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Shakespeare 247
Semyaza
Semyaza (also known as Semjaza, Semiaza, and
other variant spellings) was the leader of wicked
fallen angels who led 200 other angels to earth to
mate with mortal women there. These angels also
encouraged other sinful activities by teaching
humans about such things as cosmetics (for
women)—encouraging vanity—and weapons (for
men), to use in engaging in battle with each other.
This is according to the Book of Enoch, which
goes on to describe how the mortal women gave
birth to many giants who were so huge that they
ate all the food on earth, then went on to eating
humans, and eventually started to eat each other.
When earth was in complete anarchy, God sent the
archangel Michael down from heaven to confine
the corrupt angels in the valleys of earth until
doomsday. The giants that these angels had
fathered were destroyed, but their evil spirits went
on wreaking havoc until they were wiped out by
the Flood sent by God. According to Hebrew
Myths, by Robert Graves, Semyaza is now eternally
residing in the sky in the form of the constellation
Orion, hanging between heaven and earth, with
his head pointing downwards.
See also Fallen Angels; Nephilim
For Further Reading:
Davidson, Gustav. A Dictionary of Angels Including
the Fallen Angels. 1967. New York: Free Press,
1971.
Ronner, John. Know Your Angels: The Angel Almanac
with Biographies of 100 Prominent Angels in
Legend and Folklore, and Much More.
Murfreesboro, TN: Mamre, 1993.
Serpent’s Lair
In this 1995 film a young couple seems destined to
live happily ever after when they move into their
new home. The husband, however, has the bad
judgment to become involved in an affair with a
Satanic seductress.
The Seventh Victim
A woman seeking to find her sister in Greenwich
Village discovers that she is part of a Satanic cult.
There is a shower scene in this 1943 film that is said
to be the inspiration for the shower scene in Psycho.
Shaitans
Shaitans are evil spirits with cock’s feet in Hebrew
and Arabic mythology. In the Islamic faith, angels
guard the walls of heaven to prevent shaitans and
other evil spirits from eavesdropping. When one
shaitan appeared before the prophet Muhammad,
however, the prophet began to teach the spirit
from the Koran so that he might begin to get right
with God.
See also Islam; Jinn
Shakespeare
Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, the English poet and
dramatist William Shakespeare (1564–1616) wrote
his plays exclusively for the theater company with
which he worked. Some of his plays were printed
from texts reconstructed from memory by the
actors, while others were supplied to the printer by
the company. Among his well-known works are the
English history plays Richard III, King John, Richard
II, and Henry V; the comedies The Merchant of
Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado
About Nothing, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night; the
tragedies Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear,
Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus; the
plays Troilus and Cressida, Cymbeline, The Winter’s
Tale and his last play, The Tempest.
In his earliest plays, including the historical
Richard III, King John and Richard II, Shakespeare
was particularly concerned with the tragedy of
character and personal downfall, whereas he
became more interested in evil as an external force
working against man in the series of tragedies
initiated with Hamlet and terminating with
Macbeth. Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, and King Lear
can be regarded as eschatologically oriented since
they investigate the theme of salvation and
damnation, although with four different perspectives.
In Macbeth, Shakespeare deals with the bad
man who remains evil and goes to merited
damnation, whereas in King Lear the wicked
repents, leads a new life, and finally receives salvation.
In Hamlet and Othello, respectively, the
possibilities are that the good man resists evil and
achieves the salvation, or that he succumbs to the
temptations of the Devil and is finally damned.