“To Meet with Macbeth,” given by tutor Louis ... - St. John's College

Lady Macbeth, seeing her husband’s strange expression at her prophetic words, pulls back from
his figure to read him:
Lady Macbeth.
Your face, my Thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters.
She closes that book with a caress of his face from eye to mouth and an opening of his hand from its
close holding of her:
To beguile the time
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue: look like th’ innocent flower
But be the serpent under’t.
(I.v.63-67)
She wants to hear him confirm the double image of serpent and flower, which will lead them to
paradise. He remains silent, but draws her towards him to taste the flower from her lips. She pulls
away abruptly. She will not be made love to now—too busy for that—but later, when both halves of
time, the nights of desire and the days of success, are given their promised unity:
He that’s coming
Must be provided for: and you shall put
This night’s great business into my dispatch;
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.
(I.v.67-71)
She intends this strong rhyme as an exit line for both of them, towards not merely sovereign authority
or the crown. These are not sufficient names or symbols for the great object of their desires. The word
she finally finds sufficient is “masterdom.” We hear more longing in these words—“solely sovereign
sway and masterdom”--than the kings and dictators of the English history and Roman plays ever make
us feel in theirs.
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