The moon is down and no stars
shine when Banquo, dreading the dreams of the coming night, goes
unwillingly to bed, and leaves Macbeth to wait for the summons of the
little bell. When the next day should dawn, its light is 'strangled,'
and 'darkness does the face of earth entomb.' In the whole drama the sun
seems to shine only twice: first, in the beautiful but ironical passage
where Duncan sees the swallows flitting round the castle of death; and,
afterwards, when at the close the avenging army gathers to rid the earth
of its shame. Of the many slighter touches which deepen this effect I
notice only one. The failure of nature in Lady Macbeth is marked by her
fear of darkness; 'she has light by her continually.' And in the one
phrase of fear that escapes her lips even in sleep, it is of the
darkness of the place of torment that she speaks.[195]
The atmosphere of _Macbeth_, however, is not that of unrelieved
blackness. On the contrary, as compared with _King Lear_ and its cold
dim gloom, _Macbeth_ leaves a decided impression of colour; it is really
the impression of a black night broken by flashes of light and colour,
sometimes vivid and even glaring. They are the lights and colours of the
thunder-storm in the first scene; of the dagger hanging before Macbeth's
eyes and glittering alone in the midnight air; of the torch borne by the
servant when he and his lord come upon Banquo crossing the castle-court
to his room; of the torch, again, which Fleance carried to light his
father to death, and which was dashed out by one of the murderers; of
the torches that flared in the hall on the face of the Ghost and the
blanched cheeks of Macbeth; of the flames beneath the boiling caldron
from which the apparitions in the cavern rose; of the taper which showed
to the Doctor and Gentlewoman the wasted face and blank eyes of Lady
Macbeth.
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