156 Ideals in the Modern World
men: consider Juliet, Beatrice, Desdemona, Cordelia, Marina, and
Rosalind, all of whom have found warm favor with audiences and
readers. Women are more likeable, maybe more lovable, than men
in Shakespeare, granted. But as women rise—as in the bourgeois
world of Self they will do— must men inevitably fall? Consider Lady
Macbeth and what she does to (and perhaps proves about) her val-
orous husband.
Macbeth is strong on the battlefi eld. The opening scenes of the
play take pains to affirm his martial prowess. The language
that describes Macbeth’s exploits is stirring, almost Homeric,
though it lacks Homer’s supreme detachment. Here in the play’s
fi rst act is the Sergeant recounting Macbeth’s contention with
Macdonwald:
Brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name),
Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel,
Which smok’d with bloody execution,
(Like Valor’s minion) carv’d out his passage
Till he faced the slave;
Which nev’r shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseam’d him from the nave to th’ chops,
And fi x’d his head upon our battlements.
(I.i.16–22)Macbeth the warrior is elevated prior to his fall. But before he does
fall, he’s pinned in place, almost Prufrock- like, for diagnosis.
What is the source of Macbeth’s amazing courage? How does he
manage to be fearless? Macbeth doesn’t celebrate his own powers.
He isn’t a singer of himself, like Othello, though he will become a
graphic chronicler of his own terrors. But Macbeth is an instance
of the ultimate warrior. He has the power to step to the forefront of