By the pricking of my thumbs something wicked this way comes. Welcome back to the new thinkery. I'm your host, Tech Ate the Witch. With me is always on my secret, my secret black and midnight hags.
Alex from Colorado. How are you doing? I'm doing all right. I'm sitting back and doing a nice plate of news of Turk.
How about you? I'm just drinking blood and Greg and Greg, are you doing you're calling in from the world headquarters of nice people not today, buddy. Not today. You're an astronaut.
It's always fair and never foul in National Ohio. That's right. Now I want to listeners full disclosure about Greg's personality. It's slowly revealing itself during the course of these episodes.
But and here's a true story. I've known Greg for some time, but what you guys don't know is he's a witch. And one day I caught Greg trying to boil a cat. And I said, Hey, Greg, why are you trying to boil this cat?
And he says, that's how I get off. You know, I enjoy this kind of stuff just boiling cats. I don't even eat them. I just boil them.
And I express my concern and my disaprobation. That kind of stuff. And would you know it, Greg sealed me in the trunk of a tree for over a month. And so that's the kind of personality type you're dealing with.
So anyway, you've seen this Alex, right? You know, given his age, he's well versed in ancient arts of witchcraft and wizardry. He's a thousand years old. That's true.
Yeah. So so but listen, the last thing I want to say, we don't call ourselves witches, by the way, that's a lady. If any listener here doubts what Alex and I are saying are contention that Greg is a witch. When you see, when you next see Greg McBrayer, he's a professor at National University teaches political science, you hit him over the head with a rock, and then you fill his pockets with medium to small pebbles, and you put him in a lake.
Now if Greg drowns, well, hey, he's not a witch, no harm no foul. If he floats, you have another kind of issue. So I encourage everybody to attempt that with Greg. And you know, if he dies, he dies.
But at least we'll, we can. This is name will be clear. Yeah. And that's all we carry down.
So today we're talking about Shakespeare's McBath. Is that welcome to the new, new thinkery? Please write, write, subscribe. Yeah.
So Shakespeare's McBath is one of my favorite plays on Alex's favorite plays Greg stars in it. So it's one of his favorite. Close the home for me. I'm not gonna lie.
Yeah. Yeah. But this, this is one of Shakespeare's shortest plays, one of his most well known plays, the favorite of Abraham Lincoln, who said something, something like nothing. I think he said specifically, nothing equals McBath.
And so there's a kind of, I think, political wisdom in this play that we're going to talk about. There are a lot of otherworldly, fantastical aspects of the text as well. And kind of how nature and politics interact, I think will form a lot of our discussion. But you know, Alex, to kick us off, why are we discussing Beth on the political philosophy podcast?
We've already discussed measure for measure, so in the way, this doesn't need much introduction. But why do you think? Yeah. I mean, I think in addition to our general remarks on that prior episode, I think some comments could be made specific to McBath in particular.
McBath, I think for the magical features, especially as you mentioned, David, you might want to not say, Oh, this is really political philosophy, it seems to be a bit too fantastic, right? Not down to, you know, real political machinations. But in a way, the play, I think brings into conversation or at least into conflict, two political theories that Machiavelli on the one hand and that of Aristotle. The Machiavelli aspect, I see, I think is pretty clear.
The play starts with King Duncan, who is excessively unique and gentle. He seems to be the sort of prince that Machiavelli is concerned about, whose over piety allows all sorts of crimes to be rampant. As Duncan is ruling, there are multiple things rebelling, there's Norwegian invasion. There's a general sense, and I think also McBath has been plotting a little bit with his wife behind the scenes.
So there's a general sense, I think that Duncan's meek wool has invited a lot of a lot of violence. And then the play ends with McBath himself being overtly cool as a series of murders, each, I think, more extreme and more violent than the last lead McBath into isolation. His excessive cruelty and effect being a problem for his rule. So that's a kind of Machiavelli framework through which you can look at the play.
But there's also a kind of Aristotelian side where the play starts with the king, right, and ends with the tyrant. Machiavelli, one of the big differences between Aristotle and Machiavelli is their regime, the organizations of regimes. And while Machiavelli famously doesn't distinguish between better and worse as regards to the common good and he's primarily concerned with acquisition of power and the maintenance of power, the Aristotle in politics book three makes a distinction between good and bad monarchies and students in the Mass King from tyrant. So you have these two Machiavelli and Poles, they're arguably reunited in Malcolm, who's another king at the end of the post.
