Macbeth, Pt 3 - the Secret'st Man

[Music] why did you bring the daggers from the place they must lie there go carry them and smear the Sleepy Grooms with blood I'll go no more I'm afraid to sink what I have done I'll can't again I dare not mag Beth is afraid to think what he has done to Lady McBeth what has been done is an easy matter a little water clears us of this deed but then they must face a great test the recovery of the murder and here I suggest the first flaw in lady mcbeth's seemingly impenetrable armor is revealed consider it a king has been murdered the Lord's anointed in mcduff's words but when lady McBeth supposedly first hears of it and must play her part to Perfection bankwell bankwell our Royal Master's murdered what in our house too cruel anywhere [Music] had I but died an hour before this chance I had lived a blessed time for from this instant there's nothing serious in mortality all is but toys Renown and Grace is dead the wine of life is drawn and the mere Le is left this Vault to brag of is MC Beth merely acting here again nothing is but what is not he realizes I think that from this instant there can be no peace of mind for him he means what he says as for lady McBeth there is in fact another very revealing moment prior to the one we've just seen having dragged the king's guards she waits tensely as MC Beth performs the actual murder I'm afraid they've awake and is not done the attempt and not the deed confounds us I H the daggers ready he could not miss him had he not resembled my father as he slept I had done my husband I have done the deed but did I not hear a noise heard the 's scream and the Crickets Cry did not you speak when no iend lady McBeth recovers quickly as we have just seen But one line had he not resembled my father as he slept I had dumped can prepare us for the lady mbth yet to come a woman who will descend into a private hell of remorse and guilt whose mind will give way who will finally take her own life but for the moment she is in control of herself mbth hears voices crying sleep no more she hears only the owl scream and the Crickets Cry it is important to understand lady back Beth's lack of imagination or perhaps it is not so much lack of imagination is that she keeps her imagination and her conscience in check by a supreme effort of the will she prays to the murdering ministers to stop up the access and passage to remorse she literally will not understand or cannot understand I suggest you decide for yourself what she and her husband have done until she sees it revealed mirrored as it were in other people in the discovery scene she sees the harrowing effect of the murder on the members of the court and she makes a slip what in our house and more important she sees the effect the murder has had on her husband and this she cannot Bear My Lord why do you keep alone I'm sorry it's fances your companions making using those thoughts which should indeed have died with them they think on things without all remedy should be without regard what's done is done we have scotched the snake not killed it she'll close and be herself whil our poor malice remains in danger of her former tooth but let the frame of things disjoint both the world suffer we will eat our meal in fear or sleep in the Affliction of these terrible dreams that shake us nightly better be with the Dead whom we to gain our peace have sent to peace then on the torture of the mind to lie in Restless ecstasy Duncan is in his grave after life's fitful fever he sleeps well treason has done his worst nor steel nor poison malice domestic foreign lebby nothing can touch him further come on gentle my Lord Sleek all your rugged looks be bright and jial among our guests tonight so shall I love and so I pray be you let your remembrance apply to Bank present him Eminence both with eye and [Music] tongue unsafe the while that we must La our honors in these flattering streams and make our faces visards to our hearts disguising what they are you must leave this oh full of scorpions is my mind de wife no that Bano and his fleance Lids but in them nature copies not ET turn there's Comfort yet they are assailable and be thou joen he the bat have flown his cloistered flight a to Black heckit summons The Shard born beetle with his drowsy hums have rung night's yawning peel there shall be done a deed of dreadful note what to be done be innocent of the knowledge dearest Chuck till thou applaud the deed be innocent of the knowledge dearest Chuck till thou applaud the deed there are great depths of bitterness here a curious change has taken place in their relationship in one way a reversal of rowes and this change is emphasized pointed up in the verse itself in the imagery used on one occasion by Lady mbth later by McBeth before the murder of Duncan she invokes the powers of evil to come to her Aid in what is perhaps one of the most a inspiring speeches in dramatic literature come you spirits that tend on Mortal [Music] Thoughts unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe top full of darus Cruelty make the my blood stop up the access passage to remorse that no compunctious visitings of nature shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between the effect and it come to my woman's breast take my milk for G you muring ministers wherever in your sightless substances you wait on Nature's Mischief come thick night pour 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 out oh and this terrible invocation is echoed later in much the same poetic imagery by McBeth before the murder of Bano come sealing Knight scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day and with thy bloody and invisible hand cancel and tear to pieces that great bond which keeps me Pale Light thickens and the crow makes Wing to the rookie wood good things of Day begin to droop and drow whil night's Black agents to their praise to Rouse the fact is McBeth is completely alone now he keeps to himself no longer wants or needs his wife has rejected shut out her dearest love and this was something more she could never have imagined however because of his fears he does