SCENE VI. Before Macbeth's castle.
Hautboys and torches. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, BANQUO, LENNOX, MACDUFF, ROSS, ANGUS, and Attendants
DUNCAN
This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses.
BANQUO
This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, By his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze, Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle: Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed, The air is delicate.
We start Act 1, Scene 6 with the arrival of Duncan at Macbeth’s castle and he is accompanied by a royal entourage including "hautboys" - an oboe like instrument - which signifies his nobility and kingship, but also creates an (albeit brief) moment of tranquillity. He is also joined by "torches", a prop which indicates that it is night (or at least dusk), and perhaps a sign of the looming metaphorical darkness and blight to come. The torches and the lightness of imagery arguably create Duncan as the embodiment of light and radiance, lighting up the stage after the malignant scheming of the Macbeths at the end of the previous scene. From here on the scene is laden with irony as Duncan describes how the "pleasant" castle is almost divine and appeals to his "gentle tastes" despite the plots it hides behind the stone walls. Even the weather is deceptive: the air "nimbly and sweetly recommends itself" and the natural imagery is poetic and lyrical. Banquo picks up this imagery in the "temple-haunting martlet" , the house-martin (a migrant bird, or "guest of summer"). That its migrations are described as "haunting" perhaps recalls the supernatural, but the "haunting" here is clearly benign, a pattern of cyclical natural order. Banquo's description draws on imagery of heaven with clear irony; the "temple" suggests that the birds consider the castle is holy or church-like, and the air is "heaven's breath". In the context of Duncan's imminent death, his affinity with heaven and nature strengthens his righteousness and the injustice of Macbeth's future actions. The "martlets" cover the castle, nesting in its walls, its “jutty, frieze, / Buttress, .. coign of vantage”. The decorative and defensive parts of the castle are turned into the "pendent bed" and "procreant cradle"; the birds disguise sites of death and attack as sites of birth and protection. The extended description of the castle's natural setting seems to encourage us to read it as pathetic fallacy, and yet the effect – sandwiched between the force of Lady Macbeth in 1.5 and 1.7 - seems different. Banquo and Duncan see the castle as in tune with nature, but we realise the irony as the hidden schemes it harbours are aligned with the disruption of natural order, from Macbeth's political ambition, to Lady Macbeth's rejection of femininity, to the supernatural influence of the witches. The castle, the weather, the birds, the Macbeths: they all seek to deceive Duncan and betray his trustful nature. The “delicate air” that ends this scene is the same: a fallacy which briefly disguises the chaos to come.
- Leah