When the hurlyburly’s done...
Welcome to the latest entry into the annals of A Year in the Library. As is not uncommonly the case, the apprehension with which your Archivist selects a topic, fearing it might not bear sufficient fruit for the arbitrarily-conceived requisite length, appears, yet again, to have been unwarranted. Should you be a new visitor to this delirious discourse on diverse topics, let us review the règle du jeu. All objets illustrated herein must be in the permanent Collection of your Archivist. Having now sufficiently prefaced that which you are about to read, let us proceed further in this business...
Astute readers of this digital foray into one person’s disquieted mind (and cabinets and shelves) will no doubt have noticed your Archivist’s motto “nothing is but what is not” beneath his portrait. Those amongst you most familiar with The Bard will immediately recognize the paradoxical prose as heralding from, what superstitious thespians refer to as, The Scottish Play. First performed in 1606, the performance of the play has become associated with a witch’s curse which afflicts actors who speak the work’s name aloud in the theatre (outside of the script). There is a long history of mishaps befalling such poor players that strut and fret about the stage, and a cleansing ritual is required, lest there be dire consequences for the transgression.
Since the age of eleven, your Archivist has been both puzzling over and enjoying the soliloquies and occult doings from The Drama. My interests in iconology, semiotics, metaphors, and meaning in art drew me to this play most amongst all others of the Bard’s oeuvre. In later studies, I saw many reflections and echoes of the melancholy Thane, from Aeneas to Beowulf, and well beyond.
To my uninformed reading, there are echoes between the parade of kings in The Aeneid and The Scottish Play. The appearance of Banquo’s royal lineage in the fourth apparition (IV, i) seems an inversion of Virgil’s description of Aeneas’ visitation to the underworld. In Book VI of the Aeneid, the shade of Anchises, Aeneas’ father, shows his still mortal son the noble Roman lineage he will beget.
So spoke Anchises; then led forth his son,
The Sibyl with him, to the assembled shades
(A voiceful throng), and on a lofty mound
His station took, whence plainly could be seen
The long procession, and each face descried.
“Hark now! for of the glories I will tell
That wait our Dardan blood; of our sons' sons
Begot upon the old Italian breed,
Who shall be mighty spirits, and prolong
Our names, their heritage. I will unfold
The story, and reveal the destined years.
tr. Theodore C. Williams. trans. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1910.
In contrast, the witches show the Murderous King a series of apparitions that culminate in a vision of future rulers absent of any of his own progeny.
Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo. Down!
Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs. And thy hair,
Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first.
A third is like the former.—Filthy hags,
Why do you show me this?—A fourth? Start, eyes!
What, will the line stretch out to th’ crack of doom?
Another yet? A seventh? I’ll see no more.
And yet the eighth appears who bears a glass
Which shows me many more, and some I see
That twofold balls and treble scepters carry.
Horrible sight! Now I see ’tis true,
For the blood-boltered Banquo smiles upon me
And points at them for his.
Too obtuse for you? Try this one, sure to temper your doubtful joy. In Gardner’s Grendel, the eponymous monster reflects on life:
I understood that the world was nothing; a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears. I understood that, finally and absolutely, I alone exist. All the rest, I saw, is merely what pushes me, or what I push against, blindly—as blindly as all that is not myself pushes back. I create the whole universe blink by blink...
Is this not a modern rendition of the King’s lament upon the death of the Queen?
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
Very well, enough exegesis for now. To paraphrase Dr. Leonard McCoy; “damn it Jim, I’m an art historian, not a damn literary critic!” Come, let's make haste. Here then, are some selections from The Library pertaining to the rise and fall of the ambitious Thane of Glamis.
Books where people may read strange matters
Portents and prophecies; ambition and revenge- these are the key elements of The Scottish Play. Throw in some witches and ghosts and you know I’m hooked. What is of particular interest to your Archivist, however, is the multiplicity of ways in which The Tragedy may be interpreted. With clever and highly-quotable prose, the Bard’s work elicits a number of interesting questions. Are the witches real or are they figments of the eaters of insane roots that take the reason prisoner? Are the witches’ proclamations true prophecies or clever incitements? What are the power dynamics between the Thane and his wife? Well fear not, a veritable sea of ink has been splashed against a pulpy shore on these and other arcane topics.
Macbeth (The Arden Shakespeare). 1909.
Hardcover book edited by E. K. Chambers. D. C. Heath & Co. About 12 x 17 cm., 190 pp.
A nice “pocket” edition, suitable for holding in one hand whilst grasping for daggers of the mind (wait- isn’t that a STTOS Episode?) with the other. The play occupies 88 pages; the notes, appendixes, and glossary the remaining 100 or so.
