Enter ROSS and ANGUS
ROSS
The king hath happily received, Macbeth, The news of thy success; and when he reads Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight, His wonders and his praises do contend Which should be thine or his: silenced with that, In viewing o'er the rest o' the selfsame day, He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks, Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make Strange images of death. As thick as hail Came post with post; and every one did bear Thy praises in his kingdom's great defence, And pour'd them down before him.
ANGUS
We are sent To give thee from our royal master thanks; Only to herald thee into his sight, Not pay thee.
ROSS
And, for an earnest of a greater honour, He bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor: In which addition, hail, most worthy thane! For it is thine.
The plot moves on again and the speed of activity increases with the entrance of two new noblemen, Ross and Angus, in the role of messengers. Their words seem to directly follow the conversation we have heard in Act 1, Scene 2, confirming Duncan’s “wonder” and “praises” for Macbeth’s valour and bravery, reports of which have come in “as thick as hail” (proverbial, but perhaps an echo of the “hail[s]” which have also come thick for Macbeth) and which he has “happily received”. Duncan’s praise cements Macbeth’s reputation as a soldier, but also gives tacit approval to the brutality of his approach and to the violence (surprising, given the mild way Duncan will be spoken of in Act 2). What seems to impress Duncan the most (enough to have “silenced” him, to have left him speechless) is the way Macbeth destroys the Norwegians. There is some ambiguity in the line, though, the muddled syntax making it unclear what he is being praised for: it is either for having “nothing afeard” when confronted by the enemy, or not being afraid of having killed the enemy so brutally, the “strange images of death” which he himself “make[s]”. The butchery of the battlefield (whilst perhaps described in the most gruesome language and showing a super-human strength) is, though, the least “strange” of the “images of death” in the play. That they are “images” suggests he can distance himself from the reality of death (much as Lady Macbeth will go on to advise him not to fear the “painted devil”). The reports of his lack of fear are important because they provide a contrast to his heightened emotional state after he kills Duncan; he starts the play focused on action, but much of the remainder will be focused on its emotional impact, of what Lamb describes as the ‘activity of the mind’. The reports are also important because they remind us that Macbeth’s promotion to thane of Cawdor can be explained rationally, through human agency; it is his actions in battle that have earned him Duncan’s “thanks” and “honour”. The title is not a metaphysical happening (as it likely appears to Macbeth), but a payment for loyalty, a political allegiance determined before the witches have delivered their prophecies. That said, the “greater honour” promised to Macbeth allows for hope that the witches speak three truths, and we – like Macbeth – must wait.