MACBETH

"The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;

And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name."

MACBETH and _Lear_, _Othello_ and _Hamlet_, are usually reckoned

Shakspeare's four principal tragedies. _Lear_ stands first for the

profound intensity of the passion; _Macbeth_ for the wildness of the

imagination and the rapidity of the action; _Othello_ for the progressive

interest and powerful alternations of feeling: _Hamlet_ for the refined

development of thought and sentiment. If the force of genius shewn in each

of these works is astonishing, their variety is not less so. They are like

different creations of the same mind, not one of which has the slightest

reference lo the rest. This distinctness and originality is indeed the

necessary consequence of truth and nature. Shakspeare's genius alone

appeared to possess the resources of nature. He is "your only

_tragedy-maker_." His plays have the force of things upon the mind. What

he represents is brought home to the bosom as a part of our experience,

implanted in the memory as if we had known the places, persons, and things

of which he treats. Macbeth is like a record of a preternatural and

tragical event. It has the rugged severity of an old chronicle with all

that the imagination of the poet can engraft upon traditional belief. The

castle of Macbeth, round which "the air smells wooingly," and where "the

temple-haunting martlet builds," has a real subsistence in the mind; the

Weird Sisters meet us in person on "the blasted heath;" the "air-drawn

dagger" moves slowly before our eyes; the "gracious Duncan," the

"blood-boultered Banquo" stand before us; all that passed through the mind

of Macbeth passes, without the loss of a tittle, through our's. All that

could actually take place, and all that is only possible to be conceived,

what was said and what was done, the workings of passion, the spells of

magic, are brought before us with the same absolute truth and

vividness.--Shakspeare excelled in the openings of his plays: that of

MACBETH is the most striking of any. The wildness of the scenery, the

sudden shifting of the situations and characters, the bustle, the

expectations excited, are equally extraordinary. From the first entrance

of the Witches and the description of them when they meet Macbeth,

----"What are these

So wither'd and so wild in their attire.

That look not like the inhabitants of th' earth

And yet are on't?"

the mind is prepared for all that follows.

This tragedy is alike distinguished for the lofty imagination it displays,

and for the tumultuous vehemence of the action; and the one is made the

moving principle of the other. The overwhelming pressure of preternatural

agency urges on the tide of human passion with redoubled force. Macbeth

himself appears driven along by the violence of his fate like a vessel

drifting before a storm: he reels to and fro like a drunken man; he

staggers under the weight of his own purposes and the suggestions of

others; he stands at bay with his situation; and from the superstitious

awe and breathless suspense into which the communications of the Weird

Sisters throw him, is hurried on with daring impatience to verify their

predictions, and with impious and bloody hand to tear aside the veil which

hides the uncertainty of the future. He is not equal to the struggle with

fate and conscience. He now "bends up each corporal instrument to the

terrible feat;" at other times his heart misgives him, and he is cowed and

abashed by his success. "The deed, no less than the attempt, confounds

him." His mind is assailed by the stings of remorse, and full of

"preternatural solicitings." His speeches and soliloquies are dark riddles

on human life, baffling solution, and entangling him in their labyrinths.

In thought he is absent and perplexed, sudden and desperate in act, from a

distrust of his own resolution. His energy springs from the anxiety and

agitation of his mind. His blindly rushing forward on the objects of his

ambition and revenge, or his recoiling from them, equally betrays the

harassed state of his feelings,--This part of his character is admirably

set off by being brought in connection with that of Lady Macbeth, whose

obdurate strength of will and masculine firmness give her the ascendancy

over her husband's faultering virtue. She at once seizes on the

opportunity that offers for the accomplishment of all their wished-for

greatness, and never flinches from her object till all is over. The

magnitude of her resolution almost covers the magnitude of her guilt. She

is a great bad woman, whom we hate, but whom we fear more than we hate.

She does not excite our loathing and abhorrence like Regan and Gonerill.

She is only wicked to gain a great end; and is perhaps more distinguished

by her commanding presence of mind and inexorable self-will, which do not

suffer her to be diverted from a bad purpose, when once formed, by weak

and womanly regrets, than by the hardness of her heart or want of natural

affections. The impression which her lofty determination of character

makes on the mind of Macbeth is well described where he exclaims,

----"Bring forth men children only;

For thy undaunted mettle should compose

Nothing but males!"

