MACBETH PAGE 1
Overview
Macbeth is a short play and yet is considered difficult or even unlucky to perform in modern times, possibly because of the problem of presenting the supernatural elements such as the witches to a sceptical audience. There may be other, intrinsic, reasons for this attitude, such as the central structure of the drama which takes a villain as its hero. Shakespeare addresses this by giving Macbeth several soliloquies to engage sympathy but this strategy may not be entirely successful set against the general bloodshed and repugnant murders.
The drama does deal with important and universal themes such as: good and evil and whether evil is within a person or enters from outside; fate and free will; the question of whether or not character is fate; the existence of a supernatural; order and disorder; ambition; humanity; deception, appearance and reality; the cycle of thought turning to action and then to thoughts again. Various dominant topics and images occur: murder; blood; fear; guilt; light and dark; disturbed sleep; maleness and femininity; microcosm and macrocosm; the natural and unnatural.
The historical element is taken from Holinshed's Chronicles but Shakespeare made significant changes from that source of which these are the most dramatically important: he turned Banquo, an ancestor of James I, into a wholly good figure instead of being an accomplice to the murder of Duncan in an open political assassination; Duncan is changed from a young but feeble ruler to an older, potent and gracious King and the historical Macbeth did have reason for his murder in that Duncan deprived him of his rightful hopes of kingship by the illegal appointment of his son as Prince of Cumberland; in the original, Macbeth had ten years of good government between the murders of Duncan and Banquo and is therefore more villianous in the play. The contrast of good with evil is more diametrically opposed by these alterations. (Macbeth, in fact, was the murderer of James I's ancestor and so could not be presented favourably.)
The drama is entirely dominated by Macbeth himself and, in the earlier stages, by Lady Macbeth also. Many characters refer to him, and comment on him even when he is not on stage. We see his decline in full as the first scenes show him at his peak and we watch his descent with ambivalent emotions which may not be the pure pity and fear advised by Aristotle as his terrible crimes have been depicted on and off stage. He and his wife have the capacity for great evil and we may question who is the worse. We may also ask the more abstract query: is it necessary for a person whose fate is laid down to act in order to bring it about or may he wait for it to take place without intervention. This leads on to the debate as to whether character is fate: could Macbeth, given his predispositions, have refrained from action to ensure the outcome?
Act I scene i
The stage direction gives the placing of this atmospheric scene as "An open place", some kind of heath removed from the world of man with, at this moment, threatening and turbulent weather mirroring events to come and connected with the three witches. The brief scene is rhymed and incantatory and its function is chiefly to create mood and tension but we learn that there is a battle soon to be "lost and won", the first of many paradoxes in the play. The witches have prescience and know the outcome and the time of the defeat. Macbeth's name is mentioned in the midst of this disorder and it is clear that he is the reason for the next encounter which we now await with curiosity. The witches' familiars, a grey cat and a toad, call and we see that moral values are to be mixed and good indistinguishable from evil: "Fair is foul and foul is fair" as they connect themselves to "fog and filthy air." The audience realises that Macbeth should be wary when he meets them. The supernatural has been allied to evil, unnatural weather, conflict and filth as the witches are inhuman.
Act I scene ii
We now move to the world of man and the battle mentioned by the witches. (Shakespeare has condensed three historical conflicts into one.) Duncan has been fighting Sweno, King of Norway, aided by Macdonwald, Lord of the Western Isles of Scotland and Thane of Cawdor. This shift of scene takes us to a camp where royal authority is demonstrated and Macbeth becomes, once again, central. Manliness is defined by bravery in combat as the "good and hardy soldier" is praised. He, in turn, adulates Macbeth who fought Macdonwald, the villainous rebel, like one of two swimmers, although his opponent was supplied with Kernes [footsoldiers] and Gallowglasses [horsemen with axes.] Fortune is seen as a whore favouring the wrong and damned man but Macbeth rises against fate and kills his enemy in a gruesome and decisive fashion, slitting him open from stomach to jaws and beheading him with a sword smoking with blood. The name Macbeth is now connected with butchery and killing even though he is described as "Valour's minion [darling]" and the revenge is justified. The Captain continues in poetic mode giving stature to the account, comparing the deceptive appearance of the sun which, in fact, heralds storms to this victory's being followed by a fresh onslaught by the Norwegians. We notice the theme of deception here. Half-lines indicate that the soldier is weak but he goes on to praise Macbeth and Banquo with animal comparisons and also a simile of a recharged cannon; they doubled their efforts as if they intended to recreate Golgotha (the site of the cruxifiction of Jesus). Courage, honour and heroism are once more seen in the context of bloodshed and we are reminded of the "fair is foul" theme. Duncan allows the man to receive medical attention and appears as a gracious, dignified, calm commander who finds out the facts and shows compassion.
Rosse enters and the comment of Lenox acts like a stage direction in case the actor could not portray haste and urgency to an audience in the conditions of Shakespeare's theatre. He stresses the contribution of Macbeth, Bellona's [goddess of war's] bridegroom, clad in armour of proof [tested], who confronted the treacherous Thane of Cawdor with "self-comparison", equal skill but also suggesting possible equal treachery, stopped his "lavish [insolent] spirit" and assured victory for Duncan. They extracted money from Sweno before allowing him burial of the fallen. Deception, as a dominant theme, is emphasised by Duncan, who announces the execution of the traitor and awards the title of Thane of Cawdor to Macbeth, thus preparing for dramatic irony in the next scene as we know of this promotion and Macbeth does not. Macbeth is seen as the opposite of Cawdor and "noble" but their names are linked. However, even in this world of bloody battle and hostile statescraft there is a distinction between right and wrong whereas on the heath lurks an unnatural zone where moral values are confused.
Act I scene iii
We now return to his remote location and learn more about the witches and their activities. They bring disaster to mortals and have no pity: they offer help in the form of winds to the first witch to pursue the husband of a woman who told her to "Aroynt [be off]" and who is made humanly sympathetic by the eating of chestnuts from her lap which she refuses to the witch. The threat is the more powerful for being vague at first: "I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do." The rhythmic incantatory details include draining him dry and removing from him the capacity for sleep, insomnia becoming thematic later. He will eventually wither as his ship is tossed by storms and there are ritualistic numbers of days for his torture. The witch has a pilot's thumb as trophy and we have a dark sense of what happens to people caught up in the influence of these powerful creatures. As they hear a drum (strange since Banquo and Macbeth are alone) they dance and chant with magical digits of three to make a spell and we feel that the men who enter cannot win. The shorter lines form a contrast with the use of blank verse or prose in the surrounding scenes.
Macbeth uses the same words as the witches in the earlier scene: "foul and fair", referring to the fact that a good victory was achieved on a day of bad weather but the paradoxical terms connect him to the amoral world of the supernatural and show him vulnerable to its confused values. Banquo is concerned about their journey as a normal preoccupation but turns his attention to the witches giving the first impression of them in his speech, again managing audience reactions. His description of the witches is pictorial and atmospheric: he portrays them as "So wither'd and so wild in their attire" and wonders what kind of creatures they are: if they are alive and whether or not a person may address them. They do not look like normal beings and so are between earth and the supernatural and seem to understand his human talk by placing a "choppy finger" on "skinny lips". They are unnatural in seeming like women but having beards. The theme of gender is present here. All this acts for the audience as a confirmation of what they can see and think and designates Banquo as thoughtful, sceptical and questioning. Macbeth, however, speaks to them urgently without delay.
