Macduff

“ Macbeth laughed in triumph, for he felt himself secure; he feared no weapon brandished by any man born of woman. [Pg 280]
But the hour of fate was at hand. Macduff, scorning to strike the wretched peasants, hired to fight, sought everywhere for Macbeth, determined either to slay the tyrant or sheathe his sword unused. And at last he found him.
But Macbeth seemed to shrink from the furious challenge.
“Of all men else I have avoided thee,” he said. “But get thee back; my soul is too much charged with blood of thine already.”
“I have no words; my voice is in my sword,” returned Macduff. ”

“ Macduff exerted himself over it, for Macduff was under a cloud, and endeavoured to disperse the cloud by the sunshine of amiability. Besides Macduff was a manager—would have made a superb station-master at Rugby, or President of the French Republic—any other office full of difficulty and conflicting elements would suit Macduff. ”

“ The first thing he heard when he got out of the witches' cave, was that Macduff, thane of Fife, had fled to England, to join the army which was forming against him under Malcolm, the eldest son of the late king, with intent to displace Macbeth, and set Malcolm, the right heir, upon the throne. Macbeth, stung with rage, set upon the castle of Macduff, and put his wife and children, whom the thane had left behind, to the sword, and extended the slaughter to all who claimed the least relationship to Macduff. ”

“ MACDUFF.
I know this is a joyful trouble to you;
But yet ’tis one.
MACBETH.
The labour we delight in physics pain.
This is the door.
MACDUFF.
I’ll make so bold to call.
For ’tis my limited service.
[Exit Macduff.]
LENNOX.
Goes the King hence today?
MACBETH.
He does. He did appoint so.
LENNOX.
The night has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i’ th’ air, strange screams of death,
And prophesying, with accents terrible,
Of dire combustion and confus’d events,
New hatch’d to the woeful time. ”

“ Enter, with drum and colours, Malcolm, old Siward, Macduff and their Army, with boughs.
MALCOLM.
Now near enough. Your leafy screens throw down,
And show like those you are.—You, worthy uncle,
Shall with my cousin, your right noble son,
Lead our first battle: worthy Macduff and we
Shall take upon’s what else remains to do,
According to our order.
SIWARD.
Fare you well.—
Do we but find the tyrant’s power tonight,
Let us be beaten, if we cannot fight.
MACDUFF.
Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath,
Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death. ”

“ And now a severe skirmishing took place, in which Macbeth, though feebly supported by those who called themselves his friends, but in reality hated the tyrant and inclined to the party of Malcolm and Macduff, yet fought with the extreme of rage and valour, cutting to pieces all who were opposed to him, till he came to where Macduff was fighting. Seeing Macduff, and remembering the caution of the spirit who had counselled him to avoid Macduff above all men, he would have turned, but Macduff, who had been seeking him through the whole fight, opposed his turning, and a fierce contest ensued ”

“ I will not fight with thee."
"Then, live!" said the scornful Macduff; "we will have a show of thee, as men shew monsters, and a painted board, on which shall be written, Here men may see the tyrant!"
"Never," said Macbeth, whose courage returned with despair; "I will not live to kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet, and to be baited with the curses of the rabble. ”

“ She is completely exhausted, and answers Macbeth in listless, submissive words which seem to come with difficulty. How strange sounds the reply ‘Did you send to him, sir?’ to his imperious question about Macduff! And when he goes on, ‘waxing desperate in imagination,’ to speak of new deeds of blood, she seems to sicken at the thought, and there is a deep pathos in that answer which tells at once of her care for him and of the misery she herself has silently endured,
You lack the season of all natures, sleep. ”

“ With these two exceptions,—the brief pathos of Macduff, and the equally brief comedy of the porter,—all the rest is blood. Tears and laughter have no place in this cavern of death.
Of such a gory poem, Macbeth is the centre, the moving spirit. From the beginning, before treason has entered his mind, he appears as a man delighting in blood. The captain, announcing his deeds against Macdonwald, introduces him bedabbled in slaughter. ”

