NOTE DD.

If good, why do I yield to that suggestionWhose horrid image doth unfix my hairAnd make my seated heart knock at my ribs,

would surely not be natural, even in Macbeth, if the idea of murder were already quite familiar to him through conversation with his wife, and if he had already done more than 'yield' to it. It is not as if the Witches had told him that Duncan was coming to his house. In that case the perception that the moment had come to execute a merely general design might well appal him. But all that he hears is that he will one day be King—a statement which, supposing this general design, would not point to any immediate action.[292]And, in the second place, it is hard to believe that, if Shakespeare really had imagined the murder planned and sworn to before the action of the play, he would have written the first six scenes in such a manner that practically all readers imagine quite another state of affairs, andcontinue to imagine iteven after they have read in scene vii. the passage which is troubling us. Is it likely, to put it otherwise, that his idea was one which nobody seems to have divined till late in the nineteenth century? And for what possible reason could he refrain from making this idea clear to his audience, as he might so easily have done in the third scene?[293]It seems very much more likely that he himself imagined the matter as nearly all his readers do.

But, in that case, what are we to say of this passage? I will answer first by explaining the way in which I understood it before I was aware that it had caused so much difficulty. I supposed that an interview had taken place after scene v., a scene which shows Macbeth shrinking, and in which his last words were 'we will speak further.' In this interview, I supposed, his wife had so wrought upon him that he had at last yielded and pledged himself by oath to do the murder. As for her statement that he had 'broken the enterprise' to her, I took it to refer to his letter to her,—a letter written when time and place did not adhere, for he did not yet know that Duncan was coming to visit him. In the letter he does not, of course, openly 'break the enterprise' to her, and it is not likely that he would do such a thing in a letter; but if they had had ambitious conversations, in which each felt that some half-formed guilty idea was floating in the mind of the other, she might naturally take the words of the letter as indicating much more than they said; and then in her passionate contempt at his hesitation, and her passionate eagerness to overcome it, she might easily accuse him, doubtless with exaggeration, and probably with conscious exaggeration, of having actually proposed the murder. And Macbeth, knowing that when he wrote the letter he really had been thinking of murder, and indifferent to anything except the question whether murder should be done, would easily let her statement pass unchallenged.

This interpretation still seems to me not unnatural. The alternative (unless we adopt the idea of an agreement prior to the action of the play) is to suppose that Lady Macbeth refersthroughout the passage to some interview subsequent to her husband's return, and that, in making her do so, Shakespeare simply forgot her speeches on welcoming Macbeth home, and also forgot that at any such interview 'time' and 'place' did 'adhere.' It is easy to understand such forgetfulness in a spectator and even in a reader; but it is less easy to imagine it in a poet whose conception of the two characters throughout these scenes was evidently so burningly vivid.

FOOTNOTES:[291]The 'swearing'mightof course, on this view, occur off the stage within the play; but there is no occasion to suppose this if we are obliged to put the proposal outside the play.[292]To this it might be answered that the effect of the prediction was to make him feel, 'Then I shall succeed if I carry out the plan of murder,' and so make him yield to the idea over again. To which I can only reply, anticipating the next argument, 'How is it that Shakespeare wrote the speech in such a way that practically everybody supposes the idea of murder to be occurring to Macbeth for the first time?'[293]It might be answered here again that the actor, instructed by Shakespeare, could act the start of fear so as to convey quite clearly the idea of definite guilt. And this is true; but we ought to do our best to interpret the text before we have recourse to this kind of suggestion.

FOOTNOTES:

[291]The 'swearing'mightof course, on this view, occur off the stage within the play; but there is no occasion to suppose this if we are obliged to put the proposal outside the play.

[292]To this it might be answered that the effect of the prediction was to make him feel, 'Then I shall succeed if I carry out the plan of murder,' and so make him yield to the idea over again. To which I can only reply, anticipating the next argument, 'How is it that Shakespeare wrote the speech in such a way that practically everybody supposes the idea of murder to be occurring to Macbeth for the first time?'

[293]It might be answered here again that the actor, instructed by Shakespeare, could act the start of fear so as to convey quite clearly the idea of definite guilt. And this is true; but we ought to do our best to interpret the text before we have recourse to this kind of suggestion.

