The scene where Macduff learns of the slaughter of his wife and children is absolutely heartbreaking. But to me, there's always a question about how to read Ross's lines when he first responds to Macduff's inquiry. The words are true enough, from a certain point of view, but they are surely intended to deceive – at least to put off the revelation. So: Is Ross breezily cheerful, almost cavalier, as if nothing is wrong? Does he speak heavily, solemnly? Is there something about his manner that belies his words, something that alerts us and makes Macduff a little uneasy? Here's the dialogue:
MALCOLM: What's the newest grief?
ROSS: That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker:
Each minute teems a new one.
MACDUFF: How does my wife?ROSS: Why, well.MACDUFF: And all my children?ROSS: Well too.MACDUFF: The tyrant has not battered at their peace?ROSS: No, they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.
MACDUFF: Be not a niggard of your speech: how goes 't?
(Macbeth 4.3.174-180)
Ross then goes on to describe how things are going generally (no longer focusing on Macduff's family). So one reading is that the Macduff is satisfied about his family and has changed the subject.
One thing I noticed on this re-reading that Ross's words here actually hearken back to something Macbeth said seven scenes earlier:
MACBETH: ... Duncan is in his grave;After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,Can touch him further.(3.2.22-26)
This is clearly the same sense in which Ross is speaking. Of course it's not an unusual sentiment, then or now, to say that someone who died is "at peace" – but it is not, I believe, customary to say this to someone who isn't aware that the person in question has died.
Now I suppose the lines in 4.3 can be played for dramatic irony, to heighten the horror of the subsequent revelation by delaying it and giving false hope; but it's a bit thorny if we are trying for some naturalism in the scene and not making Ross a complete monster.
After watching Ben Crystal's syllable-conscious pacing in 2.2, it occurred to me that these short lines might not necessarily follow each other immediately; we could have pauses – even quite long ones – to fill out one or more 10-syllable lines. And that opens some interesting possibilities for the actors' faces and body language to do a lot of important work.
MALCOLM: What's the newest grief? [5 syllables, following on immediately for a complete line]
ROSS: That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker: [10 syllables, with "hour" as monosyllable]
Each minute teems a new one. [6 syllables]
MACDUFF: How does my wife? [4 syllables, following on immediately for a complete line]ROSS: Why, well. [2 syllables]MACDUFF: And all my children? [5 syllables]ROSS: Well too. [2 syllables]MACDUFF: The tyrant has not battered at their peace? [10 syllables]ROSS: No, they were well at peace when I did leave 'em. [10 syllables, if we ]
MACDUFF: Be not a niggard of your speech: how goes 't? [10 syllables]
So, looking at the syllable count, we can see that even if we concatenate the three bold lines, we only get 9 syllables – an incomplete line. But we don't have to concatenate them, do we? Again, we could string them out and fill out the 10-syllable lines with pauses.
Here is one possibility:
Each minute teems a new one. / How does my wife?[beat] [beat] [beat] Why, well. / And all my children?[beat] [beat] [beat] [beat] [beat] [beat] [beat] [beat] Well too.The tyrant has not battered at their peace?No, they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.Be not a niggard of your speech: how goes 't?
In this reading, Ross takes a 3-beat pause to figure out what to say about Macduff's wife, realizing the enormity of he doesn't know. Ross may look very pained, knowing what is to come. Macduff notices, and immediately asks about his kids. This is even harder to answer, as it is cruel to withhold or disclose the truth. Perhaps Ross's eyes well up during an 8-beat pause; perhaps he is visibly working to control his voice and expression. Now, in these conditions, Macduff knows something's up, so he immediately asks two follow-up questions, both focused on his family – though Ross deliberately misinterprets the second question as a general one about the situation in Scotland to stall for time. This works, because Ross then has a short back-and-forth with Malcolm about the general cause (4.3.181-91) before revealing there is an unspeakable grief in store to be disclosed. Again, if the actor playing Ross has allowed these long pauses to occur, and has given cues in body language and expression, it makes sense that Macduff immediately pounces on this, and his own exchange with Ross suggests his increasing certainty that it will go straight to the heart, culminating in "Hum! I guess at it" (4.3.203). And now, only now, does Ross disclose it.
There are lots of other possibilities, of course, if we're inserting pauses. For example, we can give Macduff some time to process the strangeness of the two answers he's just received and frame his next question:
Each minute teems a new one. / How does my wife?[beat] [beat] [beat] Why, well. / And all my children?[beat] [beat] [beat] [beat] [beat] Well too. [beat] [beat] [beat]The tyrant has not battered at their peace?No, they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.Be not a niggard of your speech: how goes 't?
So this is all speculative, of course, but I like the way it opens up the text.
No comments:
Post a Comment