Macbeth... and a conspiracy theory

[Ellinore]

May I hazard a theory and have the honour of thoughtful replies?

I am writing a sort of interpretive novel based on Macbeth and wish to be sure other Shakespeare readers find it plausible.

The centre of the theory involves the identities of the Third Murderer and the messenger who goes to Macduff's castle, and its musculature relies heavily on the maternal imagery in Lady Macbeth's speeches and on a somewhat risky re[vision] of the witches....

... Ought I to continue?

[shaxper]

Absolutely! You've got my attention

[Harry]

Sounds interesting.

As it happens, I'm in the middle of an historical novel, King Hereafter, by Dorothy Dunnett. It's based on the historical Macbeth--not Shakespeare's play.

[Ellinore]

Oh! I'll have to read it. Thank you. If anyone else knows of good Macbeth-historical or Macbeth-literary approaches, please, please recommend. My novel is borrowing only from Shakespeare's version of events, but any other input is quite welcome.

All right. How shall I propose this? *muses* Bear in mind that my version will be taking place in a modern town in the American midwest....

I. Prophecy qua Promise

The witches' prophecies come true, but never quite as one expects. Almost... almost as though the prophecies are like contracts, drawn in good faith but enforced to the letter and not in the spirit. One wonders what other mysterious sentences the witches has uttered to which other persons. One wonders who else would listen. Lady Macbeth, for one, seems to have a great deal of faith in the witches' capacity to deliver.

One also wonders why the witches speak those particular lines to Macbeth. Merely because he listens? Or do they have some interest in the outcome? Are they directly aware that their remarks will inspire regicide and a reign of terror? What could be their intent, or if I may go so far, their project?

The machinery of their prophecies grinds inexorably toward the death of Duncan and the destruction of Macbeth. But they seem to have no personal quarrels with these men. Do they reject these kings' power? Do they simply reject kings, or regal power? Or do they have a future king to place upon the throne?

What sentence would they use to state their project, and how many ways could it be interpreted?

II. Motherhood and primogeniture.

Lady Macbeth uses such a great deal of natal imagery. Is it only because she is feeling her barrenness? Or does she have some terrible memory of motherhood and loss? She even says that she has "given suck"....

And she is certainly terribly interested in primogeniture, in heredity. One must feel that it is a constant subject in her mind -- Macbeth's lack of an heir. One wonders to what lengths a woman of this ambitious nature might go to conceive.

III. The Third Murderer

Who is he? Where did he come from? Who sent him? His arrival is more than a little mysterious. A scholar of my acquaintance suggested that Macbeth sending a third to accomplish the bloody deed of slaying Banquo and son is merely proof of his increasing psychosis... perfectionistic... overkill, if I may use the word.

Too easy. And Macbeth is not yet so far gone, not yet so ready to let out the information that he is killing to keep his throne. And notice how it is after the third's arrival that Fleance escapes.

IV. The Messenger.

Again, who is this, and who sent him to Lady Macduff? Why warn the wife of a deserter? Who wanted to stop what was by then not unexpected carnage?

[shaxper]

Some very astute questions. I, myself, have given a lot of thought to the motivation behind the witches' prediction (other than their being there simply to please King James), as well as to Lady Macbeth's issue with motherhood and nursing. Somehow, I never really gave much thought to the third murderer, and I wonder how I could have been such a careless reader. So where are you taking all of this?

[Harry]

Those are interesting questions. I don't think there are definitive answers to any of them, so your answers are as good as any.

The historical Lady Macbeth wasn't barren. She had a son by a previous marriage, Lulach, who outlived Macbeth but was killed by Malcolm. As I recall, the witches didn't say that the Macbeths would be barren, just that no offspring of Macbeth would become king. That is historically accurate. Malcolm was a very strong king with a long reign. He seems to have suppressed the claims of all pretenders. So, the Scottish royal family are his descendents, and not Macbeth's.

I wonder if you could do something with the name "Macbeth." It's Macbeth's Christian name, not his surname. It means "Son of Life." As a surname, "MacBeth" is an occupational name denoting a well-known family of physicians.

I have long wondered if the "witches" were simply a way of saying that Macbeth adhered to Celtic Christianity as opposed to the Roman Christianity which Malcolm's wife, Margaret, forcibly introduced into Scotland. Until I read Ms Dunnett's novel, I had known, but not really considered, that Macbeth was really a man of two worlds, Scottish Christian and Norse. His father was a Norse earl of the Orkneys. His mother, and Duncan's mother, was a daughter of Malcolm II of Scotland. Macbeth and Duncan were half brothers.

[Ellinore]

*devours Harry's information eagerly*

Lady Macbeth had a son previously! With whom? Any historical information about the boy's relationship with Macbeth soi-meme? Where can I read more about this?

