Sycorax is dead when The Tempest begins, and we hear about her from two characters—her son, Caliban, and her successor as ruler of the island, Prospero—both of whom are severely biased.
Prospero recounts that Sycorax was banished from Algiers ("for mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible"), put on a ship, and marooned on the island by sailors. Once there, she established herself through her magic as the greatest power on the island and imprisoned Ariel, who was eventually freed by Prospero (though he keeps Ariel in servitude and threatens to imprison Ariel as Sycorax did).
Caliban, now the slave of Prospero, is the son of Sycorax. Sycorax was pregnant with him when she was marooned on the island. Caliban claims dominion over the island through his descent from Sycorax but tells us little else about her, except that she was far from being as beautiful as Miranda. The comparison arises because when he first sets eyes on Miranda, he has never seen any woman except his mother. The result of this comparison is only what one would expect: Caliban neither attacks nor defends Sycorax's character. How far we are willing to accept the characterization of Sycorax as a foul witch depends on how much we trust Prospero.
Sycorax was a powerful witch from Algiers in North Africa, banished to the island for an unknown crime. All we know of her misdeed is that although it deserved death, "for one thing she did / They would not take her life."
Scholars have speculated she was not executed because she was pregnant. Sailors dropped her on the island. She gave birth to a son, Caliban, whom she raised to worship a demonic god called Setebos. She gained control of the spirits on the island, most notably Ariel, and imprisoned him in a pine tree.
Sycorax has died before the play begins, but her lingering memory remains. In act V, scene 1, Prospero describes Sycorax as "so strong / That [she] could control the Moon."
The "strong" Sycorax is a matriarchal counterpart to the patriarchal Prospero. Both enslave and bend others to their will, and both assume ownership of the island. Caliban resents Prospero in part because he believes, not without reason, that he inherited the island from his mother. To his thinking, Prospero stole his kingdom.
Sycorax's race is indeterminate. She has blue eyes but comes from North Africa, suggesting she is black. Korax means crow in Greek, and crows were associated with the color black, also suggesting Sycorax is black, though the word might simply refer to her black magic.
The hovering presence of the dead Sycorax reinforces the post-colonial nature of the play. Prospero did not simply arrive to a deserted island; like the European colonists, he arrived at a place with a preexisting culture that he exploited.
Sycorax was a powerful, fearsome witch, the mother of Caliban. We never actually see "the blue-eyed hag" at any point during The Tempest; she dies several years before the main action takes place. Nonetheless, her role in the play is important, as her brooding presence acts as a foil to Prospero. Sycorax, like Prospero, was banished from her original homeland. In her case, it was Argier (present day Algiers). She was cast out from the city because of her mastery of the black arts of sorcery. Whereas her magic was used for evil, Prospero's is for good.
The true nature of Sycorax and her black magic is revealed by Prospero. He relates how the witch enslaved the spirits on the island, including Ariel, whom she imprisoned in a pine tree for disobedience. She also raised her son, Caliban, to worship Setebos, a demonic deity. However, we must be cautious in accepting everything that Prospero says about Sycorax. After all, we only have his word for what she was really like. He's now in control of the island, and he wants it to stay that way. So it's perfectly plausible that he may just have invented the story, or at least exaggerated certain elements of it, thus creating a foundational myth in order to justify his continued domination and control.
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