Part 26 (1/2)
answer my life my judgment, Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least; Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound Reverbs no hollowness.]
[Footnote 182: I. i. 80. 'More ponderous' is the reading of the Folios, 'more richer' that of the Quartos. The latter is usually preferred, and Mr. Aldis Wright says 'more ponderous' has the appearance of being a player's correction to avoid a piece of imaginary bad grammar. Does it not sound more like the author's improvement of a phrase that he thought a little flat? And, apart from that, is it not significant that it expresses the same idea of weight that appears in the phrase 'I cannot heave my heart into my mouth'?]
[Footnote 183: Cf. Cornwall's satirical remarks on Kent's 'plainness' in II. ii. 101 ff.,--a plainness which did no service to Kent's master. (As a matter of fact, Cordelia had said nothing about 'plainness.')]
[Footnote 184: Who, like Kent, hastens on the quarrel with Goneril.]
[Footnote 185: I do not wish to complicate the discussion by examining the differences, in degree or otherwise, in the various cases, or by introducing numerous qualifications; and therefore I do not add the names of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.]
[Footnote 186: It follows from the above that, if this idea were made explicit and accompanied our reading of a tragedy throughout, it would confuse or even destroy the tragic impression. So would the constant presence of Christian beliefs. The reader most attached to these beliefs holds them in temporary suspension while he is immersed in a Shakespearean tragedy. Such tragedy a.s.sumes that the world, as it is presented, is the truth, though it also provokes feelings which imply that this world is not the whole truth, and therefore not the truth.]
[Footnote 187: Though Cordelia, of course, does not occupy the position of the hero.]
[Footnote 188: _E.g._ in _King Lear_ the servants, and the old man who succours Gloster and brings to the naked beggar 'the best 'parel that he has, come on't what will,' _i.e._ whatever vengeance Regan can inflict.
Cf. the Steward and the Servants in _Timon_. Cf. there also (V. i. 23), 'Promising is the very air o' the time ... performance is ever the duller for his act; and, _but in the plainer and simpler kind of people_, the deed of saying [performance of promises] is quite out of use.' Shakespeare's feeling on this subject, though apparently specially keen at this time of his life, is much the same throughout (cf. Adam in _As You Like It_). He has no respect for the plainer and simpler kind of people as politicians, but a great respect and regard for their hearts.]
[Footnote 189: 'I stumbled when I saw,' says Gloster.]
[Footnote 190: Our advantages give us a blind confidence in our security. Cf. _Timon_, IV. iii. 76,
_Alc._ I have heard in some sort of thy miseries.
_Tim._ Thou saw'st them when I had prosperity.]
[Footnote 191: Biblical ideas seem to have been floating in Shakespeare's mind. Cf. the words of Kent, when Lear enters with Cordelia's body, 'Is this the promised end?' and Edgar's answer, 'Or image of that horror?' The 'promised end' is certainly the end of the world (cf. with 'image' 'the great doom's image,' _Macbeth_, II. iii.
83); and the next words, Albany's 'Fall and cease,' _may_ be addressed to the heavens or stars, not to Lear. It seems probable that in writing Gloster's speech about the predicted horrors to follow 'these late eclipses' Shakespeare had a vague recollection of the pa.s.sage in _Matthew_ xxiv., or of that in _Mark_ xiii., about the tribulations which were to be the sign of 'the end of the world.' (I do not mean, of course, that the 'prediction' of I. ii. 119 is the prediction to be found in one of these pa.s.sages.)]
[Footnote 192: Cf. _Hamlet_, III. i. 181:
This something-settled matter in his heart, Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus From fas.h.i.+on of himself.]
[Footnote 193: I believe the criticism of _King Lear_ which has influenced me most is that in Prof. Dowden's _Shakspere, his Mind and Art_ (though, when I wrote my lectures, I had not read that criticism for many years); and I am glad that this acknowledgment gives me the opportunity of repeating in print an opinion which I have often expressed to students, that anyone entering on the study of Shakespeare, and unable or unwilling to read much criticism, would do best to take Prof. Dowden for his guide.]
LECTURE IX
MACBETH
_Macbeth_, it is probable, was the last-written of the four great tragedies, and immediately preceded _Antony and Cleopatra_.[194] In that play Shakespeare's final style appears for the first time completely formed, and the transition to this style is much more decidedly visible in _Macbeth_ than in _King Lear_. Yet in certain respects _Macbeth_ recalls _Hamlet_ rather than _Oth.e.l.lo_ or _King Lear_. In the heroes of both plays the pa.s.sage from thought to a critical resolution and action is difficult, and excites the keenest interest. In neither play, as in _Oth.e.l.lo_ and _King Lear_, is painful pathos one of the main effects.
