Act Five Scene Two
MENTEITH
What does the tyrant?
CAITHNESS
Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies: Some say he’s mad; others that lesser hate him do call it valiant fury: but, for certain, He cannot buckle his distemper’d cause within the belt of rule.
ANGUS
Now does he feel his secret murders sticking on his hands; Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach; Those he commands move only in command, Nothing in love: now does he feel his title hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe upon a dwarfish thief.
Analysis.
By this stage of the play, Macbeth is isolated in his castle awaiting an immense army from England headed by Malcolm and Macduff, who desire to reclaim the throne for Duncan’s rightful heir. Menteith’s question about the ‘tyrant’ reveals the utter ignominy into which Macbeth has descended. His very identity is now synonymous with his malign behaviour. The castle he ‘strongly fortifies’ and Macbeth now appear merged in character, as he awaits an imminent attack and the outcome of his inevitable fate.
Macbeth is relying on the cryptic declarations of the witches to maintain hopeful of any victory. Such faith appears deluded and misplaced.
The audience is obviously alerted to the importance of ‘Dunsinane’ in terms of the witches’ prediction, thus heightening the palpable sense of suspense. Connections are being made. It feels as if the world is returning to some sort of shape, even synchronicity through these echoes.
The open knowledge of Macbeth’s criminality is vividly communicated in the metaphor deployed by Angus, ‘secret murders sticking on his hands.‘ This image is keenly sensory and works kinaesthetically as well as visually. It recalls the original murder of Duncan when he is appalled by the sight of the blood on his hands, that his all-too- literal wife believed could be cleared with a ‘little water.’ It also connects to our very recent sighting of Lady Macbeth repeatedly rubbing her hands repeatedly, ‘out, out damned spot,’ in a futile, desperate effort to destroy the evidence of her abject guilt. It is striking that all the outside world now appears to have sided against Macbeth freely acknowledging his crimes, suggesting that moral stability is returning to the fallen world.
Angus is also pointing out that Macbeth is hated even by those who serve him within the castle, ‘ ‘Nothing in love.‘ This contrasts with the widespread admiration of ‘noble Macbeth’ and ‘worthy cousin’ expressed so readily in the first Act. Such a shift in Macbeth’s reputation must surely deepen his estrangement from any equilibrium within himself and bring on depression most likely expressed as the ‘fury’ expressed in Macbeth’s last soliloquy?
This insightful speech concludes with a grotesque image and one which reminds us of Macbeth being a usurper and imposter because his robes ‘hang loosely‘ because they are not his ‘ like a giant robe on a dwarfish thief.’ Such grotesque diminishment underlines Macbeth’s moral degradation, his unworthiness to be king. The audience may attribute the ‘giant robe’ to Duncan himself, who was divinely appointed by God and therefore a ‘giant ‘ in noble stature, yet murdered by Macbeth who is ‘ a dwarfish thief .’ Angus is obviously talking in explicitly derogatory terms about Macbeth’s corruption and suggesting it is now physically apparent. The hidden world of Macbeth’s secret criminality and despotism is now exhibited to all.
Interestingly, Robert Louis Stevenson was inspired by this description of moral degradation in the play, sufficiently to use it in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, when the latter is several times described in terms of his ill-fitting clothing and even his dwarfism. In both the novel and here in the play, the imagery strikingly communicates a sense of visual incongruity emanating from the protagonists’ fallen, degenerate natures and perhaps also from the protagonists’ dangerous associations with the supernatural.
