I first read The Tragedy of Macbeth during the coronavirus period in 2020 (July). I had read some classic literature books before but had really wanted to get my hands on something that was more classic, older, and more widely quoted. Macbeth seemed a small and possible gateway to Shakespearean literature.
Macbeth ended up being one of my most favorite and memorable reads. Perhaps it was due to the vibe that has been built around Shakespeare. Perhaps there is really an internal beauty. Either way, I was gripped into the simple yet influential tale of a Thane, Macbeth, who is prophesied by three witches to be the King of Scotland. The prophecy appears like a blessing, later proving to be but a curse.
I loved Macbeth so much that not only did I make extensive notes from it, I read and reread and reread it numerous times in the months to follow, as it became a gem of my little bookshelf.
One of my most cherished things about Macbeth are its quotes and bits of wisdom hither and thither. I would later find that there was so much I could sometimes relate to these quotes and dialogues, that I ended up deciding to post all my favorite quotes here on my blog, along with my own thoughts, related learnings, with snowflakes of sporadic experiences here and there. This can serve two purposes: one, that my own thoughts about the ideas of the play will be ironed out and organized, and two, that you - who are reading this - can have insights into the experimenting mind of a young literature admirer.
Enjoy!
#1 FAIR IS FOUL AND FOUL IS FAIR
Fair is foul and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
Fair is foul… is perhaps the most recognizable quote from Macbeth’s tragedy. It is the first sign of the nature of the play: numerous ironies, unpredictable happenings, foul appears fair and fair foul. Your first impressions of the Thane Macbeth are wonderful – you marvel at his bravery, how he slew the enemy by ripping the sword through his body up to his navel; you admire him. When you hear the prophesies you know the things have gotten somewhat darker, but you still think highly of Macbeth. But … fair is not always fair and foul not foul.
The fair Macbeth of today becomes a murderer tonight. Tomorrow he becomes a King and soon murders his best friend – how dark can it get?
It seems the prophesies are fair – how kindly they promise Macbeth and Banquo such positions. But soon they prove to be foul, more like a curse, because they become the root of the ruin of a kingdom and corruption of a good man.
With Lady Macbeth’s justifications, killing Duncan seems rightful; but when the “deed of dreadful note” has been done, you realize how foul it was.
Fair is foul… can perhaps be made the tagline of all the tragedies in the world. For example, that is something you observe in Hamlet too, where he talks of perspective: Nothing is good, nothing is bad, only our thinking makes it so.
In our approach towards life, we should keep reminding ourselves of this quote more times than possible: maybe what I’m trying to do is something wrong, that to me appears right; maybe someone has a point in doing something I think is foul and worthless and nonsensical, but it’s actually fair and valid.
Simply put: things are not always how we think they are. The world is not one single equation or formula.
As to why Shakespeare outrightly declares that fair is foul – and not only sometimes foul; and foul is fair – and not sometimes fair – is something I’m still confused about.
#2 WHY DO YOU DRESS ME IN BORROW'D ROBES?
The thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress me
In borrow'd robes?
(Act I, Scene III)
Macbeth says these words to Angus, a nobleman of Scotland when the latter calls him the “Thane of Cawdor”. Macbeth thinks that the previous thane of Cawdor is alive (and loyal) and hence is surprised at the statement, “He bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor.”
What’s the trouble with borrowed robes? The obvious answer is that they might either be tight and small or loosely fitting. If the person whose “robes are borrowed” is smaller than you, the robes might be tight for you; or on the contrary, if the other person is bigger, larger, the robes will be loose. That’s the reason we have tailors – so that each person can have robes as per his fit and match.
Which leads us to our next point. Borrowed robes might mismatch with ours, be it in color, fashion, style, design, or something else. They might look awkward on you, or, negatively, you might dishonor them or the original wearer, or both.
We might look awkward in borrowed robes, or we might ourselves be uncomfortable. In that sense, in most cases, borrowed robes are not good, and you should try to not be dressed in them.
Ironically, the same Macbeth, at one time in the play, wears borrowed robes of the king, and we find the same Angus saying: “Now does he feel his title/Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe/Upon a dwarfish thief.”
Even if you want to wear borrowed robes, you need to do either of the two things – either give the robes to a tailor and tell him to make them of your size; or you yourself need to put on some weight or go on dieting accordingly.
#3 PRESENT FEARS ARE LESS THAN HORRIBLE IMAGININGS
Present fears are less than
Horrible imaginings
(Act I, Scene III)
At the beginning f the pandemic, I had some ire horrible imaginings. Both due to lack of knowledge and lack of research, I’d be afraid of coronavirus as if it was a zombie microbe, making people either immediately dead or some sort of invalid.
But when the pandemic came nearer – first in my country, then in my state, my city, my area, then in families of acquaintance, I realized a “present fear”. But of course, it was less than my “horrible imaginings” of a zombie outbreak. The pandemic was deadly, but not so much that it killed everyone (yes, I used to imagine it like an apocalypse, and I held on to that belief for a very long time). The death rate was sometimes 1%, sometimes two, and sometimes three.
My present fear is that I might get infected by Covid-19 in real. But my horrible imagining is something worse – what will happen with me once I’m infected – will I be among those 1, 2, or 3 percent? Will my family ever be able to see me again…
They say that a man dies in his fear, in his imaginings. We fear an ant when it is on our hand, afraid that it might sting us. When it does, it is painful, but not mostly as much as we thought it would be. My imaginings of any exam I have to give are horrible, but when it reaches the present, the reality is mostly something else.
Macbeth’s fears are twofold: he’s torn between letting chance take reins and make him a King at the destined time, and killing King Duncan and quickening that process.
Is it a matter of choice, I’m tempted to think, between what to be afraid of – the real fear that exists, or just our imaginings? I find I’m still exploring this quote.
#4 IF CHANCE WILL HAVE ME KING
If chance will have me king, why
Chance will crown me,
Without my stir
(Act I, Scene III)
It’s a little hard to decide whether you want to agree with this quote or not. Could the three witches’ prophecies have been fulfilled and could Macbeth be the king if he didn’t kill Duncan? Or maybe, if you subscribe to the other school of thought, you might say that in any case, it was chance that made him king in the first place, as to why else would a brave, innocent and harmless man suddenly be so ambitious so as to kill his benefactor?
This can, however, lead to a fallacy. You cannot become William Shakespeare by chance, can you? You cannot leave it upon chance to make you Albert Einstein, can you? To be one of them, you’ve to forge yourself willingly every day, constantly improving and learning. You cannot say “If chance will have me Shakespeare, why, chance will give me words without my stir.”
On the other hand, it won’t be outrightly false to say that luck, circumstances, situations don’t matter. A YouTuber whom I follow, Ali Abdaal, gives a nice equation for success, saying it is a product of hard work, luck, and unfair advantages.
You can choose to stay confused about it, but the simple answer can be that success – that being a king – is not a result of one simple act or one simple chancery circumstance. It is a result of complex and intricate pathways, and some form of desire, hard work, and will can work to make it better.
However, the wiser people would believe in keeping working hard: wherever that meets an opportunity, luck will shine bright as a sun.
#5 TIME AND THE HOUR RUNS THROUGH THE ROUGHEST DAY
Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
(Act I, Scene III)
How true.
This quote appears as one of Macbeth’s asides when he’s considering his first ideas of achieving kingship earlier than destiny permits.
Time doesn’t wait. World doesn’t stop. Come whatever, the universe goes on. In a lecture, I heard a really wise man say, “If you become a doctor, nothing will happen. If you don’t become a doctor, then too nothing will happen.” The world doesn’t rest upon you, your acts.
Another fine advice I got was to not be too happy when there was a piece of happy news – because it would pass, and to not be too sad when there was a piece of sad news – that too, because, would pass. It is like seeing life in a bigger picture, seeing it in a full movie, and not as a short, temporal scene.
It sounds a bit sceptic, but everything is really short-lived.
Yesterday, I accidentally spilled coffee on my table. It hurt a lot. I was really thirsty for a cup of coffee, and for some reason, I was annoyed too at that time.
But today, when that event is a day old, I see it’s quite irrelevant in the bigger picture – it makes no perceptible impact!
Such is that big failure you think you had, and such is the failure you fear you’ll have – it’s just like coffee spilling!
#6 THERE IS NO ART TO FIND THE MIND’S CONSTRUCTION IN THE FACE
There is no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face:
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.
