Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/39

24 “From this moment,

The very firstlings of my heart shall be The firstlings of my hand.

And even now,

To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done: The castle of Macduff I will surprise; Seize upon Fife ; give to the edge o' the sword His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls

That trace his line. No boasting like a fool : This deed I'll do, before this purpose cool.” Subsequently to this foul deed, the tyrant supported his power with many acts of sudden and bloody violence: for, notwith standing the great rapidity of action in the drama, an interval in reality of some years must be supposed between the first and last acts, during which time, “Each new morn,

New widows howl; new orphans cry; new sorrows Strike heaven on the face.”

See also the fine description of the country under the tyrant's sway given by Rosse : “The dead man's knell

Is there scarce ask'd, for who ; and good men's lives Expire before the flowers in their caps, Dying, or ere they sicken.” The change in Macbeth's nervous system, from its early sensi bility, when he was young in deeds of guilt, to the obtuseness brought on by hard use, is later in the piece described by himself:

“Sey. It is the cry of women, my good lord. Macb. I have almost forgot the taste of fears: The time has been, my senses would have quail'd To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir

As life were in’t. I have supp'd full with horrors; Direness, familiar to my slaught’rous thoughts, Cannot once start me.—Wherefore was that cry 7 Sey. The queen, my lord, is dead.” To the last, the shadow of madness is most skilfully indicated as hovering around Macbeth, without the reality actually