Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth
still more striking. For not a word has yet been said on the subject;
nor is it possible to suppose that Duncan had conveyed his intention by
message, for in that case Macbeth would of course have informed his wife
of it in his letter (written in the interval between scenes iii. and
iv.). It is difficult not to suspect some omission or curtailment here.
On the other hand Shakespeare may have determined to sacrifice
everything possible to the effect of rapidity in the First Act; and he
may also have wished, by the suddenness and brevity of Duncan's
self-invitation, to startle both Macbeth and the audience, and to make
the latter feel that Fate is hurrying the King and the murderer to their
doom.
And that any _extensive_ omissions have been made seems not likely. (1)
There is no internal evidence of the omission of anything essential to
the plot. (2) Forman, who saw the play in 1610, mentions nothing which
we do not find in our play; for his statement that Macbeth was made Duke
of Northumberland is obviously due to a confused recollection of
Malcolm's being made Duke of Cumberland. (3) Whereabouts could such
omissions occur? Only in the first part, for the rest is full enough.
And surely anyone who wanted to cut the play down would have operated,
say, on Macbeth's talk with Banquo's murderers, or on III. vi., or on
the very long dialogue of Malcolm and Macduff, instead of reducing the
most exciting part of the drama. We might indeed suppose that
Shakespeare himself originally wrote the first part more at length, and
made the murder of Duncan come in the Third Act, and then _himself_
reduced his matter so as to bring the murder back to its present place,
perceiving in a flash of genius the extraordinary effect that might thus
be produced. But, even if this idea suited those who believe in a
rehandling of the play, what probability is there in it?
Thus it seems most likely that the play always was an extremely short
one. Can we, then, at all account for its shortness? It is possible, in
the first place, that it was not composed originally for the public
stage, but for some private, perhaps royal, occasion, when time was
limited. And the presence of the passage about touching for the evil
(IV. iii. 140 ff.) supports this idea. We must remember, secondly, that
some of the scenes would take longer to perform than ordinary scenes of
mere dialogue and action; _e.g._ the Witch-scenes, and the Battle-scenes
in the last Act, for a broad-sword combat was an occasion for an
exhibition of skill.[281] And, lastly, Shakespeare may well have felt
that a play constructed and written like _Macbeth_, a play in which a
kind of fever-heat is felt almost from beginning to end, and which
offers very little relief by means of humorous or pathetic scenes, ought
to be short, and would be unbearable if it lasted so long as _Hamlet_ or
even _King Lear_. And in fact I do not think that, in reading, we _feel
Macbeth_ to be short: certainly we are astonished when we hear that it
is about half as long as _Hamlet_. Perhaps in the Shakespearean theatre
too it appeared to occupy a longer time than the clock recorded.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 281: These two considerations should also be borne in mind in
regard to the exceptional shortness of the _Midsummer Night's Dream_ and
the _Tempest_. Both contain scenes which, even on the Elizabethan stage,
would take an unusual time to perform. And it has been supposed of each
that it was composed to grace some wedding.]
NOTE BB.
THE DATE OF _MACBETH_. METRICAL TESTS.
Dr. Forman saw _Macbeth_ performed at the Globe in 1610. The question is
how much earlier its composition or first appearance is to be put.
It is agreed that the date is not earlier than that of the accession of
James I. in 1603. The style and versification would make an earlier date
almost impossible. And we have the allusions to 'two-fold balls and
treble sceptres' and to the descent of Scottish kings from Banquo; the
undramatic description of touching for the King's Evil (James performed
this ceremony); and the dramatic use of witchcraft, a matter on which
James considered himself an authority.
Some of these references would have their fullest effect early in
James's reign. And on this ground, and on account both of resemblances
in the characters of Hamlet and Macbeth, and of the use of the
supernatural in the two plays, it has been held that _Macbeth_ was the
tragedy that came next after _Hamlet_, or, at any rate, next after
_Othello_.
These arguments seem to me to have no force when set against those that
point to a later date (about 1606) and place _Macbeth_ after _King
Lear_.[282] And, as I have already observed, the probability is that it
also comes after Shakespeare's part of _Timon_, and immediately before
_Antony and Cleopatra_ and _Coriolanus_.
I will first refer briefly to some of the older arguments in favour of
this later date, and then more at length to those based on
versification.
(1) In II. iii. 4-5, 'Here's a farmer that hang'd himself on the
expectation of plenty,' Malone found a reference to the exceptionally
low price of wheat in 1606.
(2) In the reference in the same speech to the equivocator who could
swear in both scales and committed treason enough for God's sake, he
found an allusion to the trial of the Jesuit Garnet, in the spring of
1606, for complicity in the Gunpowder Treason and Plot. Garnet protested
on his soul and salvation that he had not held a certain conversation,
then was obliged to confess that he had, and thereupon 'fell into a
large discourse defending equivocation.' This argument, which I have
barely sketched, seems to me much weightier than the first; and its
weight is increased by the further references to perjury and treason
pointed out on p. 397.
(3) Halliwell observed what appears to be an allusion to _Macbeth_ in
the comedy of the _Puritan_, 4to, 1607: 'we'll ha' the ghost i' th'
white sheet sit at upper end o' th' table'; and Malone had referred to a
less striking parallel in _Caesar and Pompey_, also pub. 1607:
Why, think you, lords, that 'tis _ambition's spur_
That _pricketh_ Caesar to these high attempts?