Alex are Duncan McBath than Malcolm. The middle, yeah. So you have an extreme of Duncan who's excessively trusting, excessively gentle, the extreme of McBath who's excessively cool, excessively violent to the point that he's utterly hated, right, the very thing that Machiavelli tells you to avoid, whereas Malcolm is far more shrewd. He's not as trusting as his father, he tests McDuff, for example, to make sure that he's not plotting.
And he himself hides his intention, something that seems to be indicative of vice in the play, right? So he mixes these appropriately so as to rise to power and to maintain it, or so it seems at the end of the play to maintain it. So I think when you start looking at the play through those lenses, you realize, oh, this isn't just a magical play or something like that, but it's actually putting into action various ways of looking at politics. I agree with you.
Can you, maybe this isn't the place in the episode yet to talk about, but the atmosphere, the play begins with the meaning of these witches. And so that sets a kind of tone, a kind of atmosphere. This is a play that there's a lot of darkness. It's not a, there's not sunshine in the play, like a literal sunshine.
And so what do you make of that, Alex? Yeah, I mean, so one of the questions I have that maybe we'll get to later, but we can allude to it now is how magical exactly is this play? We have these witches. They certainly make predictions and the predictions are as far as we can tell, all true.
We don't know what happens to fliance and nor to any of his children, that's part of it. But many of the fantastic events, the appearance of apparitions and stuff are visible only to the characters. Obviously, as this lady, McBeth, who's the only one, she's in a dream, right? McBeth, when he sees Banquos ghost, he's the only one who sees it, when he sees the dagger as well.
When the witches disappear, vanish into thin air, actually, McBeth is the only one who sees it, Banquos has to ask. So you always are kind of... Banquos sees Banquos. No, he asked where they went and then he says.
But isn't he the first, isn't he the first to address them though? He doesn't see them disappear. He sees the witches, right? Okay.
Maybe, maybe they're witches, maybe they're really ugly ladies. Yeah. They have a beard bigger than Greg's, which is what makes me think he might be a witch still. Yeah.
So I think, now there's obvious things. The predictions, for example, are very, very accurate about how he's going to have his downfall and heck it if she is part of the original play. He's also fantastic. So I'm not comfortable saying there's no magic in the play, but it does seem like Shakespeare wants us to maybe look at it as magical, but maybe also reduce those apparitions to psychological causes.
And therefore, read this as a kind of inner turmoil, a play about inner turmoil. There's a lot of soliloquies that are a character fighting with themselves or torn with themselves. And so it seems like the drama, though there's a lot of killings and all that, a lot of the drama, the crucial parts of the drama are psychological in how Macbeth views his guilt, for example, I think it's very important for understanding how he develops in the course of the play. I agree.
And it's the closer also, I've had the sensation that the more closely one studies the text of Macbeth with the view to try and understand the reasonableness of the play, like using one's reason to kind of decipher what's going on, the less the fantastical elements, I think, grip. So I'm with both of you, but the witches make it problematic for me. So in the hand, the apparition, I think you're going to read Hamlet straight rationally. This one I'm trying to do, but I'm just running into some problems, like the witches are the witches.
And the fact that their predictions come true. And in a way, their predictions aren't vague enough that they, I think in a lot of rational presentations of mysteries, the mysteries are vague enough that they can be interpreted one way or another. I guess we try one other alternative would be maybe there's a human natural human longing to make prophecies come true. And so maybe if it's not vague, maybe in some strange way Macbeth is trying to make the prophecies for the witches come true.
I realize it sounds kind of weird. He seems to be, he seems to be credulous at some points, right? He wants to be given gods and these kinds of things. And so to the extent that even a bad prophecy is still confirmation of God's existence.
Well, Greg, why don't you, sorry Alex, go ahead. Just yeah. And I think that's absolutely right. But again, there's still that push on the far end of this, which is they don't just predict Macbeth's actions, but they predict what happens with them coming to Dunsonane, right?
So with the cutting of the vows. Now we're getting, I think a bit into the plot of maybe we need a step back and Greg can give us a summary. But I just need to say that I think Shakespeare is wants us to maybe read it completely magically and then push the psychological side back in the other direction a bit. Yeah, Greg, do you feel comfortable?
Kind of we have you said on our listeners should know we have a run of show that try and keep us on track. And because Greg is our elder by 1000 years, we allowed him pride of place to give an overview of kind of the play. Do you want to do that Greg? And so everybody knows the famous opening and the blasted Heath with the weird sisters.
It's kind of what happens, what happens after that. In a general way, again, this is Shakespeare. So there are a lot of subplotters, not as many subplots as there are in measure for measure, but there's still some complexity. What's going on?