In the scene of confusion where the murder of Duncan is discovered, Macbeth and Lennox return from the royal chamber; Lennox describes the grooms who, as it seemed, had done the deed:

At this point Lady Macbeth exclaims, 'Help me hence, ho!' Her husband takes no notice, but Macduff calls out 'Look to the lady.' This, after a few words 'aside' between Malcolm and Donalbain, is repeated by Banquo, and, very shortly after, allexcept Duncan's sonsexeunt. (The stage-direction 'Lady Macbeth is carried out,' after Banquo's exclamation 'Look to the lady,' is not in the Ff. and was introduced by Rowe. If the Ff. are right, she can hardly have faintedaway. But the point has no importance here.)

Does Lady Macbeth really turn faint, or does she pretend? The latter seems to have been the general view, and Whately pointed out that Macbeth's indifference betrays his consciousness that the faint was not real. But to this it may be answered that, if he believed it to be real, he would equally show indifference, in order to display his horror at the murder. And Miss Helen Faucit and others have held that there was no pretence.

In favour of the pretence it may be said (1) that Lady Macbeth, who herself took back the daggers, saw the old King in his blood, and smeared the grooms, was not the woman to faint at a mere description; (2) that she saw her husband over-acting his part, and saw the faces of the lords, and wished to end the scene,—which she succeeded in doing.

But to the last argument it may be replied that she would not willingly have run the risk of leaving her husband to act his part alone. And for other reasons (indicated above, p.373 f.) I decidedly believe that she is meant really to faint. She was no Goneril. She knew that she could not kill the King herself; and she never expected to have to carry back the daggers, see the bloody corpse, and smear the faces and hands of the grooms. But Macbeth's agony greatly alarmed her, and she was driven to the scene of horror to complete his task; and what an impression it made on her we know from that sentence uttered in her sleep, 'Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?' She had now, further, gone through the ordeal of the discovery. Is it not quite natural that the reaction should come, and that it should come just when Macbeth's description recalls the scene which had cost her the greatest effort? Is it not likely, besides, that the expression on the faces of the lords would force her to realise, what before the murder she had refused to consider, the horror and the suspicion it must excite? It is noticeable, also, that she is far from carrying out her intention of bearing a part in making their 'griefs and clamours roar upon his death' (i.vii. 78). She has left it all toher husband, and, after uttering but two sentences, the second of which is answered very curtly by Banquo, for some time (an interval of 33 lines) she has said nothing. I believe Shakespeare means this interval to be occupied in desperate efforts on her part to prevent herself from giving way, as she sees for the first time something of the truth to which she was formerly so blind, and which will destroy her in the end.

It should be observed that at the close of the Banquet scene, where she has gone through much less, she is evidently exhausted.

Shakespeare, of course, knew whether he meant the faint to be real: but I am not aware if an actor of the part could show the audience whether it was real or pretended. If he could, he would doubtless receive instructions from the author.

1. The duration of the action cannot well be more than a few months. On the day following the murder of Duncan his sons fly and Macbeth goes to Scone to be invested (ii.iv.). Between this scene and Actiii.an interval must be supposed, sufficient for news to arrive of Malcolm being in England and Donalbain in Ireland, and for Banquo to have shown himself a good counsellor. But the interval is evidently not long:e.g.Banquo's first words are 'Thou hast it now' (iii.i. 1). Banquo is murdered on the day when he speaks these words. Macbeth's visit to the Witches takes place the next day (iii.iv. 132). At the end of this visit (iv.i.) he hears of Macduff's flight to England, and determines to have Macduff's wife and children slaughtered without delay; and this is the subject of the next scene (iv.ii.). No great interval, then, can be supposed between this scene and the next, where Macduff, arrived at the English court, hears what has happened at his castle. At the end of that scene (iv.iii. 237) Malcolm says that 'Macbeth is ripe for shaking, and the powers above put on their instruments': and the events of Actv.evidently follow with little delay, and occupybut a short time. Holinshed's Macbeth appears to have reigned seventeen years: Shakespeare's may perhaps be allowed as many weeks.

