Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 409, November 1849

NORTH.

All true. But we soon gain, too, this insight into his constitution, that the pillar upon which he has built up life is Reputation, and not Respect of Law – not Self-Respect; that the point which Shakspeare above all others intends in him, is that his is a spirit not self-stayed – leaning upon outward stays – and therefore —

BULLER.

Liable to all —

NORTH.

Don't take the words out of my mouth, sir; or rather, don't put them into my mouth, sir.

BULLER.

Touchy to-day.

NORTH.

The strongest expression of this character is his throwing himself upon the illicit divinings of futurity, upon counsellors known for infernal; and you see what subjugating sway the Three Spirits take at once over him. On the contrary, the Thaness is self-stayed; and this difference grounds the poetical opposition of the two personages. In Macbeth, I suppose a certain splendour of character – magnificence of action high – a certain impure generosity – mixed up of some kindliness and sympathy, and of the pleasure from self-elation and self-expansion in a victorious career, and of that ambition which feeds on public esteem.

BULLER.

Ay – just so, sir.

NORTH.

Now mark, Buller – this is a character which, if the path of duty and the path of personal ambition were laid out by the Sisters to be one and the same path, might walk through life in sunlight and honour, and invest the tomb with proud and revered trophies. To show such a spirit wrecked and hurled into infamy – the ill-woven sails rent into shreds by the whirlwind – is a lesson worthy the Play and the Poet – and such a lesson as I think Shakspeare likely to have designed – or, without preaching about lessons, such an ethical revelation as I think likely to have caught hold upon Shakspeare's intelligence. It would seem to me a dramatically-poetical subject. The mightiest of temptations occurs to a mind, full of powers, endowed with available moral elements, but without set virtue – without principles – "and down goes all before it." If the essential delineation of Macbeth be this conflict of Moral elements – of good and evil – of light and darkness – I see a very poetical conception; if merely a hardened and bloody hypocrite from the beginning, I see none. But I need not say to you, gentlemen, that all this is as far as may be from the exaggerated panegyric on his character by Payne Knight.

TALBOYS.

Macbeth is a brave man – so is Banquo – so are we Four, brave men – they in their way and day – we in ours – they as Celts and Soldiers – we as Saxons and Civilians – and we had all need to be so – for hark! in the midst of ours, "Thunder and Lightning, and enter Three Witches."

BULLER.

I cannot say that I understand distinctly their first Confabulation.

NORTH.

That's a pity. A sensible man like you should understand everything. But what if Shakspeare himself did not distinctly understand it? There may have been original errata in the report, as extended by himself from notes taken in short-hand on the spot – light bad – noise worse – voices of Weird Sisters worst – matter obscure – manner uncouth – why really, Buller, all things considered, Shakspeare has shown himself a very pretty Penny-a-liner.

BULLER.

I cry you mercy, sir.

SEWARD.

Where are the Witches on their first appearance, at the very opening of the wonderful Tragedy?

NORTH.

An open Place, with thunder and lightning.

SEWARD.

I know that – the words are written down.

NORTH.

Somewhere or other – anywhere – nowhere.

BULLER.

In Fife or Forfar? Or some one or other of your outlandish, or inlandish, Lowland or Highland Counties?

NORTH.

Not knowing, can't say. Probably.

SEWARD

"When the Hurly Burly's done,When the Battle's lost and won."

What Hurly Burly? What Battle? That in which Macbeth is then engaged? And which is to be brought to issue ere "set of sun" of the day on which "enter Three Witches?"

NORTH.

Let it be so.

SEWARD.

"Upon the heath,There to meet with Macbeth."

The Witches, then, are to meet with Macbeth on the heath on the Evening of the Battle?

NORTH.

It would seem so.

SEWARD.

They are "posters over sea and land" – and, like whiffs of lightning, can outsail and outride the sound of thunder. But Macbeth and Banquo must have had on their seven-league boots.

NORTH.

They must.

SEWARD.

"A drum, a drum!Macbeth doth come."

Was he with the advanced guard of the Army?

NORTH.

