See Muir page xviii.) The earliest eyewitness account of a performance dates from 1610 or 1611 and can be found in Simon Forman's manuscript The Bocke of Paies and Notes therof per Formans for Common Pollicie (cited in Muir xv–xvi and Miola 225–227). (Arguments for an earlier date, even as early as 1601, have not been convincing. some time after the Gunpowder Plot of 5 November 1605, to which it contains an allusion (see e.g. The composition of Macbeth is usually dated to 1606, i.e. So how much of the scene do people think Middleton wrote, and why?

It seems plausible to me that only the first part of the witches' spell is due to Shakespeare, and that it was lengthened in this revision but that still doesn't encompass 'much of' the scene.įurther, if the reason for the changes is that the audience wanted to see more of the witches, does it make sense for Middleton to have deleted any of Shakespeare's material? Most of the scene is necessary for the action of the play.Įven removing the witches' spell at the beginning of the scene would detract from the play. If this is the case, Act III Secne v was added in its entirety.īut in Act IV, scene i, Hecate comes on, speaks five lines, and retires - this isn't 'much of' the scene. write in more of it.' And so we get two songs from Middleton's play The Witch added to Shakespeare's Macbeth (it seems certain that Shakespeare didn't write these).Īnother reasonable conjecture is that the character Hecate was added, as she seems unnecessary to the action of the play. Why do people think Middleton wrote much of Act IV Scene i? I've seen the conjecture that somebody told Middleton 'the audience really loves this witch stuff. Middleton is conjectured to have written 3.5 and much of 4.1 the only scenes which feature Hecate. It is worth mentioning that the latter was possibly written not by Shakespeare, but by his collaborator Thomas Middleton, who is known to have recycled songs and other material from his play The Witch into Macbeth. In verbose's question How close to actual incantations are the witches' spells in Macbeth? he says

Shakespeare william macbeth