Pound for pound, Macbeth is of all Shakespeare's plays the most unrelenting and horrifying.
One of its greatest moments occurs when Macbeth, seeking additional guidance, pays a second call on the witches. "How now," he demands, "you secret, black, and midnight hags!/ What is't you do?" The witches' response to his question, though exceedingly laconic, is far scarier than anything the most computer-aided-pixelbending horror movie could produce. They simply say: "A deed without a name." Every member of the audience, and every reader, knows that the witches are up to no good, but do they know how bad it is? No. The audience now learns that what the witches are doing is so loathsome that there's not even a word for it in the English language (and Shakespeare, of all people, had English to spare). What could they possibly mean by "a deed without a name?" Such a deed must be superlatively evil, worse than anything that the most depraved reader or listener could possibly guess. The immensely suggestive phrase "A deed without a name" pushes the limits both of imagination and language.
Another magnificent moment comes when Macbeth imagines that Banquo, whom he knows to have been murdered, has taken a seat at his feast. Macbeth is startled and frightened, but he is also indignant -- so indignant that his outrage becomes almost comic. He lapses into a reverie.
Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time,
Ere human statute purged the gentle weal;
Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd
Too terrible for the ear: the times has been,
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end; but now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools: this is more strange
Than such a murder is.
Macbeth asserts that it used to be the case, both in olden times, before Scotland became civilized, and even into recent days, that there was a natural order to things. If you killed a man ("when the brains were out"), that person had the decency to stay dead ("the man would die/ And there an end"). But now, in these degenerate times, murdered men return and "push us from our stools." Macbeth, who is under the spell of demons and who has committed atrocity after atrocity, claims to be more "natural" than the spectre of Banquo, who is "unnatural." In his eyes, killing people is the new normal, and it goes against the grain when you kill a guy and he doesn't stay killed. It's odd and lovely that Macbeth believes that he has a sincere grievance with the world, especially when he's the one who has thrown things completely out of whack. His exasperated complaint shapes itself into a weird, ironic, perverse nostalgia for better days. We almost -- but not quite -- feel for him.
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