Not unlikely – attended by his Staff. Generals, on such occasions, usually ride – but perhaps Macbeth and Banquo, being in kilts, preferred walking in their seven-league boots. Thomas Campbell has said, "When the drum of the Scottish Army is heard on the wild heath, and when I fancy it advancing with its bowmen in front, and its spears and banners in the distance, I am always disappointed with Macbeth's entrance at the head of a few kilted actors." The army may have been there – but they did not see the Weirds – nor, I believe, did the Weirds see them. With Macbeth and Banquo alone had they to do: we see no Army at that hour – we hear no drums – we are deaf even to the Great Highland Bagpipe, though He, you may be sure, was not dumb – all "plaided and plumed in their tartan array" the Highland Host ceased to be – like vanished shadows – at the first apparition of "those so withered and so wild in their attire" – not of the earth though on it, and alive somewhere till this day – while generations after generations of mere Fighting Men have been disbanded by dusty Death.

SEWARD.

I wish to know where and when had been the Fighting? The Norwegian – one Sweno, had come down very handsomely at Inchcolm with ten thousand dollars – a sum in those days equal to a million of money in Scotland —

NORTH.

Seward, speak on subjects you understand. What do you know, sir, of the value of money in those days in Scotland?

SEWARD.

But where had been all the Fighting? There would seem to have been two hurley-burleys.

NORTH.

I see your drift, Seward. Time and Place, through the First Scene of the First Act, are past finding out. It has been asked – Was Shakspeare ever in Scotland? Never. There is not one word in this Tragedy leading a Scotsman to think so – many showing he never had that happiness. Let him deal with our localities according to his own sovereign will and pleasure, as a prevailing Poet. But let no man point out his dealings with our localities as proofs of his having such knowledge of them as implies personal acquaintance with them gained by a longer or shorter visit in Scotland. The Fights at the beginning seem to be in Fife. The Soldier, there wounded, delivers his relation at the King's Camp before Forres. He has crawled, in half-an-hour, or an hour – or two hours – say seventy, eighty, or a hundred miles, or more – crossing the ridge of the Grampians. Rather smart. I do not know what you think here of Time; but I think that Space is here pretty well done for. The Time of the Action of Shakspeare's Plays has never yet, so far as I know, been, in any one Play, carefully investigated – never investigated at all; and I now announce to you Three – don't mention it – that I have made discoveries here that will astound the whole world, and demand a New Criticism of the entire Shakspearean Drama.

BULLER.

Let us have one now, I beseech you, sir.

NORTH.

Not now.

BULLER.

No sleep in the Tent till we have it, sir. I do dearly love astounding discoveries – and at this time of day, in astounding discovery in Shakspeare! May it not prove a Mare's Nest!

NORTH.

The Tragedy of Macbeth is a prodigious Tragedy, because in it the Chariot of Nemesis visibly rides in the lurid thunder-sky. Because in it the ill motions of a human soul, which Theologians account for by referring them all to suggestions of Beelzebub, are expounded in visible, mysterious, tangible, terrible shape and symbolisation by the Witches. It is great by the character and person, workings and sufferings, of Lady Macbeth – by the immense poetical power in doing the Witches – mingling for once in the world the Homely-Grotesque and the Sublime – extinguishing the Vulgar in the Sublime – by the bond, whatsoever it be, between Macbeth and his wife – by making us tolerate her and him —

BULLER.

Didn't I say that in my own way, sir? And didn't you reprove me for saying it, and order me out of the Tent?

NORTH.

And what of the Witches?

BULLER.

Had you not stopt me. I say now, sir, that nobody understands Shakspeare's Hecate. Who is She? Each of the Three Weirds is = one Witch + one of the Three Fates – therefore the union of two incompatible natures – more than in a Centaur. Oh! Sir! what a hand that was which bound the two into one – inseverably! There they are for ever as the Centaurs are. But the gross Witch prevails; which Shakspeare needed for securing belief, and he has it, full. Hecate, sir, comes in to balance the disproportion – she lifts into Mythology – and strengthens the mythological tincture. So does the "Pit of Acheron." That is classical. To the best of my remembrance, no mention of any such Pit in the Old or New Statistical Account of Scotland.

NORTH.

And, in the Incantation Scene, those Apparitions! Mysterious, ominous, picturesque – and self-willed. They are commanded by the Witches, but under a limitation. Their oracular power is their own. They are of unknown orders – as if for the occasion created in Hell.

North.

Talboys, are you asleep – or are you at Chess with your eyes shut?