Yeah, I have a little summary ready to go and you guys should jump in at any point. But I guess the first question is what edition are you guys using? I guess Alex said you're using the Folger Library. That's right.
Yeah, I use Kitridge, but that's just because I bought this big fat collection of shakes. Usually it's the art in addition, which I thought were the most had the best scholarly apparatus. But I read an essay by David Lowenthal. He has a collection of Shakespeare interpretation.
I think it's called Shakespeare in the Good Life or something like this. And he noted that there are certain sections of the bath that art inches drops out. So what about you? That's not good.
I'm using the Pelican Shakespeare, which I rather like. And you mentioned Lowenthal. We can get other stuff later. Other things we were read to prepare with.
Do you refer to this Pelican as gray milk? Or is paddock? Paddock. Pelican, yes.
That's your right to boil. Isn't that your intended? You know which. I'm also just for the record.
I'm not a witch. In the first place, I'm a man. Exactly what a witch is. Yeah, that's true.
A man witch is a warlock or something, right? It's not even the same. Hey, pal, we're not here to quibble over words. You're either going to float.
Yeah, keep your witch logic to yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that goes for any of you, Ashlyn students out there. Don't let Greg, don't listen to his words for too long.
Cast a sort of switch. So, Greg, what's going on? Right. So, sure, sure.
I have a confession, by the way, by way of entry. Yeah, I'd read in Act 1, scene 2, where he sort of reported Macbeth's deeds in battle. I'd read it like three times to figure out that he cut a dude in half and cut his head off. He and see the damn from the top.
That's exactly right. So, I didn't know what that meant. I thought maybe that was a metaphor or something like that. But I guess my only point is that my father and I have my father and I just started reading in the last couple of years and we read Shakespeare together.
And he's been in the habit of buying the Pelican or the Folgers, but also buying something called Shakespeare Made Easy, which on the left hand side has this Shakespeare original and right hand side has sort of contemporary language. For some listeners, I don't know if that might be helpful. I would definitely discourage you from abandoning entirely Shakespeare's original language. But what my dad would do is he would read the plain English and then, you know, he would read the Shakespeare read the plain English, go back to the Shakespeare.
So, I do something similar. I don't do that. I do have an old edition of a small Folger thing called like the summaries of each act and each chapter. And when I'm reading the English plays, I just don't have a strong background.
I'll read a summary of what's to come quickly, just so I kind of know what's going on. There are a lot of names and Shakespeare really. I think that's really, once you get the flow down, and this is just a long way for our younger listeners, you know, don't get discouraged. I mean, there's, it's just the finest writer of all time.
So it's just been so long since I heard people talk like that, you know, I mean, back when I was younger, maybe now it's people become so vulgar. But a quick and dirty summary of the text, just so we can kind of see what's going on. So as you mentioned, the opening scene, they're these three witches or weird sisters who seem to possess some kind of supernatural power, or at least they can foretell the future. We see them at the plays open and then in two or three subsequent scenes for a total of four scenes, they're in acts one twice, act three and then act four.
And actually, they introduce a new, I think the chief witch, heck eight is Alex, so they're four in the end, three, three primarily, but four total. You know, she's kind of the number three seems to be important. They're three witches, and then four, and then three murderers, for example, maybe you guys will get into that three murder business moment. So the after the opening, which scene, basically what happens is McBeth has returned from war where he's defeated some rough folks in battle who are waging war against the king of Scotland, Duncan, who I think is not a very impressive king.
We'll see press that too. But the king being impressed by McBeth success gives him a new title, the Thane of Cawdor. He was already the Thane of gloms. So now he's now a Thane twice over.
It's probably worth mentioning that the witches very quickly tell McBeth about the new title that he's about to receive before the king tells him, and he's incredulous, so he doesn't believe their prophecy. And he, when he meets them for the first time, he's with somebody right? Yes, he's with the bank war, right? That's right.
That's right. And who's bank will? His boy, his buddy in battle, and then he's, I mean, there's other stuff that happens in the later, right? I'll get to something that happens with him in just a moment, because the witches also later say, he was in a casket.
Yeah, which is also later said that his descendants will be the king of Scotland. So, and any of that, everyone probably even listeners who were only have a passing familiar with text know that the main plot of play focuses on McBeth's murder of Duncan, the king. There's some ambiguity regarding when McBeth hatched his plot to kill the king, though I think that actually makes it quite clear that he's been plotting for some time. His wife, Lady McBeth, is involved.
