MACBETH | Episode 13 - Our Poisoned Chalice

TEXT:

ACT I - SCENE VII. Macbeth's castle.

Hautboys and torches. Enter a Sewer, and divers Servants with dishes and service, and pass over the stage. Then enter MACBETH
MACBETH
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust;
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on the other.

NOTES:

Seward and Divers Servants
It’s unusual enough for Shakespeare to give such specific stage-directions, particularly listing actual titles and figures. A sewer, as mentioned, is something like a head waiter. Evidently the Macbeths are putting on a big dinner if there are this many servants serving it.

Trammel
A trammel was a complicated kind of net - Macbeth is implying that, all things being equal, he’d love to scoop up all consequences and “catch” success as a result of Duncan’s death.

Seneca
In ancient Rome Lucius Annaeus Seneca was primarily a philosopher, but also a playwright. His plays are seldom performed today, since we tend to be more enthralled by the ancient Greek dramas that preceded them (and often tell the same stories…) But Shakespeare would very likely have read and enjoyed Seneca’s tragedies, and some might even make the claim that without Seneca, there would be no Macbeth.

Thyestes
Thyestes was one of Seneca’s more grisly tragedies.

Hospitality
Macbeth worries about his responsibilities to Duncan as his cousin, and his subject, but also as his host. Duties of hospitality are familiar all over the world, traceable back to the ancient Greek idea of philoxenia - literally “love of the foreigner”. A host would certainly have had a duty to ensure that their guest was not murdered under their roof…

Gospel of John
There’s an oblique echo of The Gospel of St. John in this scene - John 13:27 says “after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.” The idea of doing, and doing things quickly, is how this scene starts. Between this correlation, and the consistent language of “all hails” that echo Judas Iscariot, make Macbeth sound a bit like Judas stepping out from the Last Supper to worry about betraying Jesus, while Macbeth worries about the implications of betraying - and killing - his divinely anointed king.

King James Bible
As a project designed to unite the church and the nation, King James commissioned an English translation of the Bible. It was completed in 1611.

MACBETH | Episode 12 - The Air is Delicate

TEXT:

ACT I - SCENE VI. Before Macbeth's castle.

Hautboys and torches. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, BANQUO, LENNOX, MACDUFF, ROSS, ANGUS, and Attendants

DUNCAN
This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.

BANQUO
This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle:
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed,
The air is delicate.

Enter LADY MACBETH

DUNCAN
See, see, our honoured hostess!
The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,
Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you
How you shall bid God 'ild us for your pains,
And thank us for your trouble.

LADY MACBETH
All our service
In every point twice done and then done double
Were poor and single business to contend
Against those honours deep and broad wherewith
Your majesty loads our house: for those of old,
And the late dignities heaped up to them,
We rest your hermits.

DUNCAN
Where's the thane of Cawdor?
We coursed him at the heels, and had a purpose
To be his purveyor: but he rides well;
And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp him
To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess,
We are your guest to-night.

LADY MACBETH
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.

DUNCAN
Give me your hand;
Conduct me to mine host: we love him highly,
And shall continue our graces towards him.
By your leave, hostess.

Exeunt

NOTES:

Hautboys
A distant ancestor of the modern oboe (in name and in character), the hautboy was also known as a shawm. Since it’s almost impossible to describe music with words, here’s a video. There’s an extensive introduction, so if you just want to hear the sound, click to the 2:00 mark! Video here.

Martlet
The martlet, also known more commonly as the house martin, is a very cute bird. The Ornithology of Shakespeare has a very sweet entry about it, describing how Shakespeare also mentioned this bird in The Merchant of Venice. There too, it was in reference to how this bird makes its nest in existing buildings for safety.

MACBETH | Episode 11 - Strange Matters

TEXT:

Enter MACBETH

LADY MACBETH
Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!
Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!
Thy letters have transported me beyond
This ignorant present, and I feel now
The future in the instant.

MACBETH
My dearest love,
Duncan comes here to-night.

LADY MACBETH
And when goes hence?

MACBETH
Tomorrow, as he purposes.

LADY MACBETH
O, never
Shall sun that morrow see!
Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under't. He that's coming
Must be provided for: and you shall put
This night's great business into my dispatch;
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.

MACBETH
We will speak further.

LADY MACBETH
Only look up clear;
To alter favour ever is to fear:
Leave all the rest to me.

Exeunt

NOTES:

Euphemism
Shakespeare uses various forms of euphemism in the play - there aren’t many jokes in Macbeth but one big laugh relies on it. Here, we see Lady Macbeth in particular using calculated language to describe her murderous plan. She never describes it plainly, but instead it becomes their “great business”. Their plan is that King Duncan be “provided for” - it’s all euphemism.

