Macbeth page 3 Act I scene vii onwards
One of the methods by which Shakespeare controls our reactions and helps us enter the mind of Macbeth is to give him soliloquies and here, during the banquet, we find him alone and ruminating, not as a cold-blooded murder but as a doubter. His hesitancies are not entirely moral as his attitude at first is pragmatic. The word "done" in the first lines is used euphemistically and with slightly different meanings: over and done with; performed; acted out. He wishes that the murder, which he terms an assassination to provide a better tone, could catch up any aftermath and produce instant success and that the "blow" would be the final event "upon this bank and shoal of time", this mortal life. He is preoccupied with time and does not concern himself with the afterlife or eternity where he is prepared to take a risk. Yet he fears earthly justice, "judgement", which might return on the perpetrator of bloodshed. His rhythms are slow and thoughtful and he uses the image of a poisoned goblet which impartial justice will use to kill him in turn. At this point he switches to moral considerations and the double bond between himself and Duncan, which seems, in fact, triple in his roles as kinsman, subject and host. In all three he should be protective (as he has been in battle) and not "bear the knife" against Duncan. He is aware of the goodness of the King, seeing his meekness as a virtue (whereas Lady Macbeth would see it as feeble), and praises his qualities as ruler whilst seeing them as disadvantages to himself since everyone will deplore the murder, the "taking-off." Macbeth is so aware of public reaction that his imagination is fired to personify Pity as a baby or see cherubim riding the winds, the "sightless couriers", and blowing the news of the killing into all eyes to make them weep. Although elaborate, the image is powerful, almost physical, as the listener's eyes feel prickly at the mention. Imagery of horsemanship follows, appropriate for a warrior, as he recognises his own main flaw of ambition which is his only spur but which might make him, in his vault on to the saddle, overleap and fall off the other side. Ironically, Duncan had used the image of a spur to describe Macbeth's love in the previous scene. Again this is powerful visually but the line is interrupted by a tense and watchful Lady Macbeth who has felt no need to be alone as her husband has. Macbeth's ambition may have been stimulated by the witches rather than initiated by them but he does not seem ready to trust to Fate to make him king.
By the time she enters, Macbeth has decided to "proceed no further in this business [the murder]", using the euphemism either out of moral repugnance or in case anyone is listening. The initial dialogue between the two is broken into half lines of blank verse, showing their nervousness and tension. She reveals that Macbeth's absence from the festivity has been noticed and she questions why he left the chamber, although she may have suspected that he is harbouring doubts, since her invective is ready for him. He is rational and content with what he has attained, "golden opinions", as a result of his performance in battle and wants to enjoy his new success. In the debate on free will and Fate, he has opted to leave matters alone. She responds with scorn, using the imagery of clothing, "dress'd" and drunkenness: his hope must be suffering from a hangover, being "green and pale", after having been so optimistic: "what it did so freely". Introducing a personal note, she taunts him with a gibe of a similar inconstancy in love before moving into a reproach about his manliness, another theme of the drama. Her perception that he wants an outcome that he dare not act to bring about recalls Act I, v, 24, where she showed her intuition about his character and the inner workings of his mind and emotions. "The ornament of life" could mean honour in general or the crown in particular but she is riduculing him as being too cowardly to bring about his desires, just like the cat in the proverb: "The cate would eate fiyshe, and would not wet her feete" which feminises him and makes him a figure of fun, poised over a decision and fearful.
He picks up the slur on his virility and asks her to be quiet, claiming that he "dare do all that may become a man" and that anyone who would go further and commit murder is not a true man. He is right to commend his own bravery but she reduces his earlier intentions to kill Duncan to those of a beast, claiming that he introduced her to the idea, which was not strictly the case as both were inextricably involved and used innuendo to convey their preconceived thoughts. His version of manliness encompasses kindliness, order and service but hers does not, in this circumstance, where she wants to disrupt nature and the accepted structure of society. She would feel him to be more manly if he murdered in violence and we know that, although he can commit butchery in a rightful cause in war, he does not want to yield to the temptation to murder for personal gain. She refers to his excuses, that this is not the time nor place, and points out that those negative considerations did not apply earlier and now they have presented themselves which, ironically, has unnerved him. This does not entirely accord with what we have seen and suggests that there may be a lost scene in which they discussed and agreed on the murder but had no opportunity.
