Adapting Macbeth, or, Creating a
Diversion?
[T]hence to the Duke’s house and saw Macbeth;
which though I saw it lately yet appears a most
excellent play in all respects, but especially in
divertisement, though it be a tragedy, it being
most proper here and suitable.
The Diary of Samuel Pepys, 27 January
1667
Divertisement (1)
A kind of ballet; a short ballet or other
entertainment given between acts or longer
pieces…formerly also a piece of music
containing several movements.
OED, def. 2.
Some Macbeths (1674)
John Downes on the 1670s Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth, alter’d by Sir William
Davenant; being drest in all its Finery, as new
Cloath’s, new Scenes, Machines, as flying for the
Witches; with all the singing and dancing in it…it
being all excellently perform’d being in the
nature of an Opera, it Recompenc’d double the
Expence; it proves still [1708] a lasting Play.
Roscius Anglicanus (1708)
Warrant authorising the adaptation of
earlier plays in the Restoration
Whereas Sr William Davenant, Knight hath
humbly prsented [sic] to us a proposition of
reformeinge some of the most ancient Playes
that were played at Blackfriers and of makeinge
them, fitt, for the Company of actors appointed
under his direction and Comand…
Davenant’s Adaptations of
Shakespeare
The Law Against Lovers (1662) – mash-up of
Measure for Measure and Much Ado
About Nothing
Macbeth (1663/64)
The Tempest (co-authored with Dryden, 1667)
Singing, Dancing, and “Divertisement”
in Davenant’s Macbeth
Come hover through the foggy filthy air – Exeunt Flying (Act I,
Scene i)
Lady Macbeth: What quite unmann’d in Folly [the Ghost
descends
------Lords: Our Duties are to Pledge it [the Ghost of Banq. rises at his
feet
Act II, Scene v in Davenant is a new scene in which the witches
sing songs and dance
Dryden on Shakespeare (1667)
As when a Tree’s cut down the secret root
Lives under ground and thence new Branches
shoot;
So, from Shakespear’s honour’d dust, this day
Springs up and buds a new reviving Play.
“Prologue” to The Tempest (1667)
Critical Opinions on the Adaptation of
Shakespeare (1)
“It’s almost like a rouged corpse – a thing too
ghastly to conceive of”
George C. D. Odell, Shakespeare from Betterton
to Irving (1920-21)
“everything that the authors [Dryden and
Davenant] laid their hands on is defiled”
Hazelton Spencer, Shakespeare Improved (1927)
Critical Opinions of the Adaptation of
Shakespeare (2)
“The extraordinary reduction of the
protagonists…is revealed in scene after scene”
Peter Dyson, “Changes in Dramatic
Perspective: From Shakespeare’s Macbeth
to Davenant’s” The Shakespeare Quarterly
30 (1979), 402-407.
Divertisement (2)
the action of diverting or the fact of being
diverted
OED, def. 1
Montaigne, “On Diversion”
• Montaigne argues that reason cannot control
the passions, therefore it is necessary to find
“diversions” to provide an outlet for the
passions so that they do not become
destructive.
• This idea has a big influence on much
continental thinking in the middle of the
seventeenth century, especially in France in
the 1650s, where…
Davenant happens to be thinking
about “divertisements” as well
[T]he wise Athenians (dividing into three Parts the publick
Revenue) expended one in Plays and Shows, to divert the people
from meeting to consult of their Rulers merit, and the defects of
Government.
“Preface” to Gondibert (1651)
The People of England are observ'd by writers of other nations
and by our owne to require continual divertisements, being
otherwise naturally inclin'd to that melancholy that breeds
sedition
Letter to John Thurloe (1656)
The Re-Opening of the Theatres as
“diversion”
Greatest of Monarchs, welcome to this place
Which Majesty so oft was wont to grace
Before our Exile, to divert the Court,
And ballance weighty Cares with harmless Sport.
Davenant, “The Prologue to His Majesty”
(1660)
Davenant’s Witches
Shakespeare Act I, Sc. I, ll. 10-11
Fair is foul and foul is fair
Hover through the fog and
filthy air
Davenant, Act I, p. 1
To us fair weather’s foul and
foul is fair
Come hover through the foggy
filthy air
And in an added scene:
We shou’d rejoyce when good
kings bleed (p. 27)
I go, and it is done. The
bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it
is a knell
That summons thee to
heaven or to hell.
Shakespeare Act 2,
scene I (63- 65)
Oh Duncan hear it not for
tis a bell
That rings my Coronation,
and thy Knell.
Davenant, Macbeth,
p. 18
Macbeth
Shakespeare, Act 1, scene 2
For brave Macbeth – well he
deserves that name –
Disdaining Fortune, with his
brandished steel
Which smoked with bloody
execution
Like valour’s minion
Carved out his passage till he
faced the slave
Davenant, Act I (p.
But brave Macbeth (who well
deserves that name)
Did with her frowns put all her
smiles to flight
And cut his passage to the
rebel’s person
Macbeth
Shakespeare, 1.3.
Till that Bellona’s bride-groom
lapped in proof
Confrinted him with selfcomparisons
Davenant, Act I (p.3)
Brave Macbeth opposed his
bloody rage
And checked his haughty
spirits
Macbeth
Shakespeare 1.4, ll. 49-53
Stars hide your fires,
Let not light see my black and
deep desires
The eye wink at the hand, yet
let that be
Which the eye fears when it is
done to see
Davenant, Act I, p. 9
Let no light see my black and
deep desires
The strange idea of a bloody
act
Does into doubt all my resolve
distract
Lady Macbeth in Davenant
You were a man.
And by the charter of your sex you shou’d
Have govern’d me, there was more crime in you
When you obey’d my counsels, then I contracted
By my giving it. Resign your Kingdom now,
And with your Crown put off your Guilt
Davenant, p. 53
Macbeth as 1650s Regicide
Drag his body hence, and let it hang upon
A Pinnacle at Dunsinane, to shew
Future Ages what to those is due
Who others right by lawless power pursue
MacDuffs in Davenant
Lady MacDuff: Ambition led him to that bloody
deed
May you be never by ambition led
MacDuff: From Duncan’s grave I think I hear a
groan | That calls aloud for justice.
Lady MacDuff: If the throne
Was by Macbeth ill-gained, Heavens may,
Without your sword sufficient vengeance pay
On the added scene of debate between the
MacDuffs, Lois Potter writes that it must have
been: “agonisingly relevant…For that majority of
Davenant’s audience who had been quiescent
under Cromwell, this argument externalises an
inner conflict that badly needed ventilating.”
Potter, Secret Rites, p. 202.