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Macbeth Reading Thread
Martin wrote: "Ray's suggests Macbeth may have had earlier murderous thoughts against the King, but the play being as it is, I don't think we can ever discover that."Yes, absolutely. And the thing is, the writer doesn't need us to know either. It's not necessary for the play. Another question is, "Why do the witches seek to destroy, of all persons, Macbeth? Why have they "got it in for him"?" We don't have the answer, and we don't need it.
It's a little like what Hitchcock called the McGuffin. From Roger Ebert:
You remember MacGuffins. The term was coined by Alfred Hitchcock, to describe whatever it is that everybody in a movie seems to care deeply about. What Hitchcock understood was that it didn't matter what the MacGuffin was. It could be a spy ring, a secret formula, a treasure map - or Curly's gold. No matter what the MacGuffin is, a movie works or doesn't work on the basis of its characters and their human story.
Another explanation also from Roger Ebert:
The lack of children and the possibility of children are the MacGuffins in "Children of Men," inspiring all the action, but the movie significantly never tells us why children stopped being born, or how they might become possible again. The children-as-MacGuffin is simply a dramatic device to avoid actual politics while showing how the world is slipping away from civility and co-existence. The film is not really about children; it is about men and women, and civilization, and the way that fear can be used to justify a police state.
So the play is not about kings of Scotland, or why Macbeth wants to be king, or why the witches want to harm Macbeth, it's about how Macbeth and his wife react to this temptation put in front of them and the effect their actions have on them. And that, Mr S examines very very well.
Mod
Samhain - Greater Sabbat of the dead
Yule - Lesser Sabbat, the Winter solstice
Imbolc - Greater Sabbat
Ostara - Lesser Sabbat, the Spring equinox
Beltane or May Eve - Greater Sabbat
Midsummer, or Litha - Lesser Sabbat, the Summer solstice
Lughnasadh, or Lammas - Greater Sabbat of the Harvest
Mabon - Lesser Sabbat, the Autumn equinox
I keep thinking about the question of the witches about what time: lightening, rain etc.
Something is hitting me on a more unconscious level.
I am interested in the combination of time with the elements. This seem so alchemical.
I think lightening might refer to fire, rain to water...although I'm lost with this inquiry when it comes to thunder ha ha! Air?
Not only am I going to be watching for threes but I am going to be watching for references to the elements.
I am almost running behind you all in reading...I'm a scene behind!
And if I am not able to mention all the amazing things in your comments...please don't fret...I am really getting into what each of you have written...and now must catch up with the scene I am behind!
Oh one more thing...
About King James and Queen Elizabeth. I think someone mentioned earlier that Shakspeare used to really suck up to the Queen.
I have my own feelings on this....I beleve he did that in order to be artistically free. I don't think he "liked" the Queen. I believe he found her politically intolerable and a brut. I believe his entire writing career changed he no longer wrote tragedies after King James came to power...but this is such a silly tangent...and I am not sure if I can work my "theory" into discussion of MacBeth...I wonder...
Okay off to catch up on the play at hand!
An obvious reference to Earth, Water, Air in the vanishing of the witches:
The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them.
"So foul and fair a day I have not seen." So speaks Bellona's bridegroom, Valour's minion, valiant cousin to the King on the day of his great victory. But what could be foul for such a one on such a day?Among all else, this: that a bridegroom to a goddess might aspire to be something more than a minion, as we understand the word. If we allow our understanding of the word to travel back in time, we can easily imagine that this youthful cousin to the aging King has indeed considered how near to and yet how far from the throne he stands. With a little more effort, we can imagine that MacBeth resents his being not so high, but not so far to fall. And thus it might be MacBeth's inner weather that is fouling his day.
So, Ray, hold onto the notion that MacBeth considered doing violence to Duncan before the Weird Sisters appeared. Martin has given evidence for thinking otherwise. Yet, as he implies, the evidence isn't compelling and therefore the case isn't closed. And though Whitaker has given reasons why we ought not care one way or the other, I'm not persuaded and therefore allow myself to care very much.
If Matthew were posting on this, he might suggest that we attempt to imagine a coherent production of the play in which MacBeth's performance is consistent with what you allege. If we can imagine such a performance in such a production, then MacBeth can have thought what you suggest; if not, then not.
Are we slipping behind in the read? No matter.I.4, according to LC Knights ("How many children...") is about "that natural order which is shortly to be violated", and he draws attention to its vocabulary - children, servants, sons, kinsmen, liege, thanes, service, duty, and many more.
I think one can also see here a tension between the Feudal idea of loyalty, and a more commercial view of life where services are paid. The switch between Macbeth's final address to Duncan and what he expresses in his "aside" might be taken merely as evidence of a terrible hypocrisy, but I think it is the poetic contrast of loyalty with disloyalty which is important, especially in the "star" images, used in complementary ways by Duncan and Macbeth.
Duncan says,
...signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
on all deservers...
There is the idea of people being illuminated by stars (and Shakespearean stars comprise all heavenly bodies, including sun and moon), as well as the silver stars worn by nobility and granted by the King (as in Pope's "stars and garters"). There is also the idea that the people themselves are shining, like the Hollywood "stars" of today.
