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

I have done no harm. But I remember now
I am in this earthly world, where to do harm
Is often laudable, to do good sometime
Accounted dangerous folly. Why then, alas,
Do I put up that womanly defense,
To say I have done no harm?—What are these faces?
Enter Murderers
Murderer.
Where is your husband?
Lady Macduff.
I hope, in no place so unsanctified
Where such as thou mayst find him.
Murderer.
He’s a traitor.
Son.
Thou liest, thou shag-eared villain!
Murderer.
What, you egg!
[Stabbing him.]
Young fry of treachery!
Son.
He has killed me, mother:
Run away, I pray you!
Exit [Lady Macduff], crying “Murder!” (IV.ii.71-83)
Two things are most important in the staging of this scene. First, the murderers must clearly look ugly,
fit to inhabit those places where God has not groomed His creation, or rather, where God does not live.
Second, the boy has to be killed in the designated manner, as one cracks open an egg for frying and
eating. The metal dagger cuts into his side and is held there just long enough for him to see clearly that
the big words that a boy used to hear and play with at home are about real things. He reports with
amazement a simple fact: “He has killed me, mother.” Then as the dagger is pulled out his life spills out
on the stage, and the son of Macduff tells his mother to run away as he dies before her eyes. She runs
off one end of the stage crying “Murder!” as her husband enters on that cue from the other end, far way
in England, telling the weepy, shade-sitting Malcolm:
Macduff.
44