Derogatorias. Se derogan las siguientes disposiciones normativas:

“M an” is an equivocal term in Macbeth. M acduff s introspection w hen he hears the horrid news that his wife and children have been slaughtered on the order o f M acbeth elicits this response from Malcom: “L et’s make us m ed’cines o f our great revenge, | To cure this deadly g rie f’ (4.3.214-215). T hough Malcolm urges him to turn sorrow into a vengeful remedy, M acduff continues to exclaim at the tyrant’s hellish action: “What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam, | A t one fell swoop?” (4.3.218-219). Malcolm then implores M acduff to struggle against the news another way: “D ispute it like a man” (4.3.219). M acduff s response indicates that, though a m an m ust be brave, he m ust also be subject to hum an weakness: “I shall do so; | But I m ust also feel it as a m an”

(4.3.220-221). This exchange dem onstrates that the term “m an ” is an unstable one in the play.

A different equivocation on “m an” can be read in B anquo’s rem arks about the witches. Before the witches have even spoken to him and M acbeth, it is evident that they occupy a space beyond the hum an world, as well as the finite, corporeal realm in w hich the two generals exist:

B A N Q U O W hat are these,

So w ither’d and so wild in their attire, T h at look n ot like th’inhabitants o ’th ’earth, A nd yet are on ’t? Live you? or are you aught

T hat m an my question? Y ou seem to understand me, By each at once her choppy finger laying

U pon her skinny lips: you should be w om en, A nd yet your beards forbid m e to interpret T hat you are so.

1.3.39-47

Displaying a quick and fluid insight here that later becom es a m oral intuition, Banquo’s description o f the w itches’ androgyny and questionable hum anity anticipates the equivocations o f their amphibologies. Their shrivelled, decayed appearance, as well as their uncultivated clothing, gives the im pression o f unnatural, fantastic creatures, yet their

presence in front o f Banquo and M acbeth implies that they should, even must, be o f this world. Banquo wants to know exactly w hat blocks his path: “F th’nam e o f truth, | Are ye fantastical, or that indeed | W hich outwardly ye show?” (1.3.52-54). It seems as though the witches have stepped through a portal from another, supernatural world. Indeed, M acbeth dem ands that the witches confirm their essence: “Speak, if you can: — w hat are you?” (1.3.47). Here, the trace o f another, supernatural realm invades the mortal realm that Banquo and M acbeth exist within. M oreover, the witches “should be w om en” but the trace o f masculinity prohibits a confident assertion o f this, and so the questionable gender o f the witches substantiates the equivocation betw een the hum an and the non­ human, m an and dem on, as well as m an and w oman. Som ething otherworldly, confusing and indefinable, neither natural nor supernatural, neither male n o r female, seems to stand before Banquo and Macbeth.

D em onic, witch-like qualities are linked to m anhood for Lady M acbeth. She asks ill spirits to make her, like the witches, as m uch male as female:

Come, you Spirits T h at tend on m ortal thoughts, unsex m e here, A nd fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full O f direst cruelty! make thick my blood,

Stop up th ’access and passage to rem orse; T h at no com punctious visitings o f N ature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace betw een T h ’effect and it!

1.5.40-47

For Lady M acbeth, to be unsexed, to be unwomanly, consists o f a dreadful mercilessness that will fill her body completely. The audience has already w itnessed her fears that M acbeth is “w ithout | The illness” (1.5.19-20), w ithout the wickedness, needed to take the crown. H ere Lady M acbeth wishes to resist the com passion that might obstruct her horrible intentions, and which also taint M acbeth’s ambition. Joanna Levin has argued that, according to the W itchcraft Statute o f 1604, Lady M acbeth would have been

considered a witch for invoking evil spirits, a capital offence under the regulation.6 As M acbeth approaches, Lady M acbeth invites the “m urth’ring ministers” with a nurturing and sexual statement: “Com e to my w om an’s breasts | A nd take my milk for gall” (1.5.47-48). This may well recall the trials for treason by sorcery that took place in

