There’s a passage in the Vulgate I recently came across isolated from its usual context: ‘Sicut nycticorax in domicilio’ (Psalm 102, 7: “I am like a night raven in the house”)—and I was struck by its resemblance to Caliban’s mother’s name, Sycorax.

I know Wikipedia is not the surest guide, but their summary of scholars’ conjectures to date seems to me more far-fetched than this verbal echo of St Jerome’s translation of the Psalms (found in the Divine Office, of course). Here’s Wiki:

“Several competing linguistic theories have been put forth. Some scholars argue that her name may be a combination of the Greek sus (‘pig’) and korax (‘crow’). Another rough translation produces the phrase ‘the Scythian raven’, an etymological description of Medea. (Batman upon Bartheme, a play which Shakespeare may have been aware of, contains a raven called Corax.) Also, psychorrhax (‘heartbreaker’), may be a play on the Greek word psychoraggia (‘death struggle’). One critic searched for a connection to Sycorax’s North African heritage, and found a parallel in Shokereth שוקרת, a Hebrew word meaning ‘deceiver’. Another recent idea suggests that, for thematic as well as historical reasons, the name is the reverberant combination of syllables in the name Corax of Syracuse—the oft acknowledged founder of rhetoric and worthy, fictionalized rival of Prospero”.

It’s perhaps significant that The Tempest is usually regarded as having the only plot invented by Shakespeare. Of course this might not amount to anything—but then again, it might.