MACBETH | Episode 10 - Murdering Ministers

TEXT:

Enter a Messenger

What is your tidings?

Messenger
The king comes here tonight.

LADY MACBETH
Thou'rt mad to say it:
Is not thy master with him? who, were't so,
Would have informed for preparation.

Messenger
So please you, it is true: our thane is coming:
One of my fellows had the speed of him,
Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
Than would make up his message.

LADY MACBETH
Give him tending;
He brings great news.

Exit Messenger

The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry 'Hold, hold!'

NOTES:

The Ornithology of Shakespeare
This is a fabulous book, which appears to list and describe every bird mentioned in Shakespeare. Best of all, it’s old enough to be out of copyright, and so you can find it online - right here!

Seneca
In ancient Rome Lucius Annaeus Seneca was primarily a philosopher, but also a playwright. His plays are seldom performed today, since we tend to be more enthralled by the ancient Greek dramas that preceded them (and often tell the same stories…) But Shakespeare would very likely have read and enjoyed Seneca’s tragedies, and some might even make the claim that without Seneca, there would be no Macbeth. For a very convincing argument - if your library has access - you can explore Inga-Stina Ewbank’s 1967 essay “The Fiend-Like Queen: A Note on Macbeth and Seneca’s Medea”. (It’s in Shakespeare Survey No. 19 via the Cambridge University Press.)

MACBETH | Episode 09 - The Milk of Human Kindness

TEXT:

ACT I - SCENE V. Inverness. Macbeth's castle.

Enter LADY MACBETH, reading a letter

LADY MACBETH

'They met me in the day of success: and I have
learned by the perfectest report, they have more in
them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire
to question them further, they made themselves air,
into which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in
the wonder of it, came missives from the king, who
all-hailed me 'Thane of Cawdor;' by which title,
before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referred
me to the coming on of time, with 'Hail, king that shalt
be!' This have I thought good to deliver thee,
my dearest partner of greatness, that thou
mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being
ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it
to thy heart, and farewell.'
Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly,
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win: 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.' Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crowned withal.

NOTES:

Holinshed’s Chronicle
As early as the 1540s, a London printer called Reginald Wolfe wanted to publish a comprehensive history of the world. This would obviously be a massive undertaking, and indeed poor Wolfe died before he got anywhere close to completing it. The project morphed into a chronicle of the British Isles, and it is named instead after Raphael Holinshed, a writer employed by Wolfe to help out. Holinshed and a consortium of fellow writers completed the first edition in 1577, but thanks to censorship a complete version would not see print for a few hundred years. The Chronicles were used as source material for several famous works of the period - first among them Shakespeare’s histories, King Lear, Cymbeline and of course Macbeth.

Lady Macbeth
The historical Lady Macbeth - that is, the wife of the historical figure Macbeth - was called Gruoch. We know maddeningly little about her; we have no dates of birth or death, no useful information at all. Shakespeare seems to have invented this titan of a character from a very small reference in Holinshed’s chronicle: “The words of the three Weird Sisters also (of whom before ye have heard) greatly encouraged him hereunto; but specially his wife lay sore upon him to attempt the thing, as she was very ambitious, burning with an unquenchable desire to bear the name of a queen.”

The Humours
Although milk is certainly not one of them, the four humours date back at least to medicine in the time of Hippocrates. Ancient Greek medicine identified four humours - black bile (whose name in Greek gives us the word melancholy), yellow bile, phlegm and blood. Galen suggested that an excess of any of these led to one of four personality types as mentioned in the episode - melancholic, choleric, phlegmatic and sanguine. Although rejected by most of modern medicine, in this breakdown we do have the seeds that grew into personality indicators like the Meyers-Briggs test and its many off-shoots.

Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, First Viscount St. Alban (1561-1626), an almost exact contemporary of Shakespeare, was a statesman and philosopher. The Advancement of Learning, mentioned in this episode, is among his more notable works, but he produced a great quantity of material. As with many of the sophisticated courtiers of Elizabethan England, a great many juicy rumours abound about his private life and even his dealings with the supernatural. He’s also a frequent candidate nominated by theorists desperate to find an alternative author for Shakespeare’s plays.

MACBETH | Episode 08 - The Prince of Cumberland

TEXT:

SCENE IV. Forres. The palace.

Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENNOX, and Attendants

DUNCAN
Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not
Those in commission yet returned?

