Item 24 - Letter from Max Förster to R. B. McKerrow

15 Franz Josefstrasse, Munich 13.—Praises McKerrow’s Prolegomena, and discusses the spelling of the names Banquo and Fleance.

(With envelope.)

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Transcript

München 13, Franz Josefstraße 15 {1}
Mai 13th 1939

Dear Dr. McKerrow,

accept my very heartiest thanks for your most interesting ‘Prolegomena for the Oxford Shakespeare’ which makes one look forward eagerly to your new Shakespeare. I always have been thinking, & telling my students, that a Shakespeare text as you describe it is most urgently wanted. the close argumentation & clear presentation of your Prolegomena make delightful reading. And your conclusions fall in with what I have learned from the study of the MSS. of the same text. Your conservatism strikes me as being very gratifying. And how difficult & in-tricate the problems really are one becomes aware, or at least fully realises only after reading your exposition.

I wonder how you will solve the difficult question about Banquo. I think that Shakespeare’s manuscript must have had the form Banquho, {1} because the first time the name occurs the first Folio offers the spelling Banquoh (I, 2, 34)—with an h at the end of the word where it was put by the London printer who was not used to the Scottish spelling quh. And for the rest of the play he drops the h altogether (24 times: Banquo). Besides there are two other reasons for looking upon Banquho as the true Shakespearian form. (1) There is no doubt that Shakespeare read the name as Banquho in his source, Holinshed. Here quh is the well-known Scottish spelling for the spirant χ (= German ch) for which the English use to substitute k as in Sc. loch etc. (2) There seems to be proof that Shakespeares actors actually pronounced the name as Banko, because Dr. Simon Forman who saw the play in April 1610 put down the name as Banco, Bancko, or Banko (once misspelt Bamko). I think the pronunciation Banco can only be understood as a substitution for Scottish Banquho, but not on the basis of English Banquo.—Sc. Banquho is not only Holinshed’s form, but it is also found in Hector Boethius (1526) where we have Banquho, Banquhonis, Banquhonem, and in Warner (1606). I take its etymology to be a Scottish-Gaelic Bān-chū ‘white dog’, Gen. Bān-chon (OIr. bān ‘white’ & OIr. cū, con ‘dog’).

The name of his son Fleance is rather difficult. In H. Boethius it occurs as an ablative Fleancho. This ablative form does not make it probable that here, too, we have a Gaelic -chū ‘dog’. But we have a Gaelic Flann-chy ‘red warrior’ for OFr. *Flann-chadh, which might be meant by H. Boece: short Gaelic a can be spelt also by ea. In this case Holinshed has a corrupt form, Fleance, which Shakespeare adopted & pronounced (wrongly) as disylabic† Flē’-ance.)* [Marginal note: ‘*/ (but III, 1, 36 it may be monosyllabic).’] The only question is whether we should adopt the better spelling Fleance {3} with c which occurs only once (III, 1, 36) in the Folio, or the more usual Fleans (7 times).

The German pronunciation for Banquo is Banko; but this is rather a French pronunciation. In the time of Goethe, Germans were apt to pronounce English names in a French manner: my own grandfather used to say Byrón with a short ĭ and a nazalised accented -õ’ (French -on).

My friendly regards to you.
Yours sincerely
Max Förster.

[Direction on envelope:] Dr. R. B. McKerrow | Picket Piece | Wendover | Bucks. | (England)

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The envelope was postmarked ‘e MÜNCHEN | 2 | 13.5.39.-22 | [swastika] | HAUPTSTADT DER BEWEGUNG’.

{1} The heading is stamped. ‘13’ was added by hand.

{2} The ‘h’ is underlined.

{3} The ‘c’ is underlined.