truth and nature, we see that consciousness of her own worth and
integrity which had sustained her through all her trials of heart, and
that pride of station for which she had contended through long
years,--which had become more dear by opposition, and by the
perseverance with which she had asserted it,--remaining the last strong
feeling upon her mind, to the very last hour of existence.
When I am dead, good wench,
Let me be used with honor: strew me over
With maiden flowers, that all the world may know
I was a chaste wife to my grave; embalm me,
Then lay me forth: although unqueen'd, yet like
A queen, and daughter to a king, inter me
I can no more.--
In the epilogue to this play,[111] it is recommended--
To the merciful construction of good women,
For _such a one_ we show'd them:
alluding to the character of Queen Katherine. Shakspeare has, in fact,
placed before us a queen and a heroine, who in the first place, and
above all, is a _good_ woman; and I repeat, that in doing so, and in
trusting for all his effect to truth and virtue, he has given a sublime
proof of his genius and his wisdom;--for which, among many other
obligations, we women remain his debtors.
LADY MACBETH.
I doubt whether the epithet _historical_ can properly apply to the
character of Lady Macbeth; for though the subject of the play be taken
from history, we never think of her with any reference to historical
associations, as we do with regard to Constance, Volumnia, Katherine of
Arragon, and others. I remember reading some critique, in which Lady
Macbeth was styled the "_Scottish queen_;" and methought the title, as
applied to _her_ sounded like a vulgarism. It appears that the real wife
of Macbeth,--she who lives only in the obscure record of an obscure
age, bore the very unmusical appellation of Graoch, and was instigated
to the murder of Duncan, not only by ambition, but by motives of
vengeance. She was the grand-daughter of Kenneth the Fourth, killed in
1003, fighting against Malcolm the Second, the Father of Duncan. Macbeth
reigned over Scotland from the year 1039 to 1056--but what is all this
to the purpose? The sternly magnificent creation of the poet stands
before us independent of all these aids of fancy: she is Lady Macbeth;
as such she lives, she reigns, and is immortal in the world to
imagination. What earthly title could add to her grandeur? what human
record or attestation strengthen our impression of her reality?
Characters in history move before us like a procession of figures in
_basso relievo_: we see one side only, that which the artist chose to
exhibit to us; the rest is sunk in the block: the same characters in
Shakspeare are like the statues _cut out_ of the block, fashioned,
finished, tangible in every part: we may consider them under every
aspect, we may examine them on every side. As the classical times, when
the garb did not make the man, were peculiarly favorable to the
development and delineation of the human form, and have handed down to
us the purest models of strength and grace--so the times in which
Shakspeare lived were favorable to the vigorous delineation of natural
character. Society was not then one vast conventional masquerade of
manners. In his revelations, the accidental circumstances are to the
individual character, what the drapery of the antique statue is to the
statue itself; it is evident, that, though adapted to each other, and
studied relatively, they were also studied separately. We trace through
the folds the fine and true proportions of the figure beneath: they seem
and are independent of each other to the practised eye, though carved
together from the same enduring substance; at once perfectly distinct
and eternally inseparable. In history we can but study character in
relation to events, to situation and circumstances, which disguise and
encumber it: we are left to imagine, to infer, what certain people must
have been, from the manner in which they have acted or suffered.
Shakspeare and nature bring us back to the true order of things; and
showing us what the human being _is_, enable us to judge of the possible
as well as the positive result in acting and suffering. Here, instead of
judging the individual by his actions, we are enabled to judge of
actions by a reference to the individual. When we can carry this power
into the experience of real life, we shall perhaps be more just to one
another, and not consider ourselves aggrieved, because we cannot gather
figs from thistles and grapes from thorns.
In the play or poem of Macbeth, the interest of the story is so
engrossing, the events so rapid and so appalling, the accessories so
sublimely conceived and so skilfully combined, that it is difficult to
detach Lady Macbeth from the dramatic situation, or consider her apart
from the terrible associations of our first and earliest impressions. As
the vulgar idea of a Juliet--that all-beautiful and heaven-gifted child
of the south--is merely a love-sick girl in white satin, so the
common-place idea of Lady Macbeth, though endowed with the rarest
powers, the loftiest energies, and the profoundest affections, is
nothing but a fierce, cruel woman, brandishing a couple of daggers, and
inciting her husband to butcher a poor old king.
