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TRE OF MACBETH

'i !OX TO SHAKESPEARE'S
R AN TER WORK

; ..RS, A.M.

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BEQUEST

CANON SCADDWG, D. 0.
TORONTO,

THE METRE OF MACBETH

ITS RELATION TO SHAKESPEARE'S
EARLIER AND LATER WORK

. DAVID LAURANCE CHAMBERS, A.M.

PUBLISHED BY
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

PRINCETON

THE PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
1903

•

Cg"

CONTENTS

Page.
I. PROSE 7

II. RIME 10

III. BLANK VERSE 23

A. STRESS 24

B. SUBSTITUTION 33

C. FEMININE SYLLABLES 40

D. END-STOPPED AND RUN-ON LINES 48

E. LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS 53

F. SPEECH ENDINGS 57

IV. SUMMARY 59

APPENDIX 67

TABLES FOR TWENTY-SIX PLAYS 68

BIBLIOGRAPHY 68

PREFACE.

HPHIS little book had its origin in a paper prepared in
1 the spring of 1902 for a Seminar course in Macbeth,
under the direction of Professor Thomas Marc Parrott.
My design had been to present concretely a few of the
metrical peculiarities of the play under discussion, and
to show as briefly as possible its general place in Shake
speare's versification. But at the very threshold of
investigation I found that the subject of metrical changes,
which I imagined to have been worked out with scien
tific definiteness and completeness, was still largely a
matter of dispute and conflicting testimony, that results
with the most unreliable support were frequently ac
cepted as established facts, that the tabulations which
had been made were widely scattered, that the excellent
work of German critics in this field was ignored by
most English writers, and, finally, that Macbeth itself
offered unexpected metrical difficulties. I became
gradually involved in a series of intricate problems,
and so this thesis grew far beyond the bounds of its
original purpose.

It now attempts to show when certain metrical phe
nomena appeared in Shakespeare's work, why they
appeared (as far as that can be determined), and what
stage they had reached in Macbeth. To carry out this
purpose statistics have been gathered from various
sources, criticised and elaborated. In many instances
only the figures for the total number of occurrences
could be obtained, and these had to be converted into
percentages before it was possible to base safe general
izations upon them.

6 THE METRE OF MACBETH

The essay endeavors also to set forth, more fully
than has been hitherto attempted, the metrical evidence
in regard to the authorship of disputed passages in
Macbeth.

I desire to acknowledge my great indebtedness to
Professor Parrott for the illuminating suggestion and
careful criticism with which he has aided me at all
stages of my work, and to Dr. W. P. Woodman for his
kindness in reading the proof.

DAVID LAURANCE CHAMBERS.

PRINCETON, N. J.

PROSE.

The broadest possible division of a Shakespearean
play is into prose and verse. Evidently the relative
proportions of this division in the different dramas will
not serve as a general test for their chronological ar
rangement, dependent as is the amount of prose upon
the extent of the comic element which the author desired
to introduce, and upon the number and prominence of
the prose-speaking characters. Says Mr. Henry Sharpe,1
"The time at which the plays were written does not
appear to have much to do with the quantity. Roughly
speaking, there is least prose in the early and late plays,
and most in those in the middle as to date." In partic
ular cases the ratio is sometimes suggestive. From the
very start Shakespeare employed a liberal admixture
of prose in the comedies, especially for parts of low
humour.2 In his first notable and undisputed tragedy,
Romeo and Juliet, there is a considerable sprinkling of it.
But for some reason or other (perhaps the influence of
Marlowe's unvarying grandiloquence in Edward II.) he
avoided its use in the histories until I Henry IV? Later
on, he extended its range of effects to include even
Hamlet's imaginative discourse (Hamlet, II. 2. 304 ff.),
though the introduction of verse in a prose-scene always
marks a rise to a higher dramatic pitch, a higher emo
tional plane, verse being the natural language of emotion.

1 Transactions of the New Shakspere Society 1 880-6, p. 525.

a There are over 1,000 lines of prose in Love's Labour's Lo st, spoken mainly
by Sir Nathaniel, Holofernes, Dull, Costard, Moth and Jaquenetta. But the
proportion varies in the comedies from The Comedy of Errors, one-eighth
prose, to Merry Wives, nine-tenths prose.

s With the single exception of Richard III., I. 4.

8 THE METRE OF MACBETH

In Macbeth prose makes its appearance in four
places, though only one of these (V. i) is a " prose-
scene" properly so called. In Act I., Scene 5, it is
used for Macbeth's letter to his Lady; prose is the
normal medium for letters, proclamations, and other
written documents.1 The Porter's rhythmical2 speech
(II. 3) is a good example of the use of prose for purposes
of comedy, though, as befits the tone of the play, the
jesting here is rather grim. Poor men and clowns are
regularly speakers of prose in Shakespeare. Macduff,
except for two lines, descends to the level of the Porter,
because, as Sharpe frames the law,3 "if an educated
man who usually speaks metre meets a poor man, both
speak prose." Being the language of every-day life
prose contributes much to that effect of the reflux of
the human world upon the fiendish which De Quincey
makes the rationale of the scene. With the subsidence
of the Porter and the return to serious business at the
entrance of Macbeth, prose gives way to blank verse.
Act IV., Scene 2, illustrates how prose lowers the dra
matic pitch for the sake of emotional relief. After Lady
Macduff's bitter discussion of her husband's conduct
with Ross, in impassioned verse, she begins a gentle
word-play with her son in prose, half-sad, half-merry.
It is not, however, altogether prose. LI. 40, 41 are
surely prose, but 11. 42, 43 are as surely verse. Prose
is resumed in 1. 44 and thence continued as far as 1. 64.
This rather curious intermingling has led Professor
Liddell4 to question the genuineness of the prose parts.

1 See Sharpe, p. 557. The only exceptions, he says, are Titus And., II.
3.268 ff. ; Airs Well, III. 4.4 ff., IV. 3.252 ff.
1 See Dowden in T. N. S. S. 1874, p. 276.
8 p. 558.
* Elizabethan Edition, p. 165.

PROSE g

He would have Lady Macduff's words in 11. 42, 43
follow immediately on 1. 37, and close the dialogue, and
he thinks that this excision would relieve the play of
an inhuman and distorted representation of childhood.
Rather it would deprive the play of a most dramatic
and most Shakespearean contrast between the prattle of
family life and the tragic summons to instant death.
The boy is no more precocious than Shakespeare's
other children, than, say, the Duke of York in Richard
III. And, finally, this alternation of prose and verse
is by no means unique. For another example see
Henry V., IV. 8. The arrival of the messenger
with his awful tidings requires a re-heightening of
the pitch and a return to verse. Messengers natu
rally and regularly speak in metre. In Act V.,
Scene i, the Doctor and the Gentlewoman discuss
Lady Macbeth's mental perturbation in prose. The
conversation consists of simple professional question
ing and a direct report of symptoms.1 The tone
is low. It might seem strange at first sight that Shake
speare should employ prose in the sleep-walking scene
which follows, where the dramatic excitement is surely
intense. The attempt to explain this apparent vagary
has led to some extraordinary criticism.2 But in reality
it is no vagary. Shakespeare deems prose peculiarly
appropriate to the broken utterance of madness (real or
assumed) in Hamlet and Lear, of frenzy in Othello, of
intoxication in Antony and Cleopatra? and so also of the

1 See Delius, Jahrbuch V., p. 267.

2 Hudson, for example, says : "I suspect that the matter of this scene is
too sublime, too austerely grand, to admit of anything so artificial as the meas
ured language of verse ; and that the Poet, as from an instinct of genius, felt
that any attempt to heighten the effect by any arts of delivery would impair it."
Quoted in Furness's Variorum, p. 259.

3 See Hamlet II. 2.171 ff., III. 1.103 ff., IV. 5.172 ff. ; Lear, III. 4.51 ff.,
IV. 1.58 ff., IV. 6.131 ff. ; Othello, IV. 1.36 ff. ; Ant. and Cleo., II. 7.28 ff.

10 THE METRE OF MACBETH

irrationality of " slumbery agitation " in Macbeth. The
pity and terror of the scene are brought out in the
Doctor's blank-verse speech at the end, which, however,
contrary to the general rule, indicates a falling-off in the
emotional intensity. The function performed by prose in
the other great tragedies — that of introducing variety
in the composition — is, in Macbeth, largely performed
by lyrical passages in a different metre.

II.
RIME.

TABLE OF RIMES.1

o$ £

•a

'3 c •>«

S5'>«! {

0 .

3 .

PLAY.

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o> y

0§

j-s i

.2-3

= •=•

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E

S
&

U.S.S

cu-_

« «
Km

a
£

Love's Labour's Lost

62.2

550

: 1. 12

242

I87

Comedy of Errors .

19.41

216

: 5-3

Merchant of Venice .

4.6!

:22.

Henry V

1 2

• «Q Q

Hamlet

J°

2.72

:36.8

8 1 rim

i'r

es in p

lav

Othello

• / •
3.2

W*T

Lear

•J* .

3-4

/ **

•20. 6

•* j
07

1 08

.*»y.vr
•IA Q

121

y /

Ant. and Cleo. . . .

•21

»*^»v

:76.i

Winter's Tale . . .

K
.0

i :inf .

choru
lines

s: 32 r

ime-

.ij

1:698.

masqu

e: 54 r

ime-

lines

12 son

Of the metricaljportion of the play the most com
prehensive division is into rimed lines and unrimed
lines, or blank verse. The percentages of the rimed

1 The per cent, column is from Konig, p. 131. The rest are from Fleay's
Tables in Ingleby, p. 99 ff. with some corrections. I have verified their figures
for Macbeth and calculated the ratio column on the basis of Fleay's Figures.
The eleven rimes in i, 3, which Fleay counts as song, I should prefer to
include without distinction in the short riming lines.

RIME II

lines of less than five feet1 in the different plays form
no chronological criterion, as the introduction of such
lines was contingent upon the character of the work
Shakespeare had in hand, and very likely, too, upon
the company having a popular singer.3 It is as natural
to find such rimes in The Tempest as in A Midsum
mer-Night 's Dream. The speeches of the three weird
sisters3 are prevailingly tetrameter with a trochaic
cadence, the rhythm which Shakespeare almost always,
if not always, adopts in songs and in lyrical passages
hardly to be told from songs. "That the individual
verses do not all contain exactly the same number
of syllables is obvious to the most careless reader;
but the rhythmical equivalence of them never admits
of doubt. The movement is as free and varied as
that of popular rimes and jingles, and consequently
as hard to deal with by rule-of-thumb scansion."4 The
fact that the speeches of Hecate and of the First "Witch5
are in iambic measure creates, I think, a strong pre
sumption against their Shakespearean authorship.
With the other arguments6 impugning the genu
ineness of these speeches — their superfluous and incon
gruous character, etc. — we are not here concerned.
Moreover, if Shakespeare wished to write iambics,
Heaven save the foolish critic from believing that he

1 I here include lines, themselves without rime, but in the midst of riming
passages, e. g., I. 3.17.

1 See Spedding, T. N. S. S. 1874, p. 29.

3 I. 1.1-7, "» 12 ; I. 3.8-37; IV. 1.4-38, 44-47, 64-68, no, in. There
are also a number of short trochaic unrimed lines of various length : I. 3-1-3,
62-69 I IV. 1-3, 107-109.

4 Manly, p. xxxii.

5 III. 5-4-33 ; IV. 1.39-43, 125-132.

' Admirably stated by Mr. E. K. Chambers in the Arden Edition and Mr.
C. H. Herford in the Eversley Edition. Mr. A. W. Verity in the Pitt Press
Edition argues for the other side.

12 THE METRE OF MACBETH

could not do so! But it remains true that for some
reason or other he seldom cared to employ the four-
stress iambic couplet. The only other places where it
occurs — except as an occasional variation in the midst
of trochaics, as in the Epilogue to The Tempest — are
in the Gower choruses in Pericles (undoubtedly not
by Shakespeare), and in the mock prophecy in Lear

III. 2.81 ff. (generally regarded as an interpola
tion, and in any event a parody on the familiar
iambic verses known as " Chaucer's Prophecy ").
Many iambic lines occur in the Duke's speech in
Measure for Measure, III. 2.275 ff-> but they are so
interwoven with trochaic lines that it is difficult to
determine the prevailing character of the rhythm, and,
moreover, this is another passage the authenticity of
which has been called in question. The same may be
said of "Apemantus' Grace" in Timon, I. 2.63 fF. Not
once is the iambic tetrameter to be discovered in a pas
sage which bears the unmistakable impress of Shake
speare's hand. Per contra, the trochaic tetrameter is
found in Dumain's love-poem in Loves Labour's Lost,

IV. 3.101-120, the songs of the fairies in A Midsummer-
Night's Dream, the casket rimes in The Merchant of
Venice, the verses of Orlando, Touchstone, and Phoebe
in As You Like It, III. 2.93 ff. and IV. 3.40 ff., Tom of
Bedlam's jingle in Lear, III. 6.69 ff., Autolycus's song
in The Winter s Tale, IV. 4.220 ff., and the masque in

The Tempest, IV. 1.106 ff.

What is more, the metre of these speeches of
Hecate — dull, mechanical, regular, touched with favour
and prettiness — is in striking and almost amusing con
trast with the grotesqueness, the freedom, the bold
roughness of the colloquies and incantations of the
weird sisters.

RIME 13

Now Thomas Middteton, whose connection (direct
or indirect) with Macbeth is indicated by the interpola
tion in the text of two songs from his play, The Witch,
was fond of the iambic tetrameter. He used it, for
example, in the concluding portion of one of these same
songs, "Come away, come away," sung by his Hecate
in III. 3; in the Raynulph choruses in The Mayor of
Queensborough, I. I ; II. I ; IV. 2 ; in The Widow, III.
1.22 ff. ; A Chaste Maid in Cheap side, IV. 1.162 ff. ; The
Phoenix, V. i. 317 ff. ; The World Tost at Tennis, second
song. And that he was capable of writing as smoothly
and as flatly as these Hecate speeches is proved
by the following passage,1 which, it will be noticed,
concludes with a pentameter couplet exactly as in Mac
beth, III. 5 :

" When Germany was overgrown

With sons of peace too thickly sown,

Several guides were chosen then,

By destin'd lots, to lead our men ;

And they whom Fortune here withstands

Must prove their fate's in our lands.

