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 
 
 I903 
 
THE LIBRARY Ot'J 
 
 CONGRESS, 
 Two Cwioij RechivebJ 
 
 19G3 
 
 Cr*VHfOHT BMTBV 
 
 TTT so 8^' 
 
 — ^e 
 
 Copyright, 1903, 
 By David Laurance Chambers. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 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. 
 
 THIS little book had its origin in a paper prepared in 
 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. 3 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 1880-6, p. 525. 
 
 2 There are over 1,000 lines of prose in Love' 's Labour 's Lost, 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. 
 
 3 With the single exception of Richard LIL., 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 rhythmical 2 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 
 Liddell 4 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. ; All's Well, III. 4.4 ff„ IV. 3.252 ft. 
 
 2 See Dowden in T. JV. S. S. 1874, p. 276. 
 
 3 p. 553. 
 
 i Elizabethan Edition, p. 165. 
 
PROSE 9 
 
 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 1, 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, Jahrbuc -h 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 Variortun, 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. 
 
io 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 
 
 Play. 
 
 Love's Labour's Lost 
 Comedy of Errors . 
 Merchant of Venice . 
 
 Henry V 
 
 Hamlet 
 
 Othello 
 
 Lear 
 
 Macbeth 
 
 Ant. and Cleo. . . . 
 
 Winter's Tale . . . 
 
 Tempest 
 
 5.5 
 
 v 2 
 *- c c 
 
 
 62.2 
 I9.4 
 
 4-6 
 3.2 
 2.7 
 3-2 
 
 3-4 
 
 5-8 
 
 • 7 
 
 .0 
 
 3.5 
 
 550 
 216 
 
 85 
 62 
 64 
 78 
 70 
 108 
 34 
 
 
 «P5 
 
 1. 12 
 
 5-3 
 22. 
 
 30.9 
 
 36.8 
 
 30.5 
 29.6 
 I4.9 
 76.1 
 
 inf. 
 
 S 
 
 5 . 
 
 O c 
 -° ... 
 
 a * 
 
 66 
 o 
 
 34 
 2 
 8 
 o 
 o 
 121 
 o 
 
 
 U 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 d 
 
 
 c 
 c 
 
 u 
 
 (30 
 
 in 
 
 < 
 
 en 
 
 p 
 
 36 
 
 242 
 
 42 
 
 187 
 
 O 
 
 64 
 
 O 
 
 98 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 O 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 14 
 
 O 
 
 60 
 
 81 rim 
 
 es in p 
 
 lay 
 
 25 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 97 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 ill?) 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 ' 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 choru 
 
 s: 32 r 
 
 lme- 
 
 57 
 
 lines 
 
 
 
 5o 
 
 masqu 
 
 e: 54 r 
 
 lme- 
 
 
 lines 
 
 12 son 
 
 g 
 
 Of the metrical portion 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 1, 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 feet 1 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. 2 It is as natural 
 to find such rimes in The Tempest as in A Midstun- 
 mer-Nighf s Dream. The speeches of the three weird 
 sisters 3 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 Witch 5 
 are in iambic measure creates, I think, a strong pre- 
 sumption against their Shakespearean authorship. 
 With the other arguments 6 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. 
 
 2 See Spedding, T. N. S. S. 1874, p. 29. 
 
 8 I. 1. 1-7, ii, 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 ; IV. 1-3, 107-109. 
 
 K Manly, p. xxxii. 
 
 5 III. 5-4-33 ; IV. 1.39-43, 125-132. 
 
 8 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. 
 
1 2 THE ME TRE OF MA CBE TH 
 
 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 Love's Labour s Lost, 
 
 IV. 3.101-120, the songs of the fairies in A Midsummer - 
 Nigh? 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 Middleton, 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 
 Queensboroiigh, I. 1 ; II. 1 ; IV. 2 ; in The Widow, III. 
 1.22 if.; A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, IV. 1.162 ff. ; The 
 Phoenix, V. 1. 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 fates 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. 
 
i 4 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 3 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. 
 
