Aside from being the Tahitian term for '
eunuch', and hence, more recently, synonymous with '
gay' in that region, there are two references to another Mahu in
Shakespeare's tragedy:
King Lear. Both lines are spoken by Edgar, disguised as the madman
Poor Tom. The first is in
Act III, Scene 4:
EDGAR
The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman. Modo he's called, and Mahu.
The second is in
Act IV, Scene 1.
EDGAR
Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once: of lust, as Obidicut; Hobbididance, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of stealing; Modo, of murder; Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing. (What's wrong with mopping and mowing anyway??)
In Samuel Harsnett's
A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures (1603), Mahu was the fiend-prince that urged thievery. The reference to the Prince of Darkness most probably comes from Harsnett. Mahu was the 'generall Dictator of hell' (Harsnett, p. 46).