They have a
technical value in helping to give the last stage of the action the form
of a conflict between Macbeth and Macduff. But their chief function is
of another kind. It is to touch the heart with a sense of beauty and
pathos, to open the springs of love and of tears. Shakespeare is loved
for the sweetness of his humanity, and because he makes this kind of
appeal with such irresistible persuasion; and the reason why _Macbeth_,
though admired as much as any work of his, is scarcely loved, is that
the characters who predominate cannot make this kind of appeal, and at
no point are able to inspire unmingled sympathy. The two passages in
question supply this want in such measure as Shakespeare thought
advisable in _Macbeth_, and the play would suffer greatly from their
excision. The second, on the stage, is extremely moving, and Macbeth's
reception of the news of his wife's death may be intended to recall it
by way of contrast. The first brings a relief even greater, because here
the element of beauty is more marked, and because humour is mingled with
pathos. In both we escape from the oppression of huge sins and
sufferings into the presence of the wholesome affections of unambitious
hearts; and, though both scenes are painful and one dreadful, our
sympathies can flow unchecked.
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