Banquo believes that, if the prophecy with regard to the royal honors of his posterity be true, Macbeth must first be king-the sceptre must fall into his hands for a while. At least the witches point to such a course and sequence of events. Therefore he abstains from working for Duncan or against Macbeth. He will do nothing that may interfere with the future greatness of his line. If worldly affairs run smoothly, men do not greatly trouble themselves as to whether or not they are adulterated by something of the devilish element.

In the legend, Banquo's sympathy with, nay, complicity in, the murder of Duncan s made perfectly clear. This it was the poet's task to do away with. He transforms Banquo's crime into one which consists in remaining silent, in refusing to act—and thus to a degree veils it.

When Macbeth says: Speak, if you can.—What are you?' it must not be inferred that he has just met these evil beings for the first time. Witches can take upon themselves a variety of material forms. Macbeth may not have seen them before in their present shapes. By his question he wishes to ascertain if these appa ritions belong to the class of evil spirits with which he is familiar. In this very scene there is proof that Macbeth is well acquainted with witches and their kind. . . .

This warning: oftentimes to win us to our harm', &c., comes oddly enough from the lips of a man who has just questioned the witches himself with such haste and eagerness. Here we have the first glimpse of the deceit and falsehood practised by Banquo upon himself. . . .

Banquo would so gladly esteem himself an honourable man; therefore he warns Macbeth, although as briefly as possible, against the devil. He knows that a mere warning will avail nothing, but he ignores this, wishing to be able to say to himself, when Macbeth has attained his end, I am guiltless, I warned him against the devil.' Had Banquo been really true, how differently he would have borne himself! . .

When Macbeth says, 'Come what come may, Time and the hour run through the roughest day,' he for the first time resolves to murder Duncan. His second resolution starts into life when the King announces the Prince of Cumberland as his

successor. . . .

One word of caution from Banquo [when the King was lavishing honors upon Macbeth] would have sufficed to establish measures that would have made it impossible for assassination to find a way at night through unclosed doors. But Banquo takes good care to speak no such word. A villain at heart, he does nothing to impede the fulfilment of crime. . . .

Almost every line of the tragedy shows the falseness of the German æsthetic criticism which prates smoothly on about the evil seed first sown by the witches, and developed to murder in the Castle of Macbeth. On the contrary, every line goes to prove that evil has been long contemplated there, and has only awaited a favorable opportunity. . . .

Banquo enters [II, i] with his son Fleance, who holds a torch. Will not the man do something at last for his king, take some measures to prevent a cruel crime? Everything combines to enjoin the most careful watchfulness upon him, if duty and honour are yet quick within his breast; and here we come to a speech of Banquo's to his son to which we must pay special heed, since upon it the earlier English commentators, Steevens among them, have based their ridiculous theory that in this tragedy Banquo, in contrast to Macbeth, who is led astray, represents the man unseduced by evil. Steevens says that this passage shows that Banquo too is tempted by the

witches in his dreams to do something in aid of the fulfilment of his hopes, and that in his waking hours he holds himself aloof from all such suggestions, and hence his prayer to be spared the 'cursed thoughts that nature gives way to in repose.'

A stranger or more forced explanation of this passage can hardly be imagined. It is true that somewhat later in the scene, after the entrance of Macbeth, Banquo speaks of having dreamed of the witches, but that has not the faintest connection with these expressions. He is neither alluding to the witches nor to a former dream, nor to dreaming at all, but he is thinking of the sleep that awaits him and the thoughts that may visit him in it. A merely superficial reading of his words declares decidedly against Steevens's interpretation of them; and their whole meaning and connection are still more opposed to it. It is impossible that Banquo should be incited, either waking or dreaming, by the witches to action in aid of the fulfilment of his hopes. What direction could such action take?

Banquo's hopes for his lineage can only be furthered by the removal of Duncan and by Macbeth's accession to the throne. In the existing state of affairs nothing is necessary to effect both these ends, upon Banquo's part, but that he should do nothing for Duncan or against Macbeth. And he has faithfully remained inactive; he has exactly obeyed the unspoken injunction of the witches to pay no heed to the voice of truth, of duty, nor of honour. Therefore it is clearly impossible that the witches should come to the sleeping Banquo to require anything more of him than what he is already doing. He opposes no obstacle to the murder. What more can the witches require of him?

The passage in question, therefore, must be elucidated more naturally, and more in harmony with the whole. As he has already done, Banquo here [II, i] endeavours as far as possible to assert his own innocence to himself, while, for the sake of his future advantage, he intends to oppose no obstacle to the sweep of Macbeth's sword. It is, therefore, necessary that he should pretend to himself that here in Macbeth's castle no danger can threaten Duncan nor any one else. Therefore his sword need not rest by his side this night, and he gives it to his son. He must be able to say to himself, in the event of any fearful catastrophe, 'I never thought of, or imagined, any danger, and so I laid aside my arms.'