TALBOYS.

At Chess with my eyes shut. I shall send off my move to my friend Stirling by first post. But my ears were open – and I ask – when did Macbeth first design the murder of Duncan? Does not everybody think – in the moment after the Witches have first accosted and left him? Does not – it may be asked – the whole moral significancy of the Witches disappear, unless the invasion of hell into Macbeth's bosom is first made by their presence and voices?

NORTH.

No. The whole moral significancy of the Witches only then appears, when we are assured that they address themselves only to those who already have been tampering with their conscience. "Good sir! why do you start, and seem to fear things that do sound so fair?" That question put to Macbeth by Banquo turns our eyes to his face – and we see Guilt. There was no start at "Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor," – but at the word "King" well might he start; for – eh?

TALBOYS.

We must look up the Scene.

NORTH.

No need for that. You have it by heart – recite it.

TALBOYS.

"Macbeth. So foul and fair a day I have not seen.Banquo. How far is't call'd to Forres? – What are these,So wither'd, and so wild in their attire;That look not like the inhabitants of the earth,And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aughtThat man may question? You seem to understand me,By each at once her choppy finger layingUpon her skinny lips: – You should be women,And yet your beards forbid me to interpretThat you are so.Macbeth. Speak, if you can; – What are you?1st Witch. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!2d Witch. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!3d Witch. All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter.Banquo. Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fearThings that do sound so fair? – I' the name of truth,Are ye fantastical, or that indeedWhich outwardly ye show? My noble partnerYou greet with present grace, and great predictionOf noble having, and of royal hope,That he seems rapt withal; to me you speak not:If you can look into the seeds of time,And say which grain will grow, and which will not;Speak then to me, who neither beg, nor fearYour favours nor your hate.1st Witch. Hail!2d Witch. Hail!3d Witch. Hail!1st Witch. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.2d Witch. Not so happy, yet much happier.3d Witch. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:So, all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!1st Witch. Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!Macbeth. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more:By Sinel's death, I know, I am thane of Glamis;But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives,A prosperous gentleman; and to be king,Stands not within the prospect of belief,No more than to be Cawdor. Say, from whenceYou owe this strange intelligence? or whyUpon this blasted heath you stop our wayWith such prophetic greeting? – Speak, I charge you.

[Witches vanish.

Banquo. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,And these are of them: – Whither are they vanish'd?Macbeth. Into the air, and what seem'd corporal, meltedAs breath into the wind. 'Would they had staid!Banquo. Were such things here, as we do speak about?Or have we eaten of the insane root,That takes the reason prisoner.Macbeth. Your children shall be kings.Banquo. You shall be king.Macbeth. And thane of Cawdor too; went it not so?Banquo. To the self-same tune, and words."

NORTH.

Charles Kemble himself could not have given it more impressively.

BULLER.

You make him blush, sir.

NORTH.

Attend to that "start" of Macbeth, Talboys.

TALBOYS.

He might well start on being told of a sudden, by such seers, that he was hereafter to be King of Scotland.

NORTH.

There was more in the start than that, my lad, else Shakspeare would not have so directed our eyes to it. I say again – it was the start – of a murderer.

TALBOYS.

And what if I say it was not? But I have the candour to confess, that I am not familiar with the starts of murderers – so may possibly be mistaken.

NORTH.

Omit what intervenes – and give us the Soliloquy, Talboys. But before you do so, let me merely remind you that Macbeth's mind, from the little he says in the interim, is manifestly ruminating on something bad, ere he breaks out into Soliloquy.

TALBOYS.

"Two truths are told,As happy prologues to the swelling actOf the imperial theme – I thank you, gentlemen. —This supernatural solicitingCannot be ill – cannot be good: – If ill,Why hath it given me earnest of success,Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor:If good, why do I yield to that suggestionWhose horrid image doth unfix my hair,And make my seated heart knock at my ribsAgainst the use of nature? Present fearsAre less than horrible imaginings:My thought whose murder is yet but fantasticalShakes so my single state of man, that functionIs smothered in surmise; and nothing is,But what is not."

NORTH.