“ The murderers heard a knocking, and Macbeth wished it was a knocking which could wake the dead. It was the knocking of Macduff, the chieftain of Fife, who had been told by Duncan to visit him early. Macbeth went to him, and showed him the door of the King's room.
Macduff entered, and came out again crying, “O horror! horror! horror!”
Macbeth appeared as horror-stricken as Macduff, and pretending that he could not bear to see life in Duncan's murderers, he slew the two grooms with their own daggers before they could proclaim their innocence. ”

“ A modern ecstasy. The dead man's knell
Is there scarce ask'd for who, and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying or ere they sicken.
MACDUFF. O, relation
Too nice, and yet too true!
MALCOLM. What's the newest grief?
ROSS. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker;
Each minute teems a new one.
MACDUFF. How does my wife?
ROSS. Why, well.
MACDUFF. And all my children?
ROSS. Well too.
MACDUFF. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?
ROSS. No, they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.
MACDUFF. Be not a niggard of your speech. How goest? ”

“ Immediately again Macduff prays to heaven—and in the same page Malcolm says:
“Macbeth
Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
Put on their instruments.”
Another instance of the pure christian piety with which the poet invests his good characters, and of which he deprives his bad ones, telling strongly for Dr. Ulrici’s theory, occurs in the third scene of the fourth act, where Malcolm, the heir to the throne, in order to try Macduff, represents himself as being full of vices. ”

“ And the fifth act,—from its appalling commencement, when the sleeping lady plies her hopeless task of nightly washing the blood-stained hand, through the continual clangour of trumpets calling, as clamorous harbingers, to blood and death, to its conclusion, when Macduff, with dripping sword, brings in the freshly hewn-off head of the "dead butcher," to lay it at the feet of the victorious Malcolm,—exhibits a sequence of scenes in which deeds and thoughts of horror and violence are perpetually, and almost physically, forced upon the attention of the spectator. ”

“ What had previously tortured Macbeth’s spirit—had made him murmer at his condition, or struggle against the goadings of his conscience,—can now only strike him with momentary terror, like a lightning flash. He is weary of himself and of existence; and fighting, as he says in bitter scorn, ‘bear-like,’ he falls at length, a great criminal—but withal a king and a hero.
Equally masterly was the combat with Macduff, in which inferior actors commonly fail;—nothing hurried, yet all the fire, nay, all the horror of the end,—of the final rage and despair. ”

“ Macduff is a man of great simplicity, energy, and determination of character; and here we have all these qualities boiled down to the highest intensity, as would naturally be the effect of such news on such a man. ”

“ With Macbeth's fall is bound up Macduff's rise: this also had been predicted in oracles, it is an agency 143in the main nemesis, and Macduff's fate has the irony that he all but perished at the outset of his mission. Through all the separate interests of this elaborate plot, the three forms of action—Nemesis, the Oracular, Irony—are seen perfectly harmonised and perfectly complete. And over all this is thrown the supernatural interest of the Witches, who are agents of nemesis working by the means of ironical oracles. ”

“ Two years after the death of his king, he was found dead in his bed, not without strong suspicion of poison. Public rumor [Pg 22] pointed to his uncle, Macduff of Glamis, as the instigator, if not the actual perpetrator of the deed; but as no decided proof could be alleged against him, and the High Courts of Scotland not seeming inclined to pursue the investigation, the rumor ceased, and Macduff assumed, with great appearance of zeal, the guardianship of the young Earl of Fife and his sister, an office bequeathed to him under the hand and seal of the earl, his nephew. ”

“ About this time Macduff fled to Malcolm, who had now taken refuge in the court of Edward the Confessor; and Macbeth came with a strong party into Fife with the purpose of surprising him. The master being safe, those within Macduff's castle threw open the gates, thinking that no mischief would result from receiving the king. But Macbeth, irritated that he missed of his prey, caused Macduff's wife and children, and all persons who were found within the castle, to be slain. ”