(Act I, Scene IV)
The Thane of Cawdor was a bad guy. He pretended he was on Scotland’s side, but when the war occurred, his true colors became visible, like a potato telling it has carbohydrates when passed through a chemical test. To his misfortune, the sided he supported ultimately lost, thanks to Macbeth’s bravery, and he was caught and must have been executed. King Duncan sighs the above words, articulating half the humanity’s prayer.
I often imagine that if the face could really show our mind’s construction, the world would either be a nice utopian heaven – in which no one would think ill of others, because of the fear of being exposed immediately – or the world would be a terrible, terrible hell, because everyone would know what everyone thought of each other. Everyone would hate everyone else, and we would all be skeptical, annoyed folks.
But I think God believed in a right to privacy to some extent, and so has kept such art to himself – for better or for worse, we can’t tell.
#7 STARS, HIDE YOUR FIRES
The Prince of Cumberland! that is a step
On which I must fall down, or else o’erleap,
For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desires:
The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be,
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.
(Act I, Scene IV)
“Stars hide your fires” is one of the first quotes that reveal how Macbeth’s desire for the throne and the crown took birth, was nurtured, and was executed. At this point, Macbeth has gone so far as to say the phrase, “my black and deep desires…”
Who are the stars, you question naturally. The first explanation, and the obvious one, is that the stars refer to the heavens, God, and the soul of the universe.
The second explanation can be that Macbeth tries to hide it from himself that he is murderous and ambitious. This seems correct when you read the next lines, which read “The eye wink at the hand… to see.”
But, as George Orwell writes in 1984, “If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.” The Macbeth couple’s troubles are not solely external – true, they’ve to fear Banquo, Macduff, and the king’s two sons, but they also face internal crises: has what they have done all for Banquo’s progeny? Have they done something wrong, unloyal? Was it a wrong decision to “catch the nearest way”? Before even they’ve been attacked, Lady Macbeth loses her wits, goes mad, and ends her own life. Macbeth is unstable too – sometimes extremely confident, sometimes very nervous and afraid.
Stars, it seems, failed to hide their fires, after all!
#8 TO BEGUILE THE TIME LOOK LIKE THE TIME
Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under’t.
(Act I, Scene V)
The scene is intense. Macbeth has just arrived from a war, with two good prophesies in his booty. King Duncan is coming for a night stay with his son, attendants, noblemen, and soldiers. Time is running. An ambition is involved. And a Lady Macbeth is desperate.
She takes a quick decision: if they’re to get kingship by “catching the nearest way”, they must do something with Duncan – preferably slay him while he sleeps. But hey must do so secretly, silently, in the dead of the night. The trouble is, her husband is “too full of the milk of human kindness”.
Being the dominant among the two, she orders the innocent chicken that he husband is to be the same in his desire and action, and for the time being “look like the time to beguile the time. She insists his face is as a book where men may read strange matters.She advises him to “look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under’t”.
#9 SAME IN THINE OWN ACT AND VALOUR AS THOU ARE IN DESIRE
Art thou afeared
To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire?”
(Act I, Scene VII)
When you read Macbeth, you come across a lot of quotes that talk on this theme: act and thoughts; valor and desire. Thane Macbeth’s desire is an evil one, he knows that. But when he’s finally persuaded by his wife, the desirous couple goes on to “do the deed of dreadful note” by killing King Duncan.
Let’s talk about eh two things: thoughts and actions; desires and valor. You thought of doing something evil, say, a murder or a theft – that is one thing. That can be upon an impulse, a provocation. But the actual act of committing that act is a completely different thing. In some situations, the line between the two is very blurry and thoughts directly lead to actions. Out of every ten people who murder someone, at least three or four – or even more – must be murdering upon an impulse.
Once conclusion that can be drawn is that being same in desire and valor, thought and action is not the correct thing to do in every situation.
No the correct thing in every situation but in certain situations. For example, it will be unwise to choose a profession that is not in consonance with your passion: while making a choice for a profession, one needs to try to be the same in acts and thoughts.
As we, however, continue to grow in terms of wisdom and depth of character, we permit only the right thoughts to come, we reach a stage when being the same in thoughts and actions, desire and valor is just second nature.
#10 'TIS THE EYE OF CHILDHOOD THAT FEARS A PAINTED DEVIL
Infirm of purpose!
Give me the dagger: the sleeping and the dead
Are but as pictures: ’tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil.
(Act II, Scene II)
Painting is great and I love them. I remember a painting I once made. It was sort of a poster, made when some big country had attacked a smaller one. I divided the sheet into two parts vertically and drew a soldier. The soldier’s face was on the left half, and on the right half was a skull, something like a monster.
And to be honest, I would fear it because a child I was then. Funny though it may seem – I had myself painted the devil and once I had made it, I mildly feared it. It was like the situation in the poem “Tyger” by William Blake: What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
A “painted devil” is of course a metaphor; but for what? Perhaps it means the sins we commit, the vices we have, and the harsh truths and realities we sometimes have to face. More grown people know how to come to terms with them, but it is “children” – the novice ones – who are afraid.
In Macbeth, the quote appears in the dialogue of Lady Macbeth, instructing her husband to not be too afraid about what they had done, asserting that “a little water clears us of this deed.”
Ironically, later in the book, the same Lady Macbeth who has gone out of sorts cannot bear an imaginary sight of blood. Funny how mind, nature, and words can play such games with us: when we pretend we are not children anymore, we are shown something of some kind, some other fiercer “painted devil” which truly scares us and makes us scream. I had observed a similar idea while observing George Orwell’s 1984 in which the protagonist, Winston Smith, who thought he was strong deep down inside, in love, in strength, in resolve, was actually broken up by the end of the book with something as simple (and yet scary!) as rats.
Conclusion: it is not always the eye of the childhood that fears a painted devil.
#11 WOULDST NOT PLAY FALSE, AND YET WOULDST WRONGLY WIN
Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o'the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest ways: thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly,
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win
Now it’s a tough situation. You don’t know the answers to the questions asked in the paper, but also don’t want to fail the exam. You know the person sitting on the seat in front of you has been writing continuously for the last one hour, and you might get a hint if you bend a tad and get a peek at his answers – except you you don’t want to cheat either. In short, you’re not ready to play false by cheating, but you also want to wrongly win – wrongly because you’re not prepared and still want to win: That victory will be morally wrong.
Lady Macbeth utters the said quote in her soliloquy after reading Macbeth’s letter about the prophecies of the weird sisters, and one of them coming out to be true. She means that her husband wants to achieve something wrong – he is ambitious – but wants to do it holily:
What thou wouldst highly
That wouldst thou holily.
If you think about it, we all face such situations frequently and know that it’s an intricate dilemma. The religious body comes for donation: you want to say no, you want a wrong victory, but also don’t want to play false – you want to do it “holily”.
Let’s call this situation “Killing-King-Duncan Case”, acronymed as K-K-D Case or simply KKDC. Now that I’ve given it a name, and have written about KKDC, whenever in life I face such a situation, I’ll recognize it is a K-K-D Case. Once I’ll recognize it, I’ll know Macbeth and his wife had to face dire consequences after their “wrong win”.
I’ll smile and not cheat.
I’ll smile and see if I can give the donation.
#12 THE ATTEMPT AND NOT THE DEED CONFOUNDS US
Alack, I am afraid they have awaked,
And 'tis not doen. The attempt and not the deed
Counfounds us.
(Act II, Scene II)
The contextual, the literal, and the derived meanings of this quote are three different things.
In the context of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth warns her husband that if they attempt to murder King Duncan and that attempt remains just an attempt and does not translate into the actual deed of him being murdered, is confounding, a trouble, something undesirable.
The literal meaning might be that the instance in which there is an attempt, but not the deed, is confounding.
The derived meaning is the one I like to apply in my own life. The act of trying if I can sing is my attempt. My not becoming a real singer – singing at a real place, like a gathering, a stage, on a video, etc. – means that I’ve not crowned my attempt with a deed. That might be either because I did not work sufficiently hard for it, or that becoming a singer was never a purpose: I just wanted to have fun. In the former case, the quote applies perfectly; in the latter, forget the quote and have fun.
#13 A LITTLE WATER CLEARS US OF THIS DEED
A little water clears us of this deed:
How easy is it, then! Your constancy
Hath left you unattended.
