![]() These three apparitions falsely lessen the deep fears of Macbeth. It assures Macbeth of his invincibility until Birnam Wood starts moving towards Dunsinane Hill. The third apparition is a crowned child with a tree in his hand. The second apparition rises which is a bloody child who says that none of woman born will ever harm Macbeth. They summon the first ghostlike figure who warns Macbeth of Macduff and then descends. He impatiently asks about them and any truth to their prophecies. Hecat enters and chants after which the second witch says, “ something wicked this way comes” hence Macbeth enters. ![]() Thomas De Quincey wrote a whole essay on it.In a witches’ house, the three witches are performing witchcraft by chanting and mixing strange things in a large boiling pot. The persistent knocking in the scene is also possessed of dramatic power. But the Porter scene, as this analysis shows, is more than just comic relief: in some ways, in reminding us constantly of the dark event that has just occurred at the castle (even if the Porter has no knowledge of Duncan’s murder), Shakespeare intensifies the horror of the murder, much as when we hear people make blithe reference to something horrific it shocks us all the more for being so offhand. The Porter’s section of this scene has given the actor playing Macbeth enough time to change out of his bloody clothes and wipe his hands, and now the main action of the play can resume. Our knocking has awaked him here he comes. The Porter responds with a wrestling analogy: although drink laid him up on his back, he was stronger than it, and when drink ‘took up my legs’ (i.e., picked him up by the legs), the Porter responded by throwing drink off (possibly with a suggestion of throwing up). That it did, sir, i’ the very throat on me: but I requited him for his lie and, I think, being too strong for him, though he took up my legs sometime, yet I made a shift to cast him. ![]() In other words, he’s saying the Porter appears to have got so drunk that he passed out from it. Macduff is not a character known for his jokes in the rest of Macbeth, but here he permits himself to join in with the Porter’s punning: ‘gave thee the lie’ means ‘laid you up on your back’. I believe drink gave thee the lie last night. Consider, for instance, Lady Macbeth’s question to her husband: ‘Art thou afeard / To be the same in thine own act and valour / As thou art in desire?’ (emphasis added). As Kenneth Muir notes in his excellent introduction to “Macbeth” (Arden Shakespeare: Second Series), there are many references to the gap between the ‘desire’ and the ‘act’ or performance of something in Macbeth. Like so much in the Porter scene, this comic exchange about how getting drunk makes men lustful, but removes their physical ability to perform in bed, has more in common with the central themes of the play than we might first realise. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance: therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him it sets him on, and it takes him off it persuades him, and disheartens him makes him stand to, and not stand to in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him. Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. What three things does drink especially provoke? The Porter is often played as hungover, clutching his head as if suffering from a headache: he was up late drinking (‘carousing’) till three o’clock in the morning (‘the second cock’, i.e. ![]() ’Faith sir, we were carousing till the second cock: and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things. Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed, ![]() The Porter decides to leave off his play-acting that he’s the porter at the gates of hell.Īnon, anon! I pray you, remember the porter. The ‘primrose way’ (compare Hamlet’s ‘primrose path to dalliance’) is a flowery, beautiful, pleasant path – but it leads to ‘the everlasting bonfire’ of hell. The Porter cleverly reminds us where we are meant to be: up in Inverness, in the far north of Scotland, where it is indeed ‘too cold for hell’. I’ll devil-porter it no further: I had thought to have let in some of all professions that go the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire. Knock, knock never at quiet! What are you? But this place is too cold for hell. A ‘goose’, as well as being a tasty bird, is a tailor’s pressing-iron: so ‘roast your goose’ is a joke, because of the fires of hell. This time, an English tailor has arrived at the Porter’s imaginary ‘hell’ (there are lots of old jokes against tailors like this). Yet another ‘knock, knock! Who’s there?’ line from the Porter. Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there? Faith, here’s an English tailor come hither, for stealing out of a French hose: come in, tailor here you may roast your goose. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |