Chapter 6

Alarum within. Enter, with drum and colours_, LEAR, CORDELIA, _and_ Soldiers, _over the stage; and exeunt._ _Enter_ EDGAR _and_ GLOSTER.

_Edg._ Here, father, take the shadow of this tree For your good host; pray that the right may thrive: If ever I return to you again, I'll bring you comfort.

_Glo._ Grace go with you, sir!

[_Exit_ Edgar

_Alarum and retreat within._ _Re-enter_ EDGAR.

_Edg._ Away, old man; give me thy hand; away! King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta'en: Give me thy hand; come on.

_Glo._ No farther, sir; a man may rot even here.

_Edg._ What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure Their going hence, even as their coming hither: Ripeness is all: come on.

_Glo._ And that's true too. [_Exeunt_.

The battle, it will be seen, is represented only by military music within the tiring-house, which formed the back of the stage. 'The scene,' says Spedding, 'does not change; but 'alarums' are heard, and afterwards a 'retreat,' and on the same field over which that great army has this moment passed, fresh and full of hope, re-appears, with tidings that all is lost, the same man who last left the stage to follow and fight in it.[276] That Shakespeare meant the scene to stand thus, no one who has the true faith will believe.'

Spedding's suggestion is that things are here run together which Shakespeare meant to keep apart. Shakespeare, he thinks, continued Act IV. to the '_exit_ Edgar' after l. 4 of the above passage. Thus, just before the close of the Act, the two British armies and the French army had passed across the stage, and the interest of the audience in the battle about to be fought was raised to a high pitch. Then, after a short interval, Act V. opened with the noise of battle in the distance, followed by the entrance of Edgar to announce the defeat of Cordelia's army. The battle, thus, though not fought on the stage, was shown and felt to be an event of the greatest importance.

Apart from the main objection of the entire want of evidence of so great a change having been made, there are other objections to this idea and to the reasoning on which it is based. (1) The pause at the end of the present Fourth Act is far from 'faulty,' as Spedding alleges it to be; that Act ends with the most melting scene Shakespeare ever wrote; and a pause after it, and before the business of the battle, was perfectly right. (2) The Fourth Act is already much longer than the Fifth (about fourteen columns of the Globe edition against about eight and a half), and Spedding's change would give the Fourth nearly sixteen columns, and the Fifth less than seven. (3) Spedding's proposal requires a much greater alteration in the existing text than he supposed. It does not simply shift the division of the two Acts, it requires the disappearance and re-entrance of the blind Gloster. Gloster, as the text stands, is alone on the stage while the battle is being fought at a distance, and the reference to the tree shows that he was on the main or lower stage. The main stage had no front curtain; and therefore, if Act IV. is to end where Spedding wished it to end, Gloster must go off unaided at its close, and come on again unaided for Act V. And this means that the _whole_ arrangement of the present Act V. Sc. ii. must be changed. If Spedding had been aware of this it is not likely that he would have broached his theory.[277]

It is curious that he does not allude to the one circumstance which throws some little suspicion on the existing text. I mean the contradiction between Edgar's statement that, if ever he returns to his father again, he will bring him comfort, and the fact that immediately afterwards he returns to bring him discomfort. It is possible to explain this psychologically, of course, but the passage is not one in which we should expect psychological subtlety.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 276: Where did Spedding find this? I find no trace of it, and surely Edgar would not have risked his life in the battle, when he had, in case of defeat, to appear and fight Edmund. He does not appear 'armed,' according to the Folio, till V. iii. 117.]

[Footnote 277: Spedding supposed that there was a front curtain, and this idea, coming down from Malone and Collier, is still found in English works of authority. But it may be stated without hesitation that there is no positive evidence at all for the existence of such a curtain, and abundant evidence against it.]

NOTE Y.

SOME DIFFICULT PASSAGES IN _KING LEAR_.

The following are notes on some passages where I have not been able to accept any of the current interpretations, or on which I wish to express an opinion or represent a little-known view.

1. _Kent's soliloquy at the end of_ II. ii.

(_a_) In this speech the application of the words 'Nothing, almost sees miracles but misery' seems not to have been understood. The 'misery' is surely not that of Kent but that of Lear, who has come 'out of heaven's benediction to the warm sun,' _i.e._ to misery. This, says Kent, is just the situation where something like miraculous help may be looked for; and he finds the sign of it in the fact that a letter from Cordelia has just reached him; for his course since his banishment has been so obscured that it is only by the rarest good fortune (something like a miracle) that Cordelia has got intelligence of it. We may suppose that this intelligence came from one of Albany's or Cornwall's servants, some of whom are, he says (III. i. 23),

to France the spies and speculations Intelligent of our state.

(_b_) The words 'and shall find time,' etc., have been much discussed. Some have thought that they are detached phrases from the letter which Kent is reading: but Kent has just implied by his address to the sun that he has no light to read the letter by.[278] It has also been suggested that the anacoluthon is meant to represent Kent's sleepiness, which prevents him from finishing the sentence, and induces him to dismiss his thoughts and yield to his drowsiness. But I remember nothing like this elsewhere in Shakespeare, and it seems much more probable that the passage is corrupt, perhaps from the loss of a line containing words like 'to rescue us' before 'From this enormous state' (with 'state' cf. 'our state' in the lines quoted above).

When we reach III. i. we find that Kent has now read the letter; he knows that a force is coming from France and indeed has already 'secret feet' in some of the harbours. So he sends the Gentleman to Dover.

2. _The Fool's Song in_ II. iv.

At II. iv. 62 Kent asks why the King comes with so small a train. The Fool answers, in effect, that most of his followers have deserted him because they see that his fortunes are sinking. He proceeds to advise Kent ironically to follow their example, though he confesses he does not intend to follow it himself. 'Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it: but the great one that goes up the hill, let him draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again: I would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it.

That sir which serves and seeks for gain, And follows but for form, Will pack when it begins to rain, And leave thee in the storm. But I will tarry; the fool will stay, And let the wise man fly: The knave turns fool that runs away; The fool no knave, perdy.

The last two lines have caused difficulty. Johnson wanted to read,

The fool turns knave that runs away, The knave no fool, perdy;

_i.e._ if I ran away, I should prove myself to be a knave and a wise man, but, being a fool, I stay, as no knave or wise man would. Those who rightly defend the existing reading misunderstand it, I think. Shakespeare is not pointing out, in 'The knave turns fool that runs away,' that the wise knave who runs away is really a 'fool with a circumbendibus,' 'moral miscalculator as well as moral coward.' The Fool is referring to his own words, 'I would have none but knaves follow [my advice to desert the King], since a fool gives it'; and the last two lines of his song mean, 'The knave who runs away follows the advice given by a fool; but I, the fool, shall not follow my own advice by turning knave.'

For the ideas compare the striking passage in _Timon_, I. i. 64 ff.

3. '_Decline your head._'

At IV. ii. 18 Goneril, dismissing Edmund in the presence of Oswald, says:

This trusty servant Shall pass between us: ere long you are like to hear, If you dare venture in your own behalf, A mistress's command. Wear this; spare speech; Decline your head: this kiss, if it durst speak, Would stretch thy spirits up into the air.

I copy Furness's note on 'Decline': 'STEEVENS thinks that Goneril bids Edmund decline his head that she might, while giving him a kiss, appear to Oswald merely to be whispering to him. But this, WRIGHT says, is giving Goneril credit for too much delicacy, and Oswald was a "serviceable villain." DELIUS suggests that perhaps she wishes to put a chain around his neck.'

Surely 'Decline your head' is connected, not with 'Wear this' (whatever 'this' may be), but with 'this kiss,' etc. Edmund is a good deal taller than Goneril, and must stoop to be kissed.

4. _Self-cover'd_.

At IV. ii. 59 Albany, horrified at the passions of anger, hate, and contempt expressed in his wife's face, breaks out:

See thyself, devil! Proper deformity seems not in the fiend So horrid as in woman.

_Gon._ O vain fool!

_Alb._ Thou changed and self-cover'd thing, for shame, Be-monster not thy feature. Were't my fitness To let these hands obey my blood, They are apt enough to dislocate and tear Thy flesh and bones: howe'er thou art a fiend, A woman's shape doth shield thee.

The passage has been much discussed, mainly because of the strange expression 'self-cover'd,' for which of course emendations have been proposed. The general meaning is clear. Albany tells his wife that she is a devil in a woman's shape, and warns her not to cast off that shape by be-monstering her feature (appearance), since it is this shape alone that protects her from his wrath. Almost all commentators go astray because they imagine that, in the words 'thou changed and self-cover'd thing,' Albany is speaking to Goneril as a _woman_ who has been changed into a fiend. Really he is addressing her as a fiend which has changed its own shape and assumed that of a woman; and I suggest that 'self-cover'd' means either 'which hast covered or concealed thyself,' or 'whose self is covered' [so Craig in Arden edition], not (what of course it ought to mean) 'which hast been covered _by_ thyself.'