She seems to be the main catalyst actually for the action of the play from McBeth murdering Duncan, the surfing throne. McBeth has the king over for dinner, gets everyone drunk, does the dirty deed, he returns with two things from murdering the king, the weapons from the deed, and a seemingly guilty conscience. Lady McBeth seems at this point to have a clear conscience, which she gradually loses. McBeth was supposed to frame some other dudes with a murder.
Also, the son of the king subsequently the murder Malcolm flees to England with his younger brother. We mentioned, McBeth becomes convinced that McBeth becomes the tendency to go into the kings because of the witches' prophecy. So, he and his wife plan to kill Bancuot and his son, Fliance, and that's how you say that. So, three murderers kill Bancuot and his son.
One of the puzzles maybe we'll get to in just a moment is who is this third murderer? I bet they would announce their thoughts on that. So, McBeth meets the witches again and this time they tell him to be aware of another Mac. McDuff.
I should, you know, one time I was called a McBeth at a coffee store, by the way, I went to pay and the lady read my credit card and she said, oh, you're a Mc and like threw my card back at me and I thought, that's weird. But Bancuot, are you serious? Yeah, that was actually at the coffee shop at the University of Maryland. Are you serious?
That's racist. I don't think she realized it. It was kind of, I was- No, no, no, no, no, she called you a McBeth. But that's a completely resort.
You threw your card back head? Did you get to your food? Yes. We're definitely not as worried about.
Well, you've got a long way to get to the coffee. Sorry, anyway, so the witches have told McBeth that he doesn't have to worry about anybody born from a woman. Something that McBeth seems to believe all the way up until he's dying. So he puts a great deal of trust in his prophecy.
Stupi. McDuff, as it turns out, should be feared because he's gone to England's rally, Malcolm to try to restore the kingship to them. But he's kind of dumb, right, Greg? He's got a local yoke.
A local yoke. Anybody with a Mac in front of his name probably is too- That's what I was driving it. Yeah, I figured that's where you're going. Do you know why she- Where'd everyone- There's a great scene where Malcolm doesn't trust McDuff who left his wife and kids behind by the way when he goes to England, which seems like a pretty dumb thing to do if you're pursuing treason against the king.
And as a matter of fact, as it turns out, to his stupidity, McBeth has McDuff's wife and son kill. Back in Scotland, Lady McBeth is losing her mind, so apparently she was wracked with pains of conscience. McBeth himself, as Alex alluded to, has been seen ghostly apparitions, including the weapon, the dagger, and there's a lot going on there too. Just to cut to the chase, and any of that Malcolm does manage to bring an army from England, there's a big battle between his army and McBeth.
Ultimately, it's McDuff who kills McBeth, and he brings McBeth's head to Malcolm, who is now king at the end of the play, and who initiates new titles of royalty in Scotland, Earl's ships. Is that how you turn Earl into a half-stricken out of the version? Anyway, the end. Let's talk about where- Thank you, Greg.
Let's talk about where this is set. Thank you. Right, so this is- The Scotland is kind of like the outer wilds of the Shakespearean cosmos. Not in the same way that the Tempest is, which is like an island in the Caribbean or something.
But the Scots were like a savage people. At least they are during this time. They were wild people, pagan people. And in this play, as a few commentators, I think Paul Cantor is one of them, have picked up on this- in the language of McBeth, this co-mingling of Christian language and Christian and biblical illusions with just very stark paganism and pagan themes.
And it's that admixture that I think provides a lot of the energy in the play, a lot of the intellectual action. So that's just by way of introduction on kind of the setting. Yeah, I think that's related to the earlier point about Aristotle and Machiavelli. So I think Cantor also makes this point that Scotland is sort of situated between two powers, Christian England, which is run by Edward the Confessor.
So he's a good pious king. And then the Norwegians, who are, it seems completely pagan. And you married in Norwegian. Yeah, trust me, I know they're brutal folk.
They're cold, steer-bunch. My wife's pregnancy tells our family like, oh, that's good. Congratulations. Thank you.
Thank you. Who's the father? It's definitely not me. You know, this child will not be a valedict born.
That's my prophecy. But my wife's a very trusted word and woman on the podcast. I shouldn't say this. But anyway, so it seems like they're they're caught between these two sort of moral forces.
And the pagan tradition seems to be what's behind McBeth's valor. Valor is a very common word. If you trace it throughout the play, it's quite interesting the way it's contextualized or understood. And then on the other hand, there's also this concern with Christian morality.