On these two captains fell the lot ;

But that which must not be forgot,

Was Roxena's cunning grief ;

Who from her father, like a thief,

Hid her best and truest tears,

Which her lustful lover wears

In many a stoln and wary kiss,

Unseen of father. Maids do this,

Yet highly scorn to be called strumpets too :

But what they lack oft, I'll be judg'd by you."

There are several circumstances which indicate
that Macbeth as a whole was not as successful a stage-
play at first as one might imagine. But there is every
reason to believe that the supernatural element made

1 From The Mayor of Queensborough, I. I.

14 THE METRE OF MACBETH

an immediate hit. One reason for this, as Mr. Verity
says,1 is that it gave opportunity for the introduction
of music. From the start, therefore, there was a ten
dency to impart an operatic character to the play.
Incidental music has always been an important factor in
its presentation.2 This is seen in the interpolation of
the songs, "Come away, come away," and "Black
Spirits." And it is more than likely that it is to be
seen also in these lyrical or recitative passages of Hecate
and the First Witch. Middleton wrote for the King's
Players (Shakespeare's old company) from 1615 to 1624.
Plays were constantly being worked over by new hands
for fresh presentation. It surely does not take a bold
flight of fancy to imagine that the manager and actors
desired some alteration in Macbeth to please the ground
lings, and called upon Middleton to tinker with the
work of the master-dramatist; and that Middleton
thereupon introduced two songs and the character of
Hecate s from The Witch, which he had written under
the influence of Macbeth. And one is surely doing a
service to the text of Shakespeare if one can create a
presumption against the genuineness of these inferior
lines.

Variations in the several plays in the ratio between
the number of lines of blank verse and the number of

1 Pitt Press Edition, p. xxxix.

* See Davenant's version (Furness's Variorum, p. 303), Pepys' interesting
comment on the " divertisement " in Macbeth, (Diary, Jan. 7, 1666-7), and
Fleay, Life and Work of Shakespeare, p. 239. There was much music in the
performance of Henry Irving.

1 It must be admitted that modern criticism has pointed out that the char
acter of Hecate in the two plays is not the same. The Hecate of Macbeth is
the Queen of Hell ; the Hecate of The Witch is a mere common hag. But
this is a subtlety of distinction which would not have disturbed Middleton in
making his additions, especially if he was trying to write up to Shakespeare's
level.

RIME 15

lines of rimed pentameter furnished data for the first
metrical test to be applied to Shakespeare. In 1778
Malone wrote : " It is not * * * merely the use of rimes,
* * * but their frequency, that is here urged, as a circum
stance which seems to characterize and distinguish our
poet's earliest performances. * * * [Shakespeare's]
neglect of riming seems to have been gradual. As,
therefore, most of his early productions are character
ized by the multitude of similar terminations which they
exhibit, whenever of two early pieces it is doubtful
which preceded the other, I am disposed to believe,
(other proofs being wanting,) that play in which the
greater number of rimes is found, to have been the first
composed."1 A reference to the Table will show how
Shakespeare's usage changed in this regard. In the
early comedies the amount of rime is very large : in
Love's Labour s Lost it more than balances the blank
verse ; in The Comedy of Errors there is about one rime
line to every five of blank verse. By the time of the
Romances, rime has all but disappeared : with the ex
ception of the speech of Time the Chorus in Winter s
Tale, IV. i, there is not a pentameter couplet in the
play; and in The Tempest, with the exception of the
masque, there occurs but one tag, II. 1.326, 327.

There can be little doubt that, from the time when
Tamberlaine (1587) first caught the popular ear with
" the spacious volubility of a drumming decasyllabon "
until 1640, there was "a gradual disuse of rime by every
author " and "a growing dislike on the part of the pub
lic to the mixture of rime and blank verse in stage
plays."2 But it is quite another thing to say that the
number of rimes in a drama will determine its exact

1 Quoted in T. N. S. S. 1874, p. iv d.

1 Fleay in Ingleby, p. 64. But see Nicholson in T. N. S. S., 1874, p. 36.

1 6 THE METRE OF MACBETH

position in the order of composition. The venerability
of this test seems to have given it undue importance in
the eyes of certain critics. Mr. Fleay thinks that it is
the only one which "is of use/^r se for determining the
chronological arrangement of Shakespeare's works,"1
but Mr. Fleay, though an indefatigable investigator, is
seldom a reliable critic. The rime-test will indeed in
dicate the extreme groups, but the most casual glance
at the Table at the end of the essay shows that it will
not decide the order of the intermediate plays. (Is one
to suppose, for instance, that Twelfth Night was written
before Richard III ?) The reason for this fallibility may
be easily demonstrated.

The operation of all the verse-tests is restricted by
certain rules which are based on common sense. If
these tests ever come in conflict with external evidence
as to date or with the best sort of aesthetic criticism
(perhaps they never do ; but grant the supposition),
then the verse-tests must give way. Again, one test
alone is not to be taken as determinative, but all are to
be compared and their relative values weighed. Thirdly,
the importance of a test is in inverse ratio to the delib-
erateness with which the author uses the particular
metrical peculiarity.2 Those phenomena are least note
worthy which spring from a direct purpose, because
this purpose may be assumed by the author for special
reasons at any stage of his career. Those phenomena
are most serviceable which follow a general subconsci
ous change of taste and habit, because such a change is
least arbitrary and most irrevocable. If this last law
be applied to the rime-test, it is evident that its conclu
sions are of little worth except in setting apart the plays

^See T. N. S. S., 1874, p. 7 ; Ingleby, pp. 63, 66, 67.

1 See Spedding in T. N. S. S., 1874, pp. 28-29, Nicholson in same, p. 37.

RIME 17

which belong in the very first division. A poet may
unconsciously put down an Alexandrine or a weak end
ing or run on one line into the next;1 these are matters,
not of choice and purpose, but of general artistic ten
dency. But no man rimes unconsciously — except by
accident2 at very rare intervals, or when he does not
understand the nature of rime.3 Thought is required
of most men who would write in rime, and if a play
wright uses rime he has an end to be gained thereby.
Down to his latest plays Shakespeare, at odd intervals,
deliberately employed rime for certain definite effects.
The presence or absence of such a deliberate intention
must always be taken into account in the application
of the rime-test.

Thus it would not be right to place A Midsummer-
Night 's Dream before The Comedy of Errors, simply be
cause it contains a larger proportion of riming lines,
until it had been first decided whether special incentives
to rime did not exist in the case of the comedy of Fairy
land ; and the existence of such a long riming sequence
as that put into Titania's mouth (III. 1.168-177) proves
that rime here is treated with the design of producing
special effects.4 If, therefore, it is found that the pro
portion of riming lines in Macbeth is far and away above
that in every play which is generally supposed to be
long to the same period of authorship, it would not be
right to assign it to an earlier date5 until it has been

1 See Dowden, Primer, p. 44.

* Macbeth, II. 3. 59-60, is, I think, an accidental rime. Cf. III. 4.99-100.
8 Cf. the rimes in the Aeneid.

* See Dowden, Primer, p. 44 ; also Nicholson, T. N. S. S., 1804, p. 37,
who adds a remark about the plays written at the time of the poems ; also
Konig, p. 135, who thinks this the least important of the tests because the
emotional pitch and the occasion must always be reckoned with.

5 As Fleay did. See Manual, p. 136.

1 8 THE ME TRE OF MA CBE TH

considered whether there are not special reasons for the
extraordinary number of heroic couplets.

The number is really extraordinary. There are
1 08 lines of rimed pentameter in Macbeth, while Hamlet
(twice as long) has only two-thirds as many, and Antony
and Cleopatra (twice as long) has but one-third. In
order, however, to appreciate the peculiar nature of the
difficulty, it is necessary first to examine the several
uses to which Shakespeare regularly puts the rimed
heroic.

The couplet, then, is called upon1 —

(1) To mark an exit, that the actor may not go
feebly off, and that he may give an easily remembered
cue to his successor. An instance of this is the familiar

Lay on, Macduff ;
And damn'd be him that first cries, « Hold, enough.' (V. 8.33 f.)

Cf. V. 7.12 f. Similarly, it indicates the disappear
ance of a supernatural being — which amounts to an
exit on. the stage. See IV. 1.71 f., 79 f. (also prophesies).

(2) To round off a speech of some length with a
high-flown sentiment or an epigrammatic snap; e. g.,
Duncan ends his welcome to Macbeth with the words :

Only I have left to say,
More is thy due, than more than all can pay. (I. 4.20 f.)

Cf. I. 5.70 f.; V. 3.9 f.

(3) In maxims, proverbs, old saws, and epigrams ; —
so Lady Macbeth's

Nought's had, all's spent
Where our desire is got without content. (III. 2.4 ff.)

Cf. I. 3.1 46 f. (also an aside); IV. 3.209 f.; V. 8. 5 if.

(4) In asides, " which otherwise the audience might
have great difficulty in knowing to be asides."2 See

1 See Heuser in Jahrbuch. XXVIII, p. 258.
1 Abbott, Grammar, § 515.

RIME 19

I. 3.146 f. (also a proverb); I. 4.48-53;* V. 3.61 f. (also
a tag).

(5) In the prophecies of supernatural beings. See
IV. 1.90-93; cf. IV. 1.71 f., 79 f. Perhaps also V.

3-59 *•

(6) In moments of passionate agitation. See III.
4.I35-I40,2 IV. i. 94-101. 3

The purposes for which these couplets are used
are by no means extraordinary, and parallel instances
throughout could be given from other plays. The num
ber of the couplets is extraordinary ; the three long
rhyming passages — I. 4.48-53; III. 4.135-140; IV.
1.94-101 — are especially remarkable, and I am strongly
inclined to agree with Professor Manly4 that the last
at least contains several spurious lines.

But the most striking peculiarity of the pentameter
rimes in this play is the unusually large number of
couplets at the end of scenes and acts.5 Mr. Fleay
says,6 " In this play more scenes end with tags than in
any other play in Shakespeare ; the number of tag-
rhymes is also greater than in any other play, includ
ing his very earliest." Mr. Fleay counts, in the twenty-
eight scenes of Macbeth, twenty-one scenes ending with
tags, and thirty-three rimes in all. My own reckoning,

1 Fleay suspected this passage (Manual, p. 251).
* Apparently doubted by Fleay (Manual, p. 256).

3 This, with the tags, disposes of all the pentameter rimes in Macbeth,
except III. 5.2 f., where the couplet at the beginning of Hecate's speech
counterbalances the one at the end ; and II. 3.59 f., where the rime is probably
accidental. IV. 1.69 rimes with a line of four-stresses, the First Witch break
ing in upon Macbeth.

4 P- 153-

5 Abbott ($ 515) thinks this kind of couplet helped the audience to under
stand that the scene was finished, when the scenery was not changed, or the
arrangements were so defective that the change was not easily perceptible.

6 Manual, p. 261.

20 THE METRE OF MACBETH

based on a more rigorous distinction between tag-rimes
and rimes used for the other purposes, gives nineteen
scenes with the end-tag, and twenty-eight rimes;1 but,
though the figures are slightly reduced, the conclusions
remain practically unimpaired. Compare the three
Shakespearean plays which have as many scenes as
Macbeth, or more. 3 Henry F7has twenty-eight scenes,
ten with tags, fourteen rimes; Antony and Cleopatra
has forty-two scenes, four with tags, six rimes ; Corio-
lanus has twenty-nine scenes, two with tags, four rimes.
Fifteen is the largest number of scenes which end with
tags in any other play of Shakespeare's, and the play
which has fifteen is the ever-puzzling Troilus and Cres-
sida.

The precise nature of the singular rime problem in
Macbeth now becomes evident and demands solution.
Spedding suggested as a general explanation 2 that the
actors were unwilling to have a scene end without a
colophon ; but this merely drives one back to the fur
ther question, why the actors developed such an acute
aversion for going feebly off in 1606 — a question, of
course, beyond the possibility of answer. A more self-
sufficient theory is offered by the Clarendon Press
Editors3 and Mr. Fleay;4 viz., that many of the tags

1 I. 2.64-67; I. 5.72 f. ; I. 7.81 f. ; II. i. 60 f., 63 f. ; II. 3.151 f, ; II.

4.37 f., 40 f. ; in. 1. 141 f. ; in. 2.52-55 ; in. 4-142 f. ; ni. 5.34 f. ; rv.

1.153 f- \ IV. 3.239 f. ; V. 1.85 f. ; V. 2.29 f. ; V. 3.59-62 ; V. 4.17-20 ;
V. 5.47-52 ; V. 6.7-10 ; V. 8.72-75. Note the extraordinary number in the
last act.

3 T. N. S. S. 1874, p. 29.

s Messrs. Clark and Wright, Preface, pp. ix-xii. They suspect I. 2.64-67 ;
II. 1. 60 £.; V. 2.29 f.; V. 5.47-50 ; V. 8.72-75. [16 lines].

4 Manual, pp. 251 ff. He adds to the Clarendon Press list I. 4.48-53
(technically not a scene-tag) ; II. 3.151 f. ; II. 4.37 f., 40 f. ; IV. 1.153 f«; V.
3.61 f.; V. 4.17-20; V. 6.9 f. [22 lines]. Fleay afterwards retracted. See
his Introduction to Shakespearean Study, p.' 36.

RIME ti

were written, not by Shakespeare, but by another, pre
sumably Middleton. They are certainly bald and weak
enough, and their salient characteristics — unequal
rhythms, faulty rimes, violent cacophany, crowding of
consonants, and withal a certain " catchiness" — are
Middletonian symptoms. Compare the following:
In Macbeth: —

(1) Our bosom interest: go pronounce his present death,
And with his former title greet Macbeth.

I'll see it done.

What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won. (I. 2.64-67).

(2) Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives :

Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. (II. 1.60, 61).

(3) And still keep eyes upon her. So good night :

My mind she hath mated and amazed my sight. (V. 1.85, 86).

(4) Each drop of us. Or so much as it needs

To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds. (V. 2.29, 30).

(5) That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace
We will perform in measure, time and place :
So thanks to all at once and to each one,

Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone. (V. 8.72-75).