I said earlier that Macbeth craves for darkness, and one sees it in his own desire of a few lines later,
"Stars hide your fires,
Let not light see my black and deep desires."
His next wish,
"The eye wink at the hand"
means that the eye shut be closed (in darkness) when the hand does its deed. It seems like an evil parody of sayings of Jesus,
let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth
cast out first the beam that is in thine own eye
I think "the eye wink at the hand" could be taken as a six word summary of the whole play, like Kent's "see better, Lear".
He ends
"yet let that be
which the eye fears, when it is done, to see."
knowing that the eye will need to reopen and see what the hand has done.
William wrote: And though Whitaker has given reasons why we ought not care one way or the other, I'm not persuaded and therefore allow myself to care very much. If Matthew were posting on this, he might suggest that we attempt to imagine a coherent production of the play in which MacBeth's performance is consistent with what you allege. If we can imagine such a performance in such a production, then MacBeth can have thought what you suggest; if not, then not. "Matthew, that's an excellent and very pertinent point. That had not occured to me, and yes, it's true: the two would certainly engender different interpretations of how Macbeth is played.
Which brings me back to my point, which is that this is first and foremost a play, and the performance of it is as much integral to how to how we understand it. By the same token, two different actors bringing two different interpretations to Macbeth can give two different and equally valid views of his character.
I am reminded of a teacher of mine in junior college (that's when I was 17-18) who showed us two essays, both with excellent grades, both tackling the same question on the character of Hamlet, and each reaching entirely opposite conclusions. To paraphrase criminally from Hamlet, his point was, "The discussion's the thing." The conclusion was less important than the argument that led you there. Which is why I so like this board and the different ideas that come out. We all come away better for it. Now that's a notion of civilised discourse that some politicos might do well to consider. :-)
Ray wrote: "In the productions I've seen, the witches have been played with dark humor and not with dead-pan seriousness. The actresses (and actor in one case) playing the witches all clearly had dance training, and their movements were very stylized (either flowy or helter-skelter) and definitely weird . These scenes had a sort of unreal world feel to them distinct from much of the rest of the play."
Thanks for that, Ray. They sound like interesting performances, and the idea of stylised movements is very intriguing.
Candy wrote,"I think someone mentioned earlier that Shakespeare used to really suck up to the Queen."
It was Whitaker, who spoke of,
" ... blatant sycophancy (not unusual for the time – Shakespeare fairly fawns on Queen Elizabeth in other plays)."
I think it's important not to overstate this. Quite apart from the fact that criticism of a Tudor monarch could be taken as treason, and the punishments for treason were horrific, there is the more practical issue that plays were "licensed" (i.e. had to get past a state censor), and licences were quickly denied to anything critical of government.
If you look at Macbeth, Duncan is removed from James I by 19 generations, according to the genealogy map quoted earlier. To interpret a positive view of Duncan as a tribute to James is a bit like interpeting a play today which puts George I in a good light as being a tribute to Prince Charles (a distance of a lot less than 19).
http://www.clicknotes.com/macbeth/Jam...
Elizabeth, as far as I know, is not mentioned directly in any of Shakespeare's plays.
Martin wrote: "I think it's important not to overstate this. Quite apart from the fact that criticism of a Tudor monarch could be taken as treason, and the punishments for treason were horrific, there is the more practical issue that plays were "licensed" (i.e. had to get past a state censor), and licences were quickly denied to anything critical of government."Martin, all of what you state is true and I agree that one shouldn't overstate the case. I admit I may have been somewhat hyperbolic. I should clarify that it's less reflected praise of Duncan falling on James that I was thinking of and more the blackening of Macbeth's name and the reinforcing the right of James to the throne. This is something that Shakespeare does as well in his historical plays. Richard III was not quite the evil hunchback that Shakespeare made him out to be, for example. Neither, it would seem, was Macbeth quite the evil tyrant. But writing stories that favoured the ones in power was both good for business and good propaganda.
I have absolutely no beef with Shakespeare pandering to the power of the day. Over and above the fact that truth spoken to power is often best done in a veiled fashion, the practice was fairly common in his time among many other writers and perfectly understandable. I'm not sure when it became less acceptable for art to be used as propoganda, but I suspect that it is much closer to our century. Certainly artists like Leni Riefenstahl and dictators like Lenin and Mao did nothing to diminish that belief.
It is also true that Shakespeare would never have referred directly to Queen Elizabeth in his plays. That would have been impertinent. But take these lines from A Midsummers' Night Dream:
That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal throned by the west,
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
One understanding of the lines is that they were intended to be flattery of the Queen (by then, quite old and aged), and that is an interpretation I find quite persuasive. Again, I mean no criticism of Shakespeare at all. In the mores and context of his time, this was perfectly understandable.
I do not intend to reduce any of Shakespeare's work to mere propoganda or even suggest that they can only be read that way. However, I do feel that the political realities of his day form part of the historical matrix that add to a study of his work, and are at least an interesting element to bear in mind when reading his plays.
For those who may be interested in seeing different versions of how the witches in Macbeth have been treated, here are four: 1. Polanski’s version has the three witches as the Fates: an old crone, a middle-aged woman, and a young woman.