Evil, again, though it shows in _Macbeth_ a prodigious energy, is not the icy or stony inhumanity of Iago or Goneril; and, as in _Hamlet_, it is pursued by remorse. Finally, Shakespeare no longer restricts the action to purely human agencies, as in the two preceding tragedies; portents once more fill the heavens, ghosts rise from their graves, an unearthly light flickers about the head of the doomed man. The special popularity of _Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_ is due in part to some of these common characteristics, notably to the fascination of the supernatural, the absence of the spectacle of extreme undeserved suffering, the absence of characters which horrify and repel and yet are dest.i.tute of grandeur. The reader who looks unwillingly at Iago gazes at Lady Macbeth in awe, because though she is dreadful she is also sublime. The whole tragedy is sublime.
In this, however, and in other respects, _Macbeth_ makes an impression quite different from that of _Hamlet_. The dimensions of the princ.i.p.al characters, the rate of movement in the action, the supernatural effect, the style, the versification, are all changed; and they are all changed in much the same manner. In many parts of _Macbeth_ there is in the language a peculiar compression, pregnancy, energy, even violence; the harmonious grace and even flow, often conspicuous in _Hamlet_, have almost disappeared. The cruel characters, built on a scale at least as large as that of _Oth.e.l.lo_, seem to attain at times an almost superhuman stature. The diction has in places a huge and rugged grandeur, which degenerates here and there into tumidity. The solemn majesty of the royal Ghost in _Hamlet_, appearing in armour and standing silent in the moonlight, is exchanged for shapes of horror, dimly seen in the murky air or revealed by the glare of the caldron fire in a dark cavern, or for the ghastly face of Banquo badged with blood and staring with blank eyes. The other three tragedies all open with conversations which lead into the action: here the action bursts into wild life amidst the sounds of a thunder-storm and the echoes of a distant battle. It hurries through seven very brief scenes of mounting suspense to a terrible crisis, which is reached, in the murder of Duncan, at the beginning of the Second Act. Pausing a moment and changing its shape, it hastes again with scarcely diminished speed to fresh horrors. And even when the speed of the outward action is slackened, the same effect is continued in another form: we are shown a soul tortured by an agony which admits not a moment's repose, and rus.h.i.+ng in frenzy towards its doom. _Macbeth_ is very much shorter than the other three tragedies, but our experience in traversing it is so crowded and intense that it leaves an impression not of brevity but of speed. It is the most vehement, the most concentrated, perhaps we may say the most tremendous, of the tragedies.
1
A Shakespearean tragedy, as a rule, has a special tone or atmosphere of its own, quite perceptible, however difficult to describe. The effect of this atmosphere is marked with unusual strength in _Macbeth_. It is due to a variety of influences which combine with those just noticed, so that, acting and reacting, they form a whole; and the desolation of the blasted heath, the design of the Witches, the guilt in the hero's soul, the darkness of the night, seem to emanate from one and the same source.
This effect is strengthened by a mult.i.tude of small touches, which at the moment may be little noticed but still leave their mark on the imagination. We may approach the consideration of the characters and the action by distinguis.h.i.+ng some of the ingredients of this general effect.
Darkness, we may even say blackness, broods over this tragedy. It is remarkable that almost all the scenes which at once recur to memory take place either at night or in some dark spot. The vision of the dagger, the murder of Duncan, the murder of Banquo, the sleep-walking of Lady Macbeth, all come in night-scenes. The Witches dance in the thick air of a storm, or, 'black and midnight hags,' receive Macbeth in a cavern. The blackness of night is to the hero a thing of fear, even of horror; and that which he feels becomes the spirit of the play. The faint glimmerings of the western sky at twilight are here menacing: it is the hour when the traveller hastens to reach safety in his inn, and when Banquo rides homeward to meet his a.s.sa.s.sins; the hour when 'light thickens,' when 'night's black agents to their prey do rouse,' when the wolf begins to howl, and the owl to scream, and withered murder steals forth to his work. Macbeth bids the stars hide their fires that his 'black' desires may be concealed; Lady Macbeth calls on thick night to come, palled in the dunnest smoke of h.e.l.l. The moon is down and no stars s.h.i.+ne when Banquo, dreading the dreams of the coming night, goes unwillingly to bed, and leaves Macbeth to wait for the summons of the little bell. When the next day should dawn, its light is 'strangled,'
and 'darkness does the face of earth entomb.' In the whole drama the sun seems to s.h.i.+ne only twice: first, in the beautiful but ironical pa.s.sage where Duncan sees the swallows flitting round the castle of death; and, afterwards, when at the close the avenging army gathers to rid the earth of its shame. Of the many slighter touches which deepen this effect I notice only one. The failure of nature in Lady Macbeth is marked by her fear of darkness; 'she has light by her continually.' And in the one phrase of fear that escapes her lips even in sleep, it is of the darkness of the place of torment that she speaks.[195]