 2 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. 
 
 3 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 Whiter s 
 Tale, IV. 1, 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 per 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 Tzvelfth 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 
 
 1 See T. N. S. S., 1874, p. 7 ; Ingleby, pp. 63, 66. 67. 
 
 2 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 
 accident 2 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 date 5 until it has been 
 
 1 See Dowden, Primer, p. 44. 
 
 2 Macbeth, II. 3. 59-60, is, I think, an accidental rime. Cf. III. 4.99-100. 
 s 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 upon 1 — 
 
 (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. 7 1 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. 570 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. 3.146 f. (also an aside); IV. 3.209!. ; 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 Jakrbuck, XXVIII, p. 258. 
 
 2 Abbott, Grammar, § 515. 
 
RIME 1 9 
 
 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 f- 
 
 (6) In moments of passionate agitation. See III. 
 4.135-140, 2 IV. 1. 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 Manly 4 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). 
 
 2 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. 
 
2o 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 F/has 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 
 Editors 3 and Mr. Fleay; 4 viz., that many of the tags 
 
 1 I. 2.64-67; I. 5.72 f. ; I. 7.81 f. ; II. 1.60 f., 63 f. ; II. 3. 151 f, ; II. 
 4.37 f., 40 f. ; III. 1. 141 f. ; III. 2.52-55 ; III. 4.142 f. ; III. 5-34 f- ; IV. 
 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. 
 
 2 T. N. S. S. 1874, P- 29. 
 
 3 Messrs. Clark and Wright, Preface, pp. ix-xii. They suspect I. 2.64-67 ; 
 II. 1.60 f.; V. 2.29 f.; V. 5.47-50 ; V. 8.72-75. [16 lines]. 
 
 * 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-J 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 21 
 
 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: — 
 
 (i) Our bosom interest: go pronounce his present death, 
 And with his former tide 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." 
 
 {lb., 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." {lb., V. 1 .1 35 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 ME TRE OF MA CBE TH 
 
 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." 4 
 
 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. 
 
 s Mr. E. K. Chambers tries to do this (Arden Edition, p. 176). 
 
 * Surrey's translation of the Aeneid, II. 29 ff. 
 
24 THE ME TEE OF MA CBE TH 
 
 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 Malji 
 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 have | thee n6t | and ydt | I sde | thee stfll. 4 (II. 1.35.) 
 
 1 See Corson, p. 61 ; Manly, pp. xxxiii, xxxiv. 
 
 2 See Symonds, p. 50. 
 8 Corson, p. 61. 
 
 4 Such regular lines are most common where, as here, there is an anti- 
 thesis. (Abbott, § 453 a.) 
 
STRESS 25 
 
 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 I 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). 
 
 2 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-coming fancies . 3 (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., 
 
 Lead our | first bdt | tie ; wdr | thy Macduff | and we - (V. 6.4) ; 
 or in two feet; e. g., 
 
 To cry / | Hold, hdld! | Great Gla | mis wdr | thy Cd.wdor 4 (I. 5.55) ; 
 
 or even in three feet, to offset the two-stressed line ; e.g., 
 
 WMt hath I quench'd thdm | hath given | me fire. | Hark! Pdace. 
 (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. 
 
 * See Gummere, Handbook of Poetics, p. 142. 
 
 3 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 Set. Jahrbuch XXXI, p. 332. He deals with but four plays, and with only 
 a thousand lines in each. 
 
STRESS 
 
 27 
 
 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 
 
 3 or 4 
 
 5, 
 
 6, or 7 
 
 2 stresses 
 
 stresses 
 
 stresses 
 
 6 
 
 752 
 
 
 202 
 
 29 
 
 819 
 
 
 156 
 
 32 
 
 814 
 
 
 153 
 
 25 
 
 734 
 
 
 236 
 
 Comedy of Errors . 
 Merchant of Venice 
 
 Henry V 
 
 Macbeth 
 
 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 
 Alexandrine 3 ), 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, \ 453a. They deserve little attention. 
 
