Page:Shakespearean Tragedy (1912).djvu/377

RV 361 (Rh) mind that the thought of the dead man will not haunt him, like the memory of Duncan, if the deed is done by other hands. The deed is done: but, instead of peace descending on him, from the depths of his nature his half-murdered conscience rises; his deed confronts him in the apparition of Banquo’s Ghost, and the horror of the night of his first murder returns. But, alas, it has less power, and he has more will. Agonised and trembling, he still faces this rebel image, and it yields:

Yes, but his secret is in the hands of the assembled lords, And, worse, this deed is as futile as the first. For, though Banquo is dead and even his Ghost is conquered, that inner torture is unassuaged. But he will not bear it. His guests have hardly left him when he turns roughly to his wife:

Macduff it is that spoils his sleep. He shall perish—he and aught else that bars the road to peace.

She answers, sick at heart,

No doubt: but he has found the way to it now:

What a change from the man who thought of Duncan’s virtues, and of pity like a naked new-born