Beta Book

{10} A. Schlegel's "Lectures on Dramatic Literature." Vol. II. p.
208.
In the third scene we have the meeting of the witches, the
announcement of whose intention to re-assemble upon the heath, _there
to meet with Macbeth_, forms the certainly most obvious, though not
perhaps, altogether the most important, aim of the short scene by
which the tragedy is opened. An enquiry of much interest here
suggests itself. Did Shakspere intend that in his tragedy of
"Macbeth" the witches should figure as originators of gratuitous
destruction, in direct opposition to the traditional, and even
proverbial, character of the _genus?_ By that character such
personages have been denied the possession of any influence whatever
over the untainted soul. Has Shakspere in this instance re tained, or
has he abolished, the chief of those characteristics which have been
universally attributed to the beings in question?
We think that he has retained it, and for the following reasons:
Whenever Shakspere has elsewhere embodied superstitions, he has
treated them as direct and unalterable _facts_ of human nature; and
this he has done because he was too profound a philosopher to be
capable of regarding genuine superstition as the product of random
spectra of the fancy, having absolute darkness for the prime
condition of their being, instead of eeing in it rather the zodiacal
light of truth, the concomitant of the uprising, and of the setting
of the truth, and a partaker in its essence.


Pages:
196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220