I can interpret water as many things: an act of trying to hide a deed; a little half-hearted repentance; or the act of forgetting about the deed. As Macbeth recalls, “Blood will have blood” and:
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 maggot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth
The secret'st man of blood.
The scene of Lady Macbeth – the famous speaker of this quote – going insane and being afraid of an imaginary blood on her hands in her sleep, is horrifying and heartbreaking. So tragic yet so true that however much we pretend that we are strong and are not affected, in the heart of hearts we have some fear of our bad deeds, our crimes, and sins. We’re afraid of getting caught. Above all, we ourselves – if the crime runs deep – give in to the darkness in it that the sinister part of us floats to the surface. Committing a “deed of dreadful note” is like committing to a pact which promises to fulfill some black desire we have, but in return snatches away all the peace of our heart and contentment of our mind.
I read somewhere about how can one identify an act of immorality. It was a very simple but beautiful definition: an act of immorality harms your soul: it makes it filthy. If upon killing King Duncan my soul feels stabbed, I’ve lost the better part of my sleep, then there must be one thing or another wrong in killing Duncan. And when you’ve stabbed him in his sleep, no matter how much you clean your hands with ordinary run-of-the-mill water, the signs of blood are going to survive and will reappear in time to come.
So – if you’ve not yet killed Duncan, tarry it – your heart will decide the better if given enough time. If you’ve killed Duncan already, try a pure whole-hearted remorse and then move ahead without letting “bad things begun make strong themselves by ill.”
#14 THE LABOUR WE DELIGHT IN PHYSICS PAIN
(Act II, Scene III)
It took me some time to decipher the meaning of this quote .
The word ‘physic’, when used as a verb, means ‘to treat with some medicine’. So ‘physics’ here means ‘cures’. This word is also the root of the well-known 'physician'.
Once you know this, this quote explains itself to you. The labor, which we delight in, physics (or cures) pain. The labor which gives us delight is not labor at all! Instead, it physics your pain!
Indeed.
One day, I was under the weather. Fever, combined with cold, cough, and sore throat. Lying on the bed, alert, doing nothing, was not only uninteresting, but it was also painful! That you are in pain, is ok. But reminding yourself that you are suffering from something over and over, is something that multiplies the same pain. This is simple psychology.
So I picked up a relaxing book. To be specific, it was Ruskin Bond’s first book which he wrote as a teenager, The Room on the Roof. It delighted me, and because I wasn’t permitted to do anything else that day, I managed to finish this book completely.
As I got engrossed in reading, I forgot about my fever. All I was concerned about was what would happen to poor Rusty after he ran from the house of his guardian after he had uncontrollably thrashed him! All through the reading process, the pain remained latent. When I was done with the reading and placed the book on the nightstand, and stretched my body, I was surprised: the feeling of being sick returned.
For my sickly body, reading might have seemed like labor. My back had to be straight to keep sitting, my eyes had to be on an endless occupation, and my brain was also not at rest. But none of this mattered because reading delighted me. I flowed with the words.
Although my fever returned afterward, yet it did not seem that grim. As if I had been cured, physicked in some way.
Indeed, indeed.
The labour we delight in physics pain!
#15 TO SHOW AN UNFELT SORROW IS AN OFFICE
What will you do? Let’s not consort with them:
To show an unfelt sorrow is an office
Which the false man does easy.
(Act II, Scene III)
Imagine this: The King has just been murdered in his sleep, and no one has a concrete clue who did this. It was suspected that the guards of the King were responsible (“those of his chamber”), but they have been butchered by an angry minister (more particularly, a thane, and even more particularly, Macbeth). There is hoo-hah all around and you, the assassinated King’s son, along with your brother, have no idea. Imagining yourself to be in the shoes of Malcolm and Donalbain, what do you think your first thoughts will be?
After all the initial lament on the King’s murder has been expressed, all the noblemen decide to “put on manly readiness, and meet i’the hall together” to discuss the fate of the kingdom. They exit, but remain behind the two sons, who are left to ponder over their own predicament: the one who had malice with their father could have malice with them too. They were going to be the next targets, if the murderer happened to be someone outside of the King’s guards.
At this point, Malcolm states that “to show an unfelt sorrow is an office which the false man does easy”. They also discuss how “there’s daggers in men’s smiles” and someone who is “the near in blood, the nearer bloody.”
“Unfelt sorrow” is a strong term, and so is “the false man”. The one who commits a murder with a prepared plan does not come unprepared. He must be knowing when to give a cry and when to wail, in order to fool the others of his sympathy. The fact that he is a false man, and has not yet been revealed, clearly means that he can pull off an “unfelt sorrow”, and if he’s able to do that, you cannot trust everyone so easily.
The lesson here is that every sorrow is not “felt”. Pretense is a thing, deception is a thing, and hence is an unfelt sorrow.
#16 THE HEAVENS, AS TROUBLED WITH MAN'S ACT
Ah, good father,
Thou seest, the heavens, as troubled with man’s act,
Threated his bloody stage; by the clock ’tis day
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp
(Act II, Scene IV)
Ah, finally I’m going to write about this quote. The first time I read it, I giggled slightly and was delighted.
It is before long that you realize the depth in the quote. For me, the definition of heaven can vary with context, and in the context of the said scene in the book, I like to think of heaven as nature, the environment that surrounds us: the earth. If you like to go further, I’ll say heaven refers to everything: the universe, in other words.
The first foundational thing I always like to take off from in such cases is that everything is alive in some sense. A rock may not be alive in the same way as me, but it is alive in its own way: in some unique way the alive universe chooses to keep it alive.
If everything around me is alive, it will tend to respond to my actions in some way. Some call it the law of Karma, others call Law of Attraction, others simply call it God. They say the vibe around a pessimist is usually discomforting. And then there are people whom you meet and that positive “bubble” stays with you for many days to come.
It follows pretty easily that when some man acts too cruelly towards his surroundings (which includes all life), some echo is bound to appear. Nature responds: sometimes it is in elation, sometimes it is bereaved and broken. It’s not always black and white but you’re able to tell through bright sunshine, black clouds, pretty springs, or gleaming lakes. You can always tell.
So yes, heavens are really appalled by man’s acts sometimes and you can see that too.
#17 HOW GOES THE WORLD, SIR, NOW?
They did so, to the amazement of mine eyes
That look’d upon’t. Here comes the good Macduff.
Enter Macduff
How goes the world, sir, now?
(Act II, Scene IV)
I like this quote because of its eternal nature. Even without knowing the context, you can feel the feel this quote is formed around: it’s like something you say when a storm has just ended, leaving behind broken huts, fallen trees, and carcasses of dead animals.
The real context is not too far away from this one we imagined: a king has been murdered in his sleep, and those who are suspected of killing him (his guards) have been killed too. King’s sons have fled, afraid of their own deaths, and everybody is taken aback by the death of such a worthy and great ruler.
Ross, one of the noblemen, questions Macduff, the Thane o Fife, how the world was going. It is a remark full of pity, full of pain, and yet tinged with a hope empty of faith.
Macduff has nothing much to reply either – or, to be more certain – no good news, and hence he gives a satirical retort: “Why, see you not?”
As we know, the world is changing. And it is changing every day. We can, in fact, ask ourselves this question every day: How goes the world, now, sir? Is it better? Is it worse? What can I do about it? Or what am I doing about it?
As for now, I think the world is sick and needs healing. And I’m sure, it was sick at that time too when Shakespeare wrote this play.
#18 TO BE THUS IS NOTHING
BUT TO BE SAFELY THUS
To be thus is nothing
But to be safely thus. - Our fears in Banquo
Stick deep
(Act III, Scene I)
What can we be with the safety and assurance that we’ll remain this forever? Here in India, the dream job many parents think of for their children is a govt job, because there is job security, because it is a difficult task to fire a government employee, and because of other timely benefits that the job provides.
Such is Lady Macbeth’s and her husband’s considerations upon the subject of ruling of a kingdom. What good is being a King and a queen if it is Banquo’s progeny who’ll ultimately be rulers? They are kings, but not safely.
I like to go further and think beyond the context and the first example. Is there really something that can be got and had permanently? No, man, you realize all of a sudden, it’s not possible, with current levels of technology, at least, to be anything with the safety that we’ll remain that forever. We cannot even remain a government employee forever!
Well, I’ve been talking about only professions so far. What about other things? you do not find much difference in these grounds too: you cannot remain someone’s son, someone’s husband, someone’s friend, someone’s father, forever. This is me being a bit skeptical, but that doesn’t make me false.