Scotland between 1590 and 1591. As Christina Larner points out, m ore than 300 witches, it was alleged, had “indulged in hitherto unheard o f obscene rituals [...] in the physical presence o f their master, the Devil” .7 W atching the play, Jam es I may well have made a connection between Lady M acbeth’s invitation, the events that supposedly occurred during the trials, and the lewd “forme o f adoration” he him self had described as a com m on ritual perform ed by witches.8 A nd an everyday Jacobean at the G lobe would probably have thought o f Lady M acbeth as witch-like, if n o t quite the same as

Shakespeare’s witches. But Lady M acbeth’s com m itm ent to the m urderous cause can be understood another way: firstly, it introduces the audience to her idea o f m anhood; and, secondly, due to the “future in the instant” that she feels m ore keenly than her husband, Lady M acbeth welcomes a union with forces that have to entice M acbeth.

The future Lady M acbeth feels in the instant encourages her to p lot D uncan’s murder. H er entrance in 1.7 as M acbeth searches his soul em phasizes her role as a catalyst in the eventual regicide:

I have no spur T o prick the sides o f my intent, bu t only

Vaulting am bition, which o ’erleaps itself A nd falls on th ’other —

Enter LADY MACBETH.

1.7.25-28

6 Joanna Levin, “Lady Macbeth and the D aem onologie o f Hysteria”, E L H , 69 (2002), 21-55 (p.39). 7 Christina Larner, Witchcraft and Religion: The Politics of Popular Belief, ed. by Alan Macfarlane (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984), p.9.

8 James VI & I, “Daemonologie”, 1597; “Nernsfrom Scotland”, 1591, ed. by G. B. Harrison (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1966), p.37.

Lady M acbeth arrives as the imperative that will drive on M acbeth’s intent. Unlike Macbeth, the audience knows that Lady M acbeth privately believes her husband to be “too full o ’th ’milk o f hum an kindness, | T o catch the nearest way” (1.5.17-18), and their subsequent warring w ords can be understood as a dispute over the meaning o f manhood.

M acbeth’s reluctance to pursue the dastardly plan confirms Lady M acbeth’s fears: We will proceed no further in this business:

H e hath h o n o u r’d m e o f late; and I have bought G olden opinions from all sorts o f people,

W hich w ould be w orn now in their new est gloss, N o t cast aside so soon.

1.7.31-35.

Caroline Spurgeon proposed that the image o f ill-fitting garm ents constandy recurs in Macbeth,9 and here M acbeth wears the effusive appreciation and praise he has recendy earned, while to act in a dishonourable m anner w ould be to lose these garments. To com m it the act Lady M acbeth presses upon him w ould be to throw away the honour these metaphorical garments signify. The honour at stake cannot, for M acbeth, be

separated from a conception o f m anhood defined by an adherence to feudal conventions. W hen, later, M acbeth suggests that all “briefly pu t on manly readiness” (2.3.131) in the aftermath o f D uncan’s m urder, he puts this manliness on — hypocritically, as the audience is well aware — in the light o f his regicidal act. In his study o f m etaphor in the play, Cleanth Brooks argues that, at this m om ent, M acbeth “ can only pretend to be the loyal, grief-stricken liege” .10 H e can only pretend because killing the king contradicts the obligations o f fidelity that define a man as loyal and honourable in a feudal society.

Lady M acbeth turns the m etaphor against M acbeth, however, with a swift and cutting reproach that attacks his masculinity:

Was the hope drunk, W herein you dress’d yourself? H ath it slept since? A nd wakes it now, to look so green and pale

9 Caroline Spurgeon, Shakespeare’s Imagery and What it Tells us (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1935), pp.324'335.

10 Cleanth Brooks, The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry (London: D obson , 1968), p.29.

A t w hat it did so freely?

1.7.35-38

Lady M acbeth equates her husband’s doubts with a cowardice that loses courage in sobriety, reflecting fearfully on w hat it had contem plated w ithout restraint. The courage that only comes with intoxication, in which Lady M acbeth credits M acbeth, separates the apprehensions o f the m orning after from the bravado o f drunkenness that belonged to the heady night before. The contrast Lady M acbeth makes betw een the faint-heartedness o f sobriety and the boldness o f insobriety prepares the audience for the battle between w hat M acbeth wants to do and w hat he feels he ought to do.

