fore the murder is the message that he sends by Banquo:

The King's abed:

He hath been in unusual pleasure, and
Sent forth great largess to your offices.
This diamond he greets your wife withal,
By the name of most kind hostess.

Before this, he has loaded his treacherous cousin with honours, in return for services which, by the standards of every age, it was Macbeth's clear duty to render. The heinousness of the offence is further emphasized by the fact that it takes place when Duncan is a guest in Macbeth's house. In order that the crime may seem "most foul, strange and unnatural," these considerations are rehearsed by Macbeth himself an hour or two before the deed is done:

He's here in double trust;

First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murtherer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongu'd, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;

And pity, like a naked new-born babe,

Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin, hors'd
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

That tears shall drown the wind.

II i 12 ff.

I vii 12 ff.

For the same poetic purpose, Shakespeare has (2) Banquo. transformed Banquo into a man of incorruptible loyalty and integrity. In the chronicle, he is an accessory to the assassination of his king, though afterwards he is slain by the fiend whom he had aided. In

I iii 123 ff.

II i 26 ff.

III i 49 ff.

the play, we find him warning Macbeth piously against the prediction of the Witches:

Oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray us

In deepest consequence.

And later, when Macbeth drops a hint to him that he may profit by joining the party of his companionin-arms, he thrusts aside the unspoken condition by which he may increase his "honour":—

So I lose none

In seeking to augment it, but still keep
My bosom franchised and allegiance clear,
I shall be counsell'd.

By the same art, Shakespeare represents Macbeth's reason for turning against Banquo not-as Holinshed implies-from fear of betrayal by a partner in crime, but because he apprehends Banquo's suspicions of his own procedure, and is daunted by the man's wisdom and virtue: —

Our fears in Banquo

Stick deep; and in his royalty of nature

Reigns that which would be feared: 'tis much he

dares;

And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,

He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
To act in safety. There is none but he
Whose being I do fear.

And not only for these reasons, but he hates Banquo also from jealousy. Have not the "imperfect speakers" declared that Banquo's issue shall be kings of Scotland? Macbeth has no children, and expects none; but this absence of motive and interest is perhaps the very cause why jealousy, the most irrational of all the sentiments, should flame up into hatred against Banquo.

Thus does Shakespeare effect the double purpose of contributing to the dramatic development of Macbeth's character by intensifying his crime in every possible way, and also of portraying, in large part through the hero-villain's lips, the characters of his companions and enemies.

duff.

All that we hear from Shakespeare of Macduff (3) Macmakes us wish that we could hear more. He is a type of purest patriotism, weeping for his suffering country, but not sitting down in idleness to bemoan its fate. The scene in which we get our most vivid impression of him is that of his long interview with Malcolm in London, upon which Ross breaks in to IV iii. tell the news of the sacking of Macduff's castle and the slaughter of his wife and children by Macbeth. The conversation with Malcolm is the one point in the play in which Shakespeare seems to be somewhat burdened by the history that he is following. It is simply a versified paraphrase of the tedious interview recorded by Holinshed, and we seem to feel the poet turning with relief to the conversation that ensues upon the entrance of Ross, in which his inventive faculty has freer scope.

One of the most interesting aspects of this tragedy is the study in marriage which the two chief characters present. Macbeth and his wife are a perfect partnership, in the sense that each has the qualities needed to supplement those of the other. Devils to the rest of the world, to one another they are angels. Mischance between them twain never comes; nor jealousy, nor distrust. Lady Macbeth spurs him on to the bloody courses that may lead to the fulfilment of his ambitions, but we feel that she is ambitious vicariously for him, not for herself. Her murderous cruelty is no part of her true nature, but

The play as a study in marriage.

The doom of the

assassins.

III ii 5 ff.

is assumed by a violent effort, in order that she may be instrumental to those ends of his which, in loyalty to him, she has made her own. There is no pettiness in either of them, and neither is egoistic as against the other. Moreover, the effect of their joint crimes is to bring them closer together and enhance their mutual dependence, just as misfortune does in the case of innocent partners. The last thought of Lady Macbeth in the Sleep-Walking scene is for her husband; and his greatest outburst of black despair is provoked by the news of her death. Shakespeare is well aware that good qualities, though turned awry and denatured by a voluntary embracing of evil, are yet not destroyed. The mutual fidelity of the Macbeths is deepened by the wickedness that brings upon them the just hatred of all the world. Milton has remarked that there is firm concord among devils.

Yet this devoted couple, having chosen the way of treachery and blood, are self-doomed to a perpetual descent, through crime after crime, to the deepest hell of disappointment and remorse. The happiness they seek is slain in the very moment that they determine to seek it by foul means; and, once they have set out upon that road, nothing can draw them back, or give them again the serenity of innocence. Already while Macbeth is at his devil's work in Duncan's chamber, the misgivings which at last are to destroy her awaken in Lady Macbeth's mind: "The attempt, and not the deed, confounds us." When they have got the empty prize they have so foully played for, she forthwith finds what DeadSea fruit she has plucked:·

Nought's had, all's spent,
Where our desire is got without content:

'Tis safer to be that which we destroy

Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.

But, though she makes this confession to herself, she puts a bolder face on the matter in trying to raise the drooping spirits of her husband. It is in vain, however; for, like every murderer, he has instantly learned that his victim is to be envied, while himself is pitiable. From the moment that he plans to slay Duncan, he is himself destroyed. Henceforth his life is like a tale told by an idiot. He can sleep no more, save with the affliction of terrible dreams that shake him nightly. And the irony of his fate is that he needs must go on planning crimes that revolt himself and drag him deeper into the pit of horror, to maintain a life that he feels to be worse than worthless:

Better be with the dead,

Whom we, to gain our place, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie

In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;

After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;

Ibid. 19 ff.

Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,

Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,

Can touch him further.

Macbeth, indeed, presents a startling contrast to the picture of the perfectly unjust man drawn in Plato's Republic by Glaucon and Adeimantus. These sophistic controversialists maintain that if a man were entirely untroubled by any scruple about what is commonly called righteousness, he would have all the advantages which the hypocritical assumption of integrity can bring, together with the profit of perfect unscrupulousness from his treatment of others. Even Socrates anticipates for such an one not the inward inferno of remorse, but the calm of

The fate of the perfectly

unjust man.