Weird Sisters know, by supernatural ways, that Macbeth is burning to question them further, and that he has resolved to pay them a visit. To instruct and inspire him in a suitable manner, they arrange to hold a religious service in his presence and behalf. And they fitly employ the language and ritual of witchcraft, as being the only language and ritual which he can understand and take the sense of: they adopt, for the occasion, the sacraments of witchcraft, because these are the only sacraments whereby they can impart to him the Satanic grace and efficacy which it is their office to dispense. The language, however, and ritual of witchcraft are in their use condensed and intensified to the highest degree of potency and impressiveness. Thus their appalling infernal liturgy is a special and necessary accommodation to the senses and the mind of the person they are dealing with. It really seems to me that they had no practicable way but to speak and act in this instance just like witches, only a great deal more so. But, in the Middleton scenes and parts of scenes, they are made to speak and act just like common witches, to no purpose, and without any occasion for it. This is, indeed, to disnature them, to empty them of their selfhood, and turn them clean out of themselves. It may not be amiss to add, in this place, that Shakespeare of course wrote his plays for the stage; but then he also, in a far deeper and higher sense, wrote them for the human mind. And the divinity of his genius lies pre-eminently in this, that, while he wished to make his workmanship attractive and fruitful in the theatre, he could not choose but make it at the same time potent and delectable in the inner courts of man's intelligent and upward-reaching soul. But this latter service was a thing that Middleton knew nothing of, and had not the heart to conceive. I return to Mr. Fleay. To the few smaller interpolations pointed out by the Clarendon Editors, he adds a considerable number. These call for some notice. Clark and Wright make particular mention of a passage in Act v., scene 5, as follows: Arm, arm, and out! If this which he avouches does appear, There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here. I'gin to be aweary of the Sun, And wish th' estate o' the world were now undone. Ring the alarum bell! - Blow, wind! come wrack! And of the four lines here underscored they justly observe, "How much better the sense is without them!" Let any one read the passage without these lines, and surely he must see that Shakespeare could not have written them. In like manner, Mr. Fleay calls attention to the close of v., 6, where Macduff, whose speech is everywhere else so simple, so manly, and so condensed, is made to utter the following strutting and ambitious platitude : Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath, 66 The other passages pointed out by Mr. Fleay are as follows: Act i., scene 4, the eight lines and a half beginning, "The Prince of Cumberland!" Also, ii., I, at the end, "There's warrant in that theft," &c. Also, ii., 2, the two couplets beginning, "Well, may you see things,” and, God's benison go with you." Also, iii., 4, the four and a half lines beginning, "I am in blood." And so the end of the scene, "My strange and self-abuse," &c. Also, iv., I, the four lines and two half-lines beginning, "bid the tree." And at the close of the scene, the line and a half, "No boasting," &c. Also, v., I, last line but one of the scene, "My mind she has mated," &c. Also, v., 3, the two couplets at the close, “I will not be afraid,” &c., and, "Were I away from Dunsinane," &c. Also, the five and a half lines at the end of v., 4, The time approaches," &c. 66 In all the forecited cases I accept Mr. Fleay's rulings, and accordingly print the passages in Italic type. I have also distinguished in the same way two passages on my own judgment, as follows: Act i., scene 5, Lady Macbeth's speech at the end, "Only look up clear," &c.; and also, v., 3, the couplet beginring, "The mind I sway by." And there are several other pas 66 Away, and and a half at the Again, in iii., 2, sages which I strongly suspect ought to be put on the same list; particularly the couplet, i., 5, "Which shall to all our nights," &c. Perhaps, also, the couplet at the end of i., 7, mock the time," &c. And perhaps the line close of v., 2, “Or so much as it needs," &c. the three and a half lines beginning, "Nought's had, all's spent," taste strongly of another hand, and as if foisted in as a substitute for something Shakespeare had written. Lastly, and especially, the five lines and a half at the close of the same scene, beginning, 'Light thickens, and the crow makes wing." I am all but satisfied that this is not Shakespeare's; for it is not only flat and feeble, but hardly consistent with what precedes; and seems, indeed, the work of one who fancied he was surpassing Shakespeare. In all these cases, however, I do not feel quite sure enough to venture a full decision, and therefore leave them unmarked. 