They address Macbeth with three greetings: the first is his present title; the second triggers dramatic irony as we know he is now Thane of Cawdor but he and Banquo do not; the third, that he will become King, arouses our curiosity as well as the men's and creates tension as we have just seen the living Duncan. Banquo's words alert the audience to the fact that Macbeth has reacted physically in some way, flinching or recoiling, and it may be that the witches' words have uncovered some guilty ambition in him as he then falls into a reverie and is "rapt withal." Banquo uses a paradox similar to those already voiced, "foul and fair "in saying that the prophecies are "fair" and yet cause "fear", the echoing sound of the words highlighting the discrepancy and oppositions. He then addresses the witches, asking if they are figments of the imagination or genuine supernatural beings: unlike Macbeth, he is sceptical, rational and objectively distanced. He points out that: the first greeting was one of "present grace", that Macbeth is already ennobled by the title of Thane of Glamis; the second was of "great prediction", that Macbeth will have the high honour of being Thane of Cawdor; the third was of "royal" hope of becoming King. He does not see need for action nor fear and, of the two men, takes the initiative. His thoughts are orderly and he is in control, although perplexed. Macbeth is withdrawn, possibly because the prophecies are directed at him and are of huge significance or because they have brought hidden ambitions and thoughts to the surface of his mind. Banquo now asks what will become of he, himself, if the witches can look "into the seeds" of time and claims he does not feel subservient nor afraid. The natural imagery of seeds which grow or die without intervention contrasts with the supernatural and alerts us to the fact that, in this drama, there are elements of the natural, the unnatural and the supernatural.
The witches' replies to Banquo are cryptic and paradoxical, in particular their statement that Banquo will father kings although he will not be royal. This sticks in Macbeth's mind to return later and it may even be this prophecy that draws him out of his reverie. The dramatic irony is heavy when he speaks of the Thane of Cawdor, whom we know to be a traitor but Macbeth believes to be a "prosperous gentleman". To be king seems incredible to him but the audience can perceive that, if he has become Cawdor, he might also become king. He fails to prevent the witches from departing and both men are left in a state of aroused curiosity as are we.
Banquo is more interested in the identity of the apparitions than is Macbeth and questions whether they were there or if they were the product of something like hemlock. Both men think they were like bubbles which vanish and do not then seem to have physical reality. Macbeth avoid speaking of the main prophecy for himself and opens with the one that states that Banquo's children will be kings. He is avoiding the chief issue on his mind, possibly to avert suspicion as he has not yet decided if he needs to act to bring about this future position. Banquo is calm whereas Macbeth is perturbed. As they revise the words of the witches Rosse and Angus disturb their thoughts with news of the battle and a formal account of Duncan's praise and admiration for Macbeth's bravery and success in it. Macbeth seems the valiant hero, fighting the treacherous rebels (Macdonwald and army) and being in the midst of and against the Norwegian troops. All objective and numerous mentions, "post with post", adulate him before the King. Yet we see him as confused and bewildered because of the supernatural intervention. He cannot be paid for such valour but they immediately accord him the title of Thane of Cawdor as a promise of more recompense to come. Banquo instantly perceives the significance but feels that the witches are the spokespersons of the Devil and therefore evil. Macbeth, using imagery which will become dominant, asks why he is being dressed "in borrow'd robes [titles]."
Angus explains what we already know and so we are free to watch Macbeth's reaction as we do not need to concentrate on the messenger's words. Cawdor's treasons have been confessed although the full truth of his involvement is not known and he has been sentenced to death. The State is presented, in the person of the King, as controlled, just and lawful. At the start of a tragedy, order frequently prevails, to be undermined and overturned by evil until it is restored at the end. Macbeth's comment to himself: "The greatest is behind" shows that his mind dwells on the prospect of kingship although he conceals this by asking Banquo about his feelings about having royal children.
When Banquo responds by saying that, if Macbeth were to trust the propheicies completely, it "Might yet enkindle [him] unto the crown", he means that the third one could trigger ambition in Macbeth but he is probably not thinking of foul play. Being a sceptic and having the acumen to think rationally, he realises that the agents of the devil, "The instruments of Darkness" often start luring a human being by the bait of smaller truths, "honest trifles" (presumably the promise of Thane of Cawdor), in order to cause evil in larger matters. He is thoughtful and suspicious whereas Macbeth in enthralled by what has been promised.
