ABSTRACT

Hear what Valerius said to Rufinus: You do not know that woman is the Chimaera, but it is good that you should know it; for the monster was of three forms; its face was that of a radiant and noble lion, it had the filthy belly of a goat, and it was armed with the virulent tail of a viper. (/vfalleus lvfa[ejicarum r I 486l) I

Let therefore the powerfi1ll Statute of apparel! but lifi: up his Battle-Axe, [ ... ] so as every one may bee knownc by tl1e true badge of their bloud, [ ... ] then these Chymeras of deformatic will bee sent backe to hell, and there burne to Cynders in the flames of their owne malice. (Hie lvfulier

352 CHRISTIJ'\E M. NEUFELD

while the Jacobean stage was preoccupied with witchcsjust as the nation was losing interest in them, the Elizabethan stage was almost silent about them while the nation, and especially the court, were working themselves into a fever pitch. 1

\Vas it merely coincidental that the courtly conception of Elizabeth, which deliberately eflaced her ageing bodily reality, yet simultaneously attributed to her exceptional (even supernatural) powers as the immortal body politic of the state, coincided with a scale of popular anxiety and legal debate about witchcraft which had never occurred in England beforc?6

354 CHRISTIJ'\E M. NEUFELD