Her next sentence raises the question which has been mocked as too close and literal an interpretation of text but it is, in fact quite important: has Lady Macbeth had children as she claims and, if so, how does that affects Macbeth's attitude to all the prophecies of the witches, particularly the one to Banquo and the matter of succession? She has earlier referred to her female milk and wished it to be replaced by bitterness but here we see her as even more resolute and cruel, the visual picture of her killing her sucking and smilling baby being particularly horrifying. The action is at an extreme of unnaturalness and we still feel she has to steel herself to become so unfeminine. She commends keeping a vow until that becomes mere obstinacy. She is having an effect as Macbeth now dwells on practicality and the chances of managing the murder, rather than its immorality. There is an opportunity for the actress to interpret by tone of voice and inflection, the answer, "We fail", as either resigned or unbelieving, either accepting that failure is a risk or that it is impossible.
She has worked out all the details, which makes one think she cannot conceive of failure: she has caught him at the moment of doubt and fills his mind with convincing plans. Psychological tactics have been replaced by pragmatism. Duncan will be tired after his journey and she will wear out his bedroom gaurdians with drink and festivity so that they will be like swine and devoid of memory, reason or awareness; it should be noted that the attribute of reason is what makes a man different from an animal. Her language is strong and intense as she depicts the guards as unconscious in drink as in death and themselves free to do whatever they wish on the sleeping and helpless King. She has no sense of his value as a man or monarch as Macbeth has but shows her crafty, cunning and domineering character, having no inhibitions about murdering an innocent man and guest who has honoured her husband with a title and his company. Neither does she have any compunction about the cleverly deceitful notion of laying the blame of the "great quell" on the inebriated guards; if the plot will work, she will do it. Macbeth notes the masculinity of her nature and refers again to their possibly having children, accepting that the guilt could be successfully laid on the guards, adding the detail that they can smear them with blood and use their daggers to make it more convincing. The soldierly side of him has come to the fore, but for evil purposes. She stresses the importnace of "seeming", hypocritically putting on a show of extreme and hyperbolic grief. The victory is hers and he is now reslute, picking up her image of screwing his courage (possibly that of a violin string) in the word "bend": he will adopt the performance she wants and "mock the time with fairest show", passing the space between though and action in acting in the sense of deception. His last line recalls Duncan's opinion that one cannot read a "false heart" in the face emphasised by the rhyming couplet common at the end of a scene. It has not been a true debate as she has been dominant and bent his will to hers but the tension mounts as there is not much time for the deed.
ACT II
This is one of the many night-time scenes in the play and is introduced by an ordinary discussion between Banquo and his son about the time in which they mention that the sky is starless: "Their candles are all out". Ironically this is what Macbeth wished for so that his deed would be hidden but their reference is to the natural order of the universe and is expressed imaginatively as though heaven were economising. Banquo is tired but is sleepless, a leitmotif in the play, and reminds us that sleep is peaceful but leaves the person vulnerable. He is presumably thinking of the witches and having "cursed thoughts" when in repose and we realise the importance of Fleance here, as he is a future king according to the prophecies. The contrast between Macbeth and Banquo is underlined by the fact that the virtuous Banquo will not yield even to the thoughts produced by the witches whereas Macbeth is going further than thinking into evil action. There is a nervousness in this short episode as Banquo needs his sword as he hears Macbeth enter. He is surprised that Macbeth is also awake and tells him and the audience of Duncan's great enjoyment and gratitude, having been generous in reward, particularly with a diamond for Lady Macbeth. All this is heavy with dramatic irony as we know Macbeth's intent and we now learn that the King is in bed and the moment has come. It also shows Duncan's merits as ruler: liberal, grateful and gracious, and makes Macbeth's plot more shocking.
With further and more subtle dramatic irony, Macbeth excuses his lack of preparation for the visit, saying that he could not accomplish all he wished for Duncan, a statement which has another truth as he has not yet carried out the murder. Banquo is the first to mention the witches, showing that he is disturbed, and has noticed that one prophecy has come true for Macbeth: he is Thane of Cawdor. Lying, Macbeth claims not to be thinking of them but asks for a further discussion, promising that, if Banquo agrees to any plan, he will be honoured. There is a moral ambiguity here, which Banquo may have picked up as he says he will do anything honourable and loyal: he wants to be free from guilt and sin. Macbeth sends a message to his wife to arrange an apparently innocent signal and the tension mounts.
