Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth
6. V. iii. 151 ff.
When Edmund falls in combat with the disguised Edgar, Albany produces
the letter from Goneril to Edmund, which Edgar had found in Oswald's
pocket and had handed over to Albany. This letter suggested to Edmund
the murder of Albany. The passage in the Globe edition is as follows:
_Gon._ This is practice, Gloucester:
By the law of arms thou wast not bound to answer
An unknown opposite: thou art not vanquish'd,
But cozen'd and beguiled.
_Alb._ Shut your mouth, dame,
Or with this paper shall I stop it: Hold, sir;
Thou worse than any name, read thy own evil:
No tearing, lady; I perceive you know it.
[_Gives the letter to Edmund._
_Gon._ Say, if I do, the laws are mine, not thine:
Who can arraign me for't?
_Alb._ Most monstrous! oh!
Know'st thou this paper?
_Gon._ Ask me not what I know. [_Exit._
_Alb._ Go after her: she's desperate: govern her.
_Edm._ What you have charged me with, that have I done;
And more, much more; the time will bring it out.
'Tis past, and so am I. But what art thou
That hast this fortune on me?
The first of the stage-directions is not in the Qq. or Ff.: it was
inserted by Johnson. The second ('Exit') is both in the Qq. and in the
Ff., but the latter place it after the words 'arraign me for't.' And
they give the words 'Ask me not what I know' to Edmund, not to Goneril,
as in the Qq. (followed by the Globe).
I will not go into the various views of these lines, but will simply say
what seems to me most probable. It does not matter much where precisely
Goneril's 'exit' comes; but I believe the Folios are right in giving the
words 'Ask me not what I know' to Edmund. It has been pointed out by
Knight that the question 'Know'st thou this paper?' cannot very well be
addressed to Goneril, for Albany has already said to her, 'I perceive
you know it.' It is possible to get over this difficulty by saying that
Albany wants her confession: but there is another fact which seems to
have passed unnoticed. When Albany is undoubtedly speaking to his wife,
he uses the plural pronoun, 'Shut _your_ mouth, dame,' 'No tearing,
lady; I perceive _you_ know it.' When then he asks 'Know'st _thou_ this
paper?' he is probably _not_ speaking to her.
I should take the passage thus. At 'Hold, sir,' [omitted in Qq.] Albany
holds the letter out towards Edmund for him to see, or possibly gives it
to him.[279] The next line, with its 'thou,' is addressed to Edmund,
whose 'reciprocal vows' are mentioned in the letter. Goneril snatches at
it to tear it up: and Albany, who does not know whether Edmund ever saw
the letter or not, says to her 'I perceive _you_ know it,' the 'you'
being emphatic (her very wish to tear it showed she knew what was in
it). She practically admits her knowledge, defies him, and goes out to
kill herself. He exclaims in horror at her, and, turning again to
Edmund, asks if _he_ knows it. Edmund, who of course does not know it,
refuses to answer (like Iago), not (like Iago) out of defiance, but from
chivalry towards Goneril; and, having refused to answer _this_ charge,
he goes on to admit the charges brought against himself previously by
Albany (82 f.) and Edgar (130 f.). I should explain the change from
'you' to 'thou' in his speech by supposing that at first he is speaking
to Albany and Edgar together.
7. V. iii. 278.
Lear, looking at Kent, asks,
Who are you?
Mine eyes are not o' the best: I'll tell you straight.
_Kent._ If fortune brag of two she loved _and_ hated (Qq. _or_),
One of them we behold.
Kent is not answering Lear, nor is he speaking of himself. He is
speaking of Lear. The best interpretation is probably that of Malone,
according to which Kent means, 'We see the man most hated by Fortune,
whoever may be the man she has loved best'; and perhaps it is supported
by the variation of the text in the Qq., though their texts are so bad
in this scene that their support is worth little. But it occurs to me as
possible that the meaning is rather: 'Did Fortune ever show the extremes
_both_ of her love _and_ of her hatred to any other man as she has shown
them to this man?'
8. _The last lines._
_Alb._ Bear them from hence. Our present business
Is general woe. [_To Kent and Edgar_] Friends of my
soul, you twain
Rule in this realm, and the gored state sustain.
_Kent._ I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;
My master calls me, I must not say no.
_Alb._ The weight of this sad time we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most: we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
So the Globe. The stage-direction (right, of course) is Johnson's. The
last four lines are given by the Ff. to Edgar, by the Qq. to Albany. The
Qq. read '_have_ borne most.'
To whom ought the last four lines to be given, and what do they mean? It
is proper that the principal person should speak last, and this is in
favour of Albany. But in this scene at any rate the Ff., which give the
speech to Edgar, have the better text (though Ff. 2, 3, 4, make Kent die
after his two lines!); Kent has answered Albany, but Edgar has not; and
the lines seem to be rather more appropriate to Edgar. For the 'gentle
reproof' of Kent's despondency (if this phrase of Halliwell's is right)
is like Edgar; and, although we have no reason to suppose that Albany
was not young, there is nothing to prove his youth.