need her just once more the scene is the palace soon after the murder of Bano fence Banko's son has escaped and McBeth is once again assailed by doubts and fears and in the place reserved for Bano at the Royal table he sees created by his sickened imagination banquo's ghost I want and quit my sight but lady mbth fearing that he will give all away is now in her turn a magnificent actress sit worthy friends my Lord is often thus and hath been from his youth pray you King keep seat the fit is momentary but the guests depart leaving them alone MC Beth grows worse and worse his frenzied imagination leads his thoughts to terrible depths to which he cannot or will not follow it will have blood they say blood will have blood stones have been known to move and trees to speak Oru is an understood relations have by maggot pies and Chucks and Rooks brought forth the secrets man of blood what is the night almost at odds with mourning which is which how sayest thou that McDuff denies his person at our great bidding did you send to him sir I hear it by the way but I will send there's not a one of them but in his house I keep a servant feed for mine own good all causes shall give way I'm in blood stepped in so far but should I Wade no more returning would as tedious as go all strange things I have in head that will to hand which must be acted they may be scanned you lack the season of all Natures sleep will to sleep my strange and self-abuse is the initiate fear that wants hard use we are yet but young indeed [Music] [Music] [Music] Christ the brinded cat have Thrice and once the hedg pig why cries take time take time oh now you secret black and midnight hags what is you do AED without a name I conjure You by that which you profess how a you come to know it answer me though you untie the winds and let them fight against the churches though the yesy waves confound and swallow navigation up though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down though castles topple on their Waters heads though Palace and pyramids do slope their heads to their foundations though The Treasure of Nature's German tumble altogether even till destruction second answer me to what I ask you [Music] speak we answer say if th rather hear it from our mouths or from our masters come let me see show his and Bre his heart come like [Music] Shadows Maus mcus beware MCU be well the thing of Life that of born the power of man for none of woman born shall [Music] have McBeth shall never Vanquish be until great burnam w to Hi D Hill shall come against him these Prophecies of course come true if we are not to accept them as Supernatural manifestations what are they in one way they're fairly easy to explain next to MC Beth McDuff is Scotland's most powerful nobleman mbth has every reason to fear Him and He and McDuff moreover were once great friends McBeth could have known that McDuff was not a woman born that is he was from his mother's womb untimely ripped by that we are to assume a cesarian section as for Burnham Wood coming to dunen A the invading troops used branches and boughs of trees to conceal their strength from mcbeth's scouts a fairly primitive method of camouflage and one which MC Beth fighting desperately for his life may have feared unconsciously so much for rational explanation the stage director cannot stop his production Midstream to explain anything however plausibly the key I believe is MC Beth's imagination it is at this point a fearful thing to behold we have shown it gradually Stripped Away to its lower depths he lives in Restless ecstasy his mind full of scorpions he hears voices beholds the bloodless ghost of Bano his words the imagery he uses rise from the depths of his unconscious maggot pies chuff Rooks blood will have blood and he dreams or half waking has a vision of the witches and from half forgotten memories fears doubts wishful thinking desperate hopes premonitions his rampant imagin he constructs his own invincibility nothing can defeat him and yet nothing is but what is not he constructs it in an ambiguous way he knows indeed has known since the murder of the king that he is doomed but the real point of course is that a director need not offer any sort of explanation rational or not if his idea works it works if he can project an atmosphere on stage that convinces is the audience his job is well done but more important to present the witches as creatures of Mag Beth's own making would be I believe a valid interpretation of Shakespeare's intentions the whole play has the quality of nightmare of hallucination Darkness thick night Broods over it sleep and sleeplessness haunt it on this level the entire dramatic structure mirrors the growing disorder of mcbeth's mind and of course not only MC Beth's how do your patient doctor not so sick my Lord as she is troubled with thick coming fancies that keep her from her rest cure her of that H th not minister to a mind diseased pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow raise out the written Troubles of the brain with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart therein a patient must minister to himself but lady mbth cannot minister to herself her last desperate act will be to take her own life the tragedy of McBeth contains probably the most famous scene of any play in English lady mcbeth's sleepwalking Scene It is justly famous every actress worthy of the name longs to try it technically in one way it is simple in stark contrast to the complex verse which surrounds it it is in Pros but in Pros so evocative and compelling that it demands every resource of even the greatest actress in simple phrases disconnected random the major actions of the play are echoed the murder of the king Banko's ghost the murder of Lady McDuff the very smell of blood and the great poignant line summing up everything What's Done cannot be undone I have two knights watched with you but can perceive no truth in your report you here she comes this is her very guise and upon my life fast as speaks how came she By the Light why it stood by her she has light by her continually it is her command [Music] what is