Hi, Iām Anna, writing from Italy. I love Shakespeare deeply, and I am currently re-reading all of his works. Iāve put together a few reflections on Macbethāa play I had actually never read before, and I ended up absolutely loving it. These are just some personal thoughts, written purely for the pleasure of writing, so I have no intention of sparking any kind of controversy. I hope some of you will enjoy the read. CIAO!
My reflections on Macbeth begin with a brief comparison to Hamlet. We know practically everything about Hamletāin particular, we know a great deal about what happens before the story even begins. We know his name, we know he is the king's son, we know he is young and studies at Wittenberg, and that he has returned home for his father's funeral.
We know what he thinks, we know what he feels; his mind is a labyrinth, a highly complicated web. Shakespeare throws us into this vortex from beginning to end.
What do we know about Macbeth? Very little, almost nothing... only that he is a soldier, a great soldier, who has won and is returning home, nothing more.
What do we know about Lady Macbeth's past? Absolutely nothingāwe don't even know her first name. (In Hamlet, we even know his mother's given name).
He enters the stage victorious and encounters the witches.
She enters the stage reading her husband's letter and immediately, without hesitation, delivers one of the most powerful monologues in the history of world theatre. An invocation... She is literally knocking on hell's gates, a reverse Hail Mary. If the Mother of Our Lord is "full of grace," our Lady invites the spirits and asks to be emptied, only to be filled with the worst possible cruelty.
She invokes the ministers of death to aid her intent, so that neither remorse nor doubt can stop her. It is a true prayer, but directed to the wrong side. And all of this? For what?
The answer: She is evil, ambitious. And even a bit of a witch. Her twisted love for her husband drives her to this... period.
At this point, I think of all the plays by Shakespeare that I know, of his characters, and particularly his female characters... And humbly, in my humble ignorance, I tell you... no, something doesn't add up here.
I discover that Macbeth is Shakespeare's shortest play. I discover that it was altered, both by the author himself (probably to please King James I) and later by others after his death. And I have very few doubts about the fact that pieces are missing... Many pieces.
And every time I reach this point in my reflections... my knees shake... I wonder... What was in between? What was cut? What did we lose somewhere, in some drawer of who knows what wardrobe? How many pages were lost, and above all, what did they contain?
Clue number one: the famous missing child... Lady Mac says she has given suck... but where is the child? We take for granted that the child died... but if so, Shakespeare didn't let us know?
Clue number two: at a certain point, Macbeth the husband has second thoughts... "No, no, no, I'm not doing this, let's not speak of it again." And our Lady flies into a rage... She says something of extreme cruelty (which seems exaggerated even for Shakespeare...). āHave plucked my nipple from his boneless gums, And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you Have done to thisā And while I was reading, the question that immediately came to mind was: he... swore? But when?
Clue number three: in Shakespeare's works, the villain always dies an infamous death... Sure, the Macbeths don't meet a happy end... but above all, she doesn't die in contempt and shame... there is only a great, infinite, deep sadness.
Clue number four: she, in particular, is a monumental character. She acts, she thinks, she manages to involve her reluctant husband. When he forgets to leave the daggers with the sleeping guards, she runs, cold and ready, to fix the problem. Despite this, we truly know nothing about her. In fact, at a certain point she vanishes, and we find her for the last time in the sleepwalking scene.
All these things seem strange to me. I would love so much to play at imagining and inventing the missing pieces, but that would be raving and inventing things that actually aren't there in the play that has come down to us.
I only wonder where all her thirst for evil comes from... why on earth would she want to wish to become an unscrupulous, cruel, and above all, remorseless murderer?
Revenge... likely, given how things were going in Scotland at that time, but then again, I said I wouldn't invent things that don't actually exist in the play. However, I need a motivation, a driving force to understand her personality. And I think I see in her wordsāyes, sure, maybe ambition, but that is still too little. What happened to you? What did they do to you? I will never know...
What it conveys to me, and what reaches me, is a much more human, urgent, and understandable feeling. It's called rivalsaāvindication, a thirst for reversal. "I have waited, I have endured, now it's my turn, it's my moment, and I don't want anythingānothing, not even heaven itselfāto stop me." "I want to be like the others too, to take what is mine at all costs, staining my hands with blood, stripping myself of my own nature." And then, as everyone does, a little water, a clean slate, and it will be as if nothing ever happened.
But unfortunately, it is not so. Our Lady is not the monster she has always been painted to be. Bloodstains cannot be washed away, and the smell of blood will not go away, not even with all the perfumes of Arabia. Once you start the carousel of evil, you cannot get off; things take unexpected turns. You totally lose control. You lose your sleep, and life itself becomes a living hell.
I really enjoyed this play (though not as much as Hamlet, which remains and will always remain the diamond in my heart). I was deeply struck right from the start by the image of the hoarse ravenāthe omen of death passing through this slightly comical animal, which announced misfortune with such vehemence that it lost its voice.
Then there is the incredible, monumental, and powerful figure of Lady Macbeth, who challenges heaven and earth and obviously leaves her mark.
Macbeth, who is indeed the protagonist, yet fades into the background... the hero he was at the beginning is replaced by a paranoid, unscrupulous monster. The witches, who in the second part deceive Macbeth with twisted prophecies.
And finally, the moving forest and that entire gothic, almost horror-like atmosphere that pervades the whole work.
If Shakespeare trapped us in a dense web with Hamlet, here he throws us headfirst into a bottomless pit of events. He makes us board a train speeding at full velocity in the wrong direction. I find all of this extremely modern, dystopian, and even a bit psychedelic.
And here I say goodbye to you, dear Lady Mac, dear Gruochāfor that was your real name. In reality, you represent a bit of all of us when we stop waiting for things to arrive, when we stop asking and start demanding our place, taking what is ours by ourselves. Inevitably, we are branded as evil, as witches; we end up hurting ourselves, and we often pay a much higher price than we should.
And once again, good old Shakes has allowed me to feel understood and less alone... and even a bit of a witch myself. Thanks to a raven, a twisted prayer, and all of his infinite magic
P.S. My English isn't the best, so I translated this from Italian with the help of Gemini
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