so white. A little water clears us of this deed." Yet it is she who has uttered no large words about "the multitudinous seas" who will rise in slumbery agitation, and with her accustomed action eagerly essay to remove from her little hand its ineffaceable stain, and with her delicate sense sicken at the smell of blood upon it, which "all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten;" and last, will loosen the terrible constriction of her heart with a sigh that longs to be perpetual. It is the queen, and not her husband, who is slain by conscience. Yet the soul of Macbeth never quite disappears into the blackness of darkness. He is a cloud without water carried about of winds; a tree whose fruit withers, but not even to the last plucked up by the roots. For the dull ferocity of Macbeth is joyless. All his life has gone irretrievably astray, and he is aware of this. His suspicion becomes uncontrollable; his reign is a reign of terror; and as he drops deeper and deeper into the solitude and the gloom, his sense of error and misfortune, futile and unproductive as that sense is, increases. He lives under a dreary cloud, and all things look gray and cold. He has lived long enough, yet he clings to life; that which should accompany old age, as honour, love, obedience, troops of friends," he may not look to have. Finally his sensibility has grown so dull that even the intelligence of his wife's death-the death of her who had been bound to him by such close communion in crime-hardly moves him, and seems little more than one additional incident in the weary, meaningless tale of human life: She should have died hereafter; 66 There would have been a time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more; it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. This world-weariness, which has not the energy of Timon's despair, is yet less remote from the joy and glory of true living than is the worm-like vivacity of Iago. Macbeth remembers that he once knew there was such a thing as human goodness. He stands a haggard shadow against the hand'sbreadth of pale sky which yields us sufficient light to see him. But Iago rises compact with fiend-like energy, seen brightly in the godless glare of hell. The end of Macbeth is savage, and almost brutal - - a death without honour or loveliness. He fights now, not like "Bellona's bridegroom lapp'd in proof," but with a wild and animal clinging to life : They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, But, bear-like, I must fight the course. His followers desert him; he feels himself taken in a trap. The powers of evil in which he had trusted turn against him and betray him. His courage becomes a desperate rage. We are in pain until the horrible necessity is accomplished. |