The Shakespeare Story-Book · Mary Macleod
“THE FORTUNATE-UNHAPPY.”
“May it please your highness sit,” said the Thane of Lennox. The seat which Macbeth had been about to occupy when he went to speak to the murderer had remained empty, but now, unnoticed by all the other guests, a figure glided in and took possession of it. If only Banquo were present, Macbeth went on to say, their honour would be complete, and he hoped it was his own fault, and no mischance, that had kept him away. The Thane of Ross replied that Banquo deserved blame for not keeping his promise, and again asked Macbeth to favour them with his company. “The table’s full,” said Macbeth. “Here is a place reserved, sir,” said Lennox. “Where?” “Here, my good lord,” said Lennox, pointing to the seat Macbeth had first chosen. “What is it that moves your Highness?” he added in alarm, for Macbeth stood gazing in horror at what seemed to the others nothing but an empty stool. Well might the guilty King tremble and grow pale, for in the place that seemed vacant to everyone else he saw sitting the blood-stained figure of the murdered Banquo. “Thou canst not say I did it; never shake thy gory locks at me!” he cried, recoiling in horror. “Gentlemen, rise; his Highness is not well,” said the Thane of Ross.
But with eager words Lady Macbeth tried to calm the startled guests, assuring them that it was only a momentary fit of illness, such as Macbeth had been accustomed to from his youth. “Eat, and regard him not,” she implored them, and then, in a stern undertone, she tried to rouse her husband from his fit of dazed terror. But Macbeth was heedless of her entreaties. With starting eyes he watched the ghastly figure which his guilty brain alone could see, and it was only when the vision melted away that he recovered from the sort of stupor into which he had fallen. Then, for a brief moment, he spoke cheerfully, and, calling for wine, he drank to the health of all present. “And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss,” he added boldly. “Would he were here! To all, and him, we drink!” The words were scarcely uttered, when once more the vision of the murdered man rose before Macbeth. With a scream of terror he again recoiled, pouring forth a torrent of entreaties and defiance. Lady Macbeth once more tried to smooth matters over, but her husband’s frenzied ravings could not be so lightly covered, and, dreading the suspicions that his wild words must give rise to, she hastily dismissed the guests on the plea of his sudden illness.
“Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.” The charm was just completed to their satisfaction, when there came a knocking at the entrance of the cavern. The second witch looked up with a cunning gleam in her sunken eyes. “By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. Open, locks, Whoever knocks!” The door swung open by itself, and Macbeth entered. In spite of his curiosity, he stood almost appalled at the weird scene before him. The darkness of the cavern was fitfully lighted by the leaping flames of the fire, and the evil faces that peered back at him from the shadowy gloom might well bring discomfort to a guilty soul. “How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags? What is it you do?” he demanded. “A deed without a name,” answered the witches in chorus. “I conjure you, by that which you profess, however you come to know it, answer me to what I ask you.” “Speak!” “Demand!” “We’ll answer,” said the witches. “Say if you would rather hear it from our mouths or from our masters?” “Call them; let me see them.” The first witch flung some additional horrible charms into the cauldron, and then the three chanted together: “Come, high or low; Thyself and office deftly show!” There was a flash of light, a roll of thunder, and in the midst of a cloud of blue steam there rose from the cauldron the Apparition of an armed Head.
“Tell me, thou unknown power----” began Macbeth. “He knows thy thought,” said the first witch; “hear his speech, but say thou nought.” “Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! beware Macduff; Beware the Thane of Fife! Dismiss me. Enough.” “Whate’er thou art, for thy good caution, thanks,” said Macbeth, as the Apparition sank from view. “Thou hast spoken my fear aright; but one word more----” “He will not be commanded,” said the witch. “Here is another, more potent than the first.” There was another roll of thunder, and a second Apparition arose from the cauldron, a blood-stained Child. “Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!” “Had I three ears, I’d hear thee.” “Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn The power of man, for none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth.” “Then live, Macduff; what need I fear of thee?” cried Macbeth. “But yet I’ll make assurance double sure; thou shalt not live; that I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies, and sleep in spite of thunder.” There was a third roll of thunder, and a third Apparition rose--a Child crowned, with a tree in its hand. “What is this that rises like the issue of a King, and wears upon his baby brow the round of sovereignty?” “Listen, but do not speak to it,” commanded the witches; and the Apparition spoke on: “Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no care Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are: Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Shall come against him.”