Possibly the last lines of this passage (which does not appear in the Folios) should be arranged thus:

To let these hands obey my blood, they're apt enough To dislocate and tear thy flesh and bones: Howe'er thou art a fiend, a woman's shape Doth shield thee.

_Gon._ Marry, your manhood now--

_Alb._ What news?

5. _The stage-directions at_ V. i. 37, 39.

In V. i. there first enter Edmund, Regan, and their army or soldiers: then, at line 18, Albany, Goneril, and their army or soldiers. Edmund and Albany speak very stiffly to one another, and Goneril bids them defer their private quarrels and attend to business. Then follows this passage (according to the modern texts):

_Alb._ Let's then determine With the ancient of war on our proceedings.

_Edm._ I shall attend you presently at your tent.

_Reg._ Sister, you'll go with us?

_Gon._ No.

_Reg._ 'Tis most convenient: pray you, go with us.

_Gon._ [_Aside_] O, ho, I know the riddle.--I will go.

_As they are going out, enter_ EDGAR _disguised._

_Edg._ If e'er your grace had speech with man so poor, Hear me one word.

_Alb._ I'll overtake you. Speak.

[_Exeunt all but_ ALBANY _and_ EDGAR.

It would appear from this that all the leading persons are to go to a Council of War with the ancient (plural) in Albany's tent; and they are going out, followed by their armies, when Edgar comes in. Why in the world, then, should Goneril propose (as she apparently does) to absent herself from the Council; and why, still more, should Regan object to her doing so? This is a question which always perplexed me, and I could not believe in the only answers I ever found suggested, viz., that Regan wanted to keep Edmund and Goneril together in order that she might observe them (Moberly, quoted in Furness), or that she could not bear to lose sight of Goneril, for fear Goneril should effect a meeting with Edmund after the Council (Delius, if I understand him).

But I find in Koppel what seems to be the solution (Verbesserungsvorschläge, p. 127 f.). He points out that the modern stage-directions are wrong. For the modern direction 'As they are going out, enter Edgar disguised,' the Ff. read, 'Exeunt both the armies. Enter Edgar.' For 'Exeunt all but Albany and Edgar' the Ff. have nothing, but Q1 has 'exeunt' after 'word.' For the first direction Koppel would read, 'Exeunt Regan, Goneril, Gentlemen, and Soldiers': for the second he would read, after 'overtake you,' 'Exit Edmund.'

This makes all clear. Albany proposes a Council of War. Edmund assents, and says he will come at once to Albany's tent for that purpose. The Council will consist of Albany, Edmund, and the ancient of war. Regan, accordingly, is going away with her soldiers; but she observes that Goneril shows no sign of moving with _her_ soldiers; and she at once suspects that Goneril means to attend the Council in order to be with Edmund. Full of jealousy, she invites Goneril to go with _her_. Goneril refuses, but then, seeing Regan's motive, contemptuously and ironically consents (I doubt if 'O ho, I know the riddle' should be 'aside,' as in modern editions, following Capell). Accordingly the two sisters go out, followed by their soldiers; and Edmund and Albany are just going out, in a different direction, to Albany's tent when Edgar enters. His words cause Albany to stay; Albany says to Edmund, as Edmund leaves, 'I'll overtake you'; and then, turning to Edgar, bids him 'speak.'

6. V. iii. 151 ff.

When Edmund falls in combat with the disguised Edgar, Albany produces the letter from Goneril to Edmund, which Edgar had found in Oswald's pocket and had handed over to Albany. This letter suggested to Edmund the murder of Albany. The passage in the Globe edition is as follows:

_Gon._ This is practice, Gloucester: By the law of arms thou wast not bound to answer An unknown opposite: thou art not vanquish'd, But cozen'd and beguiled.

_Alb._ Shut your mouth, dame, Or with this paper shall I stop it: Hold, sir; Thou worse than any name, read thy own evil: No tearing, lady; I perceive you know it. [_Gives the letter to Edmund._

_Gon._ Say, if I do, the laws are mine, not thine: Who can arraign me for't?

_Alb._ Most monstrous! oh! Know'st thou this paper?

_Gon._ Ask me not what I know. [_Exit._

_Alb._ Go after her: she's desperate: govern her.

_Edm._ What you have charged me with, that have I done; And more, much more; the time will bring it out. 'Tis past, and so am I. But what art thou That hast this fortune on me?

The first of the stage-directions is not in the Qq. or Ff.: it was inserted by Johnson. The second ('Exit') is both in the Qq. and in the Ff., but the latter place it after the words 'arraign me for't.' And they give the words 'Ask me not what I know' to Edmund, not to Goneril, as in the Qq. (followed by the Globe).

I will not go into the various views of these lines, but will simply say what seems to me most probable. It does not matter much where precisely Goneril's 'exit' comes; but I believe the Folios are right in giving the words 'Ask me not what I know' to Edmund. It has been pointed out by Knight that the question 'Know'st thou this paper?' cannot very well be addressed to Goneril, for Albany has already said to her, 'I perceive you know it.' It is possible to get over this difficulty by saying that Albany wants her confession: but there is another fact which seems to have passed unnoticed. When Albany is undoubtedly speaking to his wife, he uses the plural pronoun, 'Shut _your_ mouth, dame,' 'No tearing, lady; I perceive _you_ know it.' When then he asks 'Know'st _thou_ this paper?' he is probably _not_ speaking to her.

I should take the passage thus. At 'Hold, sir,' [omitted in Qq.] Albany holds the letter out towards Edmund for him to see, or possibly gives it to him.[279] The next line, with its 'thou,' is addressed to Edmund, whose 'reciprocal vows' are mentioned in the letter. Goneril snatches at it to tear it up: and Albany, who does not know whether Edmund ever saw the letter or not, says to her 'I perceive _you_ know it,' the 'you' being emphatic (her very wish to tear it showed she knew what was in it). She practically admits her knowledge, defies him, and goes out to kill herself. He exclaims in horror at her, and, turning again to Edmund, asks if _he_ knows it. Edmund, who of course does not know it, refuses to answer (like Iago), not (like Iago) out of defiance, but from chivalry towards Goneril; and, having refused to answer _this_ charge, he goes on to admit the charges brought against himself previously by Albany (82 f.) and Edgar (130 f.). I should explain the change from 'you' to 'thou' in his speech by supposing that at first he is speaking to Albany and Edgar together.

7. V. iii. 278.

Lear, looking at Kent, asks,

Who are you? Mine eyes are not o' the best: I'll tell you straight.

_Kent._ If fortune brag of two she loved _and_ hated (Qq. _or_), One of them we behold.

Kent is not answering Lear, nor is he speaking of himself. He is speaking of Lear. The best interpretation is probably that of Malone, according to which Kent means, 'We see the man most hated by Fortune, whoever may be the man she has loved best'; and perhaps it is supported by the variation of the text in the Qq., though their texts are so bad in this scene that their support is worth little. But it occurs to me as possible that the meaning is rather: 'Did Fortune ever show the extremes _both_ of her love _and_ of her hatred to any other man as she has shown them to this man?'

8. _The last lines._

_Alb._ Bear them from hence. Our present business Is general woe. [_To Kent and Edgar_] Friends of my soul, you twain Rule in this realm, and the gored state sustain.

_Kent._ I have a journey, sir, shortly to go; My master calls me, I must not say no.

_Alb._ The weight of this sad time we must obey; Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

So the Globe. The stage-direction (right, of course) is Johnson's. The last four lines are given by the Ff. to Edgar, by the Qq. to Albany. The Qq. read '_have_ borne most.'

To whom ought the last four lines to be given, and what do they mean? It is proper that the principal person should speak last, and this is in favour of Albany. But in this scene at any rate the Ff., which give the speech to Edgar, have the better text (though Ff. 2, 3, 4, make Kent die after his two lines!); Kent has answered Albany, but Edgar has not; and the lines seem to be rather more appropriate to Edgar. For the 'gentle reproof' of Kent's despondency (if this phrase of Halliwell's is right) is like Edgar; and, although we have no reason to suppose that Albany was not young, there is nothing to prove his youth.

As to the meaning of the last two lines (a poor conclusion to such a play) I should suppose that 'the oldest' is not Lear, but 'the oldest of us,' viz., Kent, the one survivor of the old generation: and this is the more probable if there _is_ a reference to him in the preceding lines. The last words seem to mean, 'We that are young shall never see so much _and yet_ live so long'; _i.e._ if we suffer so much, we shall not bear it as he has. If the Qq. 'have' is right, the reference is to Lear, Gloster and Kent.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 278: The 'beacon' which he bids approach is not the moon, as Pope supposed. The moon was up and shining some time ago (II. ii. 35), and lines 1 and 141-2 imply that not much of the night is left.]