His aside, virtually a soliloquy, shows how speedily his mind has raced forwards, making the audience wonder if he had murderously ambitious thoughts previously. He uses imagery of a play, with "happy prologues" [the prophecies of Glamis and Cawdor] prefacing the "imperial theme" [the forecast of kingship]. This metaphor is an example of metadrama whereby we are reminded that we are watching a play which will open up to wider actions and themes, temporarily distancing the audience before recommencing the theatrical illusion with greater intensity. Breaking off briefly to thank the messengers, Macbeth continues to ruminate in a see-saw, rocking rhythm which shows his perplexity and vacillation: "Cannot be ill [evil]; cannot be good". He questions why, if "the supernatural soliciting" were evil, it has given attractive promises of success, beginning with a truth. We notice that he fails to see a reason, whereas the more rational Banquo appreciated that this could be an enticing trick. Macbeth perceives matters in opposites of "ill" and "good" and feels he must choose one or the other, working out mentally that if the witches were forces for good, he would not be contemplating the murder of Duncan:
that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature.
The physical reactions of hair standing on end and a violently throbbing heart, along with the sense that this is unnatural make us feel that Macbeth is not instinctively evil but may be easily tempted in a way that Banquo would not. At the moment, his fears are not even "horrible imaginings" and the thought of murder is a fantasy and yet his "single state of man" (which could be a reference to the microcosm) is so shaken that action, "function", is "smother'd in surmise [thought]" so that deeds and ideas are indistinguishable. This is a constant theme of the drama: that thought leads to action which, in turn, leads to thought. Banquo comments that Macbeth is in a semi-trance as indeed he is, as he ponders another paradox, that a man may not need to act in order to ensure that his fate will take place, Chance here being an instrument of Fate. Banquo uses the recurrent imagery of garments for titles, which, in their newness as is that of Thane of Cawdor, cause bewilderment. The slow rhythm of Macbeth's line "Time and the hour run through the longest day" seems contrary to his urgent thoughts and we do not quite believe that he will wait to see what happens. Although he seems to have free will to do whatever he decides, his character may determine his fate according to the prophecy. There is a conflict between free will, Fate and the impulse of character. He certainly lies when he explains that his thoughts were trivial but he returns to normality to thank the messengers and arrange a future conversation with Banquo about what they have seen. They are friends and comrades and understand each other at this point. The world of the witches has met that of men and the scenes have been interpersed to dramatise this contrast yet involvement.
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To return to the Home Page with list of texts and comment form click here
Overview
Macbeth is a short play and yet is considered difficult or even unlucky to perform in modern times, possibly because of the problem of presenting the supernatural elements such as the witches to a sceptical audience. There may be other, intrinsic, reasons for this attitude, such as the central structure of the drama which takes a villain as its hero. Shakespeare addresses this by giving Macbeth several soliloquies to engage sympathy but this strategy may not be entirely successful set against the general bloodshed and repugnant murders.
The drama does deal with important and universal themes such as: good and evil and whether evil is within a person or enters from outside; fate and free will; the question of whether or not character is fate; the existence of a supernatural; order and disorder; ambition; humanity; deception, appearance and reality; the cycle of thought turning to action and then to thoughts again. Various dominant topics and images occur: murder; blood; fear; guilt; light and dark; disturbed sleep; maleness and femininity; microcosm and macrocosm; the natural and unnatural.
The historical element is taken from Holinshed's Chronicles but Shakespeare made significant changes from that source of which these are the most dramatically important: he turned Banquo, an ancestor of James I, into a wholly good figure instead of being an accomplice to the murder of Duncan in an open political assassination; Duncan is changed from a young but feeble ruler to an older, potent and gracious King and the historical Macbeth did have reason for his murder in that Duncan deprived him of his rightful hopes of kingship by the illegal appointment of his son as Prince of Cumberland; in the original, Macbeth had ten years of good government between the murders of Duncan and Banquo and is therefore more villianous in the play. The contrast of good with evil is more diametrically opposed by these alterations. (Macbeth, in fact, was the murderer of James I's ancestor and so could not be presented favourably.)
The drama is entirely dominated by Macbeth himself and, in the earlier stages, by Lady Macbeth also. Many characters refer to him, and comment on him even when he is not on stage. We see his decline in full as the first scenes show him at his peak and we watch his descent with ambivalent emotions which may not be the pure pity and fear advised by Aristotle as his terrible crimes have been depicted on and off stage. He and his wife have the capacity for great evil and we may question who is the worse. We may also ask the more abstract query: is it necessary for a person whose fate is laid down to act in order to bring it about or may he wait for it to take place without intervention. This leads on to the debate as to whether character is fate: could Macbeth, given his predispositions, have refrained from action to ensure the outcome?