Nor do the pains she is at to "screw his courage to the sticking-place,"

the reproach to him, not to be "lost so poorly in himself," the assurance

that "a little water clears them of this deed," shew anything but her

greater consistency in depravity. Her strong-nerved ambition furnishes

ribs of steel to "the sides of his intent;" and she is herself wound up to

the execution of her baneful project with the same unshrinking fortitude

in crime, that in other circumstances she would probably have shewn

patience in suffering. The deliberate sacrifice of all other

considerations to the gaining "for their future days and nights sole

sovereign sway and masterdom," by the murder of Duncan, is gorgeously

expressed in her invocation on hearing of "his fatal entrance under her

battlements:"--

----"Come all you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here:

And fill me, from the crown to th' toe, top-full

Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood,

Stop up the access and passage to remorse,

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

The effect and it. Come to my woman's breasts,

And take my milk for gall, you murthering ministers,

Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature's mischief. Come, thick night!

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,

Nor heav'n peep through the blanket of the dark,

To cry, hold, hold!"----

When she first hears that "Duncan comes there to sleep" she is so overcome

by the news, which is beyond her utmost expectations, that she answers the

messenger, "Thou'rt mad to say it:" and on receiving her husband's account

of the predictions of the Witches, conscious of his instability of

purpose, and that her presence is necessary to goad him on to the

consummation of his promised greatness, she exclaims--

----"Hie thee hither,

That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,

And chastise with the valour of my tongue

All that impedes thee from the golden round,

Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem

To have thee crowned withal."

This swelling exultation and keen spirit of triumph, this uncontroulable

eagerness of anticipation, which seems to dilate her form and take

possession of all her faculties, this solid, substantial flesh and blood

display of passion, exhibit a striking contrast to the cold, abstracted,

gratuitous, servile malignity of the Witches, who are equally instrumental

in urging Macbeth to his fate for the mere love of mischief, and from a

disinterested delight in deformity and cruelty. They are hags of mischief,

obscene panders to iniquity, malicious from their impotence of enjoyment,

enamoured of destruction, because they are themselves unreal, abortive,

half-existences--who become sublime from their exemption from all human

sympathies and contempt for all human affairs, as Lady Macbeth does by the

force of passion! Her fault seems to have been an excess of that strong

principle of self-interest and family aggrandisement, not amenable to the

common feelings of compassion and justice, which is so marked a feature in

barbarous nations and times. A passing reflection of this kind, on the

resemblance of the sleeping king to her father, alone prevents her from

slaying Duncan with her own hand.

In speaking of the character of Lady Macbeth, we ought not to pass over

Mrs. Siddons's manner of acting that part. We can conceive of nothing

grander. It was something above nature. It seemed almost as if a being of

a superior order had dropped from a higher sphere to awe the world with

the majesty of her appearance. Power was seated on her brow, passion

emanated from her breast as from a shrine; she was tragedy personified. In

coming on in the sleeping-scene, her eyes were open, but their sense was

shut. She was like a person bewildered and unconscious of what she did.

Her lips moved involuntarily--all her gestures were involuntary and

mechanical. She glided on and off the stage like an apparition. To have

seen her in that character was an event in every one's life, not to be

forgotten.

The dramatic beauty of the character of Duncan, which excites the respect

and pity even of his murderers, has been often pointed out. It forms a

picture of itself. An instance of the author's power of giving a striking

effect to a common reflection, by the manner of introducing it, occurs in

a speech of Duncan, complaining of his having been deceived in his opinion

of the Thane of Cawdor, at the very moment that he is expressing the most

unbounded confidence in the loyalty and services of Macbeth.

"There is no art

To find the mind's construction in the face:

He was a gentleman, on whom I built

An absolute trust.

O worthiest cousin, (_addressing himself to Macbeth._)

The sin of my Ingratitude e'en now

Was great upon me," etc.

Another passage to shew that Shakspeare lost sight of nothing that could

in any way give relief or heightening to his subject, is the conversation

which takes place between Banquo and Fleance immediately before the

murder-scene of Duncan.

"_Banquo._ How goes the night, boy?

_Fleance._ The moon is down: I have not heard the clock.

_Banquo._ And she goes down at twelve.

_Fleance._ I take't, 'tis later, Sir.

_Banquo._ Hold, take my sword. There's husbandry in heav'n,

Their candles are all out.--

A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,

And yet I would not sleep: Merciful Powers,

Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature

Gives way to in repose."

In like manner, a fine idea is given of the gloomy coming on of evening,

just as Banquo is going to be assassinated.

"Light thickens and the crow

Makes wing to the rooky wood."

* * * *

"Now spurs the lated traveller apace

To gain the timely inn."

MACBETH (generally speaking) is done upon a stronger and more systematic

principle of contrast than any other of Shakspeare's plays. It moves upon

the verge of an abyss, and is a constant struggle between life and death.