But, naturally, Shakespeare creates some difficulties through wishing to produce different impressions in different parts of the play. The main effect is that of fiery speed, and it would be impossible to imagine the torment of Macbeth's mind lasting through a number of years, even if Shakespeare had been willing to allow him years of outward success. Hence the brevity of the action. On the other hand time is wanted for the degeneration of his character hinted at iniv.iii. 57 f., for the development of his tyranny, for his attempts to entrap Malcolm (ib.117 f.), and perhaps for the deepening of his feeling that his life had passed into the sere and yellow leaf. Shakespeare, as we have seen, scarcely provides time for all this, but at certain points he produces an impression that a longer time has elapsed than he has provided for, and he puts most of the indications of this longer time into a scene (iv.iii.) which by its quietness contrasts strongly with almost all the rest of the play.

2. There is no unmistakable indication of the ages of the two principal characters; but the question, though of no great importance, has an interest. I believe most readers imagine Macbeth as a man between forty and fifty, and his wife as younger but not young. In many cases this impression is doubtless due to the custom of the theatre (which, if it can be shown to go back far, should have much weight), but it is shared by readers who have never seen the play performed, and is then presumably due to a number of slight influences probably incapable of complete analysis. Such readers would say, 'The hero and heroine do not speak like young people, nor like old ones'; but, though I think this is so, it can hardly be demonstrated. Perhaps however the following small indications, mostly of a different kind, tend to the same result.

(1) There is no positive sign of youth. (2) A young man would not be likely to lead the army. (3) Macbeth is 'cousin' to an old man.[294](4) Macbeth calls Malcolm 'young,' and speaks of him scornfully as 'the boy Malcolm.' He is probably therefore considerably his senior. But Malcolm is evidently notreally a boy (seei.ii. 3 f. as well as the later Acts). (5) One gets the impression (possibly without reason) that Macbeth and Banquo are of about the same age; and Banquo's son, the boy Fleance, is evidently not a mere child. (On the other hand the children of Macduff, who is clearly a good deal older than Malcolm, are all young; and I do not think there is any sign that Macbeth is older than Macduff.) (6) When Lady Macbeth, in the banquet scene, says,

Sit, worthy friends: my lord is often thus,And hath been from his youth,

we naturally imagine him some way removed from his youth. (7) Lady Macbeth saw a resemblance to her father in the aged king. (8) Macbeth says,

I have lived long enough: my way[295]of lifeIs fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf:And that which should accompany old age,As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,I may not look to have.

It is, surely, of the old age of the soul that he speaks in the second line, but still the lines would hardly be spoken under any circumstances by a man less than middle-aged.

On the other hand I suppose no one ever imagined Macbeth, or on consideration could imagine him, asmorethan middle-aged when the action begins. And in addition the reader may observe, if he finds it necessary, that Macbeth looks forward to having children (i.vii. 72), and that his terms of endearment ('dearest love,' 'dearest chuck') and his language in public ('sweet remembrancer') do not suggest that his wife and he are old; they even suggest that she at least is scarcely middle-aged. But this discussion tends to grow ludicrous.

For Shakespeare's audience these mysteries were revealed by a glance at the actors, like the fact that Duncan was an old man, which the text, I think, does not disclose tillv.i. 44.

3. Whether Macbeth had children or (as seems usually to be supposed) had none, is quite immaterial. But it is material that, if he had none, he looked forward to having one; forotherwise there would be no point in the following words in his soliloquy about Banquo (iii.i. 58 f.):

Then prophet-likeThey hail'd him father to a line of kings:Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown,And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand,No son of mine succeeding. If't be so,For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind.

And he is determined that it shall not 'be so':

Rather than so, come, fate, into the listAnd champion me to the utterance!

Obviously he contemplates a son of his succeeding, if only he can get rid of Banquo and Fleance. What he fears is that Banquo will kill him; in which case, supposing he has a son, that son will not be allowed to succeed him, and, supposing he has none, he will be unable to beget one.

I hope this is clear; and nothing else matters. Lady Macbeth's child (i.vii. 54) may be alive or may be dead. It may even be, or have been, her child by a former husband; though, if Shakespeare had followed history in making Macbeth marry a widow (as some writers gravely assume) he would probably have told us so. It may be that Macbeth had many children or that he had none. We cannot say, and it does not concern the play. But the interpretation of a statement on which some critics build, 'He has no children,' has an interest of another kind, and I proceed to consider it.

These words occur ativ.iii. 216. Malcolm and Macduff are talking at the English Court, and Ross, arriving from Scotland, brings news to Macduff of Macbeth's revenge on him. It is necessary to quote a good many lines:

Three interpretations have been offered of the words 'He has no children.'