He also found a significance in the references in _Macbeth_ to the
genius of Mark Antony being rebuked by Caesar, and to the insane root
that takes the reason prisoner, as showing that Shakespeare, while
writing _Macbeth_, was reading Plutarch's _Lives_, with a view to his
next play _Antony and Cleopatra_ (S.R. 1608).
(4) To these last arguments, which by themselves would be of little
weight, I may add another, of which the same may be said. Marston's
reminiscences of Shakespeare are only too obvious. In his _Dutch
Courtezan_, 1605, I have noticed passages which recall _Othello_ and
_King Lear_, but nothing that even faintly recalls _Macbeth_. But in
reading _Sophonisba_, 1606, I was several times reminded of _Macbeth_
(as well as, more decidedly, of _Othello_). I note the parallels for
what they are worth.
With _Sophonisba_, Act I. Sc. ii.:
Upon whose tops the Roman eagles stretch'd
Their large spread wings, which fann'd the evening aire
To us cold breath,
cf. _Macbeth_ I. ii. 49:
Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky
And fan our people cold.
Cf. _Sophonisba_, a page later: 'yet doubtful stood the fight,' with
_Macbeth_, I. ii. 7, 'Doubtful it stood' ['Doubtful long it stood'?] In
the same scene of _Macbeth_ the hero in fight is compared to an eagle,
and his foes to sparrows; and in _Soph._ III. ii. Massinissa in fight is
compared to a falcon, and his foes to fowls and lesser birds. I should
not note this were it not that all these reminiscences (if they are
such) recall one and the same scene. In _Sophonisba_ also there is a
tremendous description of the witch Erictho (IV. i.), who says to the
person consulting her, 'I know thy thoughts,' as the Witch says to
Macbeth, of the Armed Head, 'He knows thy thought.'
(5) The resemblances between _Othello_ and _King Lear_ pointed out on
pp. 244-5 and in Note R. form, when taken in conjunction with other
indications, an argument of some strength in favour of the idea that
_King Lear_ followed directly on _Othello_.
(6) There remains the evidence of style and especially of metre. I will
not add to what has been said in the text concerning the former; but I
wish to refer more fully to the latter, in so far as it can be
represented by the application of metrical tests. It is impossible to
argue here the whole question of these tests. I will only say that,
while I am aware, and quite admit the force, of what can be said against
the independent, rash, or incompetent use of them, I am fully convinced
of their value when they are properly used.
Of these tests, that of rhyme and that of feminine endings, discreetly
employed, are of use in broadly distinguishing Shakespeare's plays into
two groups, earlier and later, and also in marking out the very latest
dramas; and the feminine-ending test is of service in distinguishing
Shakespeare's part in _Henry VIII._ and the _Two Noble Kinsmen_. But
neither of these tests has any power to separate plays composed within a
few years of one another. There is significance in the fact that the
_Winter's Tale_, the _Tempest_, _Henry VIII._, contain hardly any rhymed
five-foot lines; but none, probably, in the fact that _Macbeth_ shows a
higher percentage of such lines than _King Lear_, _Othello_, or
_Hamlet_. The percentages of feminine endings, again, in the four
tragedies, are almost conclusive against their being early plays, and
would tend to show that they were not among the latest; but the
differences in their respective percentages, which would place them in
the chronological order _Hamlet_, _Macbeth_, _Othello_, _King Lear_
(Koenig), or _Macbeth_, _Hamlet_, _Othello_, _King Lear_ (Hertzberg), are
of scarcely any account.[283] Nearly all scholars, I think, would accept
these statements.
The really useful tests, in regard to plays which admittedly are not
widely separated, are three which concern the endings of speeches and
lines. It is practically certain that Shakespeare made his verse
progressively less formal, by making the speeches end more and more
often within a line and not at the close of it; by making the sense
overflow more and more often from one line into another; and, at last,
by sometimes placing at the end of a line a word on which scarcely any
stress can be laid. The corresponding tests may be called the
Speech-ending test, the Overflow test, and the Light and Weak Ending
test.
I. The Speech-ending test has been used by Koenig,[284] and I will first
give some of his results. But I regret to say that I am unable to
discover certainly the rule he has gone by. He omits speeches which are
rhymed throughout, or which end with a rhymed couplet. And he counts
only speeches which are 'mehrzeilig.' I suppose this means that he
counts any speech consisting of two lines or more, but omits not only
one-line speeches, but speeches containing more than one line but less
than two; but I am not sure.
In the plays admitted by everyone to be early the percentage of speeches
ending with an incomplete line is quite small. In the _Comedy of
Errors_, for example, it is only 0.6. It advances to 12.1 in _King
John_, 18.3 in _Henry V._, and 21.6 in _As You Like It_. It rises
quickly soon after, and in no play written (according to general belief)
after about 1600 or 1601 is it less than 30. In the admittedly latest
plays it rises much higher, the figures being as follows:--_Antony_
77.5, _Cor._ 79, _Temp._ 84.5, _Cym._ 85, _Win. Tale_ 87.6, _Henry
VIII._ (parts assigned to Shakespeare by Spedding) 89. Going back, now,
to the four tragedies, we find the following figures: _Othello_ 41.4,