“ Macbeth, when resolved on the destruction of Macduff, whom he fears, learns that he has taken flight into England; and he leaves the stage, announcing his intention to surprise his castle, and to put to death his wife, his children, and all who bear his name. The next scene opens in Macduff's castle, by a conversation between Lady Macduff and her relative, Rosse, who has come to inform her of her husband's departure, and to express his fears for her own safety. ”

“ Early hints of Macduff’s defection are introduced, but not until Banquo is dead does the play really concentrate on Macduff. For Macbeth’s second meeting with the witches there is almost no preparation. Until the end of the banquet scene, we do not even know he is aware of their abode. Until this moment, although the play reveals an episodic structure, it is more tightly knit than most of Shakespeare’s other works. After the visit of Macbeth to the witches’ hovel, the episodic pattern becomes more distinct. The conception of Macbeth as a character accents the episodic quality. ”

“ Unmoved by Macduff's taunts and determined assault, Macbeth counsels him to employ his valour where success may attend on it; and generously warns him not to persist in urging an unequal contest with a foe, whom Destiny has pronounced invincible. Here is demonstration that, in the scene with the Witches, Macbeth does not from personal fear revert to his former resolution against the life of Macduff. ”

“ One gets the impression (possibly without reason) that Macbeth and Banquo are of about the same age; and Banquo's son, the boy Fleance, is evidently not a mere child. (On the other hand the children of Macduff, who is clearly a good deal older than Malcolm, are all young; and I do not think there is any sign that Macbeth is older than Macduff.) (6) When Lady Macbeth, in the banquet scene, says,
Sit, worthy friends: my lord is often thus,
And hath been from his youth,
we naturally imagine him some way removed from his youth. ”

“ The life o' the building.
MACBETH. What is't you say? the life?
LENNOX. Mean you his Majesty?
MACDUFF. Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight
With a new Gorgon. Do not bid me speak;
See, and then speak yourselves.
Exeunt Macbeth and Lennox.
Awake, awake!
Ring the alarum bell. Murther and treason!
Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm, awake!
Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,
And look on death itself! Up, up, and see
The great doom's image! Malcolm! Banquo!
As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites
To countenance this horror! Ring the bell. Bell rings. ”

“ It may be that Macbeth had many children or that he had none. We cannot say, and it does not concern the play. But the interpretation of a statement on which some critics build, ‘He has no children,’ has an interest of another kind, and I proceed to consider it.
These words occur at IV. ii. 216. Malcolm and Macduff are talking at the English Court, and Ross, arriving from Scotland, brings news to Macduff of Macbeth’s revenge on him. It is necessary to quote a good many lines:
Ross. ”

“ Phelps's version of the play being so strictly textual, that the musical embellishments, usually attributed to Locke, but in truth supplied by Leveridge, were discarded for the first time for very many years. Lady Macduff was restored to the list of dramatis personæ, from which she had so long been banished, and the old stage direction in the last scene—"enter Macduff with Macbeth's head upon a pole," was implicitly followed. But these revivals were a consequence of earlier reproductions of Shakespeare, with rigid regard to accuracy of costume, and general completeness of decoration. ”

“ Not content with this, he then seeks the life of Macduff; and, enraged because he has fled, savagely and in cold blood puts the whole of his family to the sword. There is a steady growth of evil in his character from the beginning to the end, or rather a steady development of his evil nature.
Malcolm and Macduff, who at first were his friends and companions, afterwards, when they had learned to “know” him, call him “treacherous” and “devilish.” So far from agreeing in the character given of him by Lady Macbeth, they say,—
“Macduff. ”

“ The words about Lady Macduff are of course significant of natural human feeling, and may have been introduced expressly to mark it, but they do not, I think, show any fundamental change in Lady Macbeth, for at no time would she have suggested or approved a purposeless atrocity. It is perhaps characteristic that this human feeling should show itself most clearly in reference to an act for which she was not directly responsible, and in regard to which therefore she does not feel the instinct of self-assertion. ”