SCENE--_Deeside_. TIME--_after Dinner_.
NORTH--BULLER--SEWARD--TALBOYS.
NORTH.
One hour more--and no more--to Shakspeare.
BULLER.
May we crack nuts?
NORTH.
By all means. And here they are for you to crack.
BULLER.
Now for some of your _astounding Discoveries_.
NORTH.
If you gather the Movement, scene by scene, of the Action of this
Drama, you see a few weeks, or it may be months. There must be time
to hear that Malcolm and his brother have reached England and
Ireland--time for the King of England to interest himself in behalf of
Malcolm, and muster his array. More than this seems unrequired. But
the zenith of tyranny to which Macbeth has arrived, and particularly
the manner of describing the desolation of Scotland by the speakers
in England, conveys to you the notion of a long, long dismal reign.
Of old it always used to do so with me; so that when I came to visit
the question of the Time, I felt myself as if baffled and puzzled, not
finding the time I had looked for, demonstrable. Samuel Johnson has had
the same impression, but has not scrutinised the data. He goes probably
by the old Chronicler for the actual time, and this, one would think,
must have floated before Shakspeare's own mind.
TALBOYS.
Nobody can read the Scenes in England without seeing long-protracted
time.
"_Malcolm._ Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there
Weep our sad bosoms empty.
_Macduff._ Let us rather
Hold fast the mortal sword, and, like good men,
Bestride our down-fallen birthdom: Each new morn,
New widows howl; new orphans cry; new sorrows
Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
As if it felt with Scotland, and yell'd out
Like syllable of dolour."
NORTH.
Ay, Talboys, that is true Shakspeare. No Poet--before or since--has in
so few words presented such a picture. No poet, before or since, has
used _such_ words. He writes like a man inspired.
TALBOYS.
And in the same dialogue Malcolm says--
"I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;
It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash
Is added to her wounds."
NORTH.
Go on, my dear Talboys. Your memory is a treasury of all the highest
Poetry of Shakspeare. Go on.
TALBOYS.
And hear Rosse, on his joining Malcolm and Macduff in this scene, the
latest arrival from Scotland:--
"_Macduff._ Stands Scotland where it did?
_Rosse._ Alas, poor country!
Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot
Be call'd our mother, but our grave: where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;
Where sighs and groans, and shrieks that rent the air,
Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstasy; the dead man's knell
Is there scarce ask'd, for who; and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying, or ere they sicken."
NORTH.
Words known to all the world, yet coming on the ear of each individual
listener with force unweaken'd by familiarity, power increased by
repetition, as it will be over all Scottish breasts _in secula
seculorum_.
TALBOYS.
By Heavens! he smiles! There is a sarcastic smile on that
incomprehensible face of yours, sir--of which no man in this Tent, I am
sure, may divine the reason.
NORTH.
I was not aware of it. Now, my dear Talboys, let us here endeavour
to ascertain Shakspeare's Time. Here we have long time with a
vengeance--_and here we have short time_; FOR THIS IS THE PICTURE OF
THE STATE OF POOR SCOTLAND BEFORE THE MURDER OF MACDUFF'S WIFE AND
CHILDREN.
BULLER.
What?
SEWARD.
Eh?
NORTH.
Macduff, moved by Rosse's words, asks him, you know, Talboys, "how does
my wife?" And then ensues the affecting account of her murder, which
you need not recite. Now, I ask, when was the murder of Lady Macduff
perpetrated? Two days--certainly not more--after the murder of Banquo.
Macbeth, incensed by the flight of Fleance, goes, the morning after
the murder of Banquo, to the Weirds, to know by "the worst means, the
worst." You know what they showed him--and that, as they vanished, he
exclaimed--
"Where are they? Gone?--Let this pernicious hour
Stand aye accursed in the calendar!--
Come in, without there!
_Enter_ LENOX.
_Len._ What's your grace's will?
_Macb._ Saw you the weird sisters?
_Len._ No, my lord.
