Macbeth revisited

Macbeth was the play that helped me rediscover Shakespeare in 2021, but I never blogged about the play itself, only about the four screen versions I saw—why not reread it now?—so here we go.  

1/ I note that Macbeth’s thoughts, very soon after the predictions from the weird sisters, turn to violence. The ambition is already in him.   

“MACBETH […] This supernatural soliciting 

Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill, 

Why hath it given me earnest of success, 

Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor:

If good, why do I yield to that suggestion

Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair 

And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, 

Against the use of nature? Present fears

Are less than horrible imaginings. 

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,

Shakes so my single state of man that function 

Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is 

But what is not.” 

(Act 1 scene 3) 

I especially like the image “my seated heart knock at my ribs”. 

“MACBETH […] Stars, hide your fires; 

Let not light see my black and deep desires…” 

(Act 1 scene 4) 

Interestingly, Hamlet has many reasons to kill the king but (for a long time) can’t do so; Macbeth knows all the arguments not to kill the king but can’t help himself.  

Tony Tanner says: 

“What Macbeth is trying to do as he goes faster and faster, is perfectly summed up in one of his own phrases: he is trying to ‘outrun the pauser, reason’ (II, iii, 113) […] The ‘pauser’ as I have said before, is that within us which gives us ‘pause’; —conscience, reflection, reason, judgement. Hamlet is, effectively, one long pause, and it is very long. Macbeth is trying to get rid of that ‘pause’, trying to close the gap of conscience, to ‘outrun’ his own judgement—and his play is breathlessly short (almost exactly half the length of Hamlet).” (Introduction)

People usually say Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most intelligent character—and he is—but Macbeth is also intelligent. Macbeth knows exactly what he is doing, why he shouldn’t do it, what the consequences would be, what a murder would lead to, and so on and so forth, he just can’t help himself. He chooses to only act and not think. 

“MACBETH […] Strange things I have in head that will to hand, 

Which must be acted ere they may be scanned.” 

(Act 3 scene 5) 

He chooses not to know himself. Whereas Lear’s journey is one towards self-knowledge, Macbeth’s is away from it. 

2/ When Macbeth wavers, Lady Macbeth taunts him. 

“MACBETH […] I dare do all that may become a man; 

Who dares do more is none.

LADY MACBETH What beast was’t then 

That made you break this enterprise to me? 

When you durst do it, then you were a man; 

And to be more than what you were, you would 

Be so much more the man…” 

(Act 1 scene 7) 

The contrast here refers to man vs beast, but Lady Macbeth then moves on to imply the man vs woman contrast when saying “I have given suck, and know/ How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me…”. The idea also recurs throughout the play: Lady Macbeth, when she invokes the spirits, says “unsex me here” and “Come to my woman’s breasts/ And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers/ Wherever in your sightless substances/ You wait on nature’s mischief!” (Act 1 scene 5). 

When Macbeth has a breakdown and makes a fool of himself at court, his wife says “Are you a man?” and “What, quite unmanned in folly!” (Act 3 scene 4). 

Near the end of the play, when Macduff hears the painful news that his entire family has been killed: 

“MALCOLM Dispute it like a man.

MACDUFF I shall do so; 

But I must also feel it as a man….” 

(Act 4 scene 3) 

I love that exchange. Throughout the play, Shakespeare forces us to think about the idea of manliness. 

3/ I love the way Shakespeare paints a picture of chaos and fear and dark omens with words: 

“OLD MAN Threescore and ten I can remember well; 

Within the volume of which time I have seen 

Hours dreadful and things strange, but this sore night 

Hath trifled former knowings.

ROSS Ha, good father, 

Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man’s act, 

Threatens his bloody stage. By th’ clock ’tis day, 

And yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp: 

Is ’t night’s predominance, or the day’s shame, 

That darkness does the face of earth entomb, 

When living light should kiss it?”

(Act 2 scene 4)

This reminds me of G. Wilson Knight’s argument in The Wheel of Fire that the atmospheres of Macbeth and King Lear reflect and support the mental universes of Macbeth and Lear, but that’s not the case with Hamlet. 

On a side note, the prettiest, most magnificent things I’ve created on DALL-E Mini are with Shakespeare’s words. Shakespeare creates magic on this app. 

4/ When does Lady Macbeth’s mind start to fall apart? 

“LADY MACBETH Nought’s had, all’s spent, 

Where our desire is got without content:

’Tis safer to be that which we destroy 

Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.” 

(Act 3 scene 2) 

Is it when she realises that Macbeth’s mind is “full of scorpions” and keeps getting “these terrible dreams/ That shake us nightly”? Is it when she realises that he cannot stop, and must kill Banquo and Fleance? Is it when she sees him fall apart before her very eyes, and break down in front of others? 

Or does it start before?

I have always had the interpretation, strengthened by Judi Dench’s performance, that Lady Macbeth isn’t as strong as she thinks she is. That’s why she has to invoke the spirits “unsex me here/ And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full/ Of direct cruelty! Make thick my blood/ Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse/ That no compunctious visitings of nature/ Shake my fell purpose…” (Act 1 scene 5). That’s why she cannot commit the murder herself, and tells herself the weak excuse “Had he not resembled/ My father as he slept, I had done’t.” (Act 2 scene 2) That’s why she descends into madness. 

She thinks of killing in the abstract, and collapses when she realises what she has done. 

And when she faints, it may be an act to distract others as they’re questioning Macbeth, or perhaps she actually faints upon seeing the corpses, and seeing what she and Macbeth have done. As Shakespeare doesn’t include many stage directions, I think there can be different ways of staging the scene. 

Lady Macbeth is not as evil as Goneril and Regan, and the character of Lady Asaji in Throne of Blood is much more like Lear’s bad daughters than Macbeth’s wife. 

5/ Macbeth is, shall we say, not a good king.  

“MACDUFF […] Each new morn 

New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows 

Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds 

As it it felt with Scotland and yelled out 

Like syllable of dolor.” 

(Act 4 scene 3) 

“MALCOLM […] I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;

It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash 

Is added to her wounds…” 

(ibid.) 

Macbeth is I think often compared to Richard III, sometimes Brutus (at least G. Wilson Knight makes the comparison), but I can’t help thinking of the contrast with Claudius: both usurp the throne after murdering the king, but Claudius turns out to be a good king, or at least nobody seems unhappy about him except Hamlet. 

Claudius in a few ways is worse than Macbeth, because he kills his own brother then marries his wife, but isn’t tortured by guilt—not to the point of getting nightmares and losing his sanity. 

6/ Everyone knows about Macbeth’s famous “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” speech, but this is also an interesting speech:

“MACBETH […] I have lived long enough. My way of life 

Is fall’n into the sear, the yellow leaf, 

And that which should accompany old age, 

As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, 

I must not look to have; but, in their stead, 

Curses not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath, 

Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not…” 

(Act 5 scene 3) 

Macbeth has chosen to only act and not think, but he still knows what he has lost. 

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See my blog posts about the Ian McKellen – Judi Dench production, Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, Orson Welles’s Macbeth, and Throne of Blood. 

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Consider the timeline: Shakespeare wrote Othello and Measure for Measure around 1604, King Lear around 1605-1606, Macbeth in 1606, then Antony and Cleopatra around 1606-1607. 

It is incredible.