MACBETH
I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself And falls on the other -
Enter LADY MACBETH
Macbeth’s speech ends in indecision and contradiction. The metaphor of riding he began with the cherubim “horsed upon the sightless couriers of the air” becomes much more mundane. He claims to “have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition”; that is, his only motivator (spur to action) is his ambition. The shift in Macbeth seems rapid; in the previous scene, Duncan comments on “his great love, sharp as his spur”, and yet the heroism and loyalty of that love are clearly now absent. The equestrian metaphor should connote gallantry and bravery of battle – the heroic traits described in 1.2 – and yet here the imagery is used in an attempt to justify the un-heroic act of regicide (the reality of which he continues to evade with the euphemistic “intent”). Macbeth acknowledges his own ambition and yet he seems not to know what to do with this realisation. The ambition is “vaulting” – it jumps or leaps – but it “o’erleaps”. The image here is of excess: the flaw is not the ambition itself, but its misdirection, its height and consequent fall. Lady Macbeth’s entry breaks him off mid-thought and mid-line (it is not entirely clear what “the other” is – the other side? consequence of ambition? the guilt his ambition triggers?), but his argument deflates and runs out of steam even before her timely entrance. Regardless, he fails to strengthen his resolve before Lady Macbeth will provide a much stronger “spur” to “intent”.
- Will