And one of the things that Shakespeare's trying to communicate with the play is that when concern for your immortal soul is mixed with a desire for greatness in battle, bad things result with a kind of pagan political ambition, because the ambition requires doing dirty deeds. And when you've done those dirty deeds, as McBeth, I think feels this pressure, right? As you do those deeds, you feel like you've lost that eternal jewel as McBeth one point puts it. And he says at one point, when he really takes the turn and he decides, you know what, I'm had Banquo killed, I killed Duncan.
I'm just gonna kill all of McDough's family. He said, I've already waited too deep in blood, right? The idea of blood and water, those things are big in the play as well. And so it's easier to just keep going to the other side to try to go back.
Why? Because once you've done it, you've lost it, right? And so there's no reason to be at all mixed other than for for prudential considerations. But even then, the prudential considerations don't really matter because you've lost what matters, right?
So in a way, as he ends up concluding, it's all meaningless, right? It's all just a tale told by an idiot in that famous line. So the play plays those off each other. And I think one of the things Shakespeare's trying to say is that look, the ancient political standards are great, but Christianity's really changed the game.
And we need to have a different response politically. And how do you explain? I recall in the scene where McDough, it's either when he hears, when he's discussing something, leaving his wife and child behind in the castle. So everybody's kind of aware of what's going on.
No, it's Lady McDough and her son, who are eventually murdered. No, I think the conversation's with Malcolm. I thought. Yeah.
And so, but he uses kind of Christian phrasing at one point to excuse the fact that he's left his family unprotected, where it would seem anybody in their right mind would at least leave them with a small guard. But he leaves his wife. That's one of the most pitiable scenes in the whole play, is that the mother and son left completely alone in this dark castle. It's an amazing thing.
And McDough says, no, no, no, it's essentially trust in the Lord, trust in the Lord. I am good. McDough thinks my wife is a pure woman. That's true.
She is. She's without blemish. McDough himself is without blemish too. So what Shakespeare's teaching there?
Because I can see what he says about the pagans, but I took him to even, Alex, you should jump in. I said a quick point. I took him to even actually be a little surprised, like it hadn't even occurred to him that he should protect them until Malcolm said that. And he's like, oh, God, God, God's kind of a troll.
I mean, like, it seems like it's something that he hadn't even thought out. I could be wrong with that. Yeah. I mean, he gets the kind of gets a lesson from the School of Heart knocks, right?
Yeah. It's not, you know, he learns the hard way not to be so trusting in comments, right? Right. Right.
But, but, okay. So maybe let me rephrase that. So Shakespeare has something to say both to Christianity and about Christianity and paganism, right? Yeah.
So they're not, yeah, one is not wholly good and the other wholly bad. So are we looking at a kind of admixture that in the end is best or what? I mean, I think you'd probably have to look to the Roman place to understand what he thinks about pagan morality on its own. I think the problem with military valor emerges when you have a morality that values quite the opposite gentleness and meekness, right?
I got the one point that observes that Duncan is much loved because how mild his wool is. As we saw in measure for measure, mild and relaxed wool can sometimes allow vice to flourish, right? And so I think that's essentially what's happened here. But, you know, if what would Roman virtue look like on its own, you'd have to look elsewhere here.
I think he's saying that it's the combination that's really the problem. Right. Right. Yeah.
If you have a more foul is fair, right? The mixture. Yeah. Yeah.
Let me we could talk about that a little bit because I think the theme is every time fair or foul is used in the play, I think it's meaningful. The tendency to want things to be beautiful on the surface and then they turn out to be fouler beneath, whether it's people like Macbeth or it's your interpretation of the prophecy, right? Macbeth takes the prophecy from the witches that no man of woman born will harm him. Oh, that's great.
That means it's impossible. I'll never be harmed. Even though it contradicts with the just before, which is but where Macduff, the logical conclusion would be, oh, Macduff is not a woman born as it turns out Macduff was ripped from the womb before birth, right? So he misinterprets things so that they're fair for him rather than foul, Benite.
And I think Macduff goes for that as well. That goes for Macduff as well, right? He interprets events or the world to work in a certain way fairly, right? As though it follows justice, even though he's just seen a regicide, right?
And yet everything turns out foul for him. And that lesson is very important. And I think Malcolm is a great example of somebody who knows this. He's seen his father be too trusting.
He's seen things rebel against him. And he's seen his father say, oh, I didn't expect that from him. I mean, and he must be thinking, you can't trust these things as far as you can throw them and covered in all their armor and carrying all the heads of their victims, right? They're pretty heavy.
