Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth
_Hamlet_ 51.6, _Lear_ 60.9, _Macbeth_ 77.2. These figures place
_Macbeth_ decidedly last, with a percentage practically equal to that of
_Antony_, the first of the final group.
I will now give my own figures for these tragedies, as they differ
somewhat from Koenig's, probably because my method differs. (1) I have
included speeches rhymed or ending with rhymes, mainly because I find
that Shakespeare will sometimes (in later plays) end a speech which is
partly rhymed with an incomplete line (_e.g. Ham._ III. ii. 187, and the
last words of the play: or _Macb._ V. i. 87, V. ii. 31). And if such
speeches are reckoned, as they surely must be (for they may be, and are,
highly significant), those speeches which end with complete rhymed lines
must also be reckoned. (2) I have counted any speech exceeding a line in
length, however little the excess may be; _e.g._
I'll fight till from my bones my flesh be hacked.
Give me my armour:
considering that the incomplete line here may be just as significant as
an incomplete line ending a longer speech. If a speech begins within a
line and ends brokenly, of course I have not counted it when it is
equivalent to a five-foot line; _e.g._
Wife, children, servants, all
That could be found:
but I do count such a speech (they are very rare) as
My lord, I do not know:
But truly I do fear it:
for the same reason that I count
You know not
Whether it was his wisdom or his fear.
Of the speeches thus counted, those which end somewhere within the line
I find to be in _Othello_ about 54 per cent.; in _Hamlet_ about 57; in
_King Lear_ about 69; in _Macbeth_ about 75.[285] The order is the same
as Koenig's, but the figures differ a good deal. I presume in the last
three cases this comes from the difference in method; but I think
Koenig's figures for _Othello_ cannot be right, for I have tried several
methods and find that the result is in no case far from the result of my
own, and I am almost inclined to conjecture that Koenig's 41.4 is really
the percentage of speeches ending with the close of a line, which would
give 58.6 for the percentage of the broken-ended speeches.[286]
We shall find that other tests also would put _Othello_ before _Hamlet_,
though close to it. This may be due to 'accident'--_i.e._ a cause or
causes unknown to us; but I have sometimes wondered whether the last
revision of _Hamlet_ may not have succeeded the composition of
_Othello_. In this connection the following fact may be worth notice. It
is well known that the differences of the Second Quarto of _Hamlet_ from
the First are much greater in the last three Acts than in the first
two--so much so that the editors of the Cambridge Shakespeare suggested
that Q1 represents an old play, of which Shakespeare's rehandling had
not then proceeded much beyond the Second Act, while Q2 represents his
later completed rehandling. If that were so, the composition of the last
three Acts would be a good deal later than that of the first two (though
of course the first two would be revised at the time of the composition
of the last three). Now I find that the percentage of speeches ending
with a broken line is about 50 for the first two Acts, but about 62 for
the last three. It is lowest in the first Act, and in the first two
scenes of it is less than 32. The percentage for the last two Acts is
about 65.
II. The Enjambement or Overflow test is also known as the End-stopped
and Run-on line test. A line may be called 'end-stopped' when the sense,
as well as the metre, would naturally make one pause at its close;
'run-on' when the mere sense would lead one to pass to the next line
without any pause.[287] This distinction is in a great majority of cases
quite easy to draw: in others it is difficult. The reader cannot judge
by rules of grammar, or by marks of punctuation (for there is a distinct
pause at the end of many a line where most editors print no stop): he
must trust his ear. And readers will differ, one making a distinct pause
where another does not. This, however, does not matter greatly, so long
as the reader is consistent; for the important point is not the precise
number of run-on lines in a play, but the difference in this matter
between one play and another. Thus one may disagree with Koenig in his
estimate of many instances, but one can see that he is consistent.
In Shakespeare's early plays, 'overflows' are rare. In the _Comedy of
Errors_, for example, their percentage is 12.9 according to Koenig[288]
(who excludes rhymed lines and some others). In the generally admitted
last plays they are comparatively frequent. Thus, according to Koenig,
the percentage in the _Winter's Tale_ is 37.5, in the _Tempest_ 41.5, in
_Antony_ 43.3, in _Coriolanus_ 45.9, in _Cymbeline_ 46, in the parts of
_Henry VIII._ assigned by Spedding to Shakespeare 53.18. Koenig's results
for the four tragedies are as follows: _Othello_, 19.5; _Hamlet_, 23.1;
_King Lear_, 29.3; _Macbeth_, 36.6; (_Timon_, the whole play, 32.5).
_Macbeth_ here again, therefore, stands decidedly last: indeed it stands
near the first of the latest plays.
