twelfth night Act 3 Scene 1 Olivia's Garden summary and analysis

Act III: Scene 1

Summary                                       

Viola, disguised as Cesario, has come to plead Orsino's case with Olivia and is now sitting in Olivia's garden, chatting with Feste, Olivia's jester. They play an innocent game of verbal sparring. Their wit is inconsequential, but Cesario cuts it off suddenly, for he tells Feste that while it is pleasant to "dally nicely" with words in harmless punning matches, such duels of wit can easily turn into games of bawdy, "wanton" double entendres. Cesario reminds Feste that Feste is, after all, Olivia's "fool" (another term for jester, but here it is intended to also carry a literal connotation). Feste easily parries Cesario's gentle reprimand. The Lady Olivia, he tells Cesario, has no fool; in fact, she will have no fool "till she be married." Indeed, he is not her fool; he is her "corrupter of words." Again, he bests Cesario's own keen wit, while being as "subservient" as possible to the handsome young man; and in this connection, one should note that in this scene, Feste's etiquette of status is ever-present; he prefaces almost every verbal parry between the two with the polite "Sir." Yet there is a good spirit of camaraderie in this scene between the two people. In fact, Feste would enjoy their sparring even more, he says, if Cesario were older and wiser and more worldly; he remarks that it is time that Jove sent Cesario a beard. Viola, forgetting herself momentarily, confesses that she is "almost sick for one" — and then she realizes what she was about to say: she is literally almost sick for the love of a man, which of course she can't hope to have as long as she is disguised as a man herself.

At this point, Feste goes in to announce to Olivia that Cesario awaits her in the garden, and while Feste is gone, Viola soliloquizes on the nature of "playing the fool." She recognizes Feste's intelligence; it takes a mature sensitivity to deal with the varying temperaments and moods of one's superiors while attempting to soothe and entertain them. A jester's wit must be just witty enough; he must tread a thin nimble-witted line, without overstepping social bounds. "Playing the fool," being a jester, Viola says, is "a wise man's art."

While Cesario is waiting, Sir Toby and Sir Andrew enter and joke with Cesario, but whereas Cesario and Feste entertained the audience with high comedy, Sir Toby and Sir Andrew indulge in low comedy. Like everyone else (with the exception of Malvolio), both men are quite impressed with Cesario, especially Sir Andrew, and much of their joking focuses on their attempting to mimic Cesario's manners. Summing up Cesario, Sir Andrew comments, "That youth's a rare courtier."

Olivia and Maria enter, and Olivia quickly dismisses Maria, Uncle Toby, and Sir Andrew so that she can be alone with Cesario. Immediately, she asks for Cesario's hand and then for his name. When he answers her that he is her servant, she protests: he is Orsino's servant. But, Cesario reminds Olivia, because he is Orsino's servant, and because his master is her servant (because of his love for her), therefore, he himself is her servant. Olivia is distracted by such logic and such talk of Orsino. All of her thoughts are on Cesario, and she would like him to think only of her; as for Orsino, she would prefer that his mind would be absolutely blank rather than filled with thoughts of her. She never wants to hear about Orsino again — or his "suit" (his wooing). She would much prefer that Cesario would present his own "suit" to her — that is, to woo her on his own behalf.

She confesses that the ruse of the forgotten ring and her sending Malvolio after Cesario was only an excuse; she simply wanted any excuse to have Cesario return to her. She desperately wants to hear words of love from him; she begs him to speak. But all Cesario can reply is that he pities her. Olivia accepts Cesario's rejection with a certain dignity, but she certainly accepts it with undisguised disappointment. How much better for her, she says, if her heart had cast her before "a lion" (a nobleman) rather than before "a wolf" (a servant). She then tells Cesario not to be afraid; she will not press him any further for love that he cannot give. Yet she cannot but envy the lucky woman who finally will "harvest" this youth.

Cesario makes ready to go, then he pauses; he asks Olivia one last time if she has any words for Orsino. She begs Cesario to linger: "Stay," she entreats him, and "prithee, tell me what thou think'st of me." Cesario and Olivia both confess ambiguously that they are not what they seem, and then Olivia can stand no more. She ends Cesario's adroit evasions of her questions with a passionate declaration of love:

I love thee, so, that maugre [despite] all thy pride, 
    Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide. (148-49)

Despite this beautiful and spontaneous declaration of love, Cesario of course cannot encourage Olivia, even as a gesture of friendship. He must, in order to maintain his disguise, reject her declarations of love. He tells her, therefore, in the plainest way he can, that he has but "one heart" and that he has given it to "no woman" — nor shall any woman be the "mistress" of that heart, "save I alone." Thus he must bid Olivia adieu; nevermore will he come to speak of his master's love for her. In desperation, Olivia pleads with Cesario: "Come again"; perhaps his heart may yet change and perhaps he may yet come to love her.