In Middleton :

(1) " Come let's away:

Of all the year this is the sportful'st day.

(The Roaring Girl, II. 1.430 f.)

(2) Tarry and dine here all. Brother, we've a jest,
As good as yours, to furnish out a feast.

We'll crown our table with't — Wife, brag no more
Of holding out : who most brags is most whore."

(/£., IV. 2.345 ff.)

(3) I'll take some witch's counsel for his end,

That will be sur'st : mischief is mischief's friend."

(The Witch, IV. 1.95 f.)

(4) " Flatters recovery now, the thing's so gross :

His disgrace grieves me more than a life's loss." (Ib., V. 1.135 f-)

(5) " The worst can be but death, and let it come ;
He that lives joyous, every day's his doom."

(Women Beware Women I. 2.232 f.)

22 THE METRE OF MACBETH

The theory of the Middletonian authorship of the
tags may be thus elaborated : The extreme brevity of
Macbeth and the garbled state of the text of some of its
scenes (notably I. 2) suggest that the play, as we have
it, is a stage version reduced from the original draft.
Among other alterations the revising playwright may
have cut out extended passages towards the ends of
various scenes and substituted rimed complets in their
place.

This hypothesis gains some additional plausability
from an examination of the peculiar formations of the
scene-endings. Instead of a number of single tags, with
a few scattering variations, such as we find in the other
plays of Shakespeare, we have here almost every
variety, every peculiarity. There are, in Macbeth,
four single tags (in one of which is an Alexandrine),
four double tags (in one of which there is an Alexan
drine and a short line), one triple tag, three single tags
followed by short lines, two double tags followed by
short lines, two single tags followed by full lines, one
single tag followed by a full line and a short line, one
double tag with a short line between the two couplets,
one double tag with a full line intervening.

It is, however, a precarious matter to lay one's
finger on a line and say, "This cannot be Shake
speare's," and I would not press too closely the theory
of the Middletonian tags. But whatever be the correct
explanation — whether Spedding is right, or Fleay is
right, or Wright is right, or all of them are wrong and
the true interpreter has not yet appeared — the reader
can hardly help feeling that some special and unusual
influence occurred to cause this freak in Macbeth, and
that the extraordinary number of rimed lines does not

BLANK VERSE 23

indicate for it an earlier authorship than that generally
assigned.1

The pretty arrangements of rime-lines — interwoven
quatrains, sonnets, etc. — so common in the early plays,
have all disappeared long before Macbeth? I should
prefer to consider I.3.7(" Her husband's to Aleppo gone,
master o' the Tiger ") as a single doggerel line, if such
a thing may be, rather than to force it into a blank-
verse scansion.3 For doggerel in tragedy, cf. Lear,
I. 5.55 f.

III.
BLANK VERSE.

When Milton wrote in his preface to Paradise
Lost of " true musical delight, which consists only in
apt numbers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense var
iously drawn out from one verse into another," he ex
pressed an empirical truth about the harmony of blank
verse, which it had taken more than a century to dem
onstrate. It was not a self-evident truth to Lord
Surrey, who introduced the metre about 1540: —

" There stands in sight an isle, hight Tenedon,
Rich, and of fame, while Priam's kingdom stood,
Now but a bay, and road, unsure for ship.
Hither them secretly the Greeks withdrew,
Shrouding themselves under the desert shore.
And, weening we they had been fled and gone,
And with that wind had fet the land of Greece,
Troy discharged her long continued dole." *

1 A simple explanation might be developed along this line : — almost half of
the tag-rimes occur in the last act ; in this act there is a crowding of action, of
army scenes and lively incidents ; the rimes bear out the martial strain and
help to impart an impressive fulness to the actors' tones.

* See Fleay in Ingleby, pp. 52, 53.

8 Mr. E. K. Chambers tries to do this (Arden Edition, p. 176).

4 Surrey's translation of the Aeneid, II. 29 ff.

34 THE METRE OF MACBETH

It was not a self-evident truth to Norton and Sack-
ville, or to Thomas Kyd, or even to Christopher Mar
lowe. Between the woodenness of Surrey's Aeneid and
the extreme flexibility of Macbeth or The Duchess of Malfi
is a whole world of change. As far as this general
development concerns Shakespeare — and indeed he is
the central figure in the movement — one may perhaps
summarize it as follows:1 Starting under a metrical
bondage but little less troublesome than that of riming,
he perfected himself first within the limits of the indi
vidual line, until he reached at last the utmost freedom
possible within those limits; then he set himself to re
move the limits, broke down the barrier at the end of
the line, and proceeded to compose less and less with
the single verse as a standard, and more and more in
rhythmical phrases of ever-varying length ; in Cymbeline,
The Winter s Tale and The Tempest long familiarity leads
him at times to abuse his liberty, and to write measured
prose for verse. To put in it still broader terms,
Shakespeare's development is a progress " in the proper
adaptation of words and rhythms to the sense contained
in them,"2 a progress from a "declamatory" to a
" spontaneous " verse-form.3

A. STRESS.

Stress Modification of the Five-Foot Line. A blank-
verse line is commonly defined as an unrimed line of
five feet, each foot containing two syllables, and every
second syllable receiving a stress or accent.

I hive | thee n<5t | and y£t | I s£e | thee stfll.* (II. 1.35.)

1 See Corson, p. 61 ; Manly, pp. xxxiii, xxxiv.

2 See Symonds, p. 50.

3 Corson, p. 61.

* Such regular lines are most common where, as here, there is an anti
thesis. (Abbott, § 453 a.)

But this definition, like many of the definitions of
our English prosody, is to be taken somewhat as a con
ventionalized norm, more honoured in the breach than
in the observance. In the classical prosody there is a
definite and unmistakable distinction between a long
and a short syllable. In the English, based as it is upon
an accentual and not a quantitative principle, there are
many shades of gradation between an unstressed and a
full-stressed syllable.1 There is no small difference be
tween the accent on as and the accent on feeling in the
following line, and yet both count as "stress" :

To feel | ing as | to sight | or art | thou but (II. 1.37.)

The modification of the norm-line by weak or inter
mediate stresses constitutes, therefore, one of the eas
iest and most frequent safeguards against monotony in
blank-verse. A large majority of lines (in Macbeth
probably 75 per cent.) have less than the.whole number
of five emphatic accents.2 Out of the thirty-one lines
in Macbeth's famous soliloquy (II. 1.33-64 omitting 41),
to my ear only nine have five full stresses, while sixteen
have four stresses, and six have but three stresses.
Such results cannot be definitive, since different readers
(and the same reader at different times) will emphasize
differently. Nevertheless they show how preposterous
is the vulgar notion that blank verse is designed to tally

1 Mr. A. J. Ellis distinguished nine grades of force or stress : subweak,
weak, superweak, submean, mean, supermean, substrong, strong and super-
strong. {Transactions of the Philological Society, June 1876).

1 Cf. Abbott (§ 453 a) "I should say that rather less than one of three
has the full number of five emphatic accents. About two out of three have
four, and one out of fifteen has three." Alden is more conservative (p. 55) :
" It would be safe to say that in English five-stress iambic verse, read with
only the ordinary etymological and rhetorical accents twenty-five per cent, of
the verses lack the full five stresses characteristic of the type."

26 THE METRE OF MACBETH

the number of fingers on the hand. A very few lines
have indeed but two strong stresses;1 e. g.,
This supernatural soliciting. (I. 3.130.)
On the other hand, there are lines with more than
the five primary accents, one foot bearing two. In some
such cases we have a "hovering accent,"2 where the
regular word-accent and the peculiar verse-accent divide
the stress between them: the accent "hovers" over
two syllables; e. g.,

As she is troubled with thick-c6ming fancies.8 (V. 3.38).
The result is a close analogy to the classic spondee.
In other cases, besides the five primary accents, a sec
ondary accent may be found in one foot; e. g.,

Le'ad our | first bdt | tie ; w<5r | thy Macdiiff | and wd (V. 6.4) ;
or in two feet ; e. g.,

To cry' | Hold, hold! | Great Old | mis wdr | thy Cdwdor4 (I. 5.55) ;

or even in three feet, to offset the two-stressed line ; e.g. ,

Whdt hath | quench'd thdm | hath given | me fire. | Hark! P^ace.
(II. 2.2).;

If the generalizations of Conrad may be accepted,
despite the inadequate basis on which they rest, 5 there
are more fully accentuated lines in the earliest and lat
est dramas than in the central plays of Shakespeare's
career, more in The Comedy of Errors and Macbeth than
in The Merchant of Venice and Henry V. He gives a

1 Tennyson to the contrary. See the Memoir by his son, vol. II., p. 14 :
" In a blank verse you can have from three up to eight beats." Mr. E. K.
Chambers shares this opinion. (Arden Edition, p. 174). But see Conrad in
Jahrbuch XXXI, p. 331.

1 See Gummere, Handbook of Poetics, p. 142.

8 For other examples of hovering accent, see II. 3.150; IV. 3.28; IV.
3.196 ; V. 2.18 ; V. 3.27.

4 For other examples of seven-stress lines, see II. 2.1,39.

5 SeeJaArfiucA XXXI, p. 332. He deals with but four plays, and with only
a thousand lines in each.

STRESS

plausible explanation of this interesting circumstance by
saying that in Errors the poet was endeavoring, after
the poetic fashion of the day, to make his lines as regu
lar as possible (therefore, with five accents) ; in the
middle periods his allegiance to the law of regularity
was shaken; and in Macbeth and the later plays the
heavily stressed line returned with the increased fulness
of expression and consequent weight of the rhythm.1

CONRAD'S TABLE OF STRESSES. 2

Play

Lines with
2 stresses

3 or 4
stresses

5, 6, or 7
stresses

Comedy of Errors

7^2

202

Merchant of Venice

819

116

Henry V

814

Macbeth .

2<;

71d

216

Stress Modification by Change in Length of Line.
Variations in stress are produced also by the addition of
a whole foot to the line (resulting in an hexameter or
Alexandrine3), or by the subtraction of one or more feet
(resulting in a " short line ").

When Alexandrines occur, the time-element has
generally been obscured by the division of the line be
tween different persons;4 e. g.,

Mac. Shall be | the maws | of kites |

Lady M. What, quite | unmann'd | in folly? (III. 4.73.)

1 For various rules about the use of stress, see Arden Edition, p. 174, and
Abbott, \ 4533. They deserve little attention.

1 Based on a thousand lines in each play.

8 Alexandrine is the regular term of art ; but, properly speaking, an Alex
andrine (as used in French) is a twelve-syllable line with the pause after the
sixth syllable. Not all of the sixth-stress lines in Shakespeare have the pause
so placed ; in some respects, therefore, hexameter is the better word.

4 Abbott, ($500) and perhaps Ellis (in Mayor p. 170) would read such a
passage as two short lines rather than one long line, and call it a "trimeter
couplet."

28 THE METRE OF MACBETH

Mr. E. K. Chambers l thinks that the extra foot is
possibly to be explained " by the second speaker break
ing in on the first, so that one or two syllables are pro
nounced simultaneously." But it is not likely that a
dramatic poet could hear the two sounds simultaneously
while composing. Once in a while the Alexandrine is
parceled among three speeches; e. g.,
Lady M. For a | few words. |
Serv. Madam,* | I will. |

Lady M. Nought's had, | all's spent, etc. (III. 2.4.)

On the infrequent occasions when an Alexandrine
occurs in the course of a single speech, there is gener
ally such a break in the middle of the line as to make
practically two speeches instead of one.3 Thus:
Mac. Give to the edge o' the sword

His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls
That trace | him in | his line. || No boas | ting like | a fool.

(IV. 1.153.)
Or thus:

Macd. I am not treacherous.
MaL But Macbeth is.

A good and virtuous nature may recoil

In an | imper | ial charge. || But I | shall crave | your pardon.

(IV. 3.20.)
When the sense of rhythm is not disturbed in one

of these ways, Alexandrines are comparatively rare.
As a rule investigators of metre have shown themselves
inconsistent and perplexing in their handling of this
irregularity.4 Some, like Abbott, would put every

1 Arden Edition, p. 174.

J The extra foot is often a title of address, like madam or sirrah, or my
liege, or my lord. It is hard to tell whether one should not count the title as
altogether extra-metrical.

8 See Arden Edition, p. 174.

4 Thus Ellis's inconsistency is pointed out by Wagner in Anglia XIII.,
p. 356. Many of the examples which Mayor gives (pp. 161, 162) are open to
a similar charge. As for Fleay, out of the fifty-six cases he counts in Winter's
Tale (Ingleby, p. 90) I can agree to only seventeen.

STXESS 29

apparent Alexandrine into the Procrustean bed and short
en it by drastic measures. This is to rob Shakespeare of
one of the means by which he imparted variety. Others
greatly exaggerate the number of instances, because
they fail to consider trisyllabic feet and feminine sylla
bles. I find at most twenty-five Alexandrines in Mac
beth; viz., I. 2.37 [Here the text is probably corrupt]1;
I. 2.58, 64; I. 3.111; II. 3.58, 88; III. 1.45,46 [which
I believe should be considered one line]; III. 1.139;
III.2.4,i6; III.3.H; 111.4.73; 111.6.14,30,39,49;
IV. 2.30; IV. 3.8, 20, 97; V. 3.5, 37; V. 5.16, 17
[which I believe should be considered one line].2

As to Shakespeare's general usage, it is probably
safe to accept Fleay's conclusions, cum grano salts. 3
Until Twelfth Night, the dramatist seems to have con
tented himself with a dozen or half-dozen Alexandrines
in each play ; with Measure for Measure the number
takes a sudden leap, (revealing in this case, as in so
many others, the poet's growing impatience of metri
cal rules), and the frequency of Alexandrines becomes
a rough test for plays of the Third and Fourth Periods.

TABLE OF ALEXANDRINES.4

Love's Labour's Lost 4

Comedy of Errors 8

Merchant of Venice 12

Henry V 12

Hamlet 43

Othello 66

Lear 60

Macbeth 28

Antony and Cleopatra 39

Winter's Tale 56

Tempest 15

1 So they, I think, belongs to the next line, from which Doubly should be
omitted.

2 Compare Fleay's list in Ingleby, p. 85.
8 See Ingleby, pp. 83, 88.

* This Table is made from Fleay's lists in Ingleby, pp. 71-92. It does not
agree in a single total with his first count {Manual, p. 135).

