WAS MACDUFF A HEN?

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I was extremely interested to read of the impending production of Macbeth. It has long been a problem that has puzzled Shakespearian scholars as to the real identity of Macduff. Much research on the matter has been undertaken, notably by that fine scholar Mr. Timothy Cobb of Budo. At the moment the conclusion reached is that Macduff was, indeed, a hen. Hard as this is to credit, careful reading of the play leaves no doubt.

The first intimation is given in Scene 2, Act. IV. Here Lady Macduff talking of her husband says:

His flight was madness.

. . . for the poor wren

The most diminutive of bird, will fight,

Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.

One is apt to pass off this speech as poetic imagery, but later reference shows that Lady Macduff was literally comparing the habits of birds known to her against her husband's action. The very use of the word flight for Macduff's visit to England brings to mind the mad panic he must have been in as it is well known that chickens do not fly particularly well.

Later in this scene there are many sly references. Lady Macduff refers to her son as "Poor bird"; and her son replying as to what he intends to do says "As birds do." But when the murderers enter at the end of this scene we have an outside opinion of the problem. Remember they have never seen Macduff's son before. What do they say:

What, you egg!

Young fry of treachery.

You egg! A literal description from the uncouth men the murderers must have been. The next line is a piece of cruel humour that must have struck terror into the young boy's heart as he realized his fate.

In view of all this an earlier utterance by Lady Macduff becomes clear:

"Fathered he is, yet he's fatherless." This is an obvious printer's error and should read:

"Feathered he is, yet he's featherless."

When the news of this brutal "fry-up" reaches Macduff we have his shocked answer. This is a time when a man can be expected to speak the truth. He says:

Act Iv, 3: "What, all my pretty chickens and their dam At one fell swoop."

His friends, who obviously know his secret, immediately react to this, and say something which in other circumstances would have been considered extremely tactless. Malcolm replies:

"Dispute it like a man." The evidence months. It is now possible to comprehend the prophesy of the three weird sisters when they said:

"None of woman born shall harm Macbeth."

By now the difficult point of this interpretation must be clear. Macduff should have been a rooster. But Shakespeare was never very strong on his historical facts and he may very well have considered it added to the poignancy of the tragedy that Macduff should have drabber plumage. He may quite easily have muddled his ornithological facts. However he leaves no doubt in our mind that Macduff is a hen and not a rooster, for in the last scene (V, viii) Macbeth, a man who seldom minced words, says to Macduff the immortal words:

Lay on, Macduff. Brian Falk 1G