Macbeth (generally speaking) is done upon a stronger and more
systematic principle of contrast than any other of Shakespeare's
plays. It moves upon the verge of an abyss, and is a constant
struggle between life and death. The action is desperate and the
reaction is dreadful. It is a huddling together of fierce extremes,
a war of opposite natures which of them shall destroy the other.
There is nothing but what has a violent end or violent beginnings.
The lights and shades are laid on with a determined hand; the
transitions from triumph to despair, from the height of terror to
the repose of death, are sudden and startling; every passion brings
in its fellow-contrary, and the thoughts pitch and jostle against
each other as in the dark. The whole play is an unruly chaos of
strange and forbidden things, where the ground rocks under our feet.
Shakespeare's genius here took its full swing, and trod upon the
furthest bounds of nature and passion. This circumstance will
account tor the abruptness and violent antitheses of the style, the
throes and labour which run through the expression, and from defects
will turn them into beauties. 'So fair and foul a day I have not
seen,' &c. 'Such welcome and unwelcome news together.' 'Men's lives
are like the flowers in their caps, dying or ere they sicken.' 'Look
like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it.' The scene
before the castle-gate follows the appearance of the Witches on the
heath, and is followed by a midnight murder. Duncan is cut off
betimes by treason leagued with witchcraft, and Macduff is ripped
untimely from his mother's womb to avenge his death. Macbeth, after
the death of Banquo, wishes for his presence in extravagant terms,
'To him and all we thirst,' and when his ghost appears, cries out,
'Avaunt and quit my sight,' and being gone, he is 'himself again'.
Macbeth resolves to get rid of Macduff, that 'he may sleep in spite
of thunder'; and cheers his wife on the doubtful intelligence of