2. A production at the NYAF 2008 has the three witches done in the style of Japanese theatre.
3. A film version by Nicol Williamson has a fairly standard version of the witches. They seem a little too homely to me.
4. And here’s one by Orson Wells, which, in my view, has not worn well with time. Definitely giggle factor worthy.
Your caution, Martin, that we not assume too great a connection between Duncan and James, two men 19 generations removed from one another, is sobering.Further, notes in one of my texts report that Malcolm's appointment by Duncan violates "established custom by which a small group of noble kinsmen elected the king" and thereby shows Duncan to be devious. Might we assume that James, similarly appointed by Elizabeth, came to no such conclusion himself?
Regardless, what we may be witnessing is two devious men grappling with one another: the older getting the better of the younger, for the moment; the younger taking his leave, though not humbly.
Scene I.4.This is a great, darkly ironic scene. There at the beginning we have Duncan complaining about how it is impossible to know what is going on in someone's head based on the face they show the world:
DUNCAN
There's no art
To find the mind's construction in the face:
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.
And he is talking about the recently executed rebel, the Thane of Cawdor. Now, who should walk in, but the new-made Thane of Cawdor, Macbeth, another man whose mind and mien go their separate ways. Duncan praises and rewards Macbeth generously, and Macbeth makes appropriate replies. But by scene's end, Macbeth casts a baleful eye at Malcolm and considers how this young man will be another obstacle to be got rid of.
And Macbeth continues to cultivate his murderous thoughts:
Stars, hide your fires,
Let not light see my black and deep desires;
The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.
There may be slight hint of conscience here, with the need for the eye to turn away from the deed, but a small wink will be enough to put that to rest when Macbeth's goal comes to fruition.
Scene I.5.Our first introduction to Lady Macbeth, and she is cut out of the very same tartan as her husband.
Her biggest concern is that Macbeth is too ethical, too "holy" to take the nearest path to power. From what I've seen so far, her worry is misplaced...
I think the good lady must know a great deal more about noble Macbeth than we do. So I'm going to take her "holily" to mean something other than "holy", just as I take a "chocolatey" confection to be something other than chocolate.
Mod
My internet, cable and phone were all out today...so I haven't been able to get online till tonight. A
And of course...I have been reading MacBeth online...
http://www.online-literature.com/shak...
I've been thinking a bit more about some of Whitaker's interesting comments. I suppose one answer to "Why do the witches seek to destroy, of all persons, Macbeth?" is that they know Macbeth will succumb to their temptation -- unlike Banquo. Another answer might be that that is not their intention, or at least, we can't as yet be certain just what their intention is.More interesting is this possible connection with James I. I've been reading Kenneth Muir's introduction in the Arden Shakespeare, and trying at least to get the dates right. Candy's on line read tells us Macbeth was "First written between 1611-12; first performed in 1623", but Muir is explicit that it was performed at the Globe in 1611 (and no doubt earlier) and judges it to have been written in 1603-6. Same info as Muir's in Wikipedia. James came to throne in 1603. The Gunpowder Plot was 1605.
As Whitaker says, Shakespeare's Richard III is more evil than the historical reality. This was useful propaganda for the Tudors, who usurped him. Macbeth (the play) is in some ways similar to Richard III. But it can't quite be parallel. A play sympathetic to Richard would have challenged Henry VII's right to the throne, and never been licensed, but James' right to the English throne did not depend on events from the time of Edward the Confessor. Muir says the play would have "gratified" James, for its Scottish theme and interest in witches. As a patron of Shakespeare's company that would have been important. Muir sees more of a connection with the Gunpowder Plot, a treasonable attempt echoed in Macbeth's activities.
Now Choupette asked me what was my opinion on the witches ... I'm forming one. I think they stand for the hysteria of the times. They cannot hurt Macbeth or Banquo. Macbeth listens to them, and creates his own evil. They cannot hurt anybody. The story of the lost mariner is an anti-witch tale, told about witches by supposed victims, or forced out them at witchcraft trials -- it doesn't need to be true. (I don't know if anyone looked at the Macfarlane lecture on "Moral Panics", but it explains how the system worked.) Behind the witches, and James' obsession with witches, lies the great moral panic of the age, the anti-Catholic hysteria generated by the Gunpowder Plot, which, although it failed, was seen as a huge blow against national security (9/11 and its aftermath is an obvious modern equivalent -- a point made again in the Macfarlane lecture). So I think the "scottish connection" of the play grabs the spirit of the age, it doesn't flatter James.
Incidentally, I think the same may be true of the Virgin in MND impervious to Cupid's arrows. If it is the queen, it's not after all such great flattery to say someone cannot fall in love. I am reminded of an old rhyme about two Victorian philanthropists,
Miss Buss and Miss Beale
Cupid's darts do not feel.
How different from us,
Miss Beale and Miss Buss!
Meanwhile I'm struggling with I.5 and I.6. Why the letter? Macbeth is hasteming to his castle to prepare for the king. Surely he would have overtaken any letter. I can't understand Lady M. What does this mean?thou'ldst have, great Glamis,
That which cries 'Thus thou must do, if thou have it;
And that which rather thou dost fear to do
Than wishest should be undone.'
