- For the moon of Uranus, see Sycorax (moon).
Sycorax is a fictional character mentioned though not seen in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest, a witch from Argier who lived on the island until her death about twenty-four years before the action of the play. She was banished to the island for practicing sorcery while pregnant with her son, Caliban, and while she was there she enslaved the spirits to do her bidding, chiefly among them Ariel, whom she finally imprisoned in a pine tree for disobedience. Sycorax, who "with age and ennui / Was grown into a hoop", died of old age about twelve years before the arrival of Prospero and his daughter, Miranda.
Sycorax was a worshipper of the god Setebos and taught Caliban Setebos-worship before her death.