Left alone, Macbeth is not in control of his own mind and has a hallucination, seeing in front of him a dagger, whose reality he questions. This leads him into a famous soliloquy: "Is this a dagger, which I see before me ...?" and there is no need for special effects for the imaginary implement. It is clear and worth noting that the handle presents itself to him and the whole object points towards Duncan's room, showing that he is ready to commit murder but not fully determined. It is a manifestation of the supernatural again but a figment of his own imagination whereas the witches appeared to two men simultaneously. He cannot grasp the dagger but continues to see it and he is rational enough to ask why it is not perceptible to the sense of touch as well as to that of sight and sufficiently lucid to try to test the reality of the vision. He accepts that his brain may be "heat-oppressed" and therefore ready to produce false images but his uneasy language is broken and questioning, full of repetitions. He compares it to the actual dagger which he draws out finding it as "palpable" and we noice the short, nervous line: "As this which now I draw". He sees the illusion as a pointer: Macbeth needs stimuli for his act, even if he invents them himself. He reasons that either his eyes are dupes of the other senses or worth all of them put together. His visual imagination is so powerful that he now projects drops of blood onto the blade and even the handle before rejecting it as a hallucination produced by the "bloody business" in process. The word "blood" and its synonyms are repeated throughout the play and are characteristic of it. We recall that Macbeth is hardened to blood in battle and unmoved by it whilst being aware of how gruesome it can be.
He returns to the actual world in which Nature seems dead and sleep is threatened by "wicked dreams", interrupted sleep being another leitmotif in the drama. Unnatural things are active and personified here as "Murther" seems to be woken by his howling wolf sentinel. Macbeth sees himself as Tarquin, the rapist, moving like a ghost, another supernatural image. Just as he hoped the sky would not see his actions, he now hopes the earth will not hear his strides: his mind is full of guilt and horror as he feels the forces of evil gathering. His conscience seems like ears rather than eyes as the stones sound out his steps and catch the terror of the moment. Yet he is aware of his own delay and the gap between cold thought and hot action. The pre-arranged signal of the bell rings and he hears it as a death knell for Duncan All his senses are over-exerted and nervously taut and the final rhyme has a tolling sound. Throughout this soliloquy he has shown himself to be firstly bewildered, then rationally interested even whilst hallucinating and finally convinced of the evil of his action, asking for cover from its full sinfulness. His sense of bloodshed, doom and horror is powerful and the comparison to Tarquin places Duncan as an innocent victim. He knows that it is he who will go to Hell, not the virtuous monarch, although no time will be allowed for final rites.
Act II scene ii
At this point Lady Macbeth does not know whether or not Macbeth has performed the killing and the murder is off-stage. One method by which Shakespeare makes Macbeth seem more malevolent later is to show the actual murders but this one is left to the audience's imagination, aided by graphic details and the morbid atmosphere. She has imbibed some of the drink she had ready for the guards and this is an admission that she needs extra courage to continue as the wine has made her "bold" and has given her "fire" - to some extent the pair hide their anxieties from each other though Macbeth is more ready to admit his doubts. Nervously, she hears sounds which make her more tense and, even when she realises that the noise is that of an owl, she calls it "the fatal bellman" hooting the final farewell of "good-night" to Duncan. She convinces herself that her husband is committing the deed at that moment with doors open and the snoring guards drugged as well as drunk, seeming to mock the person they should be protecting. Her imagination is over-active and she personifies Death and Nature as fighting over the men to decide if they should be dead or alive, as they are so near unconsciousness. She pauses in a short line which Macbeth completes from off-stage calling to find out who is present, but she continues with an anxious fear that the guards may have woken and prevented the murder. Her words: "'tis not done" recall Macbeth's earlier soliloquy: "If it were done, when 'tis done ..." and she stresses the thematic issue of the gap between thought and action, words and deeds. Her speech becomes broken and jittery with exclamations, short sentences and disconnected thoughts but it is clear that she attempted the killing yet could not continue because Duncan looked like her father in sleep and so she left the daggers for Macbeth to complete the act. This shows she does have some gentler normal attachments and natural love and the softer, downward rhythm of the lines confirms this but we note too that the only time she calls Macbeth "husband" is when she believes that he has succeeded and is bloodstained. She has shown us but not him the first sign of weakness, in her terms, here and the chance resemblance appears like the working of Fate to make Macbeth the murderer.
When Macbeth enters, the rhythm and dialogue continue to be broken, questioning and staccato though it should be noted that "Did you not speak?/When?/Now./As I descended?" is all one blank verse line of five iambs with an extra weak syllable at the end to further demonstrate uncertainty. The owl and the crickets are natural omens of death. There are short lines later at: "This is a sorry [pitiable] sight", the space being filled by the actor's glance or gaze at his blood-stained hands but we notice that, when one of the couple falters, the other seems strong and she rebukes him for this weakness. The hearing of both is stretched to over-sensitivity and he recalls exactly what Duncan's sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, did when they heard a noise. As a contrast to his evil, they prayed and went back to sleep, a symbol of clear conscience. Macbeth envisages their seeing his crimson hands, those of a hangman after drawing and quartering the victim. He was unable to pronounce the word "Amen" which shows that he, unlike them, is cut off from heaven, blessing and goodness.
