Ever and ever mistaking the anguish of conscience for fears of selfishness, and thus as a punishment of that selfishness, plunging still deeper in guilt and ruin.
'Ib.' Macbeth's speech:
Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
Till thou applaud the deed.
This is Macbeth's sympathy with his own feelings, and his mistaking his wife's opposite state.
'Ib.' sc. 4.
'Macb'. It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood:
Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;
Augurs, and understood relations, have
By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth
The secret'st man of blood.
The deed is done; but Macbeth receives no comfort,—no additional security. He has by guilt torn himself live-asunder from nature, and is, therefore, himself in a preter-natural state: no wonder, then, that he is inclined to superstition, and faith in the unknown of signs and tokens, and super-human agencies.
Act iv. sc. 1.
'Len'. 'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word,
Macduff is fled to England.
'Macb'. Fled to England?
The acme of the avenging conscience.