MALCOLM
My liege,
They are not yet come back. But I have spoke
With one that saw him die: who did report
That very frankly he confessed his treasons,
Implored your highness' pardon and set forth
A deep repentance: nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it; he died
As one that had been studied in his death
To throw away the dearest thing he owed,
As 'twere a careless trifle.

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.

Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSS, and ANGUS

O worthiest cousin!
The sin of my ingratitude even now
Was heavy on me: thou art so far before
That swiftest wing of recompense is slow
To overtake thee. Would thou hadst less deserved,
That the proportion both of thanks and payment
Might have been mine! only I have left to say,
More is thy due than more than all can pay.

MACBETH
The service and the loyalty I owe,
In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part
Is to receive our duties; and our duties
Are to your throne and state children and servants,
Which do but what they should, by doing every thing
Safe toward your love and honour.

DUNCAN
Welcome hither:
I have begun to plant thee, and will labour
To make thee full of growing. Noble Banquo,
That hast no less deserved, nor must be known
No less to have done so, let me enfold thee
And hold thee to my heart.

BANQUO
There if I grow,
The harvest is your own.

DUNCAN
My plenteous joys,
Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves
In drops of sorrow. Sons, kinsmen, thanes,
And you whose places are the nearest, know
We will establish our estate upon
Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter
The Prince of Cumberland; which honour must
Not unaccompanied invest him only,
But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
On all deservers. From hence to Inverness,
And bind us further to you.

MACBETH
The rest is labour, which is not used for you:
I'll be myself the harbinger and make joyful
The hearing of my wife with your approach;
So humbly take my leave.

DUNCAN
My worthy Cawdor!

MACBETH (Aside)
The Prince of Cumberland! that is a step
On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,
For in my way it lies. 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.

Exit

DUNCAN
True, worthy Banquo; he is full so valiant,
And in his commendations I am fed;
It is a banquet to me. Let's after him,
Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome:
It is a peerless kinsman.

Flourish. Exeunt

MACBETH | Episode 07 - Supernatural Solicitings

TEXT:

MACBETH (continued)

To ROSS and ANGUS

Thanks for your pains.

To BANQUO

Do you not hope your children shall be kings,
When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me
Promised no less to them?

BANQUO

That trusted home
Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,
Besides the thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange:
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
In deepest consequence.
Cousins, a word, I pray you.

MACBETH (Aside)
Two truths are told,
As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme. I thank you, gentlemen.
This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill, cannot be good: if ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor.
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings:
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man that function
Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not.

BANQUO
Look, how our partner's rapt.

MACBETH
If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me,
Without my stir.

BANQUO
New honours come upon him,
Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould
But with the aid of use.

MACBETH
Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

BANQUO
Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.

MACBETH
Give me your favour - my dull brain was wrought
With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains
Are registered where every day I turn
The leaf to read them. Let us toward the king.
Think upon what hath chanced, and, at more time,
The interim having weighed it, let us speak
Our free hearts each to other.

BANQUO
Very gladly.

MACBETH
Till then, enough. Come, friends.

Exeunt

MACBETH | Episode 06 - Borrowed Robes

TEXT:

BANQUO
The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them. Whither are they vanished?

MACBETH
Into the air; and what seemed corporal melted
As breath into the wind. Would they had stayed!

BANQUO
Were such things here as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?

MACBETH
Your children shall be kings.

BANQUO
You shall be king.

MACBETH
And thane of Cawdor too: went it not so?

BANQUO
To the selfsame tune and words. Who's here?

Enter ROSS and ANGUS

ROSS
The king hath happily received, Macbeth,
The news of thy success; and when he reads
Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight,
His wonders and his praises do contend
Which should be thine or his: silenced with that,
In viewing o'er the rest o' the selfsame day,
He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,
Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,
Strange images of death. As thick as hail
Came post with post; and every one did bear
Thy praises in his kingdom's great defence,
And poured them down before him.

ANGUS
We are sent
To give thee from our royal master thanks;
Only to herald thee into his sight,
Not pay thee.

ROSS
And, for an earnest of a greater honour,
He bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor:
In which addition, hail, most worthy thane!
For it is thine.

BANQUO
What, can the devil speak true?

MACBETH
The thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress me
In borrowed robes?

ANGUS
Who was the thane lives yet;
But under heavy judgment bears that life
Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined
With those of Norway, or did line the rebel
With hidden help and vantage, or that with both
He laboured in his country's wreck, I know not;
But treasons capital, confessed and proved,
Have overthrown him.

MACBETH Aside
Glamis, and thane of Cawdor!
The greatest is behind.

To ROSS and ANGUS

Thanks for your pains.