Lady M acbeth’s attem pt to argue M acbeth into m urder brings desire and action into conflict:

A rt thou afeard T o be the same in thine own act and valour, As thou art in desire? W ould’st thou have that W hich thou esteem ’st the ornam ent o f life, A nd live a coward in thine own esteem, Letting “I dare n o t” wait upon “I would,” Like the poo r cat i’th ’adage?

1.7.39-45

The proverbial cat likes to eat fish bu t n ot to get her paws w et, and the pejorative analogy sums up M acbeth’s m oral acrobatics, w here his apprehensions stand in the way o f his goal. She aligns M acbeth’s ambivalence with fear o f acting in accordance with w hat he wants. F or her, a m an’s action m ust realize his desires. But, for M acbeth, m anhood m ust be m ore temperate than the desires that tem p t it to its ow n betrayal: “I dare do all that may becom e a man; | W ho dares do m ore, is n one” (1.7.46-47). In the social structure o f Macbeth, kingship is highly desirable, b ut at the same time it is

forbidden to all b ut one person, which makes it precarious. Inevitably then, the principles that govern social exchange and regulate behaviour in the play — the laws o f Macbeth — come into conflict w ith the understandable desire to be king, a desire that may

lead a man to step beyond the boundaries set out by feudal relations and com m it a regicidal act that strips him o f the very qualities that are revered in a king.

Lady M acbeth’s provocation exploits a contradiction: namely, that despite the laws o f the play, com peting interests are always a threat to security in Scotland. Harry Berger Jr.’s analysis o f the early scenes o f the play suggested “that there is something rotten in Scotland”, a structural malaise that claims bo th M acdonwald and M acbeth as its victims.11 We can take this further: M acbeth is caught betw een the desire for the benefits o f kingship and the rules o f kinship that prohibit the violent betrayal that would lead him to the throne. In the play, feudal relations are defined by the factionalism and warfare they are designed to exclude, and which hold M acbeth back. Indeed, these relations are, as Kathleen McLuskie points out, “precarious and potentially bloody” until Malcolm redistributes pow er at the end o f the play.12 So “I dare n o t” always com petes with “I w ould” in the structure o f Macbeth’s society.

“M an” repeatedly equivocates in the play: M acbeth and Lady M acbeth struggle for its meaning. T o return to M acbeth’s response to his w ife’s em asculating attack, we can read it as a w arning against the unmanliness o f tyranny: “I dare do all that may becom e a man; | W ho dares do more, is none” . M acbeth’s w ords pre-em pt M acduff s response to M alcolm’s supposed vices: “Boundless intem perance | In nature is a

tyranny” (4.3.66-67). Actions that exceed the tem perance appropriate to m anhood must be balanced against the kinship obligations o f fealty, for w ho disregards these constraints cannot be considered a man o f worth. A t this poin t for M acbeth to step beyond the parameters that designate masculine restraint and control is to disavow feudal relations, to disregard the codes that ensure the health o f such a polity, thus becom ing less than a

11 Harry Berger, Jr., “The Early Scenes o f Macbeth. Preface to a N ew Interpretation”, E L H , 47 (1980), 1-31 (p.5).

12 Kathleen McLuskie, “Human Statute and the Gentle Weal: Historical Reading and Historical Allegory”,

Shakespeare Survey, 57 (2004), 1-10 (p.8).

man. Yet for Lady M acbeth the courage that acts on such am bition is the marker o f manhood:

W hat beast was’t then, T hat made you break this enterprise to me?

W hen you durst do it, then you were a man; And, to be m ore than what you were, you w ould Be so m uch m ore the man.

1.7.47-51

Lady M acbeth uses “beast” to m ock M acbeth’s notion o f tem perate manhood. The action, n ot the regulated desire, makes M acbeth a greater man. She defines M acbeth’s quality in line with how far he will discount the very principles that define his quality in a feudal society, opposing M acbeth’s conception o f m anhood and honour.

