Yet Macbeth at bottom dared not murder the king, he only toyed with the thought. He must be instigated from without, if the deed is not to be put off until the Greek calends. Lady Macbeth from the very beginning feels it her task to strengthen her laggard and doubting husband in his ambition. This Shakespeare had already found in Holinshed. As the chronicle has pictured it: “Still more did his wife urge him on to attack the king, for she was exorbitantly ambitious and burned with an inextinguishable desire to bear the name of queen.”[34] While she thus incited her husband, she fulfilled yet more the longing of her own heart:
“Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round.”
She summons herself also to the task, calls the evil spirits of the air to her aid and will become a man, since her husband is no man:
“Come, come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here;
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse;
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers!”
When Macbeth announces, “Duncan comes here to-night,” she asks sinisterly, “And when goes hence?”—Macbeth: “To-morrow—as he purposes.”—Lady Macbeth:
“O, never
Shall sun that morrow see!
. . . . . . .
. . . . . He that's coming
Must be provided for; and you shall put
This night's great business into my despatch;
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.”
It may be seen that the really cruel one is here first Lady Macbeth and not her husband. He on the contrary must always torture himself with scruples and doubts. He constantly holds before himself the outward results of his deed, brings everything together which should protect Duncan from his dagger and can only say in regard to the opposite course:
“I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'er-leaps itself,
And falls on the other.”
And he explains to his wife, “We will proceed no further in this business.” Then must Lady Macbeth rebuke him as a coward, no longer trust his love, if he, when time and place so wait upon him, retract from his purpose. She lays on the strongest accent, yes, uses the “word of fury”:
“I have given suck; and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me;
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn, as you
Have done to this.”—