symbolic
metal, gold.
Lammas
and Lughnasa
Lammas,
celebrated on August 1, was a Christian adaptation
of a Celtic pagan festival called Lughnasa. The
god Lugh (whose named means “shining one”)
was an Irish Sun deity. Astrologically, Lammas/Lughnasa
was the midpoint between the summer solstice and
the autumn equinox and was therefore vested with
powerful symbolism. Astrologer Palden Jenkins writes
that, at the time of this zodiacal power point,
Nature
ripens, the young grow bigger, and each explores
the maximum possibilities inherent in his or her
reach. Green moves to gold, and summer matures.
But we individuals collide and interfere with each
other in our apparent freedome, and underneath all
this, at Lammas, lies a hidden concern that perhaps
it has all gone too far—yet, also, we must
exhaust our need for individuality before we can
do anything else.
The Christian Lammas means literally “loaf
mass,” a feast day meant to consecrate the
grain harvest baked into bread. Shakespeare lets
us know that the action of the play develops approximately
two weeks before Lammas. Therefore, Juliet—who,
along with Romeo, is an only child—dies just
shy of her fourteenth birthday, during her Saturn
opposition. Beside Romeo and Juliet, several other
young people are killed during the play: Romeo’s
friend Mercutio (Mercury); Juliet’s suitor
Paris; and Juliet’s cousin Tybalt (referred
to in the play as a “Prince of cats”;
Tybalt is related to our modern word “tabby”—thus
reinforcing the Leo symbolism of the Capulet household).
All are “harvested” in the midst of
their youthful passions; at the end of the play,
the older generation is left to sort through their
grief and construct memorials. How often have we
seen similar scenes, of youth extinguished as it
flames the brightest, played out on the stages of
our own local, national, and world communities!
Golden Statues
The golden statues of the slain lovers represent
the final alchemical process in the play. According
to Martin Lings, writing in The Sacred Art of
Shakespeare, there is a likelihood that “…the
symbolism of Romeo and Juliet…is alchemical,
the more so in that the two lovers are as it were
transmuted into gold after their deaths…”4
Shakespeare’s plays, however, were never
one-dimensional. They were filled with paradox and
irony: Romeo and Juliet is, after all, a
tragedy, and golden statues will not bring the dead
back to life; they are actually rather meaningless
gestures from two such wealthy families as the Capulets
and the Montagues.
Two Houses of the Zodiac
The earliest known edition of Romeo and
Juliet is called the First Quarto; it was published
in 1597 and has generally been recognized as a corrupted
form of the actual play, perhaps assembled from
actors who performed the roles—although scholars
now consider it possible that the “bad”
First Quarto was actually Shakespeare’s first
written draft of the play. The title page of the
First Quarto states that Romeo and Juliet
is a “conceited tragedy”, in which “conceit”
means an elaborate metaphor. It is entirely possible
that this elaborate metaphor was partly astrological
and that Shakespeare introduced his “conceit”
in the very first line of the Prologue: “Two
households, both alike in dignity…”
(Prologue, line 1). The commonly held meaning of
this line is “Two families, equally ealthy
and powerful…” However, we can just
as easily ascribe astrological meaning to the line,
as in “Two houses of the zodiac, both containing
planets in their dignity…” If Juliet
is the Sun, she would indeed be dignified in the
house of Leo. However, the “second Sun,”
Sirius, which we shall soon see is identified with
Romeo, has strong associations with the lunar 4th
house.
Mercutio and Hermetic Philosophy
One of the pivotal characters in Romeo
and Juliet is Romeo’s friend Mercutio.
Mercutio’s death in Act III leads to Romeo’s
climactic slaying of Tybalt (Juliet’s cousin
and—since by then Romeo is already secretly
married to Juliet—perforce Romeo’s in-law).