But … I like to look at it this way: in this interesting game of figuring out what’s eternal and what ephemeral, what comes with security and what doesn’t, is it not really our purpose to figure something out that comes with safety and security? That’s it!
#19 NOUGHT'S HAD, ALL'S SPENT
WHERE OUR DESIRE IS GOT WITHOUT CONTENT
Nought’s had, all’s spent,
Where our desire is got without content:
’Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
This reminds me of an anecdote. Those days, I was craving for a bicycle. It was for two reasons: one, that I had recently taken a ride on some bicycles that had been awesome to ride (of friends, in parks, etc.). Two, that I’d got admission to a new school that was some kilometers from house and I really yearned to go there every day on my own personal bicycle.
Long story short: I got a bicycle. For almost a week, I enjoyed the ride. Then came summers. Peddling the twenty-kg contraption, with my ten-kg schoolbag, with a forty-kg me – it was hard work. I’d reach home utterly spent and would sigh with such relief as if I’d got my paradise: I’d fall on our sofa and lie like that for fifteen minutes, doing nothing.
Then came a time when I began loathing the act of riding my bicycle altogether. I’d envy those who had scooters that required no peddling at all.
Earlier this used to remind me of the law in Economics: Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility; now it will remind me of the quote by the Shakespearean King of Scotland.
#20 ‘TIS SAFER TO BE THAT WHICH WE DESTROY
THAN BY DESTRUCTION DWELL IN DOUBTFUL JOY
Nought’s had, all’s spent,
Where our desire is got without content:
‘Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
(Act III, Scene II)
Doubtful joy is not joy at all – it’s a curse, it’s a mixed blessing.
When you skip important work and procrastinate to pay a computer game or to indulge in any other sort of undeserved recreation, you are joyful, delighted, but that is a doubtful delight because you feel joyful and guilty at the same time. If there is a doubt in a rebellion, it’s not pure rebellion. Doubt is like an adulteration. When you become a rebel and “murder” important work to do something else, and you have a dilemma regarding your decisions, it’s a bad thing.
King Duncan is dead, his body is at peace in a grave, and as Macbeth quotes:
Duncan is in his grave;
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.
Another quote resounds something similar:
We have scotch'd the snake
Not killed it.
I personally think the expression “doubtful joy” is amazing. An alternate one, a more poetic one, might be ‘doubtful delight’. Once you know it, you’ll start finding it at many, many places. Pretty much every joy is a doubtful joy, methinks. How to identify one? if a joy is very temporary, time-bound, temporal, short-lived, ephemeral, worldly, then it might be well a doubtful joy.
Let’s ponder over it together – let’s make a list of joys that can be called pure joys. Or is their only one…
#21 WE HAVE SCOTCH'D THE SNAKE
NOT KILLED IT
We have scotch'd the snake,
Not killed it
(Act III, Scene II)
This happens with a lot of us lots of times. We procrastinate, it gives us a sense of temporary relief, and we think we’ve got our freedom, but when deadlines come closer, we realize how erratic we had been. By procrastinating, we scotch it, we inebriate the task, but after the influence gets over, the snake wakes up again, angrier than it was before.
The Macbeth couple thought that by killing King Duncan, they would have achieved everything ... they would be ruler for the rest of their lives. That was an impulse. They thought they were killing something that could sting them, and act as a barrier in the way of the prophecies. They thought they were killing the snake.
But later they began to realize that Killing Duncan was just one small piece in a domino of crimes, one starting point. There was Banquo, then there was his son Fleance, then Macduff, then the two sons of King Duncan, Malcolm and Donalbain.
Everything they killed someone, be it Banquo or Macduff’s family, they thought they were giving poison to the snake – but they were always wrong. It was not poison, it was just some wine, which put the snake to sleep for some tie. With every instance, the snake was fiercer, and eventually, stung the couple one by one, backfiring all their evil and wicked charms.
#22 DUNCAN IS IN HIS GRAVE
Duncan is in his grave;
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.
(Act III, Scene II)
Truly, King Duncan went to his grave peacefully, and his last alive expressions were that of happiness and contentment. Isn’t it ironic that Macbeth and his wife killed King Duncan to be happier, because they would be King and Queen, but end up becoming sadder, shattered, devastated, while Duncan rested in his grave, all the time, in peace?
In that sense – they didn’t kill Duncan – because Duncan we happy in his sense and Duncan is happy n his unconscious sleep – but instead ended up killing two other unpredicted things: their own goodness, and their own contentment.
Crime is an easy thing. I can pick a knife today and commit a murder with my eyes blindfolded. But what follows a crime, a sin is what is tough, unsettling. We do not by our actions deceive or wrong anyone – we wrong ourselves.
At another level, they’ve also done Duncan a favor. This is the vantage point Macbeth takes in his speech: that they’ve unintentionally benefitted Duncan, in the sense that now Duncan is protected by the earth, and cannot be further touched by sword, poison, malice, levy, nothing.
The point is, Duncan sleeps well, but Macbeth, who is wide awake, is baffled, torn between what he should do and should not. While Duncan sleeps well.
#23 THINGS WITHOUT ALL REMEDY SHOULD BE WITHOUT REGARD
Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what’s done is done.
(Act III, Scene II)
And aha! Such a piece of wisdom served in such delightful brevity. What I cannot change, should not have my worry.
Once upon a time about a year ago, I found a beautiful flowchart on YouTube. It had been posted by a Hindu monk, Gaur Gopal Das.
It began with one simple question: “Do you have a problem in life?” There were, as should be, two options: YES and NO. If no, it said, then why worry? If yes, then it asked another question: “Can you do something about it? If yes – then why worry? If no – then why worry?
Oftentimes, we’re fretting about things beyond our control, expressing sorrow over things that do not have much impact on us, worrying about trifle things that do not have much to do with a larger life we live.
There is a lot of talk these days about setting up goals that are in our control. For example: instead of setting up a goal that I should score so and so in exams, my goal should be to study so and so hours each day.
And since the result that comes as a result is something out of my direct control, it is not something that should worry me: because if it is without remedy, in most cases it should be without regard.
#24 THINGS BAD BEGUN MAKE STRONG THEMSELVES BY ILL
Thou marvell'st at my words: but hold thee still;
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill
(Act III, Scene II)
It’s similar to saying that to conceal one lie, you’ve to tell a hundred more lies, which is true. I have got a personal experience to narrate here – but don’t hate me too much after that.
I was late to school one day – I might have then been in my mid-teenage years. The morning prayer was over and I had been made to stand at the school gate while the prayer was being recited – that was the tradition with late-comers.
However, my worse fear that day lay in thinking what would my class teacher think when I would suddenly pop up while he was taking the roll call.
I began to think of things I would say to her when she’d ask me why I was late while I was climbing the stairs of the school Thankfully, my class was on the top floor, which gave me time to think. Could I say I had been called to the school office? What should I say was the reason for that – did the cashier have some work with me? Was there some problem with my fees? Were some details of mine required?
Alas, my classroom arrived before I could jump at a decision. I entered the classroom and honestly confessed: “Madam, I was late.” I was given a polite caution, a set of stares from other kids, but that was that and then it was over and a normal day ahead.
Now that I think about it, I find that my act of being late was my first mistake – the first “thing bad” – the first “lie”. Then thinking what should I do in order to save my face, that was another bad thing, a second “lie”. Then telling a false reason, why I had been in the office, that would have been a third lie, the third bad thing.
Thankfully, I stopped after the first, later realizing, really, that “things bad begun could have made strong themselves by ill!”
#25 O, FULL OF SCORPIONS IS MY MIND, DEAR WIFE!
O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!
Thou know'st that Banquo, and his Fleance, lives.
(Act III, Scene II)
Scorpions sting. Their claws are sharp and especially meant for attacking. Macbeth, when he says his mind is full of scorpions does not simply mean he is confused or baffled – he means, instead, that there is some battle going on in his mind, the spears and arrows in which sometimes land on its surface and sting him like a scorpion. Relatable?
After I had finished the second reading of George Orwell’s 1984, I experienced such a battle on the grounds of my mind. In my mind had arisen some very serious controversy and the battle had filled my mind with scorpions for days to follow.
In the play, it is an iconic line, a real symbol, a shred of evidence that Macbeth realized how bewildered he was about managing his own thoughts and how troubled. You’ve committed a murder and are about to commit another. You are in fear that all the effort of your first murder can go down the drain if no action is taken soon.