30 THE METRE OF MACBETH

Short Lines, of one, two, three, or four measures,
are much more frequent than Alexandrines, and more
organically connected with the verse-structure, as de
finite reasons for their use can frequently be detected.1

(1) The defect in the line is sometimes to be pieced
out by a gesture or a bit of action ; e. g.,

As this which now I draw. [Drawing his dagger]. (II. 1.41).
This is a sorry sight. [Looking on his hands]. (II. 2.21).

Cf. 1.2.41; 01.3.18; 111.4.4.

(2) Sometimes the compensating pause is to be ac
counted for by a change in the person addressed.
Macbeth says to his Lady in the banquet scene, " What
man dare, I dare," and then, turning to the ghost of
Banquo, "Approach thou like the rugged Russian
bear." (III. 4.99). Cf. I. 3.126; I. 4.14; I. 7.28.

(3) Or by a change in thought. Banquo answers
Macbeth's question, " Went it not so?" with " To the
selfsame tune and words," and then, seeing the ap
proach of Ross, inquires " Who's here? " (I. 3.88). Cf.
I. 6.6; 2 II. 4.29; III.2.5I; IV. 3.28, 44.

(4) The unexpected gap may attract the attention,
and so throw back upon the words of the short line an
unusual emphasis. Thus, when Macbeth says that
Duncan purposes to go away the next morning, Lady
Macbeth replies with fearful energy,

O, never
Shall sun that morrow see. (I. 5.62).

Cf. III.4.20, 51; IV. 3.219; V. 5.28 [which falls
also under (8)]; V. 8.16.

(5) Accordingly, the short line is often used instead
of a tag-rime or even after a tag, to give an impressive

1 See Jahrbuch XXXI, pp. 335, 336 ; Mayor, p. 148 ; Arden Edition, p.
174-

1 The text is probably corrupt here, and a word has dropped out.

ending to a scene; e. g., I. 4 ends with the words of
Duncan, full of dramatic irony, "It is a peerless kins
man." Cf. I. 3.156; IV. 2.85 [these three without tag] ;

I. 5.74, III. 2.56, III. 4.144, V. 2.31, V. 4.21 [these five
after tag]; IV. 1.156 [after tag and an unrimed line].

(6) Or to render the exit of a character effective ;
e. g., the second apparition (IV. 1.81) says

For none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth. [Descends.]

Cf. II. 1.30; II. 3-57; V. 7.23.

(7) Short lines are frequent at the end of a speech,
where a well-defined rhythm-group comes to an end.
See I. 3.61, 85, 103; I. 4.43; II. 2.30; l 11.2.72; II.
3.25, 54, in; III. 1.13, 18; III. 4.6, 68; IV. 2.26, 35,
43; IV. 3.17,90, 215; V. 3.46. They appear occa
sionally also at the beginning of a speech, as II. 3.86;

II. 4.33; III. 2.13; V. 8.23; and in broken dialogue,
as I. 2.7; III. 2.26.

(8) In some cases of this sort the termination of the
rhythm-group and the neglect to complete the line are
occasioned by the entrance of a character; e. g., II.
2.63; II. 3.68, 95, 101; III. 4.8; IV. 1.76; IV. 2.64;
IV. 3.139; V. 7.4.

(9) The short line crops out, furthermore, in mo
ments of intense emotion, when language is naturally
brief, broken, and explosive. The irregular lines in the
excited narrative of the battle, unless the text is cor
rupt, are perhaps to be explained by the breathless
haste of the narrators. See I. 2. -19 [I prefer to take,
with the Folio, " Like valour's minion " as the short
line]; 1. 2.51. Cf. II. 3.83, 109; IV. 3.217.

1 I prefer to take ' ' When they did say ' God bless us ! ' " and ' ' Consider it
not so deeply" as two short lines, rather than as an Alexandrine with femi
nine syllables before the caesura and at the end.

32 THE METRE OF MACBETH

(10) Speaking generally, the short lines denote
abruptness and lack of continuity, and so are common in
questions and answers, exclamations, apostrophes, proper
names, summonses, commands, etc. Cf. I. 2.66; II. i.i,
10, n; II. 2.18, 19, 30; 11.3.75; 11.4.39; HI. 1.24,
29,40; III. 2.1; 111.3.15; 111.4.13, 15,47; IV. 1.77,
78, 143; IV, 2.80; V. 3.12, 18,34; V. 5.30.1

My count of the short lines in Macbeth is as follows.
(It should be compared with Fleay's figures as given in
the Table below). Total number 104.

(1) One Stress; nine instances: I. 3.103; II. i.io,
ii ; II. 2.18, 19; III. 1.40; III. 3.15; III. 4.47; V. 3.29.

(2) Two Stresses; thirty instances : 1.2.19,41, 51,
66; I. 4.14; I. 6.31; II. i.i: II. 3.54, 68, 86, 109,
I3i2; 11.4.33,39; 111.1.18,24,29; 111.4.13, 15, 20;
IV. 1.143; IV. 2.26, 80, 85; IV. 3.219; V. 3.34; V.
5.30; V. 7.23; V. 8.16, 23.

(3) Three Stresses; fifty-five instances: I. 3.61,
85, 126, 156; I. 4.43, 58; I. 5.62, 74; II. 1.30, 41; II.
2.21, 30 (2), 63, 72; II. 3.57, 75, 95, 101, in ; III. 1.13;
III. 2.1, 13, 26, 32, 51, 56; III. 3.18, 21 ; III. 4.4, 6, 8,
51, 68, 144; IV. 1.76, 77, 78, 81, 156; IV. 2.35, 43,
64; IV. 3.17, 28, 90, 139, 215; V. 2.31; V. 3.12, 18,
46; V. 4.21; V. 5.28; V. 7.4.

(4) Four stresses; ten instances: I. 2.7; i. 3.88;
I. 6.6; 1.7.28; II. 1.19; 11.3.83; 11.4.29; IV. 3.44,
217; V. 8.59.

Shakespeare developed a sudden fondness for these
irregular lines at the same time that he began to use the
Alexandrine extensively, viz., at the opening of his

1 The so-called Amphibious Section (See Abbott, § 513, and Mayor, p. 146)
is to me an Amphibious Fiction. No poet would think of composing in the
way it suggests. (See Ellis in Mayor, p. 166).

1 I prefer to take " Look to the Lady " as the ! short line in this passage
rather than " Let's away. " "Nor. . . motion " seems to me certainly a line-

SUBSTITUTION

Third Period.1 Alexandrines and short lines are but
particular applications of the general remark, that
Shakespeare came to compose in rhythmical periods
rather than in single lines. " If this be true, it may be
expected that he will often end one well-defined rhythm-
phrase with any of the legitimate endings, and begin the
next without reference to the way in which that will
affect at the junction the carrying through of a system
of scansion " 2 based on the individual line ; hence the
long line and the short line.

TABLE OF SHORT LINES.3

Play.

Per Cent, of
Unrimed
Verse Lines.

Total
Number.

i foot.

2 feet.

3 feet.

4 feet.

Love's Labour's Lost .
Comedy of Errors . .
Merchant of Venice . .
Henry V

3-6

1.4

2.4
1.6

23
17
46
31

O
2

7
4

12
II

20
II

O
O

Hamlet

6 •*

158

Id.

Othello

6 7

171

Lear

8 4.

IQI

1 20

Macbeth

c.7

Antony and Cleopatra .
Winter's Tale ....
Temoest .

5-2

2.9

4.8

143
58
7O

35
14

71
26

J.2

14
«

B. SUBSTITUTION.

Those lines are now to be considered in which va
riety is secured by the substitution for the regular iambus
of a trochee, or a monosyllabic foot, or a trisyllabic foot.
A large number of feet are only apparently so ' 'irregular"
— if indeed we should ever apply that Johnsonian word
to our "iambic licentiate." Mistakes in scansion are
apt to spring from a failure to realize that many words

1 Compare forty-two in As You Like It and fifty-nine in Twelfth Night
with 108 in Julius Caesar and 107 in Measure for Measure.

2 Manly, p. xxxiv.

5 This Table is based on Fleay's figures in Ingleby. The per cent, col
umn is my own.

34 THE METRE OF MACBETH

in Shakespeare's day were not accented as they are now
and that many others had not yet been frozen into a
constant pronunciation. Thus we always say persevtr-
ance; Shakespeare always perseverance (see IV. 3.93).
Again our practice is to say unfe'lt ; Shakespeare accents
either unfe'lt (Richard III., 1. 4.80) or unfelt (Macbeth, II.
3.142). Cf. undone (I. 5.26), iinrough(V '. 2.10), insure (V.
4.19). Other instances in Macbeth where Shakespeare's
pronunciation differs from ours, or where Shakespeare's
pronunciation is not consistent, are as follows :

(1) I'nsane (I. 3.84). This is the only time the word
occurs in Shakespeare.

(2) Authorized (III. 4.66) — probably; cf. Lover's
Complaint, 104, Sonnets, xxxv. 6.1

(3) Purveyor (I. 6.22); only occurrence of the word.

(4) HUmane (III. 4.76). Both the modern words,
humane and human, are always spelled humane in Shake
speare. Modern humane is with him always humane,
except perhaps in Winter's Tale, III. 2.166.

(5) Chdstise (I. 5.28). But chastise in Troilus and
Cressida, V. 5.4.

(6) Hecate (III. 5.1, etc.); always dissyllabic in
Shakespeare, except in i Henry VI., III. 2.64. 2

(7) Dunsinane (IV. 1.93); elsewhere Dunsinane (e.g.,

V. 4-90

(8) Cdnfirmd (V. 8.41); so also in Much Ado, V.
4.17; elsewhere confirmed.

(9) Obscure (II. 3.64); but obscure in Venus and
Adonis, 237. Schmidt frames the following rule: Dis
syllabic oxytonical adjectives and participles become
paroxytonical before nouns accented on the first syl
lable.3

1 See Browne, p. 9.

3 Which Shakespeare probably did not write.

s See Appendix I. to Schmidt's Lexicon, Vol. II., p. 1413.

SUBSTITUTION 35

Somewhat similiar cases are the endings, -ion,' -ius,
-ious1, and the like, the first vowel of which is now always
slurred, and sometimes blended with the preceding
consonant (nation being pronounced nashori), but to
which Shakespeare often gave full two-syllable value,
especially at the end of the line. Whether the termin
ation is to have one or two syllables must be deter
mined solely by the ear. Thus —

Which smoked with bloody execution. (I. 2.18).

But

Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not (1.4.1).

It goes without saying that in Shakespeare as in
modern English poetry the e of the past tense or past
participle in -ed is sometimes sonant and sometimes
mute. Shakespeare at the beginning of his career was
more likely to sound it than at the end.2 I find in Macbeth
but one3 instance where the e is sounded in the past
tense (disbursed, I. 2.61), and ten instances where it is
sounded in the participle (drenched, I. 7.68; cursed, II.
1.8; heat-oppressed, II. 1.39; blessed, II. 3.97; trenched
III. 4.27; accursed, IV. 1.134; constrained, V. 4.13;
abhorred, V. 7.10; accursed, V. 8.17; cursed, V. 8.55).

When an r comes next to a consonant an e sound
may be inserted between the two letters (Compare the
way Scotchmen pronounce world], and this e may be
treated as part of a foot; e. g.,

1 Cf., also, sergeant (I. 2.3).

2 The sounding of the -ed, also the -est of the second person, and the -eth of
the third person present are made tests by Hertzberg (Jahrbuck XIII, p. 257)
and by Schipper (II. i. p. 295), Their observations on the -ed are confirmed by
Conrad (Jahrbuch XXXI, p. 348). But the figures are few and the test is un
important.

s Verbs the infinitives of which end in d or / are of course not included in
this count.

36 THE METRE OF MACBETH

Let your rememb[e]rance apply to Banquo. (III. 2.30)
Not i' the wor[e]st rank of manhood say 't. (III. 1.103)
So also ent[e]rance (I. 5.40), monst[e]rous (III. 6.8),
child[e\ren (IV. 3.177). An anomalous instance, with
p and an i sound, is cap\i\tains (I. 2.34), which was per
haps influenced by the French pronunciation.

Similarly long vowels or diphthongs before r's in
monosyllables, " since they naturally allow the voice to
rest upon them, are often so emphasized as to dispense
with an unaccented syllable. . . . Whether the word is
dissyllabized, or merely requires a pause after it, can
not in all cases be determined1." As a rule I am inclined
to favour the latter alternative.

What should be spoken here, where our fate. (II. 3.127)
Cf. fare2 (IV. 3. 1 1 1), fire (IV. i.n), our (I. 6.30)

On the other hand, the burr of the r may obscure
or soften a neighbouring vowel sound, so that it is
almost or quite inaudible, as —

Cleanse the stuff 'd bosom of that perilous stuff.* (V. 3.44)
The same is now and then true of other liquids (cf.
personal, I. 3.91-). In the case of evils (IV. 3.57), devil
(IV. 3.56, etc.), and devilish (IV. 3.117), either the v
drops out, as in Scotch " de'il " and the "dram of
eale," 4 or the / is to be slurred.5 Frequently, also,
there are elisions in the connection of pronouns with the
forms of be and have, though here again it is hard to say
whether the syllable is actually dropped, or passed
lightly over. See, e.g., I have (I. 4.20), we have (III.

1 Abbott, §484.

1 Perhaps in this case the compensating pause comes before the word.
8 Seethe long list in Mayor (pp. 158 ff.). The spellings sprite and parlous
show the justness of this slurring.
* Abbott, §466.
5 Mayor, p. 159.

SUBSTITUTION 37

3.20), they have (II. 1.21), / am (III. 1.108), we are (III.
1.91), etc. God be with you (III. 1.44) is in fact, says
Walker l, God V wi1 you ; sometimes a trisyllable, some
times contracted into a dissyllable ; — now good-bye. For
the rest I am inclined to think that much of the elision
and slurring over which Abbott, Mayor and other inves
tigators wax enthusiastic is imaginary, — a relic of Popean
methods in metrical criticism.