Mercury assumed great importance in the Renaissance,
primarily through a text entitled Hermes Trismegistus
(“Mercury Thrice-great”). Hermes
was the Greek name for Mercury or Mercurius. Francis
Yates asserts that Renaissance readers of this text
believed Hermes Trismegistus to be the divinely
inspired words of an ancient Egyuptian prophet,
deified as the god Thoth, rather than what it was:
a compilation of reworked Greek philosophy. This
misunderstanding gave rise to the hugely influenctial
Renaissance Hermetic philosophy, based on the writings
in Hermes Trismegistus. The Hermetic texts
presented astrology to the Western world as part
of a broader philosophy, thus making it much easier
for the common man and woman to accept. Some of
this text had to do with astrology, astral magic,
and “the secret virtues of plants and stones.”6
Shakespeare was undoubtedly familiar with
Hermetic philosophy. For example, Friar Laurence,
an important character in Romeo and Juliet,
seems to reflect Hermetic philosophy when he remarks
that there is “powerful grace that lies/ In
herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities”
(Act 2, Scene 3, lines 15-16).
Mercutio and Alchemy
Mercury, besides being a god and a planet,
is also a metal and the primary ingredient in the
alchemical preparation. The character Mercutio embodies
all the qualities of alchemical Mercury, transmuting
the base lead of language into pure gold. Mercury’s
“death,” like Mercutio’s, is a
fundamental part of the alchemical transmutation.
Liz Greene adds that alchemical Mercury represents
not only the “gold which is our true essence,”
but also “the base, smelly, devilish, and
conflict-ridden animal in us all.”7 The
character Mercutio personifies this dual nature:
As well as scaling the lofty heights of quicksilver
language, he also descends into the sordid depths
of verbal bawdiness.
In alchemy, Mercury has both male and female
aspects: Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet is
androgynous—there are even suggestions in
the play that he is gay (the word “hermaphrodite,”
meaning both sexes in one body, is a fusion of Hermes
and Aphrodite). In Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film,
William Sheakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet,
Mercutio is actually portrayed as a cross-dresser.
Sirius and Canis Major
Feminist scholar Philippa Berry suggests
that understanding the importance of Sirius in Shakespeare’s
time is a key to the deeper astrological meaning
of the play. During the Renaissance, the heliacal
rising of Sirius (heliacal means the first
visible rising of a star after it has been invisible
due to conjunction with the Sun) was coincident
with the summer months, or “dog days”
of the play. Sirius is in the “dog constellation,”
Canis Major. Sirius was referred to as a “double
(or second) Sun” because of its brightness
and its association with hot summer days (it has
since been discovered to be a binary star). The
placement of the star Sirius in the mouth of the
dog constellation created for classical astrologers
an image “…like a fiery torch [or] a
fiery devouring mouth…As the heat of the sun
was doubled…[it] was the final conflagration...”8
This image recurs in Romeo and Juliet,
when Romeo holds up a torch in order to light
what he calls the “maw” (5.3.45: the
mouth of a devouring beast)—a striking metaphor
for the entrance to a tomb “gorged with the
dearest morsel [Juliet]” (5.3.46). When Romeo
unseals the tomb, he is taken aback by the “feasting
presence full of light” (5.3.86). Near the
end of the play, the Prince refers to the same entrance
as “the mouth of outrage” (5.3.224).
These passages, along with the time setting (the
“dog days”) of the play, would appear
to suggest that Shakespeare indeed used the fiery
and devouring imagery associated with the dog star
Sirius. This imagery not only heightened the play’s
tragic outcome, but also invested Romeo (referred
to in the play as “the dog’s name”
and “a dog of the house of Montague”)
with astrological and alchemical significance.
The greater coniunctio
In alchemy, the greater coniunctio occurs
when two opposites have been subjected to repeated
purifications and undergo a final, transcendent
union, often personified in alchemy as a marriage.
Romeo and Juliet are, of course, from “opposing”
houses and undergo three unions in the play: first,
a sacramental (though secret) marriage in church;
second, a physical union; and third, a mystical
marriage in death.
Strict adherence to the symbolic formulae
of alchemy would indicate that Juliet is the Moon
and Romeo the Sun: True opposites could then unite
in an alchemical marriage. Although convenient,
this symbolism is not borne out by the actual text
of the play. Romeo even says, in the famous balcony
scene where Juliet is symbolically ascendant on
her balcony, “Juliet is the sun” (2.2.3).
Juliet’s entire character is solar. She is
radiant, ardent, and inspiring. Martin Lings notes
the seeming awkwardness of an alclhemcial union
of two similar, rather than opposite, bodies. He
sees both Romeo and Juliet as the Sun, explaining
that the symbol of an alchemical marriage “cannot
be limited to one level only.”9 That
is, marriage is, by its very nature, “a symbol
of all the complementary pairs that lie above it.”