_Macb._ Came they not by you?
_Len._ No, indeed, my lord.
_Macb._ Infected be the air whereon they ride;
And damn'd all those that trust them!--I did hear
The galloping of horse: Who was't came by?
_Len._ 'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word,
MACDUFF IS FLED TO ENGLAND.
_Macb._ Fled to England?
_Len._ Ay, my good lord.
_Macb._ Time, thou anticipat'st my dread exploits:
The flighty purpose never is o'ertook,
Unless the deed go with it: from this moment,
The very firstlings of my heart shall be
The firstlings of my hand. And even now
To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done:
The castle of Macduff I will surprise;
Seize upon Fife; give to the edge o' the sword
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls
That trace his line. No boasting like a fool:
This deed I'll do, before this purpose cool."
And his purpose does not cool--for the whole Family are murdered. When,
then, took place the murder of Banquo? Why, a week or two after the
Murder of Duncan. A very short time indeed, then, intervened between
the first and the last of these Murders. And yet from those pictures
of Scotland, painted in England for our information and horror, we
have before us a long, long time, all filled up with butchery over
all the land! But I say there had been no such butchery--or anything
resembling it. There was, as yet, little amiss with Scotland. Look at
the _linking_ of Acts II. and III. End of Act II., Macbeth is gone
to Scone--to be invested. Beginning of Act III., Banquo says, in
soliloquy, in Palace of Fores, "Thou hast it _now_." I ask, when is
_this_ NOW? Assuredly just after the Coronation. The Court was moved
from Scone to Fores, which, we may gather from finding Duncan there
formerly, to be the usual Royal Residence. "Enter Macbeth as King."
"Our great Feast"--our "solemn Supper"--"this day's Council"--all have
the aspect of new taking on the style of Royalty. "Thou hast it NOW,"
is formal--weighed--and in a position that gives it authority--at the
very beginning of an Act--therefore intended to mark time--a very
pointing of the finger on the dial.
BULLER.
Good image--short and apt.
TALBOYS.
Let me perpend.
BULLER.
Do, sir, let him perpend.
NORTH.
Banquo _fears_ "Thou play'dst most foully for it;" he goes no
farther--not a word of any tyranny done. All the style of an incipient,
_dangerous_ Rule--clouds, but no red rain yet. And I need not point
out to you, Talboys, who carry Shakspeare unnecessarily in a secret
pocket of that strange Sporting Jacket, which the more I look at it
the greater is my wonder--that Macbeth's behaviour at the Banquet, on
seeing Banquo nodding at him from his own stool, proves him to have
been _then_ young in blood.
"My strange and self-abuse
Is the initiate fear that wants hard use.
We are yet but young in deed."
He had a week or two before committed a first-rate murder,
Duncan's--that night he had, by hired hands, got a second-rate job
done, Banquo's--and the day following he gave orders for a bloody
business on a more extended scale, the Macduffs. But nothing here
the least like Rosse's, or Macduff's, or Malcolm's Picture of
Scotland--during those few weeks. For Shakspeare forgot what the true
time was--his own time--_the short time_; and introduced _long time
at the same time_--why, he himself no doubt knew--and you no doubt,
Talboys, know also--and will you have the goodness to tell the "why" to
the Tent?
TALBOYS.
In ten minutes. Are you done?
NORTH.
Not quite. Meanwhile--Two Clocks are going at once--which of the two
gives the true time of Day?
BULLER.
Short and apt. Go on, Sir.
NORTH.
I call that an ASTOUNDING DISCOVERY. Macduff speaks as if he knew that
Scotland had been for ever so long desolated by the Tyrant--and yet
till Rosse told him, never had he heard of the Murder of his own Wife!
Here Shakspeare either forgot himself wholly, and the short time he had
himself assigned--or, with his eyes open, forced in the _long time_
upon the _short_--in wilful violation of possibility! All silent?
TALBOYS.
After supper--you shall be answered.
NORTH.