1 have not thought it worth while to make a count
of the trochees and anapaests in Macbeth, because their
number is so great and their character so variable that
precision would be almost impossible, and because all
the practical results of such a count have been already
demonstrated sufficiently by Conrad (see Table, p. 39).
Trochees occur most frequently at the beginning of the
line, to which they often impart an incisiveness. They
are common also after the caesura, in the third and four
feet. In the second and fifth feet they are compara
tively rare, because two stresses coming together with
out a pause make the rhythm awkward. There are
many cases where two trochees occur in the same
line, and an occasional instance of three. Examples : —

(1) In the first foot : —

Sdy to | the king | the know | ledge of | the broil. (I. 2.6)

(2) In the second foot : —

The eye | wfnk at | the hand; | yet let | that be. (I. 4.52)

See, also, I. 3.59; I. 7.30; III. 1.97; IV. 2.71, etc.

(3) In the third foot : —

And his | great love, | shdrp as | his spur, | hath holp him.
(I. 6.23)

See, also, I. 2.67; I. 3.42, 48, 49, 58, 107, 116; II.
2.16, 59; II. 3.118; II. 4.7; III. 2.41, etc., etc.

P. 227.

38 THE METRE OF MACBETH

(4) In the fourth foot : —

And fan | our peop | le cold. | Ndrway | himself. (I. 2.50)
See, also, I. 3.82,86,93, 117, 136; II. 1.32; 11.4.13;
III. 1.32; III. 3.8; III. 4.2, 54, 93, 109, etc., etc.

(5) In the fifth foot : —

You know | not how | to do | it. Well, | sdy, sir. (V. 5.32)

See, also, IV. 2.4; V. 8.50, etc.

(6) In the first and third feet : —

Cannot | be ill ; | cannot | be good : | if ill. (I. 3.131)
See, also, IV. 1.151; V. 3.49, etc.

(7) In the first and fourth feet : —

Rfng the | alar | um-bell. | Murder | and treason. (II. 3.79)
See, also, 1.4.25; II. 3.124, 149; III. I.2O1; 111.4.49;
III. 6.18, 29, 34, etc.

(8) In the first and fifth feet : —

Sdy, if | thou'dst ra | ther hear | it from | our mouths. (IV. 1.62)

(9) In the third and fourth feet : —

No less | to have | ddne so : | tet me | infold thee. (I. 4.31)

(10) In the fourth and fifth feet : —

But in | it shares | some woe, | though the | main part. (IV. 3.198)
See, also, IV. 3.18.

(i i) In the first, second, and third feet : —

Ay', and | smcetoo, | murders | have been | perform 'd. (111.4.77)
See, also, V. 6.4.

(12) In the second, fourth, and fifth feet : —

What a haste | Idoks through | his eyes! | Sd should | he" look,
(i. 2.46).

Trisyllabic feet, or anapaests, are not at all unusual,
and are generally felt to add speed to the rhythm.

In my | volup | tuousness : | your wives, | your daughters. (IV.
3-6i)

All con | tinent | impe | diments would | o'erbear. (IV. 3.64)

1 Read as one line with 19.

SUBSTITUTION

What a haste | looks through | his eyes! | So should | he look.
I. 2.46)

That look | not like | the inha | bitants | o' the earth. (I. 3.41)

Monosyllabic feet are comparatively rare, appear-
^ ing only when the stress upon the single syllable is very
heavy, or the quantity of the syllable is very long, or a
pause makes up for the omission of the light syllable.
" Initial truncation" (i. e. the dropping of the first light
syllable of the line,) so common in other English iambic
rhythms, is especially rare in Shakespearean blank verse.
I think that I detect an instance of it in I. 2.45.

Who | comes here ? | The wor | thy thane | of Ross.1

Other examples of monosyllabic feet are I. 2.5
(fourth foot), I. 4.35 (fourth foot), I. 5.41 (fourth foot),
I. 5.58 (fifth foot), II. 1.51 (third foot), III. 4. 133 (third
foot), III. 6.14 (fourth foot), IV. 1.22 (third foot).

As Shakespeare's verse grows freer and bolder,
more in harmony with the thought and the emotion, it
is only to be expected that these irregular feet should
become more and more frequent with him.

TABLE OF SUBSTITUTIONS.2

Play

Trochees

Anapaests

Monosyllabic
feet

Total

Comedy of Errors

260

26^

Merchant of Venice

2X4

217

Henry V

261

266

Macbeth

309

326

Conrad's special Table of Trochees presents some
interesting matter: —

Flay

Total

At Beginning

After Caesura

2 in a line

3 in a line

Comedy of Errors .
Merchant of Venice
Henry V

260

215

261

309

185
135
164

149

IO2

15
24

O
0
O

Macbeth

1 So Verity (p. 271). Cf. Measure for Measure, V. 1.315, Richard II,
I. 1.20.

3 From Conrad's Tables, in Jahrbuch XXXI, pp. 350-352, which are
based upon a thousand lines in each play.

40 THE METRE OF MACBETH

In the trochees at the beginning of the line, he
says, we have the striking phenomenon that Henry V.
as well as Macbeth falls behind Errors, a fact which is
best explained by the increased overflowing of the
verses; the enjambement would be obscured if a stressed
end-syllable of one line were followed by a first syllable
of the next also accented. On the other hand, the
trochees after the caesura form a steadily rising column
in the four plays, which shows that in the later dramas
the caesura becomes more and more the principal pause.
If you omit the trochees which are least felt (i. e., those
at the beginning), you have this steady progression:
Errors, 75; Mer. of Ven., 80; Henry V., 97; Macbeth,
1 60. What was not clear in the sum total of the
trochees we recognize clearly here, viz., that the use of
the trochee as a rhythmical counterstroke grew with
the years; that, therefore, with the trochees, too, the
same evidence is before us as with the anapaests and
the monosyllabic feet.

C. FEMININE SYLLABLES.

However the poet might diversify the internal
structure of the line, there was always a strongly stress
ed end-syllable, against which he must come with a
jolt every minute. The ring of that end-syllable in his
mind (long associated with the enforcement of rime)
was a constant temptation to "bumbast out" the blank
verse with unnecessary phrases, repetitions and plays
on words.1 We must now consider by what devices
Shakespeare overcame this champion of dulness, this
chief foe of liberty and variety.

One thing he did was to add an unstressed syllable

1 As in Richard III., II. 2.71-79, Love's Labour's Lost, III. 1.196, 197.
ee Corson, p. 54.

FEMININE SYLLABLES 41

after the last accent, which was thus modified by a
" kind of grace-note1," e. g.,

He hath a wisdom that doth guide his val(our.2 (III. 1.53.)
By an extension of the peculiarity we sometimes
have two such extra syllables :

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical. (I. 3.139.)
The extra syllable may even appear at the end of an
Alexandrine :

The sleepers of the house ? speak, speak ! O gentle la(dy. (11.3.88.)
That the comparative frequency of these "femi
nine endings," as they are called, indicates, in a general
way, the date of a play was first pointed out by Charles
Bathurst in his classic work on Shakespeare's versifica
tion (1857). 3 Stating the fact broadly, if the feminine
endings are few we may infer that the play is of early
composition; 'if they are numerous, that the play be
longs to the period of mature authorship.

Compare two typical passages, in each of which a
woman scolds a man. The first is from an early play,
The Comedy of Errors, II. 2.112-120:

1 Dowden, p. 43.

2 Abbott says (§455) that ' the extra syllable is very rarely a monosyl
lable, still more rarely an emphatic monosyllable.' Only the latter part of this
statement is true. Unemphatic monosyllables are common enough as feminine
endings. Fletcher will use even an emphatic and important word after the
final stress. See Symonds, p. 35.

8 See Bathurst, pp. 3, 147, 149. Roderick (See T. N. S. S. 1874, Appendix>
p. 66) first noticed the peculiarity in his remarks on Henry VIII., which were
printed in Thomas Edwards' Canons of Criticism (1758). Malone quoted
Roderick (See T. N. S. S. 1874, p. 443), but seemed, poor man, to be doubtful
of the fact ! S. Hickson (in The Westminister and Foreign Quarterly Review,
No. xcil, and No. LXXVII., for April 1847 ; reprinted in T. N. S. S. 1874,
Appendix, p. 25), and James Spedding (in The Gentleman's Magazine for August
1850 ; reprinted in the same volume, Appendix, p. i) used this test for separ
ating Shakespeare's and Fletcher's parts in The Two Noble Kinsmen and
Henry VIII., respectively. This was the first test to be used with arithmeti
cal precision (Spedding, p. 14), and to be so applied to all the plays (Hertz-
berg, \njahrbuch XIII, p. 252).

42 THE METRE OF MACBETH

Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown :

Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects ;

I am not Adriana nor thy wife.

The time was once when thou unurged wouldst vow

That never words were music to thine ear,

That never object pleasing to thine eye,

That never touch were welcome to thy hand,

That never meat sweet-savour'd in thy taste,

Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carved to thee.

In all the forty-line speech of Adriana from which
this is quoted there are but two feminine endings
(11. 121, 141). Compare with this Paulina's speech in
The Winter's Tale, III. 2. 184-193 :—

For all

Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of(it.
That thou betray'dst Polixenes, 'twas noth(ing ;
That did but show thee, of a fool, incon(stant
And damnable ingrateful : nor was't much
Thou wouldst have poison'd good Camillo's hon(our,
To have him kill a king ; poor trespasses,
More monstrous standing by : whereof I rec(kon
The casting forth to crows thy baby-daugh(ter
To be or none or little.

I count in all 429 feminine endings in Macbeth, or
26. 9^ of the blank-verse lines. The results of Konig
and Fleay are approximately the same. Of these 429,
fourteen are triple endings, viz, I. 3.129, 139; I. 4.26;
I. 5.49; II. 1.3 ; II. 3.114, 120: II. 4.10; III.i.Si; III,
2.1 1 ; III. 4.2, 37; IV. 3.66; V. 4.6. Moreover, thirty-
four of the short lines end with a feminine syllable.

It will be observed from the Table that the feminine
endings are only an approximate chronological test, and
that the percentages do not form a steadily rising col
umn. After 1599, Shakespeare appears always to have
employed at least one feminine ending to every five
lines; towards the conclusion of his career he used as
many as one in three; and, beginning with Macbeth

FEMININE SYLLABLES

TABLE OF FEMININE ENDINGS.1

Plays

Total (Fleay)

% (Konig)

% (Fleay)

% (Hertzberg)

Love's Labour's Lost
Comedy of Errors . .
Merchant of Venice .
Henry V

26
178
325
•1-36

7-7
16.6

17-7

20. *,

4-
15-4
17-4
17. e

12.
IS-
I8.T7

Hamlet

528

22.6

22 4.

Othello

670

28 I

28 5

26.

Lear

«;8o

28 5

27.36

Macbeth

42O

26 ^

26 •}

23 47

Ant. and Cleo. . . .
Winter's Tale. . . .
Tempest

666

675
472

26.5
32.9
35-4

25.7
34-7
34-

26.
32.5
32.

and omitting the three plays of mixed authorship,
Timon, Pericles and Henry VIII., the increase of the
feminine endings does in fact follow the precise order
of the last six dramas.2 Before 1599, however, the
plays exhibit the most surprising divigations from a
uniform progression, the poet's unconscious attitude
toward the end-syllable seeming to alter with each new
composition. These variations are, doubtless, in many
instances to be connected with variations in the amount
of rime. There are comparatively few double rimes in
English, and so when the dramatic poet is making fre
quent use of the couplet, his blank verse will feel the in
fluence. Many rimes imply few feminine endings, and
vice versa*

Feminine endings never became with Shakespeare a
mere matter of formal and deliberate adoption, even
though in The Tempest and The Winter s Tale they are

1 In this Table the first (or total) column is from Fleay's Tables in
Ingleby ; the second is from Konig, p. 132 ; the fourth from Jahrbuch XIII,
p. 252. I take Konig's list of percentages to be the most accurate ; note the
general parallelism between his list and that which I have figured out from
Fleay's totals (third column). See what Fleay says about Hertzberg in Ing
leby, p. 58.

1 That is, if one follows Konig.

3 Compare Love's Labour s Lost and Midsummer-Night's Dream with
Comedy of Errors and Richard III.

44 THE METRE OF MACBETH

almost the normal rhythm. With Fletcher, on the other
hand, they are a distinguishing mannerism.1 Through
page after page he voluntarily substitutes for the stan
dard decasyllabics lines with one, two, and three extra
end-syllables,2 and so imparts to his verse a languorous,
luxurious retardation, surfeiting by its sweetness, and
fatiguing by its monotony. But Shakespeare's versifi
cation is the least mannered of all poets; it is evolved
from an inner law ot harmony and is always thoroughly
organic. When Shakespeare used feminine endings
it was not because he thought them an adornment,
but because his " feeling instinctively reached out for
them " 3 at moments when they would give a desir
able effect. Consequently the feminine endings are un
evenly distributed among the scenes of the same play.

With the aid of critical dicta supplied by Abbott
and Mayor4 I have determined in Macbeth some of the
peculiar effects produced by a multiplication of feminine
endings. Often, of course, their influence, though felt,
is too vague to be expressed in precise words, but at
times it becomes a definite and definable quantity.

(a.) Lines are appropriately feminine in the polite
and graceful conversation of society. The place in
Macbeth where the feminine endings are most numerous
is the dialogue between Duncan and his hostess on the
arrival of the court at Inverness. (I. 6.10-31.)
Duncan. See, see, our honour'd 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.

1 See G. C. Macaulay, Francis Beaumont, pp. 43, 44 ; J. A. Symonds

PP- 34ff.

a See Alden, p. 226.

8 Corson, p. 78.

4 Abbott in T. N. S. S. 1874, p. 75 ; Mayor. 175.

FEMININE SYLLABLES 45

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 heap'd 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 guests 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.

Here in twenty-two lines there are fourteen femi
nine endings. The straining after excessive courtesy
voices itself in the lingering grace of the feminine
rhythm. Perhaps this is the reason why Fletcher,
preeminently the poet of society, is so fond of it.1

(b). In moments of excitement, when most of the
rules are disregarded, the extra end-syllable naturally
makes its appearance. In the broken frenzy of Mac-
beth's address to the ghost (III. 4.100-106) there are
three feminine endings ; compare with this the subdued
reflectiveness of 11. 75-82 in the same scene, where there
are none.