And yet, try as he may, he cannot away with the stifling sensation of a tempest in the air, a storm-cloud destined to burst over Duncan's head this very night. He cannot but acknowledge to himself that a certain restless anxiety in his brain is urging him, in spite of his weariness, to remain awake during the remaining hours of the night. But this mood, these sensations, must not last, or it might seem a sacred duty either to hasten to the chamber of King Duncan or to watch it closely, that its occupant may be shielded from murderous wiles. To avoid this, Banquo denounces the thoughts of Macbeth that arise in his mind as 'cursed thoughts.' So detestably false are they that a merciful Power must be entreated to restrain them during sleep, when the mind is not to be completely controlled.

With every change in the aspect of affairs Banquo's self-deceit appears in some new form. Banquo here banishes his thoughts from his mind, or rather maintains to himself that he has banished them, or that he must banish them because they do injustice to noble Macbeth, whom, nevertheless, he has thought it necessary to warn against the devil.

The role that the porter, in his tipsy mood, assigns himself, and the speeches that he makes in character, stand in significant connection with the whole tragedy. Awakened by the knocking at the castle gate, he imagines himself porter at the

entrance of hell. And this brings us to the central point of the drama, wherein is revealed to us the deepest fall made by man into the abyss of evil. For those who, like Macbeth, plunge into it, voluntarily and knowingly, the other world can unclose no garden of delights; an allegorical hell awaits them.

Therefore it is of hell that the porter speaks: and therefore it is that the poet makes him speak thus. But Macbeth is not the only one who goes this way; men press hither in crowds, and often take the greatest pains and trouble not to avoid the entrance to this place of punishment. And so the porter grumbles that there is such a constant knocking at the gate of hell, and that crowds of all conditions stand without, who have journeyed along the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire. As he enumerates the various kinds of guests at this gate, he mentions equivocators, traitors who juggle with the Highest, who swear by this to-day, by that to-morrow, pursuing their wiles beneath God's protection and invoking his aid.

Some of the earlier English critics most oddly opine that the poet here intended an allusion to the Jesuits. How could so great and ingenious a poet dream of interpolating in his work so foreign a subject? The porter's speech evidently hints at Banquo. As if by chance, the man imagines waiting for admission at the infernal gate just such another as Banquo; one who, like him, would fain shelter his treacheries behind the name of God taken in vain. Banquo did that, when, in gross selfdeception, he implored the merciful powers' to restrain in him his perfectly just thoughts of Macbeth, which he would fain persuade himself are 'cursed.'

Lady Macbeth appears as the second figure of the tragedy. After a few words, uttered with difficulty, she falls down in a swoon and is borne off the stage. Any child could declare that this swoon was only feigned to avoid all further embarrassment. But it must not be imagined that there is any feigning here. The poet, in Lady Macbeth, gives another view of human nature steeped in sin from that portrayed in Macbeth himself. In her, as her former dreams prove mockeries and unreal, the whole mental organization receives an annihilating blow from that first deed of blood, beneath which it may stagger on for a while, but from which it can never entirely recover. For one moment, immediately after the deed, Lady Macbeth can overmaster her husband and stand defiantly erect, as if to challenge hell to combat. But this was but a momentary intoxication; it is even now over. She is already conscious that she can never banish from her breast the consciousness of her crime; she has found out that her wisdom, which spurned at reflection, is naught. The deed that she has done stands clear before her soul in unveiled, horrible distinctness, and therefore she swoons away.

Divine sorrow has not yet found entrance to her breast, but it is approaching. She will still try to maintain herself firmly in the path upon which she has entered, but with the progress of events, even her desire to do so will become weaker and weaker. . . .

And Banquo [III, i, 15, ⚫ Let your Highness command upon me,' &c.] can declare firm, unalterable fealty to the very man whom to himself he has just accused, almost in so many words, of attaining the throne by the assassination of his royal master! Such a declaration could only have been made by one whose own heart is closely allied to evil. The emotion excited in Banquo's breast against Macbeth must become stronger. He feels obliged to invent fair words to conceal his secret. The hypocrite Macbeth is served with hypocrisy. . . .

It is not without significance that in this scene [III, vi] there is frequent mention of most pious men and holy angels. Such mention is meant to remind us that there

is a moral force always present in the world, ready to come forth victorious in its time and place. . . .

Macbeth enters [IV, i] and bears unmistakeable testimony to the fact that he has been familiar with this company long before the beginning of the tragedy. He needs not to inquire the way leading hither, he knows it already.

RÜMELIN.

RÜMELIN (Shakespearestudien, p. 68. Stuttgart, 1866). The dramatic treatment in Macbeth offers but small scope for realistic criticism, since from beginning to end the drama is enacted in the mythological region of hoary eld, and supernatural powers are employed, against which there can be no pragmatic criticism. This freedom the poet had of course the same right to use as had the old tragedians, or Goethe in his 'Iphigenia,' when they transported us to the land of the old gods and legendary demigods. If, however, the weird sisters are not to be considered as real, as the majority of Shakespeare critics would fain persuade us, but only as the hero's visions, like the Ghosts in Richard III, merely external manifestations of mental experiences, desires and torments, then indeed the critic from the realistic point of view would have to assert himself with redoubled power, and the action of the tragedy would be utterly inconceivable. But this conception rests upon the weakest of arguments, and is opposed to every natural interpretation.