(a) They refer to Malcolm, who, if he had children of his own, would not at such a moment suggest revenge, or talk of curing such a grief. Cf.King John,iii.iv. 91, where Pandulph says to Constance,

You hold too heinous a respect of grief,

and Constance answers,

He talks to me that never had a son.

(b) They refer to Macbeth, who has no children, and on whom therefore Macduff cannot take an adequate revenge.

(c) They refer to Macbeth, who, if he himself had children, could never have ordered the slaughter of children. Cf.3 Henry VI.v.v. 63, where Margaret says to the murderers of Prince Edward,

You have no children, butchers! if you had,The thought of them would have stirred up remorse.

I cannot think interpretation (b) the most natural. The whole idea of the passage is that Macduff must feelgrieffirst and before he can feel anything else,e.g.the desire for vengeance. As he says directly after, he cannot at once 'dispute' it like a man, but must 'feel' it as a man; and it is not till ten lines later that he is able to pass to the thought of revenge.Macduff is not the man to conceive at any time the idea of killing children in retaliation; and that he contemplates ithere, even as a suggestion, I find it hard to believe.

For the same main reason interpretation (a) seems to me far more probable than (c). What could be more consonant with the natural course of the thought, as developed in the lines which follow, than that Macduff, being told to think of revenge, not grief, should answer, 'No one who was himself a father would ask that of me in the very first moment of loss'? But the thought supposed by interpretation (c) has not this natural connection.

It has been objected to interpretation (a) that, according to it, Macduff would naturally say 'You have no children,' not 'He has no children.' But what Macduff does is precisely what Constance does in the line quoted fromKing John. And it should be noted that, all through the passage down to this point, and indeed in the fifteen lines which precede our quotation, Macduff listens only to Ross. His questions 'My children too?' 'My wife killed too?' show that he cannot fully realise what he is told. When Malcolm interrupts, therefore, he puts aside his suggestion with four words spoken to himself, or (less probably) to Ross (his relative, who knew his wife and children), and continues his agonised questions and exclamations. Surely it is not likely that at that moment the idea of (c), an idea which there is nothing to suggest, would occur to him.

In favour of (c) as against (a) I see no argument except that the words of Macduff almost repeat those of Margaret; and this fact does not seem to me to have much weight. It shows only that Shakespeare might easily use the words in the sense of (c) if that sense were suitable to the occasion. It is not unlikely, again, I think, that the words came to him here because he had used them many years before;[296]but it doesnot follow that he knew he was repeating them; or that, if he did, he remembered the sense they had previously borne; or that, if he did remember it, he might not use them now in another sense.

FOOTNOTES:[294]So in Holinshed, as well as in the play, where however 'cousin' need not have its specific meaning.[295]'May,' Johnson conjectured, without necessity.[296]As this point occurs here, I may observe that Shakespeare's later tragedies contain many such reminiscences of the tragic plays of his young days. For instance, cf.Titus Andronicus,i.i. 150 f.:In peace and honour rest you here, my sons,Secure from worldly chances and mishaps!Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,Here grow no damned drugs: here are no storms,No noise, but silence and eternal sleep,withMacbeth,iii.ii. 22 f.:Duncan is in his grave;After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,Can touch him further.In writingiv.i. Shakespeare can hardly have failed to remember the conjuring of the Spirit, and the ambiguous oracles, in2 Henry VI.i.iv. The 'Hyrcan tiger' ofMacbethiii.iv. 101, which is also alluded to inHamlet, appears first in3 Henry VI.i.iv. 155. Cf.Richard III.ii.i. 92, 'Nearer in bloody thoughts, but not in blood,' withMacbethii.iii. 146, 'the near in blood, the nearer bloody';Richard III.iv.ii. 64, 'But I am in So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin,' withMacbethiii.iv. 136, 'I am in blood stepp'd in so far,' etc. These are but a few instances. (It makes no difference whether Shakespeare was author or reviser ofTitusandHenry VI.).

FOOTNOTES:

[294]So in Holinshed, as well as in the play, where however 'cousin' need not have its specific meaning.

[295]'May,' Johnson conjectured, without necessity.