Even those who reflect more deeply are apt to consider rather the mode
in which a certain character is manifested, than the combination of
abstract qualities making up that individual human being; so what should
be last, is first; effects are mistaken for causes, qualities are
confounded with their results, and the perversion of what is essentially
good, with the operation of positive evil. Hence it is, that those who
can feel and estimate the magnificent conception and poetical
development of the character, have overlooked the grand moral lesson it
conveys; they forget that the crime of Lady Macbeth terrifies us in
proportion as we sympathize with her; and that this sympathy is in
proportion to the degree of pride, passion, and intellect, we may
ourselves possess. It is good to behold and to tremble at the possible
result of the noblest faculties uncontrolled or perverted. True it is,
that the ambitious women of these civilized times do not murder sleeping
kings: but are there, therefore, no Lady Macbeths in the world? no women
who, under the influence of a diseased or excited appetite for power or
distinction, would sacrifice the happiness of a daughter, the fortunes
of a husband, the principles of a son, and peril their own souls?
* * * * *
The character of Macbeth is considered as one of the most complex in the
whole range of Shakspeare's dramatic creations. He is represented in the
course of the action under such a variety of aspects; the good and evil
qualities of his mind are so poised and blended, and instead of being
gradually and successively developed, evolve themselves so like shifting
lights and shadows playing over the "unstable waters," that his
character has afforded a continual and interesting subject of analysis
and contemplation. None of Shakspeare's personages have been treated of
more at large; none have been more minutely criticized and profoundly
examined. A single feature in his character--the question, for instance,
as to whether his courage be personal or constitutional, or excited by
mere desperation--has been canvassed, asserted, and refuted, in two
masterly essays.
On the other hand, the character of Lady Macbeth resolves itself into
few and simple elements. The grand features of her character are so
distinctly and prominently marked, that, though acknowledged to be one
of the poet's most sublime creations, she has been passed over with
comparatively few words: generally speaking, the commentators seem to
have considered Lady Macbeth rather with reference to her husband, and
as influencing the action of the drama, than as an individual conception
of amazing power, poetry, and beauty: or if they do individualize her,
it is ever with those associations of scenic representation which Mrs.
Siddons has identified with the character. Those who have been
accustomed to see it arrayed in the form and lineaments of that
magnificent woman, and developed with her wonder-working powers, seem
satisfied to leave it there, as if nothing more could be said or
added.[112]
But the generation which beheld Mrs. Siddons in her glory is passing
away, and we are again left to our own unassisted feelings, or to all
the satisfaction to be derived from the sagacity of critics and the
reflections of commentators. Let us turn to them for a moment.
Dr. Johnson, who seems to have regarded her as nothing better than a
kind of ogress, tells us, in so many words, that "Lady Macbeth is merely
detested." Schlegel dismisses her in haste, as a species of female fury.
In the two essays on Macbeth already mentioned, she is passed over with
one or two slight allusions. The only justice that has yet been done to
her is by Hazlitt, in the "Characters of Shakspeare's Plays." Nothing
can be finer than his remarks as far as they go, but his plan did not
allow him sufficient space to work out his own conception of the
character, with the minuteness it requires. All that he says is just in
sentiment, and most eloquent in the expression; but in leaving some of
the finest points altogether untouched, he has also left us in doubt
whether he even felt or perceived them; and this masterly criticism
stops short of the _whole_ truth--it is a little superficial, and a
little too harsh.
In the mind of Lady Macbeth, ambition is represented as the ruling
motive, an intense over-mastering passion, which is gratified at the
expense of every just and generous principle, and every feminine
feeling. In the pursuit of her object, she is cruel, treacherous, and
daring. She is doubly, trebly dyed in guilt and blood; for the murder
she instigates is rendered more frightful by disloyalty and ingratitude,
and by the violation of all the most sacred claims of kindred and
hospitality. When her husband's more kindly nature shrinks from the
perpetration of the deed of horror, she, like an evil genius, whispers
him on to his damnation. The full measure of her wickedness is never
disguised, the magnitude and atrocity of her crime is never extenuated,
forgotten, or forgiven, in the whole course of the play. Our judgment is
not bewildered, nor our moral feeling insulted, by the sentimental
jumble of great crimes and dazzling virtues, after the fashion of the
German school and of some admirable writers of our own time. Lady
Macbeth's amazing power of intellect, her inexorable determination of
purpose, her superhuman strength of nerve, render her as fearful in
herself as her deeds are hateful; yet she is not a mere monster of
depravity, with whom we have nothing in common, nor a meteor whose
destroying path we watch in ignorant affright and amaze. She is a
terrible impersonation of evil passions and mighty powers, never so far
removed from our own nature as to be cast beyond the pale of our
sympathies; for the woman herself remains a woman to the last--still
linked with her sex and with humanity.
This impression is produced partly by the essential truth in the
conception of the character, and partly by the manner in which it is
evolved; by a combination of minute and delicate touches, in some
instances by speech, in others by silence: at one time by what is
revealed, at another by what we are left to infer. As in real life, we
perceive distinctions in character we cannot always explain, and receive
impressions for which we cannot always account, without going back to
the beginning of an acquaintance, and recalling many and trifling
circumstances--looks, and tones, and words: thus, to explain that hold
which Lady Macbeth, in the midst of all her atrocities, still keeps upon
our feelings, it is necessary to trace minutely the action of the play,
as far as she is concerned in it, from its very commencement to its
close.
