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

What went wrong up there? Imagine the scene: Macbeth, bent over his victim like a hangman drawing
or quartering a criminal, stands suddenly at the sound of laughter (that’s good) and then the cry of
murder (that’s not good), of equal power to wake sleepers. Hearing these opposing noises is like seeing
a bloody dagger (not good), but holding a clean one (good). Can Macbeth admit only the laughter as an
actual sound to accompany his murder, as he admitted only the clean dagger into his rehearsal? That is
the decisive question of the murder at its very moment of performance. Does he have the power of
mind to master the deeds that comprise the tale of his life? Macbeth tries to join the two speakers in
saying “Amen,” a word that functions like the bell to certify the previous words--“God bless us”--as done
to him, too. But the word “Amen” sticks in his throat and he chokes on it, as on food too big to
swallow. In time he will learn to seize upon his victims capaciously, as the “hell-kite” that takes “all [the]
pretty chickens and their dam/At one fell swoop” (IV.iii.217-219). But at the start of his criminal career
the word “Amen” sticks because it does not come from within Macbeth as an object of his sole creation
and mastery. The word comes like food from the outside world. The meaning of “murder” is also not
mastered as before by the words “it,” “deed,” or “business.” Macbeth hears a third voice that cries out
the new definition of murder:
Macbeth.
Methought I heard a voice cry “Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep”—the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast—
Lady Macbeth.
What do you mean?
Recall that Macbeth tries to commit murder musically by keeping time with conducting nocturnal nature
and a wife who pegs the cords of his courage to her prepossessed body. But she hears from him now
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