Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/388

 quenches the craving of a caravan. Here comes my Macbeth and—"thou'rt mad to say it"—Duncan with him,—a lifetime's opportunity: 'twill never come again. Heaven drives Duncan "under my battlements,"—yes, mine, for this night only; Macbeth's at every other time, but mine this once, to hold out with against my husband's mood. The raven himself is hoarse with chiding his delay. What need the tone of my language be, when the bird croaks Duncan's fatal entrance? Let it be unsexed. Here I tear every rag of woman's garments from it, in this my frenzy of dread lest Macbeth elude Fate's purpose:—

"Come to my woman's breasts And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on Nature's mischief."

For love's sake her tongue becomes unlovely; and the delicate woman, with blue eyes sparkling like an electric firmament, and that little hand, snatched out of its old dalliance and clenched as if to drive a weapon, is transformed by the spirit of some ruthless Medea who has lent herself to contrive and enjoy another murder.

It has been said that Lady Macbeth did not reflect upon consequences as Macbeth did, because that is not the way of her sex. But the sex varies in this respect. The average woman is less selfish than we are, not from a feebler gift for calculation, but from a stronger capacity of love; for sex was invented before arithmetic. Macbeth reflected, not merely because he was male, but a selfish male, eager to be great, yet admiring to be