 J Based on a thousand lines in each play. 
 
 s 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 OE MACBETH 
 
 Mr. E. K. Chambers ! 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, 2 | 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. 
 Mai, 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. 
 
 2 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. 
 
 3 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. 
 
STRESS 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. in; II. 3.58, 88; III. 1.45,46 [which 
 I believe should be considered one line]; III. 1.139; 
 
 III. 2.4, 16; III. 3. 11; III. 4.73; HI.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 2S 
 
 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. 
 
 3 See Ingleby, pp. 83, 88. 
 
 4 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). 
 
3o 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 
 
 (i) 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. I. 2.41; III. 3.18; III. 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. 2.51; 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. 
 
 J The text is probably corrupt here, and a word has dropped out. 
 
STRESS 31 
 
 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 II. 2.72; II. 
 3.25,54,111; III. 1.13,18; m.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. 1.1, 
 10, 11; II. 2.18, 19, 30; II. 3.75; II. 4.39; III. 1.24, 
 29,40; III. 2.1; III. 3.15; III. 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. 1.10, 
 11 ; 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. 1.1; II. 3.54, 68, 86, 109, 
 131 2 ; 11.4.33,39; HI. 1. 18, 24, 29; III. 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; 1. 3.88; 
 I. 6.6; I.7.28; II. 1. 19; II. 3.83; II. 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). 
 
 2 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 
 
 33 
 
 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 
 
 Unriraed 
 Verse Lines. 
 
 Total 
 
 Number. 
 
 1 foot. 
 
 2 feet. 
 
 3 feet. 
 
 3-6 
 
 23 
 
 O 
 
 12 
 
 II 
 
 1.4 
 
 17 
 
 2 
 
 II 
 
 4 
 
 2.4 
 
 46 
 
 7 
 
 16 
 
 20 
 
 1.6 
 
 31 
 
 4 
 
 12 
 
 11 
 
 6.3 
 
 158 
 
 25 
 
 53 
 
 66 
 
 6.7 
 
 171 
 
 25 
 
 67 
 
 69 
 
 8.4 
 
 I 9 I 
 
 15 
 
 37 
 
 120 
 
 5-7 
 
 97 
 
 4 
 
 29 
 
 5i 
 
 5-2 
 
 143 
 
 11 
 
 35 
 
 71 
 
 2-9 
 
 5S 
 
 4 
 
 14 
 
 26 
 
 4.8 
 
 70 
 
 3 
 
 20 
 
 42 
 
 4 feet. 
 
 Love's Labour's Lost . 
 Comedy of Errors . . 
 Merchant of Venice . . 
 
 Henry V 
 
 Hamlet 
 
 Othello 
 
 Lear 
 
 Macbeth 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra . 
 Winter's Tale .... 
 Tempest 
 
 4 
 M 
 10 
 
 19 
 13 
 26 
 
 14 
 
 5 
 
 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. 
 
 3 This Table is based on Fleay's figures in Ingleby. The per cent, col- 
 umn is my own. 
 
34 THE ME TRE OF MA CBE TH 
 
 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 persever- 
 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 tinfelt {Macbeth, II. 
 3.142). Cf. undone (I. 5.26), ?inrough{V. 2. 10), ilnsure (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) Authdrized (III. 4.66) — probably; cf. Lover's 
 Complaint, 104, Sonnets, xxxv. 6. 1 
 
 (3) Purveyor (I. 6.22); only occurrence of the word. 
 
 (4) Htcmane (III. 4.76). Both the modern words, 
 humane and human, are always spelled humane in Shake- 
 speare. Modern humane is with him always hilmane, 
 except perhaps in Winter s Tale, III. 2.166. 
 
 (5) Chastise (I. 5.28). But chastise in Troilus and 
 Cressida, V. 5.4. 
 