I don't trust the quote marks. If the quotes are right, what is speaking (the 'that' of line 2), and what does the speaking thing mean by 'it', and what do the last two lines mean?
Or this (close of I.5)?
To alter favour ever is to fear.
Or this?
for those of old,
And the late dignities heap'd up to them,
We rest your hermits.
What are "those of old" and why "hermits"?
And even this is hard work,
Your servants ever
Have theirs, themselves and what is theirs, in compt,
To make their audit at your highness' pleasure,
Still to return your own.
. . . And to think I thought I was getting adept at understanding the language!
Just to flog this horse for one moment longer...Martin,
Shakespeare’s purported source for the play, Holinshed’s Chronicles, describes the murder of Duncan as being committed by Macbeth and Banquo, Lady Macbeth does not get a look in, and Macbeth then rules justly and peacefully for 10 years (with a further seven tyrannically). These elements are excised from Shakespeare’s version which paints Banquo is a laudatory light, and underlines Fleance’s right to the Scottish throne. Clicknotes has James’s right to the Scottish throne tracing its roots through to Duncan and Fleance. This then seems to underline the importance of Banquo and Fleance to the Stewart line.
You seem to state—and if I have misunderstood you, do tell me so—that because Duncan and Banquo were so far removed in lineage from King James I, the manner in which they are depicted would have had no impact or relevance to him. Accordingly, would it also be your view that if Shakespeare had written the play with Duncan and Banquo as the villains of the piece and Macbeth as the just king this would have made no difference to its royal reception?
I do feel that, at the minimum, Shakespeare would have had to exercise some measure of self-censorship in his depiction of events if not to flatter then only not to get into trouble. It may perhaps be a stretch to regard that as flattery, but that, I guess, is a personal judgment call as to where we each draw that line.
Whitaker, whether James would have been affronted by a different type of play I don't know. I'm just saying there was a big difference between Elizabeth's paternal grandfather and James's ancestor of 19 generations back. (19 generations back is half a million names -- with duplicates no doubt!) But Shakespeare's history plays generally put the successive kings in a pretty bad light - Henry VI is almost a half-wit, Richard II arbitrary, Henry IV ruthless, Edward IV weak and so on. Similarly Marlowe's Edward II. So a slightly negative take on Duncan would probably not have mattered.And the censorship, like all censorship, was quite arbitrary -- you never knew what was going to get banned. I've been looking at Cibber's Richard III recently, and Cibber complains in his preface (1700) how the first Act was banned from the stage. He explains (I'll copy from the book) that
"Henry the sixth, being a character unfortunate and pitied, wou'd put the audience in mind of the late King James."
In Cibber's play, Richard III stabs Henry VI, which might have led people to compare William III to Richard III and Henry VI to James II.
(Apologies to all you yanks who wisely don't bother with our English history!)
Anyway, it seems to me Cibber was worse treated than Shakespeare, despite the Glorious Revolution being a supposed victory for the freedom of the people.
Martin, I've not thought of it that way before, so this is fascinating food for thought. Thanks for taking the time to respond!
Martin, One of my texts, based on the New Cambridge Shakespeare, has slightly different punctuation and, more to the point, the end quote in a very different place than what you posted, as follows:...Thou'dst have, great Glamis,
That which cries, 'Thus thou must do' if thou have it;
And that which rather thou dost fear to do,
Than wishest should be undone.
William, thanks, now I think it makes sense. And I loved "holily" by the way -- what a great word invention!I think Ray gets it right in seeing Lady M as a tartan copy of M. Is not I.5 and I.6 Lady M experiencing on a smaller scale the journey M has been through? The letter (she comes in reading the end) is her encounter with the witches. Her language expresses the same desire for the dark, and the separation of act from conscience. Her elaborate sentences to the King show the same dissimulation.
An excerpt from the Macbeth article on the TeacherVision website:Because James was considered the eighth descendent of the Banquo-Fleance line, Shakespeare "polished" the historical representation to present Banquo's character in a more honorable light. (my emphasis).
A remove of 8 generations is a much less sobering distance than is one of 19 generations.
How can Macbeth be king when Duncan is alive? Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth separately and almost immediately answer, "Kill him."Mary McCarthy suggests that their identical answers spring from different sources.
"A commonplace man," Macbeth has "absolutely no feeling for others, except envy, a common middle-class trait." McCarthy insists, "The witches only voiced a thought that was already in his mind.... In his excitement, he puts [the witches promise:] in a letter, which he sends on ahead, like a businessman briefing an associate on a piece of good news for the firm."
Lady Macbeth, writes McCarthy, "does not so much give an impresion of coveting the crown as of being weary of watching Macbeth covet it.... She is ... interested in ... the business at hand--how to nerve her husband to do what he wants to do." She has been "repeatedly impatient with him, for Macbeth, like many men of his sort, is an old story to his wife.... A tale of sound and fury signifying nothing."