We must bear in mind, that the first idea of murdering Duncan is not
suggested by Lady Macbeth to her husband: it springs within _his_ mind,
and is revealed to us, before his first interview with his wife,--before
she is introduced or even alluded to.
MACBETH.
This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill; cannot be good. If ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor--
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion,
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature?
It will be said, that the same "horrid suggestion" presents itself
spontaneously to her, on the reception of his letter; or rather, that
the letter itself acts upon her mind as the prophecy of the Weird
Sisters on the mind of her husband, kindling the latent passion for
empire into a quenchless flame. We are prepared to see the train of
evil, first lighted by hellish agency, extend itself to _her_ through
the medium of her husband; but we are spared the more revolting idea
that it originated with her. The guilt is thus more equally divided than
we should suppose, when we hear people pitying "the noble nature of
Macbeth," bewildered and goaded on to crime, solely or chiefly by the
instigation of his wife.
It is true that she afterwards appears the more active agent of the two;
but it is less through her preeminence in wickedness than through her
superiority of intellect. The eloquence--the fierce, fervid eloquence
with which she bears down the relenting and reluctant spirit of her
husband, the dexterous sophistry with which she wards off his
objections, her artful and affected doubts of his courage--the sarcastic
manner in which she lets fall the word coward--a word which no man can
endure from another, still less from a woman, and least of all from a
woman he loves--and the bold address with which she removes all
obstacles, silences all arguments, overpowers all scruples, and marshals
the way before him, absolutely make us shrink before the commanding
intellect of the woman, with a terror in which interest and admiration
are strangely mingled.
LADY MACBETH.
He has almost supp'd: why have you left the chamber?
MACBETH.
Hath he ask'd for me?
LADY MACBETH.
Know you not, he has?
MACBETH.
We will proceed no farther in this business;
He hath honored me of late, and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.
LADY MACBETH.
Was the hope drunk,
Wherein you dress'd 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 and valor,
As thou art in desire? Would'st 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' the adage?
MACBETH.
Pr'ythee, peace
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is none.
LADY MACBETH.
What beast was it then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time, nor place,
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both;
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it were smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn, as you
Have done to this.
MACBETH.
If we should fail.--
LADY MACBETH.
We fail.[113]
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail.
Again, in the murdering scene, the obdurate inflexibility of purpose
with which she drives on Macbeth to the execution of their project, and
her masculine indifference to blood and death, would inspire unmitigated
disgust and horror, but for the involuntary consciousness that it is
produced rather by the exertion of a strong power over herself, than by
absolute depravity of disposition and ferocity of temper. This
impression of her character is brought home at once to our very hearts
with the most profound knowledge of the springs of nature within us, the
most subtle mastery over their various operations, and a feeling of
dramatic effect not less wonderful. The very passages in which Lady
Macbeth displays the most savage and relentless determination, are so
worded as to fill the mind with the idea of sex, and place the _woman_
before us in all her dearest attributes, at once softening and refining
the horror, and rendering it more intense. Thus, when she reproaches her
husband for his weakness--
From this time,
Such I account thy love!
Again,
Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, ye murdering ministers,
That no compunctions visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, &c.
I have given suck, and know how tender 'tis
To love the babe that milks me, &c.
And lastly, in the moment of extremest horror comes that unexpected
touch of feeling, so startling, yet so wonderfully true to nature--
Had he not resembled my father as he slept,
I had done it!
Thus in one of Weber's or Beethoven's grand symphonies, some unexpected
soft minor chord or passage will steal on the ear, heard amid the
magnificent crash of harmony, making the blood pause, and filling the
eye with unbidden tears.
It is particularly observable, that in Lady Macbeth's concentrated,
strong-nerved ambition, the ruling passion of her mind, there is yet a
touch of womanhood: she is ambitious less for herself than for her
husband. It is fair to think this, because we have no reason to draw
any other inference either from her words or actions. In her famous
soliloquy, after reading her husband's letter, she does not once refer
to herself. It is of him she thinks: she wishes to see her husband on
the throne, and to place the sceptre within _his_ grasp. The strength of
her affections adds strength to her ambition. Although in the old story
of Boethius we are told that the wife of Macbeth "burned with
unquenchable desire to bear the name of queen," yet in the aspect under
which Shakspeare has represented the character to us, the selfish part
of this ambition is kept out of sight. We must remark also, that in Lady
Macbeth's reflections on her husband's character, and on that milkiness
of nature, which she fears "may impede him from the golden round," there
is no indication of female scorn: there is exceeding pride, but no
egotism in the sentiment or the expression;--no want of wifely and
womanly respect and love for _him_, but on the contrary, a sort of
unconsciousness of her own mental superiority, which she betrays rather
than asserts, as interesting in itself as it is most admirably conceived
and delineated.
Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promised:--Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness,
To catch the nearest way. Thou would'st be great,
Art not without ambition; but without
The illness should attend it. What thou would'st highly
That would'st thou holily; would'st not play false.
And yet would'st wrongly win: thou'dst have, great Glamis,
That which cries, _Thus thou must do, if thou have it;
And that which rather thou dost fear to do,
Than wishest should be undone_. Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
And chastise with the valor of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical[114] aid doth seem
To have thee crowned withal
Nor is there any thing vulgar in her ambition: as the strength of her
affections lends to it something profound and concentrated, so her
splendid imagination invests the object of her desire with its own
radiance. We cannot trace in her grand and capacious mind that it is the
mere baubles and trappings of royalty which dazzle and allure her: hers
is the sin of the "star-bright apostate," and she plunges with her
husband into the abyss of guilt, to procure for "all their days and
nights sole sovereign sway and masterdom." She revels, she luxuriates in
her dream of power. She reaches at the golden diadem, which is to sear
her brain; she perils life and soul for its attainment, with an
enthusiasm as perfect, a faith as settled, as that of the martyr, who
sees at the stake, heaven and its crowns of glory opening upon him.
Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!
Greater than both, by the all-hail _hereafter_!
Thy letters have transported me beyond
This ignorant present, and I feel now
The future in the instant!
This is surely the very rapture of ambition! and those who have heard
Mrs. Siddons pronounce the word _hereafter_, cannot forget the look, the
tone, which seemed to give her auditors a glimpse of that awful
_future_, which she, in her prophetic fury, beholds upon the instant.
But to return to the text before us: Lady Macbeth having proposed the
object to herself, and arrayed it with an ideal glory, fixes her eye
steadily upon it, soars far above all womanish feelings and scruples to
attain it, and stoops upon her victim with the strength and velocity of
a vulture; but having committed unflinchingly the crime necessary for
the attainment of her purpose, she stops there. After the murder of
Duncan, we see Lady Macbeth, during the rest of the play, occupied in
supporting the nervous weakness and sustaining the fortitude of her
husband; for instance, Macbeth is at one time on the verge of frenzy,
between fear and horror, and it is clear that if she loses her
self-command, both must perish:--
MACBETH.
One cried, _God bless us!_ and, _Amen!_ the other,
As they had seen me, with these hangman's hands.
Listening their fear, I could not say, _Amen!_
When they did say, _God bless us!_
LADY MACBETH.
Consider it not so deeply!
MACBETH.
But wherefore could not I pronounce, amen?
I had most need of blessing, and amen
Stuck in my throat.
LADY MACBETH.
These deeds must not be thought
After these ways: so, it will make us mad.
MACBETH.
Methought I heard a voice cry,
"Sleep no more," &c. &c.
LADY MACBETH.
What do you mean? who was it that thus cried?
Why, worthy Thane,
You do unbend your noble strength, to think
So brainsickly of things.--Go, get some water, &c. &c.
Afterwards, in act iii., she is represented as muttering to herself,
Nought's had, all's spent,
When our desire is got without content;
yet immediately addresses her moody and conscience-stricken husband--
How now, my lord? why do you keep alone,
Of sorriest fancies your companions making?
Using those thoughts, which should indeed have died
With them they think on? Things without remedy,
Should be without regard; what's done, is done.
But she is nowhere represented as urging him on to new crimes, so far
from it, that when Macbeth darkly hints his purposed assassination of
Banquo, and she inquires his meaning, he replies,
Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
Till thou approve the deed.
The same may be said of the destruction of Macduff's family. Every one
must perceive how our detestation of the woman had been increased, if
she had been placed before us as suggesting and abetting those
additional cruelties into which Macbeth is hurried by his mental
cowardice.
If my feeling of Lady Macbeth's character be just to the conception of
the poet, then she is one who could steel herself to the commission of a
crime from necessity and expediency, and be daringly wicked for a great
end, but not likely to perpetrate gratuitous murders from any vague or
selfish fears. I do not mean to say that the perfect confidence existing
between herself and Macbeth could possibly leave her in ignorance of his
actions or designs: that heart-broken and shuddering allusion to the
murder of Lady Macduff (in the sleeping scene) proves the contrary:--
The thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now?
But she is nowhere brought before us in immediate connection with these
horrors, and we are spared any flagrant proof of her participation in
them. This may not strike us at first, but most undoubtedly has an
effect on the general bearing of the character, considered as a whole.