King Duncan received Macbeth and Banquo most graciously, and at the
same time as he conferred the new dignity on Macbeth he took the
opportunity of announcing that his own eldest son, Malcolm, should
succeed himself as King of Scotland, and should be named hereafter
Prince of Cumberland. In those days of strife and bloodshed it was by
no means an assured fact that the crown should descend peaceably from
father to son. When the rightful heir was young or feeble, some more
powerful relative often stepped forward and seized the sceptre for
himself. Macbeth’s wife was a near kinswoman of the King--according to
some of the old chroniclers, she had even a better claim to the throne
than Duncan himself. Macbeth may have been hoping that after the
King’s death, if it came about by natural means, the crown might pass
to himself. But this public proclamation of the young Prince as the
heir was an obstacle in his path which would prove a stumbling-block
to his ambition, unless he overleaped it. Once more, stronger than
ever, rose the evil suggestion in his mind. He knew well the dark deed
to which it was leading, but he was already almost determined to go
through with it, cost what it might.
Macbeth’s character was well understood by his wife. He wished to
be great, was not without ambition, but his nature was not yet
sufficiently hardened to snatch what he wanted by the shortest way.
The great things he wanted he would have been glad to get by rightful
means; he did not wish to play falsely, but he was quite content to
win wrongly. Accustomed to rely on the stern judgment of his wife, he
now wrote to her a full account of the meeting with the witches, and
left the matter to her firmer will to puzzle out.
If there were any hesitation in Macbeth’s mind, there was none at all
in Lady Macbeth’s. Her husband was already Thane of Glamis and Thane
of Cawdor; well, he should reach the highest honour prophesied. So
resolved was she on this point, and so swift was her mind to plot
evil, that when a messenger arrived to say that King Duncan was then
on his way to the castle, and would be there that night, she almost
betrayed the treason in her heart by the startled exclamation, “Thou
art mad to say it!” It seemed as though fate itself were delivering
the unsuspecting victim straight into her hands.
“The raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
under my battlements,” she muttered to herself; and with terrible
decision she began to stifle all thoughts of womanly weakness or pity,
and to nerve herself with unflinching cruelty for the deed that lay
before her.
A few minutes in advance of the King came Macbeth, and was received
with the warmest greeting from his wife.
“My dearest love,” he said, “Duncan comes here to-night.”
“And when goes hence?” asked Lady Macbeth, in a voice of dreadful
import.
“To-morrow--as he purposes,” faltered Macbeth, avoiding his wife’s
direct gaze.
“Oh, never shall sun that morrow see!” cried Lady Macbeth. “Your
face, my Thane, is as a book, where men may read strange matters. To
beguile the time, look like the time; bear welcome in your hand, your
eye, your tongue; look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent
under it. He who is coming must be provided for, and you shall put
this night’s great business into my despatch.”
“We will speak further,” said Macbeth, still irresolute.
“Only look up clear,” said Lady Macbeth; “to alter favour ever is to
fear. Leave all the rest to me.”
The counsel Lady Macbeth gave her husband she was quite ready to carry
out herself. King Duncan was welcomed with smiling courtesy, and the
gentle old King was charmed by the grace and kind attention of his
hostess.
The castle itself was pleasantly situated; the air was fresh and
sweet, and so mild that the guests of summer, the temple-haunting
martins, built in every nook and coign of vantage. In truth,
everything around seemed to breathe peace and innocent security.
But the hearts of the master and mistress of this castle were far
from the loyalty they paraded to their royal guest, though the
unbending will of Lady Macbeth was lacking to her husband. Torn with
conflicting thoughts, he stole away from the chamber where King Duncan
was supping, in order to ponder alone over the problem whether or not
he should commit this crime. There were many reasons that cried out
against it. First, Macbeth was the kinsman and subject of Duncan, both
strong reasons against the deed. Then, he was the host of Duncan, and
as such should have barred the door against his murderer, not borne
the knife himself. Duncan had shown himself so meek in his high
office that all his virtues would plead in his behalf, and fill the
land with horror and pity at his fate. Macbeth had no spur to urge him
onward except his vaulting ambition, which might overleap its aim and
fail, after all.