I'm attracted to McCarthy's view of the Macbeths, which underscores the claim that evil may arise as readily from banality as from perverted genius. Paraphrasing Frost, we ask for an explanation of evil fully expecting something more than we can understand, but what we find here is something almost less than we can understand.
I don't think the TeacherVision data can be right William, surely you can't stretch 8 generations over 600 years.The misplaced quotes are in my 19th century Chalmers edition and Candy's online version. They are correctly placed in the NCS and (I find) Muir's Arden edition. Of course there are no quotes in the 1st folio.
So,
...Thou'dst have, great Glamis,
That which cries, 'Thus thou must do' if thou have it;
And that which rather thou dost fear to do,
Than wishest should be undone.
means: you (Macbeth) would have the crown, which says "This (commit murder) is what you have to do" if you want to get it.
In the last two lines "that" refers (I take it) back to the murder, rather than the crown again, and means that Macbeth is more fearful of doing it than wanting not to do it. In other words it is his fear of the consequences that causes hesitation, not his conscience.
It took Shakespeare's editors over 300 years before they even got the punctuation right!!
I have worked out most of the other meaning puzzles, but won't bore you all with the details. But I still don't get "we rest your hermits".
Thomas Merton, the Cistercian contemplative, was a hermit. He was not really in my life nor indeed even in the world. Yet, he was, I felt, through his writings and his prayers, truly and actually in both.Similarly, Lady Macbeth and her Lord, "dependents" of the king, answered a call to contemplate him: to hold him in their thoughts continually and to pray for him constantly.
Or something like that.
Yes, you got it, William. But the final clue comes from an alternative meaning for hermit. I looked it up in the COED (Concise Oxford English Disctionary) whic says under the heading "hermit",
+a beadsman (also fig.) -1688
This means that it could mean "a beadsman" (in both a literal and figurative sense) and that the last instance found of such a use was in 1688. Then of course I had to look up beadsman, and it means someone who is paid to pray on someone else's behalf. So the gifts of the King to the Macbeths are given beadsmen's thanks -- the Macbeth's pray for Duncan's salvation etc.
(The Concise Oxford is not so very concise at two and half thousand huge pages of small print.)
I must say, I have been having difficulties with grasping these essential meanings. My 19th century Shakespeare has 18th century notes, I have got hold of Muir's Arden edition, but don't find it much use. It is congested with notes (three lines of the play with a pageful of notes beneath) which deal with everything except the basic meaning. Instead of getting lost in Shakespeare you get lost in the notes. But after all, Shakespeare is the best guide to his own meaning. I find after a good night's sleep, a reread, and a few visits to the COED I get the basic sense after all. So this morning Macbeth's soliloquy in I.7 made perfect sense, after I given up on "jump the life to come" and "sightless couriers of the air" the night before.
Amusing, Martin, that my Canadian Oxford has beadsman, but alas no link to it from hermit. Nor is there any such link in Brewer's Dict. of Phrase and Fable's entry for hermit, though there is a discussion as you report under beadsman and bead.My own Dearest Chuck is loath to admit the need for a Canadian Oxford--what in the world is this thing called the Canadian language, eh? She runs for her schoolgirl's 1964 copy of the Concise Oxford Dict. of Current English, which of course leaves out all that circa 1688 stuff and is, hence, only 1500+ pages.
Your 19 generations seem more than correct, Martin, given that Banquo, an 11th century Scot, was claimed by James as an ancestor. The TeacherVision claim (James was considered the eighth decendent of the Banquo-FLeance line) may derive from the dumb show of kings in Act IV--but no more of that here.
Mod
Here are a couple of lines I really enjoyed...
Doubtful it stood;
As two spent swimmers, that do cling together
And choke their art. (1/II)
I love "and choke their art". Fascinating!
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 fear
Your favours nor your hate. (Banquo, 1/III)
This seems to support the idea of fortune mentioned earlier...and to me, indicates both money and destiny.
MACBETH
[Aside:] Two truths are told,
As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme.--I thank you, gentlemen. (MacBeth, 1/III)
"the swelling act"...this is quite an image...suggesting sexual prowess in the climb of status...?
I think it's very interesting that our introduction to Lady MacBeth is her speaking not her own words...but rather her husbands words!
..And...I think there may be a connection to the spells and style of speaking of the witches...to the MacBeths...
here:
All our service
In every point twice done and then done double (Lady M, 1/VI)
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: (MacBeth, 1/VII)
As if...the longing/wishing for power or political position was like the casting of spells?
Mod
The idea of Rays that Lady MacBeth is a tartan double plays into the number two the spouses both seem to chant. And her reading HIS words...then the couple at full force with each other in 1/VII. It's like they are catalysts too. Makes marriage a little scary heh heh.
Martin says "The letter (she comes in reading the end) is her encounter with the witches. Her language expresses the same desire for the dark, and the separation of act from conscience. Her elaborate sentences to the King show the same dissimulation."
This is what I'm feeling with the way they speak...it seems to mirrow the chanting or incantatory wordings of the witches. It's not just that her language expresses the same desire for the dark...a "death wish"...but it partly how she words things...incanatory-ish.
Mod
are at Act 2, Scene 2...