(c). On the other hand the feminine ending is rare

1 The long-drawn-out effect of Fletcher's lines is due partly to the fact that
a large per cent, of his feminine-ending verses are end-stopped. Contrast in
this respect Shakespeare's practice. (See Browne, p. 21.)

46 THE METRE OF MACBETH

when the conversation is familiar, when there is an ex
tended narrative, or when the poet permits himself a
full flight of pure poetry, — that is, when the regular
verse-form would readily flow from the pen. For ex
amples, see Lennox's speech in III. 6.1-23, two feminine
endings, both proper names; Ross's report to Macbeth
in I. 3.89-99, no feminine endings. In Act I., Scene 2,
where the Sergeant and Ross narrate the fortunes of
the fight, the feminine endings average less than one in
five. There is no precise counterpart in Macbeth to
Mercutio's Queen Mab speech or Horatio's " A mote it
is to trouble the mind's eye" (Hamlet, 1. 1.112 ff.), the
instances cited by Mayor and Abbott for poetic regu
larity.

(d). In soliloquies that are quietly meditative, hen-
decasyllabics are infrequent \cf., e. g., Macbeth's " sear
and yellow leaf" soliloquy, V. 3.20-28, one feminine
ending], but when the through t is agitated or vehemently
argumentative, they are prevalent. This is strikingly
illustrated by the soliloquy in I. 7.1-28. The first
eighteen lines have seven double endings, because
Macbeth is in feverish debate with himself; then comes
the trumpet-tongued outburst of poetry, with the return
of a feminine ending (1. 26), only after Macbeth has re
turned to self-examination. See also I. 5.16-31: the
first eleven lines express the acme of excitement, and of
them six lines end femininely ; the last five develop a
single poetic idea and are perfectly regular. In II.
1.33-64, the feminine endings are most rare in the poetic
passage beginning "Now o'er the one half-world"
(11. 49-60); in III. 1.48-72, they are most rare in the
poetic passage beginning ' 4 Then prophet-like " (11. 59-72).
These cases are enough to establish the point beyond
doubt.

FEMININE SYLLABUS 47

One rises, therefore, from a study of the feminine
endings with renewed reverence for the minute per
fection of Shakespeare's art and renewed faith in the
organic character of his verse. One feels that he called
upon this device with reason, for the sake of dramatic1
variety, and called upon it increasingly with the years,
as his instinct became unshackled and unerring.

Corresponding to the feminine ending, there may
be one or two light syllables added before the caesural
pause. These syllables might, of course, be counted
as parts of trisyllabic feet,2 but the analogy between the
terminal pause and the internal pause of the line,
especially when Shakespeare was composing, not by
the single verse, but in rhythmical paragraphs, leads
one rather to consider them as extra, or feminine,
syllables.

One syllable :

Wake Duncan with thy knocking ! || I would thou couldst!

(II. 2.74.)

But mine own safe(ties. || You may be rightly just. (IV. 3.30.)
Two syllables:

Contending 'gainst obed(ience, || as they would make. (II. 4.17.)

In restless ec(stasy. || Duncan is in his grave. (III. 2.22.)
In an Alexandrine :

Like syllable of dol(our. || What I believe, I'll wail. (IV. 3.8.
Combined with feminine ending:

The thane of Caw(dor, || began a dismal con(flict. (I. 2.53)

The air is dedicate. || See, see, our honour'd hos(tess! (I. 6.10)

1 I say " dramatic " rather than "poetic". Bathurst (p. 148) notes that
feminine endings are very rare in Cowper and Milton ; Mayor's Tables (p.i86)
show that the same is true for the non-dramatic works of Tennyson. But
they are more numerous in Samson Agonistes than in Paradise Lost, and in
Queen Mary than in Idylls of the King. (See Alden, p. 233). They are
characteristic of epic rather than dramatic blank verse.

2 See the debate on this point between Ellis and Mayor, in Mayor, pp.
153, 168, 178.

48 THE METRE OF MACBETH

I count in all eighty-nine cases of the feminine
caesura ; of these, there are eight which have two sylla
bles, viz., in addition to the the three examples cited
above, III. 1.80, III. 4.121, IV. 1.89, IV. 3. 239^
Twenty-eight lines have feminine syllables both at the
caesura and at the end.

The comparative frequency of these mid-line extra-
syllables has been made a verse-test by Fleay, and seems
to separate effectively the plays of the Second Period
from those of the Third.2

TABLE OF FEMININE C.ESURAL SYLLABLES.

Play

Number of
Syllables

Play

Number of
Syllables

Play

Number of
Syllables

Love's Lab. Lost
Com. of Errors .
Mer. of Ven. . .
Henry V. . . .

O
O
32
25

Hamlet
Othello
Lear
Macbeth *

78
208
131

Ant. and Cleo.
Winter's Tale.
Tempest

1 2O
60

D. END-STOPPED AND RUN-ON LINES.

After all the feminine syllables do not remove the
real difficulty of the troublesome emphatic ending of the
line, because they do not of themselves relieve the final
pause. Probably the most important of all the changes
which worked themselves out in Shakespeare's metrical
habit was the decrease of end-stopped lines. A line is
said to be "end-stopped," when the voice naturally
rests at its conclusion.

The presence of the pause is not necessarily indi-

1 See Wagner, in Anglia XIII., p. 357-

2 Contrast twenty-two in As You Like It, twenty-eight in Twelfth Night,
thirty- five in Julius Caesar, with ninety-eight in Measure for Measure, and
208 in Othello.

8 One reason why my count of these syllables yields a larger result than
Fleay's is the fact that several lines which he reckons Alexandrines I analyze
in this manner.

END-STOPPED AND R UN-ON LINES 49

cated by a punctuation mark1; it is sufficient for the
purpose that the last word should be dwelt upon ; the
pause may be rhetorical, rather than strictly grammat
ical.2 Thus, I. 3.141 is an end-stopped line: —

Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is

But what is not.

A line is said to be " run-on," when the sense and
the voice are carried forward without a pause into the
line that follows.

The alteration in Shakespeare's manner with regard
to enjambement can be best disclosed by the juxtaposi
tion of passages from an early and a late play.
King John will furnish an example of the youthful end-
stopping: —

Thou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me,

For I am sick and capable of fears,

Oppress'd with wrongs and therefore full of fears,

A widow, husbandless, subject to fears,

A woman, naturally born to fears ;

And though thou now confess thou didst but jest,

With my vex'd spirits I cannot take a truce,

But they will quake and tremble a!l this day.

What doest thou mean by shaking of thy head ?

Why dost thou look so sadly on my son ?

What means that hand upon that breast of thine ?

Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum,

Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds ?

Be these sad signs confirmers of thy words ?

Then speak again ; not all thy former tale,

But this one word, whether thy tale be true.

(III. 1.11-26.)
One feels in reading lines like these that the poet

1 See Seccombe and Allen, The Age of Shakespeare, Vol. II., p. 113.

2 An attempt was made by the Tests Committee of the St. Petersburg
Shakespeare Circle (Engl. Stud. Ill, p. 473) to substitute a purely gramma
tical test for the phonetic one hitherto used, but the attempt was hardly suc
cessful. See Konig's comments, p. 109, footnote.

50 THE METRE OF MACBETH

was saying not altogether what he would, but what he
could. A passage from Macbeth will illustrate the gain
in rapidity, variety, vivacity, and ease, which accom
panied the increase of enjambement.

Macduff, this noble passion,
Child of integrity, hath from my soul
Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts
To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth
By many of these trains hath sought to win me
Into his power, and modest wisdom plucks me
From over-credulous haste : but God above
Deal between thee and me ! for even now
I put myself to thy direction, and
Unspeak mine own detraction, here abjure
The taints and blames I laid upon myself,
For strangers to my nature. I am yet
Unknown to woman, never was forsworn,
Scarcely have coveted what was mine own,
At no time broke my faith, would not betray
The devil to his fellow and delight
No less in truth than life : my first false speaking
Was this upon myself.

(IV. 3.114-131.)

It is commonly stated1 that the progression of en
jambement in the several plays, indicating as it does an
indeliberate change of habit, and not, like rime, de
pending upon voluntary choice, is the most regularly
continuous of all the progressions, and that, therefore,
the enjambement -test is the most valuable. According
ly I expected to find here, upon investigation, chrono
logical evidence nearly, if not perfectly, conclusive. I
was disappointed. The enjambement-test may, indeed,
be better fitted than the others for general application
to Shakespeare's whole career, but it serves only to in-

1 See e. g., Dowden, p. 39; Furnivall in T. N. 5. S. 1874, p. 31 (foot
note) ; Ingram, same vol., p. 455 ; Bathurst, p. 2 ; Konig, p. 135.

END- S TOPPED A ND R UN- ON LINES 5 1

dicate groups, not the order of plays within the groups.
Two counts of the run-on lines have been made. One
was accomplished by Dr. Furnivall, whose name is
identified with this test because of the prominence to
which he raised it1; but Furnivall counted only eight
plays2, and committed the palpable mistake of including
rime-lines in his ratios.3 Enjambement in the couplet is
a very different thing from enjambement in blank verse,
much more difficult and infrequent.4 The other count,
made by Kb'nig for all the dramas, bases scientific re
sults upon a loose aesthetic distinction5, but I accept
his figures as consistent and consistency is the main
point in such matters. My own reckoning of the run-
on lines in Macbeth yields a total considerably less than
his, viz. 470, or 29.4 % of the blank- verse lines ; but

1 It was first noticed by Malone (1778), and was worked out with ingenuity
by Bathurst (1857). See p. 2 of his delightful little book, and the remarks on
the several plays.

2 Viz., Love's Labour's Lost, Comedy of Errors, 7^wo Gentlemen, Tem
pest, Cymbeline, Winter's Tale (See Leopold Shakspere, p. XX ; KSnig, p.
133), Henry VIII. (T. N. S. S. 1874, app., p. 24) and Two Noble Kinsmen
(ib., p. 65).

5 See Konig, p. 133 (footnote) ; Fleay in Ingleby, p. 60, Rule 3.

* See Alden, pp. 184 ff., 437ff.

5 This distinction is drawn on p. log. It is between the mild enjambe
ment which makes allowance for the verse in its rhythmical signification, and
the rough enjambement whicn overflows the metrical pause. Thus, in I.
4.22, 23,—

The service and the loyalty I owe,
In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part
Is to receive our duties ; —

the first line has the mild enjambement, the second has the rough. It is only
the latter (generally corresponding with Furnivall's "run-on line") for which
Shakespeare shows diminishing aversion, and which, therefore, is chronolog
ically determinative. But Konig would include in the latter class lines like
III. 1.126 and III. 4.43, where the pauses after lord and sir surely make the
lines end-stopped.

THE METRE OF MACBETH

my definition of the term " run-on " is more narrow and
rigorous.

TABLE OF RUN-ON LINES.1

Play

Per Cent, of Blank Verse

Per Cent, of Verse-Lines

Love's Labour's Lost
Comedy of Errors

18.4
12 O

5-2

8 t.

21.5

Henry V

21.8

Hamlet

21 I

Othello

IQ "i

Lear

2Q.1

Macbeth

36 6

Antony and Cleopatra
Winter's Tale

43-3

•J7.C

Tempest

41.5

24.8

According to Konig's figures Shakespeare's use of
the unstopped line took a jump with Lear (of 9.8 %,")
another with Macbeth (of 7.3 ?«,), and still another with
Antony and Cleopatra (of 6.7 %}. He was rapid
ly breaking away from the confinement of end-
pauses, because with a large majority of end-stop
ped lines he could not make narrative fluent or conver
sation rapid. Yet an over-abundance of run-on lines
perhaps makes the phrasing too intricate, the rhythm
too prosaic, for very deep and active tragedy.2 The
prevalence of such lines is one of the distinguishing

1 The first column is from Konig, p. 133 ; the second is from Furnivall
(Leopold Shakspere, p. xx), the figures having been converted from ratios to
per cents.

s Perhaps one ought to comment here upon the fact that not only does the
total number of stopped lines fall off, but also the use of many of them in suc
cession. KOnig (p. 105) cites Two Gentlemen, IV. 4.184-210 (twenty-seven
lines, one enjambement), King John, III. 1.8-39, an^ Julius Caesar, I. 2.138-
158. Later such a long chain of stopped lines is to be found only in Pericles,
I. 2.1-47 and He nry VIII., II. 1.55-79, both suspected passages. Conversely,
in the youthful dramas we have at most five successive run-on lines, and that
in but two instances (i Henrv VI, IV. 4.2-6, Romeo and Juliet, II. 6.24-28),
while in Macbethwt have two passages of seven in succession (III. 6.42-48, IV.
3.1-7) and one of nine (IV. 3.115-123), and later plays have still more extended
sequences.

LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS 53

characteristics of Shakespeare's Fourth Period, the
period of the Romances.

E. LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS
The most insistent metrical reason for a Fourth
Period, however, is the sweeping introduction in these
last plays of weak monosyllabic endings. Indeed, so
numerous and characteristic do they grow that the
period may best take its designation from them as the
"Weak-Ending Period." The word "weak" is gen
eric, covering two degrees of enfeeblement. On some
of the final monosyllables "the voice can to a certain
small extent dwell." 1 They are therefore termed "light"
endings. To this class belong the pronouns /, thou,you,
he, she, we, and they, the auxiliaries do, has, shall, may, can,
and the like, the verbal forms am, be, etc., the relatives
who, which, what, etc., and a few other words.2 For
example, —

If I say sooth, I must report they were

As cannons overcharged with double cracks. (I. 2.36)

There are twenty other cases of light endings in
Macbeth, as follows: upon* (I. 4.37), be (I. 5.16), been (I.
7.17), would (I. 7.50), upon (I. 7.69), upon(\. 7.70), but (II.
1.37), been ([II. 1.78), what (III. i.no), could (III. 1.118),
he (III. 6.38), might (III. 6.43), be (IV. 1.147), been (IV.
3.67), may (IV. 3.70), be (IV. 3.73), such (IV. 3.77), been
IV. 3.86), should (\V. 3.97), hath (IV. 3.189).

