Edward Tabor
Bethesda, Maryland, United States

Introduction

Eclipses of the sun or moon were powerful images used by William Shakespeare in ten of his plays and poems.¹ Shakespeare’s characters believed that eclipses were under the control of evil forces, that eclipses could predict the fall of governments, and noted how people blamed their weaknesses and failures on eclipses. During Shakespeare’s lifetime (1564–1616), there were twenty-two solar eclipses² and fifty-five nighttime lunar eclipses³ visible from London, weather permitting, according to NASA databases. Shakespeare must have observed some of these eclipses, and he integrated the concept and human beliefs about them into his writing.

Almanacs for monitoring eclipses during Shakespeare’s lifetime

During Shakespeare’s lifetime, predictions of eclipses could be found in almanacs,^4-7 which contained “what daie, houre, minute, signe, and degree the Moone shall bee … [as well as] the Eclipse of the sunne and Moone,” in the words of one almanac from 1544.⁸ Many almanacs were published in England,⁴ and many published in other European countries were translated into English.^4,7 Mathematical methods of predicting eclipses had been available since ancient Greece.⁴

These almanacs were ephemeral printed products, meant to be discarded at the end of December each year. They ranged from thin bound volumes to unbound, brochure-like almanacs intended for posting on a wall.⁶ An example of how prevalent and portable they were can be seen in Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream [III:i:54-55],⁹ in which the character Bottom, standing in the forest, says “look in the almanac [to] find out moonshine,” i.e. the phases of the moon. The character Quince has an almanac with him and replies, “Yes, it doth shine that night” [III:i:56], illustrating the way many Elizabethans carried smaller almanacs in their pockets.⁶

Eclipses in the popular imagination

The people in Shakespeare’s plays thought eclipses were associated with evil forces. The witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth make potions out of “slips of yew silver’d in the moon’s eclipse” [Macbeth IV:i:27-28]. An almanac of 1606 predicted an eclipse would lead to “Witchcraft, Inchauntments, Impoysonings, craft and Deceit.”¹⁰ The harms associated with eclipses are also cited by Shakespeare in Sonnet 35, in which he says, “Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun …” In a play by Shakespeare’s contemporary Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593), when Doctor Faustus wants to learn about the control of eclipses, he asks the devil (Mephistopheles), “why are not conjunctions, oppositions, aspects, eclipses, all at one time, but in some years we have more, in some less?”¹¹

Shakespeare’s characters believed that eclipses could predict the fall of governments, perhaps reflecting widely held beliefs. In King Lear, the Earl of Gloucester says:

These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us. … In cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond cracked ’twixt son and father.
[King Lear I:ii:112-118]

Edmund, the evil and illegitimate son of the Earl of Gloucester, similarly observes that eclipses bring disorder in governments:

… unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death, dearth, dissolutions of ancient amities; divisions in state, menaces and maledictions against King and nobles; needless diffidences [distrusts], banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches, and I know not what.
[King Lear I:ii:157-163]

In Antony and Cleopatra, Antony says:

… Alack, our terrene moon
Is now eclipsed, and it portends alone
The fall of Antony.
[Antony and Cleopatra III:xiii:153-155]

A pamphlet written in Croatia about an eclipse there (translated and printed in London in 1606)¹² shows that these views were not limited to England. It said that “the earth’s and moon’s late and horrible obscurations, the frequent eclipsations of the fixed bodies … shall without doubt … [cause] traitorous designments, catching at kingdoms, translation of empire, downfall of men in authority, emulation, ambition, innovations, factious sects, schisms and much disturbance.”¹³

In Sonnet 107, Shakespeare wrote that “the mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,” resulting in “sad augurs.” In Hamlet, Horatio speaks of “the moist star” (i.e. the moon, because of its known effect on the tides) that “was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse,” which is a

… precurse of fierce events,
As harbingers preceding still the fates
And prologue to the omen coming on …
[Hamlet I:i:118-123]

Shakespeare described how people blamed their weaknesses and failures on eclipses and other celestial events. In King Lear, Edmund says,

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune—often the surfeit of our own behavior—we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars, as if we were villains by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers [deceivers] by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on—an admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! … Tut, I should have been that I am had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.
[King Lear I:ii:128-145]

Edmund knows he can take advantage of popular beliefs about eclipses to manipulate other people, that he only needs to say with a “melancholy” sigh, “Oh, these eclipses do portend these divisions!” [King Lear I:ii:146-149] He warns of “a prediction I read this other day, what should follow these eclipses.” [King Lear I:ii:152-153]

Conjunction of solar and lunar eclipses

Eclipses of both the sun and moon occurring near in time to each other were used by Shakespeare to represent a more portentous sign than either alone. Shakespeare mentions such conjunctions in King Lear and Othello. In King Lear, as quoted above, Gloucester refers to “these late eclipses in the sun and moon.” [King Lear I:ii:112] Othello, reacting to several murders, most of which he caused, but including one murder that he did not expect, says,

Oh, insupportable! Oh, heavy hour!
Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse
Of sun and moon, and that the affrighted globe
Should yawn [gape] at alteration.
[Othello V:ii:98-101]

Eclipses of the moon occur two to three times per year and can be seen from any part of Earth where the moon is above the horizon.¹⁴ Solar eclipses, which occur less often, might occur close in time to a lunar eclipse by chance alone. However, for technical reasons, solar eclipses happen only at the time of a new moon, and lunar eclipses occur only at the time of a full moon,¹⁴ so eclipses of sun and moon can never be closer than two weeks apart.

