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

married to a fiercely ambitious Lady, whom he loves. The time is late in the day, a day that should be
his, because he won it in that battle “lost and won.” Yet the day is not his. It is King Duncan’s. The
“hurly-burly” that is pronounced “done” by the Sisters is the attempt at political innovation by the
rebels and foreign invaders who are defeated by Macbeth’s “personal venture” on the battlefield
(I.iii.91). These political activities do not get honored with a name. But from among all humanity that
toils and troubles in the hurly-burly, the Sisters name one man, “Macbeth,” whom they will meet and
greet with the angel’s salutation of “hail.” But this heralded man is full--not of grace--but of the
common human misery of wanting what he does not have. “Give me” is the common cry of the
outstretched hand, which denied, becomes the cry, “I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do.” Saint James puts this
common condition most succinctly in his epistle: “You want something and do not have it, so you
commit murder” (4.2). It is not only Hamlet’s vengefulness, Othello’s jealousy, or Lear’s anger that
Shakespeare presents as our common tragic potential, but also Macbeth’s “black and deep desires” and
bloodlust (I.iv.51). Shakespeare is not much interested in this play in the Machiavellian strategies of
acquiring and maintaining dominion over others, but in what if feels like as a man or woman to want, to
do, and to get as a criminal. It is hard to know Macbeth because we do not want to feel the criminal
part of ourselves. Let us be brave and treat desire profoundly. It is most important to understand at the
start that Macbeth becomes a tyrant by daring to treat his desires as promises that are made to him by
profound sources that compel belief and assist action. What he desires is what man ultimately desires:
to be at unity with himself and the world; to harmonize thought, speech, and action; to attain his
source--which is his perfection--“whole as the marble, founded as the rock,/As broad and general as the
casing air;” to wear “the golden round” as “the ornament of life” adorning the name, Macbeth, which
means, “Son of life” (I.v.29; vii.42; III.iv.23-24). We call to desires that are promises to be kept by our
sources with the word “Come,” as in: “Thy Kingdom come.” Likewise, we respond to the call of desire
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