She is the most notorious woman in all of Shakespeare’s plays and we don’t even know her name. To us she is only Lady Macbeth, the ruthless Scotswoman who urged her husband to kill the king and seize the throne.
The warrior Macbeth, having successfully defended King Duncan against rebels, meets three witches who prophesy that he will be king one day. We first see Lady Macbeth on stage reading his letter about that meeting. He shares this news right away with his “dearest partner of greatness”, he writes, so that she can rejoice that she will be queen. Lady Macbeth instantly takes fire from his hint and muses over his hesitant nature, which stands in the way of his hopes.
She’s not truly cold-blooded; in fact she’s horrified when a messenger tells her King Duncan will visit them that very night, soon after her husband’s return. Rushed into planning a regicide, she invokes the spirits of death to make her cruel enough for the task, and she tells Macbeth to leave it all in her hands.
We could argue that it is the women in the play who drive the events. The witches plant an idea in Macbeth’s head, which Lady Macbeth then nourishes.
Then they lead him on to more atrocities. But isn’t it the husband who sparks an outrageous purpose in his wife’s mind? Imagine Macbeth, bold in battle but otherwise oozing the milk of human kindness, wondering how he can achieve this tantalising prophecy without dirtying his hands. “I know!” he exclaims to himself, “I’ll get the missus to do it.” If she is familiar with his gift for shilly-shally, certainly he guesses how efficiently she will organise a murder.
In their astonishingly realistic marital chatter, we see tender, unostentatious addresses. We see a hissing argument while their guests are dining in the next room, as Macbeth raises objections to her plan and she shoots them down. Her words are wild, almost a war-cry, because she is trying to steel herself as well as him. Finally, he gives in and says, “Bring forth men-children only; for thy undaunted mettle should compose nothing but males.” “Males like you?” she might snort, if she had the time, but she has guardsmen to drug, daggers to unsheathe.
When the deed is done, they both jump at every noise, but Lady Macbeth stages the crime scene and scrubs the blood off their hands. It is later, as Macbeth kills one rival after another, that she starts to crumble. Their partnership of greatness has broken down, yet she still loyally attempts to deflect suspicion from him and soothes him when he mourns his lost soul.
Many of us remember her as the lone woman in the play, but she’s not. There is the outspoken wife of Macbeth’s rival Macduff. When Macduff flees to England, Lady Macduff skips the hand-wringing and roundly condemns him for leaving her and the children in danger while he saves his own skin. Even the wren, she points out, stands her ground to save her fledglings. There are the three witches and the often-forgotten three more, led by Hecate, goddess of magic and witchcraft. They all show more prophecies to Macbeth, rebuking his arrogance with dark truths and deceptive riddles.
Meanwhile, the haunted Lady Macbeth walks the castle corridors in her sleep. She blurts out the bloody deeds she knows of, and yet those who are listening pity her infected mind and swear to look after her. They suspect her only of having witnessed her husband’s crimes, and by then we ourselves know that to be the truth.
(Latha is a writer and editor. Read more of her work on lathaanantharaman.blogspot.in or write to her at anantharaman.bookwise@gmail.com)
