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 of life 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 middleaged when the action begins. And in addition the reader may observe, if he finds it necessary, that Macbeth looks forward to having children (1. 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 1 May,' Johnson conjectured, without necessity. 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: And he is determined that it shall not be so': Rather than so, come, fate, into the list 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 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. Mv children too? Mal. Be comforted: Macd. He has no children. All my pretty ones? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam . Mal. Dispute it like a man. But I must also feel it as a man: I cannot but remember such things were, 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 whom therefore Macduff cannot take an adequate revenge. on (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;1 but it does 1 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! 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. 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, (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, 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.). |