NOTES:

Asides
As a little refresher - an aside is a line spoken by a character either to himself or to the audience. It is expressly not spoken to the other people onstage.

Shared Lines
I mention these all the time because they are important to the rhythm of the piece - especially in performance. When a line is shared between two characters, there’s almost always an angle to play. Here, we have Angus interrupting Ross’ convoluted message. Then he also finished Macbeth’s confused line about borrowed robes - his answer is direct and important. This play in particular is a symphony of shared lines of pentameter. They get even more complicated later in the play!

MACBETH | Episode 05 - Imperfect Speakers

TEXT:

Enter MACBETH and BANQUO

MACBETH
So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

BANQUO
How far is't called to Forres? What are these,
So witherrd and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
And yet are on't? Live you? Or are you aught
That man may question? You seem to understand me,
By each at once her chappy finger laying
Upon her skinny lips: you should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.

MACBETH
Speak, if you can: what are you?

First Witch
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!

Second Witch
All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!

Third Witch
All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!

BANQUO
Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair? I' the name of truth,
Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
You greet with present grace and great prediction
Of noble having and of royal hope,
That he seems rapt withal: to me you speak not.
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.

First Witch
Hail!

Second Witch
Hail!

Third Witch
Hail!

First Witch
Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.

Second Witch
Not so happy, yet much happier.

Third Witch
Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:
So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!

First Witch
Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!

MACBETH
Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more:
By Sinel's death I know I am thane of Glamis;
But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives,
A prosperous gentleman; and to be king
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
You owe this strange intelligence? Or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you.

Witches vanish

NOTES:

Beards
As mentioned, the essay “What are these faces? Interpreting Bearded Women in Macbeth” is by Dr. Brett Greatley-Hirsch, in Renaissance Poetry and Drama In Context. It’s a great read!

Glamis
Glamis is a village in Angus, Scotland. The name is usually pronounced with one syllable (rhyming with “alms”) but at certain points in the text of Macbeth Shakespeare seems to give it two syllables. Glamis is the site of Glamis Castle - although the play does not take place here.

Sinel
The historical Macbeth’s father was called Findláech of Moray, Thane of Angus. As mentioned in the episode, the name became Sinel in the play perhaps because of the similarity between typographies for F and S in renaissance printing. It’d probably be more accurate to call him Finel, but somehow I’m attached to Sinel because that’s the line as I learned it…!

MACBETH | Episode 04 - The Master of the Tiger

TEXT:

SCENE III. A heath.

Thunder. Enter the three Witches

First Witch
Where hast thou been, sister?

Second Witch
Killing swine.

Third Witch
Sister, where thou?

First Witch
A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,
And munched, and munched, and munched.
”Give me,” quoth I:
”Aroint thee, witch!” the rump-fed ronyon cries.
Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:
But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail,
I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.

Second Witch
I'll give thee a wind.

First Witch
Thou'rt kind.

Third Witch
And I another.

First Witch
I myself have all the other,
And the very ports they blow,
All the quarters that they know
I' the shipman's card.
I will drain him dry as hay.
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his penthouse lid;
He shall live a man forbid:
Weary se'nnights nine times nine
Shall he dwindle, peak and pine:
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tossed.
Look what I have.

Second Witch
Show me, show me.

First Witch
Here I have a pilot's thumb,
Wrecked as homeward he did come.

Drum within

Third Witch
A drum, a drum!
Macbeth doth come.

ALL
The weird sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,
Thus do go about, about:
Thrice to thine and thrice to mine
And thrice again, to make up nine.
Peace! the charm's wound up.

Enter MACBETH and BANQUO

NOTES:

Aroint
We don’t have much information about this, but it means something like “begone!”

Runyon
As mentioned, a derogatory term for a woman.

Aleppo
Aleppo is a famous trading port in Syria.

The Tiger
As mentioned, Edward Loomis’ article “The Master of the Tiger” appeared in the autumn 1956 edition of Shakespeare Quarterly. (You can probably find it online or via your library.) The tie-in between the real voyage and Shakespeare’s witchy threat seems so specific that it must be true - although there’s always room for a coincidence!

Se’'nnight
Seven nights make up a week. Fourteen nights make two weeks. And as such a se’ennight is a contraction that means a week, and a fortnight - which people in my part of the world certainly still say - means two weeks.