Lady M acbeth reminds her husband o f how he can lose w hat becom es a man domestically by doing w hat becom es a man politically. Like Lady M acduff, Lady

M acbeth places her husband’s loyalty to her above the codes o f fealty: “F rom this time | Such I account thy love” (1.7.38-39). The dem and that she makes as a wife adds to M acbeth’s confusion. A t this m om ent in Macbeth, the dem ands o f fealty are opposed by the demands m ade by Lady M acbeth as two com m itm ents com e into conflict. She warns that the solemnity o f the contract between her and M acbeth will be threatened by

adherence to other, com peting codes o f behaviour. M acbeth m ust weigh the

unmanliness o f tyranny against the unmanliness o f abandoning undertakings he himself reveals to his wife.

Lady M acbeth utili2es the difference between parenthood and marriage to bully Macbeth. She affirms the family structure with a disavowal o f its fruit:

I have given suck, and know H ow tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face,

Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, A nd dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn As you have done to this.

1.7.54-59

The merciless brutality described in Lady M acbeth’s words reaffirms her contem pt for the altruism and self-sacrifice in M acbeth. Simultaneously, however, her w ords uphold the gravity o f a spouse’s promise. T hat she w ould kill with such sickening violence a baby that suckles at her breast emphasizes the im portance o f an oath, even at the

expense o f the life m ost valuable to a m other. M oreover, these lines recall the invitation to the ill spirits to take her milk for bile, as the babe is fatally separated from the breast that is offered instead to evil spirits. “Pity, like a naked new -born babe” (1.7.21), which M acbeth fears will herald divine Judgem ent, becom es a twisted, pitiless version o f A braham ’s sacrifice o f Isaac.13 The image Lady M acbeth conjures replaces the divine image in M acbeth’s soliloquy with one o f murder. Indeed, we can read the murdered babe as an evil spirit. Lady M acbeth first welcomes the “Spirits | T h at tend on mortal thoughts” (1.5.40-41) to her breasts then recycles the image w ith a child in order to win M acbeth’s com m itm ent. “M urth’ring ministers” in Lady M acbeth’s w ords masquerade as an innocent babe she w ould kill out o f loyalty to her husband. A fter this, Macbeth no longer objects. H e asks just one question, “If we should fail?” (1.7.59), before asserting that he is “setded [...] to this terrible feat” (1.7.80-81). I f the witches seduce M acbeth with their amphibologies, Lady M acbeth does it w ith w ords th at literally describe the killing o f pity in the nam e o f manhood.

Later in the play, M acbeth’s manliness will becom e the subject o f a theatrical equivocation. As M acbeth rants wildly at Banquo’s ghost, Lady M acbeth asks him, “Are you a man?” (3.4.57). Though M acbeth claims to be a “bold one” (3.4.58), Lady

M acbeth insists that he is “quite unm ann’d in folly” (3.4.72). T he editor o f the Arden edition, K enneth Muir, adds a stage direction in this scene, which the Folio Macbeth does not have, in order to make sense o f these words: “Why, so; — being gone, | I am a man again” (3.4.106-107). M acbeth’s words do seem to indicate the departure o f the ghost,

13 Genesis, 22.

but as David W orster proposes, we could choose to believe that the ghost is still on stage in order to cast do ubt on M acbeth’s claim to be, once more, a m an.14 In response to this, we can also say that M uir’s stage direction fixes a correlation suggested by the text

between M acbeth’s “unm ann’d folly” and the ghost’s presence on the stage. O n the other hand, because it does n o t confirm M acbeth’s words, the Folio retains the

possibility that the ghost haunts M acbeth until the end o f the scene. W orster’s argument is far-fetched, bu t we can nevertheless understand B anquo’s ghost as a reminder o f M acbeth’s dishonour, where the consequences o f actions that lie outside w hat becomes a man in feudal society perpetually haunt the tyrant’s honourable conception o f manhood.