 (6) Hecate (III. 5.1, etc.); always dissyllabic in 
 Shakespeare, except in 1 Henry VI., III. 2.64. 2 
 
 (7) D tens inane {IV . 1.93); elsewhere Dunsinane {e. g., 
 V. 4.9.) 
 
 (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. 
 
 2 Which Shakespeare probably did not write. 
 
 3 See Appendix I. to Schmidt's Lexicon, Vol. II., p. 1413. 
 
SUBSTITUTION 35 
 
 Somewhat similiar cases are the endings, -ion, -ins, 
 -ions 1 , and the like, the first vowel of which is now always 
 slurred, and sometimes blended with the preceding 
 consonant (nation being pronounced nashon), 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 (I. 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 one 3 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; acciirscd, 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 {Jahrbuch XIII, p. 257) 
 and by Schipper (II. i. p. 295), Their observations on the -ed are confirmed by 
 Conrad {Jahrbuch XXXI, p. 34S). But the figures are few and the test is un- 
 important. 
 
 3 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 determined 1 ." As a rule I am inclined 
 to favour the latter alternative. 
 
 What should be spoken here, where our fate. (II. 3.127) 
 Cf fare 2 (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. 3 (V. 3.44) 
 The same is now and then true of other liquids {cf. 
 persnal, 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 i is to be slurred. 5 Frequently, also, 
 there are elisions in the connection of pronouns with the 
 forms of <5^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. 
 
 2 Perhaps in this case the compensating pause comes before the word. 
 
 3 See the long list in Mayor (pp. 158 ff.). The spellings sprite and parlous 
 show the justness of this slurring. 
 
 4 Abbott, S466. 
 
 5 Mayor, p. 159. 
 
SUBSTITUTION 37 
 
 3.20), they have (II. 1.2 1), / am (III. 1.108), we are (III. 
 1. 91), etc. 6W fo «//Y^ you (III. 1.44) is in fact, says 
 Walker 1 , God V wi 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 : — 
 
 Say to I the king | the know | ledge of | the broil. (I. 2.6) 
 
 (2) In the second foot : — 
 
 The eye | wink at j 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, | sharp 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. 
 
 1 p. 227. 
 
38 THE ME TRE OF MA CBE TH 
 
 (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; II. 4.13; 
 III. 1.32; III. 3.8; III. 4.2, 54, 93, 109, etc., etc. 
 
 (5) In the fifth foot : — 
 
 You know I not how | to do | it. Well, | say, sir. (V. 5.32) 
 
 See, also, IV. 2.4; V. 8.50, etc. 
 
 (6) In the first and third feet : — 
 
 Cdnnot I 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 : — 
 
 Ring the | alar | um-bell. | Murder | and treason. (II. 3.79) 
 See, also, I. 4.25; II. 3.124, 149; III. 1.20 1 ; III. 4.49; 
 III. 6.18, 29, 34, etc. 
 
 (8) In the first and fifth feet : — 
 
 Say, if I thou'dst ra | ther hear | it from | our mouths. (IV. 1.62) 
 
 (9) In the third and fonrtJi feet : — 
 
 No less J to have | ddne so : | le"t me | infold thee. (I. 4.31) 
 
 (10) In the fourth and fifth feet : — 
 
 Butin I itshares | some woe, | though the | main part. (IV. 3.198) 
 
 See, also, IV. 3.18. 
 
 (1 1) In the first, second, and third feet : — 
 
 Ay', and | since too, | murders | have been | perform'd. (III. 4.77) 
 See, also, V. 6.4. 
 