"Son of Life" -- hmm, most curious. Do you think Old Will meant to play on that, or on the physician family at all? I'll have to reread and work that in. *picks up the shuttle and looks sideways at the loom*

As to your thoughts on the witches -- that's a reading I've heard before; I've also heard that there may have been some James-pleasing polarities imposed on the story, foremostly prophecy/reason (James of course thought himself quite the rational mind), and that the witches were set up as this natural force opposed to nice orderly reason (as evidenced in Malcom's rhetorically tricky speech to Macduff). For that matter -- in the second scene, a captain says:

And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
Showed like a rebel's whore. But all's to week;
For brave Macbeth--well he deserves that name--
Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like valor's minion carved out his passage....

implying that Macbeth is a force opposed to, and potentially greater than, natural forces! To which he nonetheless succumbs in the end a la Paradise Lost.... And don't we love how the witches always speak in paradoxes, or at least opposites -- foul and fair, lost and won, etc. So does Lady M, for that matter.

But then, Old Will does love to play with polarities -- and human equivocations between them -- and so do I. I shall have to look into this matter of the Norse and Scottish Christian differences. *mentally wanders off to Beowulf for a bit*

Sorry, I'm back. shaxper: would you think it outlandish to suggest that if the Third Murderer may have assisted in Fleance's escape... and the witches had made prophecy that Banquo should "get kings"... might not the witches have sent the Third Murderer, to see their prophecy kept possible?

[Harry]

Lulach seemed a shadowy character when I was checking out early Scottish history. I don't recall his father's name from the histories--in the novel it's some guy Macbeth kills to become Mormaer of Moray. He takes the province and the wife and adopts the son. All very Viking.

I don't know whether Shakespeare did know the meaning of Macbeth or whether he knew of the family of physicians. Macbeth had that name long before Shakespeare used the story. The family of physicians practiced in Scotland and, particularly, the Hebrides and the western highlands. By Shakespeare's time, a lot of the physician MacBeths had adopted a non-gaelic name that sounded similar, "Beaton." It is quite likely that Shakespeare knew of some members of the Beaton family of lowland gentry--a couple were prominent members of the court of Mary Queen of Scots, but they weren't related to the highlanders. This is all very confusing and certainly caused me some trouble until I found a history that straightened it out. I've never seen the meaning of the name "Macbeth" in a commentary on the play. I first ran across it trying to decipher Scottish names in a couple of online sources.

www.namenerds.com/scottish/ is one. www.ceantar.org/Dicts/MF2/index.html is another.

My interest resulted from another one of my hobbies--family history. Some of my ancestors were highlanders and I found gaelic nicknames in an old geneology. That's when I discovered such things as that "Ban" means blond. "Donalbane," therefore, is "Blond Donald." I got interested in "MacBeth" because my highlander ancestors were Beatons. When I finally straightened out where they came from--not easy as most family histories contain two, mutually contradictory, stories--I realized that I had MacBeth ancestors. They aren't related to Shakespeare's king, but the name is the same.

Other names you might find interesting include Malcolm=follower of St. Columba and MacDuff=Son of Blackie (an ancestor had black hair). Lady Macbeth's name was Gruoch. Ms Dunnett's novel claims that's a gaelic form of "Margaret" but I can't find the name in either of the online sources I've looked at. Malcolm is known in Scottish history as Malcolm III "Canmore." Apparently, he had a big head.

Although I know you plan to base your novel on Shakespeare's Macbeth, you might find the actual historical Macbeth interesting. You can incorporate details not mentioned by Shakespeare. Try finding a Scottish history at the library. Holinshed's Chronicles is available online (I don't have the url right now) and is interesting.

[Ellinore]

Yes, it's sounding like there are more and more interesting twists to be borrowed from the historical account. Which I should learn anyway, as I am a descendant of Malcolm (as I discovered while working on my family tree).

*contemplates changing s/n to "Elliban" and then wonders if people would misunderstand and think of "Caliban"*

*goes instead to look at namenerds.com -- what a great URL -- and for Holinshed, which I'm embarrassed to confess I don't own*

[Harry]

If you are a descendent of Malcolm, that probably makes you a descendent of the Scottish royal family, the Saxon royal family, and, I believe, Charlemagne. Malcolm and Margaret were descended from almost every one of importance. Further, they not only were the ancestors of all the kings of Scotland to follow, but one of their daughters married Henry I of England. Thus, every English monarch starting with Henry II is descended from Malcolm.

[shaxper]

Ellinore said:

shaxper: would you think it outlandish to suggest that if the Third Murderer may have assisted in Fleance's escape... and the witches had made prophecy that Banquo should "get kings"... might not the witches have sent the Third Murderer, to see their prophecy kept possible?

I'm probably not the best person to ask on this one. I'm not a huge Macbeth fan, so I haven't read the play as often as I should. My impression of the witches has always been that they were not the kind to break a sweat. What I mean by that is that they know Macbeth will come to them, and so they are simply there. They don't offer more information than they know he will ask for. Their power allows them to be reserved. Therefore, actively working to fulfill a prophecy of theirs doesn't seem to fit.

However, you have the freedom to reinvent the witches' characters if writing a novel. Perhaps what we see of them in the play is merely a facade, amd they're actually overly-hyper control freaks who scurry around strange countries in an attempt to be seated where a potential tragic figure will find them. It could be done well!