Lady Macbeth, who of all the human participators in the King's murder is the most guilty, is thrown by the terrors of her conscience into a state of incurable bodily and mental disease; she dies, unlamented by her husband, with all the symptoms of reprobation. Macbeth is still found worthy to die the death of a hero on the field of battle. The noble Macduff is allowed the satisfaction of saving his country by punishing with his own hand the tyrant who had murdered his wife and children. Banquo, by an early death, atones for the ambitious curiosity which prompted the wish to know his glorious descendants, as he thereby has roused Macbeth's jealousy; but he preserved his mind pure from the evil suggestions of the witches: his name is blest in his race, destined to enjoy for a long succession of ages that royal dignity which Macbeth could only hold for his own life. In the progress of the action, the piece is altogether the reverse of "Hamlet": it strides forward with amazing rapidity, from the first catastrophe (for Duncan's murder may be called a catastrophe) to the last. "Thought, and done!" is the general motto; for, as Macbeth says,
"The flighty purpose never is o'ertook
Unless the deed go with it."
In every feature we see an energetic heroic age, in the hardy north which steels every nerve. The precise duration of the action can not be ascertained—years, perhaps, according to the story—but we know that to the imagination the most crowded time appears always the shortest. Here we can hardly conceive how so very much could ever have been comprest into so narrow a space; not merely external events, the very inmost recesses of the minds of the dramatic personages are laid open to us. It is as if the drags were taken from the wheels of time and they roll along without interruption in their descent. Nothing can equal the picture in its power to excite terror. We need only allude to the circumstances attending the murder of Duncan, the dagger that hovers before the eyes of Macbeth, the vision of Banquo at the feast, the madness of Lady Macbeth: what can possibly be said on the subject that will not rather weaken the impression they naturally leave? Such scenes stand alone, and are to be found only in this poet; otherwise the tragic muse might exchange her mask for the head of Medusa.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] From the "Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature." Translated by John Black, the translation being revised by A. J. W. Morrison. Madame de Staël heard these lectures delivered in Vienna, and in her work on Germany says she was "astonished to hear a critic as eloquent as an orator."
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT
Born in Berlin in 1769, died in 1859; educated at Frankfurt and Göttingen; a mining engineer in 1792; resigning his position in 1797, he traveled in Switzerland, Italy and France; made a scientific journey to South America and Mexico in 1799-1804; lived in Paris in 1809-27; settled in Berlin in 1827; went to Siberia and the Caspian Sea at the instance of the Emperor of Russia in 1829; several scientific works based on his travels appeared before 1845; in 1845-58 published his masterpiece, "Cosmos"; a brother of Frederick von Humboldt, who was a philologist.