[Footnote 279: 'Hold' can mean 'take'; but the word 'this' in line 160 ('Know'st thou this paper?') favours the idea that the paper is still in Albany's hand.]

NOTE Z.

SUSPECTED INTERPOLATIONS IN _MACBETH_.

I have assumed in the text that almost the whole of _Macbeth_ is genuine; and, to avoid the repetition of arguments to be found in other books,[280] I shall leave this opinion unsupported. But among the passages that have been questioned or rejected there are two which seem to me open to serious doubt. They are those in which Hecate appears: viz. the whole of III. v.; and IV. i. 39-43.

These passages have been suspected (1) because they contain stage-directions for two songs which have been found in Middleton's _Witch_; (2) because they can be excised without leaving the least trace of their excision; and (3) because they contain lines incongruous with the spirit and atmosphere of the rest of the Witch-scenes: _e.g._ III. v. 10 f.:

all you have done Hath been but for a wayward son, Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do, Loves for his own ends, not for you;

and IV. i. 41, 2:

And now about the cauldron sing, Like elves and fairies in a ring.

The idea of sexual relation in the first passage, and the trivial daintiness of the second (with which cf. III. v. 34,

Hark! I am call'd; my little spirit, see, Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me)

suit Middleton's Witches quite well, but Shakespeare's not at all; and it is difficult to believe that, if Shakespeare had meant to introduce a personage supreme over the Witches, he would have made her so unimpressive as this Hecate. (It may be added that the original stage-direction at IV. i. 39, 'Enter Hecat and the other three Witches,' is suspicious.)

I doubt if the second and third of these arguments, taken alone, would justify a very serious suspicion of interpolation; but the fact, mentioned under (1), that the play has here been meddled with, trebles their weight. And it gives some weight to the further fact that these passages resemble one another, and differ from the bulk of the other Witch passages, in being iambic in rhythm. (It must, however, be remembered that, supposing Shakespeare _did_ mean to introduce Hecate, he might naturally use a special rhythm for the parts where she appeared.)

The same rhythm appears in a third passage which has been doubted: IV. i. 125-132. But this is not _quite_ on a level with the other two; for (1), though it is possible to suppose the Witches, as well as the Apparitions, to vanish at 124, and Macbeth's speech to run straight on to 133, the cut is not so clean as in the other cases; (2) it is not at all clear that Hecate (the most suspicious element) is supposed to be present. The original stage-direction at 133 is merely 'The Witches Dance, and vanish'; and even if Hecate had been present before, she might have vanished at 43, as Dyce makes her do.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 280: _E.g._ Mr. Chambers's excellent little edition in the Warwick series.]

NOTE AA.

HAS _MACBETH_ BEEN ABRIDGED?

_Macbeth_ is a very short play, the shortest of all Shakespeare's except the _Comedy of Errors_. It contains only 1993 lines, while _King Lear_ contains 3298, _Othello_ 3324, and _Hamlet_ 3924. The next shortest of the tragedies is _Julius Caesar_, which has 2440 lines. (The figures are Mr. Fleay's. I may remark that for our present purpose we want the number of the lines in the first Folio, not those in modern composite texts.)

Is there any reason to think that the play has been shortened? I will 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).

| Light | | Percentage | Percentage | Percentage |endings.| Weak.| of light in | of weak in | of | | | verse lines.| verse lines.| both. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Antony & | | | | | Cleopatra, | 71 | 28 | 2.53 | 1. | 3.53 Coriolanus, | 60 | 44 | 2.34 | 1.71 | 4.05 Pericles, | 20 | 10 | 2.78 | 1.39 | 4.17 Tempest, | 42 | 25 | 2.88 | 1.71 | 4.59 Cymbeline, | 78 | 52 | 2.90 | 1.93 | 4.83 Winter's Tale, | 57 | 43 | 3.12 | 2.36 | 5.48 Two Noble | | | | | Kinsmen, | 50 | 34 | 3.63 | 2.47 | 6.10 Henry VIII., | 45 | 37 | 3.93 | 3.23 | 7.16 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, let us turn to our four tragedies (with _Timon_). Here again we have one doubtful play, and I give the figures for the whole of _Timon_, and again for the parts of _Timon_ assigned to Shakespeare by Mr. Fleay, both as they appear in his amended text and as they appear in the Globe (perhaps the better text).

| Light. | Weak. ----------------------------------------- Hamlet, | 8 | 0 Othello, | 2 | 0 Lear, | 5 | 1 Timon (whole), | 16 | 5 (Sh. in Fleay), | 14 | 7 (Sh. in Globe), | 13 | 2 Macbeth, | 21 | 2 -----------------------------------------

Now here the figures for the first three plays tell us practically nothing. The tendency to a freer use of these endings is not visible. As to _Timon_, the number of weak endings, I think, tells us little, for probably only two or three are Shakespeare's; but the rise in the number of light endings is so marked as to be significant. And most significant is this rise in the case of _Macbeth_, which, like Shakespeare's part of _Timon_, is much shorter than the preceding plays. It strongly confirms the impression that in _Macbeth_ we have the transition to Shakespeare's last style, and that the play is the latest of the five tragedies.[290]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 282: The fact that _King Lear_ was performed at Court on December 26, 1606, is of course very far from showing that it had never been performed before.]

[Footnote 283: I have not tried to discover the source of the difference between these two reckonings.]

[Footnote 284: _Der Vers in Shakspere's Dramen_, 1888.]

[Footnote 285: In the parts of _Timon_ (Globe text) assigned by Mr. Fleay to Shakespeare, I find the percentage to be about 74.5. König gives 62.8 as the percentage in the whole of the play.]

[Footnote 286: I have noted also what must be a mistake in the case of Pericles. König gives 17.1 as the percentage of the speeches with broken ends. I was astounded to see the figure, considering the style in the undoubtedly Shakespearean parts; and I find that, on my method, in Acts III., IV., V. the percentage is about 71, in the first two Acts (which show very slight, if any, traces of Shakespeare's hand) about 19. I cannot imagine the origin of the mistake here.]

[Footnote 287: I put the matter thus, instead of saying that, with a run-on line, one does pass to the next line without any pause, because, in common with many others, I should not in any case whatever _wholly_ ignore the fact that one line ends and another begins.]

[Footnote 288: These overflows are what König calls 'schroffe Enjambements,' which he considers to correspond with Furnivall's 'run-on lines.']

[Footnote 289: The number of light endings, however, in _Julius Caesar_ (10) and _All's Well_ (12) is worth notice.]

[Footnote 290: The Editors of the Cambridge Shakespeare might appeal in support of their view, that parts of Act V. are not Shakespeare's, to the fact that the last of the light endings occurs at IV. iii. 165.]

NOTE CC.

WHEN WAS THE MURDER OF DUNCAN FIRST PLOTTED?

A good many readers probably think that, when Macbeth first met the Witches, he was perfectly innocent; but a much larger number would say that he had already harboured a vaguely guilty ambition, though he had not faced the idea of murder. And I think there can be no doubt that this is the obvious and natural interpretation of the scene. Only it is almost necessary to go rather further, and to suppose that his guilty ambition, whatever its precise form, was known to his wife and shared by her. Otherwise, surely, she would not, on reading his letter, so instantaneously assume that the King must be murdered in their castle; nor would Macbeth, as soon as he meets her, be aware (as he evidently is) that this thought is in her mind.

But there is a famous passage in _Macbeth_ which, closely considered, seems to require us to go further still, and to suppose that, at some time before the action of the play begins, the husband and wife had explicitly discussed the idea of murdering Duncan at some favourable opportunity, and had agreed to execute this idea. Attention seems to have been first drawn to this passage by Koester in vol. I. of the _Jahrbücher d. deutschen Shakespeare-gesellschaft_, and on it is based the interpretation of the play in Werder's very able _Vorlesungen über Macbeth_.

The passage occurs in I. vii., where Lady Macbeth is urging her husband to the deed:

_Macb._ Prithee, peace: I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none.

_Lady M._ What beast was't, then, That made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man; And, to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place Did then adhere, and yet you would make both: They have made themselves, and that their fitness now Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you Have done to this.

Here Lady Macbeth asserts (1) that Macbeth proposed the murder to her: (2) that he did so at a time when there was no opportunity to attack Duncan, no 'adherence' of 'time' and 'place': (3) that he declared he wou'd _make_ an opportunity, and swore to carry out the murder.