Her rhythm is gentler as she advises: "Consider it not so deeply" as though she is close to being moved by the account but he is unable to stop wondering why he could not end the prayer with "Amen," being so in need of blessing - the feeling of a word stuck in the throat is physical and strong. She fears madness if they dwell mentally on their own actions and this stresses one of the main themes of the drama: thoughts lead to deeds which return as thoughts. The leitmotif of disturbed sleep as a sign of evil and troublesome conscience is emphasised by Macbeth who has heard an imaginary voice, comparable to the vision of the dagger, call out that he will sleep no more. The rhythm pulses along with urgency as he describes what he has lost, the rest that makes a person recover from the day's troubles, and is a benign form of death and a bath or balm provided by Nature as she also provides the second course to the banquet of daily life. There are many images here, all would be be soothing, except for the fact that they describe what has gone.
His nervousness and his description of the power of the voice, another supernatural element, seem to be affecting her as he continues to list its calls, naming his three personalities: Macbeth, Glamis and Cawdor, the last being particularly significant as it reminds us of the witches. It is ironic that he has murdered a sleeping man and therefore the capacity to sleep is killed within him. She now regains her strength and rebukes him for losing virility and dwelling on "brainsickly" things: with a confidence which is later shown to be false, she advises washing his hands which will also clear them of evil along with the evidence, the "filthy witness." She has over-simplified the nature of villainy; it cannot be removed so easily from the mind and conscience. In his nervousness, he has made the error of bringing the daggers out of the room but he will not obey her and return them. In his refusal, he opposes thought, actions and seeing and will not think of or look at the results of his deed.
She derides and scorns him as childish and subject to fantasies and tries to ally sleep with death as mere surfaces: with a terrible pun on "gild" [make gold or red with blood] and "guilt", she goes to put the bloodstained daggers back to cast suspicion on the guards. Macbeth recognises his own over-sensitivity to the ordinary noise of knocking and can almost see hands about to pluck out his eyes, the symbols of conscience. He is more aware than she is of the permanent nature of guilt and knows that his would make the green ocean unnaturally red throughout (a guilty hyperbole) rather than be washed away by the water. When she returns, her hands are bloody also but she claims that her heart is not pale as his is and she remains practical if deluded about the nature of remorse.. They must retire to keep up appearances but her statement: "A little water clears us of this deed:/How easy is it then!" rings in our ears later when she feels blood on her hands still. He is still in his day clothes by inadvertance and must change and she again rebukes him for being lost in thought, as is his habit. He replies that it would be better to lose consciousness altogether than look directly at his deed and already wishes that Duncan were alive and could be woken by the knocking off-stage, which is, ironically, his alarm call. The scene has demonstrated fluctuating moods and tensions in the relationship and the atmosphere of horror off-stage has been strong.
Act II scene iii
The accepted main function of the Porter's prose speech is to provide comic relief from tension which will increase after it but the discourse does much more than that. Ironically, he imagines he is the guardian of Hell Gate, which he is in one sense, and this recalls the Heaven and Hell lexis earlier. His drunkenness shows the harmless side of this venial fault which has been so serious in the case of Duncan's bodyguards and which has elevated Lady Macbeth's evil will. It delays the finding of the corpse which tightens the stress at this point, whilst relaxing it. When he comments on the equivocator, it has an oblique reference to the Macbeths' dishonesty and there is further social satire which forms a contrast between the comparatively trivial flaws in normal everyday life and the enormity of the murder just committed. The knocking which punctuates the speech reminds us that Duncan will soon be found dead and also tests our nerves as, in this context, it is a repeated brutal sound which otherwise would be mundane.
The Porter feels that Hell is busy with entrances: "old [frequent] turning the key" and he backs up his analogy with a mention of another devil "Belzebub". He would be admitting a farmer who anticipated low prices and hanged himself and an opportunist, a "time-pleaser" and underlines the idea of heat by advising they have handkerchiefs ready for their sweat. He cannot recall the name of a further devil but calls out "Knock, knock" to echo the real sound, thus adding tension. The equivocator could argue either way in a debate and has committed treason, as Macbeth has done. Jokes aginst tailors were common and this one has filched from French trousers and can warm up his "goose", his iron, readily here. The reality of the cold night stops him from listing all the wicked professions and we are reminded that Macbeth is heading down the primrose path to eternal fire at this moment. Yet he is sufficiently in control to ask for a tip: "remember the porter" and this demonstrates the essential selfishness of humankind.