Now, my dear Talboys, you will agree with me in thinking that this first great and pregnant, although brief soliloquy, stands for germ, type, and law of the whole Play, and of its criticism – and for clue to the labyrinth of the Thane's character. "Out of this wood do not desire to go." Out of it I do not expect soon to go. I regard William as a fair Poet and a reasonable Philosopher; but as a supereminent Play-wright. The First Soliloquy must speak the nature of Macbeth, else the Craftsman has no skill in his trade. A Soliloquy reveals. That is its function. Therein is the soul heard and seen discoursing with itself – within itself; and if you carry your eye through – up to the First Appearance of Lady Macbeth – this Soliloquy is distinctly the highest point of the Tragedy – the tragic acme – or dome – or pinnacle – therefore of power indefinite, infinite. On this rock I stand, a Colossus ready to be thrown down by – an Earthquake.

BULLER.

Pushed off by – a shove.

NORTH.

Not by a thousand Buller-power. Can you believe, Buller, that the word of the Third Witch, "that shalt be King Hereafter," sows the murder in Macbeth's heart, and that it springs up, flowers, and fruits with such fearful rapidity.

BULLER.

Why – Yes and No.

NORTH.

Attend, Talboys, to the words "supernatural soliciting." What "supernatural soliciting" to evil is there here? Not a syllable had the Weird Sisters breathed about Murder. But now there is much soliloquising – and Cawdor contemplates himself objectively– seen busy upon an elderly gentleman called Duncan – after a fashion that so frightens him subjectively– that Banquo cannot help whispering to Rosse and Angus —

"See how our partner's rapt!"

TALBOYS.

"My thought whose murder's yet fantastical." I agree with you, sir, in suspecting he must have thought of the murder.

NORTH.

It is from no leaning towards the Weird Sisters – whom I never set eyes on but once, and then without interchanging a word, leapt momentarily out of this world into that pitch-pot of a pond in Glenco – it is, I say, from no leaning towards the Weird Sisters that I take this view of Macbeth's character. No "sublime flashes of generosity, magnanimity, tenderness, and every exalted quality that can dignify and adorn the human mind," do I ever suffer to pass by without approbation, when coruscating from the character of any well-disposed man, real or imaginary, however unaccountable at other times his conduct may appear to be; but Shakspeare, who knew Macbeth better than any of us, has here assured us that he was in heart a murderer – for how long he does not specify – before he had ever seen a birse on any of the Weird Sisters' beards. But let's be canny. Talboys – pray, what is the meaning of the word "soliciting," "preternatural soliciting," in this Soliloquy?

TALBOYS.

Soliciting, sir, is, in my interpreting, "an appealing, intimate visitation."

NORTH.

Right. The appeal is general – as that challenge of a trumpet —Fairy Queen, book III., canto xii., stanza 1 —

"Signe of nigh battail or got victorye" —

which, all indeterminate, is notwithstanding a challenge– operates, and is felt as such.

TALBOYS.

So a thundering knock at your door – which may be a friend or an enemy. It comes as a summoning. It is more than internal urging and inciting of me by my own thoughts – for mark, sir, the rigour of the word "supernatural," which throws the soliciting off his own soul upon the Weirds. The word is really undetermined to pleasure or pain – the essential thought being that there is a searching or penetrating provocative – a stirring up of that which lay dead and still. Next is the debate whether this intrusive, and pungent, and stimulant assault of a presence and an oracle be good or ill?

NORTH.

Does the hope live in him for a moment that this home-visiting is not ill – that the Spirits are not ill? They have spoken truth so far – ergo, the Third "All hail!" shall be true, too. But more than that – they have spoken truth. Ergo, they are not spirits of Evil. That hope dies in the same instant, submerged in the stormy waves which the blast from hell arouses. The infernal revelation glares clear before him – a Crown held out by the hand of Murder. One or two struggles occur. Then the truth stands before him fixed and immutable – "Evil, be thou my good." He is dedicated: and passive to fate. I cannot comprehend this so feeble debate in the mind of a good man – I cannot comprehend any such debate at all in the mind of a previously settled and determined murderer; but I can comprehend and feel its awful significancy in the mind of a man already in a most perilous moral condition.

SEWARD.

The "start" shows that the spark has caught – it has fallen into a tun of gunpowder.

TALBOYS.

The touch of Ithuriel's spear.

NORTH.

May we not say, then, that perhaps the Witches have shown no more than this – the Fascination of Contact between Passion and Opportunity?