Now it is possible that Macbeth's 'swearing' might have occurred in an interview off the stage between scenes v. and vi., or scenes vi. and vii.; and, if in that interview Lady Macbeth had with difficulty worked her husband up to a resolution, her irritation at his relapse, in sc. vii., would be very natural. But, as for Macbeth's first proposal of murder, it certainly does not occur in our play, nor could it possibly occur in any interview off the stage; for when Macbeth and his wife first meet, 'time' and 'place' _do_ adhere; 'they have made themselves.' The conclusion would seem to be, either that the proposal of the murder, and probably the oath, occurred in a scene at the very beginning of the play, which scene has been lost or cut out; or else that Macbeth proposed, and swore to execute, the murder at some time prior to the action of the play.[291] The first of these hypotheses is most improbable, and we seem driven to adopt the second, unless we consent to burden Shakespeare with a careless mistake in a very critical passage.

And, apart from unwillingness to do this, we can find a good deal to say in favour of the idea of a plan formed at a past time. It would explain Macbeth's start of fear at the prophecy of the kingdom. It would explain why Lady Macbeth, on receiving his letter, immediately resolves on action; and why, on their meeting, each knows that murder is in the mind of the other. And it is in harmony with her remarks on his probable shrinking from the act, to which, _ex hypothesi_, she had already thought it necessary to make him pledge himself by an oath.

Yet I find it very difficult to believe in this interpretation. It is not merely that the interest of Macbeth's struggle with himself and with his wife would be seriously diminished if we felt he had been through all this before. I think this would be so; but there are two more important objections. In the first place the violent agitation described in the words,

If good, why do I yield to that suggestion Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,

would surely not be natural, even in Macbeth, if the idea of murder were already quite familiar to him through conversation with his wife, and if he had already done more than 'yield' to it. It is not as if the Witches had told him that Duncan was coming to his house. In that case the perception that the moment had come to execute a merely general design might well appal him. But all that he hears is that he will one day be King--a statement which, supposing this general design, would not point to any immediate action.[292] And, in the second place, it is hard to believe that, if Shakespeare really had imagined the murder planned and sworn to before the action of the play, he would have written the first six scenes in such a manner that practically all readers imagine quite another state of affairs, and _continue to imagine it_ even after they have read in scene vii. the passage which is troubling us. Is it likely, to put it otherwise, that his idea was one which nobody seems to have divined till late in the nineteenth century? And for what possible reason could he refrain from making this idea clear to his audience, as he might so easily have done in the third scene?[293] It seems very much more likely that he himself imagined the matter as nearly all his readers do.

But, in that case, what are we to say of this passage? I will answer first by explaining the way in which I understood it before I was aware that it had caused so much difficulty. I supposed that an interview had taken place after scene v., a scene which shows Macbeth shrinking, and in which his last words were 'we will speak further.' In this interview, I supposed, his wife had so wrought upon him that he had at last yielded and pledged himself by oath to do the murder. As for her statement that he had 'broken the enterprise' to her, I took it to refer to his letter to her,--a letter written when time and place did not adhere, for he did not yet know that Duncan was coming to visit him. In the letter he does not, of course, openly 'break the enterprise' to her, and it is not likely that he would do such a thing in a letter; but if they had had ambitious conversations, in which each felt that some half-formed guilty idea was floating in the mind of the other, she might naturally take the words of the letter as indicating much more than they said; and then in her passionate contempt at his hesitation, and her passionate eagerness to overcome it, she might easily accuse him, doubtless with exaggeration, and probably with conscious exaggeration, of having actually proposed the murder. And Macbeth, knowing that when he wrote the letter he really had been thinking of murder, and indifferent to anything except the question whether murder should be done, would easily let her statement pass unchallenged.

This interpretation still seems to me not unnatural. The alternative (unless we adopt the idea of an agreement prior to the action of the play) is to suppose that Lady Macbeth refers throughout the passage to some interview subsequent to her husband's return, and that, in making her do so, Shakespeare simply forgot her speeches on welcoming Macbeth home, and also forgot that at any such interview 'time' and 'place' did 'adhere.' It is easy to understand such forgetfulness in a spectator and even in a reader; but it is less easy to imagine it in a poet whose conception of the two characters throughout these scenes was evidently so burningly vivid.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 291: The 'swearing' _might_ of course, on this view, occur off the stage within the play; but there is no occasion to suppose this if we are obliged to put the proposal outside the play.]

[Footnote 292: To this it might be answered that the effect of the prediction was to make him feel, 'Then I shall succeed if I carry out the plan of murder,' and so make him yield to the idea over again. To which I can only reply, anticipating the next argument, 'How is it that Shakespeare wrote the speech in such a way that practically everybody supposes the idea of murder to be occurring to Macbeth for the first time?']

[Footnote 293: It might be answered here again that the actor, instructed by Shakespeare, could act the start of fear so as to convey quite clearly the idea of definite guilt. And this is true; but we ought to do our best to interpret the text before we have recourse to this kind of suggestion.]

NOTE DD.

DID LADY MACBETH REALLY FAINT?

In the scene of confusion where the murder of Duncan is discovered, Macbeth and Lennox return from the royal chamber; Lennox describes the grooms who, as it seemed, had done the deed:

Their hands and faces were all badged with blood; So were their daggers, which unwiped we found Upon their pillows: They stared, and were distracted; no man's life Was to be trusted with them.

_Macb._ O, yet I do repent me of my fury That I did kill them.

_Macd._ Wherefore did you so?

_Macb._ Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man: The expedition of my violent love Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan, His silver skin laced with his golden blood; And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murderers, Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers Unmannerly breech'd with gore: who could refrain, That had a heart to love, and in that heart Courage to make's love known?

At this point Lady Macbeth exclaims, 'Help me hence, ho!' Her husband takes no notice, but Macduff calls out 'Look to the lady.' This, after a few words 'aside' between Malcolm and Donalbain, is repeated by Banquo, and, very shortly after, all except Duncan's sons _exeunt_. (The stage-direction 'Lady Macbeth is carried out,' after Banquo's exclamation 'Look to the lady,' is not in the Ff. and was introduced by Rowe. If the Ff. are right, she can hardly have fainted _away_. But the point has no importance here.)

Does Lady Macbeth really turn faint, or does she pretend? The latter seems to have been the general view, and Whately pointed out that Macbeth's indifference betrays his consciousness that the faint was not real. But to this it may be answered that, if he believed it to be real, he would equally show indifference, in order to display his horror at the murder. And Miss Helen Faucit and others have held that there was no pretence.

In favour of the pretence it may be said (1) that Lady Macbeth, who herself took back the daggers, saw the old King in his blood, and smeared the grooms, was not the woman to faint at a mere description; (2) that she saw her husband over-acting his part, and saw the faces of the lords, and wished to end the scene,--which she succeeded in doing.

But to the last argument it may be replied that she would not willingly have run the risk of leaving her husband to act his part alone. And for other reasons (indicated above, p. 373 f.) I decidedly believe that she is meant really to faint. She was no Goneril. She knew that she could not kill the King herself; and she never expected to have to carry back the daggers, see the bloody corpse, and smear the faces and hands of the grooms. But Macbeth's agony greatly alarmed her, and she was driven to the scene of horror to complete his task; and what an impression it made on her we know from that sentence uttered in her sleep, 'Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?' She had now, further, gone through the ordeal of the discovery. Is it not quite natural that the reaction should come, and that it should come just when Macbeth's description recalls the scene which had cost her the greatest effort? Is it not likely, besides, that the expression on the faces of the lords would force her to realise, what before the murder she had refused to consider, the horror and the suspicion it must excite? It is noticeable, also, that she is far from carrying out her intention of bearing a part in making their 'griefs and clamours roar upon his death' (I. vii. 78). She has left it all to her husband, and, after uttering but two sentences, the second of which is answered very curtly by Banquo, for some time (an interval of 33 lines) she has said nothing. I believe Shakespeare means this interval to be occupied in desperate efforts on her part to prevent herself from giving way, as she sees for the first time something of the truth to which she was formerly so blind, and which will destroy her in the end.

It should be observed that at the close of the Banquet scene, where she has gone through much less, she is evidently exhausted.

Shakespeare, of course, knew whether he meant the faint to be real: but I am not aware if an actor of the part could show the audience whether it was real or pretended. If he could, he would doubtless receive instructions from the author.

NOTE EE.

DURATION OF THE ACTION IN _MACBETH_. MACBETH'S AGE. 'HE HAS NO CHILDREN.'