As to the meaning of the last two lines (a poor conclusion to such a
play) I should suppose that 'the oldest' is not Lear, but 'the oldest of
us,' viz., Kent, the one survivor of the old generation: and this is the
more probable if there _is_ a reference to him in the preceding lines.
The last words seem to mean, 'We that are young shall never see so much
_and yet_ live so long'; _i.e._ if we suffer so much, we shall not bear
it as he has. If the Qq. 'have' is right, the reference is to Lear,
Gloster and Kent.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 278: The 'beacon' which he bids approach is not the moon, as
Pope supposed. The moon was up and shining some time ago (II. ii. 35),
and lines 1 and 141-2 imply that not much of the night is left.]
[Footnote 279: 'Hold' can mean 'take'; but the word 'this' in line 160
('Know'st thou this paper?') favours the idea that the paper is still in
Albany's hand.]
NOTE Z.
SUSPECTED INTERPOLATIONS IN _MACBETH_.
I have assumed in the text that almost the whole of _Macbeth_ is
genuine; and, to avoid the repetition of arguments to be found in other
books,[280] I shall leave this opinion unsupported. But among the
passages that have been questioned or rejected there are two which seem
to me open to serious doubt. They are those in which Hecate appears:
viz. the whole of III. v.; and IV. i. 39-43.
These passages have been suspected (1) because they contain
stage-directions for two songs which have been found in Middleton's
_Witch_; (2) because they can be excised without leaving the least trace
of their excision; and (3) because they contain lines incongruous with
the spirit and atmosphere of the rest of the Witch-scenes: _e.g._ III.
v. 10 f.:
all you have done
Hath been but for a wayward son,
Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,
Loves for his own ends, not for you;
and IV. i. 41, 2:
And now about the cauldron sing,
Like elves and fairies in a ring.
The idea of sexual relation in the first passage, and the trivial
daintiness of the second (with which cf. III. v. 34,
Hark! I am call'd; my little spirit, see,
Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me)
suit Middleton's Witches quite well, but Shakespeare's not at all; and
it is difficult to believe that, if Shakespeare had meant to introduce a
personage supreme over the Witches, he would have made her so
unimpressive as this Hecate. (It may be added that the original
stage-direction at IV. i. 39, 'Enter Hecat and the other three Witches,'
is suspicious.)
I doubt if the second and third of these arguments, taken alone, would
justify a very serious suspicion of interpolation; but the fact,
mentioned under (1), that the play has here been meddled with, trebles
their weight. And it gives some weight to the further fact that these
passages resemble one another, and differ from the bulk of the other
Witch passages, in being iambic in rhythm. (It must, however, be
remembered that, supposing Shakespeare _did_ mean to introduce Hecate,
he might naturally use a special rhythm for the parts where she
appeared.)
The same rhythm appears in a third passage which has been doubted: IV.
i. 125-132. But this is not _quite_ on a level with the other two; for
(1), though it is possible to suppose the Witches, as well as the
Apparitions, to vanish at 124, and Macbeth's speech to run straight on
to 133, the cut is not so clean as in the other cases; (2) it is not at
all clear that Hecate (the most suspicious element) is supposed to be
present. The original stage-direction at 133 is merely 'The Witches
Dance, and vanish'; and even if Hecate had been present before, she
might have vanished at 43, as Dyce makes her do.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 280: _E.g._ Mr. Chambers's excellent little edition in the
Warwick series.]
NOTE AA.
HAS _MACBETH_ BEEN ABRIDGED?
_Macbeth_ is a very short play, the shortest of all Shakespeare's except
the _Comedy of Errors_. It contains only 1993 lines, while _King Lear_
contains 3298, _Othello_ 3324, and _Hamlet_ 3924. The next shortest of
the tragedies is _Julius Caesar_, which has 2440 lines. (The figures are
Mr. Fleay's. I may remark that for our present purpose we want the
number of the lines in the first Folio, not those in modern composite
texts.)
Is there any reason to think that the play has been shortened? I will
briefly consider this question, so far as it can be considered apart
from the wider one whether Shakespeare's play was re-handled by
Middleton or some one else.
That the play, as we have it, is _slightly_ shorter than the play
Shakespeare wrote seems not improbable. (1) We have no Quarto of
_Macbeth_; and generally, where we have a Quarto or Quartos of a play,
we find them longer than the Folio text. (2) There are perhaps a few
signs of omission in our text (over and above the plentiful signs of
corruption). I will give one example (I. iv. 33-43). Macbeth and Banquo,
returning from their victories, enter the presence of Duncan (14), who
receives them with compliments and thanks, which they acknowledge. He
then speaks as follows:
My plenteous joys,
Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves
In drops of sorrow. Sons, kinsmen, thanes,
And you whose places are the nearest, know,
We will establish our estate upon
Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter
The Prince of Cumberland; which honour must
Not unaccompanied invest him only,
But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
On all deservers. From hence to Inverness,
And bind us further to you.
Here the transition to the naming of Malcolm, for which there has been
no preparation, is extremely sudden; and the matter, considering its
importance, is disposed of very briefly. But the abruptness and brevity
of the sentence in which Duncan invites himself to Macbeth's castle are