Eclipses visible from London during Shakespeare’s lifetime

Solar eclipses

Each solar eclipse can only be seen from a limited geographic area. There were twenty-two solar eclipses visible from London during Shakespeare’s lifetime (April 1564 to April 1616), according to a NASA database.² The most significant of these, a “near total” or “major partial” solar eclipse on March 7, 1598, was centered in western England, extending from Cornwall to Scotland.² (A “major partial” eclipse is defined by NASA as obscuring at least 75% of the sun’s diameter. This eclipse obscured 96% of the sun’s diameter.²) The closest point to London of the “path of totality,” also sometimes called the “umbral path,” was 244 km away.² Many residents of London would have seen a lesser dimming of the sun with the soft eerie light typical of a partial eclipse. However, they would have heard about the near totality of the eclipse in the west from travelers, by means of letters, or perhaps even from actors who had been touring the countryside. This eclipse was preceded by a 98% lunar eclipse on February 21, 1598, fourteen days earlier.³

An “annular solar eclipse” (which was also a “major partial” eclipse) occurred on December 24, 1601 even nearer to London. This eclipse obscured 90% of the sun’s diameter.² The edge of its path of totality was only 34 km west of London.² An “annular solar eclipse” occurs when the moon blocks the sun but is at its farthest point away from Earth, so that it leaves a “ring” of the sun visible, which is sometimes red. The occurrence of two major solar eclipses within less than four years, one coupled with a near-total lunar eclipse, must have caused significant anxiety and interest in London. The remaining twenty solar eclipses visible from London during Shakespeare’s lifetime were partial eclipses.²

Lunar eclipses

Lunar eclipses are always “global,” i.e., they can be seen from any place on Earth where the moon is above the horizon at the time of the eclipse, though they are more easily seen at night. The NASA historical database of lunar eclipses³ does not list the eclipses by location because they are global, but lists the eclipses by the time of maximal eclipse, using Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which happens to be identical to London time. During Shakespeare’s lifetime there were 128 lunar eclipses worldwide, of which fifty-five were maximal during the hours of darkness in London,¹⁴ based on darkness being from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. GMT.¹⁵ Although lunar eclipses can be seen during some daylight hours, they are most noticeable when they take place in darkness. The remaining “form” of the eclipsed moon can be red, orange, gray, or brown, depending on what part of the earth’s shadow the moon is passing through; a red or orange color could make an eclipse seem even more portentous.

If Shakespeare had been in Stratford during these eclipses

Shakespeare is assumed to have spent most of his adult life residing and working in London and intermittently returned to Stratford-on-Avon (“Stratford”), the town of his childhood and youth, where his wife lived, where he bought three houses and agricultural land,¹⁶ and to which he retired around 1613. Even if he had been in Stratford at the time of a solar eclipse that could be seen from London, he would probably have seen it from Stratford. Stratford is only 133 km west of central London. The near-total solar eclipse of March 7, 1598 would have been visible from both locations; the eastern edge of its path of totality was 244 km west of London and 111 km west of Stratford. For the annular solar eclipse of December 24, 1601, Stratford was within the path of totality (specifically, between the center of the path of totality, which was 432 km west of London, and the edge, which was 34 km west^2,17 of London.)

Any lunar eclipse that could be seen in London would also be seen in Stratford, weather permitting.

Using eclipses to determine the dates of Shakespeare’s writings

Eclipses have been used to try to prove that two of Shakespeare’s works (King Lear¹⁸; Sonnet 107¹⁹) were written in different years than is usually believed, on the assumption that if Shakespeare mentioned an eclipse, then he must have seen one recently. This does not account for the possibility that Shakespeare might have added eclipses to his works long after they occurred, or that he might have invented them. Thus, determining the dates when Shakespeare’s works were written based on the known dates of eclipses must be viewed with skepticism.

Interpreting Shakespeare’s eclipses

In some of the ten plays and poems in which Shakespeare mentioned eclipses, he used the eclipse for dramatic effect, for instance to arouse fear in his audience or readers. In other instances, he used an eclipse to illustrate the commonly held beliefs that an eclipse predicts the future fall of a government or monarch, or the future disruption of normal life.