 (12) In the second, fourth, and fifth feet : — 
 
 What a haste | Idoks through | his eyes ! | S6 should | hd look. 
 (1. 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 I tinent | impe | diments would | o'erbear. (IV. 3.64) 
 
 1 Read as one line with 19. 
 
SUBSTITUTION 
 
 39 
 
 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 " (z. 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 I 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. 1.5 1 (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 
 
 
 260 
 215 
 26l 
 309 
 
 I 
 2 
 
 4 
 II 
 
 2 
 
 O 
 
 I 
 
 6 
 
 263 
 217 
 266 
 326 
 
 Conrad's special Table of Trochees presents some 
 interesting matter: — 
 
 Play 
 
 Total 
 
 At Beginning 
 
 After Caesura 
 
 2 in a line 
 
 3 in a line 
 
 Comedy of Errors . 
 Merchant of Venice 
 
 260 
 215 
 261 
 309 
 
 185 
 135 
 164 
 149 
 
 32 
 
 44 
 
 61 
 
 I02 
 
 12 
 
 15 
 24 
 29 
 
 O 
 O 
 
 
 5 
 
 1 So Verity (p. 271). Cf. Measure for Measure, V. 1.315, Richard II. 
 I. 1.20. 
 
 2 From Conrad's Tables, in Jahrbuch XXXI, pp. 350-352, which are 
 based upon a thousand lines in each play. 
 
40 THE ME TRE OF MA CBE TH 
 
 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 enjambernent 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, 
 160. 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-note x ," 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 gentie la(dy. (II. 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. 
 
 3 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. xcn, 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. 1) 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, in Jahrbuch XIII, p. 252). 
 
4 2 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, inconstant 
 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, I20: II. 4<IO; HI 1. 81; IIl| 
 2. 11; 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 S YLLA BLE S 
 
 43 
 
 TABLE OF FEMININE ENDINGS. 1 
 
 Plays 
 
 Love's Labour's Lost 
 Comedy of Errors . . 
 Merchant of Venice. 
 
 Henry V 
 
 Hamlet 
 
 Othello 
 
 Lear 
 
 Macbeth 
 
 Ant. and Cleo. . . . 
 Winter's Tale. . . . 
 Tempest 
 
 Total (Fleay) % (Konig) 
 
 26 
 178 
 325 
 336 
 528 
 679 
 580 
 420 
 666 
 675 
 472 
 
 7-7 
 16.6 
 
 17.7 
 20.5 
 22.6 
 28.1 
 28.5 
 26.3 
 26.5 
 32.9 
 35-4 
 
 (Fleay) 
 
 fo (Hertzberg) 
 
 4- 
 
 4- 
 
 15.4 
 
 12. 
 
 17.4 
 
 15. 
 
 17.5 
 
 18.37 
 
 22.4 
 
 25. 
 
 28.5 
 
 26. 
 
 28. 
 
 27.36 
 
 26.3 
 
 23-47 
 
 25.7 
 
 26. 
 
 34-7 
 
 32.5 
 
 34- 
 
 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 
 genera] 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. 
 
 2 That is, if one follows K5nig. 
 
 3 Compare Loves 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 decasyllables 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 ol 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 Mayor 4 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. 
 
 2 See Alden, p. 226. 
 
 3 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, I.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. , c. g., Macbeth's " sear 
 and yellow leaf" soliloquy, V. 3.20-28, one feminine 
 ending], but when the throught 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 " 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 dramatic 1 
 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 cassural 
 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 safeties. || 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. 14S) notes that 
 feminine endings are very rare in Cowper and Milton ; Mayor's Tables (p. 186) 
 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, 17S. 
 
48 THE METRE OF MACBETH 
 
 I count in all eighty-nine cases of the feminine 
 cassura; 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. 1 
 Twenty-eight lines have feminine syllables both at the 
 cassura 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 OESURAL 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 3 
 
 78 
 208 
 131 
 
 78 
 
 Ant. and Cleo. 
 Winter's Tale. 
 Tempest 
 
 I20 
 60 
 33 
 
 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. 
 
 3 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 mark 1 ; 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 all 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 ME THE OF MA CBE TH 
 
 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 enfambement. 
 
 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 stated 1 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-tQst 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. S. S. 1874, p. 31 (foot- 
 note) ; Ingram, same vol., p. 455 ; Bathurst, p. 2 ; Konig, p. 135. 
 