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One of the methods by which Shakespeare controls our reactions and helps us enter the mind of Macbeth is to give him soliloquies and here, during the banquet, we find him alone and ruminating, not as a cold-blooded murder but as a doubter. His hesitancies are not entirely moral as his attitude at first is pragmatic. The word "done" in the first lines is used euphemistically and with slightly different meanings: over and done with; performed; acted out. He wishes that the murder, which he terms an assassination to provide a better tone, could catch up any aftermath and produce instant success and that the "blow" would be the final event "upon this bank and shoal of time", this mortal life. He is preoccupied with time and does not concern himself with the afterlife or eternity where he is prepared to take a risk. Yet he fears earthly justice, "judgement", which might return on the perpetrator of bloodshed. His rhythms are slow and thoughtful and he uses the image of a poisoned goblet which impartial justice will use to kill him in turn. At this point he switches to moral considerations and the double bond between himself and Duncan, which seems, in fact, triple in his roles as kinsman, subject and host. In all three he should be protective (as he has been in battle) and not "bear the knife" against Duncan. He is aware of the goodness of the King, seeing his meekness as a virtue (whereas Lady Macbeth would see it as feeble), and praises his qualities as ruler whilst seeing them as disadvantages to himself since everyone will deplore the murder, the "taking-off." Macbeth is so aware of public reaction that his imagination is fired to personify Pity as a baby or see cherubim riding the winds, the "sightless couriers", and blowing the news of the killing into all eyes to make them weep. Although elaborate, the image is powerful, almost physical, as the listener's eyes feel prickly at the mention. Imagery of horsemanship follows, appropriate for a warrior, as he recognises his own main flaw of ambition which is his only spur but which might make him, in his vault on to the saddle, overleap and fall off the other side. Ironically, Duncan had used the image of a spur to describe Macbeth's love in the previous scene. Again this is powerful visually but the line is interrupted by a tense and watchful Lady Macbeth who has felt no need to be alone as her husband has. Macbeth's ambition may have been stimulated by the witches rather than initiated by them but he does not seem ready to trust to Fate to make him king.
By the time she enters, Macbeth has decided to "proceed no further in this business [the murder]", using the euphemism either out of moral repugnance or in case anyone is listening. The initial dialogue between the two is broken into half lines of blank verse, showing their nervousness and tension. She reveals that Macbeth's absence from the festivity has been noticed and she questions why he left the chamber, although she may have suspected that he is harbouring doubts, since her invective is ready for him. He is rational and content with what he has attained, "golden opinions", as a result of his performance in battle and wants to enjoy his new success. In the debate on free will and Fate, he has opted to leave matters alone. She responds with scorn, using the imagery of clothing, "dress'd" and drunkenness: his hope must be suffering from a hangover, being "green and pale", after having been so optimistic: "what it did so freely". Introducing a personal note, she taunts him with a gibe of a similar inconstancy in love before moving into a reproach about his manliness, another theme of the drama. Her perception that he wants an outcome that he dare not act to bring about recalls Act I, v, 24, where she showed her intuition about his character and the inner workings of his mind and emotions. "The ornament of life" could mean honour in general or the crown in particular but she is riduculing him as being too cowardly to bring about his desires, just like the cat in the proverb: "The cate would eate fiyshe, and would not wet her feete" which feminises him and makes him a figure of fun, poised over a decision and fearful.
He picks up the slur on his virility and asks her to be quiet, claiming that he "dare do all that may become a man" and that anyone who would go further and commit murder is not a true man. He is right to commend his own bravery but she reduces his earlier intentions to kill Duncan to those of a beast, claiming that he introduced her to the idea, which was not strictly the case as both were inextricably involved and used innuendo to convey their preconceived thoughts. His version of manliness encompasses kindliness, order and service but hers does not, in this circumstance, where she wants to disrupt nature and the accepted structure of society. She would feel him to be more manly if he murdered in violence and we know that, although he can commit butchery in a rightful cause in war, he does not want to yield to the temptation to murder for personal gain. She refers to his excuses, that this is not the time nor place, and points out that those negative considerations did not apply earlier and now they have presented themselves which, ironically, has unnerved him. This does not entirely accord with what we have seen and suggests that there may be a lost scene in which they discussed and agreed on the murder but had no opportunity.