Analysis

This scene continues from Act II, Scene 4, when Duke Orsino was preparing to send Cesario on another mission to Olivia. We should still be aware that the scenes have been alternating between the romantic plots and the subplots concerning the gulling of Malvolio. Thus, after the hilarious scene at the end of Act II, Act III opens in Olivia's garden, but the scene is light and jovial because Cesario has just encountered Olivia's clown, Feste. Together, they delight the audience by turning one another's sentences inside out, demonstrating that each has a finely honed wit.

With the entrance of Sir Toby and Sir Andrew, the punning is continued but, more important, Sir Andrew is able to take note of the manner in which Cesario (Viola) addresses Olivia, which will later give rise to the pretended duel between the two.

After Olivia dismisses everyone in order to be alone with the young messenger, she immediately and desperately wants to hear words of love from Cesario, but all that he can say is that he pities her. Olivia then shows herself to be very much like Duke Orsino — that is, she is as changeable as the duke is. At first, she tells Cesario, "I will not have you." Then as Cesario is about to leave, Olivia cannot quite dismiss him before she finds out what he thinks of her: "Stay, I prithee, tell me what thou think'st of me." There follows, then, a series of speeches which serve to remind the audience of the importance and the complications issuing from the fact that everyone is in some sort of disguise:

Viola: That you do think you are not what you are. [That is, that you think that you are in love with a man and you are mistaken.]

Olivia: If I think so, I think the same of you. [If I think lower of myself, I think the same of you; i.e., that you are a nobleman in disguise.]

Viola: Then think you right: I am not what I am. [She is a girl, not a boy.]

Olivia: I would you were as I would have you be. [That is, she wishes that Cesario were a man in love with her.]

After further exchanges, Olivia makes a passionate declaration of love for Cesario:

Cesario, by the roses of the spring,
By maidhood, honour, truth and everything . . . 
I love thee so . . . 
Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide. (146-49)

Despite this beautiful and spontaneous (and completely unsought) declaration of love, Cesario cannot surrender or explain to Olivia without revealing the disguise; but in refusing her, "he" is guilty in her eyes of wanton cruelty. Lady Olivia is now reduced to the same state as Orsino in this scene. She is pleading for love and is rejected.

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twelfth night A Room in the Duke's Palace Act II Scene 4 summary and analysis

Act II: Scene 4

Summary

At Orsino's palace, the duke is gathered together with Cesario (Viola), Curio, and others, and he says that he would like to hear a song, a certain "old and antique" song that he heard last night; the song seemed to "relieve [his] passion much." Feste, the jester, is not there to sing it, however, so Orsino sends Curio out to find him and, while Curio is gone, Orsino calls Cesario to him. He tells the young lad that "if ever [Cesario] shalt love," then he should remember how Orsino suffered while he experienced love's sweet pangs. Orsino tells Cesario that Orsino himself is the sad epitome of all lovers — "unstaid and skittish" — except when he recalls "the constant image" of his beloved. Cesario hints that love has already enthroned itself within him, and Orsino remarks that he believes that Cesario is indeed correct. He can tell by looking at the boy that his "eye / Hath stay'd upon some favour that it loves." Cesario acknowledges that this is true. The duke is intrigued; he is curious about the woman who has caught Cesario's fancy, and he begins to question the lad.

Cesario says that the object of his love is a great deal like Orsino, a confession that makes Orsino scoff: "She is not worth thee, then," he says. When he learns that Cesario's "beloved" is about Orsino's own age, he becomes indignant. A woman, he says, should take someone "elder than herself." He says that women, by nature, are not able to love with the same intensity as a young man is able to love; women need to find themselves a steady, doggedly devoted older man whose passions are burned low and, thus, more equal to hers. Cesario, Orsino suggests, needs to find a very young virgin, one who has just blossomed, "for women are as a rose [and] being once displayed, do fall that very hour." Cesario sadly agrees; women, he says, often "die, even when they to perfection grow."