The action is desperate and the reaction is dreadful. It is a huddling

together of fierce extremes, a war of opposite natures which of them shall

destroy the other. There is nothing but what has a violent end or violent

beginnings. The lights and shades are laid on with a determined hand; the

transitions from triumph to despair, from the height of terror to the

repose of death, are sudden and startling; every passion brings in its

fellow-contrary, and the thoughts pitch and jostle against each other as

in the dark. The whole play is an unruly chaos of strange and forbidden

things, where the ground rocks under our feet. Shakspeare's genius here

took its full swing, and trod upon the farthest bounds of nature and

passion. This circumstance will account for the abruptness and violent

antitheses of the style, the throes and labour which run through the

expression, and from defects will turn them into beauties. "So fair and

foul a day I have not seen," etc. "Such welcome and unwelcome news

together." "Men's lives are like the flowers in their caps, dying or ere

they sicken." "Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under

it." The scene before the castle-gate follows the appearance of the

Witches on the heath, and is followed by a midnight murder. Duncan is cut

off betimes by treason leagued with witchcraft, and Macduff is ripped

untimely from his mother's womb to avenge his death. Macbeth, after the

death of Banquo, wishes for his presence in extravagant terms, "To him and

all we thirst," and when his ghost appears, cries out, "Avaunt and quit my

sight," and being gone, he is "himself again." Macbeth resolves to get rid

of Macduff, that "he may sleep in spite of thunder;" and cheers his wife

on the doubtful intelligence of Banquo's taking-off with the

encouragement--"Then be thou jocund: ere the bat has flown his cloistered

flight; ere to black Hecate's summons the shard-born beetle has rung

night's yawning peal, there shall be done--a deed of dreadful note." In

Lady Macbeth's speech "Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had

done 't," there is murder and filial piety together; and in urging him to

fulfil his vengeance against the defenceless king, her thoughts spare the

blood neither of infants nor old age. The description of the Witches is

full of the same contradictory principle; they "rejoice when good kings

bleed," they are neither of the earth nor the air, but both; they "should

be women, but their beards forbid it;" they take all the pains possible to

lead Macbeth on to the height of his ambition, only to betray him "in

deeper consequence," and after showing him all the pomp of their art,

discover their malignant delight in his disappointed hopes, by that bitter

taunt. "Why stands Macbeth thus amazedly?" We might multiply such

instances every where.

The leading features in the character of Macbeth are striking enough, and

they form what may be thought at first only a bold, rude, Gothic outline.

By comparing it with other characters of the same author we shall perceive

the absolute truth and identity which is observed in the midst of the

giddy whirl and rapid career of events. Macbeth in Shakspeare no more

loses his identity of character in the fluctuations of fortune or the

storm of passion, than Macbeth in himself would have lost the identity of

his person. Thus he is as distinct a being from Richard III. as it is

possible to imagine, though these two characters in common hands, and

indeed in the hands of any other poet, would have been a repetition of the

same general idea, more or less exaggerated. For both are tyrants,

usurpers, murderers, both aspiring and ambitious, both courageous, cruel,

treacherous. But Richard is cruel from nature and constitution. Macbeth

becomes so from accidental circumstances. Richard is from his birth

deformed in body and mind, and naturally incapable of good. Macbeth is

full of "the milk of human kindness," is frank, sociable, generous. He is

tempted to the commission of guilt by golden opportunities, by the

instigations of his wife, and by prophetic warnings. Fate and metaphysical

aid conspire against his virtue and his loyalty. Richard on the contrary

needs no prompter, but wades through a series of crimes to the height of

his ambition from the ungovernable violence of his temper and a reckless

love of mischief. He is never gay but in the prospect or in the success of

his villainies: Macbeth is full of horror at the thoughts of the murder of

Duncan, which he is with difficulty prevailed on to commit, and of remorse

after its perpetration. Richard has no mixture of common humanity in his

composition, no regard to kindred or posterity, he owns no fellowship with

others, he is "himself alone." Macbeth is not destitute of feelings of

sympathy, is accessible to pity, is even made in some measure the dupe of

his uxoriousness, ranks the loss of friends, of the cordial love of his

followers, and of his good name, among the causes which have made him

weary of life, and regrets that he has ever seized the crown by unjust

means, since he cannot transmit it to his posterity--

"For Banquo's issue have I fil'd my mind--

For them the gracious Duncan have I murther'd,

To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings."

In the agitation of his mind, he envies those whom he has sent to peace.

