ment, but a difficulty especially fitted to bring that temperament into the fullest play. And I would add that the reader of the tragedy whose interest is in the subjective Hamlet, rather than in the dramatic action, must recognize the fact that the subjective Hamlet—all the thoughts, and musings, and feelings, which so interest that reader - becomes doubly interesting when he knows its relation to the objective difficulty. THE WITCH AGENCY IN MACBETH. HE two all-important things to be considered in the Tragedy THE are, 1, beth, and 2, the relations of Lady Macbeth to Macbeth, in his career of ambition. The following bits of commentary express the usual understanding of the agency of the witches in Macbeth: "He is tempted," says Hazlitt, "to the commission of guilt by golden opportunities, by the instigations of his wife, and by prophetic warnings. Fate and metaphysical aid conspire against his virtue and his loyalty." 'Shakespeare's witches," says Charles Lamb, "orignate deeds of blood, and begin bad impulses to men. From the moment that their eyes first meet with Macbeth's, he is spell-bound. That meeting sways his destiny. He can never break the fascination." "The first thought of acceding to the throne," says Thomas Whateley, "is suggested, and success in the attempt is promised, to Macbeth by the witches; he is therefore represented as a man whose natural temper would have deterred him from such a design if he had not been immediately tempted and strongly impelled to it." In the first place it may be said that such views are inconsist ent with the whole theory of the entire Shakespearian drama, Shakespeare never presents a character to us as a victim of fate at the outset. The fatalism of passion is exhibited in all his great tragedies; but those characters through whom it is exhibited begin their several careers as free agents. A true dramatic interest demands this. As a great passion is evolved, it destroys more and more the power of self-assertion, and its victim is finally swept passively and helplessly along. Only free agency is dramatic. The weird sisters represent the night side of nature, the powers of evil which are ever attracted to the soul whose elective affinities favor such attraction. The devil visits those only who invite him in. "They who lack energy of goodness," says Dowden, "and drop into a languid neutrality between the antagonist spiritual forces of the world, must serve the devil as slaves, if they will not decide to serve God as freemen." The power of the weird sisters is nowhere in the tragedy exhibited as absolute, but always as relative. It is shown to depend upon what in a man's soul has affinities for that power. Where these affinities do not exist, their power is nought. But where they do exist, these outside evil forces are as quick to respond to them as Sin and Death in Milton's "Paradise Lost are represented to have been. Even before the newly-created pair sinned, before the connatural forces started in them and were realized in act, Sin is made to say to Death, as they sit together within the gates of hell, "Methinks I feel new strength within me rise, wings growing, and dominion given me large beyond this deep; whatever draws me on, or sympathy, or some connatural force, powerful at greatest distance to unite, with secret amity, things of like kind, by secretest conveyance. Thou, my Shade inseparable, must with me along. . Nor can I miss the way, so strongly drawn by this new-felt attraction and instinct. Whom thus the meagre Shadow answered soon: Go, whither Fate, and inclination strong, leads thee." (It should be remarked here that Milton obeys the higher law in his grammar, as Shakespeare so often does; "fate" and "inclination strong" not constituting a compound idea, inclination strong being fate, when not controlled, he uses with these two subjects the singular verb "leads.") "Go, whither Fate, and inclination strong, leads thee. I shall not lag behind, nor err the way, thou leading. So saying, with delight he snuffed the smell of mortal change on earth and upturned his nostrils wide into the murky air,* sagacious † of his quarry from so far." Strikingly parallel with this representation of Sin and Death (so quick scented, so sagacious of their quarry), is the representation of the weird sisters. In their first meeting, in the opening scene of the tragedy, it is intimated that while Macbeth is serving his king, in bravely fighting his country's foes, the promptings of a regicidal ambition had already set in. The weird sisters, with whom "fair is foul, and foul is fair," scent from afar his evil propensities. They are not the first to tempt Macbeth, but Macbeth is the first to tempt them to tempt. He tempts them to stimulate what has originated within himself. "ACT I. SCENE I. An open place. Thunder and Lightning. Enter three Witches. I Witch. When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain? 2 Witch. When the hurlyburly's done, 3 Witch. That will be ere the set of sun. 2 Witch. Upon the heath. 3 Witch. There to meet with Macbeth." This last speech indicates that they have already experienced, to use the language of Milton's Sin, a "sympathy or some connatural force, powerful at greatest distance to unite, with secret amity, things of like kind, by secretest conveyance." * "Murky air" here means what "mirksome air" means in Spenser, "Faerie Queene,” I. v. 28, infected or tainted. It reminds of “the fog and filthy air" through which the weird sisters in Macbeth hover. †Sagacious, quick of scent. Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air.” [Witches vanish. (The several witch scenes are all accompanied with thunder and lightning; and it should be noted here, that in no other Play has Shakespeare so represented the natural world as reflecting the moral world.) The following passages are examples of this : Lady Macbeth, after receiving her husband's letter, says: "The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan — A. I. Sc. v. 39–41. When the " gracious" Duncan, who "hath borne his faculties so meek," and Banquo, whose character throughout shows that he has kept his heart with all diligence, approach Macbeth's castle, Duncan says: "This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Banquo, in his reply, shows that his pure heart has made him a susceptible observer of nature: "This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, By his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle : In the early morning, after the Porter has admitted Macduff and Lenox to the court of the castle, and Macbeth enters, having been aroused, as they suppose, by the knocking, Lenox says, before the murder has been discovered: |
