om.

And that any _extensive_ omissions have been made seems not likely. (1)
There is no internal evidence of the omission of anything essential to
the plot. (2) Forman, who saw the play in 1610, mentions nothing which
we do not find in our play; for his statement that Macbeth was made Duke
of Northumberland is obviously due to a confused recollection of
Malcolm's being made Duke of Cumberland. (3) Whereabouts could such
omissions occur? Only in the first part, for the rest is full enough.
And surely anyone who wanted to cut the play down would have operated,
say, on Macbeth's talk with Banquo's murderers, or on III. vi., or on
the very long dialogue of Malcolm and Macduff, instead of reducing the
most exciting part of the drama. We might indeed suppose that
Shakespeare himself originally wrote the first part more at length, and
made the murder of Duncan come in the Third Act, and then _himself_
reduced his matter so as to bring the murder back to its present place,
perceiving in a flash of genius the extraordinary effect that might thus
be produced. But, even if this idea suited those who believe in a
rehandling of the play, what probability is there in it?

Thus it seems most likely that the play always was an extremely short
one. Can we, then, at all account for its shortness? It is possible, in
the first place, that it was not composed originally for the public
stage, but for some private, perhaps royal, occasion, when time was
limited. And the presence of the passage about touching for the evil
(IV. iii. 140 ff.) supports this idea. We must remember, secondly, that
some of the scenes would take longer to perform than ordinary scenes of
mere dialogue and action; _e.g._ the Witch-scenes, and the Battle-scenes
in the last Act, for a broad-sword combat was an occasion for an
exhibition of skill.[281] And, lastly, Shakespeare may well have felt
that a play constructed and written like _Macbeth_, a play in which a
kind of fever-heat is felt almost from beginning to end, and which
offers very little relief by means of humorous or pathetic scenes, ought
to be short, and would be unbearable if it lasted so long as _Hamlet_ or
even _King Lear_. And in fact I do not think that, in reading, we _feel
Macbeth_ to be short: certainly we are astonished when we hear that it
is about half as long as _Hamlet_. Perhaps in the Shakespearean theatre
too it appeared to occupy a longer time than the clock recorded.

FOOTNOTES:

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