Her next sentence raises the question which has been mocked as too close and literal an interpretation of text but it is, in fact quite important: has Lady Macbeth had children as she claims and, if so, how does that affects Macbeth's attitude to all the prophecies of the witches, particularly the one to Banquo and the matter of succession? She has earlier referred to her female milk and wished it to be replaced by bitterness but here we see her as even more resolute and cruel, the visual picture of her killing her sucking and smilling baby being particularly horrifying. The action is at an extreme of unnaturalness and we still feel she has to steel herself to become so unfeminine. She commends keeping a vow until that becomes mere obstinacy. She is having an effect as Macbeth now dwells on practicality and the chances of managing the murder, rather than its immorality. There is an opportunity for the actress to interpret by tone of voice and inflection, the answer, "We fail", as either resigned or unbelieving, either accepting that failure is a risk or that it is impossible.
She has worked out all the details, which makes one think she cannot conceive of failure: she has caught him at the moment of doubt and fills his mind with convincing plans. Psychological tactics have been replaced by pragmatism. Duncan will be tired after his journey and she will wear out his bedroom gaurdians with drink and festivity so that they will be like swine and devoid of memory, reason or awareness; it should be noted that the attribute of reason is what makes a man different from an animal. Her language is strong and intense as she depicts the guards as unconscious in drink as in death and themselves free to do whatever they wish on the sleeping and helpless King. She has no sense of his value as a man or monarch as Macbeth has but shows her crafty, cunning and domineering character, having no inhibitions about murdering an innocent man and guest who has honoured her husband with a title and his company. Neither does she have any compunction about the cleverly deceitful notion of laying the blame of the "great quell" on the inebriated guards; if the plot will work, she will do it. Macbeth notes the masculinity of her nature and refers again to their possibly having children, accepting that the guilt could be successfully laid on the guards, adding the detail that they can smear them with blood and use their daggers to make it more convincing. The soldierly side of him has come to the fore, but for evil purposes. She stresses the importnace of "seeming", hypocritically putting on a show of extreme and hyperbolic grief. The victory is hers and he is now reslute, picking up her image of screwing his courage (possibly that of a violin string) in the word "bend": he will adopt the performance she wants and "mock the time with fairest show", passing the space between though and action in acting in the sense of deception. His last line recalls Duncan's opinion that one cannot read a "false heart" in the face emphasised by the rhyming couplet common at the end of a scene. It has not been a true debate as she has been dominant and bent his will to hers but the tension mounts as there is not much time for the deed.
ACT II
This is one of the many night-time scenes in the play and is introduced by an ordinary discussion between Banquo and his son about the time in which they mention that the sky is starless: "Their candles are all out". Ironically this is what Macbeth wished for so that his deed would be hidden but their reference is to the natural order of the universe and is expressed imaginatively as though heaven were economising. Banquo is tired but is sleepless, a leitmotif in the play, and reminds us that sleep is peaceful but leaves the person vulnerable. He is presumably thinking of the witches and having "cursed thoughts" when in repose and we realise the importance of Fleance here, as he is a future king according to the prophecies. The contrast between Macbeth and Banquo is underlined by the fact that the virtuous Banquo will not yield even to the thoughts produced by the witches whereas Macbeth is going further than thinking into evil action. There is a nervousness in this short episode as Banquo needs his sword as he hears Macbeth enter. He is surprised that Macbeth is also awake and tells him and the audience of Duncan's great enjoyment and gratitude, having been generous in reward, particularly with a diamond for Lady Macbeth. All this is heavy with dramatic irony as we know Macbeth's intent and we now learn that the King is in bed and the moment has come. It also shows Duncan's merits as ruler: liberal, grateful and gracious, and makes Macbeth's plot more shocking.
With further and more subtle dramatic irony, Macbeth excuses his lack of preparation for the visit, saying that he could not accomplish all he wished for Duncan, a statement which has another truth as he has not yet carried out the murder. Banquo is the first to mention the witches, showing that he is disturbed, and has noticed that one prophecy has come true for Macbeth: he is Thane of Cawdor. Lying, Macbeth claims not to be thinking of them but asks for a further discussion, promising that, if Banquo agrees to any plan, he will be honoured. There is a moral ambiguity here, which Banquo may have picked up as he says he will do anything honourable and loyal: he wants to be free from guilt and sin. Macbeth sends a message to his wife to arrange an apparently innocent signal and the tension mounts.