How can, in such a case, a mind have something else, other than sharp-clawed, scissor-like, angrily-battling scorpions?
#26 THERE SHALL BE DONE A DEED OF DREADFUL NOTE
Then be thou jocund: ere the bat hath flown
His cloister’d flight, ere to black Hecate’s summons
The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums
Hath rung night’s yawning peal, there shall be done
A deed of dreadful note.
(Act III, Scene II)
Not only do the ‘d’ in deed and ‘d’ in dreadful make an awesome alliteration but also form a phrase powerful enough to send chills down your spine. Every suspenseful book has some sentence placed somewhere which possesses such a capability. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, I found that sentence to be when Lord Voldemort orders his servant Peter Pettigrew to untie Harry because he wanted to duel with him and kill him there and then. In 1984, this sentence was when O’Brien says ‘Room 101’. In Order of the Phoenix, it was when Dumbledore says, “Please sit down, Harry, I’m going to tell you everything.”
Similar is “There shall be done/a deed of dreadful note.” Macbeth’s ambitions couldn’t have been put into any better words than these.
If you’ve ever played an instrument, you’ll know that we usually play music using the notes which are around the center. As for myself, I have never played nor have seen someone play either button of the two extremes. Not only are they difficult to match with your own vocal cords, but also do not sound very pleasant.
Let’s try to ask: where on the scale is a dreadful note present? Wherever it be if such a note were really present it would have been placed around either of the extremes – too high or too low. A deed of dreadful note scares not only the listener to the song, but also the singer: because it is dreadful.
Now that Macbeth has articulated his next ambitious desire to his wife, and now that he has already talked with two murderers, we know things are not going to be too easy for anyone. And we know that tonight, Banquo is not safe.
#27 WITH MOST ADMIRED DISORDER
You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting,
With most admired disorder.
(Act III, Scene IV)
Aha! One of my most favorite quotes, now!
Shakespeare didn’t always write tragedies. Before them, he wrote several comedies (yes, one man did both in one life). At the time of writing this, I have not yet read any of them, but I can imagine how good they must be. You find a similar tragicomic remark in Hamlet:
HORATIO
My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.
HAMLET
pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student;
think it was to see my mother’s wedding.
Ever since I’ve read the quote, I’ve found myself using the phrase “breaking with most admired disorder” numerous times. It’s funny, it’s sarcastic, it’s classic, it’s lovely.
I learned one more such remark when I read The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch: “Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” Whenever you want to change the topic, redirect the conversation, remark something funny, the quote comes to our rescue.
Similar is “most admired disorder”.
#28 WE ARE YET BUT YOUNG IN DEED
Come, we’ll sleep. My strange and self-abuse
Is the initiate fear that wants hard use:
We are yet but young in deed.
(Act III, Scene IV)
This one is a remarkable quote uttered by Macbeth, sometime after he has killed Duncan the king and Banquo the friend, and has been terrified by how blood would have blood, how stones would move, trees would speak, and how “Augurs and understood relations” would “by magot-pies and coughs and rooks” bring forth the “secret’st man of blood”.
Even if young in deed, Macbeth knows, at least, that he is a man of blood: he recognized the gravity of his crime, consequences he can have to face, even how such deeds do not remain hidden for long, and finally also recognizes, a in this quote, that he is not really made up of the stuff that could commit a crime and get away with it so easily. Macbeth knows he is wrong, and to put a curtain over that, he must commit more wrongs, be it killing his own true friend, or butchering the family of a man loyal to the nation.
The word “young” perhaps could also be a metaphor, a hind. Young age – youth – is quick, it’s experimenting, less thoughtful, inexperienced, and so and so. In that light, the quote attains another dimension of meaning. But what Macbeth is young in, is perhaps one of the few things in which you would generally not like the idea of freely being experienced and old!
#29 RIDDLES AND AFFAIRS OF DEATH
How did you dare
To trade and traffic with Macbeth
In riddles and affairs of death
(Act III, Scene V)
Witches play a really important role in Macbeth. Two of the most famous dialogues from this play – “Fair is foul and foul is fair…” and “Double double, toil and trouble – are uttered by none other than witches. They are wicked, they are mischievous, they are dark, they are sometimes wise, sometimes foolish, and they also happen to have a boss – Hecate. Hecate is the Greek goddess of magic, witchcraft, and all dark things you can imagine in one go – night, moon, ghosts, and necromancy.
And like all good bosses, she reprimands her witchly employees for they have “trafficked” and “traded” with Macbeth in “riddles and affairs of death”. “Riddles and affairs of death”, now, is an interesting term. Is death really a riddle? Death is mostly a sudden, unexpected thing unless it comes when you are hundred years old. All the suspense ends if you know exactly when you are going to die. About birth, you become aware before nine months, but death is abrupt. This moment you are indulged in this work as if it matters, and next thing you are gone forever.
For that matter, death really seems like a riddle. The first time I encountered the phrase, I couldn’t help wondering: the three witches have not even mentioned death in their conversation with Macbeth – they’ve just made three prophesies. Upon analyzing, you find, however, that if witches could have predicted those things about Macbeth and Banquo, could they not have foreseen the paths Macbeth would take?
I personally believe that every prophecy has a way of coming true if it does. If the witches didn’t tell Macbeth about him being the King, the prophecy would have been non-existent in the first place. The fact that they told him about it, laid the ground for the prophecy to be true.
But you cannot deny that it came at the expense of a Kingdom. And Hecate was angry for that – because of all the hubbub created by the employees under her boseship.
#30 SPURN FATE, SCORN DEATH
He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
He hopes ’bove wisdom, grace and fear:
And you all know, security
Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.
(Act III, Scene V)
Am I allowed to call this one of Shakespeare’s finest quotes? Brevity is the soul of wit, Shakespeare lives by that: four lines are enough for the good Hecate to explain why it was a mistake to “trade and traffic with Macbeth in riddles and affairs of death”.
Some student out there might be able to relate to this: when your result for an exam is unreleased yet, you speak very little, you are silent, afraid of saying anything as if that would change anything. Fancy someone coming and sharing the information that you have topped the exam – 90% of your fears end at that point itself. Even though you have not seen your marks, you know you are secure – you suddenly are quite confident.
Similarly, Hecate quotes that once Macbeth hears things that will be shared with him, he will feel secure, become confident, soon overconfident, so much so that he should “spurn fate, scorn death, and bear He hopes ‘bove wisdom, grace, and fear”.
Similar words are found when in the very first scene of the very next Act where the Second Apparation says:
“Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn The power of man, for none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth.”
#31 SECURITY IS MORTALS' CHIEFEST ENEMY
He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
He hopes ’bove wisdom, grace and fear:
And you all know, security
Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.
(Act III, Scene V)
The realization was a bit late to come, but when I realized that “security” did not really mean “security” as it is, but instead a “false sense of security”, I could really admire the quote more fully. Watchmen is a must to ensure that thieves don’t strike, but if you then forget to lock the gate of your house, it will be a grave mistake: this doesn’t mean that the watchman was unnecessary or should be removed, but instead that we were wrong to assume that we were completely secure.
At some point, this becomes a little contradictory. One person would say that a sense of safety is necessary or else one would live in fear, which is true. A growth instilled in an environment of confidence might be more fruitful than the one in fear. The other person would say that when sure of protection and security, a person tends to become lethargic. This also seems true, because students tend to study more when exams are nearby. After all, security then seems slack.
My instinct here is to think that we are confusing between two different things: security and protection, and trust and confidence. While the former may really make us lazy and lethargic, the latter is really crucial for good growth.
But what’s the difference, one might ask, between the first group – security and protection – and the second group – trust and confidence? When you sit to think, you find that the difference is marked by a highly fine line – a line just an atom thick. Simply put, when trust becomes overconfidence and instead an obstruction in the path of our action, we can easily say that it has become a sense of “security”. It’s a fine line difference.
But I must confess, this is purely my assumption, and I’m yet to conduct my full tests about the idea!
#32 DOUBLE, DOUBLE TOIL AND TROUBLE
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
(Act IV, Scene I)
This quote, I think, has influenced a whole culture. Seldom comes a quote that is so wicked, descriptive, imaginative, and poetic at the same time.
