Macbeth Act 1 Scene 7 Summary: The Inner Turmoil of Ambition and Morality

act 1 scene 7 duncan has just arrived at the castle dinner is being served the stage

direction tells our servants are bustling back and forth carrying plates of food everyone else is in the dining

room with the king but for some reason macbeth has left the table he needed a moment to himself his mind

is racing two paths lie before him a choice between what is right and what he longs

for at this moment of inner turmoil macbeth delivers one of the great speeches of

the play we'll go through it in parts if it were done when it is done then

well it would done quickly if it were done when it is done to a well it were done quickly notice that to

this point macbeth has not once used the word murder in reference to murdering the king lady macbeth uses the word but

macbeth despite the fact that he is considering doing it cannot bring himself to even say it

the famous first line of this speech is a fantastic use of the technique of euphemism part of macbeth is horrified

by the idea of murdering duncan and this is shown by the way he cannot even bring himself to use the word he also wants

the act done quickly if the assassination could travel up the consequence

and catch with her success success but that this blow might be the be-all

and the end-all here but here upon this bank and show of time

we'd jump the life to come here he uses some difficult words and a complicated metaphor to make actually a

very simple point about the murder trammell is an old word that originally referred to a certain kind of fishing

net a trammel net has several layers and is used to lure fish in before trapping

them at the center enclosing them on both sides with the mesh to trammel something therefore means not only to

catch it but to wrap it up so that it could never ever leave so when macbeth says he wishes the assassination could

tremble up the consequence but keep with its cersei's success what he's really saying is that he wishes the act could

have no consequences in this world other than the desired consequence which is his becoming king

he hopes that this net would bind up all the possible bad consequences and keep them from ever escaping but still catch

the one good consequence that he desires but of course macbeth knows this is foolish

nothing we ever do in life is in a bubble but in these cases

we still have judgment here that we but teach bloody instruction which being taught

returns to plague the inventor this even-handed justice commands the ingredients of our poisoned chalice to

our own lips all too often macbeth knows the villain's poison ends up poisoning himself

this line about the poisoned chalice may even be a reference to shakespeare's own earlier play hamlet prince of denmark in

which the villain claudius memorably meets his own end by being forced to drink the poisoned chalice that was

meant for hamlet more importantly the poisoned chalice is a biblical allusion to god's wrath

because of the christian sacrament of communion we often think of the chalice as a symbol of god's love and

self-sacrifice but in the old testament the chalice is overwhelmingly a reference to god's wrath and judgment

in many places in the old testament god speaks of forcing a rebellious israel to drink a bitter or poisoned chalice as a

symbol of his anger towards them for their sins macbeth then describes a whole list of reasons why he should not

murder the king he's here in double trust first as i am his kinsmen and his

subjects strong both against the deed then as his host

who should against his murderer shut the door not bear the knife myself

besides this duncan has borne his faculties so meek

has been so clear in his great office that his virtues will plead like angels trumpet tongued

against the deep damnation of his taking off and pity

like a naked newborn babe striding the blast or heaven's cherubim horst upon the

sightless couriers of the air shall blow the horrid deed in every eye that tears shall drown the wind

not only is duncan here as macbeth's guest a host being the one who should keep the murderer out not be the

murderer himself but duncan also seems to be an incredibly nice person

as we saw in the previous scene where duncan naively assumes the kindness and loveliness of the macbeths who were only

moments before plotting his death and even in the scene before that when duncan appeared so visibly grieved at

the betrayal of the former fame of cordor duncan macbeth thinks is such a good

christian soul that his murder will scream against the very forces of nature he will scream like a newborn babe or

heaven's cherubim horst upon the sightless couriers of air importantly here macbeth picks up on

much of the witch's creepy and apocalyptic diction this sounds almost like an incantation so macbeth makes

this final comment i have no spur to prick the sides of my intent but only

vaulting ambition following up on that horse imagery from the lines before he says that he has no

spur to prick the sides of my intent spurs are the little spikes that riders wear on their heels to urge their horses

onwards macbeth is simply saying that having thought it all through he has no reason left to pursue the murder other

than ambition which he fears will only prove self-destructive now presumably wondering why he's been