Left alone, Macbeth is not in control of his own mind and has a hallucination, seeing in front of him a dagger, whose reality he questions. This leads him into a famous soliloquy: "Is this a dagger, which I see before me ...?" and there is no need for special effects for the imaginary implement. It is clear and worth noting that the handle presents itself to him and the whole object points towards Duncan's room, showing that he is ready to commit murder but not fully determined. It is a manifestation of the supernatural again but a figment of his own imagination whereas the witches appeared to two men simultaneously. He cannot grasp the dagger but continues to see it and he is rational enough to ask why it is not perceptible to the sense of touch as well as to that of sight and sufficiently lucid to try to test the reality of the vision. He accepts that his brain may be "heat-oppressed" and therefore ready to produce false images but his uneasy language is broken and questioning, full of repetitions. He compares it to the actual dagger which he draws out finding it as "palpable" and we noice the short, nervous line: "As this which now I draw". He sees the illusion as a pointer: Macbeth needs stimuli for his act, even if he invents them himself. He reasons that either his eyes are dupes of the other senses or worth all of them put together. His visual imagination is so powerful that he now projects drops of blood onto the blade and even the handle before rejecting it as a hallucination produced by the "bloody business" in process. The word "blood" and its synonyms are repeated throughout the play and are characteristic of it. We recall that Macbeth is hardened to blood in battle and unmoved by it whilst being aware of how gruesome it can be.
He returns to the actual world in which Nature seems dead and sleep is threatened by "wicked dreams", interrupted sleep being another leitmotif in the drama. Unnatural things are active and personified here as "Murther" seems to be woken by his howling wolf sentinel. Macbeth sees himself as Tarquin, the rapist, moving like a ghost, another supernatural image. Just as he hoped the sky would not see his actions, he now hopes the earth will not hear his strides: his mind is full of guilt and horror as he feels the forces of evil gathering. His conscience seems like ears rather than eyes as the stones sound out his steps and catch the terror of the moment. Yet he is aware of his own delay and the gap between cold thought and hot action. The pre-arranged signal of the bell rings and he hears it as a death knell for Duncan All his senses are over-exerted and nervously taut and the final rhyme has a tolling sound. Throughout this soliloquy he has shown himself to be firstly bewildered, then rationally interested even whilst hallucinating and finally convinced of the evil of his action, asking for cover from its full sinfulness. His sense of bloodshed, doom and horror is powerful and the comparison to Tarquin places Duncan as an innocent victim. He knows that it is he who will go to Hell, not the virtuous monarch, although no time will be allowed for final rites.
Act II scene ii
At this point Lady Macbeth does not know whether or not Macbeth has performed the killing and the murder is off-stage. One method by which Shakespeare makes Macbeth seem more malevolent later is to show the actual murders but this one is left to the audience's imagination, aided by graphic details and the morbid atmosphere. She has imbibed some of the drink she had ready for the guards and this is an admission that she needs extra courage to continue as the wine has made her "bold" and has given her "fire" - to some extent the pair hide their anxieties from each other though Macbeth is more ready to admit his doubts. Nervously, she hears sounds which make her more tense and, even when she realises that the noise is that of an owl, she calls it "the fatal bellman" hooting the final farewell of "good-night" to Duncan. She convinces herself that her husband is committing the deed at that moment with doors open and the snoring guards drugged as well as drunk, seeming to mock the person they should be protecting. Her imagination is over-active and she personifies Death and Nature as fighting over the men to decide if they should be dead or alive, as they are so near unconsciousness. She pauses in a short line which Macbeth completes from off-stage calling to find out who is present, but she continues with an anxious fear that the guards may have woken and prevented the murder. Her words: "'tis not done" recall Macbeth's earlier soliloquy: "If it were done, when 'tis done ..." and she stresses the thematic issue of the gap between thought and action, words and deeds. Her speech becomes broken and jittery with exclamations, short sentences and disconnected thoughts but it is clear that she attempted the killing yet could not continue because Duncan looked like her father in sleep and so she left the daggers for Macbeth to complete the act. This shows she does have some gentler normal attachments and natural love and the softer, downward rhythm of the lines confirms this but we note too that the only time she calls Macbeth "husband" is when she believes that he has succeeded and is bloodstained. She has shown us but not him the first sign of weakness, in her terms, here and the chance resemblance appears like the working of Fate to make Macbeth the murderer.
When Macbeth enters, the rhythm and dialogue continue to be broken, questioning and staccato though it should be noted that "Did you not speak?/When?/Now./As I descended?" is all one blank verse line of five iambs with an extra weak syllable at the end to further demonstrate uncertainty. The owl and the crickets are natural omens of death. There are short lines later at: "This is a sorry [pitiable] sight", the space being filled by the actor's glance or gaze at his blood-stained hands but we notice that, when one of the couple falters, the other seems strong and she rebukes him for this weakness. The hearing of both is stretched to over-sensitivity and he recalls exactly what Duncan's sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, did when they heard a noise. As a contrast to his evil, they prayed and went back to sleep, a symbol of clear conscience. Macbeth envisages their seeing his crimson hands, those of a hangman after drawing and quartering the victim. He was unable to pronounce the word "Amen" which shows that he, unlike them, is cut off from heaven, blessing and goodness.