One essential point is clear—namely, that the witches foretell the future, and with an accuracy that does not fail in the very smallest particular. Of all their prophecies, only one, that he should be king, has any previous lodgement in Macbeth's breast; that the crown should descend to Banquo's children, of whom the last two should bear two-fold balls and treble sceptres, that Macduff should slay Macbeth, that Birnam's wood should come to Dunsinane, and the like, are not for a moment to be conceived of if we adopt that interpretation. These weird sisters had, in sooth, no control over Macbeth; their prophecies no more annihilated his free-will than the oracles of the Delphic god debarred Edipus from being a free agent. That Banquo stood in a different relation to these prophecies from Macbeth, whereon this interpretation lays so much stress, does not in the least change the state of the case. Moreover, the tenor of the prophecy which referred to him was not of such a nature as called for any action on his part. It was readily conceivable, since he himself belonged to the royal family, that his descendants should wear the crown: as far as he was concerned he could neither aid nor hinder it. Clearly enough, indeed, does the poet depict his witches not as divine, creative beings, bearing sway over man, but as devilish ones, leading him into temptation and delighting in evil. That the poet must have conceived of them as creatures real and supernatural, and prescient of the future, no unprejudiced reader will have the least doubt. . . . A poet has an undisputed right to choose for himself the scene of his dramatic action. If he transport us to a world of pure or only partial fantasy, we must follow him thither and give due credit to all the imaginary conditions which he devises for us; but if he transport us to real and historic ground, then he himself must respect the laws which there bear sway, and must submit himself to the criticism which they sanction. Thus alone shall we be able to understand Shakespeare's Macbeth in all its magnificent beauty; but not if we resolve the forms, to which his imagination imparts in the realm of poetry a real existence, into vague, mongrel things of vision and convenience.

...

Under such conditions there is little to be said against the action in Macbeth. There are, perchance, a few trifling gaps in the action; for instance, the instantaneous flight of the two Princes after Duncan's death is noticeable and not sufficiently accounted for. Also, the incentive to the murder of Banquo is not wholly satisfactory. Since Macbeth is childless, and Banquo belongs to the royal race, the thought that Banquo's descendants should be kings could convey nothing shocking nor intolerable to Macbeth; moreover, he must take the prophecy of the witches as a whole, without being permitted to bring to naught any particular item of it that he pleased. We must have recourse to the excuse that in the soliloquy where he resolves upon the | murder, Macbeth contemplates the possibility of his having sons, or else, which is more likely, that the poet, who in this place also may have written from scene to scene, forgot in this passage what elsewhere he has expressly stated, that Macbeth was a childless father.

More serious difficulties occur in the character of Lady Macbeth. Her demeanor before the deed and after it appears to violate that psychological law of essential unity and consistency of character to which Shakespeare in general, although with some exceptions, adheres. The workings of conscience in her case are magical and demoniacal, and not psychologically conceivable. Whether or not we conceive of conscience as an innate, or as an inculcated, belief in the absolute obligation of certain rules in human life, there still remains a something in the consciousness, a quality or a force, which can work only in harmony with the law of all forces. Whenever, then, we find that the memory of a criminal act, however successful and enduring in its issues it may have been, awakens a repentance and moral detestation so consuming that for no single instant is it absent from the mind of the criminal, and that self-abhorrence leads to insanity and suicide, then we may properly assume for such a character a susceptibility to moral emotions of no common strength. Furthermore, it is conceivable that with such a susceptibility there may coexist a proneness to the blackest of crimes; for in the same breast passions and desires of a different and far more violent nature may be harboured; but in this case it appears to us to follow of necessity that we must be made to see how, in the moment of a lawless deed, the voice of conscience is drowned, thrust down into a corner of the heart, overwhelmed by the tempest of stormy passion. But that ice-cold reasoning with which Lady Macbeth enkindles her husband to the most horrible of crimes, and sneers at the promptings of his conscience as though they were despicable, womanish weakness; the barbarous roughness with which she speaks of plucking her nipple from the boneless gums of the babe smiling in her face, and dashing its brains out; the wild strength with which, after the deed, she encourages Macbeth and spurs him on,-all this appears to us unreconcileable with what we have laid down. It is not till late that the Eumenides enter into her, and like Demons from without, whereas the poet ought to have shown us how all along they were lurking in ambush at the bottom of her heart, and how the violence of their onslaught can be calculated by the long and powerful pressure to which the nobler emotions were subjected.

In the character of Macbeth, wonderfully and strikingly as he is depicted, we miss something also. Before he falls into temptation he is represented by the poet as of a noble nature, as we gather not only from his own deportment, but more clearly from the esteem in which he is held by the king and others. We have a right to expect that this better nature would reappear; after his glowing ambition had attained its end he ought to have made at least one attempt, or manifested the desire, to wear