Even in the quiet conversation of Malcolm and
Macduff, Macbeth is imagined as holding a bloody sceptre, and Scotland
as a country bleeding and receiving every day a new gash added to her
wounds. It is as if the poet saw the whole story through an ensanguined
mist, and as if it stained the very blackness of the night. When
Macbeth, before Banquo's murder, invokes night to scarf up the tender
eye of pitiful day, and to tear in pieces the great bond that keeps him
pale, even the invisible hand that is to tear the bond is imagined as
covered with blood.
Let us observe another point. The vividness, magnitude, and violence of
the imagery in some of these passages are characteristic of _Macbeth_
almost throughout; and their influence contributes to form its
atmosphere. Images like those of the babe torn smiling from the breast
and dashed to death; of pouring the sweet milk of concord into hell; of
the earth shaking in fever; of the frame of things disjointed; of
sorrows striking heaven on the face, so that it resounds and yells out
like syllables of dolour; of the mind lying in restless ecstasy on a
rack; of the mind full of scorpions; of the tale told by an idiot, full
of sound and fury;--all keep the imagination moving on a 'wild and
violent sea,' while it is scarcely for a moment permitted to dwell on
thoughts of peace and beauty.
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