Macbeth - Act 3 Scene 4
The same. A hall in the palace.
A banquet prepared. Enter MACBETH, LADY MACBETH, ROSS, LENNOX,
Lords, and Attendants
Macbeth's comment about "degrees" is casual, but it indicates that there is a hierarchy to the seating, according to the guests' social position. This order will be broken by the end of the scene.
MACBETH
You know your own degrees; sit down: at first
And last, the hearty welcome.
Lords
Thanks to your majesty.
MACBETH
Ourself will mingle with society,
And play the humble host.
Our hostess keeps her state, but in best time
We will require her welcome.
Compared to her welcoming of Duncan in 1.6, Lady Macbeth is more quiet here, either letting Macbeth take the lead or else less comfortable in her new position as Queen.
LADY MACBETH
Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends;
For my heart speaks they are welcome.
First Murderer appears at the door
MACBETH
See, they encounter thee with their hearts' thanks.
Both sides are even: here I'll sit i' the midst.
Be large in mirth; anon we'll drink a measure
The table round.
The blood on the Murderer's face may be an effect of stage makeup, indicating his haste in coming to make his report; it may also be a figment of Macbeth's paranoid imagination.
Approaching the door
There's blood upon thy face.
First Murderer
'Tis Banquo's then.
MACBETH
'Tis better thee without than he within.
Is he dispatched?
First Murderer
My lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him.
MACBETH
Thou art the best o' the cut-throats; yet he's good
That did the like for Fleance: if thou didst it,
Thou art the nonpareil.
First Murderer
Most royal sir,
Fleance is 'scaped.
Macbeth's near-fit here prefigures his loss of control later in the scene. The very sounds of the words, "cabined, cribbed, confined, bound" are short and hard, suggesting his struggle to breathe.
MACBETH
Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect,
Whole as the marble, founded as the rock,
As broad and general as the casing air:
But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in
To saucy doubts and fears. But Banquo's safe?
First Murderer
Ay, my good lord; safe in a ditch he bides,
With twenty trenchèd gashes on his head;
The least a death to nature.
This promised next meeting never occurs in the play, though the Murderers are seen once again carrying out Macbeth's bloody instructions in 4.2.
MACBETH
Thanks for that.
There the grown serpent lies; the worm that's fled
Hath nature that in time will venom breed,
No teeth for the present. Get thee gone: to-morrow
We'll hear ourselves again.
Exit Murderer
Lady Macbeth once again acts as political advisor. The lines themselves are dense, but the sense is that Macbeth must entertain and mingle with his guests, as it is the King's presence, not the food, that makes a royal dinner worth attending.
This is a traditional configuration for a toast, as Macbeth wishes health to his guests and urges them to begin the meal.
LADY MACBETH
My royal lord,
You do not give the cheer: the feast is sold
That is not often vouched, while 'tis a-making,
'Tis given with welcome: to feed were best at home;
From thence, the sauce to meat is ceremony;
Meeting were bare without it.
MACBETH
Sweet remembrancer!
Now, good digestion wait on appetite,
And health on both!
LENNOX
May't please your highness sit.
The appearance of the Ghost varies from production to production, as does the staging of his entrance. He may walk to the chair, or he may appear from a trapdoor or similar device.
The GHOST OF BANQUO enters, and sits in MACBETH's place
MACBETH
Here had we now our country's honour roofed,
Were the graced person of our Banquo present;
Who may I rather challenge for unkindness
Than pity for mischance!
ROSS
His absence, sir,
Lays blame upon his promise. Please't your Highness
To grace us with your royal company.
By this point, the Ghost is likely in his seat, and it is a challenge for the actor playing Macbeth to remain convincingly unaware of the Ghost until its discovery.
The earlier appearance of the Witches tells us that supernatural forces are real and active in this play, but the Ghost's invisibility to all but Macbeth suggests that it may be a product of his own madness. The audience can see the Ghost as well (unlike the dagger in 2.1), which means that we are implicated in Macbeth's vision, whether it be a product of insanity or the otherworldly.
MACBETH
The table's full.
LENNOX
Here is a place reserved, sir.
MACBETH
Where?
LENNOX
Here, my good lord. What is't that moves your Highness?
MACBETH
Which of you have done this?
Lords
What, my good lord?
MACBETH
Thou canst not say I did it: never shake
Thy gory locks at me.
ROSS
Gentlemen, rise: his Highness is not well.
Lady Macbeth, like Banquo in 1.3, must intercede between a distraught Macbeth and several onlookers. Given his earlier mention of a "fit" when speaking to the Murderer, it is possible that he truly does have a history of fits or seizures, though this could also be a lie concocted here by Lady Macbeth.
LADY MACBETH
Sit, worthy friends: my lord is often thus,
And hath been from his youth. Pray you, keep seat;
The fit is momentary; upon a thought
He will again be well. If much you note him,
You shall offend him and extend his passion;
Feed, and regard him not. Are you a man?
MACBETH
Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that
Which might appal the devil.
Lady Macbeth upbraids her husband and chides him for unmanly cowardice, but there may be moments here of actually trying to comfort him and talk him down from his apparent fit.