Curio and Feste enter then, and Feste is more than happy to sing the song that he sang last night. He urges Cesario, in particular, to take note of it for although it is "old and plain," it is a song that is well known. Spinsters sing it, as do young maidens; its theme concerns the simple truth of love's innocence. The song begins, "Come away, come away, death . . ." (which is certainly a melancholy evocation) and goes on to lament unrequited love — of which Orsino and Viola (and Olivia) all suffer. The lover of the song is a young man who has been "slain" by "a fair cruel maid," and, his heart broken, he asks for a shroud of white to encase his body. He wants no flowers strewn on his black coffin; nor does he want friends nor mourners present when he is lowered into the grave. In fact, he wants to be buried in a secret place so that no other "sad true lover" will chance to find his grave and find reason to weep there. The emphasis here is on the innocence of love, and our focus is on poor Viola, who has innocently fallen in love with Duke Orsino, who believes that she is only a handsome young man, to whom he feels "fatherly."

Orsino gives Feste some money for singing the mournful ballad, and, in return, Feste praises his good and generous master and then exits. The duke then excuses the others, and when he and Cesario are alone, he turns to the boy and tells him that he must return to Olivia and her "sovereign cruelty." He tells Cesario that he must convince Olivia that Orsino's love is "more noble than the world." It is not her riches which he seeks (her "quantity of dirty lands"); instead, he prizes her as a "queen of gems." It is his soul which loves her. When Cesario asks what he should say if Olivia protests that she absolutely cannot love Orsino, the duke refuses to accept such an answer.

Cesario then grows bold and tells Orsino that perhaps there is "some lady" who has "as great a pang of heart" for him as he has for Olivia. Orsino refuses to acknowledge that women can love with the passion that men can:

. . . no woman's sides
Can bide the beating of so strong a passion
As love doth give my heart; no woman's heart
So big, to hold so much. (92-95)

True love, he says, using a typically Elizabethan analogy, lies in one's liver, and a woman's love lies only on the tip of her tongue. Women may talk sweetly, but women cannot "suffer surfeit, cloyment and revolt," pains of the liver which are reserved for only men. He wants to make it perfectly clear to Cesario that there is "no compare / Between that love a woman can bear me / And that I owe Olivia."

Cesario now becomes bolder still and says that women can indeed love with as much passion as men can. He knows it to be so, for his father had a daughter who loved a man with as much passion as Cesario himself could love Orsino — that is, if Cesario were a woman. Then Cesario realizes that perhaps he has said enough on the subject, but when Orsino inquires further concerning the history of this "sister," Cesario's imagination is rekindled. He returns to the theme of the unrequited lover and conjures up a sad tale about his "sister" who loved so purely and so passionately and so privately that love became "like a worm in the bud" of her youth and fed "on her damask cheek." Turning to Orsino, he says, "We men may say more, swear more," but talk is often empty. His sister died, Cesario sighs, and now he is "all the daughters of my father's house, / And all the brothers too." With this cryptic statement in mind, the duke gives Cesario a jewel. He is to present it to Olivia, and he is to "bide no denay" — that is, he is not to take No for an answer. Orsino is determined to have Olivia's love.

Analysis

In contrast to all of the shenanigans involved in the subplot of the last scene, this scene shifts abruptly back to Duke Orsino's palace, and, once again, the mood and atmosphere are re-established as the duke again calls for music. We return to that same languid and indolent duke; now, he asks for the old and antique song that he heard last night. Later in the scene, Feste will appear and sing the song "Come away, Come away, death." The theme of this lyric is the sadness unto death of a young man whose love for a fair, cruel maid is unrequited. (The duke obviously sees a parallel between his and Lady Olivia's relationship in the song). The youth in the song dies of his love, and he hopes that no other sad, true lover shall find his grave for a similar reason — that is, because of unrequited love. The song is quaint and filled with conceits. Its melancholy artifice probably appeals to the duke in his present mood, and it certainly suits the musical atmosphere of the play as a whole. Ironically, while the theme of the song expresses Duke Orsino's mood, it also expresses the mood of Olivia (who is unrequited in her love for Cesario), as well as that of Viola (who is unrequited in her love for Duke Orsino).

At the end of the scene, when Cesario says, "My father had a daughter loved a man," this statement comes as close as Viola dares in expressing her love for Duke Orsino. The contrast is between her tormented, inner anguish and reasoned love and the duke's exaggerated statements of love. While Viola's passion is less pretentious than the duke's, it is nevertheless as deep and sincere.

The ending of the scene furthers the plot since Orsino once more commands Cesario to deliver a love message and a jewel to Olivia, thus setting up another encounter between the unrequited Olivia and the inaccessible Cesario (Viola).

