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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Of Shakespeare's awareness of the living currents of literature about him, the late Sir Walter Raleigh had this to say:
His plays are extraordinarily rich in the floating débris of popular literature—scraps, tags and broken ends of a whole world of songs and ballads and romances and proverbs. In this respect he is notable even among his contemporaries; few of them can match him in the wealth that he caught out of the air or picked up by the roadside.
1 Shakespeare (1907), p. 77.
2 Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1933), p. 9.
3 Since the publication of Professor W. W. Lawrence's admirable study, Shakespeare's Problem Comedies (New York, 1931), the mediaevalist approach to Shaksperean source-study stands in no need of vindication. The oral circulation of exempla in the sixteenth century has been frequently attested; cf. inter alia A. C. Lee, The Decameron, Its Sources and Analogues (1909) which supplies numerous references.
4 The edition of 1595 contains a version of the casket plot in the Merchant of Venice, pp. 99 ff., and the story of the “false steward who stole his master's daughter” (Hamlet iv, vi, 171–172) pp. 50 ff. For a comparative table of exempla in the Latin, Anglo-Latin, and English versions of the Gesta together with those in the edition of Wynkyn de Worde, cf. Herrtage, Gesta Romanorum, EETS Ext. Ser. xxxiii, xxix–xxxi. The present writer has in hand a series of studies in the utilization of exemplum material by Shakespeare, of which one, “Mediaeval Prototypes of Lorenzo and Jessica,” appeared in MLN, xliv, 227 ff.
5 Cf. W. G. Boswell-Stone, Shakespeare's Holinshed (1896), pp. 18–30; also Allardyce and Josephine Nicoli, Holinshed's Chronicles as used in Shakespeare's Plays. (Everyman ed., 1927.) In addition to the portions of the Chronicle usually cited as source-material, numerous passages might be assembled, especially from accounts of sovereigns slain by their vassals and of illusory prophecy, which serve to gloss individual lines in Macbeth. For instance, we read that it was prophesied to King Natholocus (†280) that he should be murdered “not by his open enimies but by the hands of one of his moste familiar friendes in whom he had reposed an especiall truste” (Chronicles, ed. 1577, p. 75). The phrase is echoed in Duncan's comment on the traitorous Cawdor, “He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust (i, iv, 14–15). Again, the Chronicles supply a reference for an ingredient in the witches' hell-broth,
sow's blood, that hath eaten
Her nine farrow (iv, l. 63–64).
The accursedness of such swine-meat is indicated in one of the laws of Kenneth: “If a sowe eate hir pigges let hyr be stoned to death and buried so that no man eate of hyr flesshe” (Chronicles, ed. cit., p. 181).
6 “The Demonic Metaphysics of Macbeth,” SP, xxx, 395–426; see note 1 for convenient bibliography of discussions of Elizabethan witchcraft in relation to Macbeth.
7 That the majority of persons in the Elizabethan age believed in this relationship between witches and the powers of evil has been often demonstrated; cf. especially Curry, op. cit., pp. 397–400.
8 The unanimity of scholars on this point is, so far as I know, modified only by the statement of the late J. W. Robertson: “A sleep-walking scene would not be out of his [sc. Kyd's] ambit, perhaps, though Shakespeare has written or rewritten ours” (Literary Detection, A Symposium on Macbeth, p. 151).
8 Hermann Oesterley, Gesta Romanorum (Berlin, 1872) pp. 291 ff.; cf. also Catalogue of Romances in the Brit. Mus., iii, 574 and 680 for references to other texts of this tale.
10 “Vidensque parvulum natum statim illum jugulavit, scindens guttur per medium. Sanguis vero gutturis ipsius parvuli in palmam sinistre manus regine cecidit” (Oesterley, op. cit., p. 291).
