Sycorax is an unseen character in William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest (1611). She was a vicious, powerful witch, the now-deceased mother of Caliban, one of the few native inhabitants of the island on which Prospero and his daughter Miranda are stranded. Prospero describes Sycorax as an ancient and foul witch native to Algiers, and banished to the island for practising sorcery “so strong / That [she] could control the Moon”. Prospero further relates that many years earlier, sailors had brought her to the island, while she was pregnant with her son, Caliban, and abandoned her there, as, due to her pregnancy, she was spared being put to death. She proceeded to enslave the spirits there, chief among them Ariel, whom she eventually imprisoned in a pine tree for disobedience. Sycorax birthed Caliban and taught him to worship the demonic god Setebos. She dies long before the arrival of Prospero and his daughter, Miranda. Caliban grows to hate Prospero’s presence and power on the island, claiming that the land belongs to him since it was his mother’s before Prospero appeared. Scholars generally agree that Sycorax is closely related to the Medea of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Postcolonialist writers and critics see Sycorax as giving voice to peoples, particularly women, recovering from the effects of colonisation. Later versions of The Tempest, beginning with William Davenant’s seventeenth-century adaptation, have given Sycorax a vocal role in the play, but maintained her image as a malevolent antagonist to Prospero.
Description Sycorax is an unseen character in William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest (1611). She was a vicious, powerful witch, the now-deceased mother of Caliban, one of the few native inhabitants of the island on which Prospero and his daughter Miranda are stranded. Prospero describes Sycorax as an ancient and foul witch native to Algiers, and banished to the island for practising sorcery “so strong / That [she] could control the Moon”. Prospero further relates that many years earlier, sailors had brought her to the island, while she was pregnant with her son, Caliban, and abandoned her there, as, due to her pregnancy, she was spared being put to death. She proceeded to enslave the spirits there, chief among them Ariel, whom she eventually imprisoned in a pine tree for disobedience. Sycorax birthed Caliban and taught him to worship the demonic god Setebos. She dies long before the arrival of Prospero and his daughter, Miranda. Caliban grows to hate Prospero’s presence and power on the island, claiming that the land belongs to him since it was his mother’s before Prospero appeared. Scholars generally agree that Sycorax is closely related to the Medea of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Postcolonialist writers and critics see Sycorax as giving voice to peoples, particularly women, recovering from the effects of colonisation. Later versions of The Tempest, beginning with William Davenant’s seventeenth-century adaptation, have given Sycorax a vocal role in the play, but maintained her image as a malevolent antagonist to Prospero.
