"No Fear Shakespeare - Macbeth" by William Shakespeare

Above: "No Fear Shakespeare - Macbeth" 110 pages. I completed reading this book today.

Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

I read "Macbeth" in Mrs. Nelson's AP English class at Provo High School in 1962. Despite my dozen plus trips to Ashland Oregon's Shakespeare Festival over the last twenty-five years to see Shakespeare plays with Aunt Joyce, I have never seen Macbeth performed. I saw this book in the St. George, UT Barnes and Nobel and thought it would be a painless way to bring my knowledge of the important play up to date. The No Fear Shakespeare versions show Shakespeare's version on the left page and a plain English translation on the right. I chose to do the maximum cheating by reading the plain English version as default, but I would frequently shift eyes left to check the authentic Shakespear version. I read the play in two sittings, half at Barnes and Nobel while TIMDT roamed the store and the other half after returning home to Ivins.

Plot

The plot of Macbeth is well rehearsed. Macbeth, an acclaimed Scottish General receives a prophesy from three witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then racked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrant. Some of his former friends/colleagues escape to England and build support to remove Macbeth from the throne. Civil war ensues. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are consumed by lunacy and die at the hands of those they once loved.

So many famous lines...

Fair is foul, and foul is fair
Hover through the fog and filthy air
Act 1, Scene 1 witches. Foreshadowing of nasty business to come.

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great,
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly;
And yet wouldst wrongly win. Thou'ld'st have, great Glamis,
And that which rather thou dost fear to do,
Than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear
And chastise with the valor of my tongue
All that impedes they from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crowned withal.
Act 1, Scene 5 Lady Macbeth. My husband is a wimp. I've gotta stiffen his spine.

But here on this bank and shoal of time,
We'd jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgement here, that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague th' inventor: ...
Act 1, Scene 7. Macbeth. It's not good what I'm going to do...It will come back to bite me.

Bring forth men-children only,
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males...
Act 1, Scene 7. Macbeth to Lady Macbeth. Honey, you are ruthless. You should have been man!

Naught's had, all's spent
Where our desire is got without content.
'Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
Act 3, Scene 1. Lady Macbeth to Macbeth. You are racked with guilt. Don't be a wimp. Man up, Macbeth!

It will have blood, they say. Blood will have blood.
Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak.
Augurs and understood relations have
By magot pies and cloughs and rooks brought forth
The secret'st man of blood...
Act 3, Scene 4. Macbeth. I'm so bad. Justice will eventually prevail. I'm never going to get out of this hell I've created for myself.

Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Act 4 Scene 1. Witches. Evil's consequences increasingly apparent.

Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn
The power of man, for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth.
Act 4, Scene 1. First Apparition. Gives Macbeth hope. All men are born of women, right? So, I won't come to any harm, right?

Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are.
Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
Shall come against him.
Act 4, Scene 1. Third Apparition. Macbeth. You're cool. You are going to make it. How can Burnam Wood, miles away, ever come to Dunsinane castle?

NOTE: Re the Apparition prophesies noted above: Malcolm, leader of Macbeth's opposition army in the civil war, was born by cesarian section (eg. not of woman). Malcolm had his soldiers camouflage themselves with brush from Burnam Wood as they advanced on Macbeth's Dunsinane Castle. Hence, the Apparition prophesies were accurate despite them giving false hope to Macbeth.

Whither should I fly?
I have done no harm. But I remember now
I am in this earthly world, where to do harm
Is often laudable, to do good sometime
Accounted dangerous folly. Why then, alas,
Do I put up that womanly defense,
To say I have done no harm?
Act 4, Scene 2. Lady Macduff. I and my children are about to be murdered by Macbeth's henchmen. Perhaps I should have fought harder to protect my children., but then, I am a woman.

Out, damned spot! Out, I say! - One, two. Why, then, 'tis
time to do't. Hell is murky! - Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier,
and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? - Yet who would have
thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
Act 5, Scene 1. Lady Macbeth. Sleepwalking manifestation of guilt. Recoils at the imaginary spot of the murdered King Duncan's blood on her gown.

I have almost forgot the taste of fears.
The time has been my senses would have cooled
To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in 't. I have supped full with horrors.
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts
Cannot once start me.
Act 5, Scene 5. Macbeth. I have created so much horror that horror no longer has any effect on me.

She should have died hereafter,
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
and all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Act 5, Scene 5. Macbeth. Life is an illusion devoid of meaning.

And so?

Greed has consequences.
Women: Lady Macbeth. Beware the scheming woman working behind titular male power. Lady Macduff. Women and men are different.
Trust no one.