272 MACBETH
Macbeth launches into a targeted
emotional assault that offends,
humiliates, and shocks her
husband in equal measure:
“Was the hope drunk / Wherein
you dressed yourself? Hath it slept
since? / And wakes it now to look
so green and pale / At what it did
so freely? From this time / Such I
account thy love. Art thou afeard /
To be the same in thine own act
English actress Ellen Terry played
Lady Macbeth in London, in 1888.
Society portraitist John Singer Sargent
was in the audience and painted her in
a dress made of iridescent beetle wings.and valour / As thou art in desire?
Wouldst thou have that / Which
thou esteem’st the ornament of life,
/ And live a coward in thine own
esteem, / Letting ‘I dare not’ wait
upon ‘I would,’ / Like the poor cat
i’th’ adage?” (1.7.35–44).
In the space of just 10 lines,
Lady Macbeth questions her
husband’s masculinity, honor,
ambition, courage, and love for her.Macbeth’s male pride overpowers
his questioning mind, resulting in
the defensive riposte “I dare do all
that may become a man” (1.7.46).
How much did Macbeth actually
want the crown for himself, and to
what extent does he carry out his
part in the murder to confirm and
maintain his understanding of
his own manhood? Typically,
Shakespeare does not settle
upon a straightforward answer.
The audience’s responses to
Macbeth’s actions are further
complicated by the role played
by the witches throughout the
drama. Did Macbeth have a
choice? Was his fate always to
murder Duncan and become
king himself?
Macbeth’s “heat-oppressèd
brain” (2.1.39) comes to haunt
him as much as the witches’
prophecies. Paranoia practically
paralyzes Macbeth, and his
imagination proves a constant
torment. As he prepares to murder
Duncan, he sees a floating dagger
sign-posting his way to the
king’s bedchamber.
Has this dagger been conjured
by the weird sisters? Or is it merely,
as Macbeth suspects, a “dagger of
the mind” engendered through fear
and his reluctance to act upon his
ambitions? His imagination will not
be suppressed. Having murdered
the king, Macbeth imagines that
he will never sleep again:
“Methought I heard a voice cry
‘Sleep no more, / Macbeth does
murder sleep’—the innocent sleep, /
Sleep that knits up the ravelled
sleave of care, / The death of each
day’s life, sore labour’s bath, / Balm