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withasideofshakespeare · 7 months

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Lennox’s Ambiguous Loyalties

I CAN’T GET THIS OUT OF MY HEAD so here’s a post about it! (Special thanks to the Hamlet Discord Server folks for sticking with me on this one!)

WHAT THE HELL IS LENNOX’S DEAL IN MACBETH?!

I remember vividly that the first time I read this play, one of our study questions was “what do Ross and Lennox respectively represent as characters?” and that it was the only question I couldn’t quite answer.

Ross seems fairly easy to understand. He’s sort of a Horatio-figure, a “narrator” in a play that isn’t his (to a lesser extent than Horatio, of course. No one beats Horatio in that regard.) He witnesses most of the play’s major events and comments on them (and it makes him fascinating as well as really sad). His loyalties seem to lie clearly on the side of goodness and justice. He’s relatively quick to turn on Macbeth once he realizes that he is guilty and seems to spearhead the rebel cause.

Lennox is an enigma in comparison! It’s entirely unclear where his loyalties lie and what his motives are. Most people (including my English teacher who wrote that study question) seem to view him as a foil to Ross—someone who stays loyal to Macbeth rather than rebelling, but I think it’s much more complex than that.

The only way I can think to explain this is to go through his appearances in order and try to glean what exactly his deal is and where his loyalties lie throughout the play.

1. Act 1 Scene 2

Lennox appears to announce Ross’ arrival. He notes the Ross looks in haste (which he probably does. When is he not in haste to deliver news to someone?)

This is his only line in the scene and it doesn’t tell us much about him. All we get from this is that he seems interested in whatever it is Ross has to say.

(2. Act 1 Scene 4)

Lennox doesn’t even speak in this scene, but his presence means that he overhears Malcolm’s haunting description of the execution of Cawdor (BUT GIVEN HIS LATER ACTIONS, IT MUST NOT STICK WITH HIM? He becomes a traitor in MULTIPLE DIRECTIONS!)

(3. Act 1 Scene 6)

Again, he says nothing but is among the party arriving at Inverness with Duncan.

4. Act 2 Scene 3

This is the first of Lennox’s significant appearances. He’s with Macduff when they’re harassed by the Porter but says nothing to him. His first line in this scene is in greeting to Macbeth. He proceeds to give a very Ross-like little speech regarding the strange occurrences of the night. I don’t read this as him being actively suspicious of Macbeth—I think it’s too early for suspicions. At this point, Macduff hasn’t even returned to report the murder. It seems Lennox is reporting on the facts of the night, maybe slightly shaken by what he saw (and presumably sleep-deprived like everybody in this scene). He tells us that he is young (“my young remembrance”), seems horrified when Macduff reports on the murder of Duncan, and is quick to accuse the guardsmen who Macbeth framed. He notes that they “stared and were distracted,” but seems to assume that their behavior was a result of their guilty consciences and not an altered state that would’ve left them unable to commit the crime.

What I take from this is that at this point, Lennox is fairly neutral. He’s quicker to blame the guards than most of the other Thanes (especially Macduff, of course), but I wouldn’t chalk that up to an active loyalty to Macbeth just yet. The fact that he doesn’t speak when Macbeth says he killed the guards in a fury is interesting, but I assume that’s because Macduff is easily doing ALL of the talking at that point (and perhaps because Lennox doesn’t want to publicly quarrel with the person whose house he’s staying in at the moment?)

(5. Act 3 Scene 1)

Lennox is present along with the other Thanes as Macbeth speaks to Banquo and begins his anti-Malcolm & Donalbain propaganda campaign (“bloody cousins”). Lennox seems to notice this language in particular because he will echo it later.

6. Act 3 Scene 4

Lennox attends the disaster banquet and is utterly confused by Macbeth’s behavior along with everyone else. He seems unsettled but unlike Ross, he seems to figure out when it’s time to stop asking questions and simply wishes Macbeth better health in the future.

I’ve always viewed this scene as a turning point for Ross in which he realizes that Macbeth is either personally behind the murder of Duncan or played some hand in it and follows his conscience by shifting his loyalties. Lennox seems to go a different direction. I’m not sure how, having attended the banquet, he could possibly be unaware of Macbeth’s suspiciousness or why he’d choose to overlook it in the long run. More on this later.

