MUSINGS WITHOUT METHOD. "MACBETH" AND THE CHRONICLES-THE PERFORMANCE AT HIS the wonderful atmosphere of doubt and fear in which "Macbeth" is enwrapped is all of Shakespeare's own contrivance. Seen through its enchanting haze prose becomes poetry, history is changed to drama. As in all the greatest of Shakespeare's tragedies, the fable of "Macbeth" is of far less importance than the development of character. The motive of the play is not the murder of Duncan, but the conflict which is waged in the mind of Macbeth. In SHAKESPEARE'S "Macbeth" and Malcolm is more closely is the ancient chronicle touched allied with truth than with by the hand of genius. The fancy, and proves that even bones of the tragedy are to Shakespeare forgot at times be found, bleached and white, to transmute the baser metal in the page of Holinshed. In of fact into the pure gold the play these dead bones are of poetry. For the rest, informed by the poet with immortal life. A mere hint by the chronicler is sufficient, when Shakespeare has taken it, for the fashioning of a living, breathing woman. "Speciallie his wife lay sore upon him to attempt the thing, as she that was verie ambitious, being in unquenchable desire to beare the name of a queene." There is no more warrant in the chronicle than that for the savage humour and the lofty aims of Lady Macbeth. The Weird Sisters, too, are sketched in Holinshed's version of Boece with a light hand: "It fortened as Makbeth and Banquho journied towards Fores. . There met them three women in strange and wild apparell, resembling creatures of elder world." That is the description vouchsafed us of the Witches, who lift the tragedy of "Macbeth" high above the level of reality. It is only It is only when Shakespeare feels himself trammelled by his facts that he ceases for the moment to be himself. The long argument conducted by Macduff 66 Macbeth," as in " as in "Hamlet," we are confronted with the struggle between thought and action. It is not in cold blood that Macbeth sets out to kill his King. He is impelled to his deed of darkness not by any natural villainy of his own, but by the Weird Sisters. sooner does he hear upon the blasted heath the solemn invocation: "All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter!" than his mind is filled with strange, impossible desires. Every word spoken by the Witches is accepted by him No as the word of truth, and the speedy confirmation, afforded by Ross, who hails him Thane of Cawdor at the King's bidding, sets him more desperately upon his fell purpose. To Banquo the Witches are but the incident of a journey. "Good sir," says he, "why do you start; and seem to fear Things that do sound so fair?" To Macbeth the Witches are the ministers of a stern ambition, whose reading of the future must be patiently accepted. Yet, even in the moment of belief, Macbeth cannot shake off his ancient candour. A sense of honour breathes within him; he hesitates still to do the bidding of the Weird Sisters. Lady Macbeth, after reading his letter, doubts not his desires, but the savage temper that would achieve them. "I do fear thy nature," she says: "It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way thou would'st be great : Art not without ambition, but with In the strength of her one purpose she has complete confidence. "He that's coming,' she declares, "must be provided for," and she declares it with such certainty, that even Macbeth catches something of her ferocity. Left alone, he discovers a hundred reasons why he should not commit the crime. If the blow might be the be-all and the endall here, he'ld "jump the life to come." It is the the judgment here that he fears. The King is under his roof in the double trust of kinsman and guest. In brief, he determines to "proceed no further in this business": "He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought Golden opinions from all sorts of people, Which would be worn in their newest gloss, Not cast aside so soon." At his vacillation, Lady Macbeth rises to the topmost pinnacle of savagery. In a moment she has swept away the last of his scruples. “I am settled," he confesses, "and bend up Each corporal agent to this terrible feat." Not even the spectral dagger with its "gouts of blood " turns him from his purpose. He does the deed. Yet in the very moment of accomplishment he is affrighted. "Didst thou not hear a noise?" His punishment begins at once. He is sick with fancies. "Methought," he says— "Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep,' the innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath." Even the palpable knocking on the door recalls to his mind nothing save the deed of blood. "Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst !" When once he is upon the throne, Macbeth cannot shake off the habit of murder. Remorse grows weaker with success. The taking off of Banquo perplexes him not. It is only when the ghost appears visibly before him that he is appalled. The murder of Lady Macduff and her son is the purposeless work of one drunk with blood, who is not content to guard his sovereignty, but to wreak a fierce revenge upon a vague enemy. The argument, "to be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus," justifies in his eyes the killing of Banquo and his son. The Witches' warning," Beware, Macduff," is not sufficient cause for the slaughter of Macduff's wife and child. Yet though Macbeth is thus incensed to murder, he still sees visions and dreams dreams. They shake him nightly. Even Lady Mac beth succumbs at last to the haunting memory of her crime. When she walks in her sleep, protesting that all "the per Cannot once start me." Not even the death of the temptress, the fierce woman fumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand," she is abundantly punished for the reproaches which she has heaped upon Macbeth. And by a fine subtlety Macbeth is seen to increase in courage, as his queen declines. He cannot 66 taint with fear," he boasts. Loudly he bids the false thanes fly, "and mingle with the English At least we'll die with harness on our epicures.' It is no victim of sounds and spectres who protests, "The mind I sway by and the heart I