Macbeth's Usurping Wife Author(s): Roland Mushat Frye Reviewed work(s): Source: Renaissance News, Vol. 8, No.

2 (Summer, 1955), pp. 102-105 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Renaissance Society of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2857914 . Accessed: 18/04/2012 15:45
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Macbeth's

Usurping

Wfe

by ROLAND MUSHAT FRYE

an and case. castigated thereis no needto restate established In no one canquestion the and to situation, regard her ethical spiritual of of cardinal queen',and importance theinhumanity the 'fiend-like afterhergreatsoliloquy-prayer of thecrimes plottedandcommitted of the thePowersof Hellto takepossession her'.'Granting 'invoking in LadyMacbeth, shouldliketo develop I of pre-eminence thesesins evil has inherea lesser themeof a lesser whichShakespeare carefully in into her character. evil consists LadyMacbeth's This corporated as whichShakespeare's authority age usurping, a wife, thatconjugal to as and assigned thehusband. regarded naturally irrevocably Thatthehusband's office thatof ruler over was divinely appointed2 his wife was one of the most firmlyintrenched of Shakeconcepts The here.3 husband's speare's andsurelyneedsno development age, in termsof therelationto hiswife wasfrequently stated relationship on on shipbetweenreason the one handandthe will or passions the decreed subject the former.4 as to other,with the latterirrevocably a The wife occupied middlepositionbetweenheadandfoot, as was in of homileticallegorizing the emphasized the frequent repeatedly 'rib'themeto show that womanwas 'not madeof the foot to be of or trodenvpon,so neither theheadto be asa master commander, to butof theside'so thatshemightlive asa companion herhusband's
bosom.5
1J. Dover Wilson, ed. Macbeth (Cambridge, 1947), p. lvi. All Shakespearean cita-

of has T HE MORAL character LadyMacbeth beenthoroughly

tions arefrom this text.

2See, e.g., Eph. 5: 22-24; I Pet. 3: I, 5. 3See, e.g., Carroll Camden, The Elizabethan Woman (New York, I952), pp. I02,
IIo, 121, 122, 246, 259, 266.

4HenryBullinger, The ThirdDecade(Cambridge,ParkerSociety, I850), p. 405; Sermons (London, 1607), p. 14; R[obert] C[leaver], A Roger Hacket, Two Fruitfull Government ofHouseholde (London,F. Kingstonf. T. Man, 1598),p. 172. GodlyForm Sermon(London, I608), p. 58. See also William 5Bp. Robert Abbot, A Wedding Austin,HaecHomo(London,I639), pp. 43-44; C[leaver],p. 207; Francis Dillingham, Christian or Government (London, I609), sig. 17;John Donne, Oeconomy Household Works(London, I839), iv, p. 29; Matthew Griffith,Bethel:or a FormeforFamilies A ... at (London, 1634), p. 289; and Bp. John King, VitisPalatina. Sermon Preached Elizabeth Grace her the Whitehall... after Mariage theLadie of (London,1614),p. 26. [I02]

against all assaultsof the devil.6 Along with the husband,then, the her wife had not only the right but the duty to dissuade partnerfrom and to persuadehim into the ways of righteousthe coursesof evil ness,just asJacob'swives did and as Pilate'swife attempted to do.7 We need do no more than recall,in this connection,that Lady Macbeth continually assisted,and never resisted,the assaultsmade upon her husbandby the powers of darkness. In addition to the wife's more important concern in the spiritual counselling of her husband, certain non-moral areasmight also be the province of her advice and suasionso long as 'an holy wisdome and discretion'be used 'with due respectand regardof the husbands him in any way, personandplace'8and so long as she 'neuercontrarie but by wise counsaile,and sage aduice, with all humilitie, and submission, seeke to perswade him'.9 In all such situations, the wife should so approachher husbandas to 'shew her selfewilling to obey, There need be no insistenceupon if he shallthinkegood otherwise'.10 between such gentle, and above all submissive,wifely the differences persuasionand Lady Macbeth'scaustic tactics of domination in the crucialseventh scene of the first act and second scene of the second act, to cite two outstandingexamples.Indeed,LadyMacbeth'stactics can scarcelybe betterdescribedthan by referringto the officialElizabethan Homilies'depiction of ambitious wives who 'see their hus-

