ACT V.

In the first scene of this act the apparent and the real are inexplicably mingled together. Lady Macbeth “receives, at once, the benefit of sleep, and does the effects of watching,” which the doctor pronounces “a great perturbation in nature.” Her eyes are open, but their sense is shut; and she seems to wash her hands. Though she is now under the dominion of an awakened conscience, the formality of her nature still displays itself. “Fie, my lord, fie!” she exclaims, “a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?” The Doctor, however, is cautious about drawing conclusions even from such appearances, and remarks that he has known those which have walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds. The reader will readily perceive other illustrations of the theme in this scene, in which for the first time Lady Macbeth appears stripped of the mask of ceremony. We are permitted to see the workings of her mind, and the beating of her heart, when her conscience is emancipated from the control of her formal habits and her stern will.

The next scene, which is a very short one, contains several allusions to the unsubstantial nature of Macbeth’s power.

Those he commands move only in command,

Nothing in love, etc.

In the 3d Scene Macbeth still relies on the promises of the weird sisters. He interprets the look of the “cream-faced loon” as indicative of alarming news; and then falls into that memorable train of reflection on his “way of life,” and the emptiness of all his honors—which everybody knows by heart and can at once apply to the theme. In his answer to the Doctor, who tells him of Lady Macbeth’s “thick-coming fancies,” the remedies he proposes, are, it will be observed, adapted to the unsubstantial character of the disease; the troubles of the brain are to be “razed out,” and the stuffed bosom cleansed with “some sweet oblivious antidote.” On the other hand, when he asks the Doctor to “scour the English hence,” he suggests the use of rhubarb, or senna, which, indeed, at first sight, strikes one as very appropriate remedies.

In the 4th Scene, the soldiers are made to hew down boughs in Birnam wood, in order to conceal their numbers; thus giving a literal construction to the language of the weird sisters.

Scene 5th. Macbeth now trusts to the strength of his castle, and proclaims his confidence by ordering his banners to be hung on the outward walls. When he hears the cry of women, he comments on the effect of custom.

I have almost forgot the taste of fears.

. . . . . . .

Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,

Can not once start.

When told of the queen’s death, he says it is unseasonable: “she should have died hereafter;” and his reflections on life have the same relation to the theme as those on his “way of life” in Scene 3d.

It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

He is now told that Birnam wood is coming to Dunsinane; and the rock on which he has heretofore stood so firmly begins to crumble beneath his feet. He begins to pall in resolution, and to “doubt the equivocation of the fiend, that lies like truth.”

Scene 6th contains less than a dozen lines. The soldiers throw away their leafy screens, and show their true strength.

In the next and last scene the remaining promise of the weird sisters is literally kept to the ear, but “broken to the hope”—for it turns out that Macduff was not of woman born. The force of professional habit appears in old Siward’s conduct on hearing of the death of his son. “Had he his hurts before?” he asks; and, being satisfied on that point, ceases to mourn for him. Finally, ceremony is employed by Malcolm in rewarding substantial merit; his thanes and kinsmen are created earls; and all other proper forms observed “in measure, time, and place.”

The reader will readily perceive that different aspects of the theme predominate in the several stages of the play; and if these stages seem somewhat irregular, it must be borne in mind that the present division into acts and scenes was not the work of Shakspeare, but of his editors.

In Macbeth we see a perpetual conflict between the real nature of man, and the assumed character of the usurper. He is “full o’ the milk of human kindness;” loves truth and sincerity; and sets a high value on the good opinions and the sincere friendship of others. But he is also ambitious; he is urged forward by the demoniac spirit of his wife, and entangled in the snare of the weird sisters. Under these influences he endeavors to play the part of a remorseless tyrant; but his kindlier nature is constantly breaking out; and though he strives so hard to maintain his assumed character, that he at length refuses to “scan” his deeds until they have been “acted,” yet we find him in the height of his power mournfully regretting his own blood-guiltiness, and the hollow-heartedness of all around him.

But there is nothing of this spirituality in the character of Lady Macbeth. Her ambition is satisfied with the name of queen, and she cares not whether the obedience of her followers is constrained or voluntary, whether their love is feigned or real. Remorse has no power over her except when she is asleep; and even old Shylock—whose whole character, as has been well said, is a dead letter—might, perhaps, betray similar emotions, if one could see him thus off his guard.

If the reader of this play should ever be tempted to the commission of crime for the sake of ambition, let him remember the air-drawn dagger, and the ghost of Banquo; if in danger of being seduced by the specious appearance of vice, let him remember the equivocation of the fiends; if lured by the hope that success will gild o’er the offense and “trammel up the consequence,” let him think of Macbeth’s withered heart after he had won the crown and sceptre; and finally, if he imagine that he can so school his passions and harden his nature that remorse will have no power over him, let him contemplate Lady Macbeth walking in her sleep. Whereever he turns, he will find, in all the incidents of this play, the same great lesson, that “the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”