The Show of Kings

There is a good deal of critical consternation surrounding the "show of kings" in Shakespeare's Macbeth. Just how many people are on stage? What does the "glass" do? Is Banquo one of the eight, or is he a ninth body in the procession? How like to James I are the kings meant to appear?

The "show" itself is not described in the text beyond Macbeth's broken speech:
MACBETH Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo: down!
Thy crown does sear mine eye-balls: – and thy hair,
Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first: –
A third is like the former: – filthy hags!
Why do you show me this? – A fourth? – Start, eyes!
What! will the line stretch out to th’crack of doom?
Another yet? – A seventh? – I’ll see no more: –
And yet the eight appears, who bears a glass,
Which shows me many more; and some I see,
That two-fold balls and treble sceptres carry.
Horrible sight! – Now, I see, ’tis true;
For the blood-bolter’d Banquo smiles upon me,
And points at them for his. (4.1.112-124)

There are dozens - if not hundreds - of readings of this "show" in academia. Suggestions of smoke and mirrors - literally - and even the argument that the mirror (the "glass") was used specifically to reflect James I's image back to him from where he sat in the audience. Another reading of the "glass" is of a theatrical trick; one mirror sat on stage, and another in the wings, creating the effect of an infinite line of identical kings. The most simple suggestion (and the one that seems most plausible for the outdoor theaters, at least) is that the eighth king carries a mirror that reflects back his seven companions, raising the number of kings to fifteen, which seems to be more than enough for Shakespeare's purposes. While the technician in me would love to use the mirror-trick to infinitely replicate the kings (and this was perhaps possible for an indoor court-room stage), it seems unlikely to have been done in the public playhouses.

In the passage, I read Macbeth, the witches, eight kings, and Banquo's bloody ghost. It seems clear to me that Banquo is not one of the kings, as he isn't regally dressed (he is "blood-bolter'd") and would thus stick out of the line. That's thirteen people on stage, which is also a very nice (read, "evil") number for the scene.

What I find most interesting about this scene - indeed, about the whole play - is its tendency to mingle English and Scottish politics. Macbeth, like James, is king of Scotland. Macbeth, like Elizabeth, is childless. Macbeth, like James, came to the Scottish throne following the violent death of the previous monarch (Elizabeth had Mary Queen of Scots executed). Macbeth, like Elizabeth, kills another monarch. Tricksy, William Shakespeare. Very tricksy.

So what are we to make of the "show"? Since James' descent from Banquo is fiction (concocted by Boece to placate James IV of Scotland), what DO we make of it? And what did Shakespeare make of it? Did he know Banquo was a fiction? If so, is the "show" meant to mock James' claim of descent, or is it meant to support it in theory, if not in substance? Is it Shakespeare's tip of the hat to James for being a clever dramatist in his own right, using the fiction of Banquo to support his claim to the throne as though it were truth?

I can't help but think that Shakespeare was a little impressed by James' use of the fiction, and his own adoption of it was part-tribute, part-mockery. After all, a fiction is only useful insofar as others accept the fiction as truth. Elizabeth, late in life, became almost comical as she insisted upon her "eternal youth and beauty," but it was a fiction she managed to perpetuate despite the obviousness of its falsity. But Elizabeth was aware of its failure; her insistence upon the perpetuation of the myth exploited the scission between the physical body of the monarch and the eternal aspect of sovereignty. The Queen was eternally young and beautiful, even if Elizabeth Tudor was not. James, however, did not as clearly separate the two elements of his role as king, and perhaps Shakespeare's "show" is meant to reveal his awareness of the fallibility of the fiction - and his acknowledgment that when that fiction is exposed, the structure built upon it must crumble.