7. Act 3 Scene 6

THIS IS THE SCENE THAT DRIVES ME NUTS. I do not understand what is going on here or why (or if these lines are even supposed to be Lennox’s! For our purposes, I’m going to assume they are.)

Lennox enters mid-way through a conversation with an unnamed lord. He seems to be choosing his words carefully, saying far more between his lines than on them. He uses Macbeth’s language of propaganda to an exaggerated extent, accusing Fleance of murdering Banquo and Malcolm and Donalbain of killing Duncan.

Initially, he plausibly believes what he’s saying and has given in to the propaganda but it quickly becomes apparent that this is not the case. He gives a quick and ambiguous line about Fleance, Malc, and Don that seems to imply he’s glad Macbeth doesn’t have them in his grasps:

And I do think

That had he Duncan's sons under his key

(As, an 't please heaven, he shall not) they should find

What 'twere to kill a father. So should Fleance.

But peace.

Perhaps this means “he doesn’t have them because that’s not God’s plan,” but I read it as something more like “and, pray God, he never will have them.” If this is the case, everything he’s said previously is a sarcastic exaggeration and not an actual reflection of his beliefs.

He goes on to question the lord about Macduff’s whereabouts specifically, seemingly out of concern for a friend(?). It is implied that Macbeth already knows this information (WHICH IS WEIRD! But I won’t get ahead of myself!)

Lennox leaves us with his hopes that Macduff will be smart and stay far from Scotland for his own safety and wishes that an angel deliver to Malcolm Macduff’s report before he even arrives to haste them to free Scotland from Macbeth’s grasp.

As of this scene, Lennox seems to be acting just like Ross (if not even more extremely against Macbeth). He calls Macbeth “a hand accursed” and remarks that Scotland is suffering. It seems like he’s on the rebels’ side! But THEN THE NEXT SCENE HAPPENS AND TURNS THIS ON ITS HEAD???

8. Act 4 Scene 1

After Macbeth meets with the witches again, Lennox appears, apparently not heeding his own advice to Macduff about staying far from the Scottish court. He’s confused by Macbeth’s inquiries about the witches (who he either didn’t see or pretends not to have seen? Normally, I’d lean towards the former but given his history, WHO THE HELL KNOWS?!)

And THEN! He straight-up tells Macbeth that Macduff has fled to England which SEEMS TO SURPRISE HIM despite the fact that we learned in the last scene that learning of Macduff’s flight put him into a rage! And to further confuse matters, Lennox lies about the circumstances of his discovery of this information saying “'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word / Macduff is fled to England.” Assuming he’s talking about the previous scene (and what else would he be talking about unless there is a scene missing?), this is blatantly untrue! One guy came by and Lennox had a weirdly manipulative discussion with him in order to get Macduff’s location out of him. There were not “two or three” people and the one guy who did come certainly didn’t seem to be there to tell Macbeth (who he personally called a tyrant) about the whereabouts of his enemies.

Either this is a major editorial error or Lennox is playing some very weird game of shifty loyalties. The former interpretation may well be true given this play’s oddities (it’s strangely short and has some obvious non-Shakespeare additions like the Hecate/witch song scene which was added (probably) by Middleton), but that’s not very fun, so let’s go with the latter.

I think the best way to call everything we’ve learned in these scenes canon AND not directly contradictory is to say that what Macbeth was initially angry about was Malcolm’s flight to England, not Macduff’s. There is really no way to reconcile the idea that Macbeth has sent for Macduff to return from England with the idea that he is just finding out about his flight in the next scene. The only way I can make sense of this is that these scenes have been reversed or otherwise edited (perhaps 3.6’s Lennox is meant to be Ross, perhaps there is text missing that changes the meaning… WHO KNOWS.) but if we’re going to call it canon, I guess the best thing we can do to make this series of events make any sense without completely changing every line spoken is to say that Macbeth knows that Malcolm has fled to England and is upset and that he knows that Macduff did not attend the banquet and therefore sent to him to return, to which Macduff sent back the 1060 equivalent of “fuck off” and ran off to England.

(PLEASE tell me if I’m missing something here. This is driving me UP THE WALL and it seems nobody else has questioned it??)