Her rhythm is gentler as she advises: "Consider it not so deeply" as though she is close to being moved by the account but he is unable to stop wondering why he could not end the prayer with "Amen," being so in need of blessing - the feeling of a word stuck in the throat is physical and strong. She fears madness if they dwell mentally on their own actions and this stresses one of the main themes of the drama: thoughts lead to deeds which return as thoughts. The leitmotif of disturbed sleep as a sign of evil and troublesome conscience is emphasised by Macbeth who has heard an imaginary voice, comparable to the vision of the dagger, call out that he will sleep no more. The rhythm pulses along with urgency as he describes what he has lost, the rest that makes a person recover from the day's troubles, and is a benign form of death and a bath or balm provided by Nature as she also provides the second course to the banquet of daily life. There are many images here, all would be be soothing, except for the fact that they describe what has gone.
His nervousness and his description of the power of the voice, another supernatural element, seem to be affecting her as he continues to list its calls, naming his three personalities: Macbeth, Glamis and Cawdor, the last being particularly significant as it reminds us of the witches. It is ironic that he has murdered a sleeping man and therefore the capacity to sleep is killed within him. She now regains her strength and rebukes him for losing virility and dwelling on "brainsickly" things: with a confidence which is later shown to be false, she advises washing his hands which will also clear them of evil along with the evidence, the "filthy witness." She has over-simplified the nature of villainy; it cannot be removed so easily from the mind and conscience. In his nervousness, he has made the error of bringing the daggers out of the room but he will not obey her and return them. In his refusal, he opposes thought, actions and seeing and will not think of or look at the results of his deed.
She derides and scorns him as childish and subject to fantasies and tries to ally sleep with death as mere surfaces: with a terrible pun on "gild" [make gold or red with blood] and "guilt", she goes to put the bloodstained daggers back to cast suspicion on the guards. Macbeth recognises his own over-sensitivity to the ordinary noise of knocking and can almost see hands about to pluck out his eyes, the symbols of conscience. He is more aware than she is of the permanent nature of guilt and knows that his would make the green ocean unnaturally red throughout (a guilty hyperbole) rather than be washed away by the water. When she returns, her hands are bloody also but she claims that her heart is not pale as his is and she remains practical if deluded about the nature of remorse.. They must retire to keep up appearances but her statement: "A little water clears us of this deed:/How easy is it then!" rings in our ears later when she feels blood on her hands still. He is still in his day clothes by inadvertance and must change and she again rebukes him for being lost in thought, as is his habit. He replies that it would be better to lose consciousness altogether than look directly at his deed and already wishes that Duncan were alive and could be woken by the knocking off-stage, which is, ironically, his alarm call. The scene has demonstrated fluctuating moods and tensions in the relationship and the atmosphere of horror off-stage has been strong.
Act II scene iii
The accepted main function of the Porter's prose speech is to provide comic relief from tension which will increase after it but the discourse does much more than that. Ironically, he imagines he is the guardian of Hell Gate, which he is in one sense, and this recalls the Heaven and Hell lexis earlier. His drunkenness shows the harmless side of this venial fault which has been so serious in the case of Duncan's bodyguards and which has elevated Lady Macbeth's evil will. It delays the finding of the corpse which tightens the stress at this point, whilst relaxing it. When he comments on the equivocator, it has an oblique reference to the Macbeths' dishonesty and there is further social satire which forms a contrast between the comparatively trivial flaws in normal everyday life and the enormity of the murder just committed. The knocking which punctuates the speech reminds us that Duncan will soon be found dead and also tests our nerves as, in this context, it is a repeated brutal sound which otherwise would be mundane.
The Porter feels that Hell is busy with entrances: "old [frequent] turning the key" and he backs up his analogy with a mention of another devil "Belzebub". He would be admitting a farmer who anticipated low prices and hanged himself and an opportunist, a "time-pleaser" and underlines the idea of heat by advising they have handkerchiefs ready for their sweat. He cannot recall the name of a further devil but calls out "Knock, knock" to echo the real sound, thus adding tension. The equivocator could argue either way in a debate and has committed treason, as Macbeth has done. Jokes aginst tailors were common and this one has filched from French trousers and can warm up his "goose", his iron, readily here. The reality of the cold night stops him from listing all the wicked professions and we are reminded that Macbeth is heading down the primrose path to eternal fire at this moment. Yet he is sufficiently in control to ask for a tip: "remember the porter" and this demonstrates the essential selfishness of humankind.
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