"That great bond which keeps me pale": Macbeth's contract with fate
Joshua Cohen
Source: Shakespeare Newsletter. 60.2 (Fall 2010): p61. From Literature Resource Center.
Copyright : COPYRIGHT 2010 Shakespeare Newsletter
Act 3 of Shakespeare's Macbeth centers on the murder of Banquo, which Macbeth plans and
commissions in the opening scene and which his assassins carry out in Scene 3. In Scene 2,
shortly before nightfall, Macbeth confides to his wife his fears regarding Banquo and his son
Fleance, and hints obliquely at the measures he has taken to deal with them. Then, just as he had
done on the evening of Duncan's murder in Act 2, Macbeth calls upon night to aid and conceal
his crime:
Come... seeling night,
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day.
And with thy bloody and invisible hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me pale. (3.2.47-51)
What is the nature of the "great bond" that Macbeth wishes to cancel'.' Some say it is his bond of
friendship with Banquo; others say that it refers to Banquo s lease on life. C. E. Moberly,
however, has suggested that Macbeth is thinking of "the bond of destiny announced by the weird
sisters," namely, that Macbeth will rule Scotland, but Banquo will be father to a line of future
kings {Arden Shakespeare, p.85). I favor this interpretation with the addition that the term
"bond," in the present case, clearly implies a contract, comparable to the bond between Antonio
and Shylock in Merchant of Venice. Macbeth s use of the word "bond" suggests that he regards
himself as having made a contract with fate, which he is now trying desperately to bail out of.
Figurative language relating to contracts or binding agreements, down payments or unpaid debts
appears repeatedly in the first two acts of Macbeth, always with reference to events foretold by
the Weird Sisters and always seized upon by Macbeth to justify his actions. This trope makes its
first appearance in Act 1, Scene 3, directly following Macbeth and Banquo's encounter with the
Weird Sisters. As the two friends ponder the implications of the witches' prophecy, the Thanes of
Ross and Angus arrive with a summons to appear before the king. Furthennore, Ross informs
Macbeth that
[... ] for an earnest of a greater honour.
He [the king] bade me from him call thee Thane of Cawdor,
In which addition, hail, most worthy gentleman.
For it is thine. (1.3.101 -4; italics added)
As Ross implies, the title of Cawdor is not the only reward Macbeth will receive-additional
honors, as yet unspecified, will follow. But with the Weird Sisters' prophecy ringing in his ears,
Macbeth cannot help but magnify Ross's use of the term "earnest" (implying a pledge or token of
future benefits) as a sign from destiny that his new title of Cawdor is merely a down payment for
that "greater honour"-the crown-promised to him by the witches. The shock of this swift
confirmation throws Macbeth into a panic:
This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill.
Why hath it given me earnest of success.
Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings.
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical.
Shakes so my single state of man that function
Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is.
But what is not. (1.3.129-42; italics added)
The "horrid image" Macbeth sees is of course a vision of murder. Earlier in the scene, we have
had an indication that Macbeth had been thinking of seizing the throne for quite some time. The
moment the witches hailed him king, Banquo observed him to "start" like one that "seem[s] to
"fear/Things that do sound so fair" (1.3.49-50). It is the spasmodic reaction of a guilty man who
has heard his secret thoughts divined and spoken out. Now hearing that the first prophecy has
come true, Macbeth's mind is flooded with nightmarish images of a crime he has already
permitted himself to consider-although without, as yet, consenting to it.
At first he tries to soothe these murderous thoughts by reasoning that perhaps it will not be
necessary to take power by violent means:
If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me,
Without my stir. (1.3.142-3)
It is a poignant moment-this attempt by Macbeth to placate his conscience by pretending he
might be crowned by "chance." In his heart, however, he knows what he will have to do. Like
Dostoyevsky's Raskolnikov, turning over his plan to murder the old pawnbroker, Macbeth is in
the grip of an idee fixe that both fascinates and horrifies him, and every new impression seems to
confirm his conviction that the "horrible imaginings" will eventually become real.
Reinforcement for this conviction is swift in coming. In the following scene, Macbeth appears
before King Duncan, who praises him in the most fulsome terms, in language replete with
references to debts and unpaid balances:
O worthiest cousin,
The sin of my ingratitude even now
Was heavy on me! Thou art so far before
The swiftest wing of recompense is slow
To overtake thee. Would thou has less deserved,
That the proportion both of thanks and payment
Might have been mine. Only 1 have left to say,
More is thy due than more than all can pay.
