( This final scene of Act 4 is the longest scene in the play (by 88 lines) and the one that gives my students the most difficulty; yet, I believe, the scene speaks richly to the play’s crucial issues of truth and lying, thinking and doing, as well as to concerns about gender and about the future of Scotland. We expect evil characters to equivocate and lie, but the lies of an ostensibly good character are disconcerting indeed. Here Malcolm lies directly and strategically and both Macduff and Ross equivocate with truth. The scene divides into three parts: an encounter of mutual testing between Malcolm and Macduff; a paean to the sacramental power of the true English monarch to cure diseases by his magic touch; and the delayed and terrible report of Ross newly arrived from the misery of Macbeth’s Scotland. The language of this scene is among the most intricate and beautiful in the play, as Shakespeare gives voice to Scotland’s suffering and attempts to construct a counterweight of goodness to Macbeth’s compelling evil. The scene set in England opens as Malcolm and Macduff warily assess each other. Malcolm here takes the side of memorial contemplation, mental exploration, and imaginative self-probing (1-2), while Macduff urges immediate action: “Let us rather | Hold fast the mortal sword and like good men | Bestride our downfall birthdom” (2-4). These are the respective positions held in Act 2 by Lord and Lady Macbeth, but with very different moral consequences. Though Macduff’s active urgency is the more attractive and understandable response, Malcolm’s commitment to thoughtful probing is spiritually primary, especially when we remember Macbeth’s recent resolution to act violently without contemplation (3.4.136 ff and 4.1.145 ff). In this scene Malcolm proceeds to use his imagination in both a self-protective and self-investigative way. First, he questions Macduff’s own motivations, especially since “in that rawness [unprotected condition] left you wife and child (26-28). Malcolm also recognizes the malevolent power of a “treacherous” king like Macbeth to infect even “A good and virtuous nature” such as Macduff’s (18-20). But Malcolm also acknowledges honestly that even though he is full of “jealousies” [suspicions] since Scotland has become so corrupted – and even though God’s brightest angel, Lucifer, fell from goodness – there is still in the world “grace,” and men such as Macduff may “be rightly just, | Whatever I shall think” (19-31). Given the nature of individual free will to choose good or evil, one person (whether witch or Macbeth or Prince Malcolm) does not have the power to “transpose” another to corruption. Macduff’s indignation at being suspect (31-37) leads Malcolm deeper into his exploration of evil, not as something that lies in others, but as a potentiality that lurks innately within himself, within each of us: black Macbeth Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state Esteem him as a lamb, being compared With my confineless harms. (52-55)In the most (appropriately) impassioned language in the play, Malcolm proceeds to imagine his own “voluptuousness” and boundless lust: I grant him [Macbeth] bloody, Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin That has a name. But there’s no bottom, none, In my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters, Your matrons, and your maids could not fill up The cistern of my lust, and my desire All continent impediments would o’erbear, That did oppose my will. Better Macbeth, Than such an one to reign. (57-66) Therefore, surely it is “Better Macbeth | Than such an one to reign.” Macduff’s response to this prediction of sexual license is equivocal; he acknowledges its destructiveness, but says that kings can get away with this sort of thing and find many a willing subject and abettor. Malcolm now imagines himself indulging in the sins of greed, of “stanchless avarice” (76-84); and once again Macduff seems oddly passive and accepting. Only in his third attempt, with a desperate and comprehensive litany of evil, does Malcolm succeed in stirring Macduff to unambiguous retort: The king-becoming graces – As justice, verity, temp’rance, stableness, Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude – I have no relish of them, but abound In the division of each several crime, Acting it many ways. (91-97) Using imagery that connects his sense of potential violence to Lady Macbeth’s perverse sense of maternity (and to the larger system of liquid imagery in the play), Malcolm vows that had I power, I should Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell, Uproar the universal peace, confound All unity on earth. (97-100) Now, finally, Macduff explodes with anguish for Scotland and anger at Malcolm: Fit to govern? No, not to live. O nation miserable! . . . Fare thee well, These evils thou repeat’st upon thyself Hath banished me from Scotland. O my breast, Thy hope ends here. (102-114)Macduff’s outburst, “this noble passion, | Child of integrity,” assures Malcolm that Macduff is not in service to “Devilish Macbeth.” This caution “From over- credulous haste” no doubt befits a future king (114-120). But what assures me more fully that Malcolm may prove to be a king worthy of his father, the “most sainted king” Duncan, is his ability to use his imagination and its best tool, language, to probe his own potentiality for evil. Unlike Macbeth, Malcolm will not, I think, be surprised by sin, even though, unlike General Macbeth, virgin Malcolm is unexperienced in the practices of the world: I am yet Unknown to woman, never was forsworn, Scarcely have coveted what was mine own, At no time broke my faith, would not betray The devil to his fellow, and delight No less in truth than life. (125-130) Moreover, I think this ostensibly equivocal encounter carries a third level of hope for the Scotland of this tragedy. Not only is Malcolm properly wary of others (while Macbeth quickly embraces the visions of the witches) and not only is he daring in his self-exploration (while Macbeth rejects thinking as too painful), but Malcolm is also able to “imagine” empathetically in passionate, anguished language Scotland’s anguish – even as Macbeth becomes a self-serving and isolated automaton. In Renaissance politics and theology – and they intersect on the subject of kingship – the sovereign embodies, incarnates, and enacts the life of his kingdom. At least, such is the theory and the hope. Like the thoughtful Prince Hal of 2 Henry IV and Henry V – or like Jesus, crown prince of Heaven – Malcolm suffers with and for his people; and I think we trust the unironic, integral nature of his wish that his chance of success should be equal with the justice of his cause: “Now we’ll together, and the chance of goodness | Be like our warranted quarrel” (136-137). At this moment of resolve, an English Doctor of Medicine comes to testify to the spiritual art of the English king, Edward III, in curing the malady of scrofula by his royal touch. This interlude (139-161) exists not only as a compliment to King James (who believed he had inherited such powers) but also to create valuable contrasts and comparisons. “This good King” can perform “a most miraculous work” of curing disease, even as Macbeth spreads poison and death throughout his land. And the hospitality and support of this legitimate English king, who “hath a heavenly gift of prophecy” and is “full of grace,” confers distinction on Malcolm, his guest and ally. Ross enters to reassert the tragedy of Scotland, “Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rend the air” are too commonplace to be remarked (166-175). Like the barren Queen who rules, this Scotland “cannot | Be called our mother, but our grave.” Almost immediately (at 178-179), Macduff enquires about his wife and children, and with chilling dramatic irony and in cryptic, equivocal language, Ross answers that they are “well” and “well at peace.” Only after some 20 lines of general battle talk does Ross find the courage to blurt out: “Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes | Savagely slaughtered” (206-207). The delay reminds us of the 33 lines of delay caused in 2.3 by the drunken Porter’s disquisition, but here the focus is upon Ross’s sympathetic agony, rather than on some superstitious sense we share with the fledgling Macbeths that the discovery of Duncan’s murder will make it inevitably and irrevocably real. Nevertheless, an almost intolerable irony would replace this sympathy for the messenger of bad news, if, as in Polanski’s film revision, Ross has been the doer of the deed that he seems so loath to report. At first hearing of the dreadful news, it is Malcolm, as we might expect, who urges (in a version of his opening lines) an expression of grief, while Macduff remains questioning and in shock. But when Malcolm proposes useful action and revenge, Macduff cries out against the virgin boy: “He has no children” (218). Perhaps imagining is not always enough. And in the culmination of the play’s discussion about sexual roles, Macduff insists that feeling is as necessary a part of his manliness as brutal action. “Dispute it like a man,” argues Malcolm (222), and Macduff replies, I shall do so; But I must also feel it as a man; I cannot but remember such things were That were most precious to me. (223-226)In an indirect questioning of Banquo’s assertion that “there is husbandry in heaven” (2.1.4), Macduff puzzles on the presence of evil in a God-created universe: “Did heaven look on, | And would not take their part?” (226-227). He answers his own question in a tough and religiously faithful way: Sinful Macduff, They were all struck for thee. Naught that I am, Not for their own demerits but for mine, Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now. (227-230)This time the persevering Malcolm, equally tough, succeeds in channeling Macduff’s anguish to political purpose: “let grief | Convert to anger. Blunt not the heart, enrage it” (231-232). Both men ready themselves for the counteroffensive. ã Voyager Palex Voyager Palex ÃPalex ßPalex Ÿ€Palex € APalex A CPalex C
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