And look here is that play of opposition that the witches used and now again...Lady MacBeth:
That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold;
What hath quench'd them hath given me fire.
Creepy...
And MacBeth says this
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas in incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
Which, in colour theory is fun, because green and red are opposites. If you want to paint a shadow on a red tablecloth, one would mix green paint into the red. Red and green are like black and white. The absence of light in a shadow would be well represented with using red and green together. Many artists or painters today use black paint to make a shadow, but it was very trendy to study light and make colours as "realistic" as possible in the Renaissance.
The word "incarnadine" is quite out of date...especially for a paint colour. It used to be that some paint companies labeled pinkish paint "flesh colour"...but that has long since been changed. Highly inappropriate and inaccurate.
William, I'm amused by your "dearest chuck" quote, having now read it in the play. "Chuck" as a term of endearment is still used in the north -- Wallace calls Gromet "chuck" at one point if I remember aright. Does it have that meaning in America?Candy, enjoyed your posts, and the passages you quote. Here is something that really struck me, and its meaning I think is terribly easy to miss, Banquo, looking up at the night sky and saying:
. . . there's husbandry in heaven,
The candles are all out. . .
"Husbandry" means thrift, and the candles stand for the stars. It means that they're saving money on the energy bills up in heaven by turning the lights off. But it also shows the difference between Macbeth and Banquo. To Macbeth, blackness is the cloak to hide crime, or the death that puts a final end to conscience. To Banquo, blackness is God being economical.
I mentioned earlier some links with the words of Jesus. I've now read that this is well recognised as a theme in Macbeth, so I discovered nothing there, but I notice it comes up again in the passage you quoted, Candy,
If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
Among other things, this surely echoes the parable of the sower, as well as John 12:24,
Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
Banquo will die, but will "bring forth fruit" as descendant kings.
Lady M's "had I so sworn, as you have done to this" indicates a kind of gap in the narrative, since Macbeth has not sworn anything to her in the text of the play. But this surely is deliberate? Macbeth's "We will speak further" prepares us for off-stage plotting, and the jump from the King's arrival to his being asleep in bed is done to take attention away from the King so we concentrate on Macbeth. Banquet scenes with the King between I.6 and I.7 would make us pity the victim, but Shakespeare wants us to live the experience of the murderer.
I have been reading a fair amount about Macbeth, and I'm buzzing with ideas ... but I notice a slackening in the posts here which is a pity. Choupette. Whitaker, Ray?
Mod
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
I had no idea that was referring to Jesus, sorry I'm a heathen. I took it very much to do with Karma, and with the idea of fortune...and judging people. I'll investigate the Christian aspects. The lines also mean to me a warning...that we shouldn't take on the role of judge, or god, or "steward" which is a quite different interpretation than many Christians I have come to understand. (the ide of stewardship is very foreign to me...it's a Christian and agricultural concept I've never been able to get my head around). As a pagan/buddhist it is a difficult concept to grasp...and many of us pagans experience the exact opposite.
Back to the play...sorry :)
I LOVED these words:
there's husbandry in heaven,
The candles are all out. . .
And I must have read them half a dozen times. I meant to include them in my previous posts actually. I loved the idea of the stars out..and although I'm not sure how to express what I'm thinking of..."husbandry" is related to this idea of stewardship...and I feel something about this is an underlying theme in the play.
I am not sure what my intuition is telling me about this...but it ties into my feeling of the word fortune and it's many attributes. Fortune, material...and the idea of seeeking fortune as if we can steward our own destinies or ascents or lives.
So I'm seeing some connection between spell conjuring...fortune...husbandry...and how we move through the world. A a contoller or as a servant...? As a puppetmaster or as a learner and less manipulative, what would that have as a word? More spiritual? More trusting of the world and universe rather than trying to control?
Taking control is less spiritual...? Less faithful of God?
Something I am not sure what...must muse...
Mod
:)
This is what I've got:
husbandry |ˈhəzbəndrē|
noun
1 the care, cultivation, and breeding of crops and animals : crop husbandry.
2 management and conservation of resources.
ORIGIN Middle English : from husband in the obsolete sense [farmer:] + -ry ; compare with husbandman .
Thesaurus
husbandry
noun
1 farmers have new methods of husbandry farm management, land management, farming, agriculture, agronomy; cultivation; animal husbandry, ranching.
2 the careful husbandry of their resources conservation, management; economy, thrift, thriftiness, frugality.
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere wellIt were done quickly: (MacBeth, 1/VII)
I have always loved this line: "if I am going to do it, I might as well do it now"
But...he puts it into passive voice, thereby removing himself from any culpability. And that is the core of Macbeth just now-he knows exactly what to do to get what he wants, he just doesn't want to deal with the guilt, because he never once denies that it is wrong, evil.
Hi all: I am sorry to be joining late. I just taught this to 16 year olds and really need to learn to enjoy it again!
Mod
That is a great line and you've highlighted, to me, how much MacBeth is in what we might in contemporary culture call "in denial"!!!
:)
Is it disappointing to teach this to 16 year olds? Did they see it performed? Why is it hard to learn to love it? Because it's associated with work?