it she does now see how she rubs her hands it is an accustomed action with her to seem thus washing her hands I have seen her continue in this a quarter of an hour yes here's a spot she speaks out damn spot out I see one well then is time to do it hell is mky by my Lord by a soldier and a feared what need we fear who knows when none can call our power to account who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him do you mark that say a five had a wife is she now his hands never be clean no more of that my Lord no more of that you Mar all with this starting go to go to you have known what you should not she has spoke what she should not I'm sure of that heaven knows what she has known there's a smell of blood still all the perfumes of Arabia will will not sweeten this little [Music] hand what a sigh is there the heart is sorely charged I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the Dignity of the whole body well well well pray God it be sir this disease is beyond my practice what your hands put on your night gun look not so pale I tell you yet again Bano is buried he cannot come out on grave even so to bed to bed he looking at the gate come come come come give me your hand [Music] What's Done cannot be undone to bested to bed will she go now to bed directly God God forgive us all in the first film we trace the development of mbth as a struggle for power for control of the kingdom of Scotland in this film we have seen the results of this on two people chiefly McBeth and Lady mcth our interest has centered on them as individuals on their tortured mental process on both levels the play has much to say to us power or perhaps it should be the love of power corrupts human beings cannot commit themselves to evil actions without guilt and Ultimate Destruction either are both are possible themes for the play either might be interpreted as Shakespeare's comment on the condition of man and yet there is I suggest something more in the play something that can be traced in the Poetry the imagery of the play itself each work of Shakespeare as you will discover has its own prevailing poetic imagery much like a prevailing wind which sweeps through it giving it its own unique oral tone and texture so it is to a marked degree with MC Beth come sealing KN scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day and with thy bloody and invisible hand cancel and tear to pieces that Norway himself with terrible numbers assisted by that most disloyal traitor the S of cord began a dis and often times to win us to our harm the instruments of Darkness tell us truth take my milk for gold you muring ministers merciful Powers restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature gives way to in Repose chist the brine inde cat has viewed thce and once the Hedge Pig F A oneide murder that it did wake each other I stood and heard them would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him oh horror horror King cordor glams as hounds and Greyhounds mongrels spaniels curs CHS water rugs and Demi wolves are CT all by the name of dogs it will have blood they say blood will have blood a pattern emerges instruments of Darkness murdering ministers cursed thoughts night the dark sin diseased Minds sleeplessness War blood and death the catalog is not an attractive one but it suggests a theme suggests perhaps what Shakespeare is getting at in McBeth the play begins and ends with war ironically mbth is held in Golden opinion for his bloodletting on the field of battle oh Valiant cousin worthy gentleman the king says when he hears that McBeth has split a man neatly in two from the Nave to the chops with his broadsword War then in McBeth turns out to be sanctioned violence violence blessed by Authority as indeed it is in our own time and peace an interlude in which the struggle for power continues secretly or openly with or without bloodletting the theme of the play then would seem to be this within every human being in war war or in peace is a terrible lust for violence every man in mcbeth's words is the secret man of blood more broadly within man humanity is the same terrible blood lust the same lust for power is this the theme which speaks to our time till the 20th century has our age thus far been such that we can say with MC Beth I have SED full with Horrors dius familiar to my my slaughterous thoughts canot once start me and if so is the play one of despair of all embracing pessimism is Shakespeare saying as MC Beth does that all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to Dusty death that life is a tale told by an idiot full of Sound and Fury signifying nothing I suggest not and the reason curiously enough lies in the character of McBeth himself McBeth is urged to his first Murder by three things the Prophecies of the witches his own ambition and Lady mcbeth's any one would not have been enough but all three were sufficient to convince him to kill the king but and this is the point once he has done so he sees immediately clearly hopelessly that All Is Lost from this instant he said says there's nothing serious in mortality and yet he goes on Relentless unyielding from murder to murder never really believing that he can find peace always pray to the Restless scorpions of his mind he knows that what he does is vile and yet heart sick he does it it is a terrible portrait superbly drawn of a man in one critic's words at war with his own soul thus we cannot hate MC Beth for if if the truth be told we recognize ourselves in him nor for that matter can we believe that his life signifies nothing for there remains throughout something Sublime in him we feel a sense of waste a tragic sense of loss concerning him no one else in the play has his energy his courage his intelligence his imagination and most important perhaps his capacity for suffering mbth sees himself clearly he has no Illusions about himself he knows what he has become and he knows what he might have become it is this I suggest the capacity for evil and for good within the same human heart that Shakespeare was finally concerned with in the tragedy of McBeth [Music] [Music]