MACBETH
Bring forth men-children only; For thy undaunted mettle should compose Nothing but males. Will it not be received, When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two Of his own chamber and used their very daggers, That they have done't?
LADY MACBETH
Who dares receive it other, As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar Upon his death?
MACBETH
I am settled, and bend up Each corporal agent to this terrible feat. Away, and mock the time with fairest show: False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
Exeunt
Macbeth’s remark on the topic of children – “bring forth men-children only” - is strangely off-hand and spiteful, considering Lady Macbeth’s recent "to love the babe that milks me" lines that seemingly suggest the existence of a (now dead) child. On the one hand, this may suggest that the child was only an example created by Lady Macbeth, or that Macbeth has similarly become apathetic towards the topic. Alternatively, the specificity of “men-children” could hint that the child’s untimely death in a harsh, patriarchal society could be a valid trauma to create Lady Macbeth’s transfixion on "unsex[ing]" the self. Regardless of the materiality of the child, Macbeth stresses the ‘masculinity’ of Lady Macbeth’s characteristics, a lack of compassion and nurture out of place with the upbringing of a girl. Lady Macbeth’s “undaunted mettle” is a strength only appropriate in men: heroic on the battlefield, but dangerous within the domestic sphere. What others praise in Macbeth, he criticises in his wife. He appears to begin to assent to her plan, albeit still apprehensively. Lady Macbeth’s confidence seems to inspire confidence in him. Indeed, the couple’s shared hubris, a key element in their downfall, is demonstrated in Lady Macbeth’s "dares" towards the oblivious masses of the court - who would not, and could not, believe the “grief and clamours” to be false or Macbeth to be a traitor. Additionally, it prefigures their tyrannical reign and their willingness to inspire fear if not trust. She seems to brandish a veiled threat towards the few who can call their bluff (namely the king’s sons, Banquo and Macduff) to not "dare" object under Macbeth - a warning shot aimed at those who would dare try to disturb his monarchic spree. Macbeth’s assent is this time more direct: he summons himself to “bend up / Each corporal agent”. “Corporal” initially seems to refer to Macbeth’s body, signifying his presumed outward and internal conscription to the deed, which he will “bend up” to action (an image which suggests physical reluctance, as though his body requires separate instruction from his thought and is attempting to resist). He continues here Lady Macbeth’s previously metaphor of the crossbow, but whereas she suggests the “sticking-point” as a place for personified “courage”, Macbeth becomes the weapon and instrument of war. Indeed “corporal” can be read in the military sense of ‘leader of troops’, suggesting Macbeth has readopted his warrior’s persona. Though the scene is moving rapidly towards completion and we are tantalisingly close to their planned action, they both still refuse to name the murder, returning – again – to “it” or the evasive “terrible feat. Despite agreeing to his wife’s terms, his reluctance to make the regicide real is clear. He attempts to round off their discussion (and, indeed, the first act) with the appearance of control. The frequency of his lines overtakes his wife’s and the growth in length across his last four lines, coupled with the finality of the rhyming couplet, represent his re-developing confidence. Yet this confidence is clearly unstable. The neatness of the rhyming couplet – in Macbeth a rarity – seems out of place and unsettling. Its elegance is false, its appearance of symmetry and logical balance misleading. Even Macbeth’s words are merely repeats of his wife’s: “mock the time” reframes Lady Macbeth’s “beguile the time”; the “false face” the “innocent flower”; the “false heart” the “serpent under’t”. We end the act balanced precariously, order momentarily reclaimed in a world which is being plunged into chaos.
- Ken