Macbeth - The Themes Of Macbeth

[Music] [Music] we the Earth has Bubbles as the water has and the are of them whether they vanished into the air and what seemed Corporal melted his breath into the wind would they had stay where such things here as we do speak about or have we eaten on the insane route that takes the reason prisoner th banro skeptical at this point amused even but MC Beth completely taken in having to know more would they had stayed and now two Messengers arrive bringing extraordinary news McBeth has been named F of cordor the reactions of the two men are revealing do you not hope your children should be Kings when those that gave the th of cordor to me promised no less to them that trusted home might yet enkindle you into the crown besides the the of cordor what is strange strange and often times to win us to our harm the instruments of Darkness tell us truths win us with honest Trifles to betray Us in deepest consequence thus banro warns McBeth but he is also warning himself The Witches have prophesied that his children shall be Kings his ambition like mcbeth's is now set on fire yet he is cautious the next exchange between them of only five lines is packed with meaning think about what of chance and at more time the interim having waited let us speak our free Hearts each to other very gladly do then enough come when next we see them together at mcbeth's Castle the murder of the king is a certainty McBeth has determined to bend up each Corporal agent to this terrible feat it is night we see Bano and his son fance soon they will meet mbth on his way to murder the king does Bano suspect the lines and banquo's character lend themselves to this interpretation Bano troubled by his conscience tortured by some strange premonition yet playing a waiting diplomatic game how goes the night boy the Moon is down I have not heard the clock and she goes down at 12 i' take this later sir oh take my sword there's husbandry in heaven their candles are all out take her that too a heavy summons lies like lead upon me and yet I would not sleep merciful Powers restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature gives way to in Repose give me my sword who's there a friend what sir not yet at rest the king's a best all well I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters do you they have shown some truth I think not of them yet when we can entreat an hour to serve we would spend it in some words upon that business if you would Grant the time at your your kind's letter if you shall cleave to my consent when it is it shall make honor for you so I lose none in seeking to augment it but still keep my bosom franchised and Allegiance clear I shall be counseled good Repose the while thanks sir the like to you notice it was Banquo who first broed the subject uppermost in each man's thoughts he has dreamed of the weird sisters analyze his words are they sincere or deliberately ambiguous he says he must keep his Allegiance clear his allegiance to home McBeth murders the king the murder is discovered Banquo cannot fail to suspect McBeth but he holds his tongue why when we next see him MC Beth is King and Bano is now certain of his guilt but despite this he has remained at mcbeth's court his chief guest his principal adviser again why he makes this clear as he Muses on what has happened thou Hast it now King cordor glams all as the weird women promised and I fear thou plest most fouly for it yet it was said it should not stand in thy posterity but that myself should be the root and father of Many Kings if there come truth from them as upon thee MC Beth speeches shine Why by the verities on thee made good may they not be my oracles as well and set me up in Hope but Banquo the courtier the compromiser is not be set up in hope at least he will not live to realize his hopes for mcbeth's Fears in him now stick deep Bano he concludes must be plotting against him and so he and his son fleance Must Die fly fly but MC Beth his doubts and fears Rising now turns his thoughts to the one other man he considers a present threat to his power McDuff mcduff's reaction to the murder of King Duncan was precisely the opposite of banquos short shortly after the murder he and Ross and other noblemen discuss it in tur dramatic phrases good McDuff is known who did this more than bloody deed those that MC Beth have slain how last the day what good could they pretend they were suborned Malcolm and Donal Bane the king's two sons are stolen away and fled which puts upon them suspicion of the deed against nature still thriftless ambition that will Raven up their own life's means then it is most like The Sovereign will fall upon McBeth he's already named and gone to schoon to be invested by where is Duncan's body carried to Kum Hill the sacred Storehouse of his pred sucessors and guardian of their bones will you to scoon no cousin I'll to F with magdu the arch Patriot there can be no question of compromise although King Duncan was not particularly gracious to him still Duncan was Scotland's King the Lord's anointed McDuff used this phrase when he discovered Duncan's body like Bano he too suspects McBeth but unlike Bano McDuff flees to England to pass his lot with a man he now considers to be God's representative on Earth the legitimate heir