In some cases, Shakespeare used eclipses as metaphors. In Henry VI Part I, Lord Talbot says that his son was “born to eclipse thy life this afternoon,” meaning to die [Henry VI Part I, IV:v:53]. Elsewhere, King Henry says that his “joy of liberty is half eclipsed,” meaning half erased [King Henry VI Part III, IV:vi:63].

Whenever Shakespeare mentioned eclipses in his plays and poems, he showed his keen understanding of human reactions to them. He must have seen some of the twenty-two solar eclipses and fifty-five nighttime lunar eclipses visible from London during his lifetime, and he integrated what he observed into his art.

End notes

1. Eclipses are mentioned in the following works by Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, Henry VI Part I, Henry VI Part III, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, “Rape of Lucrece,” “Sonnet 35,” and “Sonnet 107.”
2. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. “Solar eclipses visible from London, England: 1001 CE to 2000 CE.” https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEcirc/SEcircEU/LondonGBR1+11.html.
3. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. “Five millennium catalog of lunar eclipses: -1999 to +3000 (2000 BCE to 3000 CE).” https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEcat5/LEcatalog.html.
4. Seidelmann PK. “A history of western astronomical almanacs.” Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage 2019; 22:93-112.
   According to Seidelmann, about 600 almanacs were published in England during the sixteenth century.
5. Knispel S. “Surprising facts and beliefs about eclipses during medieval and Renaissance times.” University of Rochester News Center website, 2024. https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/medieval-planetary-alignment-eclipses-middle-ages-renaissance-600022/.
6. Kassell L. “Almanacs and prognostications.” In Raymond J, ed. The Oxford History of Popular Print Culture: Volume 1: Cheap Print in Britain and Ireland to 1660. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Pages 431-442. https://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/files/kassell-almanacs.pdf.
   According to Kassell, almanacs could be found in one of every three households in England by 1660.
7. Bosanquet EF. English printed almanacks and prognostications: a bibliographical history to the year 1600. London: Cheswick Press, 1917. Forgotten Books. https://www.forgottenbooks.com/en/readbook/EnglishPrintedAlmanacksandPrognostications_10622756#0. Pages 58, 164, 178, and others, also plate IXB.
8. Grafton R. Almanack for Fourteen Years. London: Wylliam Telotson, 1544-1557. Described in Bosanquet (reference #7), page 164.
9. Harrison GB, ed. Shakespeare: The Complete Works. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1952. All Shakespeare quotations in this article are from this volume.
10. Woodhouse W. An Almanacke and Prognostication, for the Yeare of our Redemption, 1606. London: Company of Stationers, 1606. Quoted in Walker K. “Early modern almanacs and The Witch of Edmonton.” In Early Modern Literary Studies, 2015;18(1 and 2):1-25. https://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/201/300/early_modern/html/2015/18-12/[email protected]/emls/journal/index.php/emls/article/view/33/default.htm.
11. Marlowe C. The Tragedy of Doctor Faustus. New York: Washington Square Press, 1959. Page 37 (scene VI, lines 77-80).
12. Gresham E, ed. Strange Fearful & True Newes, which Happened at Carlstadt, in the Kingdome of Croatia. In the digital collection Early English Books Online 2. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A18007.0001.001. (Original publisher: London: G. Vincent and W. Blackwall, 1606. However, the dating is problematic: the opening epistle in this work says “1605” but most bibliographers assign “1606.”) The spelling has been modernized in the quotation.
13. Harrison (reference #9), pages 1136–1139, states his unequivocal belief that Shakespeare used these words from the Croatian document (see Gresham, reference #12) for Gloucester’s statement in King Lear about the harm caused by eclipses, based on what he calls a similarity of “phrase, rhythm, and sentiment.” But the words and phrases are completely different, even if the rhythm and sentiment are similar. Though the concepts are similar, the similarity of meaning more likely reflects the common views about eclipses throughout Europe at that time.
14. NASA. “Eclipses.” https://science.nasa.gov/moon/eclipses/.
15. The time of maximal lunar eclipse in the NASA database is given as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), now often called Universal Time Coordinated (UTC), according to the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center (personal communication, July 22, 2024). For the numbers shown here, the hours of darkness were assumed to be 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. throughout the year; there were no “daylight savings” adjustments to clocks in England before the twentieth century.
16. Shakespeare W. “Shakespeare’s Will.” The National Archives (United Kingdom): 1616. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/museum/additional_image_types.asp?extra_image_type_id=2&image_id=29.
17. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. “Annular solar eclipse of 1601 December 24.” https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsearch/SEsearchmap.php?Ecl=16011224.
18. Wember H. “Illuminating eclipses: astronomy and chronology in King Lear.” Brief Chronicles 2010; II:32-40. Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship. https://shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/Wember.Eclipses.pdf.
19. Oxquarry Books. “Sonnet CVII.” Shakespeare’s Sonnets. https://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/107#google_vignette. See footnotes in this citation.