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twelfth night Act II Scene 3 A Room in Olivia's House summary and analysis

Act II: Scene 3

A Room in Olivia's House 

Summary

At Olivia's house, it is late and Sir Toby and Sir Andrew have been drinking, or "revelling," as they call it. They are noisily celebrating — reciting fragments of songs, Latin sayings, and old country proverbs. They play at logic: Sir Andrew says in all inebriated seriousness that "to be up late is to be up late." Sir Toby absolutely disagrees: "a false conclusion," he pronounces, and a flaw in reasoning, a vexation which he dislikes as much as he does an empty beer mug. Then he launches into an involved, implausible, and ridiculous diatribe involving the hours of the day and of the night and the four elements, and ends by praising Sir Andrew for being such a superb scholar because Sir Andrew agrees with Sir Toby's final conclusion — that "life . . . consists of eating and drinking," which reminds Sir Toby that what they both need is another drink. Thus he bellows loudly for "Marian" (Maria) to fetch them "a stoup of wine."

Feste, the jester, has not gone to bed and is delighted to come in and discover a party going on. They all joke uproariously in broad comedy about their all being asses, and then they attempt to approximate the acerbic flair of high comedy, but their bits and pieces of joking become so disjointed that it is impossible to know exactly what they are laughing about, nor is it terribly important. The point is, they are having manly, goodhearted drunken fun and, therefore, they indulge quite naturally in some loud singing. Very naturally, one of the first songs is a love song. It is sung by Feste and begins "O mistress mine" and concerns men wooing their true loves. The second verse praises the experience of love: love is an act, to be acted upon; "tis not hereafter." The future, according to the song, is unsure, therefore, lovers should kiss for "youth's a stuff [which] will not endure." The philosophy of the song is agreeable to all, as is Feste's "mellifluous voice," according to the tipsy Sir Andrew. Sir Toby criticizes Feste's breath, pondering momentarily on the possibility of one's being able to hear with one's nose. Then in the next breath, he suggests that they celebrate so thoroughly that they will "rouse the night-owl" and make the sky itself (the "welkin") dance. Sir Andrew thinks that this is a splendid idea: "I am dog at a catch," he cries out, meaning that he is clever at singing. Yet no sooner do they begin, than their tongues tumble over the words "knaves" and "knights," two completely different kinds of men, and they attempt to begin all over again when Maria comes in. She warns them that their "caterwauling," their wailing like three sex-starved tomcats, is going to get them thrown out of the place. If Olivia is awakened, she will have her steward, Malvolio, toss them all out. Neither Sir Toby nor Sir Andrew pays any attention whatsoever to her; they are too far gone in their cups, and they call Olivia a "Cataian" (a bitch) and call Malvolio a "Peg-a-Ramsey." This latter slur is very insulting, referring to an over-the-hill, henpecked impotent man who woefully longs for the long-gone days when men sported yellow hose and wooed the village maids. Sir Toby begins a new song, with the words "On the twelfth day of December . . ." and suddenly they are all startled to see a figure in the doorway. It is Malvolio.

He is haughty and as imperious as Maria warned them that he would be. He tells them that Olivia has said that either they must quiet down or else they must leave the house. Sir Toby and Feste mock Malvolio's edicts with satiric farewells, and Malvolio becomes furious. He is scandalized to hear such insults in his lady Olivia's house. He turns on Maria and attempts to shame her for allowing such misbehavior. He shall report her part in all this "uncivil rule." He warns them that they should make no mistake about what he plans to do. Their insubordination will be reported immediately!

Resentful of Malvolio's lordly posings, the drunken merrymakers loudly applaud Maria's proposed plan to outwit the sharp-tongued, all-important Malvolio. She will forge a letter in Olivia's handwriting ("some obscure epistles of love") that will contain soulful, sighing admirations for "the color of [Malvolio's] beard, the shape of his leg, the manner of his gait, the expression of his eye, forehead, and complexion" — in short, in a very brief time, Malvolio will mistakenly believe that Olivia is in love with him. "A sport royal," Maria predicts. With that, she tells them to hide and eavesdrop on Malvolio when "he shall find the letter." She then bids them goodnight; the three men are intoxicated at the thought of what will ensue. Malvolio will be made a fool of; he has needed such an experience for a long time, and this exciting prospect, of course, calls for a drink.

Analysis

Much of the spontaneity of this scene is lost to the reader of the comedy; however, on the stage, this is a hilarious comic masterpiece. It is a jovial company; first, Sir Toby and Sir Andrew are carousing in drunken, noisy celebration and are soon joined by Feste, who will also provide some songs. Then Maria, complaining at first, finally joins the celebration. The mood is one of partying and indulgence as Maria keeps a constant lookout, for she knows that Malvolio would delight to report just such shenanigans to the Lady Olivia. The rapid, witty exchanges are difficult for the modern audience, but what emerges of major importance is that Sir Toby is not just an average drunk; he is indeed a true wit, whose lines addressed to Sir Andrew establish the fact that the latter is a gull and an ignoramus.