Edmund Campion
Edmund Campion (1540-1581) was a Jesuit priest. Jesuits in Shakespeare’s time were incredibly daring, moving through secret networks across Protestant Europe hoping to effect a Catholic counter-Reformation and a return to Rome. Campion was captured by priest hunters when he came back from Prague and was subjected to a very grisly death. The essay “The Pilot’s Thumb” by Richard Wilson gives a brilliant insight into the connections between Jesuits, politics, witchcraft and Macbeth, and is a very entertaining read. It is published in The Lancashire Witches: Histories and Stories, a collection edited by Robert Poole. Stirring stuff!

A Drum
We will talk about it next time, but we have to acknowledge the strangeness of this sound effect. Macbeth and Banquo arrive alone, so who is banging this drum? I think it’s more to do with the thunder that prefigured the witches’ arrival, and a general desire to punctuate and dramatise Macbeth’s long-delayed entrance. (There’s some fun to be had with thumbs and drums and hither comes, but, again, we’ll get to that later…)

MACBETH | Episode 03 - Bellona's Bridegroom

TEXT:

Sergeant
Yes;
As sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.
If I say sooth, I must report they were
As cannons overcharged with double cracks, so they
Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe:
Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,
Or memorise another Golgotha,
I cannot tell.
But I am faint, my gashes cry for help.

DUNCAN
So well thy words become thee as thy wounds;
They smack of honour both. Go get him surgeons.

Exit Sergeant, attended

Who comes here?

Enter ROSS

MALCOLM
The worthy thane of Ross.

LENNOX
What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look
That seems to speak things strange.

ROSS
God save the king!

DUNCAN
Whence camest thou, worthy thane?

ROSS
From Fife, great king;
Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky
And fan our people cold. Norway himself,
With terrible numbers,
Assisted by that most disloyal traitor
The thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict;
Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapped in proof,
Confronted him with self-comparisons,
Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm.
Curbing his lavish spirit: and, to conclude,
The victory fell on us.

DUNCAN
Great happiness!

ROSS
That now
Sweno, the Norways' king, craves composition:
Nor would we deign him burial of his men
Till he disburséd at Saint Colme's inch
Ten thousand dollars to our general use.

DUNCAN
No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive
Our bosom interest: go pronounce his present death,
And with his former title greet Macbeth.

ROSS
I'll see it done.

DUNCAN
What he hath lost noble Macbeth hath won.

Exeunt

NOTES:
Golgotha
Golgotha means skull in Aramaic; some sources suggest that that it actually looked like a skull, and this inference found its way into several depictions in art and literature. The more well-known version of the name, Calvary, also takes its etymology from the Latin for skull.

Fife
Fife is Macduff’s home and family seat; he is the Thane of Fife. He is absolutely associated with the place, and so when this portion of the scene begins with Ross explaining that this is where he has come from, it’s fairly reasonable to assume that his news concerns its Thane. Teasing out this idea has cracked open my opinion of this scene, since most of my readings of the play to date have left me assuming that the entire scene is describing Macbeth’s exploits. But having this introduction to Macduff as a comparative equal in valour makes things significantly more dramatic, don’t you think?

Bellona
Bellona is a comparatively obscure Roman goddess: generally the god of war is Mars, but given how much the Romans liked conflict and conquest it’s not surprising that they had more than one war deity to pray to..!

Saint Colm’s Inch / Inchcolme
This is a small island in the Firth of Forth, not far from Edinburgh. There was a famous monastery there - it sometimes feels like every small island in Scotland had a monastery - and indeed the name derives from Inis - island - and Colm, or Columba, one of the country’s most famous saints. As mentioned in the episode, it was frequent practice to bury the dead on islands because the mainland was beset with wolves and wild dogs that might dig up the corpses.

Dollars
This mention of a currency called a dollar is extremely rare in Shakespeare. (The word appears again in The Tempest, but nowhere else.) The word had a very long process of development, given how it’s one of the most common words in the world today. For more information on its long history, click here.

MACBETH | Episode 02 - Well He Deserves That Name

TEXT:

SCENE II. A camp near Forres.

Alarum within. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENNOX, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Sergeant

DUNCAN
What bloody man is that? He can report,
As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt
The newest state.

MALCOLM
This is the sergeant
Who like a good and hardy soldier fought
'Gainst my captivity. Hail, brave friend!
Say to the king the knowledge of the broil
As thou didst leave it.

Sergeant
Doubtful it stood;
As two spent swimmers, that do cling together
And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald -
Worthy to be a rebel, for to that
The multiplying villanies of nature
Do swarm upon him - from the western isles
Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;
And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
Showed like a rebel's whore: but all's too weak:
For brave Macbeth - well he deserves that name -
Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like valour's minion carved out his passage
Till he faced the slave;
Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseamed him from the nave to the chaps,
And fixed his head upon our battlements.