1. The duration of the action cannot well be more than a few months. On the day following the murder of Duncan his sons fly and Macbeth goes to Scone to be invested (II. iv.). Between this scene and Act III. an interval must be supposed, sufficient for news to arrive of Malcolm being in England and Donalbain in Ireland, and for Banquo to have shown himself a good counsellor. But the interval is evidently not long: _e.g._ Banquo's first words are 'Thou hast it now' (III. i. 1). Banquo is murdered on the day when he speaks these words. Macbeth's visit to the Witches takes place the next day (III. iv. 132). At the end of this visit (IV. i.) he hears of Macduff's flight to England, and determines to have Macduff's wife and children slaughtered without delay; and this is the subject of the next scene (IV. ii.). No great interval, then, can be supposed between this scene and the next, where Macduff, arrived at the English court, hears what has happened at his castle. At the end of that scene (IV. iii. 237) Malcolm says that 'Macbeth is ripe for shaking, and the powers above put on their instruments': and the events of Act V. evidently follow with little delay, and occupy but a short time. Holinshed's Macbeth appears to have reigned seventeen years: Shakespeare's may perhaps be allowed as many weeks.

But, naturally, Shakespeare creates some difficulties through wishing to produce different impressions in different parts of the play. The main effect is that of fiery speed, and it would be impossible to imagine the torment of Macbeth's mind lasting through a number of years, even if Shakespeare had been willing to allow him years of outward success. Hence the brevity of the action. On the other hand time is wanted for the degeneration of his character hinted at in IV. iii. 57 f., for the development of his tyranny, for his attempts to entrap Malcolm (_ib._ 117 f.), and perhaps for the deepening of his feeling that his life had passed into the sere and yellow leaf. Shakespeare, as we have seen, scarcely provides time for all this, but at certain points he produces an impression that a longer time has elapsed than he has provided for, and he puts most of the indications of this longer time into a scene (IV. iii.) which by its quietness contrasts strongly with almost all the rest of the play.

2. There is no unmistakable indication of the ages of the two principal characters; but the question, though of no great importance, has an interest. I believe most readers imagine Macbeth as a man between forty and fifty, and his wife as younger but not young. In many cases this impression is doubtless due to the custom of the theatre (which, if it can be shown to go back far, should have much weight), but it is shared by readers who have never seen the play performed, and is then presumably due to a number of slight influences probably incapable of complete analysis. Such readers would say, 'The hero and heroine do not speak like young people, nor like old ones'; but, though I think this is so, it can hardly be demonstrated. Perhaps however the following small indications, mostly of a different kind, tend to the same result.

(1) There is no positive sign of youth. (2) A young man would not be likely to lead the army. (3) Macbeth is 'cousin' to an old man.[294] (4) Macbeth calls Malcolm 'young,' and speaks of him scornfully as 'the boy Malcolm.' He is probably therefore considerably his senior. But Malcolm is evidently not really a boy (see I. ii. 3 f. as well as the later Acts). (5) One gets the impression (possibly without reason) that Macbeth and Banquo are of about the same age; and Banquo's son, the boy Fleance, is evidently not a mere child. (On the other hand the children of Macduff, who is clearly a good deal older than Malcolm, are all young; and I do not think there is any sign that Macbeth is older than Macduff.) (6) When Lady Macbeth, in the banquet scene, says,

Sit, worthy friends: my lord is often thus, And hath been from his youth,

we naturally imagine him some way removed from his youth. (7) Lady Macbeth saw a resemblance to her father in the aged king. (8) Macbeth says,

I have lived long enough: my way[295] of life Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf: And that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I may not look to have.

It is, surely, of the old age of the soul that he speaks in the second line, but still the lines would hardly be spoken under any circumstances by a man less than middle-aged.

On the other hand I suppose no one ever imagined Macbeth, or on consideration could imagine him, as _more_ than middle-aged when the action begins. And in addition the reader may observe, if he finds it necessary, that Macbeth looks forward to having children (I. vii. 72), and that his terms of endearment ('dearest love,' 'dearest chuck') and his language in public ('sweet remembrancer') do not suggest that his wife and he are old; they even suggest that she at least is scarcely middle-aged. But this discussion tends to grow ludicrous.

For Shakespeare's audience these mysteries were revealed by a glance at the actors, like the fact that Duncan was an old man, which the text, I think, does not disclose till V. i. 44.

3. Whether Macbeth had children or (as seems usually to be supposed) had none, is quite immaterial. But it is material that, if he had none, he looked forward to having one; for otherwise there would be no point in the following words in his soliloquy about Banquo (III. i. 58 f.):

Then prophet-like They hail'd him father to a line of kings: Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown, And put a barren sceptre in my gripe, Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand, No son of mine succeeding. If't be so, For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind.

And he is determined that it shall not 'be so':

Rather than so, come, fate, into the list And champion me to the utterance!

Obviously he contemplates a son of his succeeding, if only he can get rid of Banquo and Fleance. What he fears is that Banquo will kill him; in which case, supposing he has a son, that son will not be allowed to succeed him, and, supposing he has none, he will be unable to beget one.

I hope this is clear; and nothing else matters. Lady Macbeth's child (I. vii. 54) may be alive or may be dead. It may even be, or have been, her child by a former husband; though, if Shakespeare had followed history in making Macbeth marry a widow (as some writers gravely assume) he would probably have told us so. It may be that Macbeth had many children or that he had none. We cannot say, and it does not concern the play. But the interpretation of a statement on which some critics build, 'He has no children,' has an interest of another kind, and I proceed to consider it.

These words occur at IV. iii. 216. Malcolm and Macduff are talking at the English Court, and Ross, arriving from Scotland, brings news to Macduff of Macbeth's revenge on him. It is necessary to quote a good many lines:

_Ross._ Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner, Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer, To add the death of you.

_Mal._ Merciful heaven! What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows; Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.

_Macd._ My children too?

_Ross._ Wife, children, servants, all That could be found.

_Macd._ And I must be from thence! My wife kill'd too?

_Ross._ I have said.

_Mal._ Be comforted: Let's makes us medicines of our great revenge, To cure this deadly grief.

_Macd._ He has no children. All my pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam At one fell swoop?

_Mal_. Dispute it like a man.

_Macd._ I shall do so; But I must also feel it as a man: I cannot but remember such things were, That were most precious to me.--

Three interpretations have been offered of the words 'He has no children.'

(_a_) They refer to Malcolm, who, if he had children of his own, would not at such a moment suggest revenge, or talk of curing such a grief. Cf. _King John_, III. iv. 91, where Pandulph says to Constance,

You hold too heinous a respect of grief,

and Constance answers,

He talks to me that never had a son.

(_b_) They refer to Macbeth, who has no children, and on whom therefore Macduff cannot take an adequate revenge.

(_c_) They refer to Macbeth, who, if he himself had children, could never have ordered the slaughter of children. Cf. _3 Henry VI._ V. v. 63, where Margaret says to the murderers of Prince Edward,

You have no children, butchers! if you had, The thought of them would have stirred up remorse.

I cannot think interpretation (_b_) the most natural. The whole idea of the passage is that Macduff must feel _grief_ first and before he can feel anything else, _e.g._ the desire for vengeance. As he says directly after, he cannot at once 'dispute' it like a man, but must 'feel' it as a man; and it is not till ten lines later that he is able to pass to the thought of revenge. Macduff is not the man to conceive at any time the idea of killing children in retaliation; and that he contemplates it _here_, even as a suggestion, I find it hard to believe.

For the same main reason interpretation (_a_) seems to me far more probable than (_c_). What could be more consonant with the natural course of the thought, as developed in the lines which follow, than that Macduff, being told to think of revenge, not grief, should answer, 'No one who was himself a father would ask that of me in the very first moment of loss'? But the thought supposed by interpretation (_c_) has not this natural connection.

It has been objected to interpretation (_a_) that, according to it, Macduff would naturally say 'You have no children,' not 'He has no children.' But what Macduff does is precisely what Constance does in the line quoted from _King John_. And it should be noted that, all through the passage down to this point, and indeed in the fifteen lines which precede our quotation, Macduff listens only to Ross. His questions 'My children too?' 'My wife killed too?' show that he cannot fully realise what he is told. When Malcolm interrupts, therefore, he puts aside his suggestion with four words spoken to himself, or (less probably) to Ross (his relative, who knew his wife and children), and continues his agonised questions and exclamations. Surely it is not likely that at that moment the idea of (_c_), an idea which there is nothing to suggest, would occur to him.

In favour of (_c_) as against (_a_) I see no argument except that the words of Macduff almost repeat those of Margaret; and this fact does not seem to me to have much weight. It shows only that Shakespeare might easily use the words in the sense of (_c_) if that sense were suitable to the occasion. It is not unlikely, again, I think, that the words came to him here because he had used them many years before;[296] but it does not follow that he knew he was repeating them; or that, if he did, he remembered the sense they had previously borne; or that, if he did remember it, he might not use them now in another sense.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 294: So in Holinshed, as well as in the play, where however 'cousin' need not have its specific meaning.]