(1.4.14-21)
Adding a little later:
Welcome hither,
I have begun to plant thee, and will labour,
To make thee full of growing. (1.4.27-9)
Even in a king renowned for his kindness, Duncan's effusions seem excessive and unbecoming to
his position. Macbeth's pointed response, though hypocritically motivated, puts the case in
proper perspective:
The service and the loyalty I owe
In doing, pays itself. Your Highness' part
Is to receive our duties ... (1.4.22-4)
In thus overstating his indebtedness, Duncan is compromising his kingly authority, encouraging
his supporters to feel entitled to boundless rewards for having merely done their duty.
One might well imagine that at this moment Macbeth's morbid premonitions give way to a
complacent sense of entitlement. After all, what the witches promised him is no more than he
deserves-even Duncan seems to think so. And since by ancient Scottish custom the royal
succession does not pass automatically from father to son. but must first be ratified by the
nobility, might it not even be possible that Duncan is implicitly intending to nominate Macbeth
as his successor?
Yet after all of his extravagant compliments and implied promises, what does Duncan do? He
announces to all and sundry that he has chosen Malcolm to succeed him:
Sons, kinsmen, thanes.
And whose places are the nearest, know
We will establish our estate upon
Our eldest. Malcolm, whom we name hereafter
Prince of Cumberland; which honour must
Not unaccompanied invest him only.
But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
On all deservers. (To Macbeth) From hence to Inverness,
And bind us further to you. (1.4.3543)
Probably Duncan's announcement is a tactical move provoked by the recent betrayal of his
fonner counselor, the previous Thane of Cawdor. Duncan may think that naming his successor
will forestall competing claims to the throne and avert future strife. From the standpoint of its
effect on Macbeth, however, his announcement could not have been more disastrously timed. It
must seem to Macbeth as if Duncan were capriciously--if not maliciously--cheating him of his
rightful prize. Furthermore, Malcolm's nomination places additional pressure on Macbeth to
resolve his next course of action. If he is really going to seize power, it will have to be soon,
before the crown can pass into the more capable hands of Duncan's elder son.
Duncan's nomination of Malcolm-followed immediately by his announcement that he will be
spending the night at Macbeth's castle--triggers the next stage of Macbeth's progress toward his
fatal crime:
The Prince of Cumberland-that is a step
On which I must fall down or else o'erleap.
For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires.
Let not light see my black and deep desires;
The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.
(1.4.48-53)
This is the moment of inner consent. When Macbeth says, "let that be/Which the eye fears, when
it is done, to see," he is consciously willing the crime to take place. Intentionally or not, Duncan
has just blocked Macbeth's legal route to the throne, and now he is placing himself under
Macbeth's protection as his guest. He has given Macbeth the motive and the cue for regicide.
In the course of Act 1 Macbeth comes to regard the witches' promise of the crown in the light of
a contract with fate. In Act 2, spurred on by his own "vaulting ambition", and by the promptings
of his equally ambitious wife, he signs the contract in blood. But attainment of royal power does
not bring him any contentment or security. In spite of his clumsy attempt to pin Duncan's murder
on his own sons (whose precipitous flight clears Macbeth's path to the throne). Macbeth assumes
power under a cloud of suspicion. Before long there are widespread stirrings of discontent, and
Macbeth has planted spies in the houses of all of the thanes. So at the start of Act 3 we find him
reviewing his predicament and belatedly coming to grips with the implications of the second part
of the prophecy concerning Banquo and his descendants:
He chid the sisters
When first they put the name of king upon me.
And bade them speak to him. Then, prophet-like.
They hailed him father to a line of kings.
Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown.
And put a barren scepter in my grip.
Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand.
No son of mine succeeding. I ft be so.
For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind.
For them the gracious Duncan have I murdered.
Put rancours in the vessel of my peace
Only for them, and mine eternal jewel
Given to the common enemy of man
To make them kings, the seeds of Banquo kings.
