Act IV, Scene ii. Fife. A room in Macduff's castle. Enter LADY MACDUFF, her SON, and ROSS. LADY MACDUFF What had he done, to make him fly the land?

Transcription

1 Act IV, Scene ii Fife. A room in Macduff's castle Enter, her, and What had he done, to make him fly the land? You must have patience, madam. "What had he done, to make him fly the land?" = Lady Macduff speaks of the sudden and unexplained departure of her husband from Fife. As her ensuing lines indicate, she believes he has fled in fear. For some reason (other than because he may be afraid) Macduff has given his wife no explanation for his leaving. Perhaps it is because he believes that sensitive information concerning his activity, which might be seized on by a vindictive and ruthless Macbeth, must not be trusted to anyone, not even to his wife. He had none. His flight was madness. When our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors. You know not Whether it was his wisdom or his fear. Wisdom! To leave his wife, to leave his babes, His mansion and his titles in a place From whence himself does fly? He loves us not. He wants the natural touch. For the poor wren, The most diminutive of birds, will fight, Her young ones in her nest, against the owl. All is the fear and nothing is the love. As little is the wisdom, where the flight So runs against all reason. "When our actions do not, / Our fears do make us traitors" = when we are not traitors for what we have done, we are still traitors for being afraid and running away. Traitorous action is normally associated with the behavior of subjects toward their rulers, but the treason Lady Macduff speaks of is the treason of a man toward his family, to whom he is also bound in loyalty. "You know not / Whether it was his wisdom or his fear" = Ross appears to give Macduff the benefit of the doubt, suggesting that he may well have had sensible reasons for his action. "his titles" = the possessions to which he is entitled "wants the natural touch" = lacks ("wants") natural affection (of the sort that a man must have for his family) "diminutive" = tiny "For the poor wren, / The most diminutive of birds, will fight, / Her young ones in her nest, against the owl" = even the tiny wren, when her young are at stake, will oppose the owl "All is the fear and nothing is the love. / As little is the wisdom, where the flight / So runs against all reason" = The general sense of Lady Macduff's lines here is that her husband's love is false, given that he has allowed fear to trump the impulse to defend his family. Defense of them, she contends, ought to be his only "reason."

2 "coz" = an abbreviated form of cousin (though recall that the word cousin can be applied to a fellow subject and does not have to indicate a blood relationship) My dearest coz, I pray you, school yourself. But, for your husband, He is noble, wise, judicious, and best knows The fits o' th' season. I dare not speak much further. But cruel are the times when we are traitors And do not know ourselves, when we hold rumor From what we fear, yet know not what we fear, But float upon a wild and violent sea Each way, and move I take my leave of you. Shall not be long but I'll be here again. Things at the worst will cease or else climb upward To what they were before. My pretty cousin, Blessing upon you. Father'd he is, and yet he's fatherless. I am so much a fool, should I stay longer It would be my disgrace and your discomfort. I take my leave at once. Exit "school" = control "for your husband, / He is noble, wise, judicious, and best knows / The fits o' th' season" = as for your husband, he is brave and loyal ("noble"), sensible, and of good judgment ("judicious"), and knows better than anyone the moods and quirks of the time ("fits o' th' season") "I dare not speak much further" = Ross' cautioning of himself suggests his awareness of the likelihood that spying eyes and ears may be planted in this place. Recall Macbeth's having said to Lady Macbeth "there's not a one of them but in his house / I keep a servant fee'd." "But cruel are the times when we are traitors / And do not know ourselves" = The thematic implication of Ross' line is that treasonous or evil behavior is so fundamentally unnatural that the doing of it makes a person a stranger to him or herself. This condition is somewhat suggested earlier, in Macbeth's line, immediately following his murder of Duncan, "to know my deed, 'twere best not know myself" for, in killing the good old man, Macbeth has become something other than his true self. He has, in effect, reduced himself to the level of a beast and potentially to the level of the devil. We may say, too, that this idea of not knowing oneself is a subtle but potent expression of the fair-is-foul motif, especially of the extension of that idea which observes that distinguishing between the two can be especially difficult so difficult, indeed, that we do not always correctly separate the two energies within our very selves. For this reason, as well, we must always (the tragedian implies) regard ourselves as culpable of misdeeds, even when we might think ourselves entirely innocent. "when we hold rumor / From what we fear, yet know not what we fear" = fears make us believe ("hold" to) rumors, even when we don't know what we're afraid of. Consider this observation concerning human behavior in the matter of fears and rumors in relation to the phenomenon of mob hysteria as represented in Golding's Lord of the Flies, Miller's The Crucible, and in much of our own society's fear of alleged terrorists around every corner or of xenophobia at large. "Each way" = backward and forward "Each way, and move I take my leave of you" = Ross cuts off his own thought, the feeling here being that what he might say to complete his thought is too dangerous to speak aloud. "Shall not" = it won't Sirrah, your father's dead. And what will you do now? How will you live? "your father's dead" = From Lady Macduff's point of view, a child whose father has run away has no father at all. As birds do, mother. What, with worms and flies? With what I get, I mean. And so do they. "lime" = A bird landing in lime would have its feet stuck and so be trapped. "pitfall" / "gin" = Both are snares.