And no one who has ever attended to the versification of _Macbeth_ will
be surprised at these figures. It is almost obvious, I should say, that
Shakespeare is passing from one system to another. Some passages show
little change, but in others the change is almost complete. If the
reader will compare two somewhat similar soliloquies, 'To be or not to
be' and 'If it were done when 'tis done,' he will recognise this at
once. Or let him search the previous plays, even _King Lear_, for twelve
consecutive lines like these:
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We 'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgement here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips.
Or let him try to parallel the following (III. vi. 37 f.):
and this report
Hath so exasperate the king that he
Prepares for some attempt of war.
_Len._ Sent he to Macduff?
_Lord._ He did: and with an absolute 'Sir, not I,'
The cloudy messenger turns me his back
And hums, as who should say 'You'll rue the time
That clogs me with this answer.'
_Len._ And that well might
Advise him to a caution, to hold what distance
His wisdom can provide. Some holy angel
Fly to the court of England, and unfold
His message ere he come, that a swift blessing
May soon return to this our suffering country
Under a hand accurs'd!
or this (IV. iii. 118 f.):
Macduff, this noble passion,
Child of integrity, hath from my soul
Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts
To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth
By many of these trains hath sought to win me
Into his power, and modest wisdom plucks me
From over-credulous haste: but God above
Deal between thee and me! for even now
I put myself to thy direction, and
Unspeak mine own detraction, here abjure
The taints and blames I laid upon myself,
For strangers to my nature.
I pass to another point. In the last illustration the reader will
observe not only that 'overflows' abound, but that they follow one
another in an unbroken series of nine lines. So long a series could not,
probably, be found outside _Macbeth_ and the last plays. A series of two
or three is not uncommon; but a series of more than three is rare in the
early plays, and far from common in the plays of the second period
(Koenig).
I thought it might be useful for our present purpose, to count the
series of four and upwards in the four tragedies, in the parts of
_Timon_ attributed by Mr. Fleay to Shakespeare, and in _Coriolanus_, a
play of the last period. I have not excluded rhymed lines in the two
places where they occur, and perhaps I may say that my idea of an
'overflow' is more exacting than Koenig's. The reader will understand the
following table at once if I say that, according to it, _Othello_
contains three passages where a series of four successive overflowing
lines occurs, and two passages where a series of five such lines occurs:
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4 5 6 7 8 9 10 No. of Lines
(Fleay).
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Othello, 3 2 -- -- -- -- -- 2,758
Hamlet, 7 -- -- -- -- -- -- 2,571
Lear, 6 2 -- -- -- -- -- 2,312
Timon, 7 2 1 1 -- -- -- 1,031 (?)
Macbeth, 7 5 1 1 -- 1 -- 1,706
Coriolanus, 16 14 7 1 2 -- 1 2,563
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(The figures for _Macbeth_ and _Timon_ in the last column must be borne
in mind. I observed nothing in the non-Shakespeare part of _Timon_ that
would come into the table, but I did not make a careful search. I felt
some doubt as to two of the four series in _Othello_ and again in
_Hamlet_, and also whether the ten-series in _Coriolanus_ should not be
put in column 7).
III. _The light and weak ending test._
We have just seen that in some cases a doubt is felt whether there is an
'overflow' or not. The fact is that the 'overflow' has many degrees of
intensity. If we take, for example, the passage last quoted, and if with
Koenig we consider the line
The taints and blames I laid upon myself
to be run-on (as I do not), we shall at least consider the overflow to
be much less distinct than those in the lines
but God above
Deal between thee and me! for even now
I put myself to thy direction, and
Unspeak my own detraction, here abjure
And of these four lines the third runs on into its successor at much the
greatest speed.
'Above,' 'now,' 'abjure,' are not light or weak endings: 'and' is a weak
ending. Prof. Ingram gave the name weak ending to certain words on which
it is scarcely possible to dwell at all, and which, therefore,
precipitate the line which they close into the following. Light endings
are certain words which have the same effect in a slighter degree. For
example, _and_, _from_, _in_, _of_, are weak endings; _am_, _are_, _I_,
_he_, are light endings.
The test founded on this distinction is, within its limits, the most
satisfactory of all, partly because the work of its author can be
absolutely trusted. The result of its application is briefly as follows.
Until quite a late date light and weak endings occur in Shakespeare's
works in such small numbers as hardly to be worth consideration.[289]
But in the well-defined group of last plays the numbers both of light
and of weak endings increase greatly, and, on the whole, the increase
apparently is progressive (I say apparently, because the order in which
the last plays are generally placed depends to some extent on the test
itself). I give Prof. Ingram's table of these plays, premising that in