Act I scene i
The stage direction gives the placing of this atmospheric scene as "An open place", some kind of heath removed from the world of man with, at this moment, threatening and turbulent weather mirroring events to come and connected with the three witches. The brief scene is rhymed and incantatory and its function is chiefly to create mood and tension but we learn that there is a battle soon to be "lost and won", the first of many paradoxes in the play. The witches have prescience and know the outcome and the time of the defeat. Macbeth's name is mentioned in the midst of this disorder and it is clear that he is the reason for the next encounter which we now await with curiosity. The witches' familiars, a grey cat and a toad, call and we see that moral values are to be mixed and good indistinguishable from evil: "Fair is foul and foul is fair" as they connect themselves to "fog and filthy air." The audience realises that Macbeth should be wary when he meets them. The supernatural has been allied to evil, unnatural weather, conflict and filth as the witches are inhuman.
Act I scene ii
We now move to the world of man and the battle mentioned by the witches. (Shakespeare has condensed three historical conflicts into one.) Duncan has been fighting Sweno, King of Norway, aided by Macdonwald, Lord of the Western Isles of Scotland and Thane of Cawdor. This shift of scene takes us to a camp where royal authority is demonstrated and Macbeth becomes, once again, central. Manliness is defined by bravery in combat as the "good and hardy soldier" is praised. He, in turn, adulates Macbeth who fought Macdonwald, the villainous rebel, like one of two swimmers, although his opponent was supplied with Kernes [footsoldiers] and Gallowglasses [horsemen with axes.] Fortune is seen as a whore favouring the wrong and damned man but Macbeth rises against fate and kills his enemy in a gruesome and decisive fashion, slitting him open from stomach to jaws and beheading him with a sword smoking with blood. The name Macbeth is now connected with butchery and killing even though he is described as "Valour's minion [darling]" and the revenge is justified. The Captain continues in poetic mode giving stature to the account, comparing the deceptive appearance of the sun which, in fact, heralds storms to this victory's being followed by a fresh onslaught by the Norwegians. We notice the theme of deception here. Half-lines indicate that the soldier is weak but he goes on to praise Macbeth and Banquo with animal comparisons and also a simile of a recharged cannon; they doubled their efforts as if they intended to recreate Golgotha (the site of the cruxifiction of Jesus). Courage, honour and heroism are once more seen in the context of bloodshed and we are reminded of the "fair is foul" theme. Duncan allows the man to receive medical attention and appears as a gracious, dignified, calm commander who finds out the facts and shows compassion.
Rosse enters and the comment of Lenox acts like a stage direction in case the actor could not portray haste and urgency to an audience in the conditions of Shakespeare's theatre. He stresses the contribution of Macbeth, Bellona's [goddess of war's] bridegroom, clad in armour of proof [tested], who confronted the treacherous Thane of Cawdor with "self-comparison", equal skill but also suggesting possible equal treachery, stopped his "lavish [insolent] spirit" and assured victory for Duncan. They extracted money from Sweno before allowing him burial of the fallen. Deception, as a dominant theme, is emphasised by Duncan, who announces the execution of the traitor and awards the title of Thane of Cawdor to Macbeth, thus preparing for dramatic irony in the next scene as we know of this promotion and Macbeth does not. Macbeth is seen as the opposite of Cawdor and "noble" but their names are linked. However, even in this world of bloody battle and hostile statescraft there is a distinction between right and wrong whereas on the heath lurks an unnatural zone where moral values are confused.
Act I scene iii
We now return to his remote location and learn more about the witches and their activities. They bring disaster to mortals and have no pity: they offer help in the form of winds to the first witch to pursue the husband of a woman who told her to "Aroynt [be off]" and who is made humanly sympathetic by the eating of chestnuts from her lap which she refuses to the witch. The threat is the more powerful for being vague at first: "I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do." The rhythmic incantatory details include draining him dry and removing from him the capacity for sleep, insomnia becoming thematic later. He will eventually wither as his ship is tossed by storms and there are ritualistic numbers of days for his torture. The witch has a pilot's thumb as trophy and we have a dark sense of what happens to people caught up in the influence of these powerful creatures. As they hear a drum (strange since Banquo and Macbeth are alone) they dance and chant with magical digits of three to make a spell and we feel that the men who enter cannot win. The shorter lines form a contrast with the use of blank verse or prose in the surrounding scenes.
