the sun, an eclipse of the moon was formerly
considered ominous. The Romans[112] supposed it was owing to the
influence of magical charms, to counteract which they had recourse to
the sound of brazen instruments of all kinds. Juvenal alludes to this
practice in his sixth Satire (441), when he describes his talkative
woman:

"Jam nemo tubas, nemo aera fatiget,
Una laboranti poterit succurrere lunae."

[112] See Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 18.

Indeed, eclipses, which to us are well-known phenomena witnessing to the
exactness of natural laws, were, in the earlier stages of civilization,
regarded as "the very embodiment of miraculous disaster." Thus, the
Chinese believed that during eclipses of the sun and moon these
celestial bodies were attacked by a great serpent, to drive away which
they struck their gongs or brazen drums. The Peruvians, entertaining a
similar notion, raised a frightful din when the moon was eclipsed,[113]
while some savages would shoot up arrows to defend their luminaries
against the enemies they fancied were attacking them. It was also a
popular belief that the moon was affected by the influence of
witchcraft, a notion referred to by Prospero in "The Tempest" (v. 1),
who says:

"His mother was a witch, and one so strong
That could control the moon."

[113] Tylor's "Primitive Culture," vol. i. p. 329.

In a former scene (ii. 1) Gonzalo remarks: "You are gentlemen of brave
mettle; you would lift the moon out of her sphere." Douce[114] quotes a
marginal reference from Adlington's translation of "Apuleius" (1596), a
book well known to Shakespeare: "Witches in old time were supposed to be
of such power that they could put downe the moone by their
inchantment."[115] One of the earliest references to this superstition
among classical authorities is that in the "Clouds" of Aristophanes,
where Strepsiades proposes the hiring of a Thessalian witch, to bring
down the moon and shut her up in a box, that he might thus evade paying
his debts by a month. Ovid, in his "Metamorphoses" (bk. xii. 263), says:

"Mater erat Mycale; quam deduxisse canendo
Saepe reluctanti constabat cornua lunae."

[114] "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 16.

[115] See Scot's "Discovery of Witchcraft," 1584, pp. 174, 226,
227, 250.

Horace, in his fifth Epode (45), tells us:

"Quae sidera excantata voce Thessala,
Lunamque caelo deripit."[11