absent from the dinner table so long lady macbeth enters i know what news he has almost sucked

why have you left the chamber has he asked for me no you not he has

we will proceed no further in this business he hath honored me of late and i have

bought golden opinions from all sorts of people which would be worn now in their newest glass not cast aside

so soon so macbeth tells his wife that he has changed his mind

they will proceed no further in this business this is the introduction to one of the

most incredible dialogue scenes ever written where lady macbeth completely shuts down her husband's tewing and

throwing over the murder and convinces him firmly to do it it is impossible to do justice to this scene by simply

analyzing it you must simply experience it in a quality production but here what we can do is describe two of the key

rhetorical devices that lady macbeth uses to persuade her husband first she associates his reluctance to

kill the king with a failure of masculinity she implies in a wide variety of ways

that he is not a proper man if he does not have the spine to murder the king was the hope drunk when you dressed

yourself has it slept since and wakes it now to look so green and

pale at what it did so freely from this time such i account thy love oh there were feared to be the same with

thy own act and valor as thou art in desire would thou have that which thou esteemed the ornament of life and live a

coward she ridicules him for his seeming instability of conviction that one moment he is confident about the murder

but now he's unsure he has she says awoken green and pale not only that but she implies this means

he's sexually impotent and will prove equally inconstant as a lover from this time she says such shall i count by love

lady macbeth bundle sexual prowess violence and masculinity all into one treating them as symbols of each other

in order to humiliate macbeth and imply that he is failing to be a proper man across all domains of life if he fails

to prove a man in this macbeth's response to this is to doubt that masculinity really is

purely violence i dare do all that may become a man who dares do more is none he points out that

though there is in fact a component of masculinity that involves strength and sometimes even violence this does not

mean that simply being violent and aggressive makes you a better man in fact to do more than the appropriate

level of violence that does constitute masculinity is to fail to be a man at all the second key means by which lady

macbeth convinces her husband to go through with the murder is through the way she describes her own gender and

sexuality in the first episode of this series we talked about how the macbeth's lack of

children is a key theme in the play shakespeare describes lady macbeth as a character who unable to bear surviving

children feels that she is unable to be a proper woman deprived of the true feminine ambition

she turns instead to the male ambition of accumulating power nowhere is this more evident than in the

way she associates her own lack of fertility here with the murder of the king i have given a suck

and know how tender it is to love the babe that melts me i would

while it was smiling in my face i've plucked my nipple from his

boneless gums and dashed the brains out and i so sworn as you have done the macbeth's had a child once but we

can only assume it was weak and sickly and died while still young as so many did in this time

this clearly remains a deep grief for the two of them as a couple and to an extent she uses this grief to manipulate

macbeth making the obviously disturbing and extreme statement that she would have killed that child had she known its

husband would prove to be such a coward as to back out of murdering duncan but there is more going on in this complex

and tragic character than simple manipulation the idea also draws a symbolic

connection between the experience of childhood death and the life of ambition and darkness that lady macbeth has now

committed herself to after macbeth comforts his wife something not in the stage directions

but which nearly all productions share it seems as if a sort of gender transformation has occurred through this

metaphorical death of the infant lady macbeth has been born again as a man and perhaps even macbeth as the woman

obeying her whims bring forth men children only for thy undaunted metal should compose nothing but males

she is so manly macbeth tells us that even if she could give birth she could surely only ever give birth to male

children her earlier unsex me now speech in act 1 scene 5 has played out now to its

fullest logical conclusion and macbeth now recognizes her as something more like a man than like a woman

every bit as tough and ambitious as he is after a brief exchange where lady

macbeth outlines her plans to drug the king's bodyguard so they can stab them before leaving the daggers in those

bodyguards arms so as to incriminate them the scene ends with macbeth commanding them both to keep a falsely

cheerful face in the hours that are to come before duncan sleeps i'm settled and bend up

each corporal agent to this terrible feat away

and mock the time with fairy show false face must hide what the false hearts doth know

so the two of them returned to the dining table to share with duncan what only they know

will be his last meal on this earth what was set up from the first lines of the first scene is now at the conclusion of

act one set firmly and inevitably in motion the king will die