Not by any man now sitting here--or elsewhere.
TALBOYS.
That remains to be heard.
NORTH.
Pray, Talboys, explain to me _this_. The Banquet scene breaks up in
most admired disorder--"stand not upon the order of your going--but go
at once,"--quoth the Queen. The King, in a state of great excitement,
says to her--
"I will to-morrow,
(Betimes I will,) unto the weird sisters:
More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,
By the worst means, the worst: for mine own good,
All causes shall give way; I am in blood
Stept in so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er."
One might have thought not quite so tedious; as yet he had murdered
only Duncan and his grooms, and to-night Banquo. Well, he does go
"to-morrow and by times" to the Cave.
"_Witch._--By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes:
Open, locks, whoever knocks.
_Macbeth._--How now, you secret, Black, and midnight Hags?"
It is a "dark Cave"--dark at all times--and now "by times" of the
morning! Now--observe--Lenox goes along with Macbeth--on such occasions
'tis natural to wish "one of ourselves" to be at hand. And Lenox had
been at the Banquet. Had he gone to bed after that strange Supper? No
doubt, for an hour or two--like the rest of "the Family." But whether
he went to bed or not, _then and there_ he and another Lord had a
confidential and miraculous conversation.
TALBOYS.
Miraculous! What's miraculous about it?
NORTH.
Lenox says to the other Lord--
"_My former speeches_ have but hit your thoughts,
Which can interpret further; only, I say,
Things have been strangely borne: the gracious Duncan
Was pitied of Macbeth--marry he was dead.
_And the right valiant Banquo walked too late;
Whom, you may say, if it please you, Fleance killed,
For Fleance fled._"
Who told him all this about Banquo and Fleance? He speaks of it
quite familiarly to the "other lord," as a thing well known in all
its bearings. But not a soul but Macbeth, and the Three Murderers
themselves, could possibly have known anything about it! As for Banquo,
"Safe in a ditch he bides,"--and Fleance had fled. The body may,
perhaps in a few days, be found, and, though "with twenty trenched
gashes on its head," identified as Banquo's, and, in a few weeks,
Fleance may turn up in Wales. Nay, the Three Murderers may confess.
But now all is hush; and Lenox, unless endowed with second sight, or
clairvoyance, could know nothing of the murder. Yet, from his way
of speaking of it, one might imagine crowner's 'quest had sitten
on the body--and the report been in the _Times_ between supper and
that after-supper confab! I am overthrown--everted--subverted--the
contradiction is flagrant--the impossibility monstrous--I swoon.
BULLER.
Water--water.
NORTH.
Thank you, Buller. That's revivifying--I see now all objects
distinctly. Where was I? O, ay. The "other Lord" seems as warlock-wise
as Lenox--for he looks forward to times when
"We may again
Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights;
_Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives_."
An allusion, beyond doubt, to the murder of Banquo! A sudden thought
strikes me. Why, not only must the real, actual, spiritual, corporeal
Ghost of Banquo _sate on the stool_, but "Lenox and the other Lord," as
well as Macbeth, _saw him_.
BULLER.
Are you serious, sir?
NORTH.
So serious that I can scarcely hope to recover my usual spirits to-day.
Have you, gentlemen, among you any more plausible solution to offer?
All mum. One word more with you. Lenox tells the "other Lord"
"From broad words, and 'cause he fail'd
His presence at the tyrant's feast, I hear,
MACDUFF LIVES IN DISGRACE; SIR, CAN YOU TELL
WHERE HE BESTOWS HIMSELF?"
And the "other Lord," who is wonderfully well informed for a person
"strictly anonymous," replies that Macduff--
"Is gone to pray the holy king, (Edward) on his aid
To wake Northumberland, and warlike Siward."
Nay, he minutely describes Macduff's surly reception of the King's
messenger, sent to invite him to the Banquet, and the happy style of
that official on getting the Thane of Fife's "absolute, Sir, not I,"
and D. I. O.! And the same nameless "Lord in waiting" says to Lenox,
that
"_this report
Hath so exasperate the king, that he
Prepares for some attempt of war_."
