Consequently the words
of Lady Macbeth can have no reference to the previous communication
of any definite intention, on the part of her husband, to murder the
king; because, not long before, she professes herself aware that
Macbeth's nature is "too full of the milk of human kindness to catch
the nearest way;" indeed, she has every reason to suppose that she
herself has been the means of breaking that enterprise to _him_,
though, in truth, the crime had already, as we have seen, suggested
itself to his thought, "whose murder was as yet fantastical."
Again the whole tenor of this passage shows that it refers to verbal
communication between them. _But no such communication can have taken
place since Macbeth's rencontre with the witches_; for, besides that
he is, immediately after that recontre, conducted to the presence of
the king, who there signifies an intention of proceeding directly to
Macbeth's castle, such a communication would have rendered the
contents of the letter to Lady Macbeth completely superfluous. What
then are we to conclude concerning these problematical lines? First
begging the reader to bear in mind the tone of sophistry which has
been observed by Schlegel to pervade, and which is indeed manifest
throughout the persuasions of Lady Macbeth, we answer, that
she wilfully confounds her husband's,--probably vague and
unplanned--"enterprise" of obtaining the crown, with that "nearest
way" to which she now urges him; but, at the same time, she obscurely
individualizes the separate purposes in the words, "and to be _more_
than what you were, you would be so much more the man.
Pages:
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234