Act four of Macbeth opens with the three witches preparing something magical and wicked in a cauldron, in which they add poison’d entrails, a toad, fillet of a fenny snake, a newt’s eye, a frog’s toe, bat’s wool, dog’s tongue, adder’s fork, blind-worm’s sting, lizard’s leg, owlet’s wing, dragon’s scale, wolf’s tooth, witches’ mummy, maw and gulf of a shark, a Jew’s liver, goat’s gall, slips of yew, Turk’s nose, Tartar’s lips, baby’s finger, tiger’s entrails and to cool it all, baboon’s blood.
The scene couldn’t have been darker. The fact that all these myriad things were mentioned and in the form of well-rhyming poetry, is amazing.
Some of my favourite lines from this memorable scene are:
1. Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’the charmed pot.
Here I like how into dark details Shakespeare has gone in order to describe the scene to its perfection. The subtlety in the poetry – the depiction of the scene – everything is just fine.
2. For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
I like the refrain – the repetition of “powerful trouble” and “boil and bubble”.
3. Cool it with a baboon’s blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.
Just love the rhyming!
4. And now about the cauldron sing,
Live elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.
I appreciate the irony here: how after naming and adding into a bubbling cauldron all the things that could be associated with darkness and evil, the witches are talking of fairies.
5. By the pricking of my thumb,
Something wicked this way comes.
They are prophetic witches after all!
The real fun is when Macbeth arrives at the scene and challenges the witches to tell him further. His dialogue is no less enchanting:
I conjure you by that which you profess,
Howe'er you come to know it, answer me.
Though you untie the winds and let them fight
Against the churches; though the yeasty waves
Confound and swallow navigation up;
Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down;
Though castles topple on their warders' heads;
Though palaces and pyramids do slope
Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure
Of nature's germens tumble all together,
Even till destruction sicken; answer me
To what I ask you.
All I have to say is, it couldn’t have been better and darker. Shakespeare has taken the pain to research and write this, and we are delighted!
#33 BE IT THOUGHT AND DONE
Crown my thoughts with acts
Be it thought and done
(Act IV, Scene I)
Most failures arise from having great ideas and ideals in mind but not translating them to acts. If Einstein merely thought about the Relativity Theory and did not act by writing it down, we wouldn’t know either of them, and the world might have been different.
However, when you think about it, you realize it’s a scary thing too – being thought and without wait done. Upon an impulse, you think of a cold-blooded act, and imagine what if it is done immediately!
Shouldn’t this be then our ultimate aim to reach a stage where the only kind of thoughts we have are thoughts that can be acted upon and not just termed as wasteful and can be neglected?
This places us on an important conclusion, or an important question: are all those thoughts that cannot be “done” useless and meaningless? Perhaps. It is wisdom to pick “actionable” thoughts from “unactionable” ones.
My aim is to reach a stage where I only have thoughts that can allow me to “be thought and done.”
#34 YOU KNOW NOT WHETHER IT WAS HIS WISDOM OR HIS FEAR
You know not
Whether it was his wisdom or his fear
(Act IV, Scene II)
Abstract nouns are really trouble sometimes. When there is this thing in my hand, you can easily tell whether it is a pen or not. But when I am in a fight, and I know I’m going to lose, and I manage to escape, decided that I’ll prepare myself and give back a better punch, it is difficult to decide whether it was fear or wisdom. One school of people will say it was outright fear because I chose to escape when I was in trouble. Others will say it was my wisdom because it is just foolishness to stand there and let yourself be beaten.
On one hand, Macbeth has been warned by the apparitions that Macduff might be to him a danger. Though Macbeth is confident that he won’t lose power, yet he says he’ll make sure to kill Macduff to cut any risk. On the other hand, Macduff has already sensed some danger, combined with the fact that he wants to team up with Malcolm and other armies batching up to rise against Macbeth’s tyranny.
Macduff knows that he will be an asset if he joins those armies. It is an unworthy risk to stay back at home, just to prove he is brave. For a while, it might seem that two intrinsic values – bravery and wisdom – come to conflict. But then you realize that the definition of bravery you’ve been holding for so long is faulty because there’s a caveat. Bravery is fine until it turns to foolishness.
However, Macduff’s decision to escape is still contradictory because if he had already senses danger, why did he leave his wife and son behind to die? Someone might say that he must have tried, but his wife – who could be a “foolish brave” – negated and stayed behind with her chicken.
Macduff survived – proving to be a real asset for forces against Macbeth, as his escape proves fruitful. His wife and son were killed.
Abstact nouns are really perplexing!
#35 NAY, HOW WILL THOU DO FOR A HUSBAND?
“… how wilt thou do for a father?”
“Nay, how will thou do for a husband?”
(Act IV, Scene II)
One of the most profound conversations in Macbeth is the conversation between Lady Macduff and her son. Both are professors of their own schools of thought. Whereas Lady Macduff believes in bravery and hates cowardice, and is ready to leave a husband who left them both in peril, her son is of the belief that his father might have been right, and it was rather spry of his mother to decide to leave her husband.
The conversation that occurs is a masterpiece.
Lady Macduff asks:
Sirrah, your father’s dead;
And what will you do now? Wow will you live?
Her son curtly replies:
As birds do mother.
In my copy of Macbeth, I marked these dialogues with a sign of “star”. It is still one of my favorite dialogues of all time. The son might not be believing that his father is dead – but he says, even if he’s dead, that should not mean such a big deed. He will live like birds do – with whatever they get. Life will not end.
His mother goes on to ask again:
Yes, he is dead; how wilt thou do for a father?
He replies:
Nay, how will you do for a husband?
She is slightly annoyed by the question, but chooses to answer, rather haughtily:
Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.
In answer comes a powerful reply:
Then you’ll buy ’em to sell again.
Question is on commitment. If you cannot commit to one, you cannot be sure of a long-term commitment to others.
The scene is intense: a combination of various verbal punches and strong dialogues. There is surely a situation of crisis, but Shakespeare serves it with a great delight.
#36 YET GRACE MUST STILL LOOK SO
That which you are my thoughts cannot transpose:
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell;
Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,
Yet grace must still look so.
(Act IV, Scene III)
What if all the corrupt politicians in the world suddenly decide to wear good, graceful suits to “look” innocent, graceful, true, and honest, and what if we come to know about that? This is a thought experiment: will the people who are really, truly honest, decide to shun wearing suits altogether so that their way is different from the corrupt politician's way? Or will they say: let them look falsely honest in their suits, we will keep wearing our suits because that is how we are?
We do not suddenly stop doing things because assumingly wrong people are doing them too. If bin-Laden waws alive and he started listening to soulful music, would I stop listening to them because he also listened to them?
Hence the quote: “Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, yet grace must still look so.”
Grace is a virtue. It’s something that can be true, something attained by work, or it can be a false one, a pretentious, unoriginal grace. Even if some “foul” person tries to act like his style is graceful, really graceful people should just ignore, and keep looking graceful, in the truest sense of the word.
#37 O MY BREAST, THY HOPE ENDS HERE!
Fare thee well!
These evils thou repeat’st upon thyself
Have banish’d me from Scotland. O my breast,
Thy hope ends here!
(Act IV, Scene III)
Malcolm and Macduff’s conversation in Act 4, Scene 3 is surely one of the most interesting and iconic ones in the whole play. You are fascinated firstly, by what Malcolm tells you: how he is extremely voluptuous, avaricious, and how if he “had […] power, I should/Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,/Uproar the universal peace, confound/All unity on earth.” Secondly, you sympathize with Macduff, who seems to have no hope left – his family has been murdered in front of you and he is yet to receive the news; and now King’s own son, the next candidate for the throne, has revealed how full of vices he is.
The third fascination abruptly introduces itself when Malcolm suddenly reveals he is none of what he said, and that he was merely checking Macduff – how he is “yet/Unknown to woman, never was forsworn,/Scarcely have coveted what was mine own,/At no time broke my faith, would not betray/The devil to his fellow and delight/No less in truth than life …”
One of the sighs and heaves that lead Malcolm to finally secure his trust with Macduff happens at the tipping point of the sigh, “O my breast, thy hope ends here.” It’s a true explanation, full of honest pain for his motherland.
However, this is not how ending hope suddenly survived: we find out, minutes later, how the news of his family’s slaughter is received by him: How no tears roll down for a while, everything is silent as if preceding a storm, and the first words that appear are “my kids too?”
Hence Shakespeare makes the play live up to its original idea of “Fair is foul and foul is fair” – you cannot believe what you see!