Macbeth uses the same words as the witches in the earlier scene: "foul and fair", referring to the fact that a good victory was achieved on a day of bad weather but the paradoxical terms connect him to the amoral world of the supernatural and show him vulnerable to its confused values. Banquo is concerned about their journey as a normal preoccupation but turns his attention to the witches giving the first impression of them in his speech, again managing audience reactions. His description of the witches is pictorial and atmospheric: he portrays them as "So wither'd and so wild in their attire" and wonders what kind of creatures they are: if they are alive and whether or not a person may address them. They do not look like normal beings and so are between earth and the supernatural and seem to understand his human talk by placing a "choppy finger" on "skinny lips". They are unnatural in seeming like women but having beards. The theme of gender is present here. All this acts for the audience as a confirmation of what they can see and think and designates Banquo as thoughtful, sceptical and questioning. Macbeth, however, speaks to them urgently without delay.
They address Macbeth with three greetings: the first is his present title; the second triggers dramatic irony as we know he is now Thane of Cawdor but he and Banquo do not; the third, that he will become King, arouses our curiosity as well as the men's and creates tension as we have just seen the living Duncan. Banquo's words alert the audience to the fact that Macbeth has reacted physically in some way, flinching or recoiling, and it may be that the witches' words have uncovered some guilty ambition in him as he then falls into a reverie and is "rapt withal." Banquo uses a paradox similar to those already voiced, "foul and fair "in saying that the prophecies are "fair" and yet cause "fear", the echoing sound of the words highlighting the discrepancy and oppositions. He then addresses the witches, asking if they are figments of the imagination or genuine supernatural beings: unlike Macbeth, he is sceptical, rational and objectively distanced. He points out that: the first greeting was one of "present grace", that Macbeth is already ennobled by the title of Thane of Glamis; the second was of "great prediction", that Macbeth will have the high honour of being Thane of Cawdor; the third was of "royal" hope of becoming King. He does not see need for action nor fear and, of the two men, takes the initiative. His thoughts are orderly and he is in control, although perplexed. Macbeth is withdrawn, possibly because the prophecies are directed at him and are of huge significance or because they have brought hidden ambitions and thoughts to the surface of his mind. Banquo now asks what will become of he, himself, if the witches can look "into the seeds" of time and claims he does not feel subservient nor afraid. The natural imagery of seeds which grow or die without intervention contrasts with the supernatural and alerts us to the fact that, in this drama, there are elements of the natural, the unnatural and the supernatural.
The witches' replies to Banquo are cryptic and paradoxical, in particular their statement that Banquo will father kings although he will not be royal. This sticks in Macbeth's mind to return later and it may even be this prophecy that draws him out of his reverie. The dramatic irony is heavy when he speaks of the Thane of Cawdor, whom we know to be a traitor but Macbeth believes to be a "prosperous gentleman". To be king seems incredible to him but the audience can perceive that, if he has become Cawdor, he might also become king. He fails to prevent the witches from departing and both men are left in a state of aroused curiosity as are we.
Banquo is more interested in the identity of the apparitions than is Macbeth and questions whether they were there or if they were the product of something like hemlock. Both men think they were like bubbles which vanish and do not then seem to have physical reality. Macbeth avoid speaking of the main prophecy for himself and opens with the one that states that Banquo's children will be kings. He is avoiding the chief issue on his mind, possibly to avert suspicion as he has not yet decided if he needs to act to bring about this future position. Banquo is calm whereas Macbeth is perturbed. As they revise the words of the witches Rosse and Angus disturb their thoughts with news of the battle and a formal account of Duncan's praise and admiration for Macbeth's bravery and success in it. Macbeth seems the valiant hero, fighting the treacherous rebels (Macdonwald and army) and being in the midst of and against the Norwegian troops. All objective and numerous mentions, "post with post", adulate him before the King. Yet we see him as confused and bewildered because of the supernatural intervention. He cannot be paid for such valour but they immediately accord him the title of Thane of Cawdor as a promise of more recompense to come. Banquo instantly perceives the significance but feels that the witches are the spokespersons of the Devil and therefore evil. Macbeth, using imagery which will become dominant, asks why he is being dressed "in borrow'd robes [titles]."
