162 Ideals in the Modern World
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Bring thou this fi end of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword’s length set him; if he scape,
Heaven forgive him too!
(IV.iii.232–235)But naturally Macbeth will not escape. Macduff harks back to an
old and honorable image of the warrior not commonly seen in
Shakespeare. (Alcibiades in Timon of Athens, Ta l b o t i n Henry VI,
and Pericles are also of this ilk.) By and large, Shakespeare’s rela-
tion to the culture of honor is that of self- designated assassin. Overall
one hears his voice in Falstaff ’s great denunciation of the code of
heroes in Henry IV, Part I:
What is honor? A word. What is in that word honor? What
is that honor? Air! A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that
died a’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No.
’Tis insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will[’t] not live
with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suff er it. There-
fore I’ll none of it, honor is a mere scutcheon. And so ends my
catechism.
(V.i.132–141)Honor is a mere scutcheon, a heraldic device, or what critics would
now call an empty signifi er. Honor is a concept, an ideal— and thus
to the man who lives to eat and drink and dull the pain of being alive
in any way he can, honor is an empty puff of air. Honor can get you
killed, put you out of life, and so is to be detested by the man who
wants to live as long as possi ble, the sort of man that Falstaff both
affi rms and mocks.
Macbeth too says a farewell to the code of honor, though the fare-
well is far harsher than Falstaff ’s high- hearted aria. At the end of