3 Poor bird! Thou'dst never fear the net nor lime, The pitfall nor the gin. Why should I, mother? Poor birds they are not set for. My father is not dead, for all your saying. "Why should I [fear them], mother? / Poor birds they are not set for" = Young Macduff's logic is that because traps are set for special birds not "poor" ones, of which he is one, according to his mother he is not threatened. Yes, he is dead. How wilt thou do for a father? Nay, how will you do for a husband? Why, I can buy me twenty at any market. Then you'll buy 'em to sell again. Thou speak'st with all thy wit. And yet, i' faith, With wit enough for thee. "for thee" = for your age Was my father a traitor, mother? Ay, that he was. What is a traitor? "swears and lies" = swears a promise, then breaks that promise Why, one that swears and lies. And be all traitors that do so? Every one that does so is a traitor and must be hang'd. And must they all be hang'd that swear and lie? Every one. Who must hang them?

4 Why, the honest men. Then the liars and swearers are fools, for there are liars and swearers enough to beat the honest men and hang up them. "there are liars and swearers enough to beat the honest men and hang up them" = One wonders whether Young Macduff's statement is a matter of his being a cynical lad or of his simply describing the world as he sees it. Are there really, even-handedly, as many traitorous men in the world as there are loyal men? Might there even be more traitors than truthful men? With the idea of culpability in hand, we might say that each of us potentially is a traitor or that we all have it in us to be foul. By the same token, however, we all have it in us potentially to be true too to be fair. Now, God help thee, poor monkey! But how wilt thou do for a father? If he were dead, you'd weep for him. If you would not, it were a good sign that I should quickly have a new father. Poor prattler, how thou talk'st! "prattler" = chatterbox Enter a MESSENGER MESSENGER Bless you, fair dame! I am not to you known, Though in your state of honor I am perfect. I doubt some danger does approach you nearly. If you will take a homely man's advice, Be not found here. Hence, with your little ones! To fright you thus, methinks, I am too savage. To do worse to you were fell cruelty, Which is too nigh your person. Heaven preserve you! I dare abide no longer. Exit Whither should I fly? I have done no harm. But I remember now I am in this earthly world, where to do harm Is often laudable, to do good sometime Accounted dangerous folly. Why then, alas, Do I put up that womanly defense To say I have done no harm? "in your state of honor I am perfect" = I am perfectly aware of your rank (which is well above my own) "doubt" = suspect "homely" = ordinary; humble "To fright you thus, methinks, I am too savage. / To do worse to you were fell cruelty, / Which is too nigh your person" = to frighten you like this, I think, is monstrous of me, but to hurt you physically would be even more monstrous, and just such monstrous men are now near ("nigh") you "Whither should I fly?" = Where can I flee? (also, Why should I flee?) "But I remember now... done no harm?" = Lady Macduff makes the point that in a confusing world, where good and evil are frequently turned inside out, doing harm is often thought admirable ("laudable") and doing good is often considered ("accounted") perilous foolishness ("folly"). This speech powerfully expresses both the fair-is-foul and culpability motifs. In spite of her having committed no crimes for which she could be convicted by human laws, and in spite of her being a member of the softer sex, Lady Macduff nevertheless accounts herself guilty of folly and foulness, simply because she is a human being in "this earthly world." Enter MURDERERS What are these faces?

5 FIRST MURDERER Where is your husband? I hope, in no place so unsanctified Where such as thou may'st find him. FIRST MURDERER Thou liest, thou shag-hair'd villain! He's a traitor. "I hope, in no place so unsanctified / Where such as thou may'st find him" = I hope that he is in no unholy ("unsanctified") place the kind of place where the likes of you would be likely to find him (for you are an "unsanctified" man). Here is an interesting play on the false-face motif. To this point, Lady Macduff has been speaking of her thane as a traitor who "must be hang'd." But now, with the prospect of his actually being harmed by ruffians such as these men, she reveals that she really does love him and wishes him no harm. As well, the fact that she actually loves him makes the earlier words of Young Macduff "If he were dead, you would weep for him" (and she has not wept for him) read as practically prophetic or if not prophetic, as a sign that the boy is a decidedly sensitive observer of his mother's true nature. "shag-hair'd" = shaggy haired FIRST MURDERER Stabs him Young fry of treachery! Run away, I pray you! Dies What, you egg! He has kill'd me, mother! "egg" / "fry" = immature creature Murder is monstrosity enough. But the murder of a child seems all the more monstrous. The fact that Macbeth has ordered (and in some productions, physically participates in) the murder of this child, and other innocents in the castle of Fife an action which has no strategic value for Macbeth but is merely an expression of unalloyed malice gives us a clear idea of the depths to which Macbeth has fallen from his nature and original grace. Exit, crying "Murder!" and pursued by the MURDERERS