Introductory Comments to Part Three of this Series
Please read below how I would handle
reading, explanation, and discussion of Part Three of this series on how to
teach Macbetht, as an example of how
I go about presenting Shakespeare to students.
I am using my compressed version of Macbeth.
Know that I read every word of the original play with my students and
then perform my compressed version at our annual banquet. I am using the latter version to demonstrate
some of the many explanations I give and questions that I ask when I present a
Shakespearean play to my students.
Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth
All original lines by William
Shakespeare
Compressed for Presentation at Spring 2019
New Salem Educational Initiative Banquet
by Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.
Director, New Salem Educational Initiative
From Macbeth,
Act I, Scene Seven
[Macbeth’s
castle.]
[Enter Macbeth and Lady Macbeth]
Macbeth:
We will proceed no further in this
business:
He hath honored me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
Which would be worn now in their newest
gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.
My Comment/Question >>>>>
26)
Macbeth has apparently been thinking about Lady Macbeth’s plan to off
Duncan and has decided not to go through with the scheme. He remarks that the king has bestowed many
honors on him lately and that he has gained great public esteem. He says that all of this good fortune should
be appreciated “in their newest gloss,” that he should dwell on these favorable
new developments before casting them aside to focus on any other matters.
Lady Macbeth
What beast was it, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
My Comment/Question >>>>>
27)
Lady Macbeth asks him why he should be so cruel, then, to raise her
hopes.
Macbeth:
If we should fail?
Lady Macbeth
We fail!
But screw your courage to the sticking
place,
And we’ll not fail! When Duncan is asleep---
his two chamberlains
Will I with wine and wassail so convince
That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume: when in swinish sleep
Their drenched natures lie as in death,
What cannot you and I perform upon
the unguarded Duncan? What not put upon
His spongy officers, who shall bear the
guilt of our great quell?
My Comment/Question >>>>>
28) Macbeth asks what would happen if they fail,
to which Lady Macbeth replies indignantly that if Macbeth’ll just buck it up
and quit being the wuss she feared he’d be, they cannot fail. Read again the following lines carefully and
see if you can tell the details of Lady Macbeth’s scheme:
When Duncan is asleep---
his two chamberlains [guards]
Will I with wine and wassail [an alcoholic
beverage]
so convince [alter their consciousness]
That memory, the warder of the brain [gate
to and controller of the brain],
Shall be a fume: when in swinish [piggish] sleep
Their drenched natures lie as in death
[they lay out all nasty drunk],
What cannot you and I perform upon
the unguarded Duncan? What not put upon
His spongy [alcohol-soaked] officers, who
shall bear the guilt of our great quell [scheming enterprise]?
Macbeth:
Will it not be received
When we have mark’d with blood those sleepy
two
Of his chamber and used their very daggers,
That they have done it?
Lady Macbeth
Who dares receive it other,
As we shall make our griefs and clamor roar
Upon his death?
Macbeth:
I am settled, and bend up
Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
Away, and mock the time with fairest show:
False face hide what the false heart doth
know.
My Comment/Question >>>>>
29)
Macbeth has been won over. He
takes heart that he and Lady Macbeth will be able to blame the guards for
murdering Duncan, to which Lady Macbeth adds that they’ll also do such a good
job pretending that they’re surprised and horrified by the king’s death that no
one will ever suspect them. Macbeth
replies that he is going to summon all of his physical energy [“each corporal
agent” means “every part of my body”] and to put on his best false face to hide
the truth of the scheme well-known to his soul.
Notice that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are
all too willing to put the blame of their deeds on two other people. Do you think that is a common sentiment or
that most people own up to what they do?
Can you think of any experiences either that you have witnessed or that
you know from our reading the news [students always read news sources with
me; I find that they have rarely gone to
quality news sources at home and that neither their parents nor other teachers
have discussed current items in the news with them] that are similar to what
Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are doing in shifting the blame to someone else?
From Macbeth,
Act II, Scene Two
[Court
of Macbeth’s castle.]
[Enter Macbeth and Lady Macbeth]
Macbeth:
I have done the deed.
[Looking at his hands] This is a sorry sight.
Lady Macbeth:
Go get some water,
And wash up your hand.
Why did you bring these daggers from the
place?
They must lie there: go carry them;
and smear the sleepy grooms with
blood.
My Comment/Question >>>>>
30)
Macbeth returns from murdering Duncan but has screwed up by bringing the
daggers back with him, rather than placing them in the hands of the guards
according to plan. Lady Macbeth gets
real salty, telling Macbeth to wash his dang hands and go back and do what he
was supposed to do, including smearing the guards’ clothes and hands with blood.
Macbeth:
I’ll go no more:
I am afraid to look on what I have done:
Look on’t again I dare not.
My Comment/Question >>>>>
31)
Macbeth says ain’t no way he’s going back; he can’t stand to see what he has done,
cannot bear to see the scene he left behind.
Lady Macbeth:
Infirm of purpose!
Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the
Dead are but as pictures: ‘tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal;
For it must seem their guilt.
[Exit.
Knocking within]
My Comment/Question >>>>>
32)
Lady Macbeth calls Macbeth out for being a wimp and lacking the courage
to follow through with the plan. She
says that dead people are just like folks in a painting and that only childish
fools fear the sight of blood. She takes
the daggers and exits to go finish the task of putting the daggers in the hands
of the guards, smearing them with blood, and setting them up for the fall.
Macbeth:
Whence is that knocking?
How is it with me when every noise I hear
appalls me?
What hands are here? ha!
They pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this
blood
Clean from my hand?
My Comment/Question >>>>>
33)
Someone starts to knock on the door.
Macbeth is shook. He ridicules
himself for being so jumpy. He looks at
his bloody hands and says that not even the Roman God of the Seas [Neptune]
could wash that blood away [metaphorically speaking, from his stained soul].
[Reenter Lady Macbeth.]
Lady Macbeth:
My hands are of your color; but I shame
To wear a heart so white.
My Comment/Question >>>>>
34)
Lady Macbeth returns, now giving evidence of blood from her return to
the scene of the crime; she chides Macbeth
that her hands are now are red like his, but that she has none of his cowardly
white soul.
[Knocking within]
I hear a knocking at the south entry: retire we to our chamber:
a little water clears us of this deed: How easy it is, then!
[Knocking within]
Hark!
More knocking.
Get on your nightgown.
Be not lost so poorly in your thoughts
My Comment/Question >>>>>
35) Lady
Macbeth acknowledges the knocking at the door and says that she and Macbeth
need to be off to their bedroom [chamber].
She says that all they have to do is wash their hands and no one will be
the wiser about what they have done. As
the knocking continues, she tells Macbeth to snap out of it, get a move on, and
get in his nightgown [long dress-like pajamas, sleeping attire].
Macbeth:
To know my deed, ‘twere best not know
myself.
[Knocking within]
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I wish thou couldst!
My Comment/Question >>>>>
36) Macbeth
says that he’d rather not know himself when he thinks what he has done; he wishes that the knocking could somehow
bring Duncan back to life.
Wow.
What a scene. Who do you think is
at the door? What do you think will
happen when the murder of Duncan is discovered?
No comments:
Post a Comment