SEWARD.

To Philosophy reading the hieroglyphic; but to the People what? To them they are a reality. They seize the imagination with all power. They come like "blasts from hell" – like spirits of Plague, whose breath – whose very sight kills.

"Within them HellThey bring, and round about them; nor from HellOne step, no more than from themselves, can fly."

The contagion of their presence, in spite of what we have been saying, almost reconciles my understanding to what it would otherwise revolt from, the suddenness with which the penetration of Macbeth into futurity lays fast hold upon Murder.

BULLER.

Pretty fast – though it gives a twist or two in his handling.

SEWARD.

Lady Macbeth herself corroborates your judgment and Shakspeare's on her husband's character.

TALBOYS.

Does she?

SEWARD.

She does. In that dreadful parley between them on the night of the Murder – she reminds him of a time when

"Nor time nor placeDid then adhere, and yet you would make both;They have made themselves, and that their fitness nowDoes unmake you."

This – mark you, sir – must have been before the Play began!

NORTH.

I have often thought of the words – and Shakspeare himself has so adjusted the action of the Play as that, since the encounter with the Weirds, no opportunity had occurred to Macbeth for the "making of time and place." Therefore it must, as you say, have been before it. Buller, what say you now?

BULLER.

Gagged.

NORTH.

True, she speaks of his being "full of the milk of human kindness." The words have become favourites with us, who are an affectionate and domestic people – and are lovingly applied to the loving; but Lady Macbeth attached no such profound sense to them as we do; and meant merely that she thought her husband would, after all, much prefer greatness unbought by blood; and, at the time she referred to, it is probable he would; but that she meant no more than that, is plain from the continuation of her praise, in which her ideas get not a little confused; and her words, interpret them as you will, leave nothing "milky" in Macbeth at all. Milk of human kindness, indeed!

TALBOYS.

"What thou would'st highly,That would'st thou holily; would'st not play false,And yet would'st wrongly win: thou'dst have great Glamis,That which cries, 'Thus thou must do, if thou have it;And that which rather thou dost fear to doThan wishest should be undone.'"

That is her Ladyship's notion of the "milk of human kindness"! "I wish somebody would murder Duncan – as for murdering him myself, I am much too tender-hearted and humane for perpetrating such cruelty with my own hand!"

BULLER.

Won't you believe a Wife to be a good judge of her Husband's disposition?

NORTH.

Not Lady Macbeth. For does not she herself tell us, at the same time, that he had formerly schemed how to commit Murder?

BULLER.

Gagged again.

NORTH.

I see no reason for doubting that she was attached to her husband; and Shakspeare loved to put into the lips of women beautiful expressions of love – but he did not intend that we should be deceived thereby in our moral judgements.

SEWARD.

Did this ever occur to you, sir? Macbeth, when hiring the murderers who are to look after Banquo and Fleance, cites a conversation in which he had demonstrated to them that the oppression under which they had long suffered, and which they had supposed to proceed from Macbeth, proceeded really from Banquo? My firm belief is that it proceeded from Macbeth – that their suspicion was right – that Macbeth is misleading them – and that Shakspeare means you to apprehend this. But why should Macbeth have oppressed his inferiors, unless he had been – long since – of a tyrannical nature? He oppresses his inferiors – they are sickened and angered with the world – by his oppression – he tells them 'twas not he but another who had oppressed them – and that other – at his instigation – they willingly murder. An ugly affair altogether.

NORTH.

Very. But let us keep to the First Act – and see what a hypocrite Macbeth has so very soon become – what a savage assassin! He has just followed up his Soliloquy with these significant lines —

"Come what come may,Time and the hour run through the roughest day;"

when he recollects that Banquo, Rosse, and Angus are standing near. Richard himself is not more wily – guily – smily – and oily; to the Lords his condescension is already quite kingly —

"Kind gentlemen, your painsAre registered where every day I turnThe leaf to read them" —

TALBOYS.

And soon after, to the King how obsequious!

"The service and the loyalty I owe,In doing it, pays itself. Your Highness' partIs to receive our duties; and our dutiesAre to your throne and state, children, and servants;Which do but what they should by doing everythingSafe toward you love and honour."

What would Payne Knight have said to all that? This to his King, whom he has resolved, first good opportunity, to murder!