bear Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear." The attack upon his castle inspires him with a warrior's courage. He awaits the onslaught with the confidence of one who is guarded by the mystic sayings of the Witches "Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack! back." If you would trace the progress of Shakespeare's art, you have but to compare "Richard III." and "Macbeth." Both Richard and Macbeth sacrifice everything to ambition, thinking a throne well won by the shedding of blood. There the resemblance begins and ends. Richard is a cold, crafty monster of of crime, a bogey to frighten children withal. He speaks in the bombastic rhetoric He does with mirth." That is true, and mirth is the last quality which we would associate with "Macbeth." of a primitive age. not think; he acts. Macbeth, on the other hand, is impelled to murder by unseen agencies, and when he has done the deed of blood he is a prey to the sick fancies of his mind. Above all, he is a poet. It is not without design that Shakespeare has put into his mouth the noblest lines of the tragedy. By doing this, he proves his own sympathy with Macbeth, and asks yours. It is impossible to judge by the common standards of life the victim of the Weird Sisters, one whose sensitive intelligence compels him to see the cause as well as the consequence of his crimes, who suffers from the haunting spectres of remorse, and who in the end shows himself a man of courage, even though he fights against supernatural forces. It is with this same purpose of engaging our sympathy that Shakespeare presents him as the sport of the elements and the dupe of wizardry. Hecate and her brood dominate him. His guilt may not be measured by the common scale of things. As Charles Lamb says, "from the moment that the eyes of the Witches first meet Macbeth's, he is spellbound. That meeting sways his destiny. He can never break the fascination. . . . They come with thunder and lightning, and vanish to airy music. That is all we know of them. Except Hecate they have no names, which heightens their mysteriousness. . . . The Weird Sisters are serious things. Their presence cannot co-exist VOL. CXC.-NO. MCLII. And it is this mirthlessness, this intensity of tragic force, this ruthless torturing of a human soul, that make the proper representation of "Macbeth" almost an impossibility. Many tricks have been played to adapt the tragedy more nearly to the average playgoer. In the version which served to display the genius of Betterton, Lady Macbeth was "brought in repentant, and counselling her husband to give up the crown for conscience' sake!" Not even Kean entirely satisfied his admirers. Hazlitt complains that "he did not look like a man who had encountered the Weird Sisters." In our own day several experiments have been made, and none of them successful. Where others have failed Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree has not triumphed. listened to (or rather watched) his presentation of Macbeth we could not help admiring his ingenuity. He has purged Shakespeare's tragedy of pity and horror. He has brought it before us in such a shape as evokes smiles rather than tears. Never once from beginning to end did we feel the thrill which "Macbeth" should give us. Are we assisting at a drawing-room comedy, we asked ourselves, or at a Christmas pantomime? Where have vanished the trembling remorse, the sick fear, the ghostly apprehensions of Yet as we 2 P Macbeth? Even Lady Macbeth in her sleep - walking scene aroused our curiosity rather than our grief. The staircase, down down which she walks with stealthy step, dwarfs to nothingness the poignant emotions of terror and remorse. In brief, Macbeth and his Queen are companions of so fine an amiability that we resent the passion of Macduff, the revenge of Malcolm. They conspired to kill Duncan, it is true. But they executed the job with so many-coloured a picturesqueness that nobody has a right to resent the murder. The reason why Sir Herbert Tree has failed is not far to seek. He has sought to achieve a pictorial, not a dramatic effect. His performance resembles nothing so much as a series of paintings, which might have hung upon the walls of the Royal Academy and been afterwards reproduced in an expensive edition of the play. The colours are selected with an ingenious taste. The scenery is devised with a proper sense of pictorial effect. Lady Macbeth reading her lord's letter at the window seems to have strayed from a painted canvas. But the pictorial and the dramatic have ever been the bitterest foes. They cannot live together for an instant. Stability is the essence of the one, movement of the other. If the pictorial delights our eyes, the dramatic should rend our hearts. Sir Herbert Tree might with bare boards have drawn the tears of anguish from our eyes. He has pre ferred to employ all the subsidiary arts of the theatres in presenting the picture of a tragedy, the simulacrum of a passion. The master-quality of "Macbeth" is rapidity. The tragedy rushes to its appointed end in a storm of crime and fury. Macbeth doffs his newly won honours to murder Duncan. He ascends the throne, and falls before the onslaught of Macduff. There is none other of Shakespeare's tragedies which has so few pauses, so small a measure of relief. Simplicity, therefore, is obviously demanded in its representation simplicity and speed. Nothing should be permitted on the stage which hinders its movement. truth Sir Herbert Tree, in spite of all his care and forethought, has forgotten. He has placed "Macbeth" before us with the utmost deliberation. He has used all the resources of pictorial art to delay the action. There are dances, processions, and crowds to disturb our interest. The constant shifting of the scene kills the emotions which the players should arouse. From beginning to end the setting is of greater importance than the tragedy, and if you would seek a proof that decoration is the enemy of the drama, you may find it in the representation of "Macbeth" at His Majesty's Theatre. And this plain We are reminded in "a note by the producer" that "David Garrick dressed Macbeth as a Scottish sergeant-major of his own day, while his colleague, Mrs Pritchard, appeared as |