callandavies on
As I compile notes to write a University Shakespeare lecture and seminar, I am minded of how useful an early playgoer's account of some of Shakespeare's plays, including Macbeth, can be for analysing its action and language.
Simon Forman was an astrologer and physician who kept extensive diaries (you can find more of his socialising and professional activities!). He saw Macbeth at the Globe on 20th April 1610 and summarised the play in what amounts to a kind of Jacobean blurb (pasted below). Is this a fair summary of the play, and what would yours look like (in, say, a short paragraph?) I find it useful to think about some of the words Forman uses here ("persuasion," "amazed," etc.) and pin them to a specific scene or speech: what is the definition of the word and does it help unlock a close reading of that moment? Are they even accurate, or would you describe things differently?
https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/file/ms-ashmole-208-folio-207-recto
In Macbeth at the Globe 1610 the 20 of April, Saturday
There was to be observed first how Macbeth and Banquo, 2 noblemen of Scotland, riding through a wood, there stood before them 3 women fairies or nymphs, and saluted Macbeth, saying 3 times unto him, "Hail Macbeth, king of Codon [thane of Cawdor], for thou shall be a king but shall beget no kings," etc. Then said Banquo, "What, all to Macbeth, and nothing to me?" There said the nymphs, "Hail to thee, Banquo, thou shall beget kings, yet be no king." And so they departed and came to the court of Scotland to Duncan, king of Scots, and it was in the days of Edward the Confessor, and Duncan bade them both kindly welcome, and made Macbeth forthwith Prince of Northumberland, and sent him home to his own castle and appointed Macbeth to provide for him for he would sup with him the next day at night. And did so. And Macbeth contrived to kill Duncan, and through the persuasion of his wife did that night murder the king in his own castle being his guest. And there were many prodigies seen that night and the day before. And when Macbeth had murdered the king, the blood on his hands could not be washed off by any means, nor from his wife's hands which handled the bloody daggers in hiding them. By which means they became both much amazed and affronted. The murder being known, Duncan's 2 sons fled, the one to England, the [other to] Wales to save themselves. They being fled they were supposed guilty of the murder of their father, which was nothing so. Then was Macbeth crowned king, and then he, for fear of Banquo, his old companion, that he should beget kings but be no king himself, he contrived the death of Banquo and caused him to be murdered on the way as he rode. The next night being at supper with his noblemen, whom he had bid to a feast (to the which also Banquo should have come), he began to speak of noble Banquo and to wish that he were there. And as he thus did, standing up to drink a carouse to him, the ghost of Banquo came and sat down in his chair behind him. And he turning about to sit down again saw the ghost of Banquo which fronted him so that he fell into a great passion of fear and fury, uttering many words about his murder, by which when they heard that Banquo was murdered they suspected Macbeth.
Then Macduff fled to England to the king's son, and so they raised an army and came into Scotland, and at Dunsinane overthrew Macbeth. In the meantime, while Macduff was in England, Macbeth slew Macduff's wife and children, and after, in the battle, Macduff slew Macbeth. Observe also how Macbeth's queen did rise in the night in her sleep and walk and talked and confessed all, and the doctor noted her words."