“That will never be!” cried Macbeth, in delighted relief, as the vision of the baby King sank back into the cauldron. As he truly said, who could remove the forest, and bid the trees unfix their earth-bound roots? All the bodements were good. Fate seemed bright before him. But there was still one thing his heart throbbed to know. “Tell me, if your art can tell so much,” he begged the witches, “shall Banquo’s issue ever reign in this kingdom?” “Seek to know no more,” came the solemn warning. ”I _will_ be satisfied. Deny me this, and an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know! Why does that cauldron sink, and what noise is that?” For there was the sound of trumpets. ”Show!... Show!... Show!... Show his eyes, and grieve his heart; Come like shadows, so depart!” Then in the dusk of the cavern shone a strange luminous glow, and slowly in procession passed a line of eight Kings; the last carried a mirror in his hand, and was followed by Banquo’s ghost. Horrible sight! Then, after all, the witches had spoken truly, and it was Banquo’s children who should fill the throne of Scotland for untold generations. For in the mirror held by the eighth King were reflected many more, and some of them carried twofold orbs and treble sceptres.
“What, is this so?” demanded Macbeth, and the first witch answered: “Ay, sir, all this is so; but why Stands Macbeth thus amazedly? Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprites, And show the best of our delights; I’ll charm the air to give a sound, While you perform your antic round, That this great King may kindly say, Our duties did his welcome pay.” Then a strain of weird music was heard, and in a sort of wild, mocking dance the witches vanished, the cauldron sank into the earth, and Macbeth was left standing alone in the gloomy cavern. Birnam Wood When Macbeth learnt that Macduff had escaped from his power and fled to England, he took a fiendish revenge: he gave orders that his castle in Fife should be surprised and seized, and his wife and children slain. Macbeth’s barbarous commands were executed, and the Thane of Fife’s wife, children, servants, and every unfortunate soul in the castle, were ruthlessly slaughtered. Scotland had long been groaning under the heavy yoke of the tyrant, and at this cruel deed it broke into open rebellion. Macduff returned from England, bringing the young Prince Malcolm with him, and many noblemen flocked to their standard. Macduff, burning with revenge for the loss of all his dear ones, swore that if ever the tyrant came within reach of his sword he should never escape alive.
In the troubles that now gathered thick and fast around him, Macbeth had no longer the counsel of his devoted wife to strengthen him. The punishment of her evil deeds had fallen upon Lady Macbeth. Her stern spirit was broken, for she was a prey to all the tortures of unavailing remorse. Her sleep was troubled, and in her dreams she acted over and over again the scene that had taken place on the night of Duncan’s murder. The doctor called in to attend her could not explain the cause of the illness that seemed consuming her, but her waiting gentlewoman told him that at night Lady Macbeth would rise in her sleep, and speak strange words and act in a strange manner. The doctor resolved to watch, himself, to see what happened. For two nights all was quiet, but on the third night, as he was speaking to the gentlewoman, Lady Macbeth entered, clad in a night-mantle, and carrying a lighted taper. Her eyes were open, but she evidently saw nothing; she was walking in her sleep. Setting down the taper, she began to rub her hands, as if she were washing them, speaking the while in a low voice. From her broken phrases it was easy to guess the scene of guilt that was haunting her brain. Mixed with words about Duncan’s murder came reproaches to her husband for his lack of courage, and then references to other crimes--the murder of Banquo, and the death of the Thane of Fife’s wife. And all the time Lady Macbeth kept rubbing and rubbing her hands; but it was of no use--nothing would ever make them clean again.
“Here’s the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand,” she moaned, as if her heart were breaking. “What a sigh is there!” said the doctor. “The heart is sorely charged.” “I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body,” said the gentlewoman. “This disease is beyond my practice,” said the doctor: “yet I have known those that have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.” “Wash your hands; put on your nightgown, look not so pale!” muttered Lady Macbeth. ”I tell you yet again, Banquo is buried; he cannot come out of his grave. To bed, to bed! There’s knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed!” And, with a gesture as if she were dragging some invisible person reluctantly after her, Lady Macbeth took up her taper and slowly retreated. The strain of this unceasing remorse by day and night was too much even for Lady Macbeth’s dauntless courage, and the days of her life were soon to be numbered. Macbeth himself was bordering on a state of frenzy. Some said he was mad; others, who hated him less, called it valiant fury. Whichever it might be, certain it was that his excitement was beyond control, and that he could not direct his cause in a reasonable manner. Sick at heart, void of all hope, he yet summoned all his courage, and resolved to fight stubbornly to the end, like some savage animal brought to bay.
The English troops, led by Malcolm and Macduff, were close at hand, and the Scottish nobles with their followers were to meet them near Birnam Wood. From here the combined forces were to march on Dunsinane Castle, where Macbeth now was, and which he had strongly fortified. Rumours of the enemy’s might filled the air, but Macbeth, trying to reassure himself with the witches’ prophecy, bade his people bring him no more reports. “Till Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane, I cannot quail with fear,” he declared. “What’s the boy Malcolm? Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know all mortal consequences have said to me thus: ‘Fear not, Macbeth; no man that’s born of woman shall e’er have power upon thee.’” So, when a white-faced, trembling messenger brought the news that ten thousand English soldiers were marching on Dunsinane, Macbeth silenced him with curses and abuse. But his momentary rage over, he fell again into dejection. “I am sick at heart,” he said; “I have lived long enough, my way of life has fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf; and that which should accompany old age, such as honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but in their stead, curses not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare not.”