[296]As this point occurs here, I may observe that Shakespeare's later tragedies contain many such reminiscences of the tragic plays of his young days. For instance, cf.Titus Andronicus,i.i. 150 f.:In peace and honour rest you here, my sons,Secure from worldly chances and mishaps!Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,Here grow no damned drugs: here are no storms,No noise, but silence and eternal sleep,withMacbeth,iii.ii. 22 f.:Duncan is in his grave;After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,Can touch him further.In writingiv.i. Shakespeare can hardly have failed to remember the conjuring of the Spirit, and the ambiguous oracles, in2 Henry VI.i.iv. The 'Hyrcan tiger' ofMacbethiii.iv. 101, which is also alluded to inHamlet, appears first in3 Henry VI.i.iv. 155. Cf.Richard III.ii.i. 92, 'Nearer in bloody thoughts, but not in blood,' withMacbethii.iii. 146, 'the near in blood, the nearer bloody';Richard III.iv.ii. 64, 'But I am in So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin,' withMacbethiii.iv. 136, 'I am in blood stepp'd in so far,' etc. These are but a few instances. (It makes no difference whether Shakespeare was author or reviser ofTitusandHenry VI.).

[296]As this point occurs here, I may observe that Shakespeare's later tragedies contain many such reminiscences of the tragic plays of his young days. For instance, cf.Titus Andronicus,i.i. 150 f.:

In peace and honour rest you here, my sons,Secure from worldly chances and mishaps!Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,Here grow no damned drugs: here are no storms,No noise, but silence and eternal sleep,

withMacbeth,iii.ii. 22 f.:

Duncan is in his grave;After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,Can touch him further.

In writingiv.i. Shakespeare can hardly have failed to remember the conjuring of the Spirit, and the ambiguous oracles, in2 Henry VI.i.iv. The 'Hyrcan tiger' ofMacbethiii.iv. 101, which is also alluded to inHamlet, appears first in3 Henry VI.i.iv. 155. Cf.Richard III.ii.i. 92, 'Nearer in bloody thoughts, but not in blood,' withMacbethii.iii. 146, 'the near in blood, the nearer bloody';Richard III.iv.ii. 64, 'But I am in So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin,' withMacbethiii.iv. 136, 'I am in blood stepp'd in so far,' etc. These are but a few instances. (It makes no difference whether Shakespeare was author or reviser ofTitusandHenry VI.).

I do not think the suggestions that the Ghost on its first appearance is Banquo's, and on its second Duncan's, orvice versâ, are worth discussion. But the question whether Shakespeare meant the Ghost to be real or a mere hallucination, has some interest, and I have not seen it fully examined.

The following reasons may be given for the hallucination view:

(1) We remember that Macbeth has already seen one hallucination, that of the dagger; and if we failed to remember it Lady Macbeth would remind us of it here:

This is the very painting of your fear;This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said,Led you to Duncan.

(2) The Ghost seems to be created by Macbeth's imagination; for his words,

now they rise againWith twenty mortal murders on their crowns,

describe it, and they echo what the murderer had said to him a little before,

Safe in a ditch he bidesWith twenty trenched gashes on his head.

(3) It vanishes the second time on his making a violent effort and asserting its unreality:

Hence, horrible shadow!Unreal mockery, hence!

This is not quite so the first time, but then too its disappearance follows on his defying it:

Why what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.

So, apparently, the dagger vanishes when he exclaims, 'There's no such thing!'

(4) At the end of the scene Macbeth himself seems to regard it as an illusion:

My strange and self-abuseIs the initiate fear that wants hard use.

(5) It does not speak, like the Ghost inHamleteven on its last appearance, and like the Ghost inJulius Caesar.

(6) It is visible only to Macbeth.

I should attach no weight to (6) taken alone (see p.140). Of (3) it may be remarked that Brutus himself seems to attribute the vanishing of Caesar's Ghost to his taking courage: 'now I have taken heart thou vanishest:' yet he certainly holds it to be real. It may also be remarked on (5) that Caesar's Ghost says nothing that Brutus' own forebodings might not have conjured up. And further it may be asked why, if the Ghost of Banquo was meant for an illusion, it was represented on the stage, as the stage-directions and Forman's account show it to have been.

On the whole, and with some doubt, I think that Shakespeare (1) meant the judicious to take the Ghost for an hallucination, but (2) knew that the bulk of the audience would take it for a reality. And I am more sure of (2) than of (1).

The titles of plays are in italics. So are the numbers of the pages containing the main discussion of a character. The titles of the Notes are not repeated in the Index.

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