"Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio."
And in "Much Ado About Nothing" (ii. 1), Benedick says:
"I would to God some scholar would conjure her."
For the same reason exorcisms were usually practised by the clergy in Latin; and so Toby, in the "Night Walker" of Beaumont and Fletcher (ii. 1), says:
"Let's call the butler up, for he speaks Latin, And that will daunt the devil."
It was also necessary that spirits, when evoked, should be questioned quickly, as they were supposed to be impatient of being interrogated. Hence in "Macbeth" (iv. 1) the apparition says:
The spirit, likewise, in "2 Henry VI." (i. 4) utters these words:
"Ask what thou wilt. That I had said and done!"
Spirits were supposed to maintain an obdurate silence till interrogated by the persons to whom they made their special appearance.[75] Thus Hamlet, alluding to the appearance of the ghost, asks Horatio (i. 2):
"My lord, I did; But answer made it none: yet once, methought It lifted up its head and did address Itself to motion, like as it would speak."
[75] We may compare the words "unquestionable spirit" in "As You Like It" (iii. 2), which means "a spirit averse to conversation."
The walking of spirits seems also to have been enjoined by way of penance. The ghost of Hamlet's father (i. 5) says:
"I am thy father's spirit, Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night, And for the day confin'd to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purg'd away."
"It is a damned ghost that we have seen."
This superstition is referred to by Spenser in his "Fairy Queen" (book i. canto 2):
"What voice of damned ghost from Limbo lake Or guileful spright wand'ring in empty ayre, Sends to my doubtful eares these speeches rare?"
According to a universal belief prevalent from the earliest times, it was supposed that ghosts had some particular reason for quitting the mansions of the dead, "such as a desire that their bodies, if unburied, should receive Christian rites of sepulture, that a murderer might be brought to due punishment," etc.[76] On this account Horatio ("Hamlet," i. 1) invokes the ghost:
"If there be any good thing to be done, That may to thee do ease and grace to me, Speak to me."
"Say, why is this? wherefore? What should we do?"