Then, shaking off his despondency in a fresh outburst of fury, he rallied his men, determined to make a most stubborn resistance, no matter what forces were brought against him. “I will not be afraid of death and bane, till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane,” he cried, once more falling back for comfort on the witches’ prophecy. News again came to Macbeth of the near approach of the English, and that the Scottish nobles were flocking to the standard of the young Prince. But he refused to be daunted. “Hang out our banners on the outward walls,” he shouted. “The cry is still, ‘They come.’ Our castle’s strength will laugh a siege to scorn; here let them lie till famine and the ague eat them up.” In the midst of his warlike commands, a cry of women was heard within the castle, and the news was told Macbeth that the Queen was dead. For a moment he was stunned. This, then, was the end of all their plotting and ambition! But now there was no time even to spend in grief. “She should have died hereafter,” he said, with a bitter reflection on the vanity of human life. “There would have been time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
But his musing was interrupted; a messenger came hurrying up, his face full of terror. “Thou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.” The man sank on his knee before Macbeth. “Gracious my lord, I should report that which I say I saw, but know not how to do it.” “Well, say, sir,” said Macbeth impatiently. “As I stood watching upon the hill, I looked towards Birnam, and anon, methought, the wood began to move.” “Liar and slave!” cried Macbeth, livid with fury, and striking the man to the ground. “Let me endure your wrath if it be not so,” persisted the messenger. “Within these three miles you may see it coming; I say, a moving grove.” “If thou speak false, upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive till famine cling thee,” said Macbeth. “If thy speech be true, I care not if thou dost as much for me.” His resolution faltered, and he began to doubt the falseness of the fiends that lied like truth. “Fear not till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane,” they had said. And now a wood was coming to Dunsinane! “Arm, arm, and out!” thundered Macbeth.--“If this which he avouches be true, there is no flying hence nor tarrying here,” he thought, sick at heart. “I begin to be aweary of the sun, and wish the estate of the world were now undone.” Then, with a sudden return of fury, “Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack! At least we’ll die with harness on our back!”
The strange occurrence reported by the messenger was indeed true, but the explanation was simple. When the English and Scotch troops met near Birnam Wood, in order the better to conceal the soldiers as they marched to Dunsinane, Malcolm commanded that every man should hew down a leafy bough, and bear it before him, thereby making it impossible that the number of their host could be discovered. From a distance this mass of waving green boughs looked exactly as if Birnam Wood were advancing on Dunsinane. The first of the witches’ safeguards had failed Macbeth, but he fell back with desperate reliance on the other. Besides, in any case, it was now too late to retreat; he must fight the matter out to the end, and either conquer or be lost for ever. “They have tied me to a stake,” he cried. “I cannot fly, but, bear-like, I must fight the course. What’s he that was not born of woman? Such a one am I to fear, or none.” In his furious fighting on the battle-field he presently encountered one of the English leaders, whom he promptly slew. Macbeth laughed in triumph, for he felt himself secure; he feared no weapon brandished by any man born of woman. But the hour of fate was at hand. Macduff, scorning to strike the wretched peasants, hired to fight, sought everywhere for Macbeth, determined either to slay the tyrant or sheathe his sword unused. And at last he found him.
But Macbeth seemed to shrink from the furious challenge. “Of all men else I have avoided thee,” he said. “But get thee back; my soul is too much charged with blood of thine already.” “I have no words; my voice is in my sword,” returned Macduff. They fought, but for awhile neither got the better. Then Macbeth told Macduff that he was losing labour, for it was as easy for his keen sword to hurt the air as to wound him. He bore a charmed life, which could not yield to one of woman born. “Despair thy charm!” cried Macduff. And the next moment Macbeth knew that the witches had doubly deceived him, for his second hope had failed--Macduff proclaimed that his birth had been different from that of ordinary mortals, so that in a way he might be said never to have been born. “Accursed be the tongue that tells me so!” exclaimed Macbeth, “for it hath cowed my better part of man. And be those juggling fiends no more believed, that palter with us in a double sense; that keep the word of promise to the ear, and break it to our hope. I’ll not fight with thee!” “Then yield thee, coward!” taunted Macduff, “and live to be the show and gaze of the time; we’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, painted upon a pole, and underwrit, ‘Here you may see the tyrant.’”
