Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth

2. The Fool's Song in ii. iv.

At ii. iv. 62 Kent asks why the King comes with so small a train. The Fool answers, in effect, that most of his followers have deserted him because they see that his fortunes are sinking. He proceeds to advise Kent ironically to follow their example, though he confesses he does not intend to follow it himself. 'Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it: but the great one that goes up the hill, let him draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again: I would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it.

That sir which serves and seeks for gain,And follows but for form,Will pack when it begins to rain,And leave thee in the storm.But I will tarry; the fool will stay,And let the wise man fly:The knave turns fool that runs away;The fool no knave, perdy.

The last two lines have caused difficulty. Johnson wanted to read,

The fool turns knave that runs away,The knave no fool, perdy;

i.e. if I ran away, I should prove myself to be a knave and a wise man, but, being a fool, I stay, as no knave or wise man would. Those who rightly defend the existing reading misunderstand it, I think. Shakespeare is not pointing out, in 'The knave turns fool that runs away,' that the wise knave who runs away is really a 'fool with a circumbendibus,' 'moral miscalculator as well as moral coward.' The Fool is referring to his own words, 'I would have none but knaves follow [my advice to desert the King], since a fool gives it'; and the last two lines of his song mean, 'The knave who runs away follows the advice given by a fool; but I, the fool, shall not follow my own advice by turning knave.'

For the ideas compare the striking passage in Timon, i. i. 64 ff.

3. 'Decline your head.'

At iv. ii. 18 Goneril, dismissing Edmund in the presence of Oswald, says:

This trusty servantShall pass between us: ere long you are like to hear,If you dare venture in your own behalf,A mistress's command. Wear this; spare speech;Decline your head: this kiss, if it durst speak,Would stretch thy spirits up into the air.

I copy Furness's note on 'Decline': 'Steevens thinks that Goneril bids Edmund decline his head that she might, while giving him a kiss, appear to Oswald merely to be whispering to him. But this, Wright says, is giving Goneril credit for too much delicacy, and Oswald was a "serviceable villain." Delius suggests that perhaps she wishes to put a chain around his neck.'

Surely 'Decline your head' is connected, not with 'Wear this' (whatever 'this' may be), but with 'this kiss,' etc. Edmund is a good deal taller than Goneril, and must stoop to be kissed.

4. Self-cover'd.

At iv. ii. 59 Albany, horrified at the passions of anger, hate, and contempt expressed in his wife's face, breaks out:

See thyself, devil!Proper deformity seems not in the fiendSo horrid as in woman.Gon.O vain fool!Alb.Thou changed and self-cover'd thing, for shame,Be-monster not thy feature. Were't my fitnessTo let these hands obey my blood,They are apt enough to dislocate and tearThy flesh and bones: howe'er thou art a fiend,A woman's shape doth shield thee.

The passage has been much discussed, mainly because of the strange expression 'self-cover'd,' for which of course emendations have been proposed. The general meaning is clear. Albany tells his wife that she is a devil in a woman's shape, and warns her not to cast off that shape by be-monstering her feature (appearance), since it is this shape alone that protects her from his wrath. Almost all commentators go astray because they imagine that, in the words 'thou changed and self-cover'd thing,' Albany is speaking to Goneril as a woman who has been changed into a fiend. Really he is addressing her as a fiend which has changed its own shape and assumed that of a woman; and I suggest that 'self-cover'd' means either 'which hast covered or concealed thyself,' or 'whose self is covered' [so Craig in Arden edition], not (what of course it ought to mean) 'which hast been covered by thyself.'

Possibly the last lines of this passage (which does not appear in the Folios) should be arranged thus:

To let these hands obey my blood, they're apt enoughTo dislocate and tear thy flesh and bones:Howe'er thou art a fiend, a woman's shapeDoth shield thee.Gon.Marry, your manhood now—Alb.What news?

5. The stage-directions at v. i. 37, 39.

In v. i. there first enter Edmund, Regan, and their army or soldiers: then, at line 18, Albany, Goneril, and their army or soldiers. Edmund and Albany speak very stiffly to one another, and Goneril bids them defer their private quarrels and attend to business. Then follows this passage (according to the modern texts):

Alb.Let's then determineWith the ancient of war on our proceedings.Edm.I shall attend you presently at your tent.Reg.Sister, you'll go with us?Gon.No.Reg.'Tis most convenient: pray you, go with us.Gon.[Aside] O, ho, I know the riddle.—I will go.As they are going out, enter Edgar disguised.Edg.If e'er your grace had speech with man so poor,Hear me one word.Alb.I'll overtake you. Speak.

[Exeunt all but Albany and Edgar.

It would appear from this that all the leading persons are to go to a Council of War with the ancient (plural) in Albany's tent; and they are going out, followed by their armies, when Edgar comes in. Why in the world, then, should Goneril propose (as she apparently does) to absent herself from the Council; and why, still more, should Regan object to her doing so? This is a question which always perplexed me, and I could not believe in the only answers I ever found suggested, viz., that Regan wanted to keep Edmund and Goneril together in order that she might observe them (Moberly, quoted in Furness), or that she could not bear to lose sight of Goneril, for fear Goneril should effect a meeting with Edmund after the Council (Delius, if I understand him).

But I find in Koppel what seems to be the solution (Verbesserungsvorschläge, p. 127 f.). He points out that the modern stage-directions are wrong. For the modern direction 'As they are going out, enter Edgar disguised,' the Ff. read, 'Exeunt both the armies. Enter Edgar.' For 'Exeunt all but Albany and Edgar' the Ff. have nothing, but Q1 has 'exeunt' after 'word.' For the first direction Koppel would read, 'Exeunt Regan, Goneril, Gentlemen, and Soldiers': for the second he would read, after 'overtake you,' 'Exit Edmund.'

This makes all clear. Albany proposes a Council of War. Edmund assents, and says he will come at once to Albany's tent for that purpose. The Council will consist of Albany, Edmund, and the ancient of war. Regan, accordingly, is going away with her soldiers; but she observes that Goneril shows no sign of moving with her soldiers; and she at once suspects that Goneril means to attend the Council in order to be with Edmund. Full of jealousy, she invites Goneril to go with her. Goneril refuses, but then, seeing Regan's motive, contemptuously and ironically consents (I doubt if 'O ho, I know the riddle' should be 'aside,' as in modern editions, following Capell). Accordingly the two sisters go out, followed by their soldiers; and Edmund and Albany are just going out, in a different direction, to Albany's tent when Edgar enters. His words cause Albany to stay; Albany says to Edmund, as Edmund leaves, 'I'll overtake you'; and then, turning to Edgar, bids him 'speak.'

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 answerAn 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 thouThat 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 businessIs general woe. [To Kent and Edgar] Friends of my soul, you twainRule 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 youngShall 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.

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 doneHath 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.

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 themselvesIn drops of sorrow. Sons, kinsmen, thanes,And you whose places are the nearest, know,We will establish our estate uponOur eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafterThe Prince of Cumberland; which honour mustNot unaccompanied invest him only,But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shineOn 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 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.

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 spurThat 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).