An artful inscription for an aspiring typographer of the early 20th Century.
A Complete Concordance or Verbal Index to Words, Phrases and Passages in the Dramatic Works of Shakespeare with a Supplementary Concordance to the Poems. 1962 reprint of the 1894 edition.
Hardcover book by John Bartlett. Macmillan & Co. About 22 x 28 cm., 1,910 pp.
Regular readers will surely know by now that with a title such as this, your Archivist could not resist adding this tome to The Library. A product of the late 19th Century, one can only imagine the Herculean effort required to compile such a list in a pre-digital age, although it sadly lacks the definite and indefinite articles that The Library’s biblical concordance dutifully catalogues. Perusing this volume provided such useful insights as that beyond The Play under consideration here, “newt” also occurs in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Timon of Athens. Who knew? You do. Now...
Macbeth (The Signet Classic Shakespeare). 1963.
Paperback book edited Sylvan Barnet. Signet. About 10 x 18 cm., 248 pp.
Of particular interest in this otherwise unremarkable academic edition are the marginalia from some aspiring draughtsman and delinquent student of questionable merit.
The point is made.
A recipe for disaster.
A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: Macbeth. 1963 (Republication of the 1873 edition).
Softcover book edited by Horace Howard Furness, Jr. Dover Publications. About 14 x 22 cm., 566 pp.
The editor of this volume spent 40 years of his life collecting three centuries of notes and annotations for most of the Bard’s plays. The book reads like an OED of Shakespeare, listing its notes in historical order. It was time well-spent.
One line of tragedy, 46 lines of notes!
Macbeth. A Collection of Critical Essays. 1970.
Softcover book edited by John Wain. Aurora Publishers. About 13 x 20 cm., 302 pp.
A nice collection of essays about the O’erleaping Thane and related dramatis personæ from the 18th to the 20th centuries edited by an English novelist and critic (who should not be confused with one Golden Age-Hollywood cowboy by the name of Marion Robert Morrison). Essays collected include “Marginalia on Macbeth” by Coleridge and “Some Character-types met with in Psycho-analytical Work” by some Austrian Alienist or other.
The Masks of Macbeth. 1978.
Hardcover book by Marvin Rosenberg. University of Delaware Press. About 17 x 24 cm., 802 pp.
The mother of all commentaries, this weighty volume is a dream come true for one obsessed with He Who is Too Full of the Milk of Human Kindness. Scene by scene, act by act, commentaries by scholars, critics, directors, and actors from around the world are collected herein. My plenteous joys, wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves in drops of sorrow.
Inside the cauldron...
The Making of the Cauldron: An Analysis of Witch and Witchcraft Power in Macbeth. 1994.
Softcover booklet by William J. Neuenfeldt. Stanford Honors Essays in Humanities XXXVII. About 14 x 22 cm., 82 pp.
An interesting piece of juvenilia focusing on the Weird Sisters and sexuality in The Tragedy. Chapters include such pithy turns of phrase as “Eye of Newt and Soul of Macbeth” and “A Pinch of Lady Macbeth”. Oh my...
Macbeth. New Critical Essays. 2008.
Softcover book edited by Nick Moschovakis. Routledge. About 14 x 22 cm., 364 pp.
A collection of modern essays on some of the more obscure themes associated with the Tragedy such as “Macbeth: recent migration of the cinematic brand”. I guess all the good topics were taken...
Macbeth (Blooms Shakespeare Through the Ages). 2008.
Softcover book edited by Harold Bloom. Checkmark Books. About 16 x 24 cm., 402 pp.
Similar to Wain’s work above, but with a long prefatory section about The Play, this collection of essays is more expansive and encompassing in scope, ranging from the Eighteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries.
The Visual Spectacle of Witchcraft in Jacobian Plays. 2014.
Softcover book by Shokhan Rasool Ahmed. AuthorHouse. About 15 x 23 cm., 158 pp.
Whilst somewhat academic in structure and style, this nonetheless interesting study concerns itself with contemporaneous views of witchcraft and the technical aspects of portraying witches in the theater in and around Shakespeare’s time. My favorite chapter- “Witches Before Flying”!
The plot thickens...
