We see
them both communicated to a feminine mind, narrower, more intent and
practical; because narrower, because more intent and practical, for the
moment more courageous. (It was Eve that the Serpent, wily enough,
selected to tempt.) Both Macbeth and his lady move to the deed under a
law which--for a while--has usurped the true moral order and reversed
it, he not without misgivings: the spectators all the while knowing the
true order, yet held silent, watching the event. Outside the castle an
owl hoots as Duncan is slain. The guilty man and woman creep back,
whispering; and thereupon--what happens? A knocking on the door--a
knocking followed by the growls of a drowsy if not drunken porter:
"Here's a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate, he should
have old turning the key. (Knocking again.) Knock, knock, knock! Who's
there, i' the name of Beelzebub?" The stage direction admits Macduff,
who in due course is to prove the avenger of blood: but the hand that
knocks, the step on the threshold, are in truth those of the moral order
returning _pede claudo_, demanding to be readmitted. From the instant of
that first knock the ambitions of the pair roll back toward their doom
as the law they have offended reasserts itself, and the witches'
palindrome _In girum imus noctu, ecce!_ steadily spells itself backward,
letter by letter, to the awful sentence, _Ecce ut consumimur igni!_
* * * * *
This is to "idealise" in the right sense of the word.
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