So he knows that he can't trust them. And so when he sees Macduff, he has a bit more suspicious that beneath the fair, oh, I'm here to help you get your home back. Why is the foul? Like definitely working for me back.
Yeah, I don't want to belabor this way. I don't want to get into this quite yet. But interestingly, Malcolm Duncan's son, who in the end will take over is not a valorous. He has to use his mind.
So there's no martial, there's no like martial valor in his person. He doesn't fight. That's right. Yeah.
You know what I mean? So it's going to be really simple. So you have this wild, a wild people is now going to be ruled by this kind of intellectual. So one, not intellectual, but somebody who can't trust in their own arms, let's say.
So one wonders how successful Malcolm will be in the long run. What was that correct? I was just thinking, because I just read the Quarralinas. I mean, is this comedy?
Is there a problem with looking to military leaders to be political leaders? Is that a consistent theme and Shakespeare? I mean, seeds are obviously, right? And so it seems, I'm not racking my brains, but muscles are thinking about the violinist and historic David, right?
This, there's this natural human tendency to want to elevate military leaders to political positions. And it seems ill-fitting to things today. Yeah, I think that's a good point. I mean, David, your comments about Malcolm have fighting, right?
Once he knows who's around him, right? He's been taken in by this pious Christian king in England, right? He's got a very trusting and trustworthy therefore, Dane and McDuff. He can effect to get these Christians to do his dirty work.
You can always imagine, you can almost imagine that if he wanted to build a shed, right? He could probably get them to build a shed back of his house in Ashland, Ohio. Yeah. Just more evidence that Greg is a manipulative witch, right?
Yeah. Yeah. I believe my wife and kid behind too. Really quick, you know, the, we were just talking about sort of Christianity versus pagan morality.
I wouldn't turn to magic next, but not before letting you know, Greg, that I looked up Pops cheese barn, Graham Pops cheese barn, Graham Pops cheese barn. Yeah. Okay. That's right.
I looked up what goes on there. And then something stole over me and I thought, why don't I check the local Ashland police blotter, see what's going on. And a man fitting your description, your age about 150, full beard, was caught in the back of the cheese barn. Doing something.
I can't, I can't relate on this podcast. I know it's a family podcast. And I know it's you and it's wrong, Greg, it's shameful. And I want you to come clean.
Listen, you love cheese like I do. He was eating, he was eating fondue. And on the end of a stick, he had the eye of a newt and the, uh, deliver of a blaspheming Jew, right? Casey, by the way, I have a question.
I have no idea what to do with that. The reason I bring up that line is six on my head is the witches seem to be on first glance, right? This is pagan, right? This is pagan divinity.
Yet they hold the Jews to be blasphemers, right? Like they bring up the Tartars and the a few other. They don't single out. Yeah, but there's called them blasphemers and I see that's also, and these are, this is all a bunch of foul stuff that they're putting into this mixture, like body parts, like grotesque things.
So, you assume that they can, they hold this to be a very bad thing, right? To be a blasphemer. Maybe they're blasphemers against the witches themselves. I don't know.
Interesting. It does seem like it's a very Christian reference, you know. Yeah, I didn't pick up on that. That's good.
Let's talk about. Yeah, let's talk about magic. I mean, Alex, we were talking before recording. You, if you see McBeth, have any of you guys seen this play life performed live?
Yeah, no live. I've seen it two or three times growing up at the Shakespeare Festival in Washington, or at the Folger itself. But we've all seen video, I mean, we've all seen movies like the Roman Polanski edition film is everything known. And Greg, I know that you, you've seen that one.
Some of the Patrick Stewart. Yeah, that's right. Patrick Stewart one. I haven't seen the Stewart one, but I mean, every production you see does not lose the opportunity to introduce witches, magic, those atmospherics.
And you feel like full tilt. The one thing I'd say, David, you recommended to me the plants key one, which I then recommended to my students who are having seen it. And there's a lot of witch nudity, which I get enough from Greg McBrayer's pictures, they sense me. But one thing Polanski does quite well, aside from that, and also some, there's a new to young boy leading to Del Son is for some reason, naked.
It's pretty, but it's the early 70s and it's Roman plans. You get what you paid for it. Right. So this wife has just been killed.
Give the guy pass. I thought that was after I thought that was after Rosemary's baby. I mean, before Rosemary's baby. Maybe.
I don't know. You heard of here folks. Greg McBrayer, give Roman Polanski a pass. All right.
No, no, just. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. So one thing he does well is he really does.