Neither was The Scottish Play conceived ex nihilo nor was it composed in vacuo. As he did with a number of his works, Shakespeare used the late 16th Century historical anthology Holinshed’s Chronicle as a source for many of the basic plot elements of his Tragedy. Contemporaneous events are also echoed in the play’s themes and text. In 1605, a plot to assassinate the Scottish King James I of England was uncovered. A group of English Catholics had sought to depose Protestant rule in England by blowing up Parliament with gunpowder. The Guy they left in charge of the explosives was a certain Mr. Fawkes who was discovered mens rea before he could discharge his duty. The Gunpowder Plot failed, and the conspirators were dispatched. The dramatic near miss impacted global politics and culture in ways which still resonate today.
Holinshed’s Chronicle as Used in Shakespeare’s Plays. 1963 reprint of 1927 ed.
Hardcover book edited by Allardyce and Josephine Nicoll. Dutton, New York. About 12 x 19 cm., 234 pp.
Reginald Wolfe was a Dutch-born British bookseller who sought to publish a universal cosmography, something akin to Schedel’s all-encompassing Weltchronik (1493). Upon Wolfe’s death in 1573, the scope of the work was narrowed by his assistant Raphael Holinshed to a less ambitious history of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Thereafter known as Holinshed’s Chronicles, the history was first published in 1577. A second edition (1587) served a textual source for the Bard. This Dutton edition conveniently omits all the superfluous happenings on the Isles and focuses on the texts most relevant to the Bard’s plays, including The Scottish Play.
Gunpower Plot Commemorative Medal. Contemporary restrike of the 1605 original.
Silver medal. Intaglio Mint. About 3.9 cm. diameter.
Catholicism, Reformation, Counterreformation. There was a lot going on under the cruciform banner in the early 17th Century Low Countries. In protestant Holland, a sense of kinship was felt with their English brethren. A tangible representation of this occurred in 1605 when the Dutch Senate issued a medal to commemorate the suppression of the Gunpowder Plot and the expulsion of those pesky Jesuits from Holland.
The medal’s obverse depicts a snake coiled amongst lilies and roses, a pictorial metaphor for the deceiving Jesuits hiding amongst the populace. The Latin inscription accompanying the image in translation reads “He, who concealed himself, is detected. By order of the Senate”. Does the line “look like th’ innocent flower, / But be the serpent under’t” remind you of a certain Thane’s advice to his wife?
On the obverse is inscribed the tetragrammaton inside a crown of thorns. Surrounding this is the Latin “You, the keeper of James, have not slept”. Thanks for the save, Yahweh!
Witches & Jesuits: Shakespeare’s Macbeth. 1995.
Hardcover book by Gary Wills. Oxford University Press. About 15 x 22 cm., 224 pp.
I must credit this book with introducing me to one of my most treasured phrases: “Jesuitical equivocation”. A favorite now amongst politicians and businesspeople, it’s basically lying by omission. “Are you hiding Catholics in your attic?” “No sir; I am not hiding Catholics in my attic!” (They are in fact, hiding in the basement). It is emblematic of the contortions the famously intellectual Jesuits at the time underwent to circumvent the sin of lying whilst simultaneous avoiding the hangman’s noose in Reformation England under a Protestant King. This book makes all the connections between the Gunpowder Plot and the symbolism, and many relevant metaphors present in the 1606 production of The Tragedy.
V for Vendetta. 1990.
Softcover book by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. DC Comics. About 17 x 26 cm., 286 pp.
Brilliant writer and grumpy old guy Alan Moore wrote an homage to The Gunpowder Plot in his serialized comic, V for Vendetta, which is set in a fictional dystopian fascist England (don’t worry, we could still make it there...). A genetically enhanced super-anarchist named V (after the Roman number five, not the 22nd letter) seeks to unseat the totalitarian government, ultimately prevailing by sending a funerial tram of explosives to parliament.
While the tradition of wearing pasteboard masks on Guy Fawkes Day heralds back to the 17th Century, it is Lloyd’s version from V for Vendetta that is now worn by contemporary anarchists, protesters, and hackers worldwide.
Recognize any familiar quotes?
How about a closer look?
Princely Prints
While the Collection is mostly focused on the literary aspects of the Scottish Play, it is not without some examples of visual performance. Those below take the form of 19th century prints which celebrate notable actors who have played He Who fears the Thane of Fife and She of Thickened Blood. The vignettes surrounding many of the engravings below are reminiscent of the roundels employed by illuminators of 15th century manuscripts. They are used to illustrate scenes complementary to the primary illustration, creating a thematic and visual rhyme.
Mr. G. V. Brook as Macbeth. c. 1855.
Engraving on paper published by Martin & Johnson. New York. About 21 x 28 cm.
Gustavus Vaughan Brooke was an Irish actor who achieved early notoriety for his Shakespearean roles, but later succumbed to the “great provoker of three things” and the woes associated with it. The scene depicted is from Act 2 wherein The Thane grasps for a phantom blade.