Angus explains what we already know and so we are free to watch Macbeth's reaction as we do not need to concentrate on the messenger's words. Cawdor's treasons have been confessed although the full truth of his involvement is not known and he has been sentenced to death. The State is presented, in the person of the King, as controlled, just and lawful. At the start of a tragedy, order frequently prevails, to be undermined and overturned by evil until it is restored at the end. Macbeth's comment to himself: "The greatest is behind" shows that his mind dwells on the prospect of kingship although he conceals this by asking Banquo about his feelings about having royal children.
When Banquo responds by saying that, if Macbeth were to trust the propheicies completely, it "Might yet enkindle [him] unto the crown", he means that the third one could trigger ambition in Macbeth but he is probably not thinking of foul play. Being a sceptic and having the acumen to think rationally, he realises that the agents of the devil, "The instruments of Darkness" often start luring a human being by the bait of smaller truths, "honest trifles" (presumably the promise of Thane of Cawdor), in order to cause evil in larger matters. He is thoughtful and suspicious whereas Macbeth in enthralled by what has been promised.
His aside, virtually a soliloquy, shows how speedily his mind has raced forwards, making the audience wonder if he had murderously ambitious thoughts previously. He uses imagery of a play, with "happy prologues" [the prophecies of Glamis and Cawdor] prefacing the "imperial theme" [the forecast of kingship]. This metaphor is an example of metadrama whereby we are reminded that we are watching a play which will open up to wider actions and themes, temporarily distancing the audience before recommencing the theatrical illusion with greater intensity. Breaking off briefly to thank the messengers, Macbeth continues to ruminate in a see-saw, rocking rhythm which shows his perplexity and vacillation: "Cannot be ill [evil]; cannot be good". He questions why, if "the supernatural soliciting" were evil, it has given attractive promises of success, beginning with a truth. We notice that he fails to see a reason, whereas the more rational Banquo appreciated that this could be an enticing trick. Macbeth perceives matters in opposites of "ill" and "good" and feels he must choose one or the other, working out mentally that if the witches were forces for good, he would not be contemplating the murder of Duncan:
that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature.
The physical reactions of hair standing on end and a violently throbbing heart, along with the sense that this is unnatural make us feel that Macbeth is not instinctively evil but may be easily tempted in a way that Banquo would not. At the moment, his fears are not even "horrible imaginings" and the thought of murder is a fantasy and yet his "single state of man" (which could be a reference to the microcosm) is so shaken that action, "function", is "smother'd in surmise [thought]" so that deeds and ideas are indistinguishable. This is a constant theme of the drama: that thought leads to action which, in turn, leads to thought. Banquo comments that Macbeth is in a semi-trance as indeed he is, as he ponders another paradox, that a man may not need to act in order to ensure that his fate will take place, Chance here being an instrument of Fate. Banquo uses the recurrent imagery of garments for titles, which, in their newness as is that of Thane of Cawdor, cause bewilderment. The slow rhythm of Macbeth's line "Time and the hour run through the longest day" seems contrary to his urgent thoughts and we do not quite believe that he will wait to see what happens. Although he seems to have free will to do whatever he decides, his character may determine his fate according to the prophecy. There is a conflict between free will, Fate and the impulse of character. He certainly lies when he explains that his thoughts were trivial but he returns to normality to thank the messengers and arrange a future conversation with Banquo about what they have seen. They are friends and comrades and understand each other at this point. The world of the witches has met that of men and the scenes have been interpersed to dramatise this contrast yet involvement.
To continue to Macbeth page 2 click here
To return to the Home Page with list of texts and comment form click here
