LADY MACBETH
Was the hope drunk Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since? And wakes it now, to look so green and pale At what it did so freely? From this time Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valour As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life, And live a coward in thine own esteem, Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,' Like the poor cat i' the adage?
After Lady Macbeth hears Macbeth’s assertion that he will not kill Duncan, she attempts to convince him to go through with it by berating him. She asks him if "the hope [was] drunk / Wherein you dress'd yourself?"; that is, whether his desire to enact the final prophecy was just drunken confidence. Lady Macbeth here picks up the play's metaphor of clothing, suggesting that "hope" is something Macbeth can take on and off, rather than intrinsic. The image of the "dress'd" clothing of confidence seems to swamp Macbeth (like the "giant's robe" of 5.2), belittling him. Whereas the etymological origins of "hope" suggest a trust in God as a basis for hope, the hope here is alcohol-induced. Early modern theology taught that alcohol was a gift from God in moderation, but shameful when abused to the point of drunkenness. There is an extent to which Macbeth is indeed "drunk", not with alcoholic spirits but with its supernatural homonym: he is driven to crime by his desire to make the witches' prophecies true. Lady Macbeth's attack is not levelled at an ethical persuasion, but instead uses rhetoric to illustrate Macbeth's shame and weakness, gradually emasculating him through words. She continues this with a rapid fire of rhetorical questions in which she completely dominates the conversation, not allowing him a single word of defence. Amongst her points of attack is that his hope has "slept since", a somewhat ironic criticism given that it will be the last time either is able to sleep through the play. She mocks his sleep, feigning an image of him passing out drunk and waking with a hangover - "green and pale" - to regret his actions of the night before. The image perhaps instead suggests the 'green-sickness', a common term for anemia - an illness more associated with young girls - and a further jab at Macbeth's masculinity. It also sets up the fear she goes on to explore. She asks him if he is frightened to “act” for his “desire”. She connects "act" to "valour" and unacted "desire" to "coward", simplifying the complex range of emotions that fall in between into an either/or dichotomy. The Macbeth of 1.2 - "Valour's minion" - was (she asserts) brave and mighty because he acted; the more hesitant Macbeth of this scene is, by its comparison, pathetic. What Lady Macbeth fails to see is the difference between the battlefield and the domestic setting of the castle. Though Macbeth struggles to articulate it, he seems to realise that there should be a gap between desire and action; it is a gap, though, that is becoming increasingly hard to maintain. In conjuring an image of strength, Lady Macbeth uses the word “valour” which recalls “valour’s minion” and reminds us of the brave and mighty figure Macbeth was, exaggerating the pathetic image here through its comparison. Lady Macbeth - like the witches - works by implanting ideas into Macbeth’s mind. It is she who tells him that the crown – the "ornament of life" - is what he desires. Where the witches flatter Macbeth's egotism and "black and deep desires", Lady Macbeth knows that belittling him will incur the wrath of his pride and spur him to act. His pride is suggested through "esteem" - first as a verb for the value he places on the throne, second as a noun for his own self-worth. Indeed, his self-regard will ultimately be placed higher than his value of Scotland, a decision which will shortly plunge it into darkness. This speech ends with the simile: “Like the poor cat i’ the adage?”. The "adage" is the proverb, which the Arden edition explains as "the cat would eat the fish, but not wet her feet”. The comparison is cliched and mundane and through it Lady Macbeth infantalises her husband. The task is simple, she suggests, and Macbeth is unreasonable and weak, a passive victim of misfortune (the black cat familiars perhaps a leap too far). The proverb’s referral to “wet” should suggest water but, in this context, it is far more connotative of blood. This scene brings Lady Macbeth to the fore and, with it, the breakdown of expected order within the home, as she manipulates and goads her husband into submission. The domestic setting is, perhaps, a microcosm of the political state, and the disruption of its social hierarchies (here, of assertive husband and submissive wife) portend its breakdown.
- Leah