#38 BLUNT NOT THE HEART, ENRAGE IT
Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief
Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.
Malcolm says this to Macduff after the news of the latter’s family’s murder has been delivered. In the aftermath of any news of predicament, we can react in one of two ways. Murder is a big thing: let’s take an easy example: you’ve been caught lying and have been severely scolded. After you reach home, you can do one of the two things: blunt your heart, slay your hopes and loathe yourself for being so bad. Or alternately, you can pay a brief, pure, true regret, and then decide to move on with that memory and lesson in mind.
Easy though it sounds, it’s not always a piece of cake to choose “enraging” over “blunting” because the former requires active action and stronger resolve. It requires a person who is strong inside.
As we see in Macbeth, Macduff whose “chickens and their dame” has been killed, chooses to enrage his heart, declaring:
But gentle heavens,
Cut short all intermission: front to front
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword’s length set him; if he ’scape,
Heaven forgive him too!
Due to this rage, Macduff succeeds in killing Macbeth at the end, doing a small justice to his murdered family.
Some people give for such situations another rule of thumb: if the bad thing is going to impact you after five years, then you should express anger or sadness on it. If it’s a commonplace or a little thing like getting a bad grade on a small test, you should not be sad about it.
But that’s a rule for beginners in stoicism. As you grow in patience and wisdom, you’ll realize that unnecessary anger and sadness are not needed at all: that’s not what winners do. They do not blunt the heart on receiving disappointing news: they enrage it!
#39 OUT, DAMNED SPOT!
Out, damned spot! out, I say!
(Act V, Scene I)
While her husband says “Out, out brief candles”, Lady Macbeth says “Out, damned spot.” Both are befuddled by one thing that they want to get rid of. For Macbeth, it is the brevity in life and honor. For Lady Macbeth, it is signs of her crimes that have been left behind unerased.
If you study it, it is a painful dialogue, this whole nightmarish sleepwalking heard-by-doctor-and-gentlewoman soliloquy of Lady Macbeth is a painful record, issuing from a heart that is “sorely charged.”
The full dialogue goes like this:
Out, damned spot! out, I say!—One: two: why,
then, ‘tis time to do’t.—Hell is murky!—Fie, my
lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we
fear who knows it, when none can call our power to
account?—Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him.
Saint Kabir ji has a beautiful couplet which reads like this:
Kabeer Supanai Hoo Bararraae Kai Jih Mukh Nikasai Raam ||
Thaa Kae Pag Kee Paanehee Maerae Than Ko Chaam ||63||
This loosely translates into:
Kabeer, if someone utters the name of the Lord even in dream,
I would make my skin into shoes for his feet.
This is amazing. We might try to hide our virtues and vices, but when either of them is in a good quantity it begins to be reflected in our personality. If someone enchants God’s name in sleep, this surely must mean he is a real devotee. Similarly, if someone utters things of the like Lady Macbeth did, it clearly drops hints about her personality and deeds.
Is a secret a secret? Does concealing work? What use is hiding anything? These are interesting questions.
#40 WHAT A SIGH IS THERE! THE HEART IS SORELY CHARGED
What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.
(Act V, Scene I)
Act V contains some of the saddest scenes in Macbeth. You feel sorry at the state of Lady Macbeth, who sleepwalks and dreams of an imaginary blood and being perplexed when in her subconscious mind she is unable to wash away its signs, and you feel sorry at the new Macbeth – who is arrogant and annoyed and disturbed, sometimes too much overconfident and sometimes too much weak to say “Out, out, brief candles”.
Act V opens with a doctor conversing with a Gentlewoman appointed in Lady Macbeth’s service, taking information about her health. Just as they are talking, Lady Macbeth enters with a candle in her hand, sleepwalking, with her eyes open but their sense shut. The first thing she says is a bit of a heave, a painful sigh – a scream of the heart. Her words are: “Yet there’s a spot.”
As the doctor prepares to take note of what she says, she continues in her nightmare-like state – “Out, damned spot! out, I say!” When the spot left by blood doesn’t go, she remarks – “Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.”
At last, after doubting if her hands would “ne’er be clean?”, she lets out another painful sigh – “Here’s the smell of blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!”
At this point, the doctor has nothing left to say, but “What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.”
#41 NOW DOES HE FEEL HIS SECRET MURDERS STICKING ON HIS HANDS
Now does he feel
His secret murders sticking on his hands;
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands move only in command
Nothing in love.
(Act V, Scene II)
It is not uncommon for a person to repent for his crimes – however small they be – sometime after he has committed them. As we are committing our share of “murder”, we try to find some form of satisfaction in the moment we are doing it: whether, then, it is theft, or corruption, or cheating, or some “sin”. Most of the times, the theft that we do has no motivation than one of our own. And that only is the kind of act that we count towards deciding punishment.
Like it is with Macbeth, we find the remnants of our murders, our crimes, sticking to our hand, and no amount of handwashing helps. Remind me of the dialogue of Lady after after King Duncan has been murdered: “A little water clears us of this deed.” – Ah, Mrs Macbeth, that is not how deeds get cleared!
We find the same Lady Macbeth being disgusted by an imaginary blood on her hands while in sleep, later in the play.
“Murders sticking to one’s hands” can also mean multiple things: evidences not being dead, not being satisfied due to regret and remorse, or facing some punishment. It seems in the context of he play, all three are correct to some extent, simultaneously.
What’s the solution, then? The best way to prevent a crime is to delay it. Thinking of stealing a candy from a store? Wait for another two minutes, and delay it further later. When you delay something, some personal tussle gives you time to make a rational decision.
Delay the murder, that’s the solution!
#42 THOSE HE COMMANDS MOVE ONLY IN COMMAND NOTHING IN LOVE
Now does he feel
His secret murders sticking on his hands;
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands move only in command
Nothing in love.
(Act V, Scene II)
Is is said that a good leader is the one who generates in his team a motivation for the team’s purpose, and not just makes them work as per his personal plan. And organization with even a one-strong army of motivated people can perform better. Those who see their leader as a person to look up to, to draw motivation from – a leader such as APJ Abdul Kalam, Missile Man and former President of India – work with love in full zeal. The final product that is created is more meaningful, better and workable, in most cases. Systems and command are necessary but when work is done soaked in love, there’s no match.
When I read about the Battle of Chamkaur, I was caught in wonder as to how a forty-strong army could fight an opposite army of not hundreds, not thousands, but a million? Perhaps the latter would have more strength and management given such numbers and respective resources. But to one’s utter surprise, the 40 win because they were not fighting upon a mere “command”, they were playing in the name of love for their God, their Guru.
It is amazing that an army that fights due to its love and true obedience has some hidden power than the one that acts in order, even if the latter has more muscle and more. What, then, should the definition of a good leader?
#43 A GIANT'S ROBE UPON A DWARFISH THIEF
Now does he feel
His secret murders sticking to his hands;
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe
Upon a dwarfish thief
(Act V, Scene II)
The quote is spoken by Angus, a nobleman, to another, in reference to Macbeth’s act of murdering King Duncan. The quote brings out the fact that one may be able to snatch a honorable position or possession from someone, without being capable for it. I can also relate this quote to another one that appears in the first act, third scene, when Macbeth himself to the same Angus says:
The Thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress me
In borrow’d robes?
(Act I, Scene II)
It is an irony that the Macbeth who did not think it apt to be in someone else’ robe, especially if it was borrowed or unfitting, grew up gradually into someone who was wearing a largely unfitting robe of the kingdom’s biggest authority.
Both the quotes raise questions about one’s true ability for a position. Taking a position is no big deal: the question is whether you are really capable or deserving for it or not. Life is mostly about such abilities. Do you have all the abilities to be a right and just king? If yes, then even if you are not a King, you’ll be working efficiently in most of the jobs that are beneath that position, because you have gained that capability.
I think this is what our approach to life should be. Want to be an engineer? Work so hard that you gain that capability, ability, skill, aptitude. Once you have it, whether you clear some engineering exam or not doesn’t matter; because if you have built the capability, you’re going to find a way to do something that engineers do.
When I first really understood the concept of human development, I was surprised and mildly pleased: human development was not defined as having more possessions: human development was all about capacity and capability building: how beautiful!
A lot of people nowadays want to be rich and popular and successful without being worthy of that. I have also heard people talking of ‘buying’ fake followers. In these cases, the resultant happiness will be ephemeral and the giant’s robe will slip and will show true dwarfishness.