Missing her husband from the supper-room, Lady Macbeth followed him
into the deserted hall, and when he said to her, “We will proceed no
further in this business,” she overwhelmed him with the bitterest
contempt. She taunted him with his pitiful lack of resolution, and
derided him for his cowardly want of valour--“Letting ‘I dare not’
wait upon ‘I would,’ like the poor cat in the adage,” as she expressed
it. When Macbeth suggested that they might fail, she laughed the
idea to scorn. “We fail!” she cried. “But screw your courage to the
sticking-place, and we’ll not fail.” Then she sketched out the plan of
how they might proceed. When Duncan was asleep, she would drug with
wine the two soldiers who kept watch at his door, and what then would
prevent her and her husband doing anything they liked to the unguarded
King? And, finally, what would prevent their laying the blame on the
two drowsy officers, who would thus bear the guilt of the murder?
Fired with admiration for his wife’s undaunted courage, Macbeth made
no further demur, and the murder of their guest, the King, was agreed
on.
* * * * *
That night was dark and wild, one of the roughest that had ever been
known. The moon went down at twelve o’clock, and after that all was
black, not a star visible. The wind moaned and wailed round the
turrets of the castle, chimneys were blown down, strange screams were
heard, which seemed to foretell coming woe; the owl, the fatal bellman
of death, shrieked the livelong night.
The inmates of the castle were disturbed and uneasy; it was late
before they sought their rooms, for there was feasting and revelry
because of the King’s arrival; and, then, to many of them, sleep was
impossible, because of the raging of the storm outside. But of what
was happening in their midst they had no suspicion.
At the appointed hour, Macbeth, trembling with terror at his own deed,
crept into Duncan’s room, and killed the King. He looked so calm and
peaceful as he lay there wrapt in slumber that sudden remorse filled
the heart of the murderer, and he stood fixed in horror, gazing at
what he had done. In a neighbouring room two of the King’s followers
stirred and called out in their sleep. One laughed, and one cried
“Murder!” so that they woke each other; and Macbeth stood and heard
them. But with a muttered prayer they turned again to sleep, and
presently Macbeth recovered sufficiently to creep back to his wife to
tell her that the deed was done.
But though he had nerved himself to strike the blow, all Macbeth’s
courage again ebbed away. He shuddered with horror when he looked at
the blood on his hands, and it was all his wife could do to rouse him
from the sort of stupor that seemed to have seized him.
“These deeds must not be thought of in this way; it will make us
mad,” she said, when Macbeth was telling her what had happened in the
chamber of the King.
[Illustration: “Infirm of purpose! Give _me_ the daggers.”]
“Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more!’” continued Macbeth,
still in the same dazed fashion: “‘Macbeth doth murder sleep’--the
innocent sleep, balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
chief nourisher in life’s feast----”
“What do you mean?” interrupted his wife.
“Still it cried ‘Sleep no more!’ to all the house; ‘Glamis hath
murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more, Macbeth
shall sleep no more.’”
“Who was it that thus cried?” said Lady Macbeth impatiently. “Why,
worthy Thane, you weaken your strength by thinking so foolishly of
things. Go, get some water, and wash this witness from your hands. Why
did you bring these daggers from the place? They must lie there.--And
smear the sleepy grooms with blood.”
“I’ll go no more,” said Macbeth. “I am afraid to think what I have
done; look on it again I dare not.”
“Infirm of purpose! Give _me_ the daggers!” cried Lady Macbeth
contemptuously. “The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures; ’tis
the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil.” And, seizing the
daggers from her husband’s nerveless grasp, she carried them back
into King Duncan’s room, and placed them in the hands of the drowsy
attendants, to make it appear as if it were they who had murdered the
King.
Before Lady Macbeth could rejoin her husband, there came a knocking at
the outer gate, and she hurried him away to put on night apparel, in
order to divert suspicion from themselves if they were summoned.
The new-comer was a Scotch lord called Macduff, whom the King had
appointed to call on him early in the morning. He was admitted into
Duncan’s room, when, of course, the crime was at once discovered.
All was now horror and confusion. Macbeth feigned as much dismay as
everyone else showed. The whole castle was aroused; the alarum bell
pealed out. Macduff shouted for Banquo, and for the two young Princes,
Malcolm and Donalbain. Lady Macbeth came running in, as if just
disturbed from sleep.
Fearing what the two grooms might say when they recovered from their
drugged sleep, Macbeth took the opportunity in the uproar to slay them
both, pretending that he was carried away by the fury of the moment at
seeing the evidence of their villainy, the daggers in their hands.
But the suspicions of the two young Princes were aroused; they dreaded
that the treachery begun was not yet ended, and they felt no safety in
their present abode. So when Macbeth summoned a meeting in the hall
of the castle to decide what was to be the future course of action,
they secretly stole away, for better security resolving to separate,
Malcolm, the elder son, going to England, and Donalbain, the younger,
to Ireland.