11 Mrs. Jameson, cited by Campbell, cf. Variorum Macbeth p. 483.
12 From MS. Harl. 9066; cf. EETS Ext. Ser. xxxiii, 393. This version does not normally occur in the Continental Latin or Anglo-Latin Gesta, but is included in the expanded collection of Odo of Cheriton's Fables, represented in MS. Harl. 219, on which Chapters 41–96 of MS. Harl. 9066 appear to be based (cf. Cat. Rom., iii, 55, 255–256). It occurs also in the Speculum Laicorum No. 136, ed. J. Th. Welter, pp. 30–31; the Summa Praedicantium of John de Bromyard, Venice 1586, Confessio VI. 58, and the Fasciculus Morum, MS. Rawl. C 670, Cap. 10, Pt. 5 “De Confessio.” For the last reference I am indebted to Professor Frances Foster of Vassar College, who is preparing an edition of the Fasciculus. In a variant of this version a priest revives the slain infant by pouring water over the blood-stained hand (cf. Cat. Rom., iii, 682–683).
13 So in the expanded collection of Odo of Cheriton's Fables in MS. Harl. 219; cf. Cat. Rom., iii, 56. Gregory is here cited as authority. Elsewhere the devil appears as a clerk; cf. Alphabet of Tales, EETS pp. 220–221, No. cccxx; also Vincent de Beauvais, Speculum Historiale (Nuremberg, 1483), Bk. viii, 93–95; this form of the narrative is found also in the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry (ed. T. F. Crane, Folk-lore Soc. xxvi, 263; cf. also discussion on pp. 246–249); and occurs in many collections of Mary-legends (cf. Cat. Rom. ii, 627, 694, etc.). In this version the child is killed by strangulation. In the opinion of Mr. J. P. Herbert, this is the older version, from which the tale in the Gesta is derived (cf. Cat. Rom., iii, 236). For discussion of the elements in the latter tale not supplied by the Marylegend, viz., the ineffaceable stain and the futile effort to cleanse it, cf. pp. 707–708 below. As an exemplum illustrating deletion of the evidence of guilt by confession, the tale is linked to innumerable others.
14 W. W. Lawrence, Shakespeare's Problem Comedies, p. 8.
15 “And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him” (Gen. v, 15). The nature of the “mark” has always been a subject for speculation, but its undoubted characteristic was permanency. According to the late Professor Oliver Emerson, allusions to the mark of Cain in English are surprisingly few (“Legends of Cain especially in Old and Middle English,” PMLA, xxi, 831–890; see especially Section iv). Cain became closely associated in legend with the demons; cf. Emerson, op. cit., pp. 879–888.
16 Anecdotes Historiques d'Etienne de Bourbon, ed. A. Lecoy de la Marche (1877), pp. 157–158. For references to various versions of tales of the devil's mark cf. Cat. Rom. iii, 119, 138 (Convertimini), 381 (Speculum Laicorum, No. 124), 482, 485, 682. In the preface to the curious treatise entitled “Demonologie in Forme of a Dialogue” written by James I (Edinburgh, 1597) we find the following allusion to the “Devil's mark” in the course of a discussion of the devil's practices in following up an initial successful temptation: “He then discovers what he is vnto them [sc. his victims], makes them to renounce their God and Baptisme directlie, and gives them his mark vpon some secret place of their bodie which remains sore unhealed” (p. 33).
17 Oesterley, ed. cit. p. 291.
18 Etienne de Bourbon, ed, cit., p. 158.
19 Matt. xxvii: 24. For the primitive Jewish rite reflected in the act attributed to Pilate cf. Deut. xxi.
20 This passage was noted by Sir Walter Raleigh, op. cit., p. 185. I have been reminded by Professor Robert Adger Law of the passage in the Faerie Queene describing Sir Guyon's vain effort to cleanse the bloodstained hands of the infant Ruddymane (Bk. ii, Canto ii, St. iii):
He washt them oft and oft, yet nought they beene
For all his washing cleaner. Still he strove
Yet still the litle hands were bloody seene.
The blood stain is in this instance symbolic of another's guilt, and intended to serve as a permanent reminder of the duty of vengeance. The lines of Stanza iv, describing Sir Guyon's amazement at the phenomenon, are of interest as bringing in the ancient concept underlying the story of the mark of Cain:
He wist not whether blott of fowle offense
Might not be purgd with water nor with bath;
Or that High God, in lieu of innocence
Imprinted had that token of his wrath,
To shew how sore bloodguiltinesse he hat'th.
