form of superstition. To quote one or two out of many
instances, Enobarbus, in "Antony and Cleopatra" (iv. 9), says:

"Be witness to me, O thou blessed moon!"

[107] For further information on this subject, see Tylor's
"Primitive Culture," 1873, vol. i. pp. 288, 354-356; vol. ii.
pp. 70, 202, 203.

In "Love's Labour's Lost" (v. 2) the king says:

"Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine,
Those clouds, removed, upon our watery eyne."

Indeed, it was formerly a common practice for people to address
invocations to the moon,[108] and even at the present day we find
remnants of this practice both in this country and abroad. Thus, in many
places it is customary for young women to appeal to the moon to tell
them of their future prospects in matrimony,[109] the following or
similar lines being repeated on the occasion:

"New moon, new moon, I hail thee:
New moon, new moon, be kind to me;
If I marry man or man marry me,
Show me how many moons it will be."

[108] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," vol. iii. pp. 142, 143.

[109] See "English Folk-lore," pp. 43, 44.

It was also the practice to swear by the moon, to which we find an
allusion in "Romeo and Juliet" (ii. 2), where Juliet reproves her lover
for testifying his affections by this means:

"O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable."

And again, in "The Merchant of Venice" (v. 1), where Gratiano exclaims:

"By yonder moon I swear you do me wrong."

We may note here that the inconstancy[110] of the moon is the subject
of various myths, of which Mr. Tylor has given the following examples:
Thus, an Australian legend says that Mityan, the moon, was a native cat,
who fell in love with some one else's wife, and was driven away to
wander ever since. A Slavonic legend tells us that the moon, king of
night, and husband of the sun, faithlessly loved the morning star,
wherefore he was cloven through in punishment, as we see him in the sky.
The Khasias of the Himalaya say that the moon falls monthly in love with
his mother-in-law, who throws ashes in his face, whence his spots.[111]

[110] "Primitive Culture," 1873, vol. i. pp. 354, 355.

[111] The words "moonish" ("As You Like It," iii. 2) and
"moonlike" ("Love's Labour's Lost," iv. 3) are used in the
sense of inconstant.

As in the case of