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
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_
(König), 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 König,[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,
_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 König'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 König'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
König'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 König'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 König 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 König[288]
(who excludes rhymed lines and some others). In the generally admitted
last plays they are comparatively frequent. Thus, according to König,
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. König'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
(König).
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 König'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:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 No. of Lines
(Fleay).
-----------------------------------------------------------------
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
-----------------------------------------------------------------
(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
König 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
_Pericles_, _Two Noble Kinsmen_, and _Henry VIII._ he uses only those
parts of the plays which are attributed by certain authorities to
Shakespeare (_New Shakspere Soc. Trans._, 1874).