Of "Macbeth" I have already spoken once in passing; and who could
exhaust the praises of this sublime work? Since the "Eumenides" of
Æschylus nothing so grand and terrible has ever been written. The
witches are not, it is true, divine Eumenides, and are not intended to
be; they are ignoble and vulgar instruments of hell. A German poet,
therefore, very ill understood their meaning when he transformed them
into mongrel beings, a mixture of fates, furies, and enchantresses,
and clothed them with tragic dignity. Let no man venture to lay hand
on Shakespeare's works thinking to improve anything essential: he will
be sure to punish himself. The bad is radically odious, and to
endeavor in any manner to ennoble it, is to violate the laws of
propriety. Hence, in my opinion, Dante, and even Tasso, have been much
more successful in their portraiture of demons than Milton.
[Footnote 21: From the "Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature."
Translated by John Black, the translation being revised by A. J. W.
Morrison. Madame de Staël heard these lectures delivered in Vienna,
and in her work on Germany says she was "astonished to hear a critic
as eloquent as an orator."]
Whether the age of Shakespeare still believed in ghosts and witches is
a matter of perfect indifference for the justification of the use
which in "Hamlet" and "Macbeth" he has made of preexisting traditions.
No superstition can be widely diffused without having a foundation in
human nature: on this the poet builds; he calls up from their hidden
abysses that dread of the unknown, and presage of a dark side of
nature, and a world of spirits, which philosophy now imagines it has
altogether exploded. In this manner he is in some degree both the
portrayer and the philosopher of superstition; that is, not the
philosopher who denies and turns it into ridicule, but, what is still
more difficult, who distinctly exhibits its origin in apparently
irrational and yet natural opinions. But when he ventures to make
arbitrary changes in these popular traditions he altogether forfeits
his right to them, and merely holds up his idle fancies to our
ridicule. Shakespeare's picture of the witches is truly magical: in
the short scenes where they enter he has created for them a peculiar
language, which, altho composed of the usual elements, still seems to
be a collection of formulæ of incantation. The sound of the words, the
accumulation of rimes, and the rhythm of the verse form, as it were,
the hollow music of a dreary witch-dance. He has been abused for using
the names of disgusting objects; but he who fancies the kettle of the
witches can be made effective with agreeable aromatics is as wise as
those who desire that hell should sincerely and honestly give good
advice. These repulsive things, from which the imagination shrinks,
are here emblems of the hostile powers which operate in nature; and
the repugnance of our senses is outweighed by the mental horror. With
one another the witches discourse like women of the very lowest class;
for this was the class to which witches were ordinarily supposed to
belong: when, however, they address Macbeth they assume a loftier
tone: their predictions, which they either themselves pronounce, or
allow their apparitions to deliver, have all the obscure brevity, the
majestic solemnity, of oracles.
We here see that the witches are merely instruments; they are governed
by an invisible spirit, or the operation of such great and dreadful
events would be above their sphere. With what intent did Shakespeare
assign the same place to them in his play which they occupy in the
history of Macbeth as related in the old chronicles? A monstrous crime
is committed: Duncan, a venerable old man, and the best of kings, is,
in defenseless sleep, under the hospitable roof, murdered by his
subject, whom he has loaded with honors and rewards. Natural motives
alone seem inadequate, or the perpetrator must have been portrayed as
a hardened villain. Shakespeare wished to exhibit a more sublime
picture--an ambitious but noble hero yielding to a deep-laid hellish
temptation, and in whom all the crimes to which, in order to secure
the fruits of his first crime, he is impelled by necessity, can not
altogether eradicate the stamp of native heroism. He has, therefore,
given a threefold division to the guilt of that crime. The first idea
comes from that being whose whole activity is guided by a lust of
wickedness.
The weird sisters surprize Macbeth in the moment of intoxication of
victory, when his love of glory has been gratified; they cheat his
eyes by exhibiting to him as the work of fate what in reality can be
accomplished only by his own deed, and gain credence for all their
words by the immediate fulfilment of the first prediction. The
opportunity of murdering the King immediately offers; the wife of
Macbeth conjures him not to let it slip; she urges him on with a fiery
eloquence which has at command all those sophisms that serve to throw
a false splendor over crime.
Little more than the mere execution falls to the share of Macbeth; he
is driven into it, as it were, in a tumult of fascination. Repentance
immediately follows, nay, even precedes, the deed, and the stings of
conscience leave him rest neither night nor day. But he is now fairly
entangled in the snares of hell; truly frightful is it to behold that
same Macbeth, who once as a warrior could spurn at death, now that he
dreads the prospect of the life to come, clinging with growing anxiety
to his earthly existence the more miserable it becomes, and pitilessly
removing out of the way whatever to his dark and suspicious mind seems
to threaten danger. However much we may abhor his actions, we can not
altogether refuse to compassionate the state of his mind; we lament
the ruin of so many noble qualities, and even in his last defense we
are compelled to admire the struggle of a brave will with a cowardly
conscience. We might believe that we witness in this tragedy the
overruling destiny of the ancients represented in perfect accordance
with their ideas: the whole originates in a supernatural influence, to
which the subsequent events seem inevitably linked. Moreover, we even
find here the same ambiguous oracles which, by their literal
fulfilment, deceive those who confide in them.
Yet it may be easily shown that the poet has, in his work, displayed
more enlightened views. He wishes to show that the conflict of good
and evil in this world can only take place by the permission of
Providence, which converts the curse that individual mortals draw down
on their heads into a blessing to others. An accurate scale is
followed in the retaliation.
Lady Macbeth, who of all the human participators in the King's murder
is the most guilty, is thrown by the terrors of her conscience into a
state of incurable bodily and mental disease; she dies, unlamented by
her husband, with all the symptoms of reprobation. Macbeth is still
found worthy to die the death of a hero on the field of battle. The
noble Macduff is allowed the satisfaction of saving his country by
punishing with his own hand the tyrant who had murdered his wife and
children. Banquo, by an early death, atones for the ambitious
curiosity which prompted the wish to know his glorious descendants, as
he thereby has roused Macbeth's jealousy; but he preserved his mind
pure from the evil suggestions of the witches: his name is blest in
his race, destined to enjoy for a long succession of ages that royal
dignity which Macbeth could only hold for his own life. In the
progress of the action, the piece is altogether the reverse of
"Hamlet": it strides forward with amazing rapidity, from the first
catastrophe (for Duncan's murder may be called a catastrophe) to the
last. "Thought, and done!" is the general motto; for, as Macbeth says,
"The flighty purpose never is o'ertook
Unless the deed go with it."
In every feature we see an energetic heroic age, in the hardy north
which steels every nerve. The precise duration of the action can not
be ascertained--years, perhaps, according to the story--but we know
that to the imagination the most crowded time appears always the
shortest. Here we can hardly conceive how so very much could ever have
been comprest into so narrow a space; not merely external events, the
very inmost recesses of the minds of the dramatic personages are laid
open to us. It is as if the drags were taken from the wheels of time
and they roll along without interruption in their descent. Nothing can
equal the picture in its power to excite terror. We need only allude
to the circumstances attending the murder of Duncan, the dagger that
hovers before the eyes of Macbeth, the vision of Banquo at the feast,
the madness of Lady Macbeth: what can possibly be said on the subject
that will not rather weaken the impression they naturally leave? Such
scenes stand alone, and are to be found only in this poet; otherwise
the tragic muse might exchange her mask for the head of Medusa.