The solutio
In alchemy, the solutio is a
very Neptunian state in which, psychologically,
“…one’s individual identity is
eroded.”10 Liz Green equates the
solutio with the womb, a primal liquid world in
which one rests peacefully, blissfully, in the amniotic
fluid. It seems part of Shakespeare’s design,
therefore, that Romeo refers to the tomb where he
and Juliet are both about to take their lives as
a “womb.”
Heremetic Philosophy in Romeo and
Juliet
Early Egyptians believed that the dead experienced
a form of transformation: They were transformed
and elevated into eternity by becoming stars. The
Hermetic teachings imbued the Renaissance with a
deep interest in ancient Egyptian religion, so it
is entirely possible that Shakespeare used this
ancient religious imagery in Romeo and Juliet.
As Juliet waits alone in her bedroom for Romeo,
she foreshadows a sublime cosmic transformation
after her death: “Give me my Romeo, and when
I shall die,/ Take him and cut him out in little
stars,/ And he will make the face of heaven so fine/
That all the world will be in love with night”
(3.2.23-26). These lines of Juliet are paralleled
earlier by Romeo when he wonders what would happen
if two stars were to trade places with Juliet’s
eyes: “…her eye in heaven/ Would through
the airy region stream so bright/ That birds would
sing and think it were not night” (2.2.21-23).
Perhaps Shakespeare wanted us to believe not only
that the golden statues represent a transformation
of the meaning of Romeo and Juliet’s deaths,
but that the two lovers themselves foresaw ultimate
meaning, identity, and sublime beauty in the stars
upon “the face of heaven.”
Although Romeo and Juliet lends itself
naturally to analysis using astrology and alchemy,
this youthful tragedy is but one part of a whole
Shakespearean canon with themes similar to those
presented in this article. Many of the Bard’s
plays resonate deeply with the ideal of a cosmic,
universal pattern, reaching from the stars and planets
down to the smallest human action. The tragic violation
of cosmic order lies at the heart of Romeo and
Juliet: “Two households, both alike in
dignity” have strewn bloody, violent death
over the streets of an Italian community. Shakespeare
used the symbolism of alchemy and the language of
the planets and stars to finally bring a “glooming
peace” to a small town in a foreign land
where golden statues glitter under a starry sky.
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References
and Notes
- John M. Addey, “Shakespeare’s
Attitude to Astrology,” in An Astrological
Anthology: Essays and Excerpts from the Journal
of the Astrological Association, Volume I, 1959-1970,
ed. Zach Matthews, The Astrological Association,
1995, p. 31.
- Martin Lings, The Sacred Art of
Shakespeare: To Take Upon Us the Mystery of Things,
Inner Traditions, 1998, p. 4.
- Palden Jenkins, Living in Time and
How Time Passes, The Glastonbury Archive,
2000. Released in full, with this citation located
online at http://www.isleofavalon.co.uk/GlastonburyArchive/time/lit03.html
- Lings, The Sacred Art of Shakespeare,
p. 134.
- From Mather Walker, “An Alchemical
Viewpoint of Romeo and Juliet,” published
online as part of a larger website called “Sir
Francis Bacon’s New Advancement of Learning”
and one of a series of online essays intended
largely to show that Francis Bacon was the author
of works attributed to Shakespeare, at http://www.sirbacon.org/mrandJ2.htm.
Mather Walker makes several interesting points,
including this one about the title page of the
First Quarto.
- Francis A. Yates, Giordano Bruno
and the Hermetic Tradition, The University
of Chicago Press, 1964, p. 2.
- Liz Greene and Howard Sasportas, Dynamics
of the Unconscious: Seminars in Psychological
Astrology, Volume 2, Samuel Weiser, Inc.,
1988, p. 260.
- Philippa
Berry, “Between Idolatry and Astrology:
Modes of Temporal Repetition in Romeo and Juliet,”
in A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare,
ed. Dympna Callaghan, Blackwell Publishers, 2000,
p. 365.
- Lings,
The Sacred Art of Shakespeare, p. 135.
- Greene
and Sasportas, Dynamics of the Unconscious,
p. 289.