Why do I do this podcast? I mean, what did you accuse me of doing in grandpa's? She's burning. Sorry, magic.
We're doing our best to get to leave, Greg. Yeah. Yeah. So one thing Polanski does well, and which which convinced me first of all, so when the witches disappear in act one, he doesn't have them disappear.
He just has them go downstairs and say like little, yeah, and which maybe he's realized, like, why don't they disappear? And then you look at the text like, oh, it doesn't say that they disappeared or they go in there. Like, wow, they disappeared. It's not a common perception.
It's one person's perception. And throughout the play, I think Polanski really makes an effort to go as psychological as he can with the drama, the witches remain, I think, magical in it. But for instance, when they make that cauldron just before he sees these apparitions, he drinks that like, you know, grotesque concoction. DMT.
Yeah. Yeah. He's basically hallucinating on, I mean, I don't think that leads to sickness of the mind. I think it leads to more sickness of the body.
It's so viable. He's taken the, yeah, like good, good cheese from the pops born. You're your libel suit, David. I know.
Grandpa's she's our member. I've been saying their name so we get free cheese. I feel like you foreclosed that possibility. I took a look at their cheese selections, David.
It's just like, here's cheddar with this in it. Cheddar with that in it. Are you saying they have a full people like Greg every day. They count on customers like Greg.
He's like, Oh, I should actually get this election. I don't want to call myself a coastal elite, but I expect a bit more variety than I put stuff in the cheddar. Listen, I'm a simple man. I'm not like you two freaking heathens.
Okay. You guys have two of us are going to go visit Greg soon and really going to test the proposition that actually is owned to the nicest people around. Yeah. Don't don't buy into Greg's.
I'm a man of the people. I'm a rural southern gentleman, whatever, stick he complained all summer about COVID not allowing him to go to the Sorbonne. Thousands of people dying, hundreds of thousands dead and of his own of his own fellow citizens. And he's just wants to go hang out and drink wine with an equi-saule with the Sorbonne elite, but he learned all that as an undergrad at Emory University.
So, let's talk about the Sorbonne. That really did make me upset. I was supposed to be at the Sorbonne. It's true.
You're right from the southern corner. The Sorbonne. Sorbonne. Sorbonne.
So we're getting so far. That's why I kicked out the cheese barn. Yeah. So, for being too cosmopolitan.
Now you missed that one, Alex. Yeah, that's right. Okay, you got it. So we're talking about that.
Let me try and let me try and let me try to get us back on track. Let me try and put this. Let me put this question to both you and Greg. If you if you imbue the witches with fantastical characteristics and accept that they have powers over over human life in the play, over nature in the play, let's say, does that leave you ultimately with a different interpretation than then Alex, the one you have, if you try and interpret the witches reasonably without this fantastical aspect?
Does that question make sense? Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's must, right? I'll just take a quick stab at it.
And then you mentioned that Scotland was sort of the, I forget the phrase you used with, sort of on the sticks and these are those sort of backwards folks. Yeah, wild people, the wild people. And it seems to go along with that, I would say, right? I mean, people tend to be more superstitious, the further move from society, the farther move from civilization they might be.
I think it does change how you interpret the play. I mean, it must, right? I'm not sure anything about how, but yeah. Well, I think the one passage that we can use as a reference point is that the famous life is a tale told by an idiot.
It's like sound if you're signifying nothing. And so if is life a tale told by an idiot, if we if if life is interpreted fantastically, through like the other way around, or is it the other way around? I think so, really, because if you if you look at, okay, you want to know, because what I think with the argument, unless I misunderstand him, I had the argument, Alex is trying to advance is that you can read Macbeth rationally and not wholly. I want to be careful.
I do think it's important to push that envelope as far as you can. But I do think there's a point where it just doesn't work out. The wish is remarkable precision and accuracy in their prediction seems to me, sort of a point where you just can't assert it anymore. So it's very difficult to, right?
How do they know how the English are going to invade, for example, it doesn't seem like something they would know. They might have a good understanding of psychology. I think one way to ask your question, if I can reframe it a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think even if the witches are an actual sort of metaphysical magical feature, we want to ask what remains of the psychology that we've been spelling out, right? Does any of that still hold? Well, if they are the actual divine functioning, or like divine entity within this world that the play depicts, that it seems like you can conclude that the Christians are deluded, right? But still, you can maintain that there is this problem of pagan versus Christian guilt.
