Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.”
Always the world bounds his hopes and his fears.
The original viciousness of his nature is also betrayed by the readiness with which, once embarked in the career of crime, he plunges in headlong. The very morning of the murder of the king, he stabs in their sleep the two grooms of the chamber, then Banquo and Fleance (which latter escapes by chance.) He rushes on from murder to murder with the rabid fury of a hound maddened with the taste of blood. He adopts the direst principles of action,
Mac. “From this moment
The very firstlings of my heart shall be
The firstlings of my hand.”
Surprises the castle of Macduff, and massacres his wife, his babes,
“And all the unfortunate souls
That trace him in his line.”
That Shakspeare meant to draw, in this remarkable portraiture, a worldly character unsupported by religion, is evident from the tone of piety which runs through the other characters. The gentlewoman’s “Heaven knows what she has known,” and her “pray God it be well.” The doctor’s “God, God forgive us all!” Macduff’s