"Duncan is in his grave; after life's fitful fever he sleeps well."--It is

true, he becomes more callous as he plunges deeper in guilt, "direness is

thus rendered familiar to his slaughterous thoughts," and he in the end

anticipates his wife in the boldness and bloodiness of his enterprises,

while she for want of the same stimulus of action, "is troubled with

thick-coming fancies that rob her of her rest," goes mad and dies. Macbeth

endeavours to escape from reflection on his crimes by repelling their

consequences, and banishes remorse for the past by the meditation of

future mischief. This is not the principle of Richard's cruelty, which

displays the wanton malice of a fiend as much as the frailty of human

passion. Macbeth is goaded on to acts of violence and retaliation by

necessity; to Richard, blood is a pastime.--There are other decisive

differences inherent in the two characters. Richard may be regarded as a

man of the world, a plotting, hardened knave, wholly regardless of

everything but his own ends, and the means to secure them.--Not so

Macbeth. The superstitions of the age, the rude state of society, the

local scenery and customs, all give a wildness and imaginary grandeur to

his character. From the strangeness of the events that surround him, he is

full of amazement and fear; and stands in doubt between the world of

reality and the world of fancy. He sees sights not shewn to mortal eye,

and hears unearthly music. All is tumult and disorder within and without

his mind; his purposes recoil upon himself, are broken and disjointed; he

is the double thrall of his passions and his evil destiny. Richard is not

a character either of imagination or pathos, but of pure self-will. There

is no conflict of opposite feelings in his breast. The apparitions which

he sees only haunt him in his sleep; nor does he live like Macbeth in a

waking dream. Macbeth has considerable energy and manliness of character;

but then he is "subject to all the skyey influences." He is sure of

nothing but the present moment. Richard in the busy turbulence of his

projects never loses his self-possession, and makes use of every

circumstance that happens as an instrument of his long-reaching designs.

In his last extremity we can only regard him as a wild beast taken in the

toils: while we never entirely lose our concern for Macbeth; and he calls

back all our sympathy by that fine close of thoughtful melancholy,

"My way of life is fallen into the sear,

The yellow leaf; and that which should accompany old age,

As honour, troops of friends, I must not look to have;

But in their stead, curses not loud but deep,

Mouth-honour, breath, which the poor heart

Would fain deny, and dare not."

We can conceive a common actor to play Richard tolerably well; we can

conceive no one to play Macbeth properly, or to look like a man that had

encountered the Weird Sisters. All the actors that we have ever seen,

appear as if they had encountered them on the hoards of Covent-garden or

Drury-lane, but not on the heath at Fores, and as if they did not believe

what they had seen. The Witches of MACBETH indeed are ridiculous on the

modern stage, and we doubt if the Furies of AEschylus would be more

respected. The progress of manners and knowledge has an influence on the

stage, and will in time perhaps destroy both tragedy and comedy. Filch's

picking pockets in the _Beggar's Opera_ is not so good a jest as it used

to be: by the force of the police and of philosophy, Lillo's murders and

the ghosts in Shakspeare will become obsolete. At last, there will be

nothing left, good nor bad, to be desired or dreaded, on the theatre or in

real life.--A question has been started with respect to the originality of

Shakspeare's witches, which has been well answered by Mr. Lamb in his

notes to the "Specimens of Early Dramatic Poetry."

"Though some resemblance may be traced between the charms in MACBETH,

and the incantations in this play, (The Witch of Middleton) which is

supposed to have preceded it, this coincidence will not detract much

from the originality of Shakspeare. His Witches are distinguished

from the Witches of Middleton by essential differences. These are

creatures to whom man or woman plotting some dire mischief might

resort for occasional consultation. Those originate deeds of blood,

and begin bad impulses to men. From the moment that their eyes first

meet with Macbeth's, he is spell-bound. That meeting sways his

destiny. He can never break the fascination. These Witches can hurt

the body; those have power over the soul.--Hecate in Middleton has a

son, a low buffoon: the hags of Shakspeare have neither child of

their own, nor seem to be descended from any parent. They are foul

anomalies, of whom we know not whence they are sprung, nor whether

they have beginning or ending. As they are without human passions, so

they seem to be without human relations. They come with thunder and

lightning, and vanish to airy music. This is all we know of

them.--Except Hecate, they have no names, which heightens their

mysteriousness. The names, and some of the properties which Middleton

has given to his hags, excite smiles. The Weird Sisters are serious

things. Their presence cannot co-exist with mirth. But, in a lesser

degree, the Witches of Middleton are fine creations. Their power too

is, in some measure, over the mind. They raise jars, jealousies,

strifes, _like a thick scurf o'er life_."