DUNCAN
O valiant cousin! worthy gentleman!

Sergean
As whence the sun 'gins his reflection
Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break,
So from that spring whence comfort seemed to come
Discomfort swells. Mark, king of Scotland, mark:
No sooner justice had with valour armed
Compelled these skipping kerns to trust their heels,
But the Norweyan lord surveying vantage,
With furbished arms and new supplies of men
Began a fresh assault.

DUNCAN
Dismayed not this
Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?

NOTES:

The Tragedy of Cleopatra
Samuel Daniel’s play The Tragedy of Cleopatra was published in 1594, over a decade before Macbeth. The passage describing Antony and Cleopatra as swimmers clinging to each other in mutually-assured desctuction is as follows:

And since we took of either such firm hold
In th' overwhelming seas of fortune cast,
What power should be of power to reunfold
The arms of our affections locked so fast,
For grapling in the Ocean of our pride,
We suncke each others greatnesse both together;
And both made shipwracke of our fame beside,
Both wrought a like destruction unto either…

Kerns
The word kern is an adaptation of the Middle Irish word ceithern, which means a collection of people, more specifically fighting men. An individual member is a ceithernach. Kerns were called “uncivil” in Shakespeare’s own Henry IV Part 2, and in Macbeth we get a sense that they aren’t terribly reliable - they fight for money rather than for country, and our last image is of them “skipping” away.. Have a look for “The Image of Irelande” - an engraving from 1581 - and you’ll see a very famous depiction of them.

Gallowglasses
Another kind of mercenary - this word can apply to Irish and Scottish fighters. (It was originally Scottish, but fast came to apply to Irish fighters too.

Western Isles
Most likely the Hebrides, but of course Ireland is also to the west of Scotland.

MacDonald / Makdonwald
In Holinshed’s Chronicles, there’s considerably more detail about the skirmishes in Scotland during Duncan’s reign. MacDonald’s rebellion is separate to the attack from the Norwegians - and Shakespeare chooses to ignore further aggressions from the Danes. (King James’ wife was Danish, as discussed during our trek through Hamlet, and so perhaps he opted to leave them out of this ghastly bloodbath…) It is true to Holinshed (and history) that Macbeth defeated MacDonald.

Banquo
*shocker* Banquo - Thane of Lochabar - was not a historical figure. He appears in Holinshed as if he were one, but apparently this is a fiction cooked up by another ‘historian’ Hector Boece. Boece wrote A History of Scotland in 1526, and fabricated Banquo’s importance as a means of legitimising the claim of his patron, King James the Fifth (grandfather of James the Sixth, the First of England.) The more you know…!

MACBETH | Episode 01 - Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair

TEXT:

ACT I

SCENE I. A desert place.

Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches

First Witch
When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

Second Witch
When the hurlyburly's done,
When the battle's lost and won.

Third Witch
That will be ere the set of sun.

First Witch
Where the place?

Second Witch
Upon the heath.

Third Witch
There to meet with Macbeth.

First Witch
I come, Graymalkin!

Second Witch
Paddock calls.

Third Witch
Anon.

ALL
Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.

Exeunt

NOTES:

Macbeth / The Scottish Play
Probably the greatest Shakespearean superstition - if not the greatest superstition in the history of the theatre. The play’s relationship with evil and trickery and blood and terror is more than enough to explain how it has come to be such a taboo name. Theatrical tradition is such that it is considered extremely bad luck to say the name of the play: as a result it is invariably referred to as The Scottish Play by anyone not directly working on it. (I slipped up and said the name in a rehearsal once, and this so distressed the lead actor that I indulged him and performed the apparent antidote to the ‘curse’ - one must leave the room, turn around three times, spit or curse and then be invited to come back in. I have not made this mistake again. (You’ll often hear people referring to the play as Mackers, or any number of such variants…!)

Witches
There are those who might insist that the play’s famous trio are not actually witches, or that the word witch isn’t spoken aloud in the play. They are called Weird Sisters, and many other things; this is all fine. But the script calls them witches, and so does the sailor’s wife they mention. I think we can accept that they are witches, since if they’re not, what’s the point of having them?

Familiars
A clear sign of a witch - in this period in which women were so easily vilified for being different - was that she would have a familiar, a small creature that would assist her in her wicked encounters and practices. Shakespeare mentions them here to ensure that there’s no doubt in our mind about these strange figures; they are witches and they are somehow bidden to these supernaturally-controlled figures. Graymalkin is a cat, and Paddock is a toad. These are considerably more sinister than the pets kept by the students of Hogwarts in a more recent story of witches and wizards - there are no familiars in that world. It’d be a much darker story if there were.