Anyway, with this messy attempt to make the given canon make any sense, the implication is then that Lennox manipulated Unnamed Lord into giving him the information he wanted about Macduff’s whereabouts by pretending to be on the side of the rebels. He then double-crosses them by informing Macbeth and doesn’t argue in the slightest when Macbeth declares (in what is shockingly not an aside, at least in my text) that he’s going to murder Macduff’s entire family. Maybe he’s afraid to speak up, maybe this is where he changes his mind about Macbeth… but if that’s the case, why would hearing Macbeth’s propaganda—which he seems to know is wrong per the last scene—not be enough for him? Why can he recognize that Macbeth is a tyrant but only while trying to squeeze information out of someone? What does he want? I think the only reasonable explanation (beyond “this text is corrupt”) is that Lennox wants power and sides with whoever seems to be winning at the moment—and at this point, that’s Macbeth.

9. Act 5 Scene 2

To make everything a little extra confusing, the next time Lennox appears, he has suddenly joined the rebel army and seems to have a position of rank among them (he has a “file / Of all the gentry” in Malcolm’s army SOMEHOW—something that no one else seems to have).

WHY? WHAT IS HAPPENING? I AM LOSING MY MIND!

The only way I can think to explain this is that EITHER hearing Macbeth declare his plans to murder a woman and her children or realizing that Malcolm has become the most likely victor in the battle caused him to switch sides. That, or he was pretending to be on Macbeth’s side and therefore double-crossing Macbeth by pretending to double-cross the rebels (but if that was the case, why give him accurate intelligence?!)

With how incredibly wishy-washy Lennox’s loyalties (and, honestly, morals) have been up to this point, I think I interpret his joining of the rebel cause as a risk/gains assessment in which he decided he’s more likely to come out on top if he sides with Malcolm. Maybe my view is overly cynical, but I think Lennox is a character who is motivated by ambition just like Macbeth and will side with whoever seems to have power in the moment. He knows how to use rhetoric to his advantage and absolutely does so, regardless of morality.

10. (Later scenes in Act 5)

Depending on the editor, sometimes Lennox silently appears with the other Thanes in various scenes in act 5, but Folger does not include him, so I won’t cover this. It isn’t very important other than to confirm he survives the battle, which seems reasonably safe to assume either way.

…

Conclusions:

Overall, I’m not sure I answered any of my questions. I’m curious to see what others think about the 3.6/4.1 inconsistencies—is it an editorial error? Have I completely missed something obvious that makes it consistent somehow?

If I had to say what I think Lennox’s deal is at this point, I’d say he’s an ambitious young Thane who takes the side of the powerful for his own advancement but is shaken by Macbeth’s brutality which may turn him prematurely to the side of the rebels before their victory is quite secured.

If we are meant to take this scene ordering and allocation of lines as canon, I don’t think Lennox is faking his loyalty to Macbeth—why would he give up seemingly valuable information and put Macduff’s entire household in danger if that were the case? I think he is loyal, probably for his own sake (he seems to know that Macbeth is dangerous and disregards it), but doesn’t realize just how far Macbeth is willing to go for power. I imagine his role in the murders of Macduff’s family upsets him deeply and perhaps causes him to turn his back on Macbeth and join the rebels by act 5. He’s young, naive, and ambitious, clever with his use of rhetoric (see: 3.6 manipulation tactics), but inexperienced, leading him to underestimate Macbeth and try to justify his own loyalty by pretending he doesn’t suspect that Macbeth played a hand in Duncan and Banquo’s murders.

Aaaaand I wrote a whole fanfiction about this if you’d like a narrative version rather than this analytic one! Here’s a link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54264247

#shakespeare #macbeth #Lennox (Macbeth)#FUCK what is it with this play and causing me to stay up until 3:00 AM writing about it?!#if somebody has an essay on what the hell is happening between 3.6 and 4.1 #do send it my way #I can’t imagine I’m the first person to notice how weird those scenes are #I’ll have to check jstor in the morning…#was this an excuse to advertise my fanfiction?#…maybe #nothing like writing an essay at 3:00 AM only to drop your ao3 at the end #can you tell I just reread this play?#god Macbeth is so good #not the guy #but that’s kinda the whole point #I hope I’ve convinced you to join team Lennox is fucked up

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