Macbeth About Macbeth

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of the proper motive which
should energize back of his great deed:

The service and the loyalty I owe,
In doing it, pays itself.

But while he destroys the king's enemies, such motives work
but dimly at best and are obscured in his consciousness by
more vigorous urges. In the main, as we have said, his nature
violently demands rewards: he fights valiantly in order that
he may be reported in such terms a "valour's minion" and
"Bellona's bridegroom"' he values success because it brings
spectacular fame and new titles and royal favor heaped upon
him in public. Now so long as these mutable goods are at all
commensurate with his inordinate desires - and such is the
case, up until he covets the kingship - Macbeth remains an
honorable gentleman. He is not a criminal; he has no criminal
tendencies. But once permit his self-love to demand a
satisfaction which cannot be honorably attained, and he is
likely to grasp any dishonorable means to that end which ...

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are so vivid under
this evil impulse from without that "nothing is but what is
not"; and his reason is so impeded that he judges, "These
solicitings cannot be evil, cannot be good." Still, he is
provided with so much natural good that he is able to control
the apprehensions of his inordinate imagination and decides
to take no step involving crime. His autonomous decision not
to commit murder, however, is not in any sense based upon
moral grounds. No doubt he normally shrinks from the
unnaturalness of regicide; but he so far ignores ultimate
ends that, if he could perform the deed and escape its
consequences here upon this bank and shoal of time, he'ld
jump the life to come. ...

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