158 Ideals in the Modern World
Murder is Lady Macbeth’s ele ment, though the closing scenes of the
play when she tries to wash invisible blood from her hands indicate
that even she is not entirely immune to guilt.
Macbeth, it seems, cannot do for her what her fi rst husband or
paramour could do: give her children, males if possi ble. Macbeth’s
admonition to her to “bring forth men-children only” (I.vii.73) is also
probably an admonition to himself to plant them with her and, one
might speculate, expresses his hope that if he behaves as a man
he may be able to do so. Has Macbeth been impotent? Infertile?
The suggestion is surely pre sent.
The play is fi xated on children, and sons in par tic u lar. Sons re-
venge their fathers; sons continue a royal line. Sons give meaning
to the harsh life of the thanes. The promise of a son’s succession
makes one’s own achievement of the second place, rather than the
fi rst, more bearable. You will not be a king, Banquo learns, but you
will be the begetter of kings, and discovering this gives him a mea sure
of contentment. Yet Macbeth has no children. He has no sons, in par-
tic u lar. He’s not man enough to produce them. So he is valorous,
then more valorous still, until he passes from valor to brutality and
becomes a beast.
Macbeth struggles against his wife’s attacks on his manhood. She
rates him hard, insisting that he go ahead with his plans and do away
with the mild Duncan. “Art thou afeared,” she asks, “To be the same
in thine own act and valor / As thou art in desire?” (I.vii.39–41).
Overtly the lines are about committing the murder. But they also
suggest that there have been other times when Macbeth has not been
able to translate desire into an act. Macbeth appears to know where
she is going— they have presumably traveled this ground before: “I
dare do all that may become a man,” he says. “Who dares do more is
none” (I.vii.46–47). But Lady Macbeth is ready for him. “When you
durst do it,” she says, “then you were a man” (I.vii.49). “Screw your