Numerous instances of the appearance in later legend of symbolic washing of the hands could doubtless be assembled. A few may be noted here. The legend of Pilate associated with Lake Lucerne is recorded by Scott in Anne of Geierstein, Chap. i. “According to popular belief, a form is often seen to emerge from the gloomy waters and go through the action of one washing his hands; and when he does so, dark clouds of mist gather first round the bosom of the Infernal Lake (such it has been styled of old) and then wrapping the whole upper part of the mountain in darkness presage a tempest or hurricane which is sure to follow in a short space.”—A tradition of the English countryside preserves the legend of a certain Lady Hoby, who killed her son in a fit of anger. After her death she was seen on numerous occasions walking about the house washing her hands in an invisible basin (cf. F. V. Worley, River Thames (1926), p. 144). I am indebted for this reference to Miss Mildred Marcett of New York University. My son Carl called my attention to an allusion to the ineffaceable bloodstain in Stevenson's Black Arrow, near the close of Bk. ii: “Ye have my father's blood upon your hands; let be, it will not wasshe.”
21 Similarly, atonement is urged upon the Red Cross knight by Heavenly Contemplation: “Wash thy hands from guilt of bloody field” (F. Q. Bk. i, Canto x, St. lx).
22 E. E. Stoll, “The Objectivity of the Ghosts in Shakespeare,” PMLA, xxii, 201–233: cf. especially pp. 205–222.
23 Op. cit., p. 206. Was it not, however, the “place reserv'd” for Macbeth at the common table, rather than his high seat on the dais, which was usurped by the spectre? For a detailed discussion of the stage-setting and action of this scene, together with admirable interpretation of the situation, cf. J. Q. Adams, ed. Macbeth (1931), pp. 194–197.
24 Ed. Hauréau, Notices et Extraits, iii, 242.
25 Ed. cit., p. 60; inc. “We rede in Libro de Dono Timoris.”
26 Ed. cit., pp. 54–66. A dramatic version of the story is found in a collection of Miracles of our Lady, Societé des Anciens Textes Français (1876), i, 101, under the title “De l'evesque que l'arcediacre meurtrit.” This tale in its general structure is typical of the group to which the legend of Macbeth belongs. The unifying theme is the punishment of acts of violence prompted by unlawful ambition.
27 EETS, 119, pp. 194–195.
28 EETS Ext. Ser., xxxiii, 268–275.
29 Cf. Daniel, Chap., v. The story is treated in the Handlyng Synne, ed. cit., pp. 293–295.
30 According to the article Belshazzar (unsigned) in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the evidence of the cuneiform inscriptions shows that the tyrant came to the throne as the result of a palace revolution.
31 The terms used by Professor Stoll to characterize the mood of Macbeth, 'A and , the classical, Infatuation and Insolence“ (op. cit., p. 209), seem more apt in application to his remote ancestor Belshazzar.
32 Ed. cit., pp. 65–66; cf. also Cat. Rom., iii, 660–692.
33 Cf. M. P. Tilley, Elizabethan Proverb Lore (1926), pp. 278–279. Other allusions to the flower-hidden snake in the plays of Shakespeare are here noted.
34 Squire's Tale, v. 512.
35 Ed. cit., p. 71 (no. 164).
36 The Italian novelletta was reproduced in 1934 for private circulation by Professor John M. Manly, who called attention to the anticipation in this story of “the farmer that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty.”
37 Satires (ed. 1597), iv. 6. The passage as quoted by Malone is cited in Macbeth, ed. W. G. Clark and W. A. Wright (Oxford, 1880), p. 109. For this reference I am indebted to the kindness of Professor Homer Watt of New York University. Critics have found, in the porter's introduction of the ill-fated farmer disappointed of his profits, a contemporary allusion, pointing to the abundant harvests and consequent low prices which obtained in 1606. (Cf. J. Q. Adams, ed. Macbeth, p. 246; Malone cited as authority). The value of the phrase as a chronological index is to some extent modified by its literary connotation.
38 Allardyce Nicoli, Studies in Shakespeare (London, 1927), p. 14.
39 W. W. Lawrence, op. cit., p. 17.