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

And damned be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!”
(V.viii.28-34)
Exit, fighting. Alarums. Enter fighting, and
Macbeth slain. Retreat and flourish.
Macbeth throws down his shield to act with all limbs on offense, no defense, his purpose not to die
bravely, though he does die bravely, but to “try the last” singly. What is lasting in life? Not body, not
family, not Malcolm’s line, for Banquo’s will take over, not Scotland, for England will take over. Macbeth
fights to see what--if anything--there is to see at the end. Is there anything to fear? Why keep a shield
when the body is one with the mind and the mind does not yield?
Part two of the fight now begins. This time Macduff must parry the fury of Macbeth’s assaults,
as both men hear in the clash of swords the threat of damnation to the first who cries out for his life.
They exit fighting, and for a short while the stage is bare and we hear only the “alarums” of war. What
are we thinking as we wait for the action to resume onstage? Do we want to hear Macbeth cry “Hold,
enough!”? Or are we like Lady Macbeth (at the beginning of II.ii), waiting for her man to return from the
kill and afraid that something is going wrong offstage. When they re-enter still fighting, is it not terribly
wonderful? Macbeth is not slain. Of course the tyrant must be slain: history requires it; the tragic form
requires it; moral decency requires it. But is it not terrible to admit that we do not want Macbeth to cry
“Hold, enough!” and be damned? We like seeing him this way, even at risk of his winning. But he
cannot win. If Macbeth wins, life becomes as Macbeth describes in his “tomorrow” speech, meaningless
and idiotic. Shakespeare has a good deal more to say about the meaning of life after this play.
Macbeth’s are not the poet’s last words. 13
Why is Macduff able to kill Macbeth? If we cannot answer this question, we have not
understood the play. The two warriors, childless and wifeless, know the doom of flesh. Each has one
cause left: Macbeth fights to live “the lease of nature” and not be damned by living cowardly (IV.i.99);
13 Some people find that Prospero, who does have the last words, offers a gentle and comic version of Macbeth’s
terrible nihilism.
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