How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare (24 page)

Shakespeare invented the word
incarnadine
, and as far as I know, it is never used again in English literature. It means “blood red,” from the Latin root
carn
meaning “flesh.”

3. The Dislocation of Nature

Again, the words
nature
and
natural
are used more than twenty times in the play. The basic notion is that the natural world, which is orderly and good, becomes
un
natural and distorted when evil is abroad. When Macbeth first gets the idea of killing Duncan, he realizes that it is
Against the use of nature
. Similarly, when Lady Macbeth first hears about the witches’ prophecy, she fears that Macbeth is too imbued with natural human kindness.

Yet I do fear thy nature;

It is too full of the milk of human kindness

To catch the nearest way
.

From that point on, in scene after scene, as the murders are committed and the evil spreads, unnatural things begin to happen. Macbeth sees apparitions like the dagger and the ghost; he hears a disembodied voice that cries
Sleep no more! Macbeth doth murder sleep!
And he sees images of the future kings of Scotland.

4. Animals and Birds

Shakespeare associates changes in animals, especially birds, with the unnatural happenings of this evil world. Duncan’s servants sleep drunkenly in
swinish sleep
. The moment Macbeth murders Duncan,
the owls shriek and the crickets cry
. When Lady Macbeth is urging her husband to fool King Duncan by looking innocent even though he’s about to murder the man, she says,

Look like the innocent flower
,

But be the serpent under’t
.

The most harrowing instance of animal imagery occurs soon after the murder of Duncan. Two minor characters meet and discuss how, in the face of the unnatural murder of the king, the natural world has begun to rebel. Owls are killing hawks and horses are eating each other.

Horses eating each other?! What an image! Have your children read this passage with all the foreboding it deserves:
OLD MAN

’Tis unnatural
,

Even like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last

A falcon, tow’ring in her pride of place
[circling in the sky],

Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed
.

ROSS

And Duncan’s horses (a thing most strange and certain)
,

Beauteous and swift, the minions
[choicest]
of their race
,

Turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out
[ran out],

Contending ’gainst obedience, as
[as if]
they would

Make war with mankind
.

OLD MAN

’Tis said they eat each other
.

ROSS

They did so, to th’amazement of mine eyes

That looked upon’t
.

Lady Macbeth’s Remarkable Soliloquy

One of the most breathtaking speeches in the play occurs when we first meet Lady Macbeth. It is remarkable not only because of its intensity but also because it pulls together all four central images of the play.

The speech occurs in Act I, Scene 5. The scene opens with Lady Macbeth (this is the first time we’ve met her) reading a letter from her husband in which he tells her about the witches and their prophecies. She immediately picks up Macbeth’s hints about murdering the king and decides that she’ll make him follow through no matter what it takes. She says she’ll

pour my spirits in thine ear

And chastise with the valor of my tongue

All that impedes thee
[stops thee]
from the golden round
[the crown].

This image of Lady Macbeth’s venomous tongue in her husband’s ear pouring poisonous thoughts into his brain tells us worlds about Lady Macbeth, about her evilness, her ruthlessness, and her sexual nature.

A moment later a messenger arrives telling Lady Macbeth that her husband is bringing King Duncan with him to the Macbeths’ castle, and she realizes instantly that here is the perfect opportunity to murder Duncan. This is when she delivers her remarkable soliloquy. Watch for the images we discussed, and notice that the lines we’re going to memorize are in bold type.

The raven himself is hoarse

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

Under my battlements. Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here
,

And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full

Of direst cruelty
.
Make thick my blood
.

Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse
,

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts

And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers
,

Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night
,

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell
,

That my keen knife see not the wound it makes
,

Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark

To cry, “Hold, hold!”

It is a difficult speech, and here is a paraphrase of it:

Through this and her other major speeches, Lady Macbeth shows herself to be so thoroughly evil that we almost admire her for her originality and remorselessness. Macbeth’s major speeches, by contrast, are filled with self-doubt and a sense of horror at his own misdeeds. He is caught up in a relentless trek of bloodlust, where evil begets evil, and is increasingly aware of his own moral corruption.

The play ends with Macbeth’s defeat at the hands of his enemies, and in the final scene, he is killed in battle and his head is brought out onstage. (That alone will encourage many children to want to see the play.)

A Puzzle

One of the central puzzles of the play involves how we feel about Macbeth’s violent end. Here is a man who murdered at will out of blind ambition, killing a kinsman, a guest, and a king, yet something about him makes us
feel that he was possessed of a great spirit, with the potential for another, better life. Is it the language of his speeches? His affection for his wife? His struggles with his conscience? Or did he have no choice in life? Were his evil deeds the product of Fate, or his wife, or his occupation as a soldier? These are questions you should discuss with your children.

The passage that we’re memorizing in this chapter is a reminder of many of these issues. Have your children break it into sections:

The raven himself is hoarse

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

Under my battlements
.

Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts
,

unsex me here
,

And fill me from the crown to the toe

top-full

Of direst cruelty
.

Croaks. Unsex. Direst cruelty
. These words are not soon forgotten; and the passage is so dark and foreboding that it is an ideal contrast to the comic language of Falstaff, which we’ll tackle together in the next chapter.

Passage 15
The World of Falstaff

If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked. If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned. If to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh’s lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord, banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins, but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant being as he is old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry’s company, banish not him thy Harry’s company. Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world
.