But the " weak " endings par excellence are those
which " are so essentially proclitic in their character
(to use a term applied by Hertzberg in dealing with this

1 See Ingram, in T. N. S. S. 1874, p. 447.

2 Ingram counts fifty-four light monosyllables, to which the Tests Com
mittee of the St. Petersburg Shakespeare Circle (Engl. Stud. III., p. 483)
would add forty.

3 This dissyllable is added to the list of monosyllables.

54 THE METRE OF MACBETH

subject) that we are forced to run them, in pronunciation
no less than in sense, into the closest connection with
the opening words of the succeeding line"1. These
winged words embrace monosyllabic prepositions (e. g.t
at, by, for, from, in, of, on, to, with) and conjunctions
(e. g., and, as, but, if, nor, or, than, that).2 Two such
weak endings are commonly reckoned in Macbeth :
He hath been in unusual pleasure, and
Sent forth great largess to your offices. (II. 1.13.)

(Here the Folio reads pleasure, And sent ; Jennens made
the correction in the lineation.)

I put myself to thy direction, and

Unspeak mine own detraction. (IV. 3.122.)

It is possible, as Professor Parrott has pointed out
to me, that a change similar to the one made by Jen
nens should be adopted in V. 7.22, where otherwise the
pause after bruited would have to make up for the omis
sion of a stressed and an unstressed syllable. The
rhythm of both this line and the next is certainly im
proved if the And is transferred.

Seems bruited. Let me find him, fortune ! and
More I beg not.

Professor Ingram3 distinguished the two groups in

1 Ingram, p. 447 ; also Jahrbuch XIII., p. 253.

J The St. Petersburg Committee (p. 484) try again to substitute a purely
grammatical test, and to make up a complete list of all possible weak endings.
They add to Ingram'slist (See p. 501) both, down, else, are, hence, lest, like, near,
next, nigh, off, out, round, save, since, sith, so, still, thence, through, -whilst,
while, up, yet. On the whole they have failed again, because their rules lead
to a total disregard of the important element of quantity. (See K5nig, p. too,
footnote, and Schipper, II. i., p. 291.) This criticism applies also to their ad
ditional list of light endings. Some of their points (e. g., 4 and 8 on p. 485)
seem well taken.

8 To whom we owe the final elaboration of the test. The weak endings
were first noticed as a mark of the later plays by Bathurst (p. 3 ; also p. 104).
The two degrees were discriminated by Craik (p. 39), who also excellently de
scribed their effect on the verse (pp. 36, 37). Spedding first insisted upon the
necessity of counting the weak endings. (T. N. S. S. 1874, p. 31.)

LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS

this way : he looked through Milton's two epics and
Wordsworth's Excursion to see what words of this
general character they allowed at the ends of their
lines. Such he made the "light" endings, because he
knew that the grave non-dramatic verse of these poets
would never approach "the extreme of the proclitic
structure".

With the introduction of weak endings the death
blow is dealt to the emphatic close of the line. The
force of freedom could no further go.

TABLE OF LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS.1

Plays

Number of
Light

Number of
Weak

Per Cent, of
Light

Per Cent, of
Weak

Per Cent.
Both of

Love's Labour's Lost
Comedy of Errors . .
Merchant of Venice .
Henry V

3
O

0
0

I
O

.48
.00

•32

.10

.00
.00
.05
,OO

.48
.OO

•37
.10

Hamlet

• 34

.OO

• 34

Othello

.08

.OO

.08

Lear ........

.24

.04

.28

1.30

.12

1.42

Ant. and Cleo. . . .
Winter's Tale ....
Tempest

57
42

43
25

2.74
2.92
3.00

1. 08
2.21

1.79

3.82
5-13
4-79

For somewhere about three-fourths of Shakespeare's
dramatic career there are very few light endings, and
only a trace of weak endings. They furnish no
chronological hints until we come to about the year
1606, but they are a "very sensitive indicator of Shake
speare's latest manner".2 A wide gap separates the
light endings of Macbeth from those of all previous plays

1 From Ingram's Table ( T. N. S. S. 1874, p. 450). The percentages will
be found to differ slightly from Ingram's because he counted in the pentameter
rimed lines (See p. 449), as well as blank verse, thus confusing two tests.
" Rimes and weak endings are incompatible," emphatic syllables being neces
sary in the riming words. (Fleay in Ingleby, p. 60, Rule 3).

2 So Ingram, p. 455. But I cannot agree with Dowden {Primer, p. 41)
that within the last period this test " serves to indicate nearly the precise order
in which the plays were written."

56 THE ME TRE OF MA CBE TH

(twenty-one as against eleven in All's Well, the highest
figure preceding). Macbeth thus prepares the way for
the Weak-Ending Period, and was, in all probability,
the last play written before it. With this mild fore
warning, the poet seems to have thrown himself at once,
and whole-heartedly, into the practice of light and weak
endings. Twenty-eight of the latter appear in Antony
and Cleopatra, forty-four in Coriolanus, fifty-two in
Cymbeline, while the light endings leap to seventy-one
in Antony and Cleopatra, sixty in Coriolanus, seventy-
eight in Cymbeline. No play before Macbeth shows
more than two weak endings. This, I take it, is by all
odds the most important piece of metrical testimony in
regard to the date of Macbeth. On the one hand, the
comparatively large number of light endings indicates
emphatically that the play was written after Hamlet,
Othello, and Lear. On the other hand, the theory of a
late date for Macbeth (about 1610) is conclusively con
troverted by the absolutely small number of weak
endings and the relatively small number of light endings,
as compared with Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus,
Cymbeline, The Winter s Tale, and The Tempest. These
metrical statistics alone, unaided by the evidence of
style, Shakespeare's dramatic mood, etc., are enough to
prove that Macbeth cannot belong in the same period as
the Romances.1

Commonly a pause occurs either shortly or imme
diately before the final monosyllable, in these light
and weak endings, after which the verse darts ahead.

1 See Verity, pp. x, xi. In the case of light and weak endings, as in con
nection with ordinary run-on lines, one should note the use of the peculiarity
in successive lines. Before Macbeth occurrences are always solitary. But upon
comes at the end of 11. 69 and 70 in I. 7, and instances of two and three in suc
cession begin to be frequent in Antony and Cleopatra. See Konig, pp. 106-108.

SPEECH ENDINGS

But fear not yet

To take upon you what is yours : || you may
Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty. (IV. 3.70).
The latter part of a line, if it is to be bound into
a rhythmical unit with the next, must not be too long;
and so an increase in the number of enjambements is
accompanied by a shoving back of the caesura toward
the end of the line. This structure, as Craik1 has well
said, conduces to variety and liveliness, and is better
fitted for the sprightly, varicoloured portrayal of life
which we have in the Romances than for the massy
weight of the great tragedies. The "manner of its
gait" is like Diomed's: —

He rises on the toe : that spirit of his
In aspiration lifts him from the earth.

(Troilus and Cressida, IV. 5.15, 16)

TABLE OF CAESURAS.2

Play

After ist, and, or 3rd
Syllable

Regular Place
After ith, orqlh
Syllable

After 6th, yth, 8th, or
9th Syllable

Comedy of Errors. . .
Merchant of Venice .
Henry V

150
109
141

526
520
466

295
339

^^J.

Macbeth

380

527

F. SPEECH ENDINGS.

The last test to be considered is the Speech-End
ing Test.3 It is really a corollary or buttress of the
enjambement-test. As Shakespeare composed less and
less within the bounds of the single line, and more and
more in rhythmical phrases, and as these phrases came
to a conclusion at the caesura, and not at the end of the

1 P. 36.

* From Conrad's Table in Jahrbuch XXXI., p. 347, based on a thousand
lines in each play.

* Proposed by Ingram, worked out for twenty plays by Prof. Pulling ( T.
N, S. S. 1877-1879, p. 457), and for all the dramas by K5nig (p. 134).

58 THE METRE OF MACBETH

verse, so also the speeches of the characters ended in
creasingly within the line. The broken structure re
moves from the dialogue much of that air of artificiality
which attaches to the poetic drama. This is well illus
trated by Act V., Scene 4: —
Malcolm. Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand

That chambers will be safe.

Menteith. We doubt it nothing.

Siward. What wood is this before us ?
Menteith. The wood of Birnam.

Malcolm. Let every soldier hew him down a bough

And bear 't before him : thereby shall we shadow

The numbers of our host, and make discovery

Err in report of us ?

Soldiers. It shall be done.

Siivard. We learn no other but the confident tyrant

Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure

Our setting down before 't.
Malcolm. 'Tis his main hope :

For where there is advantage to be given,

Both more and less have given him the revolt,

And none serve with him but constrained things

Whose hearts are absent too.
Macduff. Let our just censures

Attend the true event, and put we on

Industrious soldiership.
Siward. The time approaches

That will with due decision make us know

What we shall say we have and what we owe.

Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,

But certain issue strokes must arbitrate :

Towards which advance the war.

The speech-ending test, though interesting and
suggestive, is of comparatively little importance as
strict evidence, because the materials are inadequate.1

1 That is to say, the total number of speech endings is not great enough
for small differences in percentages in the several plays to indicate anything in
regard to order of composition. See K6nig, p. 134.

SPEECH ENDINGS

As far as it goes, it seems to place Macbeth nearer to
Antony and Cleopatra than to Lear.

TABLE OF SPEECH ENDINGS.1

Plar

• Cent, of Blank
^erse Speeches
ding in Middle
of Line

er Cent, of Verse
>eeches Ending
Middle of Line

otal Number of
eeches Ending in
Middle of Line

wo Speeches in
One Line

iree Speeches

aur Speeches

d, W

ft«.9

Love's Labour's Lost

10.

Comedy of Errors .

1.23

Merchant of Venice .

22.2

17.03

Henry V

18 3

1 6 09

Hamlet

51.6

20^

Othello

4.1 -I

26 i

Lear

60 9

39 08

290

Macbeth

77 2

/I O A-A.

127

Ant. and Cleo. . . .

77-5

Winter's Tale . . .

87.6

66.93

340

Tempest

84.5

61.86

253

IV. SUMMARY.

It is convenient to divide Shakespeare's dramatic
career, as far as it concerns metre, into four parts, to
which, after the manner of Dowden, we may apply cer
tain fanciful catch- words.

Period I. The Vanity of Rime. This period is
characterized saliently by its large amount of rime,
with the attendant trickeries of alternates, sonnets, and
doggerels. The number of run-on lines, of feminine
endings, of Alexandrines, and of speeches ending within
the line, is very small.2 There are practically no femi
nine mid-line syllables, practically no light or weak

1 The first column is from Konig, p. 134 ; it is decidedly more reliable and
intelligent than columns two and three, which are from Pulling's Tables, be
cause it does not include rimed and one-line speeches in reckoning the per
centage. The last three columns are from Jahrbuch, XXXI. p. 340, and show
how Shakespeare's habit increased of dividing one line among several speeches.

2 C/. Fleay, Manual, pp. 131-133, and Schipper, II. i., 296.

THE METRE OF MACBETH

endings. This period extends to 1594; in it fall Loves
Labour's Lost, The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentle
men of Verona, A Midsummer •- Night 's Dream, and Richard
7//.,1 the last lacking in rime, but belonging here by
every other characteristic.

On the border-line between this group and the next
is Richard II.

As a typical example of an early passage in metre
I select Love's Labours Lost, I. 1.33-64.

Biron. I can but say their protestation over;

So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,
That is, to live and study here three years.
But there are other strict observances ;
As, not to see a woman in that term,
Which I hope well is not enrolled there ;
And one day in a week to touch no food
And but one meal on every day beside,
The which I hope is not enrolled there ;
And then, to sleep but three hours in the night,
And not be seen to wink of all the day —
When I was wont to think no harm all night
And make a dark night too of half the day —
Which I hope well is not enrolled there :
O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,
Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep !

King. Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.

Biron. Let me say no, my liege, an if you please :

I only swore to study with your grace
And stay here in your court for three years' space.

Longaville. You swore to that, Biron, and to the rest.

Biron. By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.

What is the end of study? let me know.

1 For the sake of simplicity I avoid in this discussion those plays the date
of composition of which is not fixed, probably because they underwent revision
in different periods of authorship, viz., Romeo and Juliet, AIVs Well, and
Troilus and Cressida, and those in which another hand than Shakespeare's is to be
discerned, viz., The Taming of the Shrew, I, 2, and 3 Henry VI., Henry
VIII., Titus Andronicus, Timon, and Pericles.

SPEECH ENDINGS 61

King. Why, that to know, which else we should not know.

Biron. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense ?

King. Ay, that is study's god-like recompense.

Biron. Come on, then ; I will swear to study so,

To know the thing I am forbid to know :
As thus, — to study where I well may dine,

When I to feast expressly am forbid ;
Or study where to meet some mistress fine,
When mistresses from common sense are hid.

Period II. The Balance of Power. This period is
distinguished from the preceding mainly by the dimi
nution of riming lines. Prose becomes a vital part of
the Histories. Enjambement, double endings, caesural
syllables, and broken speeches increase, but are still in
significant. Alexandrines and short lines continue few,
and light and weak endings are almost undiscoverable.
The close of this period marks Shakespeare's most even
and easy balance of thought and metre. The verse's
internal structure is at the perfection of its melody, and
the normal foot and normal line are returned to often
enough to be felt as the units of composition. King
John, The Merchant of Venice, I and 2 Henry IV., The
Merry Wives of Windsor, Henry V., Much Ado About
Nothing, As You Like It, Twelfth Night and Julius Caesar
(1591-1601) are here included. The last shows some
of the qualities of the Third Period.

The famous soliloquy of the King, from 2 Henry IV.,
III. 1.4-31, will serve as a characteristic instance: —
How many thousands of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep ! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetf ulness ?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee
And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,

62 THE ME TRE OF MA CBE TH

Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody ?

O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile

In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch

A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell ?

Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast

Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains

In cradle of the rude imperious surge

And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them

With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds,

That, with the hurly, death itself awakes ?

Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose

To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,

And in the calmest and most stillest night,

With all appliances and means to boot,

Deny it to a king ? Then happy low, lie down !

