FullReads

This part of Holingshed is an Abridgment of Johne Bellenden’s translation of the noble clerk, Hector Boece, imprinted at Edinburgh, in Fol. 1541. I will give the passage as it is found there. “His wyfe impacient of lang tary ( as all wemen are ) specially quhare they ar desirus of ony purpos, gaif hym gret artation to pursew the thrid weird, that sche micht be ane quene, calland hym oft tymis febyl cowart and nocht desyrus of honouris, sen he durst not assailze the thing with manheid and curage, quhilk is offerit to hym be beniuolence of fortoun. Howbeit sindry otheris hes assailzeit sic thinges afore with maist terribyl jeopardyis, quhen they had not sic sickernes to succeid in the end of thair laubouris as he had.” p. 173.

But we can demonstrate that Shakespeare had not the Story from Buchanan. According to him, the Weird-Sisters salute Macbeth, “Una Angusiae Thamum, altera Moraviae, tertia Regem.”–Thane of Angus, and of Murray, etc., but according to Holingshed, immediately from Bellenden, as it stands in Shakespeare: “The first of them spake and sayde, All hayle Makbeth, Thane of Glammis,–the second of them said, Hayle Makbeth, Thane of Cawder; but the third sayde, All hayle Makbeth, that hereafter shall be king of Scotland.” p. 243.

1 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!

2 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!

3 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be King hereafter!

Here too our Poet found the equivocal Predictions, on which his Hero so fatally depended. “He had learned of certain wysards, how that he ought to take heede of Macduffe;–and surely hereupon had he put Macduffe to death, but a certaine witch, whom he had in great trust, had tolde that he should neuer be slain with man borne of any woman, nor vanquished till the Wood of Bernane came to the Castell of Dunsinane.” p. 244. And the Scene between Malcolm and Macduff in the fourth act is almost literally taken from the Chronicle.

Macbeth was certainly one of Shakespeare’s latest Productions, and it might possibly have been suggested to him by a little performance on the same subject at Oxford, before King James, 1605. I will transcribe my notice of it from Wake’s Rex Platonicus : “Fabulae ansam dedit antiqua de Regia prosapia historiola apud Scoto-Britannos celebrata, quae narrat tres olim Sibyllas occurrisse duobus Scotiae proceribus, Macbetho & Banchoni, & illum praedixisse Regem futurum, sed Regem nullum geniturum; hunc Regem non futurum, sed Reges geniturum multos. Vaticinii veritatem rerum eventus comprobavit. Banchonis enim e stirpe Potentissimus Jacobus oriundus.” p. 29.

A stronger argument hath been brought from the Plot of Hamlet. Dr. Grey and Mr. Whalley assure us that for this Shakespeare must have read Saxo Grammaticus in Latin, for no translation hath been made into any modern Language. But the truth is, he did not take it from Saxo at all; a Novel called the Hystorie of Hamblet was his original: a fragment of which, in black Letter, I have been favoured with by a very curious and intelligent Gentleman, to whom the lovers of Shakespeare will some time or other owe great obligations.

It hath indeed been said that, “IF such an history exists, it is almost impossible that any poet unacquainted with the Latin language (supposing his perceptive faculties to have been ever so acute) could have caught the characteristical madness of Hamlet, described by Saxo Grammaticus, so happily as it is delineated by Shakespeare.”