Cheers
Candy
Candy wrote: "Leslie, welcome!That is a great line and you've highlighted, to me, how much MacBeth is in what we might in contemporary culture call "in denial"!!!
:)
Is it disappointing to teach this to 16 y..."
I LOVE teaching Macbeth, but it is work, you know, so I have to get at it from angles that mean something to them....so they don't always get that it isn't Lady Macbeth's "fault" and that the downfall of a hero can self-inflicted. The idea that Macbeth is as great as he is evil is tough...some of them always see him as only evil, just a bad guy. I think it is, in part, just the way a person should think at 16. And they are are still learning to "suspend disbelief" at the Elizabethan social mores too. Every year, I am aghast at Birnam Wood going to Dunsinane, the strategic genius of it, and they see it as a cheap magic trick. A generation gap?
Leslie, hi, great to have you here! i'd love to hear more of your teaching experience with Macbeth.Candy, I'm sure the seed idea runs through many religions. I picked up on the New Testament connection because Christianity is the only religion I really know. As for the Bible, not many Christians read it either ....
I didn't get the meaning of husbandry from the COED, I somehow knew it could mean thrift. But here's the start of the entry, which I'll need to explain (in brackets),
husbandry. ME. (from Middle English, i.e. the English of Chaucer)
f as prec. + -RY
(formed from HUSBAND in the previous entry with ending RY. HUSBAND originally meant a household head, or household manager, or farmer.)
+1. Domestic economy ("+" indicates "obsolete". So the first meaning is "domestic economy", and like economy, it could either mean money management in the broad sense, or being careful with money ("that purchase was very economical" etc.))
+b transf and fig Management (as of a household) -1658. (this is a transferred and figurative use)
-- up to 1658
(In summary: Meaning 2: business of a husbandman; meaning 3: household goods, and then:)
4. (Good or bad) economy; obsol. economy, thrift, profit ME.
(obsolete Middle English use was to mean economy, or thrift, or profit.)
And then many examples, e.g.
Ye are goddis (god's) husbandrye, Tindale's translation of 1 Corinthians, 3:9.
Phew!
You are right about stewardship I think. In the parables, God can be a "husband" in the old sense -- a sort of farmer or manager. The parable of the talents is an obvious case. And the prodigal son story. God also judges, and so is a magistrate. But also, judgement is God's function, not man's.
Actually, I wouldn't stress the Christian side of the play, but it's certainly there. LC Knights points out how the evil of the witches is matched by a spiritual opposite, which is easier to miss because it is less explicitly stated. But I think it emerges in Banquo's remark, which shows God the thrifty husbandman at work in the sky.
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I like the numerous references to birds, either black, dark, or like the owl, nocturnal.
And I'm very taken with the idea that red+green gives darkness. When I was at school we were taught that in art you never use black paint.
Mod
I love black paint. But not for making shadows or shade!
:)
Leslie, thanks for sharing what it feels like to teach MacBEth to teens. What a challenge. I'll want to return to the idea of Birnam Wood going to Dunsinane and see if I feel it's a surprise or cheap trick. I suspect your students watch a lot of movies and video games. It is amazing what good shows on tv there are these days, and what a young person learns about storytelling from playing video games. Young people getpretty savvy about narrative very quickly. I think when pitted against a play like MacBeth...grown ups might get an insight to just how savvy these kids are without them even knowing it...needs to be harnessed and them to learn how to articulate and transfer that knowledge...are they in dream worlds? Or are adults not using a new currency of recognizing learning? You really have your work cut out for you teaching kids at any age...and I highly respect anyone...you...who are in that profession. Good on ya!
There is now...so much going on with this play, that I am highlyrelieved to be reading it a scene at a time.
I've hit 2/III and this is such a long huge part and set of actions. I'm almost overwhelmed. The multi-leveled references are crazy. Yes, Martin...all the birds.
And then all the numbers all the inversions of metaphors. This scene really takes a load.
I find MacBeth's attitude...a kind of disassociation. I thinj PTSD is at play with the death wish. His behaviour is scary and some of the "light" sounding words...is he loosing his marbles?
I have to read it again...
It is the psychological realism that is so gripping. You feel you are in there, with Macbeth, committing the murder. The stress of the occasion leading to the incompetence of not planting the daggers (the very thing he has to do), despite his determination to see it through. It is like Jonathan Zimmermann running the wrong way down the escalator after firing the fatal shot. Watching "The American Friend" you think, for once, yes that is really what it would be like if I murdered someone. And again you think it in Macbeth. -- I guess you won't know what I'm referring to, but the clip from the film is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7o0CL...
The knocking on the gate is made so famous by De Quincey's essay. Plus the symbolism of the Porter casting himself in the role of the gatekeeper to hell. But how is it to be enacted? Is it intermittent, or does it go on continuously across two scenes? Is it distant, or thunderous? Does it get louder as the scene changes and we get closer to its source?
Mod
:)
Great comparison Martin!
I enjoyed watching that clip very much.
I am lost about the Porter...I think that is what has thrown me inthis scene...with the "knock knock" and then the riddles. (Is this where knock knock jokes come from?)
I can't understand why he seems to know what he knows. But I'll keep working on this...
