Macbeth Again, Further Thoughts

Here again is Macbeth’s soliloquy, one of Shakespeare’s most famous:

            To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
            Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
            To the last syllable of recorded time;
            And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
            The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
            Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
            That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
            And then is heard no more. It is a tale
            Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
            Signifying nothing.

                                                (5.5.19-28)

Macbeth knows his ill-gotten tenure on the Scottish throne won't last much longer, and now his wife’s gone mad and killed herself. Because Macbeth’s life seems a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing, he projects that everyone’s life is like that. Shakespeare know, whether or not his character does, that we all have felt that way at times. 

But Macbeth’s life is a tale told not so much by an idiot as by an ambitious, hen-pecked, anxiety-ridden, speechifying criminal whose ambition leads him to kill a king who trusted, loved, and respected him. Oh yes, and his good friend Banquo (too bad the kid got away).  Oh yes, and the wife and child of Macduff. Yes, we’ve all had days or months like Macbeth’s, haven’t we. And instead of aspirin or Xanax, here we go off to slaughter a few humans, the closer to us they thought they were, the better. There’s no blood like familiar blood, especially the children’s.

I’ve never understood why Shakespeare considered Macbeth a tragedy, which by definition details the fall of a great character. What’s great about Macbeth beyond his skill as a warrior and a few elegant speeches? 

One of these days I'm going to read some psychoanalytic criticism on Macbeth. So much about him is pure psychopath. But in spite of his murders, he seems at times to have a conscience, seems beset by guilt, unlike his cold wife.

 

Then again, even she goes through some ritual hand washing toward the end ("a little water clears us of this deed").  As for her madness and suicide, does she hate herself for her deeds? Does she feel genuine guilt, or even shame, or does she just see her ill-gotten gains coming to an end?  Better to off herself than let the riff raff do her in?  

I’ve also wondered whether the Tomorrow and Tomorrow speech is Macbeth’s point of recognition, his awareness of himself, his flaw and his mistakes, his wisdom achieved through his suffering? Or is it this one, two scenes earlier?--in which the term “mouth-honor” gives me chills, though not on behalf of Macbeth, who doesn’t deserve even the hollow echo of mouth-honor.

            I have lived long enough. My way of life

            Is fall’n into the sere, the yellow leaf.

            And that which should accompany old age,

            As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,

            I must not look to have, but in their stead

            Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath

            Which the poor heart would fain deny and dare not.
                                                                                    (5.3.26-32)

How many people do you know who would settle for mouth-honor, or who wouldn't know the difference between that and more meaningful honors bestowed by peers or superiors, from their hearts and minds? 

Do Little Leaguers who get a trophy just for showing up know, at some level, that that's insulting, patronizing mouth-honor?

Methinks we got some honor-inflation goin' on the last two or three decades.
                                                                                   

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