END-STOPPED AND R UN-ON LINES 51 
 
 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 it 1 ; but Furnivall counted only eight 
 plays 2 , 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 Konig for all the dramas, bases scientific re- 
 sults upon a loose aesthetic distinction 5 , 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, vis. 470, or 29.4% of the blank-verse lines; but 
 
 1 It was first noticed by Malone (177S), 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, T-wo Gentlemen, Tem- 
 pest, Cymbeline, Winter's Tale (See Leopold Shakspere, p. xx ; Konig, p. 
 I33). Henry VIII. (T. N. S. S. 1874, app., p. 24) and Two Noble Kinsmen 
 {ib., p. 65). 
 
 3 See Konig, p. 133 (footnote) ; Fleay in Ingleby, p. 60, Rule 3. 
 * See Alden, pp. 1S4 ff., 437 ft". 
 
 5 This distinction is drawn on p. ioq. 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. 
 
52 
 
 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 
 
 
 18.4 
 12.9 
 
 21.5 
 21.8 
 23.1 
 19.5 
 
 29-3 
 36.6 
 
 43-3 
 37-5 
 4i-5 
 
 5-2 
 
 8.5 
 
 
 
 
 
 Macbeth 
 
 Winter's Tale 
 
 32. 
 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. 
 
 2 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. K5nig (p. 105) cites Two Gentlemen, IV. 4. 184-210 (twenty-seven 
 lines, one enjambemeni), King John, III. 1.8-39, an d 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 Henry VIII., II. 1.55-79, botn suspected passages. Conversely, 
 in the youthful dramas we have at most five successive run-on lines, and that 
 in but two instances (1 Henry VI, IV. 4.2-6, Romeo and Juliet, II. 6.24-28), 
 while in Macbethwe 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." x 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 (I. 7.70), but (11. 
 1.37), been (III. 1.78), what (III. 1.110), 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 (IV. 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. 4S3) 
 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., 
 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 Ingram 3 distinguished the two groups in 
 
 1 Ingram, p. 447 ; also Jahrbuch XIII., p. 253. 
 
 2 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's list (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 Konig, p. ioo f 
 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. 
 
 3 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. JV. S. S. 1874, p. 31.) 
 
LIGHT AND WEAK ENDINGS 
 
 55 
 
 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 Number of 
 Light 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 
 
 Othello 
 
 Ant. and Cleo. . . . 
 Winter's Tale .... 
 
 3 
 o 
 6 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 21 
 
 7i 
 57 
 42 
 
 o 
 o 
 I 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 28 
 
 43 
 25 
 
 .48 
 
 .OO 
 •32 
 .IO 
 
 • 34 
 
 .08 
 
 •24 
 
 1.30 
 
 2.74 
 
 2.92 
 3.00 
 
 .00 
 .00 
 .05 
 .00 
 .00 
 .OO 
 .04 
 .12 
 
 1.0S 
 
 2.21 
 1.79 
 
 .48 
 .OO 
 
 •37 
 .10 
 
 •34 
 .08 
 .28 
 1.42 
 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 (7*. 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 METRE OF MACBETH 
 
 (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 Coriolamis, fifty-two in 
 Cymbeline, while the light endings leap to seventy-one 
 in Antony and Cleopatra, sixty in Coriolamis, 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 
 
 57 
 
 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 Craik 1 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 Cresstda, IV. 5.15, 16) 
 
 TABLE OF CESURAS. 2 
 
 Play 
 
 After ist, 2nd, or 3rd 
 Syllable 
 
 Regular Place 
 
 After 4th, or 5th 
 
 Syllable 
 
 After 6th, 7th, 8th, or 
 9th Syllable 
 
 Comedy of Errors. . . 
 Merchant of Venice . 
 Henry V 
 
 I50 
 
 109 
 
 141 
 
 56 
 
 526 
 520 
 466 
 380 
 
 295 
 339 
 
 334 
 
 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. 
 
 2 From Conrad's Table in Jahrbuch XXXI., p. 347, based on a thousand 
 lines in each play. 
 
 5 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 Konig (p. 134). 
 