I should like to know first where and when these two gifted individuals
picked up all this information? The king himself had told the Queen,
that same night, that he had _not sent_ to Macduff--but that he had
heard "by the way" that he was not coming to the Banquet--and he only
_learns_ the flight of Macduff after the Cauldron Scene--that is at end
of it:--
"_Macbeth._ Come in, without there!
_Enter Lenox._
_Lenox._ What's your Grace's will?
_Macbeth._ Saw you the Weird Sisters?
_Lenox._ No, indeed, my Lord.
_Macbeth._ Infected be the air whereon they ride;
And damn'd all those that trust them!--I did hear
The galloping of horse: Who was't came by?
_Lenox._ _'Tis two or three, my Lord, that bring you word_,
MACDUFF IS FLED TO ENGLAND.
_Macbeth._ FLED TO ENGLAND?"
For an Usurper and Tyrant, his Majesty is singularly ill-informed about
the movements of his most dangerous Thanes! But Lenox, I think, must
have been not a little surprised at that moment to find that, so far
from the _exasperated_ Tyrant having "_prepared for some attempt of
war_" with England--he had not till then positively known that Macduff
had fled! I pause, as a man pauses who has no more to say--not for a
reply. But to be sure, Talboys will reply to anything--and were I to
say that the Moon is made of green cheese, he would say--yellow--
TALBOYS.
If of weeping Parmesan, then I--of the "cheese without a tear"--Double
Gloster.
NORTH.
The whole Dialogue between Lenox and the Lord is _miraculous_. It
abounds with knowledge of events that had not happened--and _could
not_ have happened--on the showing of Shakspeare himself; but I do
not believe that there is another man now alive who knows that Lenox
and the "other Lord" are caught up and strangled in that _noose of
Time_. Did the Poet? You would think, from the way they go on, that
one ground of war, one motive of Macduff's going, is the murder of
Banquo--perpetrated since he is gone off!
TALBOYS.
Eh?
NORTH.
Gentlemen, I have given you a specimen or two of Shakspeare's way of
dealing with Time--and I can elicit no reply. You are one and all
dumbfoundered. What will you be--where will you be--when I--
BULLER.
Have announced "all my astounding discoveries!" and where, also, will
be poor Shakspeare--where his Critics?
NORTH.
Friends, Countrymen, and Romans, lend me your ears! A dazzling spell
is upon us that veils from our apprehension all incompatibilities--all
impossibilities--for he dips the Swan-quill in Power--and Power is
that which you must accept from him, and so to the utter oblivion,
while we read or behold, of them all. To go to work with such inquiries
is to try to articulate thunder. What do I intend? That Shakspeare
is only to be _thus_ criticised? Apollo forbid--forbid the Nine! I
intend Prologomena to the Criticism of Shakspeare. I intend mowing
and burning the brambles before ploughing the soil. I intend showing
where we must not look for the Art and the Genius of Shakspeare, as a
step to discovering where we must. I suspect--I know--that Criticism
has oscillated from one extreme to another, in the mind of the
country--from denying all art, to acknowledging consummated art, and no
flaw. I would find the true Point. Stamped and staring upon the front
of these Tragedies is a conflict. He, the Poet, beholds Life--he, the
Poet, is on the Stage. The littleness of the Globe Theatre mixes with
the greatness of human affairs. You think of the Green-room and the
Scene-shifters. I think that when we have stripped away the disguises
and incumbrances of the Power, we shall see, naked, and strong, and
beautiful, the statue moulded by Jupiter.
_Printed by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh._
Transcriber's Notes:
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical and spelling errors were corrected.
Italics markup is denoted by _underscores_.
Bold markup is denoted by =equals=.
Rendered the cypher on p. 559 as Gs over numerals.
Added anchor for unanchored footnote on p. 567.