LADY MACBETH
O proper stuff!
This is the very painting of your fear:
This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said,
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts,
Impostors to true fear, would well become
A woman's story at a winter's fire,
Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!
Why do you make such faces? When all's done,
You look but on a stool.
Macbeth may be outraged or hysterical here, but his comments are jokes, if very dark and panicked ones.
MACBETH
Prithee, see there! Behold! Look! Lo! How say you?
Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.
If charnel-houses and our graves must send
Those that we bury back, our monuments
Shall be the maws of kites.
The Ghost's disappearances call for some kind of stage effect, such as a trap door.
GHOST OF BANQUO vanishes
LADY MACBETH
What, quite unmann'd in folly?
MACBETH
If I stand here, I saw him.
LADY MACBETH
Fie, for shame!
Another grim joke: Macbeth reminisces about the old days, when stabbing a man through the head would be enough to keep him down; these days, he reflects, the victim will get up, carrying twenty lethal head-wounds, and steal your seat at supper.
MACBETH
Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time,
Ere humane statute purged the gentle weal;
Ay, and since too, murders have been performed
Too terrible for the ear; the times have been,
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end; but now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools. This is more strange
Than such a murder is.
LADY MACBETH
My worthy lord,
Your noble friends do lack you.
Macbeth's ironic toast may be an attempt to create an alibi for himself, and an indication of his renewed self-control, but it has the inevitable result of calling the Ghost back again.
MACBETH
I do forget. Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends,
I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing
To those that know me. Come, love and health to all;
Then I'll sit down. Give me some wine; fill full.
I drink to the general joy o' the whole table,
And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss;
Would he were here! To all, and him, we thirst,
And all to all.
Lords
Our duties, and the pledge.
Re-enter GHOST OF BANQUO
MACBETH
Avaunt! And quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee!
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with!
LADY MACBETH
Think of this, good peers,
But as a thing of custom: 'tis no other;
Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.
Macbeth is torn between courage and terror, unable to fully face the Ghost, though claiming that he could battle it if it appeared in any form other than Banquo's.
MACBETH
What man dare, I dare.
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The armed rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble; or be alive again,
And dare me to the desert with thy sword;
If trembling I inhabit then, protest me
The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!
Unreal mockery, hence!
GHOST OF BANQUO vanishes
Why, so: being gone,
I am a man again. Pray you, sit still.
LADY MACBETH
You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting,
With most admired disorder.
Macbeth's response here is similar to his reply to Macduff in 2.3: in extraordinary circumstances, extreme reactions are understandable. Here, that argument is less successful, since no one else was aware of the Ghost.
MACBETH
Can such things be,
And overcome us like a summer's cloud,
Without our special wonder? You make me strange
Even to the disposition that I owe,
When now I think you can behold such sights,
And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks,
When mine is blanched with fear.
ROSS
What sights, my lord?
In contrast to the beginning of the scene, here Lady Macbeth insists that order and hierarchy be disrupted, and that the guests leave immediately, rather than in order by rank.
LADY MACBETH
I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse;
Question enrages him. At once, good night:
Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once.
LENNOX
Good night; and better health
Attend his Majesty!
LADY MACBETH
A kind good night to all!
There is a long tradition of stories in which murders are revealed through supernatural agency or omen. Macbeth refers to croaking or chattering birds as possibly giving away secrets, but the overall idea is that murder is so heinous that nature itself will contrive means to reveal the secret crime. The appearance of ghosts also falls into this tradition, and Shakespeare famously uses it in Hamlet.
This is the first mention of Macduff since 2.4, and leads into the next section of the play, in which Macduff becomes Macbeth's prime adversary.
Here, Macbeth mentions a rumour that Macduff has refused to come to his court (or possibly to the banquet). He then admits that he did not order Macduff directly to attend, but that now he will.
Macbeth claims to have spies in the households of all his lords, a claim which makes sense, given his paranoia, and which also explains the cautious tone of the lords' speeches, such as Macduff in 2.4 and Lennox in 3.6.
Exeunt all but MACBETH and LADY MACBETH
MACBETH
It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood:
Stones have been known to move and trees to speak;
Augurs and understood relations have
By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth
The secret'st man of blood. What is the night?
LADY MACBETH
Almost at odds with morning, which is which.
MACBETH
How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his person
At our great bidding?
LADY MACBETH
Did you send to him, sir?
MACBETH
I hear it by the way; but I will send.
There's not a one of them but in his house
I keep a servant feed. I will to-morrow,
And betimes I will, to the weird sisters:
More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,
By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good,
All causes shall give way: I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er:
Strange things I have in head, that will to hand;
Which must be acted ere they may be scanned.
LADY MACBETH
You lack the season of all natures, sleep.
Macbeth's claim here is truly chilling: he explains that he is as yet unused to murder, and thus has some remaining fear, but that his fears will diminish as he gets used to atrocity. It's a very pragmatic approach, which is precisely what makes it terrifying.
MACBETH
Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse
Is the initiate fear that wants hard use:
We are yet but young in deed.
Exeunt