[Footnote 295: 'May,' Johnson conjectured, without necessity.]

[Footnote 296: As this point occurs here, I may observe that Shakespeare's later tragedies contain many such reminiscences of the tragic plays of his young days. For instance, cf. _Titus Andronicus_, I. i. 150 f.:

In peace and honour rest you here, my sons,

* * * * *

Secure from worldly chances and mishaps! Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells, Here grow no damned drugs: here are no storms, No noise, but silence and eternal sleep,

with _Macbeth_, III. ii. 22 f.:

Duncan is in his grave; After life's fitful fever he sleeps well; Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison, Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, Can touch him further.

In writing IV. i. Shakespeare can hardly have failed to remember the conjuring of the Spirit, and the ambiguous oracles, in _2 Henry VI._ I. iv. The 'Hyrcan tiger' of _Macbeth_ III. iv. 101, which is also alluded to in _Hamlet_, appears first in _3 Henry VI._ I. iv. 155. Cf. _Richard III._ II. i. 92, 'Nearer in bloody thoughts, but not in blood,' with _Macbeth_ II. iii. 146, 'the near in blood, the nearer bloody'; _Richard III._ IV. ii. 64, 'But I am in So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin,' with _Macbeth_ III. iv. 136, 'I am in blood stepp'd in so far,' etc. These are but a few instances. (It makes no difference whether Shakespeare was author or reviser of _Titus_ and _Henry VI._).]

NOTE FF.

THE GHOST OF BANQUO.

I do not think the suggestions that the Ghost on its first appearance is Banquo's, and on its second Duncan's, or _vice versâ_, are worth discussion. But the question whether Shakespeare meant the Ghost to be real or a mere hallucination, has some interest, and I have not seen it fully examined.

The following reasons may be given for the hallucination view:

(1) We remember that Macbeth has already seen one hallucination, that of the dagger; and if we failed to remember it Lady Macbeth would remind us of it here:

This is the very painting of your fear; This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said, Led you to Duncan.

(2) The Ghost seems to be created by Macbeth's imagination; for his words,

now they rise again With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,

describe it, and they echo what the murderer had said to him a little before,

Safe in a ditch he bides With twenty trenched gashes on his head.

(3) It vanishes the second time on his making a violent effort and asserting its unreality:

Hence, horrible shadow! Unreal mockery, hence!

This is not quite so the first time, but then too its disappearance follows on his defying it:

Why what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.

So, apparently, the dagger vanishes when he exclaims, 'There's no such thing!'

(4) At the end of the scene Macbeth himself seems to regard it as an illusion:

My strange and self-abuse Is the initiate fear that wants hard use.

(5) It does not speak, like the Ghost in _Hamlet_ even on its last appearance, and like the Ghost in _Julius Caesar_.

(6) It is visible only to Macbeth.

I should attach no weight to (6) taken alone (see p. 140). Of (3) it may be remarked that Brutus himself seems to attribute the vanishing of Caesar's Ghost to his taking courage: 'now I have taken heart thou vanishest:' yet he certainly holds it to be real. It may also be remarked on (5) that Caesar's Ghost says nothing that Brutus' own forebodings might not have conjured up. And further it may be asked why, if the Ghost of Banquo was meant for an illusion, it was represented on the stage, as the stage-directions and Forman's account show it to have been.

On the whole, and with some doubt, I think that Shakespeare (1) meant the judicious to take the Ghost for an hallucination, but (2) knew that the bulk of the audience would take it for a reality. And I am more sure of (2) than of (1).

INDEX

The titles of plays are in italics. So are the numbers of the pages containing the main discussion of a character. The titles of the Notes are not repeated in the Index.

Aaron, 200, 211.

Abnormal mental conditions, 13, 398.

Accident, in tragedy, 7, 14-16, 26, 28; in _Hamlet_, 143, 173; in _Othello_, 181-2; in _King Lear_, 253, 325.

Act, difficulty in Fourth, 57-8; the five Acts, 49.

Action, tragic, 11, 12, 31; and character, 12, 19; a conflict, 16-19.

Adversity and prosperity in _King Lear_, 326-7.

Albany, _297-8_.

Antonio, 110, 404.

_Antony and Cleopatra_, 3, 7, 45, 80; conflict, 17-8; crisis, 53, 55, 66; humour in catastrophe, 62, 395-6; battle-scenes, 62-3; extended catastrophe, 64; faulty construction, 71, 260; passion in, 82; evil in, 83-4; versification, 87, Note BB.

Antony, 22, 29, 63, 83-4.

_Arden of Feversham_, 9.

Ariel, 264.

Aristotle, 16, 22.

Art, Shakespeare's, conscious, 68-9; defects in, 71-78.

Arthur, 294.

_As You Like It_, 71, 267, 390.

Atmosphere in tragedy, 333.

Banquo, 343, _379-86_.

Barbara, the maid, 175.

Battle-scene, 62, 451, 469; in _King Lear_, 255, Note X.

Beast and man, in _King Lear_, 266-8; in _Timon_, 453.

Bernhardt, Mme., 379.

Biblical ideas, in _King Lear_, 328.

Bombast, 73, 75-6, 389, Note F.

Brandes, G., 379, 393.

Brutus, 7, 14, 22, 27, 32, 81-2, 101, 364.

Caliban, 264.

Cassio, 211-3, _238-9_, 433-4.

Catastrophe, humour before, 61-2; battle-scenes in, 62; false hope before, 63; extended, 62; in _Antony_ and _Coriolanus_, 83-4. See _Hamlet_, etc.

Character, and plot, 12; is destiny, 13; tragic, 19-23.

Chaucer, 8, 346.

Children, in the plays, 293-5.

Cleopatra, 7, 20, 84, 178, 208.

Coleridge, 104-5, 107, 109, 127, 165, 200, 201, 209, 223, 226, 228, 249, 343, 353, 362, 389, 391, 392, 397, 412, 413.

Comedy, 15, 41.

Conflict, tragic, 16-9; originates in evil, 34; oscillating movement in, 50; crisis in, 51-5; descending movement of, 55-62.

Conscience. See Hamlet.

Cordelia, 29, 32, 203-6, 250, 290, 314, _315-26_, Note W.

_Coriolanus_, 3, 9, 43, 394-5; crisis, 53; hero off stage, 57; counter-stroke, 58; humour, 61; passion, 82; catastrophe, 83-4; versification, Note BB.

Coriolanus, 20, 29, 83-4, 196.

Cornwall, 298-9.

Crisis. See Conflict.

Curtain, no front, in Shakespeare's theatre, 185, 458.

_Cymbeline_, 7, 21, 72, 80, Note BB; Queen in, 300.

Desdemona, 32, 165, 179, 193, 197, _201-6_, 323, 433, 437-9.

Disillusionment, in tragedies, 175.

Dog, the, Shakespeare and, 268.

Don John, 110, 210.

Double action in _King Lear_, 255-6, 262.

Dowden, E., 82, 105, 330, 408.

Dragging, 57-8, 64.

Drunkenness, invective against, 238.

Edgar, _305-7_, 453, 465.

Edmund, 210, 245, 253, _300-3_, Notes P, Q. See Iago.

Emilia, 214-6, 237, _239-42_, Note P.

Emotional tension, variations of, 48-9.

Evil, origin of conflict, 34; negative, 35; in earlier and later tragedies, 82-3; poetic portrayal of, 207-8; aspects of, specially impressive to Shakespeare, 232-3; in _King Lear_, 298, 303-4, 327; in _Tempest_, 328-30; in _Macbeth_, 331, 386.

Exposition, 41-7.

Fate, Fatality, 10, 26-30, 45, 59, 177, 181, 287, 340-6.

Fleay, F.G., 419, 424, 445, 467, 479.

Fool in _King Lear_, the, 258, _311-5_, 322, 447, Note V.

Fools, Shakespeare's, 310.

Forman, Dr., 468, 493.

Fortinbras, 90.

Fortune, 9, 10.

Freytag, G., 40, 63.

Furness, H.H., 199, 200.

Garnet and equivocation, 397, 470-1.

Ghost, Banquo's, 332, 335, 338, 361, Note FF.

Ghost, Caesar's, Note FF.

Ghost in _Hamlet_, 97, 100, 118, 120, 125, 126, 134, 136, 138-40, _173-4_.

Ghosts, not hallucinations because appearing only to one in a company, 140.

Gloster, 272, _293-6_, 447.

Gnomic speeches, 74, 453.

Goethe, 101, 127, 165, 208.

Goneril, 245, _299-300_, 331, 370, 447-8.