His words goaded Macbeth’s failing nerve to fresh fury. Desperate and despairing, he flung his final challenge at his foe. “I will not yield to kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet, and to be baited with the rabble’s curse! Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane, and thou opposed, being of no woman born, yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, and cursed be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’” * * * * * The fight was over, and as the victorious generals gathered on the field of battle, with drums beating and flags flying, Macduff approached, bearing the head of the slain Macbeth, and saluted the young Prince Malcolm as King of Scotland. “Hail, King! For so thou art. Behold where stands the usurper’s cursed head; the land is free. Hail, King of Scotland!” And the trumpets sounded, and a universal shout rent the air: “Hail, King of Scotland!” Hamlet A Vision at Midnight Great was the sorrow in Denmark when the good King Hamlet suddenly died in a mysterious manner. The rightful heir, the young Prince Hamlet, was at that time absent in Germany, studying at the University of Wittenberg, and before he could reach home, his uncle Claudius, brother to the late King, had seized the throne. More than this: within two months after the death of her husband, Claudius had persuaded the widowed Queen Gertrude to marry himself.
Hamlet, called back to Denmark by the death of his father, met on his return this second terrible shock of the hasty marriage of his mother. To one of his noble nature such an action seemed almost incredible. For not only had Queen Gertrude been apparently devoted to her first husband, but the two brothers were so absolutely different, both in appearance and character, that it was difficult to imagine how anyone who had known the noble King Hamlet could descend to the base and contemptible Claudius. King Claudius now usurped all the rights of sovereignty, and by being very suave and gracious to those who surrounded him he hoped to become popular. He would fain have banished all remembrance of the late King, though he was glib enough in uttering hypocritical words of sorrow. By pressing on the festivities of his marriage with Gertrude, he hoped to get rid of all signs of mourning. But the young Prince Hamlet refused to lay aside his suits of woe. Among the gay throng that crowded the Court of the new monarch he moved, a figure apart, clad in the deepest black, and with his brow clouded with melancholy. His mother, Queen Gertrude, tried some feeble attempts at consolation, but her commonplace, conventional remarks only showed how shallow was her own nature, and how far she was from understanding her son’s depth of feeling. She begged him to put off his sombre raiment, and look with a friendly eye on his uncle.
“Do not for ever with thy veiled lids seek for thy noble father in the dust,” she urged him. “Thou knowest it is common; all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity.” “Ay, madam, it is common,” replied Hamlet. “If it be, why seems it so particular with thee?” asked the Queen. “‘Seems’ madam! Nay, it _is_; I know not ‘seems,’” said Hamlet, with noble indignation. And then he went on to say that it was not his inky cloak, nor the customary suits of solemn black, nor sighs, nor tears, nor a dejected visage, together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, that could denote him truly. “These indeed ‘seem,’ for they are actions that a man might play. But I have that within which passeth show; these but the trappings and the suits of woe.” Then King Claudius took up the theme, and delivered a homily to Hamlet on the duty of remembering that the death of fathers was a very common event, and one over which it was very wrong to sorrow much. All fathers died, one after another; it was a law of nature, and it was therefore a fault against heaven, and most absurd in reason, to lament over something which must certainly happen. To a son who had loved his father, as Hamlet had loved his, such cold-blooded moralising was nothing short of torture, and when Claudius went on to bid him throw to earth his unprevailing woe, and think of himself as of a father, the young Prince shuddered with horror at the suggestion. “For let the world take note, you are the most immediate to our throne,” added Claudius pompously, looking round at the assembled courtiers. They all bowed subserviently at this announcement, and none of them dared so much as to hint that the son of their late King was their rightful ruler.
When he found how events were going, Hamlet no longer cared to remain in his own country, and would have preferred to return to his studies at Wittenberg; but when his mother joined her entreaties to his uncle’s, in urging him to stay in Denmark, Hamlet consented to do so. In spite of the forced joviality which the new King tried to impose on his subjects, there was a feeling of uneasiness abroad. First, there were rumours of war. The late King had been a valiant soldier, and had fought victoriously with the ambitious neighbouring State of Norway. King Fortinbras of Norway, out of pride, had challenged King Hamlet, but had met with defeat. Fortinbras himself was slain, and some of his possessions were forfeited to Denmark. On the death of Hamlet, young Fortinbras, thinking that perhaps the country would be in an unsettled state, or holding a poor opinion of the worth of its new ruler, resolved to try to get back some of the lands his father had lost. He therefore collected a band of reckless followers, ready for any desperate enterprise, and prepared to invade the country. News of this reaching Denmark, warlike preparations were at once set on foot; day and night there was toiling of shipwrights and casting of cannon, and strict watch was kept in all directions against the possible invaders.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.