Meresreminded couplesof the wife's duty to assisther husband

husband to the haven', while Shakespeare's early admirer Francis

'at Thisidealized companionship the bosom'wasfarfrombeinga forit involvedthe conjugal sinecure, forwarding eachof the othby thismutual as of insofar it wasiner'ssalvation. obligation Speaking bein cumbent uponthewife, RobertWilkinson a sermon preached of the foreJamesI at the marriage Lordand LadyHay reminded and brideof her duty when he said,'you shallbringyourself your

in and bands suchrooms,to be madeunderlings' who 'upbraid them

I607,

Preached White-Hall. .. at 6[Robert Wilkinson] The Merchant Royall:A Sermon ed. StanleyPargellis(Herrin,Ill. 1945),p. 32; and Francis Meres,GodsArithmeticke(London,I597), sig. C4v. to 7HenrieSmith, A Preparatiue Marriage (London,T. Orwin f. T. Man, I59I), pp. 57-58; andMeres,sigs. C7-C7v. Duties(London,I620), p. I5. SThomas Gataker, Marriage Christian Women Glassefor (London,1592),sig. A3. 9P[hilip]S[tubbs],A Christal 10Gataker, i6. p. [103 ]

and so with cumbrous andcallthemfools,dastards, cowards' as talk, action." to goadthemintoambitious aggressive and in character apparare The dominating elements LadyMacbeth's Her to ent evenin herfirststagespeech. determination 'chastise with in immediate thevalorof my tongue'wouldhavearoused suspicions the ramparts an earlyseventeeth-century audience. of Furthermore, and with castle herhusband's arecalled'my battlements', itisinkeeping the nature shepetitions demonicto 'unsexme that her domineering here'.The role of womanwill be hersno longer,andeven so early the murder sheusurps envisioned weaponas 'my keenknife'.When she her husband returns, informshim thathe 'shall' the night's put that 'intomy dispatch', determinedly and business suggests allbe left to her. of To follow in detail her decisivemanipulation her husband relevantfact is that such The immediately would be gratuitous. in sin rulewithinthe familyappeared itselfa monstrous to usurped the commonopinion ThomasGataker Shakespeare's age. expressed wife is euena when he saidthat'a mankinde womanor a masterly in monster nature'.l2 New Testament while a pertinent text, Ephestheirhusbands thereby Latimer are God.13 resisting pointedout that are which womenwho ruletheirhusbands in perilof the damnation 'she Jezebelbroughtupon herselfbecause would ruleher husband, the king;shewouldbeara strokein all things,andshewould order that matters pleased as and declared thehusband, her',14 Tyndale too, to himself hiswife to 'make is damned themerefactof submitting by herhishead'.15 Thesetwin evilsof feminine domination mascuand linesubmission so greatthatevenFrancis were was Quarles forcedto admitthathe couldnot determine whichwas'morevngodly'.16 his Macbeth 'unsexed' WhileLadyMacbeth herself, profaned sex to conby submission her. Canwe not thussee what Shakespeare's
or Sermons Homelies to Appointed be Read in Churches (Oxford, 1822), p. "iCertain
469.

ians 5:22, was glossed by othersto the effect that wives who disobey

12Gataker, IO. p. 13William Man,ed. RichardLovett (London, of Tyndale, TheObedience a Christian n.d.), pp. 82-83; and C[leaver],pp. 234-235. ParkerSociety, 1844),pp. 252-53. 14Bp. Hugh Latimer,Sermons (Cambridge: Doctrinal Treatises ParkerSociety, 1848),p. 334. 15Tyndale, (Cambridge: Ester(London,1621),sig. Ei. or 16Francis Quarles,Hadassa, theHistory Queene of

[ 14]

and disastrous a prince,18 an anonfor gardedthis evil as particularly writer warned that through the domineering of wives over ymous husbands 'not onely Townes and Cities, but also Kingdomes and Dominions haue been vtterly ruinated, either by their treacherous practices,or for the satisfyingof theirambitioushumours'.19 In these terms we can see how Shakespeare strengthenedthe has dramaticinterestwhich his contemporaryaudiencewould have great found in Lady Macbeth. Although the moral judgments involved are no longer held in our age as they were in his, we surely can still has the appreciate artisticmasterywith which Shakespeare developed this secondarytheme of usurpationand tyrannyon the domesticlevel as parallelto a primaryinterestin the same evils operatingon a far wider scale.
EMORY UNIVERSITY 17Meres, C5. sig. More, Principlesfor Princes (London,1629), p. 38. 18George Yong 19A Discourse theMarried SingleLife (London,1621),sig. A6v. and of

as would have understood deliberate audiences temporary irony in to of allegiance 'allthatmaybecomea Macbeth's ineffective protests man'andin hislady'staunting muchmorethe man','Areyou a 'so in folly', especially man?'and 'quiteunmanned sincetheseremarks fall context? andprimarily withinanother the ostensibly Accepting dominance hiswife,Macbeth of cameuponthejudgment which with Meres warned that had submissive husbands, to them'asto theEgyptiansthe pure waterswere turnedinto blood'.17 GeorgeMore re-

The SacredMusic of VincenzoRuffo

by LEWIS LOCKWOOD
(Abstractof papergiven before the AmericanMusicologicalSociety at Ann Arbor,
Michigan, December 29, I954.)

THE

music in the second half of the sixteenthcentury can no longer be equatedsolely with the achievementof Palestrina. Musicalscholin quest of a truerpicture of the musicalaspectsof the Counarship, ter-Reformation,has revealedother factorsand other figures,intrin[Io5 ]

RANGE of the practical estheticreformof sacred and