Rather than so, come fate into the list
And champion me to tfYutterance. (3.1.58-73)
If fathering a line of kings makes Banquo (in the words of the Weird Sisters) "lesser than
Macbeth, and greater" (1.3.63), it can only be because Macbeth will be granted no heirs. Hence,
all the fruits of his ambition will die with him. And since all the fruits thus far have been bitter,
Macbeth has sacrificed everything-reputation, security, peace of mind and future salvation-only
to make the "seed of Banquo" kings. That, in any case, is how he interprets his situation, on the
tacit assumption that the witches' prediction regarding Banquo is predicated on the fulfillment of
their promises to Macbeth. Having honored his part of the imagined contract (by killing the king
in order to seize the promised throne), Macbeth now realizes to his despair that his enthronement
was merely an "earnest of a greater honor" for Banquo's descendants. This terrible awakening is
what provokes him to order the assassination of Banquo and his son-a futile attempt (owing to
Fleance's escape) to "cancel and tear to pieces" his "bond" with fate before its remaining terms
can be fulfilled.
What is it, then, that compelled him to make a contract with fate'.' The critical thing to
understand is that this "contract" is purely imaginary. Fate as such is an unconditional decree, not
an arrangement that can be negotiated by two or more parties. Indeed, considered within the
Christian framework of the play, the idea of fate is actually a poor analogy for the true force of
destiny at work in the world, which is to say, divine providence. The same ostensible "fate" that
has enthroned Macbeth will later enthrone a line of kings descended from Banquo, culminating
in James I, the monarch divinely appointed (or so he would claim) to unite the kingdoms of
England and Scotland. Thus the Weird Sisters are not true arbiters of fate, but merely devilish
spirits whose function is to plant seeds of temptation into the souls of people already inclining
toward sin and despair. They do not look for such soil in Banquo, who has always kept his
"bosom franchised and allegiance clear" (2.1.27),' but in Macbeth, a morally aware but
desperately ambitious man haunted by dreams of power that thrill and horrify him. When
Macbeth hears the witches hail him King of Scotland, he knows immediately that they are
speaking to his desire. By accepting their words as a bond and configuring them as a contract
with fate. Macbeth is able, on the one hand, to validate his ambition, and on a deeper level, to
convince himself that he has no choice.
In the last analysis, it all originates in a kind of despair. For the truth is that despair engenders the
sin that ends in despair. Everyone sees how Macbeth comes to taste despair at the end of the
play, how he comes to regard his life as a "tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/
Signifying nothing" (5.5.25-7). But did he ever hope for something better? It is striking to
observe how clearly Macbeth foresaw the end of his wicked career from the very beginning. In
his famous Act 1 soliloquy, "If it were done when 'tis done" (1.7.1 -28), he predicts with chilling
accuracy all of the evil consequences brought on by the murder of Duncan, nor can he find any
motive behind his intentions apart from that "vaulting ambition which o'er leaps itself/And falls
on th'olher [side]" (1.7.27-8). He never even harbors the illusion of future happiness, yet seeing
misery and destruction before him. he goes to meet them. And in the course of what follows he
will struggle, bargain, pretend, and ultimately rage hopelessly against a fate in which he places
no trust, but to which he submits because he knows he has nothing else to hope for. It is this
guilty hopelessness-this psychological state of despair-that gives Macbeth's tragedy its enduring
power.
Works Cited
Shakespeare. William. The Arden Shakespeare: Macbeth. Ed. Katherine Duncan- Jones. Thomas
Nelson& Sons Ltd., 1998. Footnote, p. 85.
--. The Complete Works. Eds. Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1992.
Joshua Cohen (Massachusetts College of Art)
Notes
(1) It might be asked whether Banquo, who was also present at the witches' prophecy, does not
also regard his own destiny as a contract with fate. It is true that Banquo keeps a close watch on
the predicted events as they unfold, and at the beginning of Act 3. he permits himself to hope that
the fulfillment of the promises to Macbeth might "be [his] oracles as well,/And set [him] up in
hope" (3.1.9-10). The difference is that Banquo lacks Macbeth's obsessive ambition (and
Macbeth's guilty consciousness of his ambition), so he never allows himself to become morally
or psychologically hound'to his destiny. While he cannot help thinking, even dreaming, of what
the witches promised him (2.1.7-9,1920), Banquo refrains from doing anything to make the
promises come true, and he tactfully deflects all of Macbeth's tacit efforts to embroil him in his
plots.
Cohen, Joshua
Source Citation (MLA 7th Edition)
Cohen, Joshua. "'That great bond which keeps me pale': Macbeth's contract with fate."
Shakespeare Newsletter Fall 2010: 61+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
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