The entrance of Malvolio is particularly comic. Remember that Malvolio is tall, skinny, and bald. Traditionally, he appears dressed in his nightgown and night cap, and he stands above the party makers as a magnificently ridiculous figure carrying a lit candle in a candlestick. It is difficult to take his authority seriously since he looks so ridiculous. Sir Toby and Feste dance around this foolish figure, and finally, when Malvolio reminds Sir Toby that he can be thrown out of the household, Malvolio has taken a step too far. It should be remembered that in the Elizabethan stratified society, Malvolio, while he is a steward, is inferior to Sir Toby in social rank, and whatever limitations Sir Toby may have, he is a knight and he is Lady Olivia's uncle. Thus after Malvolio's threat, Sir Toby asks him, "Art any more than a steward?" Then the essential conflict between the two is stated by Sir Toby: "Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" This final statement characterizes perfectly the two types of people in the world: There are the Malvolios who would have everyone be as austere and priggish as he is, and then there are the Sir Tobys who will always find pleasure in life. The term "cakes and ale" has become famous as a phrase describing pleasure-loving people. After Sir Toby puts Malvolio in his place, Malvolio turns to Maria to reprimand her, and then he exits.

The remainder of the scene deals with the plot which they will all concoct in order to get even with Malvolio, using the knowledge that Malvolio is such an egotist that he would readily believe that a love letter, ostensibly sent from Olivia, was addressed to him. Thus, as the scene ends, we are prepared not only for the complicated love triangle, but also for the duping of the haughty Malvolio. We also see that Sir Toby is aware of an affection that Maria has for him, and at the end of the comedy, we will learn that these two are married.

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Macbeth Act 5, Scene 8: Another part of the field summary and analysis

Act V: Scene 8

 

Summary

On another part of the battlefield, Macbeth and Macduff finally come face to face. Words, then sword thrusts are exchanged, and Macbeth, the bloody and tyrannical usurper of the throne of Scotland, meets his predestined end.

Analysis

As Macbeth ponders whether suicide, at this point, would be his better option, the avenging Macduff enters the scene with the bold challenge: "Turn, hell-hound, turn." Macduff's choice of the epithet "Hell-hound," recalling his earlier description of Macbeth as a "Hell-kite" (Act IV, Scene 3), confirms the true nature of the tyrant king. But in an equally bold rhetorical flourish, Macbeth warns Macduff that he is invulnerable, as "intrenchant" (uncuttable) as the air itself. Here, he mistakenly imagines that the words of the apparitions are a protective charm, which can keep him from physical injury.

Macduff takes an opposite view. Words alone, whether those of a ghostly prophecy or those of Macbeth himself, are nothing compared to his own wordless anger: The true voice of revenge lies in action, not language. Furthermore, Macbeth should consider the circumstances of Macduff's birth. Macduff now reveals to Macbeth that he entered the world by being "untimely ripp'd" from his mother's womb: He was not, therefore, in the strict sense, "born" of woman. With the short but powerful sentence "Despair thy charm," Macbeth must know that his struggle for survival is over. The penultimate prophecy has come true.

Throughout the play, Macbeth has wondered about the veracity of the Witches' words: In Act I, Scene 3, he called them "imperfect speakers" because they had not told him all he desired to know; now he realizes that they spoke to him of his own imperfection. In the same scene, he admitted that their supernatural prophecy "Cannot be ill; cannot be good"; now he knows which was which. In Act IV, Scene 1, his opinion was that men were "damned . . . that trust them"; now he is damned by his own words. And in Act V, Scene 5, Macbeth spoke of his doubt concerning the predictions of "the Fiend / that lies like truth." Now he has no such doubt: "Be these juggling fiends no more believed / That palter with us in a double sense."

It is now Macduff's turn to mock Macbeth: He calls him "coward" and promises to have him publicly displayed — "baited with the rabble's curse" with a sign painted with the words "Here may you see the tyrant."

