What is Allusion? An allusion is a covert, implied, or indirect reference; a passing or incidental reference to some piece of knowledge not explicitly mentioned. Allusions usually come from a body of information that the author presumes the reader will know.
1. Battle of Golgotha (1,2): A biblical reference to Christ's death upon Mount Calvary, as reported in Matthew 27.33: "And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull." Shakespeare's Captain tells King Duncan that Macbeth's army was so violent and remorseless that he wonders if they were taking delight in the "reeking wounds" of their foe, or trying to make their outrageously bloody battlefield as famous as the most famous place of the skull, Golgotha.
2. Rape of Lucrece (2,1): "...thus with his stealthy pace, with Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design moves like a ghost." Sextus Tarquin, son of Tarquinius Superbus, the king of Rome, raped Lucretia (Lucrece), wife of Collatinus, one of the king's aristocratic retainers. As a result, Lucrece committed suicide.
3. Gorgon (2,3): "Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight With a new Gorgon." Gorgon is Each of three sisters, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa, with snakes for hair, who had the power to turn anyone who looked at them to stone.
4. Bellona: "The thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict; Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof, Confronted him with self-comparisons..." Bellona was the Roman Goddess of War.
5. Hecate: Hecate was the Greek goddess of witchcraft.
6. The equivocator: "Faith, here’s an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either scale; who committed treason enough for God’s sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven. O, come in, equivocator." The equivocator is most likely an allusion to the treatise written by the Jesuit Henry Garnet, who encouraged Catholics to speak ambiguously or, "equivocate" when they were being questioned by Protestant inquisitors (so they wouldn't be persecuted for their religious beliefs). Henry Garnett, was an English Jesuit priest executed for his complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
7. Neptune's ocean: After Macbeth kills King Duncan, he looks at his hands and says, "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?" Neptune was the Roman god of fresh water. Macbeth is asking if Neptune's waters would be enough for the blood to come clean from his hands.
8. Mark Antony & Augustus: Macbeth is worried that Banquo is destined to triumph over him just as in Ancient Rome, the great political and military leader Mark Antony was eventually upstaged by Octavius Caesar (Augustus) who went on to become the first Roman emperor, ruling from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD. Macbeth says, "There is none but he/Whose being I do fear, and under him/My genius is rebuked, as it is said/Mark Antony’s was by Caesar."
8. Mark Antony & Augustus: Macbeth is worried that Banquo is destined to triumph over him just as in Ancient Rome, the great political and military leader Mark Antony was eventually upstaged by Octavius Caesar (Augustus) who went on to become the first Roman emperor, ruling from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD. Macbeth says, "There is none but he/Whose being I do fear, and under him/My genius is rebuked, as it is said/Mark Antony’s was by Caesar."
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