Greek tragedy, 7, 16, 30, 33, 182, 276-9, 282.

Greene, 409.

Hales, J.W., 397.

_Hamlet_, exposition, 43-7; conflict, 17, 47, 50-1; crisis and counter-stroke, 52, 58-60, 136-7; dragging, 57; humour, and false hope, before catastrophe, 61, 63; obscurities, 73; undramatic passages, 72, 74; place among tragedies, 80-8; position of hero, 89-92; not simply tragedy of thought, 82, 113, 127; in the Romantic Revival, 92, 127-8; lapse of time in, 129, 141; accident, 15, 143, 173; religious ideas, 144-5, 147-8, 172-4; player's speech, 389-90, Note F; grave-digger, 395-6; last scene, 256. See Notes A to H, and BB.

Hamlet, only tragic character in play, 90; contrasted with Laertes and Fortinbras, 90, 106; failure of early criticism of, 91; supposed unintelligible, 93-4; external view, 94-7; 'conscience' view, 97-101; sentimental view, 101-4; Schlegel-Coleridge view, 104-8, 116, 123, 126-7; temperament, 109-10; moral idealism, 110-3; reflective genius, 113-5; connection of this with inaction, 115-7; origin of melancholy, 117-20; its nature and effects, 120-7, 103, 158; its diminution, 143-4; his 'insanity,' 121-2, 421; in Act II. 129-31, 155-6; in III. i. 131-3, 157, 421; in play-scene, 133-4; spares King, 134-6, 100, 439; with Queen, 136-8; kills Polonius, 136-7, 104; with Ghost, 138-40; leaving Denmark, 140-1; state after return, 143-5, 421; in grave-yard, 145-6, 153, 158, 421-2; in catastrophe, 102, 146-8, 151, 420-1; and Ophelia, 103, 112, 119, 145-6, 152-9, 402, 420-1; letter to Ophelia, 150, 403; trick of repetition, 148-9; word-play and humour, 149-52, 411; aesthetic feeling, 133, 415; and Iago, 208, 217, 222, 226; other references, 9, 14, 20, 22, 28, 316, 353, Notes A to H.

Hanmer, 91.

Hazlitt, 209, 223, 228, 231, 243, 248.

Hecate, 342, Note Z.

Hegel, 16, 348.

_2 Henry VI._, 492.

_3 Henry VI._, 222, 418, 490, 492.

_Henry VIII._, 80, 472, 479.

Heredity, 30, 266, 303.

Hero, tragic, 7; of 'high degree,' 9-11; contributes to catastrophe, 12; nature of, 19-23, 37; error of, 21, 34; unlucky, 28; place of, in construction, 53-55; absence of, from stage, 57; in earlier and later plays, 81-2, 176; in _King Lear_, 280; feeling at death of, 147-8, 174, 198, 324.

Heywood, 140, 419.

Historical tragedies, 3, 53, 71.

Homer, 348.

Horatio, 99, 112, 310, Notes A, B, C.

Humour, constructional use of, 61; Hamlet's, 149-52; in _Othello_, 177; in _Macbeth_, 395.

Hunter, J., 199, 338.

Iachimo, 21, 210.

Iago, and evil, 207, 232-3; false views of, 208-11, 223-7; danger of accepting his own evidence, 211-2, 222-5; how he appeared to others, 213-5; and to Emilia, 215-6, 439-40; inferences hence, 217-8; further analysis, 218-22; source of his action, 222-31; his tragedy, 218, 222, 232; not merely evil, 233-5; nor of supreme intellect, 236; cause of failure, 236-7; and Edmund, 245, 300-1, 464; and Hamlet, 208, 217, 222, 226; other references, 21, 28, 32, 192, 193, 196, 364, Notes L, M, P, Q.

Improbability, not always a defect, 69; in _King Lear_, 249, 256-7.

Inconsistencies, 73; real or supposed, in _Hamlet_, 408; in _Othello_, Note I; in _King Lear_, 256, Note T; in _Macbeth_, Notes CC, EE.

Ingram, Prof., 478.

Insanity in tragedy, 13; Ophelia's, 164-5, 399; Lear's, 288-90.

Intrigue in tragedy, 12, 67, 179.

Irony, 182, 338.

Isabella, 316, 317, 321.

Jameson, Mrs., 165, 204, 379.

Jealousy in Othello, 178, 194, Note L.

Job, 11.

Johnson, 31, 91, 294, 298, 304, 377, 420.

Jonson, 69, 282, 389.

Juliet, 7, 204, 210.

_Julius Caesar_, 3, 7, 9, 33, 34, 479; conflict, 17-8; exposition, 43-5; crisis, 52; dragging, 57; counter-stroke, 58; quarrel-scene, 60-1; battle-scenes, 62; and _Hamlet_, 80-2; style, 85-6.

Justice in tragedy, idea of, 31-33, 279, 318.

Kean, 99, 243-4.

Kent, _307-10_, 314, 321, 447, Note W.

King Claudius, 28, 102, 133, 137, 142, _168-72_, 402, 422.

_King John_, 394, 490-1.

_King Lear_, exposition, 44, 46-7; conflict, 17, 53-4; scenes of high and low tension, 49; dragging, 57; false hope before catastrophe, 63; battle-scene, 62, 456-8; soliloquy in, 72, 222; place among tragedies, 82, 88, see Tate; Tate's, 243-4; two-fold character, 244-6; not wholly dramatic, 247; opening scene, 71, 249-51, 258, 319-21, 447; blinding of Gloster, 185, 251; catastrophe, 250-4, 271, 290-3, 309, 322-6; structural defects, 254-6; improbabilities, etc., 256-8; vagueness of locality, 259-60; poetic value of defects, 261; double action, 262; characterisation, 263; tendency to symbolism, 264-5; idea of monstrosity, 265-6; beast and man, 266-8; storm-scenes, 269-70, 286-7, 315; question of government of world, in, 271-3; supposed pessimism, 273-9, 284-5, 303-4, 322-30; accident and fatality, 15, 250-4, 287-8; intrigue in, 179; evil in, 298, 303-4; preaching patience, 330; and _Othello_, 176-7, 179, 181, 244-5, 441-3; and _Timon_, 245-7, 310, 326-7, 443-5; other references, 8, 10, 61, 181, Notes R to Y, and BB.

König, G., Note BB.

Koppel, R., 306, 450, 453, 462.

Laertes, 90, 111, 142, 422.

Lamb, 202, 243, 248, 253, 255, 269, 343.

Language, Shakespeare's, defects of, 73, 75, 416.

Lear, 13, 14, 20, 28, 29, 32, 249-51, _280-93_, 293-5, Note W.

Leontes, 21, 194.

_Macbeth_, exposition, 43, 45-6; conflict, 17-9, 48, 52; crisis, 59, 60; pathos and humour, 61, 391, 395-7; battle-scenes, 62; extended catastrophe, 64; defects in construction, 57, 71; place among tragedies, 82, 87-8, Note BB; religious ideas, 172-4; atmosphere of, 333; effects of darkness, 333-4, colour, 334-6, storm, 336-7, supernatural, etc., 337-8, irony, 338-40; Witches, 340-9, 362, 379-86; imagery, 336, 357; minor characters, 387; simplicity, 388; Senecan effect, 389-90; bombast, 389, 417; prose, 388, 397-400; relief-scenes, 391; sleep-walking scene, 378, 398, 400; references to Gunpowder Plot, 397, 470-1; all genuine? 388, 391, 395-7, Note Z; and _Hamlet_, 331-2; and _Richard III._, 338, 390, 395, 492; other references, 7, 8, 386, and Notes Z to FF.

Macbeth, 13, 14, 20, 22, 28, 32, 63, 172, 343-5, _349-65_, 380, 383, 386, Notes CC, EE.

Macbeth, Lady, 13, 28, 32, 349-50, 358, 364, _366-79_, 398-400, Notes CC, DD.

Macduff, 387, 391-2, 490-1.

Macduff, Lady, 61, 387, 391-2.

Macduff, little, 393-5.

Mackenzie, 91.

Marlowe, 211, 415-6.

Marston's possible reminiscences of Shakespeare's plays, 471-2.

_Measure for Measure_, 76, 78, 275, 397.

Mediaeval idea of tragedy, 8, 9.

Melancholy, Shakespeare's representations of, 110, 121. See Hamlet.

Mephistopheles, 208.

_Merchant of Venice_, 21, 200.

Metrical tests, Notes S, BB.

Middleton, 466.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, 390, 469.

Milton, 207, 362, 418.

Monstrosity, idea of, in _King Lear_, 265-6.

Moral order in tragedy, idea of, 26, 31-9.

Moulton, R.G., 40.