Glossary

intrenchant (9) uncuttable

the Angel . . . served (14) i.e. the Devil

cow'd (18) caused me to cower

juggling fiends (19) deceiving devils (or Fates)

palter (20) toy with

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Macbeth Act 5, Scene 5: Dunsinane. Within the castle summary and analysis

Act V: Scene 5

 

Summary

Now fully armed, Macbeth confidently turns all his scorn on the advancing armies, only to find his brave rhetoric interrupted by an offstage shriek. The queen is dead — whether by her own hand is not made clear — and Macbeth is left to contemplate a lonely future of endless tomorrows "signifying nothing." Yet another blow comes with the announcement that Birnam Wood appears to have uprooted itself and is even now advancing towards Dunsinane. Again Macbeth recalls the prophecies of Act IV, sure of, but still wishing to deny, their powerful truth.

Analysis

This scene, like Scene 3, starts with a bold imperative: "Hang out our banners on the outward walls." Macbeth's speech is warlike and defiant, his strength mirrored in that of the castle and men who surround him; his curse on the enemy vivid and graphic in its use of metaphor: "Here let them lie / Till famine and the ague (disease) eat them up . . . " (3-5). But the curse is empty rhetoric: In his play Troilus and Cressida, written two or three years earlier, Shakespeare had written that man's ambitious appetite for power, once it has preyed on everything in its path, can eat up only itself. Power-seeking tyrants tend toward self-destruction; if this curse falls on anyone, it's likely to be the curser.

At this point, Macbeth hears a heart-stopping scream. While a servant is dispatched to find the cause, Macbeth confesses in a brief soliloquy that such noises no longer have the power to frighten him. The audience recalls other noises: the owl-shriek that Lady Macbeth heard during Duncan's murder; the voice that Macbeth heard crying "Macbeth shall sleep no more!" and the fateful knocking at the door, all in Act II, Scene 2. But in a phrase that calls to mind the banquet scene (Act III, Scene 4), Macbeth admits that he has "supp'd full with horrors" and that his familiarity with slaughter means that such sounds can no longer amaze him.

The report of Lady Macbeth's death perhaps comes as no surprise, either to Macbeth or to Shakespeare's audience. The word "hereafter" recalls the "hereafter" of the Witches' first prophecy; their "hereafter" was the future that Macbeth was to inherit as king. But the word also refers, ironically, to the heavenly "hereafter," which Macbeth seems intent on denying for himself. In the hands of a sensitive actor or director, this exact word is what triggers the poetic outpouring on the nature of Time, which follows it.

The famous lines "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" have a resigned, almost wistful tone to them, occasioned not only by the death of his wife but also by Macbeth's entire loss of purpose. Although there is perhaps an underlying bitterness at lost opportunity in the words "petty," "fools," "frets" and "idiot," for a man who has received such desperate news, this is not a desperate speech. In fact, compared with some of Macbeth's earlier "set pieces," its rhetoric is controlled, its metaphors precise: Time is like a path to "dusty death," and our lives are as "brief" as a candle. We are like shadows, or actors, on the stage of life. Again, the question occurs, as it did in Act I, Scene 7: How can a man who is capable of such poetic thought act as he does?

Macbeth's musings on this topic are cut dead by still another message, which reports what the audience already knows, the fulfillment of the second prophecy, the movement of the woods. Once again, Macbeth's response is both angry and reflective: "I . . . begin to doubt th'equivocation of the fiend — / That lies like truth . . . " (42-44).

To the servant, he must hotly deny the truth he has been told — to keep his public appearance and satisfy his own doubt — but he must also secretly accept the truth of the prophecy, even if logic persuades him that a moving wood is a lie. It is an understandably human reaction to such a paradoxical problem that Macbeth admits that he is literally stuck — "There is no flying hence, nor tarrying here" (48) — or, in his words from Act III, Scene 4, "Returning were as tedious as go o'er." On a psychological as well as a military level, Macbeth can neither move forward nor backward, neither advance nor retreat.

In this case, and with his gaze firmly fixed on the universe as a whole, Macbeth can only call, like King Lear, on the elements themselves: "Come wind, blow wrack!" he cries. It is the bold cry of a hopeless man.

Glossary

ague (4) disease

forc'd (5) reinforced

fell of hair (11) the hair on my flesh

treatise (12) tale

sooth (40) truthfully

estate of things (40) the physical frame of the universe

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Macbeth Act 5, Scene 4: Country near Birnam wood summary and analysis

Act V: Scene 4

 

Summary

The English and rebel Scottish armies, under the leadership of Malcolm, meet at Birnam Wood. With military foresight, Malcolm orders each soldier to cut a branch and carry it in front of him as camouflage "to shadow the numbers of our host" — that is, to conceal the actual size of the advancing army.

