Certain Netv Elucidations of Shakespeare 17 



So we are in fine confirmed in the belief that Quiller-Couch 

 has erred in making Macbeth the victim of moral error. Rather 

 has Shakespeare built his play on what Aristotle, in our author's 

 summary, would call ' Frailty.' And it is not common human 

 frailty, but frailty that proceeds from love, a ' love that covereth 

 all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all 

 things.' Macbeth's devotion is indeed in this case frailty, mortal 

 frailty, but frailty that may become a man. 



We note that, on Macbeth's formal renunciation of his purpose 

 (I. iii. 143. 144) to remain inactive, neutral, — ■ 



I am settled, and bend up 

 Each corporal agent -to this terrible feat, — 



the First Act ends, almost upon the instant. It is Shakespeare's 

 principle that the resolution of the minor obstruction should thus 

 bring the close of first acts severally, in both tragedy and comedy. 

 His major obstructions are ' resolved,' either positively or nega- 

 tively, in the second scene of the Second Act. We remember 

 that, technically, the greater or major obstacle to Macbeth's rise 

 to kingship is Malcolm, as named by Duncan the Prince of Cum- 

 berland. This obstruction is lifted from the path of the plot, at 

 the point just designated, by the assassination. 



11 



Passing over Quiller-Couch's observations concerning the 

 knocking on the gate, and the Porter's humor, which are acute 

 and satisfying, we find ourselves moved to review his judgment 

 of minor characters. We quote from pp. 46 and 48: 



sary to postulate a Borgia nature as the origin of a deed like this which 

 Lady Macbeth forces upon her husband, I was reminded of a mademoiselle 

 Macbeth who had made history, not long before, almost in our very circle. 

 A girl friend had stolen away by machinations her affianced lover, and 

 she had reacted murderously against the traitor. She was high-bred, re- 

 fined, religious, and had always lived a sheltered life. But the peculiarly 

 maddening intensity of her wrong stung her to the act of poisoning — as it 

 proved not fatally — her rival. Was this to be accounted less than Lady 

 Macbeth's intended deed, which reached no farther than a purpose, being 

 found by trial impossible to carry through? The students, as I found, 

 adjudged neither of these unfortunates essentially abnormal, except as 

 peculiarly liable by temperament to violent temptation. 



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