Negro? Othello a, 198-202.

Opening scene in tragedy, 43-4.

Ophelia, 14, 61, 112, _160-5_, 204, 399. See Hamlet.

Oswald, 298, 448.

_Othello_, exposition, 44-5; conflict, 17, 18, 48; peculiar construction, 54-5, 64-7, 177; inconsistencies, 73; place among tragedies, 82, 83, 88; and _Hamlet_, 175-6; and _King Lear_, 176-7, 179, 181, 244-5, 441-3; distinctive effect, and its causes, 176-80; accident in, 15, 181-2; objections to, considered, 183-5; point of inferiority to other three tragedies, 185-6; elements of reconciliation in catastrophe, 198, 242; other references, 9, 61, Notes I to R, and BB.

Othello, 9, 20, 21, 22, 28, 29, 32, 176, 178, 179, _186-98_, 198-202, 211, 212, Notes K to O.

Pathos, and tragedy, 14, 103, 160, 203, 281-2; constructional use of, 60-1.

Peele, 200.

_Pericles_, 474.

Period, Shakespeare's tragic, 79-89, 275-6.

Pessimism, supposed, in _King Lear_, 275-9, 327; in _Macbeth_, 359, 393.

Plays, Shakespeare's, list of, in periods, 79.

Plot, 12. See Action, Intrigue.

'Poetic justice,' 31-2.

Poor, goodness of the, in _King Lear_ and _Timon_, 326.

Posthumus, 21.

Problems, probably non-existent for original audience, 73, 157, 159, 315, 393, 483, 486, 488.

Prose, in the tragedies, 388, 397-400.

Queen Gertrude, 104, 118, 134, 136-8, 161, 164, _166-8_.

Reconciliation, feeling of, in tragedy, 31, 36, 84, 147-8, 174, 198, 242, 322-6.

Regan, _299-300_.

Religion, in Edgar, 306, Horatio, 310, Banquo, 387.

_Richard II._, 3, 10, 17, 18, 42.

Richard II., 20, 22, 150, 152.

_Richard III._, 3, 18, 42, 62, 82; and _Macbeth_, 338, 390, 395, 492.

Richard III., 14, 20, 22, 32, 63, 152, 207, 210, 217, 218, 233, 301.

_Romeo and Juliet_, 3, 7, 9, 15; conflict, 17, 18, 34; exposition, 41-5; crisis, 52; counter-stroke, 58.

Romeo, 22, 29, 150, 210.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, 137, 405-6.

Rules of drama, Shakespeare's supposed ignorance of, 69.

Salvini, 434.

Satan, Milton's, 207, 362.

Scenery, no, in Shakespeare's theatre, 49, 71, 451.

Scenes, their number, length, tone, 49; wrong divisions of, 451.

Schlegel, 82, 104, 105, 116, 123, 127, 254, 262, 344, 345, 413.

Scot on Witch-craft, 341.

Seneca, 389-90.

Shakespeare the man, 6, 81, 83, 185-6, 246, 275-6, 282, 285, 327-30, 359, 393, 414-5.

Shylock, 21.

Siddons, Mrs., 371, 379.

Soliloquy, 72; of villains, 222; scenes ending with, 451.

Sonnets, Shakespeare's, 264, 364.

Spedding, J., 255, 476, Note X.

Stage-directions, wrong modern, 260, 285, 422, 453-6, 462.

Style in the tragedies, 85-9, 332, 336, 357.

Suffering, tragic, 7, 8, 11.

Supernatural, the, in tragedy, 14, 181, 295-6, 331-2. See Ghost, Witch.

Swinburne, A.C., 80, 179, 191, 209, 218, 223, 228, 231, 276-8, 431.

Symonds, J.A., 10.

Tate's version of _King Lear_, 243, 251-3, 313.

Temperament, 110, 282, 306.

_Tempest_, 42, 80, 185, 264, 328-30, 469; Note BB.

Theological ideas in tragedy, 25, 144, 147, 279; in _Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_, 171-4, 439; not in _Othello_, 181, 439; in _King Lear_, 271-3, 296.

Time, short and long, theory of, 426-7.

_Timon of Athens_, 4, 9, 81-3, 88, 245-7, 266, 270, 275, 310, 326-7, 443-5, 460; Note BB.

Timon, 9, 82, 112.

_Titus Andronicus_, 4, 200, 211, 411, 491.

Tourgénief, 11, 295.

Toussaint, 198.

Tragedy, Shakespearean; parts, 41, 51; earlier and later, 18, 176; pure and historical, 3, 71. See Accident, Action, Hero, Period, Reconciliation, etc.

Transmigration of souls, 267.

_Troilus and Cressida_, 7, 185-6, 268, 275-6, 302, 417, 419.

_Twelfth Night_, 70, 267.

_Two Noble Kinsmen_, 418, 472, 479.

Ultimate power in tragedy, 24-39, 171-4, 271-9. See Fate, Moral Order, Reconciliation, Theological.

Undramatic speeches, 74, 106.

Versification. See Style and Metrical tests.

Virgilia, 387.

Waste, tragic, 23, 37.

Werder, K., 94, 172, 480.

_Winter's Tale_, 21, Note BB.

Witches, the, and Macbeth, _340-9_, 362; and Banquo, 379-87.

Wittenberg, Hamlet at, 403-6.

Wordsworth, 30, 198.

_Yorkshire Tragedy_, 10.

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Oxford Lectures on Poetry

BY

A.C. BRADLEY, LL.D., Litt.D.

_ATHENÆUM._--"A remarkable achievement.... It is probable that this volume will attain a permanence for which critical literature generally cannot hope. Very many of the things that are said here are finally said; they exhaust their subject. Of one thing we are certain--that there is no work in English devoted to the interpretation of poetic experience which can claim the delicacy and sureness of Mr. Bradley's."

_SPECTATOR._--"In reviewing Professor Bradley's previous book on _Shakespearean Tragedy_ we declared our opinion that it was probably the best Shakespearean criticism since Coleridge. The new volume shows the same complete sanity of judgment, the same subtlety, the same persuasive and eloquent exposition."

_TIMES._--"Nothing higher need be said of the present volume than it is not unworthy to be the sequel to _Shakespearean Tragedy_."

_DAILY TELEGRAPH._--"This is not a book to be written about in a hasty review of a thousand words. It is one to be perused and appreciated at leisure--to be returned to again and again, partly because of its supreme interest, partly because it provokes, as all good books should do, a certain antagonism, partly because it is itself the product of a careful, scholarly mind, basing conclusions on a scrupulous perusal of documents and authorities.... The whole book is so full of good things that it is impossible to make any adequate selection. In an age which is not supposed to be very much interested in literary criticism, a book like Mr. Bradley's is of no little significance and importance."

_SATURDAY REVIEW._--"The writer of these admirable lectures may claim what is rare even in this age of criticism--a note of his own. In type he belongs to those critics of the best order, whose view of literature is part and parcel of their view of life. His lectures on poetry are therefore what they profess to be: not scraps of textual comment, nor studies in the craft of verse-making, but broad considerations of poetry as a mode of spiritual revelation. An accomplished style and signs of careful reading we may justly demand from any professor who sets out to lecture in literature. Mr. Bradley has them in full measure. But he has also not a little of that priceless quality so seldom found in the professional or professorial critic--the capacity of naïve vision and admiration. Here he is in a line with the really stimulating essayists, the artists in criticism."

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A Commentary on Tennyson's 'In Memoriam'

BY

A.C. BRADLEY, LL.D., Litt.D.

_THE SATURDAY REVIEW._--"Here we find a model of what a commentary on a great work should be, every page instinct with thoughtfulness; complete sympathy and appreciation; the most reverent care shown in the attempted interpretation of passages whose meaning to a large degree evades, and will always evade, readers of 'In Memoriam.' It is clear to us that Mr. Bradley has devoted long time and thought to his work, and that he has published the result of his labours simply to help those who, like himself, have been and are in difficulties as to the drift of various passages. He is not of course the first who has addressed himself to the interpretation of 'In Memoriam'--in this spirit ... but Mr. Bradley's commentary is sure to take rank as the most searching and scholarly of any."

_THE PILOT._--"In re-studying 'In Memoriam' with Dr. Bradley's aid, we have found his interpretation helpful in numerous passages. The notes are prefaced by a long introduction dealing with the origin, composition, and structure of the poem, the ideas used in it, the metre and the debt to other poems. All of these are good, but more interesting than any of them is a section entitled, 'The Way of the Soul,' reviewing the spiritual experience which 'In Memoriam' records. This is quite admirable throughout, and proves conclusively that Dr. Bradley's keen desire to fathom the exact meaning of every phrase has only quickened his appreciation of the poem as a whole."

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