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Period III. The Discordant Weight of Thought. This
period is far removed from its predecessor in the
matter of Alexandrines and short lines, mid-line-ending
speeches, and mid-line feminine syllables. The use of
prose becomes wider and wider in range.1 Enjambement
and feminine endings pursue their broken progress up
the scale. Rime remains on a low level. Light and
weak endings are still very infrequent. This period is
short (1603-1605), but in it were written the world's
greatest romantic tragedies, Hamlet, Othello, Lear, with
the great tragi-comedy, Measure for Measure, and the
burden of the tragic themes is almost more than the
metre can uphold. The poet begins to find that his
packed eagerness of thought and feverish excitement of
passion are at odds with mere harmony and grace.

1 On the development of prose in this and the following period see the ad
mirable chapter by Seccombe and Allen, in The Age of Shakespeare, vol. II.,
pp. 117 ff. See also Janssen, passim.

SPEECH ENDINGS 63

I take part of the scene between Hamlet and his
mother as an illustration (Hamlet, III. 4.68-102).

Hamlet. You cannot call it love ; for at your age

The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,

And waits upon the judgement : and what judgement

Would step from this to this ? Sense, sure, you have,

Else could you not have motion ; but sure, that sense

Is apoplex'd ; for madness would not err,

Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd

But it reserved some quantity of choice,

To serve in such a difference. What devil was't

That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind ?

Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,

Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,

Or but a sickly part of one true sense

Could not so mope.

O shame ! where is thy blush ? Rebellious hell,

If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,

To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,

And melt in her own fire : proclaim no shame

When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,

Since frost itself as actively doth burn

And reason pandars will.

Queen. O Hamlet, speak no more

Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul ;
And there I see such black and grained spots,
As will not leave their tinct.

Hamlet. Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty, —

Queen. O, speak to me no more ;

These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears ;
No more, sweet Hamlet !

Hamlet. A murderer and a villain ;

A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
Of your precedent lord ; a vice of kings ;
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket !

64 THF METRE OF MACBETH

Queen. No more !

Hamlet. A king of shreds and patches.

Period IV. The License of Weak Endings. The gen
eral carelessness of art which stamps Shakespeare's final
period (1607-1612) confronts us most strikingly in a
great crowd of light and weak endings, and only less so
in the climax of run-on lines and feminine endings.
Rime has all but vanished. Alexandrines and short
lines seem, if anything, to recede, but there is no other
evidence to support Mr. Fleay,1 who surmises that
Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Cymbeline, The Win
ter s Tale, and The Tempest were produced at greater
leisure, and more carefully polished. Rather let us say
that the return to Stratford cast upon Shakespeare the
weight of too much liberty. The poetry is so licentious
that it is often difficult to distinguish from the chartered
libertine, prose.2

The dialogue between the Queen and Cornelius in
Cymbeline (I. 5.6-42) will serve as a typical example of
the metre of this period, all the more typical perhaps
because it is in no sense a " purple" passage.

Cornelius. [Presenting a small box.

But I beseech your grace, without offence, —
My conscience bids me ask — wherefore you have

1 Manual, p. 133.

1 Seccombe and Allen (II., p. 114) print Coriolanus, II. 2.86-96 as prose
and very justly say, " Written thus this passage is not quite obviously verse,
and it would be possible for a dull ear to miss its cadences in reading." Of
Cymbeline, Professor Barrett Wendell says (William Shakspere, p. 357),
" Endstopped lines are so deliberately avoided that one feels a sense of relief
when a speech and a line end together. Such a phrase as ' How slow his soul
sail'd on, how swift his ship ' is deliberately made, not a single line, but two
half-lines. Several times, in the broken dialogue, one has literally to count the
syllables before the metrical regularity of the verse appears. . . . Clearly
this puzzling style is decadent ; the distinction between verse and prose is
breaking down."

SPEECH ENDINGS

Commanded of me these most poisonous compounds,
Which are the movers of a languishing death ;
But though slow, deadly ?

Queen. I wonder, doctor,

Thou ask'st me such a question. Have I not been
Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learn'd me how
To make perfumes ? distil ? preserve ? yea, so
That our great king himself doth woo me oft
For my confections ? Having thus far proceeded, —
Unless thou think'st me devilish — is't not meet
That I did amplify my judgement in
Other conclusions ? I will try the forces
Of these thy compounds on such creatures as
We count not worth the hanging, but none human,
To try the vigour of them and apply
Allayments to their act, and by them gather
Their several virtues and effects.

Cornelius. Your highness

Shall from this practice but make hard your heart :
Besides, the seeing these effects will be
Both noisome and infectious.

Queen. O, content thee.

Enttr Pisanio.

[Aside] Here comes a flattering rascal ; upon him
Will I first work ; he's for his master,
And enemy to my son. How now, Pisanio !
Doctor, your service for the time is ended ;
Take your own way.

Cornelius. [Aside] I do suspect you madam :

But you shall do no harm.

Queen. [70 Pisanio] Hark thee, a word.

Cornelius. [Aside] I do not like her. She doth think she has
Strange lingering poisons : I do not know her spirit
And will not trust one of her malice with
A drug of such damn'd nature. Those she has
Will stupefy and dull the sense awhile ;
Which first, perchance, she'll prove on cats and dogs,
Then afterward up higher : but there is
No danger in what show of death it makes,
More than the locking-up the spirits a time,
To be more fresh, reviving.

66 THE METRE OF MACBETH

Between the last two periods Macbeth is to be
placed in a sort of dependent isolation, belonging in
the Third by most of its features, but pointing to the
Fourth with its generous total of light endings.

APPENDIX

By way of Explanation andtAddition.

p. 7, footnote 3. Prose in History was familiar to
Shakespeare by his work as a reviser of 2 Henry VI.,
where it appears in I. i, 3, 4; II. i, 3; IV. 2, 3, 6, 7,
8, 10, and is notable in the humourous Jack Cade scenes.
It is rather curious that when it began to write alone
in Richard III., Richard II., and King John, he did not
turn to it for comic relief.

p. 19, footnote 3. Add to the list of rimed penta
meter lines III. 5. 12, 21, which are in the midst of
Hecate's tetrameters.

p. 35. Add to the list of participles in which the
e of the ending is sounded: damned (I. 2.14); damned
(III. 6. 10); charmed (IV. 1.9); charmed (V. 8.12.)

p. 36. The M. E. form of captain was capitain,
adopted from late O. F. (I4th C.) capitaine. The New
English Dictionary cites examples of spelling with an i or
y as late as 1567. Probably the word was still fre
quently pronounced as a trisyllable in Shakespeare's
time. Cf. 3 Henry VI., IV. 7.30, "A wise stout cap
tain, and soon persuaded." The French word capitaine
is used by Shakespeare in Henry V., IV. 4.70.

THE METRE OF MACBETH

TABLES FOR TWENTY-SIX PLAYS.

Pky

$
a

Lines of Prose

Lines of Blank Verse

. of Rimed
Verse Lines

Alexandrines

Short Lines

af Feminine
lings

1 Number of Feminine
Mid-Line Syllables

Iper Cent, of Run-on
Lines

Number of Light
Endings

jjl

Per Cent, of Mid-Line-
Ending Speeches

Conjectural Date

~Per Cent
Heroics in

Number o

Per Cent.
En

Love's Labour's Lost...
Comedy of Errors
Two Gentlemen
Mid. Night's Dream...
Richard III(F)

3785

1777

2292
2166
3589

IO22

226
659
493
_62

617
1156

I43I
729
3278

62.1
19.4
6-5
43-4
3-5

242
64

•*w>o o^ir
II

»3
74

is!4
7-3
19.5

o
o
•
1
ii

18.4
12.9
ia-4
13-2
13.1

3
o

I
o

10. 0

.6
5-8

2-(,

1590
1591
1592-1593
I593-I594
1593

King John
Merchant of Venice
i Henry IV.

2570
2656
3176
3446
3029
3559
2825
2839
2690
Z477

604

1464
1857
2676

'367

2105

1679

1731

156

"34
1 200
661

896

2403
1872
1561

1425
207
1918
618
871
724
2181

4-5
4.6
2.7

o'.4

3-2
S-2

6-3
13-7

1.2

4
4
o
o
o

22
IO
O

o
o
o

o
o

=M4
5

6
7
3
12

~6o~

11
42

ill

6-3
17-7

16.;
27.2
20.5
22.9
25-5
25.6
19.7

8
25
ii

"9-9
17.7
31.5

22.8
21.4
2O. I
21.8

19-3
I7.I
14-7

19-3

i
i
a

a
3

I
2
0
0

I
o
I
o

12. I
22.2

Itl
20-5
18.3

20.;

21.6

36-3
20.3

1595
'594-1596
1597
1598
1598
1599
1599

1600
1601
1603
1603
1604
1605

2 Henry IV

Merry Wives (F)
Henry V „

Much Ado

As You Like It

Twelfth Night

Julias Caesar

Measure for Measure. .
Hamlet

2810
3929

1328

1470
2358
2381

2072

3.6
2.7

S-2
_3j4

117

158

171
191

26.1

22.6
28 I
•8.5

208
131

23.0 7
23.1 8
19-5 2
29-3 5

5'-4
51-6
41.4
60^5

Othello

Lear
Macbeth

Ant. and Cleo
Coriolanus _....

3059
3406
3339
3°74
2062

287
829
535
979
458

2413
2528
1948
1396

•7
•9
3-2
.0
. i

39
41
38
56?
15

143
136

68
58
7=

26.5
28.4
30.7
32-9

1 35-4

I2O
120
90
60

43 3 71
45-9 60

46.0 78
37-5 57
41-51 42

44
52
43
25

77-5
79.0
85.0
87.6
84.5

1607
1608
1609
1610-1612
1610-1611

Cy mbeline

Winter's Tale

Tempest

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Of books and articles used and referred to.

The references to the text of Shakespeare are to the Globe Edition ; of
Middleton, to Bullen's Edition in eight volumes.

EDITIONS OF MACBETH :—

Clarendon Press : W. G. Clark and W. A. Wright : pp. x, xi.

Arden : E. K. Chambers : Appendix on Metre.

Pitt Press : A. W. Verity : Introduction, and Appendix on Metre.

Longmans' English Classics : J. M. Manly : pp. xxxii-xxxv.

Leopold : F. J. Furnivall : pp. xix, xx, cxxiii.

Variorum : H. H. Furness : pp. 259, 303.

Eversley : C. H. Herford : Introduction.

Elizabethan : Mark H. Liddell : p. 165.

WORKS IN ENGLISH : —

CHARLES BATHURST : Remarks on the Differences in Shakespeare s Versi
fication in Different Periods of his Life.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 69

GEORGE L. CRAIK : The English of Shakespeare : pp. 28-43.

WILLIAM SIDNEY WALKER : Shakespeare's Versification : p. 227.

E. A. ABBOTT : A Shakespearean Grammar : pp. 328-429.

FREDERICK CARD FLEAY : Shakespeare Manual : pp. 121-138, 239-261.

FREDERICK CARD FLEAY : Introduction to Shakespearean Study : p. 36.

FREDERICK CARD FLEAY : Life and Work of Shakespeare.: p, 239.

C. M. INGLEBY : Shakespeare, The Man and the Book : Vol. II., ch. II.,
pp. 40-49 ; also ch. III., pp. 50-141, by F. G. FLEAY.

EDWARD DOWDEN : Shakspere Primer : pp. 39-46.

HIRAM CORSON : Introduction to Shakespeare : pp. 51-82.

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS : Blank Verse : Section II., "The History
of Blank Verse".

JOSEPH B. MAYOR : Chapters on English Metre : pp. 146-183.

THOMAS SECCOMBE AND J. W. ALLEN : The Age of Shakespere : Vol. II.,

pp. III-I22.

GEORGE H. BROWNE : Notes on Shakspere's Versification : pp. 9, 21.
RAYMOND M. ALDEN : English Verse : pp. 55, 184 ff., 226, 437 ff.
FRANCIS B. GUMMERE: Handbook of Poetics : p. 142.
ALEXANDER SCHMIDT: Shakespeare Lexicon : Vol. II., p. 1413.
HALLAM TENNYSON : Alfred, Lord Tennyson, A Memoir: Vol. II., p. 14.
G. C. MACAULAY : Francis Beaumont : pp. 43, 44.
BARRETT WENDELL : William Shakspere : p. 357.

ENGLISH ARTICLES IN PERIODICALS : —

Transactions of the New Shakspere Society 1874—15 : passim ; especially
the discussion on Fleay's First Paper (pp. 17-37) and the article by J. K. In
gram " On the ' Weak Endings of Shakspere ' " (pp. 442-464).

The same, 1877-79, pp. 457, 458 : F. S. Pulling : " The ' Speech-Ending
Test ' Applied to Twenty of Shakspere's Plays."

The same, 1880-6, pp. 523-562 : Henry Sharpe : "The Prose in Shak-
pere's Plays."

Englische Studien : Band III., pp. 473-503 : J. Harrison, J. Goodlet and
R. Boyle : " Report of the Tests Committee of the St. Petersburg Shakespeare
Circle."

Transactions of the Philological Society, June 1876 : article by A. J.
Ellis.

WORKS IN GERMAN : —

GOSWIN K.ONIG : Der Vers in Shaksperes Dramen : passim.

J. SCHIPPER : Englische Metrik, II., i., pp. 287-316.

V. F. JANSSEN : Die Prosa in Shakespeares Dramen : passim.

GERMAN ARTICLES IN PERIODICALS :—

Jahrbuch der Deutchen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, Vol. V., pp. 227-273 : N.
Delius : " Die Prosa in Shakespeare's Dramen."

THE METRE OF MACBETH

The same, XIII., pp. 248-266: W. Hertzberg : " Metrisches, Gram-
matisches, Chronologisches zu Shakespeares Dramen."

The same, XXVIII., pp. 177-272 : Julius Heuser : "Der Coupletreim in
Shakespeares Dramen."

The same, XXXI, pp. 318-353 : Hermann Conrad: "Metrische Unter-
suchungen zur Feststellung der Abfassungszeit von Shakespeares Dramen. "

Anglia, XIII, pp. 353-357 : A. Wagner: "Metrische Bemerkungen zu
Shakespeares Macbeth".

3085

Chambers, David Lauranoe
The metre of Macbeth

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