EPISODE 182 - WITH SORROW I EMBRACE MY FORTUNE

TEXT:

HORATIO
Not from his mouth,
Had it the ability of life to thank you:
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arrived give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
How these things came about: so shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on the inventors' reads: all this can I
Truly deliver.

FORTINBRAS
Let us haste to hear it,
And call the noblest to the audience.
For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune:
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.

HORATIO
Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more;
But let this same be presently performed,
Even while men's minds are wild; lest more mischance
On plots and errors, happen.

FORTINBRAS
Let four captains
Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have proved most royally: and, for his passage,
The soldiers' music and the rites of war
Speak loudly for him.
Take up the bodies: such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

A dead march.
Exeunt, bearing off the dead bodies;
a peal of ordnance is shot off.

EPISODE 181 - GOODNIGHT, SWEET PRINCE

TEXT:

OSRIC
Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,
To the ambassadors of England gives
This warlike volley.

HAMLET
O, I die, Horatio;
The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit:
I cannot live to hear the news from England,
But I do prophesy the election lights
On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice.
So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,
Which have solicited. The rest is silence.

Dies

HORATIO
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
Why does the drum come hither?

March within

Enter Fortinbras, the English Ambassadors, and others

FORTINBRAS
Where is this sight?

HORATIO
What is it ye would see?
If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.

FORTINBRAS
This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death,
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
That thou so many princes at a shot
So bloodily hast struck?

First Ambassador
The sight is dismal;
And our affairs from England come too late:
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,
To tell him his commandment is fulfilled,
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead:
Where should we have our thanks?

NOTES:

Havoc
The word came from the Anglo-Norman French term havok, which itself came from the Old French word havot, itself of unknown origin. The verb was originally to cry havoc (Old French crier havot ), or ‘to give an army the order havoc/havot’. This was a terrifying turning point - it was a signal to an army to start plundering, looting, massacring and destroying everything in its path.

EPISODE 180 - LET IT BE

TEXT:

HAMLET
Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.
I am dead, Horatio. Wretched queen, adieu!
You that look pale and tremble at this chance,
That are but mutes or audience to this act,
Had I but time - as this fell sergeant, death,
Is strict in his arrest - O, I could tell you…
But let it be. Horatio, I am dead.
Thou livest; report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied.

HORATIO
Never believe it:
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane:
Here's yet some liquor left.

HAMLET
As thou'rt a man,
Give me the cup: let go; by heaven, I'll have't.
O good Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.

March afar off, and shot within

What warlike noise is this?

NOTES:

Titinius
At the end of Julius Caesar, both Cassius and Brutus die by suicide. The Roman glorification of honourable death by suicide has long been associated with Brutus in particular, and certainly Horatio’s nod to being more an antique Roman than a Dane echoes the on-stage deaths of these two lead characters. But as mentioned, there is another significant suicide at the end of Julius Caesar. Cassius’ friend and associate Titinius is the first to find him after his death, and Shakespeare gives him a very moving speech before he too ends his life in grief at the death of his friend:

Why didst thou send me forth, brave Cassius?
Did I not meet thy friends? and did not they
Put on my brows this wreath of victory,
And bid me give it thee? Didst thou not hear their shouts?
Alas, thou hast misconstrued every thing!
But, hold thee, take this garland on thy brow;
Thy Brutus bid me give it thee, and I
Will do his bidding. Brutus, come apace,
And see how I regarded Caius Cassius.
By your leave, gods:--this is a Roman's part
Come, Cassius' sword, and find Titinius' heart.

Felicity Awhile
In his lovely account of the various times he played Polonius (in the first volume of the great series “Players of Shakespeare”) Tony Church mentions a very funny game that actors play, attempting to find proper names within the text of the play. His favourite (and mine) is Felicity Awhile, which could also serve as a most erudite Shakespearean name for a budding drag queen!

EPISODE 179 - FOLLOW MY MOTHER

TEXT:

HAMLET
O villany! Ho! let the door be locked:
Treachery! Seek it out.

LAERTES
It is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art slain;
No medicine in the world can do thee good;
In thee there is not half an hour of life;
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
Unbated and envenomed: the foul practise
Hath turned itself on me lo, here I lie,
Never to rise again: thy mother's poisoned:
I can no more: the king, the king's to blame.

HAMLET
The point! …envenomed too!
Then, venom, to thy work.

Hamlet stabs Claudius

ALL
Treason! treason!

CLAUDIUS
O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt.

HAMLET
Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?
Follow my mother.