:)
Martin wrote: "It is the psychological realism that is so gripping. You feel you are in there, with Macbeth, committing the murder. The stress of the occasion leading to the incompetence of not planting the dagge..."Candy wrote: "You don't think I know from Wim Wenders? Oh no you didnt.
:)
Great comparison Martin!
I enjoyed watching that clip very much.
I am lost about the Porter...I think that is what has thrown me int..."
I don't know if the thunder/storm gets louder or softer--the Elizabethans would have recognized it as a staging device, since there was little scenery change or props, so they might not have needed more...I have always loved that the Porter is drunk and so 1) inspired, infested with the devil and 2) not afraid to say whatever he thinks, no matter how distorted. It provides an interesting counterpoint to Macbeth at this point. He is a good man who has done an "devilish" thing, and brought all this chaos down on everyone--except no one knows it yet. At least the low class Porter is not a liar.
Candy, I should have known you would know that film.Is the Porter drunk? (It is the morning after.) But, yes, he is honest, like the fool in Lear, and with a similar humour,
"Here's a farmer, that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty."
Like a modern Wall Street story. The farmer borrows heavily to pay for the harvesting. The bumper harvest means food prices fall, so he can't pay the loan back and kills himself. This is very interesting with Candy seeing a "stewardship" theme in the play. The joke depends on our noticing that the farmer may have misjudged ("expectation of" rather than actuality), that the farmer's ruin is the general good of a full harvest, and that suicide is a sin that takes you to hell.
Contrary to what some of the history books might suggest, Shakespeare and his audience clearly understood the basic economic rules of supply and demand, that supply pushes prices down while demand pushes them up. There is a similar "economic" joke in The Merchant of Venice. Launcelot believes,
"in converting Jews to Christians you raise the price of pork",
(because they become pork eaters, which increases demand), so he is rather against trying to convert Jews.
And yet again, I think there is a Christian reference here, with God feeding us (Matthew 6:26), hence the Harvest Festival celebration. Not an occasion for suicide.
The other two reprobates the porter welcomes to hell are equally interesting. The English tailor stealing out of a French hose seems to refer to the more voluminous French fashions. You could remove material without the purchaser noticing.
The Arden footnotes say "equivocator" means a Jesuit, but don't explain why. I would have thought,
"Faith, here's an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either scale"
-- refers rather to a crooked lawyer, and the scales are the scales of justice. Or have I met too many lawyers in my time?
"Knock, knock. Who's there" is a quote from Shakespeare! Thanks Candy, I would have missed that entirely. Now I'll always tell people that when they start a knock-knock joke.
Greenblatt (Will in the World) states "O, come in, equivocator ... is almost certainly an allusion to the recently executed Jesuit Henry Garnet." Greenblatt identifies Garnet as "head of the landestine Jesuit mission in England" and author of A Treatise of Equivocation, which "defended the morality of giving misleading or ambiguous answers under oath."Garnet was arrested, tried, and convicted of treason as a participant in the Gunpowder Plot. James apparently watched Garnet's trial from a secret vantage point. Garnet pleaded innocent, but was adjudged guilty, after which he was "dragged on a hurdle to Saint Paul's Churchard for execution, his severed head then joining the others displayed on pikes on London Bridge."
Mod
Leslie...That is helping me get into this scene and understand where the Porter is coming from. I was just taken aback at the craziness of it all. Very effective. I think I will enjoy seeing this section acted out later in a movie version (I have Ploanski's and BBC movies ready for when we finish this scene reading!)
Martin...Not only did that line about the farmer stand out...regarding stewardship, I was like "oooh" but he also is doing the entire "routine" with inversions.
This is adding up to be a play with so many inversions...it's starting to feel like "meta-fiction" or deconstruction!
Shakespeare...is there nothing he didn't dabble with?
Matthew...are you out there?
Mod
Threescore and ten I can remember well:
Within the volume of which time I have seen
Hours dreadful and things strange; but this sore night
Hath trifled former knowings. 2/IV
Even the word "trifled" has a thrice. A trifle is a small amount!
Wikipedia #3:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_(number)
Mod
"What good you do returns to you threefold;
What harm you do also returns to you threefold"
There is a triple moon icon/symbol of significance to witches. A Wicca/witch trinity is The Maiden, The Mother and The Crone representing the 3 stages of a woman's life.
Candy wrote: "3 is significant to pagans/Wiccans/witches because of the rule of 3 - that what you put out there comes back to you times 3. "What good you do returns to you threefold;
What harm you do also ret..."
And the Elizabethans all knew the Christian symbolism inherent in THREE..................
Whitacker wrote: Anyone out there seen this on stage? I think the whole witches thing must be very difficult to stage now, because of the risk of the “giggle” factor.
In the productions I've seen, the witches have been played with dark humor and not with dead-pan seriousness. The actresses (and actor in one case) playing the witches all clearly had dance training, and their movements were very stylized (either flowy or helter-skelter) and definitely weird . These scenes had a sort of unreal world feel to them distinct from much of the rest of the play. (There is a non-witch "giggle factor" moment that comes up later, but that would be a "spoiler" at this point.)