Speech and behaviours: There is a palpable contrast between the opportunistic speech of the Machiavellian Malcolm who attempts to hijack the grief of Macduff to support his rebellion and the horrified numbness of the grief-stricken Macduff who blames himself rightly and most uncomfortably for the slaughter of his family.
The insinuating us of the inclusive, ‘Let’s which manipulates the royal plural shows the difference between Malcolm and his murdered father. Even though there is an acknowledgement of the ‘deadly grief’ the audience ae aware of a coldness in the Prince which sees the opportunity for the brutal desecration of Macduff’s family to be turned into a useful ‘revenge’ so he reclaims the throne.
Macduff determinedly refutes these attempts to transform his grief into trite revenge. He recognises the coldness comes at least in part from ignorance of family. Then the list of interrogatives reveal the stunned, horrified numbed grief of Macduff. This acute grief redeems him to the audience after he has deserted his family for political reasons. Their sacrifice returns to haunt him and significantly brings about the rejection of the inhuman version of masculinity and manliness in the play, shockingly espoused here, not by Lady Macbeth, but by Malcolm which is unnervingly echoic. The good and the bad are slipping for a moment, here. It is Macduff who discovers dead Duncan and expressed genuine ‘horror’ who rejects the inhuman version of maleness. ‘ I must feel it like a man.’ Thus emotional truthfulness and integrity return to the play, ironically after the worst event in the play, namely the murder of Lady Macduff and her family. Macduff’s public admission of his own guilty complicity in their murder is redemptive and guarantees that when he executes Macbeth, the audience will recognise that the depraved world has been cleansed by a worthy executioner motivated only by the need for justice, not by any desire for power. The cycle is over.
MALCOLM
Be comforted:
Let’s make us medicines of our great revenge,
To cure this deadly grief.
He has no children. All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?
I shall do so;
But I must also feel it as a man:
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now!
Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief
Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.
O, I could play the woman with mine eyes
And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,
Cut short all intermission; front to front
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword’s length set him; if he ‘scape,
Heaven forgive him too!
This tune goes manly.
Come, go we to the king; our power is ready;
Our lack is nothing but our leave; Macbeth
Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may:
The night is long that never finds the day.
Act Four Scene Three.
Speech and behaviour: a brief hiatus here when the English King’s goodness is described and illustrated even though he never appears in the play or on stage. Presumably, the appearance of Edward would distract from the action of the play and confuse the audience who are witnessing the tale of the tyrannical, usurper Macbeth as a contrast to the goodness of King James? Interestingly, the magical touch of Edward contrasts the murderous brutality of Macbeth. The goodness of the divinely appointed ‘real’ King shows the audience what purity can achieve in terms of healing, whatsoever the affliction.
It seems as if the play needs the injection of a ‘heavenly’ language as an antidote to the relentless horrors of Macbeth’s degraded language ad world. Significantly, the goodness of Edward inspires the trust of the Scottish army who will overthrow the evil of the tyrant and regain rightful power.
This is an interlude to remind the audience that goodness still exists, despite Hecate and Company and the spectacularly evil murder and betrayal of lady Macduff.
MALCOLM
Well; more anon.–Comes the king forth, I pray you?
Doctor
Ay, sir; there are a crew of wretched souls
That stay his cure: their malady convinces
The great assay of art; but at his touch–
Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand–
They presently amend.
MALCOLM
Exit Doctor
MACDUFF
MALCOLM
‘Tis call’d the evil:
A most miraculous work in this good king;
Which often, since my here-remain in England,
I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,
Himself best knows: but strangely-visited people,
All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
The mere despair of surgery, he cures,
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers: and ’tis spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves
The healing benediction. With this strange virtue,
He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,
And sundry blessings hang about his throne,
That speak him full of grace.
Enter ROSS
