In the quote you cite from Shakespeare's
Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is chiding Macbeth for, as she sees it,
changing his mind about killing King Duncan. She's basically accusing him of
cowardice.
Lady Macbeth metaphorically begins by asking if
his hope was drunk when he dressed himself in the king's royal robes. In other words,
was it alcohol that made him courageous. Then she wants to know if that hope has been
asleep, only to now wake green and pale, sickly, cowardly, instead of courageous, like
before.
Then, step two of her argument, and that's
what this quote really is, an emotional and logical argument trying to convince Macbeth
to go ahead with the assassination, she equates Macbeth's lack of consistency in this
matter with his love for her. If Macbeth can't stay consistent concerning the
assassination of Duncan, then she will consider his love to be as equally
inconsistent.
Next, Lady Macbeth points out that Macbeth's
intended actions, in saying he doesn't want to go through with the assassination, do not
match his desires. He desires to be king, but won't go through with what is necessary
to be king.
Finally, Lady Macbeth directly suggests that if
Macbeth doesn't go through with the assassination, he is a coward and will have to live
with the knowledge that he chickened out, as we would say today. He will fail to do
what he "would" do, what he wants to do, because he is afraid
to.
No comments:
Post a Comment