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SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY

throughout the passage to some interview subsequent to her husband’s return, and that, in making her do so, Shakespeare simply forgot her speeches on welcoming Macbeth home, and also forgot that at any such interview ‘time’ and ‘place’ did ‘adhere.’ It is easy to understand such forgetfulness in a spectator and even in a reader; but it is less easy to imagine It in a poet whose conception of the two characters throughout these scenes was evidently so burningly vivid.


NOTE DD.

DID LADY MACBETH REALLY FAINT?

In the scene of confusion where the murder of Duncan is discovered, Macbeth and Lennox return from the royal chamber; Lennox describes the grooms who, as it seemed, had done the deed:

Their hands and faces were all badged with blood;So were their daggers, which unwiped we foundUpon their pillows:They stared, and were distracted; no man’s lifeWas to be trusted with them.Macb. O, yet I do repent me of my furyThat I did kill them.Macd.        Wherefore did you so?Macb. Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:The expedition of my violent loveOutrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan,His silver skin laced with his golden blood;And his gash’d stabs look’d like a breach in natureFor ruin’s wasteful entrance: there, the murderers,Steep’d in the colours of their trade, their daggersUnmannerly breech’d with gore: who could refrain,That had a heart to love, and in that heartCourage to make’s love known?

At this point Lady Macbeth exclaims, ‘Help me hence, ho!’ Her husband takes no notice, but Macduff calls out ‘Look to the lady.’ This, after a few words ‘aside’ between Malcolm and Donalbain, is repeated by Banquo, and, very shortly after, all

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