If it were done... (1.7.1-7)

SCENE VII. Macbeth's castle.

Hautboys and torches. Enter a Sewer, and divers Servants with dishes and service, and pass over the stage. Then enter MACBETH

MACBETH

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly: if the assassination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch With his surcease success; that but this blow Might be the be-all and the end-all here, But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, We'ld jump the life to come.

This scene has two beginnings: Macbeth's entrance is preceded by a dumb-show, in which the "servants with dishes" move across the stage in preparation for a royal banquet. They are accompanied by "hautboys" - music to welcome Duncan to the castle with fitting admiration and respect. The dumb-show creates a sense of extravagance and occasion, establishing the hospitality of the Macbeths and making the words that follow the more horrifying. The "torches" of the dumb-show denote that this scene is set at night and once again shroud Macbeth in both a literal and metaphorical darkness. Macbeth's soliloquy seems to begin mid-way; he is working through the consequences of his actions and his indecision is clear. The line twists and wrestles, just as Macbeth is wrestling with his mind. The layered conditional clauses - "if", "might" - show his doubt and confusion; he is torn between his desire to act and the practical considerations of that action. On the one hand, he shows the focus and impulsiveness of a soldier, wishing it to be "well it were done quickly" and referring to it as the rather workmanlike "assassination" (which also functions to distance himself from the ethical considerations of the "deed", set in motion by Lady Macbeth and the witches – even though it is his own decisions which will lead to the tyrannical nature of his reign). On the other hand, he seems to realise that this is not a battlefield killing; his refusal to say what "it" is suggests he knows the terrible nature of regicide and increases our repulsion towards it, forcing us to fill in the gap and - by doing so - making us complicit in it. Macbeth's dilemma is not an ethical one, so much as a practical one: he wants the act to be "done" and to be fully resolved. The next lines repeat the ideas of the first but expresses it in layers of metaphor. It begins with the metaphor of fishing - "trammel up", "catch", the image of catching "consequences" within a net. Macbeth wants to gather all the consequences and remove them, but the metaphor perhaps also hints at the idea that his transgression against God could trap him in his own hell. Macbeth wishes to "catch with his surcease success", to gain success from Duncan's murder. The aural similarity between the words - "surcease success" - placed together in an already muddled line, is confusing (as well as hard to say!). "Surcease" seems formal, meaning 'making an end', used here euphemistically for murder. "Success" means both a good outcome and 'what follows' (the idea of succession to the throne will torment Macbeth later in the play). Both terms are a little ambiguous; they suggest closure and endings, but also a new start.  Macbeth's line of argument is still muddled and evasive; his thoughts seem to be sustained more by word connections than by logic. Indeed, the fish metaphor of "trammel" is extended in the "bank and shoal of time" but muddled with the introduction of "jump" (the riding metaphor will be picked up again later in the soliloquy). He wants to be rooted in the present and in absolutes - "the be-all and the end-all" - but he knows there is something more, something out of his control. What that is, though, is unclear – he tries to root it in "here, but here", but the repetition makes it somehow more evasive. We want to make sense of it, to read it as a reflection on mortality (as opposed to the "vanished" witches who transcend the natural order), but it seems hesitant and holds back from philosophising. The sense of something more is carried in the metaphor of the "bank and shoal of time", which suggests that time on earth is solid, organised and natural, but the metaphor is indeterminate, abstract enough to resist shape and we are left puzzling out what we are being told. The image of nature – the embodiment of God on earth and with expectations of purity - stands in contrast to the witches' evil, and yet this speech is perhaps more unsettling than any of its precursors. It seems that human perception corrupts the world – by torturously twisting logic and reason Macbeth somehow corrupts the beauty of the image he conjures. This is a speech which - even after slow, slow reading – is confusing and doesn't seem to reward analysis. It seems to show the superficial nature of Macbeth's resolution, the impossibility of justification. His wordiness pushes us to desire Macbeth to act, to become complicit with him in the "deed". We anticipate the horror and realise the impact it will have, and yet we want it anyway. 

- Kate