Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1888-07-15

| presence and her 6alutntlOn OF MIN Is
"Great Glamisi Worthy Cswdori
| Greater than both by the ai-hsil hereafterl
4 Thy letters have transported me beyond
| This ignorant present. and feel now
! Tho future In the Instant
and the dialogue proceeds as follows:
| Macbeth: My dearest love.
Duncan come. here tonight
| Lady Macbeth Aud when goes henceT
Macbeth Tomorrow, as he purposes.
Lady Macbeth: q. never
shall sun that morrow sesi
and then she proceeds to urge him TO the
preparation Of this crime. and tc say
"And you shall put
This nights great business Into my dispatch"
Macbeth says to her in answer:
ave will speak further"
and she replies:
"only look up cloar:
| To alter favor ever Ia TO fear;
Leave all the rest TO me-"
And with this the scene ends, and this is
the first interview that occurs between
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth after he has
seen the "weird sisters" This shows
Lady Macbeth TO be the ruthless monster
that have described her as being. and that
so far as she is concerned, the murder OF
Duncan originates with her. In scene
7 Macbeth has his sublime soliloquy in
which he discusses this contemplated as
sassination. The result is that in the
scene that follows, with Lady Macbeth,
he tells her that
ave will proceed no further In this business"
and again she urges him, taunts him,
and insults him into the murder OF Dun
can, and even plans to him the manner
OF the murder, and Macbeth at last con-
sents to kill Duncan. All of this estsb-
fishes how clearly erroneous Mrs. Jane
sons view OF the character of Lady Mac
beth is, and great and powerful as the
portrayal has been made by Shakespeare
she is an unsexed woman and q mon
ster.
/ have said that the two great traits in
Lady Macbeth are ambition and strength
OF will, and in nothing that Shakespeare
has written has he demonstrated a more
consummate dramatic skill than in the
way in which he has illustrated the
strength of will of Lady Macbeth. Such
Was her strength Of wiU, no matter
aohat her remsrsc, her WiU Uould hare
suppressed its revelation Whiie in the
possession of her faculties; bm her
crime brought its remorse, and Shake
SpeQre shOps this renlOrse not Uhtte IN
the fuU possession Of her faculties, but
in that great scene in Act y, scene l.,
in which shc UdikS In her steep, and
thus Nth her strength Of tOiH IN dbey-
ancc she gives expression TO the ogOnies
that eat into her heart. This is one OF
the greatest scenes that Shakespeare
ever wrote. subsequently she ends her
life, as she should do, by suicide, and 70
the poetical justice of the play is COM
plete as to her.
1t is q remarkable fact in connection
with Lady Macbeth, but one in which
Shakespeare shows his consummate
power, that she does not once in this
play express to Macbeth any affection
for him. OF course, Macbeth must have
believed in her love for him, and he
uses many expressions of tenderness to
her, but such expressions never cross her
lips to him. For Lady Macbeth to talk
affection oven to her husband would be
strange anomaly, and Shakespeare
avoided such folly. Only once IN the
entire play does Shakespeare soften the
character of Lady Macbeth, and that is
in scene 3, Act III. While Macbeth is
committing the murder she has brief
solloquy, in which she says:
~ laid their dsggers ready;
BE could not miss EN-. Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, had done T."
A comparison has been made between
the Clytemnestra of Eschylos in
"Agamemnon," the Clytemnestra of
Sophocles, the Electra of Sophocles, the
Medea of Euripides and Lady Mac
beth. cannot see that this resemblance
applies except in the matter of their
all being murderesses. and even then, In
all the other cases, the murder proceeds
from a different motive from that which
impelled Lady Macbeth. The Clytem-
nestra Of Eschylos murders Agamem-
non, her husband, under the double
motive of revenge upon him for
having sacrificed her daughter Iphi-
esnia, and because she is an adultress
with Egisthos, and while she avows her
self as glorying in this murder Kschylos
has sought to protect her character as a
woman by causing her to say: Thou
vauntest, the deed was mine, but reckon
not that / am the spouse of Agsmemnon.
No, but the ancient, ruthless, evil genius
of Atreus, cruel banqueter, likened to
the wife Of this dead man, hath visited
him with this vengesnce, having paid a
full-grown victim for infants y; and
Eschylos still further softens her charac-
ter in the conclusion of the play by
causing her to restrain the rage of Egis-
thos and say to him:
Enough of evil; lot no further stain imbrue
our hands"
The motive that impels the Clytem-
nestra of Sophocles to murder is the
same as in the play of Hschylos. Tho
Medea OF Euripides murders Jsson's
wife, and her own Medea's, children,
because Of her mad rage and jealous
anger towards Jason, and in the Electra
Of Sophocles, Electra urges her brother
Orestes to the murder of their mother,
Clytemnestra, to avengs the murder
of their father Agamemnon, and
in all of the part of Lady Macbeth,
there is no scene so full of tenderness
and pathos as the scene in the Electra OF
Sophocles in which Electra receives the
urn containing what she believes to be
the ashes of her brother Orestes, and the
speech of exquisite and pathetic sorrow
that she makes over it. In addition, too,
Sophecles still further lifts the lurid
shadows that invest Electra by having
her remain outside OF the palace while
her brother Orestes kills their mother.
She is, therefore, not actually present at
the murder, the excuse framed for her.
being that she is there to intercept
Egisthos. 1t is trne thst she calls out
to her brother when she hears the cries
of Clytemnestra:
"Smits hor yet again
IL thou asst strength for It'll
but the fact that she does not witness
and participate in the murder, but is
kept outside during its execution, l have
always greatly admired, and deem it
superb piece of dramatic art on the part
of Sophocles.
There can be no more conclusive proof
of Shakespeare's purpose to create in
Lady Macbeth perfect monster, such
as have described her as being, than in