58 
 
 THE ME TRE OF MA CBE Til 
 
 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. 
 
 We doubt it nothing. 
 What wood is this before us ? 
 
 The wood of Birnam. 
 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 ? 
 
 It shall be done. 
 We learn no other but the confident tyrant 
 Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure 
 Our setting down before 't. 
 
 '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. 
 
 Let our just censures 
 Attend the true event, and put we on 
 Industrious soldiership. 
 
 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 
 
 Menteith. 
 Siward. 
 Menteith. 
 Malcolm. 
 
 Soldiers. 
 Siward. 
 
 Malcolm. 
 
 Macduff. 
 
 Siward. 
 
 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 Konig, p. 134. 
 
SPEECH ENDINGS 
 
 59 
 
 As far as it goes, it seems to place Macbeth nearer to 
 Antony and Cleopatra than to Lear. 
 
 TABLE OF SPEECH ENDINGS. 1 
 
 
 Bail) 
 
 £ wg 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 Play 
 
 of Bla 
 
 peeche 
 l Middl 
 ine 
 
 oW 
 
 4>T3 tA 
 
 EM 
 
 3 U! U 
 
 .a a 
 V3 
 
 
 
 
 ~"'-~yl 
 
 
 2: «=; 
 
 8.2 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 Per Cen 
 Verse 
 
 Ending 
 of 
 
 5 83 
 
 fctn.S 
 
 •3 o.-o 
 
 
 1- 
 
 H 
 
 en 
 u 
 
 3 
 
 
 fa 
 
 Love's Labour's Lost 
 
 IO. 
 
 ? 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 
 Comedy of Errors . 
 
 .6 
 
 I.23 
 
 6 
 
 IO 
 
 I 
 
 O 
 
 Merchant of Venice . 
 
 22.2 
 
 17.03 
 
 79 
 
 33 
 
 O 
 
 O 
 
 
 18.3 
 
 16.09 
 
 43 
 
 18 
 
 O 
 
 O 
 
 
 5i.6 
 
 30.19 
 
 205 
 
 
 
 
 Othello 
 
 41.4 
 
 26.I 
 
 245 
 
 
 
 
 
 60.9 
 
 39-°8 
 
 290 
 
 
 
 
 
 77.2 
 
 40.44 
 
 239 
 
 127 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 
 Ant. and Cleo. . . . 
 
 77-5 
 
 7> 
 
 ? 
 
 
 
 
 Winter's Tale . . . 
 
 87.6 
 
 66.93 
 
 340 
 
 
 
 
 
 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 Cf. Fleay, Manual, pp. 131-133, and Schipper, II. i., 296. 
 
6o 
 
 THE METRE OF MACBETH 
 
 endings. This period extends to 1594; in it fall Love s 
 Labour s Lost, The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentle- 
 men of Verona, A Midsummer-Night 's Dream, and Richard 
 ILL, 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 Labour s 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 ! 
 
 Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these. 
 
 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. 
 
 You swore to that, Biron, and to the rest. 
 
 By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest. 
 
 What is the end of study? let me know. 
 
 King. 
 Biron. 
 
 Longaville. 
 Biron. 
 
 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, vis., Romeo and Juliet, All's 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. 
 I 
 
 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. Enfambement, 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. 4-3 1, will serve as a characteristic instance: — 
 How many thousands of my poorest subjects 
 Are at this hour asleep ! O sleep, O gende sleep, 
 Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, 
 That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down 
 And steep my senses in forgetfulness ? 
 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 TEE OF MA CBE TH 
 
 Under the canopies of costly state, 
 
 And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody? 
 
 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 J anssen, 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 THE ME TRE OF MA CBE TH 
 
 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- 
 ters 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. 
 
 2 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 
 
 65 
 
 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. 
 
 Enter 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. [To 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. 
 
 LcfC. 
 
APPENDIX (>l 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 By way of Explanation and Addition. 
 
