It is the opinion of Fleay that "'Macbeth,' in its present state, is
an altered copy of the original drama, and the alterations were made
by Middleton." Thomas Middleton wrote twenty-three plays. Among them
was "The Witch," written, perhaps, in 1613, and published in 1617.
Shakspeare's "Macbeth" was first played in 1606. It appears in the
Folio of 1623 for the first time in print, as a more finished acting
copy than the other plays. The divisions of acts and scenes and the
stage directions are carefully marked. The death of Shakspeare occurred
in 1616. It is possible that Middleton was the person who prepared the
Folio copy of "Macbeth." Scarce a trace, however, of his own style
can be suspected; for there is only occasionally a verbal similarity
of the charms and incantations employed in "Macbeth" and "The Witch"
of later date. In Act iii. 5, the burden of the song, "Come away,
come away," and, in Act iv. 1, the song, "Black spirits," &c., are to
be found in "The Witch:" the latter is merely indicated as a stage
direction in "Macbeth." In Act i. 1, we are reminded of Middleton in
"I come, Graymalkin!"[19] and "Paddock calls." He may have shoved his
"Malkin" into that first chant of the witches, and spoiled its metre.
But although the introduction of Hecate, in Act iii. 5, is said to be
not Shakspearean enough in relevancy to the play, it is altogether too
Shakspearean in style for Middleton, who never could have written,--
"Great business must be wrought ere noon:
Upon the corner of the moon
There hangs a _vaporous drop profound_;
I'll catch it ere it come to ground:
And that, distill'd by magic sleights,
Shall raise such artificial sprites
As by the strength of their illusion
Shall draw him on to his confusion."
And we must notice that Hecate thus introduces and accounts for the
"artificial sprites,"--the apparitions which deceive Macbeth in Act
iv. 1, and entice him to "be bloody, bold, and resolute." This scene
is certainly Shakspeare's. It is therefore probable that he would have
preceded it by some inkling of the deceptive nature of the armed head,
the bloody child, and the child crowned.
On the ground of an apparently un-Shakspearean style of metre in Act
i. 2, which introduces the wounded sergeant, several commentators
credit that scene also to Middleton. It is said to be too slovenly and
bombastic for Shakspeare.
It is unsafe to limit the critical treatment of Shakspeare's verse to
metrical or verbal tests. Æsthetic emergencies will sometimes overrule
the decisions of the sharpest critics who construct Shakspeare out
of reputed peculiarities of his style. He escapes from them to be
raggeder than we think is personal to him, broader than our taste can
tolerate, more thin or more fulsome than his grandest tone, whenever
occasion summons traits which fit into a deeper consistency than that
of style. Then, if the critic of metrical and verbal niceties is not
also a human observer, or is too much preoccupied with his theory of
the Shakspearean method, he will be apt to disparage some prescriptions
of Nature.
It is also a very common procedure to illustrate the excellences of
Shakspeare by comparing them with the inferior work of the contemporary
dramatists. Either Shakspeare at his best ought to be matched with
the other playwrights at their best, or else we ought to concede that
his occasional weaknesses, which are like theirs, are not theirs,
but his own. It is absurd to keep Shakspeare posturing incessantly
in the finest attitude of the several periods of his style. During
the Elizabethan age, England's soil stood thick with true poets whose
fragrance often makes us suspect that Shakspeare is near. It is
dangerous to be too positive upon the matter of sentiment as well as
style. Take for an instance this:--
"I am so light
At any mischief, there's no villainy
But is a tune methinks."
That lightness of heart is Middleton's. It is stray pollen from the
garden of Shakspeare. But nothing is fructified: there is no tune in
the villainous stuff which precedes and follows.
The wounded sergeant easily justifies his mangled metre and ragged
pomposity of style. We should suspect a more polished messenger of
shamming faintness from loss of blood. He talks exactly as a common
soldier should who is fresh from the great fight, puffed up with
"valor's minion," and steadying himself upon reeking lines to deliver
his message of victory. Middleton could not have so caught the color of
the moment.
It is also supposed that Middleton wrote the scene, because when Ross
enters he tells the King that
"Norway himself, with terrible numbers,
Assisted by that most disloyal traitor
The thane of Cawdor, 'gan a dismal conflict."
A discrepancy is charged between this and the report of Angus, in Scene
3 (acknowledged to be Shakspeare's), who enters with Ross, and says,
concerning the thane of Cawdor,--
"Whether he was combin'd
With those of Norway; or did line the rebel
With hidden help and vantage; or that with both
He labour'd in his country's wreck, I know not."
Perhaps Ross did not either. But he knew that Cawdor "assisted." He did
not say that he was personally engaged in the fight.
The opening chant of the witches is denied to Shakspeare by one critic,
because it seems to occupy the opening scene merely to inform us that
they are to meet somewhere again; and by another it is attributed to
Middleton because it does not flow in the usual trochaic manner of
Shakspeare, and contains imperfect lines. Middleton may have Paddock
and Graymalkin for his share in the attempt to spoil this grand chant,
whose accent ought to have sung Shakspeare's feeling into the critic's
ear; for so the foot of Fate would fall in order to pitch the key of
the tragedy, and lead its crime into our presence. Its measured step
seems to issue out of some foreboding by Macbeth of his ambition's
purpose. The weird sisters are not merely enjoying a thunderstorm, and
wondering when they shall meet again in similar favorable weather.
Their lips put a stress of destiny upon every syllable. The poet's pen
unconsciously follows in their traces.
The same metre is employed in the "Tempest" and "Midsummer-Night's
Dream," by Ariel, Oberon, and Puck, when they are on sublunary
business. But they
"Foot it featly here and there:"
the lines skim or flutter, and do not tread. The accent is not so
persistent: it does not sound like the hinge on which a pause swings
open to admit the foot of a thing that is burdened with a solemn
message. On the blasted heath of Macbeth, the verses of Ariel would be
like a strayed butterfly:--
"Where the bee sucks, there suck I."
He spurs the omen out of owls and bats, and rides them away from the
chill of the evening, "after summer, merrily." Prospero, hearing him
sing, says, "That's my dainty Ariel." Puck likewise, too mercurial for
chanting, carols with a broom on his shoulder to make a clean sweep of
mischief:--
"And we fairies, that do run
By the triple Hecate's team,
From the presence of the sun,
Following darkness like a dream,
Now are frolic."
The lines go lilting like a little boat over the accent which can
hardly raise a ripple. It is a supernature in the best of humor,
beguiling or blessing men and women in a dulcet style.
But the witches chant holding torches of the lightning while the
thunder slowly scans their verse:--
1 WITCH. When shall we three meet again,
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
2 WITCH. When the hurlyburly's done,
When the battle's lost and won.