Claudius dies

LAERTES
He is justly served;
It is a poison tempered by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:
Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me.

Dies

NOTES

Villain
Hamlet calls Claudius a villain a great many times in the play. Interestingly, the word originally just meant a rustic, someone who lives or comes from the country. By Shakespeare’s time it had the meaning we understand by it today - a wicked person, a character whose motivations are evil. Some of the old associations may have hovered, making the denunciation all the more cutting.

EPISODE 178 - THE DRINK! THE DRINK!

TEXT:

HAMLET
I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by.

GERTRUDE
Come, let me wipe thy face.

LAERTES
My lord, I'll hit him now.

CLAUDIUS
I do not think't.

LAERTES
[Aside] And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.

HAMLET
Come, for the third, Laertes: you but dally;
I pray you, pass with your best violence;
I am afeard you make a wanton of me.

LAERTES
Say you so? come on.

They play

OSRIC
Nothing, neither way.

LAERTES
Have at you now!

Laertes wounds Hamlet. As they fight, they drop their swords. In the scuffle, they change rapiers. Hamlet wounds Laertes.

CLAUDIUS
Part them; they are incensed.

HAMLET
Nay, come, again.

Gertrude falls

OSRIC
Look to the queen there, ho!

HORATIO
They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?

OSRIC
How is't, Laertes?

LAERTES
Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric;
I am justly killed with mine own treachery.

HAMLET
How does the queen?

CLAUDIUS
She swounds to see them bleed.

GERTRUDE
No, no, the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet -
The drink, the drink! I am poisoned.

Dies

NOTES
Conscience
For Shakespeare, conscience was synonymous with consciousness. It covers a variety of concepts like awareness, morality, even conscientiousness. Hamlet earlier planned to “catch the conscience of the king” with the Mousetrap. He also worried that “conscience does make cowards of us all”. It’s no accident that Laertes has a similar moment of pause.

Woodcocks
The woodcock, or snipe (with the fabulous Latin family name Scolopax) is a family of birds notorious for being easy to catch - primarily because they aren't particularly sharp. Earlier in the play, Polonius advised Ophelia not to be caught up in Hamlet's traps (or springes): here Laertes laments the fact that he is caught in the one he set for Hamlet.

EPISODE 177 - A VERY PALPABLE HIT

TEXT:

HAMLET
Come on, sir.

LAERTES
Come, my lord.

They play
Hamlet hits Laertes

HAMLET
One.

LAERTES
No.

HAMLET
Judgment.

OSRIC
A hit, a very palpable hit.

LAERTES
Well; again.

CLAUDIUS
Stay; give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;
Here's to thy health.

Trumpets sound, and cannon shot off within

Give him the cup.

HAMLET
I'll play this bout first; set it by awhile. Come.

They play

Another hit; what say you?

LAERTES
A touch, a touch, I do confess.

CLAUDIUS
Our son shall win.

GERTRUDE
He's fat, and scant of breath.
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows;
The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

HAMLET
Good madam!

CLAUDIUS
Gertrude, do not drink.

GERTRUDE
I will, my lord; I pray you, pardon me.

CLAUDIUS
[Aside] It is the poisoned cup: it is too late.

EPISODE 176 - NOW THE KING DRINKS TO HAMLET

TEXT:

LAERTES
This is too heavy, let me see another.

HAMLET
This likes me well. These foils have all a length?

OSRIC
Ay, my good lord.

CLAUDIUS
Set me the stoops of wine upon that table.
If Hamlet give the first or second hit,
Or quit in answer of the third exchange,
Let all the battlements their ordnance fire:
The king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath;
And in the cup an union shall he throw,
Richer than that which four successive kings
In Denmark's crown have worn. Give me the cups;
And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth.
Now the king drinks to Hamlet. Come, begin;
And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.

NOTES:

Fencing
Fencing is an umbrella term for three distinct disciplines (foil, épée and sabre) of sword fighting. It developed as a sport in the 18th century in London, spearheaded by a teacher called Domenico Angelo. He wrote a very influential book called The School of Fencing, and had an actual school at Carlisle House in London. The sport was popular enough to be included from the very beginning of the modern Olympic Games in 1896, and has remained on the docket at every Olympiad since then.

Thomas Kyd
Kyd was perhaps the most successful English playwright before Shakespeare and Marlowe came to prominence, and he was a key contributor to the development of Elizabethan theatre. Elsewhere we have made frequent reference to Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, but this episode refers to another of his plays. Soliman and Perseda was a little later than the monster hit about Hieronimo, and is believed to have been written in about 1593. You can read a text of the play laid out with conveniently modern spelling here.