Friday, November 8, 2013

Who is "a soldier, and afeard" in Macbeth?

Lady Macbeth is talking to herself in Act V, Scene 1 of the play and is evidently sound asleep. At one point, she imagines she is talking to her husband and they are back in the past, in the time before he has actually murdered Duncan. She is using her familiar tactic of appealing to his sense of manhood to convince him to do what she wants him to do. 



Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and afeard?



She pretends to believe all Macbeth's misgivings about going through with the murder are due to cowardice and have no logical substance. In the line that follows her question, she is still addressing her husband in her dream.



What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our
pow'r to accompt?



If they can become king and queen of Scotland, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth would not be questioned about how they acquired their authority. After Macbeth becomes king, everyone treats him with the greatest respect. This includes Banquo, who thinks Macbeth obtained the crown by murdering King Duncan, as he says to himself in the soliloquy which opens Act III, Scene 1.



Thou hast it now: King, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
As the weird women promised, and I fear
Thou play'dst most foully for't:



Lady Macbeth struggled to persuade her husband to go through with the assassination. Shakespeare uses Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene in the final act of the play to remind his audience that she shares in Macbeth's guilt. For example, back in Act I, Scene 7, when Macbeth told her,



We will proceed no further in this business:
He hath honor'd me of late, and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.



She responded,



Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dress'd yourself? Hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valor
As thou art in desire?


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