#44 OUT, OUT BRIEF CANDLE!
Out, out brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
(Act V, Scene V)
A beautiful description of life, that, isn’t it?
“Out, out, brief candle” is perhaps one of the most enthralling quotes of Macbeth. It sends chills down the body, and the following sentences further fuel that strange engine. What is life? it forces us to ask ourselves. Is it a brief candle? A temporary light that will eventually blow away? Is it a tale told by an idiot? Does it really signify nothing? True, you think – it’s full of sound and fury and vigor and pretense that is means something – but absent one breath, and everything is gone.
Sure, the questions are perhaps many times direr than they sound.
Such questions occur to us really in times of crisis – Macbeth is knee-deep into one – he knows he has lost – or at least he is doubtful of his winning. He fears his life will soon end. Forest of Birman also starts approaching the castle of Dunsinane, and there is an unknown fear that he is frightened by. Upon such an impulse, he feels something painful and exclaims: “Out, out, brief candle!”
In my view, that is just one way of looking at it. It’s true – it’s a brief candle because it has to come to an end, it has to extinguish. It’s true – life appears like a walking shadow – like a poor performance. True - it seems to signify nothing, it’s just a random subset of random incidents. That – this all – is just one way of looking at it.
Meaning of life – that perhaps is the most important and most perplexing of all questions. What does everything mean? Why am I here? Why is everything how it is? It’s like standing in the middle of a dark random universe, and wondering where we are!
When you think at this level, you find that ‘brief candle’ is not just about a human’s life. A planet with its life, a start with its fire, a galaxy with it elements – all are brief candles burning for some time and finally coming to an end. Some scientists have also talked of a “Big Crunch” at some point of time, contrary to a “Big Bang”.
And yet.
And yet.
Life can mean something. This is just an opinion, something I have learned, that even a brief candle can mean something – it has to spread light. What is the purpose of a candle – it has to burn as bright as it can before dying out. There is this amazing quote by George Bernard Shaw, which, I think answers the ‘Question of Brief Candle’ perfectly:
“Life is no brief candle for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to furture generations.”
Life can be meaningful. Life is endless. Life never dies, it never ends. A legacy never stops – it passes on.
The Question of Brief Candles cannot be fully answered, not be me, not in the language we speak or write in. But I know – it is my belief – and might be yours too – that if there is a brief candle, there must also be a need for its light, and that is why the candle is there for.
#45 BLOW, WIND! COME WRACK!"
Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we’ll die with harness on our back.
(Act V, Scene V)
And so we come to the last quote in this long series. We began with “Fair is foul and foul is fair” and are ending with “Blow, wind! Come, wrack!”. The play opened with Macbeth as a victorious, celebrated thane, revered equally by friends, noblemen as well as the King, satisfied from life, with every bounty that he ever wanted – successful, happy, popular, satiated, brave. The play closes with Macbeth as a morbid, moron, lamentful man, hated equally by erstwhile friends, noblemen as well as his own soldiers – failed, broken, infamous, unsatisfied and unstable.
From “Fair is foul and foul is fair” to “Blow, wind! Come, wrack!”, a lot changed – in general in the kingdom, and personally for Macbeth and family, Banquo and family, Malcolm-Donalban and family and Macduff and family, and many others left unmentioned.
The ambitious and murderous man at the end emerges as a weak, shattered, ghoulish body – body I call it because the soul in it seems dead, and thoughts are but suicidal. So broken he is by the end, that with the last drops of energy left, he pleads the wind to blow and wrack everything, so that “At least we die with harness on our back” [sic] Birman wood walks to the Dunsinane hill. Macduff is found to be “untimely ripped from his mother’s womb”. Lady Macbeth, who was many-a-times his guiding force, a fuel for his ambition, a driver for his action, has also committed suicide.
Macduff and Malcolm with Uncle Siward arrive with the armies; Macbeth’s armies are effortlessly defeated, Macbeth happens to face Macduff, both engage into a scuffle, and Macbeth is beheaded. Macbeth’s tale comes to an end.
From murderous to suicidal – that is Macbeth’s tale. From ambitious to melancholic – that is Macbeth’s tale. Fearful from brave, from lively to grave – that is Macbeth’s tale. From “Fair is foul and foul is fair” to “Blow, wind! Come, Wrack” – that is Macbeth’s tale. Macbeth’s tragic tale.
Till here were 45 articles talking about quotes and dialogues from Macbeth. At some point during writing these, I decided that I would reserve five final articles to write about my general ideas about Macbeth as a whole piece of literature, combined with my own experiences in writing these articles, recording these videos and reading this book. So here they go.
WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO READ MACBETH?
Macbeth was a really riveting read.
One day in June 2020, I was free and I plucked the idea from the air that I would now read Shakespeare. If I were to major in English, I needed to have read the bard.
Prior to this, I had had the delight of savoring Shakespeare in my senior secondary class, where we had two scenes from Julius Caesar – one at Caesar’s palace where Calpurnia dissuades him of going to court that day as she has met omens, while later Brutus and Co. come to escort him and he leaves.
This was a memorable scene; yet more memorable was the one in which he was “Brute-ally” murdered, saying the famous last words, “Et tu Brute?”, followed by Mark Antony’s celebrated speech.
Before Macbeth, this was my one and only encounter with Shakespeare, but now I wanted to read a full text.
Macbeth is Shakespeare’s shortest play, so I decided to go for it – despite the mostly easy read that Julius Caesar was, I still thought of works of Shakespeare as some sort of black box.
Arranging a hard copy would take time (more so in a lockdown), and so I decided to sit facing my PC screen. Five minutes of scrolling, and I had discovered a website with full text of Macbeth, and five more minutes, and I had discovered OneNote.
It came like a brainwave: I would create a notebook in OneNote and in it, create separate pages for each scene. After finishing one scene, I would copy text of next one, paste it in OneNote and read there.
Despite some countable disadvantages, OneNote is a great tool – you can type and draw and link – and that is mostly what one requires.
I underlined, noted meanings of words, copy-pasted modern English translations against certain stanzas, and hence was I transported to Scotland and England, centuries back; and now I was closely watching three witches talking what was initially gobbledygook to me, and now I was listening to a King and his men talking about a Macbeth and a Banquo, and how brave they were.
When the witches made their three prophesies to Macbeth and Banquo, was the point I decided I would finish reading Macbeth, whatever the cost – even more when two of those prophesies came true!
Contrary to what I thought, I re-realised that Shakespeare was in fact an excellent storyteller and though used some archaic terms, he was fine to read and quite bearable – unlike something of the type of Paradise Lost, which might demand quite some work on the part of a modern and maiden reader!
Till a certain point in Macbeth, you are overwhelmed by the unfamiliar way of talking and language – but that point passes and recedes away before long and one gets intrigued into the story. Then the story is the real thing and language is just the garment that it is presented in.
I did succeed in reading Macbeth tip-to-toe, thanks to this method, and ended up with a volume of notes and markings, not to mention the wisdom that came in passing.
And lots of favorite quotes. Quotes that establish this series.
WHAT MAKES MACBETH RELEVANT?
An interesting difference between Science and Art often leaves me marvelling. A good scientific invention lays foundation for another – or there’s a good chance it might be proven wrong in some ways – and so in most cases, it’s not something complete in itself, but an essential necessity in an ecosystem of scientific development. A nice example would be the lightbulb. Though a remarkable invention, it wasn’t complete and final, though it paved way for a bright future. Or the computer invented by Babbage. Were it a final thing, I wouldn’t be typing this writeup on this laptop.
Art is different. A good piece of art is forever. Though you adapt Rabindranath Tagore’s stories, but the stories do not need upgradation as such. They are complete in themselves, and any reader familiar with the language it was written in is likely to savour the same flavor out of it as those a hundred years ago.
This brings me to the relevance of Macbeth. The morals in an artwork have a long life. The characters are relatable even over spans of centuries. And so are the many Macbathian characters.
How far can you go in your ambition? How much of ambition is acceptable – or is it the action we do while we are in ambition that’s more sinister? If you are sure you are going to get something, should you make attempts to get it a little sooner? Can you do with just one crime, and then lead a normal life? – There’s so much in Macbeth that makes sense even today.
At this level, the characters and the plot become metaphors and are just drivers of the message and notion that the dramatist wants to inject in our minds.
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