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

(III.iv.140, 141; IV.i. 149). Such spontaneous action imitates nature’s own way of performing her
purposes without deliberation. Macbeth’s enemies are “assailable” precisely because “nature’s copy’s
not eterne” (III.ii.38, 39). No place is reserved at the banquet of life. No monuments to the past escape
eating by time. Thus we do not see much of the Scottish crown in this play. The head is what matters in
its vulnerability. We see heads everywhere as nature sees them in her capacity as fate, the cutter of life
lines. Macbeth, who engages to be the uttermost champion of time, likes to see the heads of his
enemies “trenched” with “gashes,” crowns of impalement (III.iv.28). At the end of the play we will see
Macbeth’s head brought on stage instead of a crown to proclaim Malcolm the new king. It will be called
“th’ usurper’s cursed head” (V.viii.55). 10
This fits the action of a play without the royal crown as a chief
prop.
How does Macbeth, once lauded with “hails,” become cursed as the usurping tyrant? By means
of a dinner party made disastrous with visits by a murderer and a corpse-like ghost. The murderer (and
his fellow) we have briefly met as substitutes for the crown. Let us know them better. Lady Macbeth’s
persuasion of Macbeth to commit murder in I.vii is given its double in III.i. Macbeth sends the Lady
away in order to persuade these two unnamed men to undertake--as manly men--the “business” of
“fate” in store for their oppressor, Banquo, and his son, Fleance (III.i.124-125, 137). Their murders
promise to restore the “perfect” quality of “health” to sickly Macbeth and these downtrodden men
(III.i.107-108). Macbeth tries to maintain the high and fair perspective on murder that he and the Lady
had taken towards Duncan’s murder, but the men do not need persuasion at all. They confess their
reckless and desperate dispositions towards the whole world, not Banquo in particular. They will risk
anything rather than continue to live miserably. The incongruence of high and low purposes is so
manifest that we have to remind ourselves not to laugh in ridicule of the giant Macbeth making love to
these dwarfs.
10 Macbeth is also called “the dead butcher” at the end. Formerly, he was wondered at as “the unseamer.”
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