Analysis

Malcolm's hope "That chambers (bedrooms) will be safe" in the future recalls both the location of King Duncan's murder and the motif of sleeplessness that runs through the play. Menteth's assured response — "We doubt it nothing" — is in heavy contrast to the "saucy doubts and fears" that have shaken Macbeth since even before the killing of Duncan and which will return to haunt him in subsequent scenes.

The order to each soldier to "hew . . . down a bough" as a leafy camouflage is taken direct from Holinshed's Chronicles; the aim is not to hide the advancing army but to confuse Macbeth as to the exact number of soldiers. Although Malcolm does not know it, his trick will not only fulfil the second of the prophecies of Act IV, Scene 1, but it will also play upon exactly the equivocation that has troubled Macbeth's mind since he first remarked (in Act I, Scene 3) that "nothing is but what is not."

In both Act V, Scene 2 and here, Macbeth's command over his few remaining followers is said to be based on constraint, not loyalty. His heartlessness is thus contrasted with the genuine feelings of loyalty which, it is implied, are felt towards Malcolm. In Act IV, Scene 3, Malcolm announced that Macbeth, like a rotten fruit, was "ripe for shaking"; now, according to Siward, "The time approaches," and in a final couplet adds "Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate / But certain issue strokes must arbitrate . . . " (19-20). Once more, the impression is that the time for guesswork is over; certainty, and the assurance of goodness, must inevitably triumph over Macbeth's lack of it.

Glossary

constrained things (13) conscripts

just . . . event (14) righteous criticism awaits the outcome

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Macbeth Act 5, Scene 3 Dunsinane A room in the castle summary and analysis

Act V: Scene 3

Summary

Macbeth dismisses reports of invasion by trusting to the prophecies of the apparitions, which seemed to promise him invincibility in battle. When a servant enters to announce the approach of a huge army, Macbeth appears momentarily to lose courage and then angrily spurns his servant and orders his armor to be put on. The Doctor, whose news concerning Lady Macbeth is just as grim, is treated with similar contempt.

Analysis

Macbeth's tone is typically brazen. The reports he has heard can have no consequence, given the prophecies of the three apparitions of Act IV, Scene 1. Throughout this scene, any doubts he may have are quelled by his bold imperatives: "Bring me no more reports," "Fly, false thanes," and more. We see a man completely self-assured, a "confident tyrant," as Siward calls him in the subsequent scene. These angry words do much to assert his own manhood, in contrast to the cowardice he perceives in others — not only his servant, whom he calls "cream-faced" and "lily-livered," but also the rebel soldiers, whom he insultingly refers to as "epicures" (that is, self-indulgent and lazy).

In the dialogue with the servant, Macbeth orders him to "prick his cheeks" in order to "put colour" back in his face, an ironic reminder of the earlier color symbolism when Macbeth was accused by his wife of having a white heart, as opposed to her own red hands. Another imperative — "Give me my armour" — has to be repeated when Macbeth's armourer, Seyton, initially refuses to do so. Similarly, when the Doctor confesses that he has been unable to cure Lady Macbeth's madness, Macbeth mocks his ability, challenging him to "Throw physic (medicine) to the dogs."

But there is also another Macbeth, who admits to being "sick at heart" and who feels he has entered the season of the "yellow leaf," that is, literally, the fall of his own reputation; and who, in a further moment of self-realization, recognizes the sickness of his own land: "If thou could'st, Doctor, cast / The water of my land, find her disease, / And purge it to a sound and pristine health / I would applaud thee to the very echo / That should applaud again" (50-54).

Earlier, referring to his wife's sickness, Macbeth has questioned the doctor's ability to remove from her those thoughts and feelings "Which weigh upon the heart." The Doctor's response: "Therein the patient must minister to himself" is particularly interesting. Where we expect "herself," Shakespeare instead uses the masculine pronoun, referring to a patient of either sex, particularly in proverbial statements such as this one. The suggestion is that Macbeth, too, must find the cure to his own disease. Macbeth's military preparation, which the Doctor says he has heard about, is unlikely to be any more effective than a medicinal preparation or remedy which he might prescribe for the sick nation of Scotland.

Glossary

English epicures (8) the self-indulgent English

sway (9) command

goose (12) cowardly

sere (23) dry

fain (28) rather

skirr (35) scour

oblivious (43) that brings oblivion

physic (47) medicine

cast the water (50) examine the urine (here, used metaphorically)

rhubarb . . . drug (55) purgatives

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Macbeth Act 5, Scene 2 The country near Dunsinane summary and analysis

Act V: Scene 2

Summary

Four lords of Scotland — Lennox, Menteth, Angus, and Caithness — resolve to join Malcolm and the English forces, who have by now marched into Scotland and are encamped at Birnam Wood, not far from Macbeth's stronghold at Dunsinane.

