Nor time, nor place,
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you.
Nor, indeed, would the conduct of either be humanly explicable unless we clearly grasp the situation as it is here plainly stated by Shakespeare. Her superlative strength in executive resource is only consistent with the assumption that she has accepted without questioning a policy that was none of her own devising: his apparent weakness, on the other hand, is the inevitable attitude of an imaginative temperament which feels all the responsibilities and forecasts the consequences of the crime it has conceived.
And this brings us to a consideration of the particular types of character which have been chosen by Shakespeare for the two principal figures of his tragedy. I have suggested that the ideal motive of the drama lies in its contrast of the distinctive qualities of sex as these are developed under the pressure of a combined purpose and a common experience: and it will be found, at any rate, that the special individuality which the author has assigned to Macbeth not less than to his wife aptly serves the end I have supposed he had in view. Dr. Johnson has said of the play, that “it has no nice discriminations of character; the events are too great to admit the influence of particular dispositions, and the course of the action necessarily determines the conduct of the agents.” This, of course, is putting the matter too crudely. Shakespeare was not wont to deal in abstractions, though by the force of his imagination he could so inform his work as to raise the exhibition of individual nature into an image of our common humanity. Still less can he be accused of inventing mere puppets with no other function than to carry the chosen legend to its close. His characters always outlive the particular circumstances in which they are employed: they are enriched by a thousand touches of reality not absolutely needed for the requirements of the scene, which allow us to pursue them in imagination beyond the margin of the printed page. But there is at least this truth underlying Johnson’s criticism, that, accepting the malign influences under which their natures are exhibited, there is nothing abnormal in the character of either; and that what is particularly distinctive about them has been added with the view of giving ideal emphasis to tendencies that are common to us all.
We shall realise this the better as we come to examine more nearly their conduct and bearing towards the one terrible circumstance that dominates the lives of both. For it must never be forgotten that in the play of Macbeth the murder of Duncan means all. It is the touchstone by which temperament and disposition are tried and developed; the instrument of evolution which the poet has found ready to his hand, and which he has wielded with all the extraordinary force of his genius. The first of a long list of horrors committed by Macbeth, it nevertheless in essence contains them all; and though it hurries his unfortunate partner by a more terrible passage to a swifter doom, it illumines as by lightning-flashes every phase of the woman’s nature, from the first passionate impulse of evil to the remorse that cannot find refuge even in madness, and is only silenced by death.
On the threshold of this terrible adventure in what mood do we find them? The project, as we have seen, is no stranger to the breast of either, and yet with what strangely different effect has the poison worked its spell! They have been apart, and the soul of each has been thrown back upon itself. In the thick of action, “disdaining fortune with his brandished steel,” Macbeth has become infirm of purpose: alone in her castle at Inverness, Lady Macbeth has brooded over the crime until it has completely possessed her. With the concentration of a woman’s nature, she has driven from her brain all other thoughts save this: and she waits now with impatient expectancy for the hour that shall put her courage to the proof. Here, as we see, the divergence of sex has already asserted itself, working such a transformation that when they meet they scarcely recognise one another. The sudden coming of the occasion so long plotted and desired by both has hastened the development of individual character. He finds in the “dearest partner” of his greatness a being so formidable that he regards her for the moment with feelings of mingled admiration and dismay:
Bring forth men-children only;