to Scottish Power Malcolm Duncan son but here McDuff learns from Ross who has recently deserted mbth the harrowing price he has paid for his loyalty to a principal my children too wife children servants all that could be found there must be from then my wife killed too I have said be comforted let's make us medicin of our great Revenge to cure this deadly grief he has no children all my pretty ones did you say all oh hell kite oh what all my pretty chickens in their damn in one FSE dispute it like a man I shall do so but I must also feel it like a man I cannot but remember such things were that were most precious to me did Heaven look on would not take that part sinful MTO they were all struck for thee not that I am not for their own demand it's but for mine F Slaughter on their souls Heaven miss them now be this the Wet Stone of your sword let grief convert to anger blunt not your heart enrage it oh I could play a woman with mine eyes and brag it with my tongue but gentle Heavens cut short all ination front to front bring thou this fend of Scotland of myself with him my swords link set him if he escape Heaven forgive him too later we see mbth in contrast to the iron determination of McDuff McBeth is tortured by a sense of futility which he pours forth in one of the greatest soliloquies on all of Shakespeare's plays the speech is a fascinating one in many counts when McDuff was told of the brutal murder of his wife and children he could scarcely speak his sorrow could find no words but when McBeth learns that his wife is dead his vivid imagination invents a brilliant succession of poetic images all pointing to the utter meaninglessness of Life the speech is not as some critics maintain a purple passage it is in complete harmony with mcbeth's character in its infinite weariness its self- wounding Fury the queen my Lord is dead you should have died Hereafter there would have been time for such a word tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow Creeps in this Petty Pace from day to day the last syllable of recorded time all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to Dusty death out out brief candle Li but a walking shadow a poor player that struts and fets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more there's a tale told by an idiot full of Sound and Fury signifying nothing now the stage is set for the final meeting of McBeth and McDuff the play must move forward now at top speed cutting short all intermission to the climactic moment when McBeth is within mcduff's sword's length symbolically two antagonistic principles of the drama meet physically the two greatest warriors as mcduff's terrible challenge Echoes across the field of battle turn H turn of all men else I have avoided the for get the back my soul is too much charged with blood of thine already I have no words my voice is in my sword [Music] [Music] on and so mbth is killed he would not yield he would try the last at the beginning of this film I put forward the question what is the chief theme of mbth what was Shakespeare saying what comment on Humanity on The Human Condition was he making one theme which you might consider as you read the play certainly seems to emerge in Lord Acton's words power tends to corrupt absolute power corrupts absolutely on the other hand there is another theme that must be considered your face my thing is as a book where men may read Strange Matter there's no art to find the mind's Construction in the face for none of woman born shall [Music] harm nothing is but what is not lesser than McBeth and greater not so happy yet much happier away and mock the time with fairest show false face must hide what the false heart doth know contradictions seeming truths concealed meanings double meanings nothing is but what is not the tragedy of mbth is full of such lines and they are not there by accident from the very first moment with a weird incantation fair is foul and foul is we are in a world in which appearances cannot be trusted in which seeming truths hide the opposite of what they pend the chief characters by following courses of action which would seem to lead to their own ends good or bad are in Banko's words betrayed in deepest consequence Scotland itself recently threatened by a most disloyal traitor now seems secure signs of nobleness like stars shall shine on all deservers and yet it is about to suff suffer an even heavier blow Duncan Scotland's King seems Noble clear in his great office a father figure and yet in some ways as we have seen he can be interpreted as Wayward tricky a father who cannot in the final analysis bet trusted McBeth Scotland's greatest nobleman held in Golden opinion by everyone yet within unseen his thoughts make his seated heart knock at his ribs but what of Lady McBeth it is too easy perhaps to see in her only the dissembler the monster easy to consider her in Malcolm's words fiend like or in Samuel Johnson's words merely detested she is certainly except for one notable lapse expert in concealment as for example when she greets the king this occurs shortly after her terrible invocation to the murdering ministers in which she determines to convince McBeth to take the nearest way to the crown a murderer of King Duncan whom she now graciously welcomes under her battlements