Part 29 (1/2)
[Footnote 206: See Note CC.]
[Footnote 207: The proclamation of Malcolm as Duncan's successor (I.
iv.) changes the position, but the design of murder is prior to this.]
[Footnote 208: Schlegel's a.s.sertion that the first thought of the murder comes from the Witches is thus in flat contradiction with the text. (The sentence in which he a.s.serts this is, I may observe, badly mistranslated in the English version, which, wherever I have consulted the original, shows itself untrustworthy. It ought to be revised, for Schlegel is well worth reading.)]
[Footnote 209: It is noticeable that Dr. Forman, who saw the play in 1610 and wrote a sketch of it in his journal, says nothing about the later prophecies. Perhaps he despised them as mere stuff for the groundlings. The reader will find, I think, that the great poetic effect of Act IV. Sc. i. depends much more on the 'charm' which precedes Macbeth's entrance, and on Macbeth himself, than on the predictions.]
[Footnote 210: This comparison was suggested by a pa.s.sage in Hegel's _Aesthetik_, i. 291 ff.]
[Footnote 211: _Il._ i. 188 ff. (Leaf's translation).]
[Footnote 212: The supernaturalism of the modern poet, indeed, is more 'external' than that of the ancient. We have already had evidence of this, and shall find more when we come to the character of Banquo.]
[Footnote 213: The a.s.sertion that Lady Macbeth sought a crown for herself, or sought anything for herself, apart from her husband, is absolutely unjustified by anything in the play. It is based on a sentence of Holinshed's which Shakespeare did _not_ use.]
[Footnote 214: The word is used of him (I. ii. 67), but not in a way that decides this question or even bears on it.]
[Footnote 215: This view, thus generally stated, is not original, but I cannot say who first stated it.]
[Footnote 216: The latter, and more important, point was put quite clearly by Coleridge.]
[Footnote 217: It is the consequent insistence on the idea of fear, and the frequent repet.i.tion of the word, that have princ.i.p.ally led to misinterpretation.]
[Footnote 218: _E.g._ I. iii. 149, where he excuses his abstraction by saying that his 'dull brain was wrought with things forgotten,' when nothing could be more natural than that he should be thinking of his new honour.]
[Footnote 219: _E.g._ in I. iv. This is so also in II. iii. 114 ff., though here there is some real imaginative excitement mingled with the rhetorical ant.i.theses and balanced clauses and forced bombast.]
[Footnote 220: III. i. Lady Macbeth herself could not more naturally have introduced at intervals the questions 'Ride you this afternoon?'
(l. 19), 'Is't far you ride?' (l. 24), 'Goes Fleance with you?' (l.
36).]
[Footnote 221: We feel here, however, an underlying subdued frenzy which awakes some sympathy. There is an almost unendurable impatience expressed even in the rhythm of many of the lines; _e.g._:
Well then, now Have you consider'd of my speeches? Know That it was he in the times past which held you So under fortune, which you thought had been Our innocent self: this I made good to you In our last conference, pa.s.s'd in probation with you, How you were borne in hand, how cross'd, the instruments, Who wrought with them, and all things else that might To half a soul and to a notion crazed Say, 'Thus did Banquo.'
This effect is heard to the end of the play in Macbeth's less poetic speeches, and leaves the same impression of burning energy, though not of imaginative exaltation, as his great speeches. In these we find either violent, huge, sublime imagery, or a torrent of figurative expressions (as in the famous lines about 'the innocent sleep'). Our impressions as to the diction of the play are largely derived from these speeches of the hero, but not wholly so. The writing almost throughout leaves an impression of intense, almost feverish, activity.]
[Footnote 222: See his first words to the Ghost: 'Thou canst not say I did it.']
[Footnote 223:
For only in destroying I find ease To my relentless thoughts.--_Paradise Lost_, ix. 129.
Milton's portrait of Satan's misery here, and at the beginning of Book IV., might well have been suggested by _Macbeth_. Coleridge, after quoting Duncan's speech, I. iv. 35 ff., says: 'It is a fancy; but I can never read this, and the following speeches of Macbeth, without involuntarily thinking of the Miltonic Messiah and Satan.' I doubt if it was a mere fancy. (It will be remembered that Milton thought at one time of writing a tragedy on Macbeth.)]
[Footnote 224: The immediate reference in 'But no more sights' is doubtless to the visions called up by the Witches; but one of these, the 'blood-bolter'd Banquo,' recalls to him the vision of the preceding night, of which he had said,
You make me strange Even to the disposition that I owe, When now I think you can behold such _sights_, And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks, When mine is blanch'd with fear.]