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

that Shakespeare should have played the part. Seyton speaks with coolness of nerve to Macbeth, while
others shake in his presence. He watches the action, interprets the sounds, and helps his lord timely to
arm. He has but five lines to speak. Each line corresponds in order to each of the five acts of the play.
Seyton’s first line: “What is your gracious pleasure?” (V.iii.30). This is the question of Act I:
what pleasures in life do this warrior and his wife most deeply desire to enact, but graciously so, by
struggle or beguilement, so as to remain fair and free? Seyton’s second line: “All is confirmed, my lord,
which was reported” (V.iii. 31). This is Act II: Macbeth is confirmed as king, as was reported by the
Weird Sisters and by Lady Macbeth, who taught him how to be one in act and desire and to get away
with murder. Seyton’s third line, in response to Macbeth’s, “Give me my armor”: “’Tis not needed yet.”
“I’ll put in on,” Macbeth insists (V.iii.33-34). This is Act III: the murder of Banquo, who represents to
Macbeth the “not yet” doubleness of action, that is, action for the sake of the present actor and for
someone not yet present. The armor Macbeth puts on in the present to fight the “not yet” makes him
known in Act III as a tyrant. Also in Act III we learn that Macduff flies to England, a double action that
turns out in one sense not to be needed, since the forces of invasion are well provided and ready by the
time he arrives there; but in another sense the deadly consequences of his untimely flight make him the
one who can kill the tyrant. Seyton’s fourth line: “It is the cry of women, my good lord” (V.v.8). This is
Act IV: the chanting of the Weird Sisters around the cauldron raised to fever pitch—“Double, double, toil
and trouble;/Fire burn and cauldron bubble” (IV.i.10-11, 20-21, 35-36); the exit of Lady Macduff (and
other wives and mothers), crying “Murder!”; and the news of their slaughter brought to Macduff in
England, his goodness terrible, uncrying, not a woman’s kind of goodness. Seyton’s fifth line: “The
Queen, my lord, is dead” (V.v.16). This is Act V: Lady Macbeth, here called “Queen” for the first time,
dies offstage--we do not know how--nor does Macbeth have the time or interest to inquire. The
question of Act V is that of time itself: what is its interest and meaning as measured in the sounds and
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