see see our honored Hostess the love that follows us sometime is our trouble which still we thank is love herein I teach you how you shall bid God even us for your pains and thank us for your troubles all our service in every Point twice done and then done double were poor and single business to contend against those honors deep and Broad wherewith your majesty loads our house give me your hand conduct me to mine host we love him highly and shall continue our Graces towards him by your leave Hostess courtly wellt phrases but empty of meaning perhaps on both sides Duncan has just made his son the next king but he cannot be ignorant of the fact that the woman who now walks beside him once had Ambitions to be Queen what he does not suspect nor do the members of his court is the illness that attends her ambition we will proceed no further in this business he had honored me of late and I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people which will be worn now in their newest gloss not cast aside so soon was the hope drunk wherein you dressed yourself and they' slept since and wakes it now to look so green and pale at what it did so freely from this time such I don't thy love how thou fear to be the same in thine own act and Bell as Thou Art in desire would thou have that which thou esteems the ornament of life and live a coward in mine own esteem letting I dare not wait upon I would like the poor cat of the addit peace I dare do all that may become a man who dares do more is none what Beast was then that made you break this Enterprise to me when you D do it then you were a man and to be more than what you were you would be so much more the man or time nor place did then ADH here yet you would make both they have made themselves and let their Fitness now does unmake you I have given suck and know how tender it is to love the babe that mils me I would while it was smiling in my face have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dash the brains out at I so sworn as you have done to this if we should fail we fail screw your courage to this scking place and we'll not fail when Duncan is asleep where to the rather shall his days hard journey soundly invite him these two chamberlains will lie with wine and Wessel so that memory the water of the brain shall be a fume and the receipt of Reason a limic only when in swiish sleep their drenched Natures lie as in the death what cannot you and I perform upon the unguarded Duncan what not put upon his spongy officers who shall bear the guilt of our great quell bring forth men children only for thy undaunted metal should compose nothing but males thy undaunted metal should compose nothing but males lady McBeth speaks of the entrance of the king under my battlements she plans the murder leave all the rest to me she says she is at this point a figure to inspire all even Terror and any production of this PR I suggest must stand or fall in large measure with her Casting her undaunted metal as McBeth tells her should bring forth men children only but she must be feminine even delicate they are man and woman husband and wife they love and trust each other and Lady McBeth believes with all the single-mindedness of her being that her husband should be king it is his legitimate right and she will be his dearest partner of greatness that is one Central fact about her there is another I have said that McBeth is imaginative he has in some ways the imagination of a poet but lady McBeth has little imagination this has been pointed out by several critics notably AC Bradley AU to put it another way she has enough imagination to plan the murder but not enough to realize what it will mean to her it is a simple matter one mere man is to be killed and this shall bring happiness and fulfillment to all their nights and days to come thus McBeth is convinced he murders that man the king but Mark now their reactions this is a sorry sight a foolish thought to say a sorry sight it's one little half in sleep and one great murder that they' awake each other I stood and heard them but they did say their prayers and address them again to sleep there are two loded together one cried God bless us and amen the other as they had seen me with these Hangman's hands listening Their Fear I could not say Amen when they did say God bless us do it not so deeply wherefore could I not pronounce amen I had most need of blessing amen stuck in my throat these Deeds must not be thought after of these ways so it will make us mad you thought I heard a voice cry weep no more like Beth of murder sleep the innocen s sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care the death of each day's life sore Labor's Bar B of hurt Minds great Nature's second course Chief nourisher in life's Feast what do you mean still it cried sleep no more to all the house GRS of murdered sleep and therefore cordor shall sleep no more MC Beth shall sleep no more was it that thus cry where they say you do unbend your Noble strength to think so brain sickly of things go get some water and watch this filthy witness from your hands why did you bring these daggers from the place they must lie there go carry them and smell the sleepy Grooms with blood I go no more I'm ready to think what I have done look hunt again I dare not [Music] [Music]