Analysis

This short scene develops the drama of the preparation for battle. In language that recalls that of Act III, Scene 6 and Act IV, Scene 3, the characters remind the audience of the various military alliances between Malcolm, England, and the rebel Scots. In this sense, the scene is simply a plot-filler, but there are three points to note: First, the audience is introduced once more to the fateful name of Birnam Wood, which the Third Apparition in Act IV, Scene 1 prophesied to be the downfall of Macbeth.

Second, Caithness' portrait of Macbeth comes close to the description of a warrior-hero given by the Captain in Act I, Scene 2, especially in the phrase "valiant fury," but now the anger is not righteous: It arises from a "distemper'd cause" which Macbeth can no longer "buckle . . . within the belt of rule." Again, in another metaphor of clothing, Caithness adds that Macbeth's royal title "Hangs loose about him, like a giant's robe upon a dwarfish thief." (It is likely that nearly three centuries later, Robert Louis Stevenson was thinking of this line when he described the malicious dwarf Edward Hyde wearing the outsize clothes of the respectable Mr. Jekyll.) In Act I, Scene 3, Banquo talked of Macbeth's honors as "strange garments" which "cleave" (conform) to the shape of the body only by constant use. The metaphor is exact: Macbeth's title no longer fits him.

Third, the tone of the rebel Scots is one of uncompromising courage. Once more Scotland is described as a sick patient, the only cure for which is "each drop" of their own blood spilled in their country's defense.

Glossary

alarm (4) trumpet-call/   minutely (18) every minute

excite . . . man (4) raise the dead/   dew (30) wet (with blood)

upbraid . . . faith-breach (18) rebuke his broken promises

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Macbeth Act 5, Scene 1 Dunsinane. Ante-room in the castle summary and analysis

Act V: Scene 1

Summary

Lady Macbeth has gone mad. Like her husband, she cannot find any rest, but she is suffering more clearly from a psychological disorder that causes her, as she sleepwalks, to recall fragments of the events of the murders of Duncan, Banquo, and Lady Macduff. These incriminating words are overheard by the Doctor and a lady-in-waiting.

Analysis

The staging of this scene is made clear by the first ten lines of the scene. The gentlewoman's description of how Lady Macbeth has sleepwalked in the past acts as a stage direction for the actress playing Lady Macbeth. Her agitated reading of a letter is of course a visual reminder of her reading of the fateful letter in Act I, Scene 5. More than this, Lady Macbeth is seen to rub her hands in a washing action that recalls her line "A little water clears us of this deed" in Act II, Scene 2. If these words are not enough to arouse the Doctor's suspicions, those that follow must suggest to him not only that she is suffering but also the reason for that suffering.

Lady Macbeth's speech has become fragmented and broken by an enormous emotional pressure: the suave hostess and cool, domineering wife has been reduced to a gibbering creature whose speech (almost) signifies nothing. There are no logical connections between her memories or her sentences, and indeed, the devastation of her mind is so complete that she cannot recall events in their correct order. For example, "Out damned spot" is followed by "The Thane of Fife had a wife," referring to Lady Macduff. Later we hear the line "Banquo's buried: he cannot come out on's grave," and finally she believes she hears Macduff knocking at the gate. It is as though all the individual murders have coalesced into one seamless pageant of blood. Perhaps the most ironic line is the one which near-perfectly echoes an earlier line of Macbeth's. When Lady Macbeth cries "all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand," we must not forget that she was not on stage to hear her husband's "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?" (Act II, Scene 2).

Lady Macbeth's line "What's done cannot be undone" not only reverses her earlier argument to her husband "what's done is done" (Act III, Scene 2); it also recalls the words of the general confession from the Prayer Book: "We have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us." The Doctor agrees: In his opinion, Lady Macbeth needs a "divine," — a priest — more than a doctor, reminding the audience of Macbeth's earliest doubts when he argues with himself before the murder of Duncan, "If it were done when 'tis done . . . we'd jump the life to come" (I:7,1-6).

Now, though, the promise of salvation has been all but abandoned. "Hell is murky," says Lady Macbeth, and that spiritual darkness is echoed by the fact that the scene is played entirely in the dark, with the exception of one candle, which Lady Macbeth insists on having next to her. She may be sleepless, but it is her soul's rest that really concerns her.

Glossary

accompt (37) account

practice (55) medical expertise

 divine (71) priest

mated (75) amazed

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