An emblem befitting the Deceitful and Murderous Thane.
Miss Charlotte Cushman as Lady Macbeth. c. 1858.
Engraving on paper published by Johnson, Fry and Company. New York. About 21 x 28 cm.
Charlotte Cushman made her first professional appearance on a stage in the Athens of America. In both her early and later career, Ms. Cushman played the Dearest Chuck to great acclaim. During the summer of 1861, she met the Great Emancipator who confided in her that The Scottish Play was his favorite amongst the Bard’s work. In October of that year, he saw her perform that role. He would have been well-advised to avoid the theater thereafter.
Cutlery fit for a king.
Can you spot the scene in this vignette?
Mr. M’Kean Buchanan as Macbeth. c. 1850.
Tinted Engraving on paper from The complete works of Shakspere : revised from the original editions / with historical and analytical introductions to each play, also notes explanatory and critical, and a life of the poet by J.O. Halliwell … and other eminent commentators ; elegantly and appropriately illustrated by portraits engraved on steel, from daguerreotypes of the greatest and most intellectual actors of the age ; taken in the embodiment of the varied and life-like characters of our great national poet / Tragedies.
London. About 28 x 21 cm.
Ok, now that’s a title. This engraving by T. Sherratt depicts the King in act 3, considering the threat worthy Banquo might pose to his crown.
Uneasy lies the head... Oh wait- different play.
Mr. Edwin Forrest as Macbeth. 1856.
Print on paper published by Martin & Johnson. New York. About 21 x 28 cm.
It would not surprise me in the least if the machinations of several witches were ever discovered to have been the catalyst for the intercontinental melee this actor precipitated...
When American born Edwin Forrest visited London in 1845, his performance of the Bold, Bloody, and Resolute King was so ill-suited to his theatrical style, that he was hissed by the audience.Being an actor, Forrest of course blamed fellow thespian and Englishman William Macready for the incident.And like a certain Thane who just didn’t know when to stop, Forrest took the opportunity to right his perceived slight by hissing Macready during one of the latter’s performances several weeks later. The London Press savaged Forrest’s behavior, to which he responded with an inflammatory letter in The Times.
The feud between these actors culminated outside the Astor Theater in New Amsterdam in 1849 where Macready was playing the lead in The Scottish Play. An enraged mob of some 10,000 sought to burn down the establishment and battled authorities to the cost of dozens dead and hundreds injured. What I want to know is if the rioters were carrying branches of Burnham Wood with them.
Mr. Phelps as Macbeth. c. 1860.
Engraving on paper published by John Tallis & Company. London. About 19 x 28 cm.
While Samuel Phelps most often played Hamlet, he considered his portrayal of the Treacherous Thane among his greatest performances. Here he is depicted reaching for the sleeping King Duncan’s door from the second act. The decorative border is full of imagery pertaining to the murder that is to ensue.
An ominous Syble-like witch presides over the scene.
On either upper side of the arched image is a corpse beneath a bloody dagger, presumably the two guards who were murdered during the regicide.
In the border’s lower left roundel is the first appearance of The Witches to The Treacherous Thane and his companion, the Ill-Fated Banquo (who appears to be wearing the earliest-known example of a propeller beanie).
There is nothing serious in mortality; all is but toys...
And before this idiot’s tale is concluded, I’d like to share one other item from The Collection. Born of the British Penny Dreadfuls, the French Grand Guignol, and the American bloody pulps, a style of graphically violent crime and then horror comics was brought onto the American scene in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Under the guise of bringing great literature to the masses, comic book versions of plays and novels were published. If it so happened that there were particularly gruesome scenes depicted therein, well...
Stories By Famous Authors Illustrated 6: Macbeth. 1950.
Comic book with Art by Henry Kiefer. Published by Seaboard Publishers. New York. About 17 x 26 cm., 32 pp.
It ain’t literature if there isn’t a comic book about it. This version of The Scottish Play was cited as a crime comic espousing lurid murder in the infamous Seduction of the Innocent; a tract which railed against the violence and sexuality corrupting America’s youth through popular pictorial magazines.
Where do you think EC got their idea for the Old Witch who narrates their horror comics?
Heady stuff, this Shakespeare.
And thus concludes another reflection on arcane matters to no one and everyone, carefully placed in a virtual bottle, tossed upon a vast digital sea. “Though his bark cannot be lost, Yet it shall be tempest-tost.”
Thank you for visiting.
le Compte Paul Gregoire de Gustibus
“Nothing is but what is not.”