66 66 As regards the closing part of the play, all, I mean, that follows, after Macbeth and Macduff go out fighting, I have not yet been able fully to make up my mind. The Clarendon Editors, as we have seen, rule it all off from Shakespeare. Mr. Fleay speaks of it as follows: The account of young Siward's death and the unnatural patriotism of his father, which is derived from Holinshed's history of England, and not of Scotland like the rest of the play, is a bit of padding put in by Shakespeare after finishing the whole tragedy." To the best of my judgment, some portions of it are not unworthy of Shakespeare; especially the speech of Macduff on his re-entrance with Macbeth's head. On the other hand, what old Siward says about the death of his son seems too hard and unnatural for Shakespeare's healthy human-heartedness to have written. To be sure, we cannot but feel that the brave old father's heart is not in his words; and the latter may be taken as a spontaneous effort to hide his grief. So that I still hesitate. As to the last speech, however, I have no doubts whatever, and accordingly print it in Italic type. I close with a statement, somewhat condensed, of Mr. Fleay's "theory as to the composition of the play." "It was written," says he, "by Shakespeare during his third period: I think, after Hamlet and King Lear; so that its date was probably 1606. At some time after this, Middleton revised and abridged it: I agree with the Cambridge Editors in saying not earlier than 1613. There is a decisive argument that he did so after he wrote The Witch; namely, that he borrows the songs from the latter play, and repeats himself a good deal. It is to me very likely that he should repeat himself in Macbeth, and somewhat improve on his original conception, as he has done in the corresponding passages; and yet be unable to do a couple of songs, or to avoid the monotony of introducing Hecate in both plays. I believe that Middleton, having found the groundlings more taken with the Witches, and the cauldron, than with the grander art displayed in the Fate-goddesses, determined to amalgamate these, and to give us plenty of them. I believe also the extra fighting in the last scenes was inserted for the same reason. But, finding that the magic and the singing and the fighting made the play too long, he cut out large portions of the psychological Shakespeare work, in which, as far as quantity is concerned, this play is very deficient compared with the three other masterpieces of worldpoetry, and left us the torso we now have. To hide the excisions, Middleton put on tags at the places where he made the scenes end: and, to my thinking, if any one will compare the endings of the scenes where Shakespeare has left them without tags with those where I have tried to show that Middleton put them in, he will find that there is a great difference in the completeness of the scenes. Or try another experiment: cut off the tags from the scenes where Shakespeare put them, and those where Middleton put them; a similarly decisive result will be felt." There remains but to add, that I have no doubt whatever of the play's having been greatly shortened in the process of alteration. For the alteration was evidently prosecuted with a view to stage-effect. Such being the case, those parts which were most effective on the stage would naturally be retained, and others added still more suited to catch the applause of the groundlings; while such parts as were especially at home in the courts of reason and thought would be cast aside. CRITICAL NOTES ON MACBETH. ACT I., SCENE I. Page 47. When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, and in rain? —So Hanmer. The original has "Lightning, or in raine." This makes the three, thunder, lightning, rain, alternative; the sense, expressed in full, being “ either in thunder or in lightning or in rain." The context and the occasion apparently require the sense of those three words to be cumulative. P. 48. 1 Witch. Where the place? 2 Witch. Upon the heath. 3 Witch. There to meet with Macbeth. -There is surely some corruption here; for Macbeth was evidently meant to rhyme with heath, but there needs another syllable to make it do so. And everywhere else, I think, Macbeth has the ictus on the second syllable. Perhaps bold, brave, proud, or great should be supplied before the name. P. 48. 1 Witch. I come, graymalkin. 2 Witch. Paddock calls:- Anon! All. Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air. So Pope. The original prints the last two speeches as one, with All prefixed. Dyce's remark is right, beyond question: "Surely it is evident that the author intended only the concluding couplet to be spoken in chorus." White prints "Anon!" as a separate speech, and prefixes to it "3 Witch." In a note he says, "The arrangement of the text seems to me to be required both by the succession of the thoughts, and by the ternary sequence of the dialogue of the Witches throughout all the scenes in |