 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. 1, 3, 4; II. 1, 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. (14th 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. 
 
68 
 
 THE ME TRE OF MA CBE TH 
 
 TABLES FOR TWENTY-SIX PLAYS. 
 
 Play 
 
 Love's Labour's Lost 
 
 Comedy of Errors 
 
 Two Gentlemen 
 
 Mid. Night's Dream. 
 
 Richard III (F) 
 
 Richard II 
 
 King John 
 
 Merchant of Venice... 
 
 i Henry IV 
 
 2 Henry IV 
 
 Merry Wives (F) 
 
 Henry V 
 
 Much Ado 
 
 As You Like It 
 
 Twelfth Night 
 
 Julius Caesa r 
 
 Measure for Measure. 
 
 Hamlet 
 
 Othello 
 
 Lear 
 
 Macbeth 
 
 Ant. and Cleo 
 
 Coriolanus 
 
 Cvmbeline 
 
 Winter's Tale, 
 Tempest 
 
 2785 
 1777 
 
 2292 
 2166 
 3589 
 
 2756 
 
 2570 
 2656 
 3176 
 3446 
 3029 
 3559 
 2825 
 2839 
 2690 
 2477 
 2810 
 
 39 2 9 
 3316 
 3328 
 2106 
 
 3059 
 34°6 
 3339 
 3074 
 2062 
 
 1022 
 226 
 659 
 493 
 63 
 
 617 
 
 1156 
 1431 
 729 
 3278 
 2174 
 
 604 
 1464 
 1857 
 2676 
 
 '367 
 2105 
 1679 
 1731 
 r|6 
 
 "34 
 1200 
 661 
 
 8q6 
 
 rs8 
 
 2403 
 1872 
 1 56 1 
 1425 
 .•07 
 iqi8 
 618 
 871 
 724 
 2181 
 1470 
 2358 
 2381 
 2072 
 
 2589 
 2413 
 2528 
 1948 
 1396 
 
 c 1 
 
 7-7 
 16.6 
 18.4 
 
 7-3 
 
 19-5 
 
 38.5 
 
 143 
 1 j6 
 
 26-3 78 
 
 26.5 
 
 28.4 
 
 30.7 
 
 32-9 
 
 35-4 
 
 18.4 
 
 12.9 
 
 12.4 
 
 13.2 
 
 13 
 
 19-9 
 
 (J -. 
 
 o a 
 
 £p 
 
 17.7 
 21.5 
 22.8 
 21.4 
 20.1 
 21.8 
 19.3 
 17. 1 
 14.7 
 19-3 
 
 3 6-6| 
 
 43-3 ( 
 45'9 
 46.0 
 
 37-5 
 
 41-5 
 
 s« 
 
 U c 
 
 10. o 
 
 .6 
 
 5-8 
 
 17-3 
 
 _2-9 
 
 7-3 
 
 18.3 
 
 20.7 
 
 21 
 
 36 
 
 2Q-3 
 
 5> 
 
 51 
 
 41.4 
 
 60.9 
 
 77- 
 
 77.51607 
 7Q.0 1608 
 85.01609 
 87.6 1610-1612 
 84.5JI6IO-I6II 
 
 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, exxiii. 
 
 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. 
 
BIBLIOGRA PH Y 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 Gard Fleay : Shakespeare Manual : pp. 121-138, 239-261. 
 
 Frederick Gard Fleay : Introduction to Shakespearean Study : p. 36. 
 
 Frederick Gard 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. 111-122. 
 
 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. 141 3. 
 
 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 1874-75 : 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 Konig : 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 : — 
 
 Jahrbtuh der Deutchen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, Vol. V., pp. 227-273 : N. 
 Delius : " Die Prosa in Shakespeare's Dramen." 
 
70 THE METRE OF MACBETH 
 
 The same, XIII., pp. 248-266: W. Hertzberg : " Metrisches, Gram- 
 matisches, Chronologiscb.es 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". 
 
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