So yeah, I don't know how to answer your question. I do think your lessons come away differently. But I do think since so much of the play is psychological and its character, that's what kind of stands independent of what the larger reality of that world might be. Do you think that that's how this over weaning ambition in his bosom?
But do you think he goes on the killing spree without first having encountered the witches? I don't think so. Do you think that to me is? I think he would have killed the king, no.
I don't know. See, and I nod as down on the king's intelligence, as I think Alex is. Yeah, I think you can, I don't find argument that Duncan at the outset realized that you had that he's aged first of all, and that you have these two young bucks, Banquo and Macbeth, and outstanding and valor, especially Macbeth. And the king is not getting any younger.
He has to appoint a successor, which at the outside of the play he had not yet done. Successor is his son Malcolm. But Malcolm, he's got to call him Malcolm H. He's had he's just lacks valor.
He ain't and so what happens. He's made a lot of work for Jake the candidate there. Yeah. All right.
Thank you, Jake. But so what happens if you are Macbeth and you got a little sissy boy like Malcolm, who has not distinguished himself becoming the king. So I think to cut that off at the past, what Duncan does is appoint he gives Macbeth a new title to kind of pacify him. And I'm sorry, I apologize for going off on that tangent.
It's just, you reminded me that I didn't think Duncan was his. It was entertaining. Yeah. Let's go on to talk.
We've talked about Christianity, magic, pagan morality. Women are wonderfully represented in this in this play. Sorry, I don't mean, I don't mean this in a sly way that they have, they play amazing roles in the play. Roles of power, especially Lady Macbeth, but also the witches.
And then of course, there's the Lady Macduffin, but you have these women that leave an impression in a play that's ostensibly about male, male interaction. So Greg, did you want to talk, can you talk a little bit about women and Macbeth? I'll at least say a few things, but again, you guys should feel free to jump in. I guess might take away from the play, you know, and having read it years ago, again, it sort of seemed hard for me to get away from this.
I mean, I sort of saw Lady Macbeth driving a lot of the plot. It seemed to be her. This is just my impression. It seemed to be her.
She was pressing her husband to do this deed. She seemed to be as equally ambitious as he was, if not more so. She seemed to be trying to work through him. She's really impressive in a way, I suppose, insofar as she seems to have able to steal her nerves in a way that Macbeth can't win the murder stone.
But then it all falls apart. So I think she has a false impression of her own, what, a morality or being super moral, maybe, that she thinks moving this with Macbeth too, by the way, a little stuck on how Macbeth can have cut people from nave to whatever cut their heads off. No problem. But then he frets over killing the king.
That distinction is something that I'm not quite settled on. But I think she's convinced herself too that taking life isn't that big of a deal and this will actually be very successful. It's not entirely clear what motivates her to me. I mean, am I wrong?
They don't have kids? Well, they did at one point. She gave suck to a little one. But we don't know what happened, presumably the child died.
But they were parents at one point. There she does speak with tenderness at various points. She's not unwamingly. Like a lot of people make this claim that she's she's like unsex herself.
There's some phrasing that's why she says. Yeah, I know that's what she says there. But I don't think that's how she acts. I think they want to rule.
They don't want to press. They don't kill other people. They just want to rule. Maybe they don't even understand it.
It's kind of like these yuppies. It reminds me of these yuppies that have all this money, you know, that's not what I don't know what to do with it. That makes sense. So one of the it's a Greg's point about how Macbeth gets so many qualms.
When he's fighting, one of the messengers of the Lord's and act one scene too, he mentions that this is valor married to justice. There's no more justice when he kills, kills Duncan. And when there's a lack of justice or lack of a this worldly cause, right? And he's serving this kind of Christian king.
He loses that sense. So he has to face that moral side that he's kind of been able to suppress for a while. On Lady Macbeth, to back up your point that she's not really as cool as she seems. She seems to be related to Macbeth as reason is to the will.
Macbeth has the will, but he can't motivate himself or convince himself. She convinces him. She doesn't do the deed. But interestingly, she says I would have done the deed, but Duncan looks like my dad.
Yeah, so that's it, Alex. That's right. So this woman unsex herself and to completely divorce herself from any kind of motherliness, right? Or any kind of, it looks like familial piety of any kind, right?
She ends up resisting from the crime because of because of that. So I think that's the one of the seeds. Yeah, the quietness botch. She goes and drops it off and that alone haunts her, right?
So that little moment, I think where she says, oh, I would kill nobody looks like my father is the seed of morality that I think out of which grows it. One of the things that I thought, what's the lesson there, Al? Is it back to your monkey of Ellie? Well, I think if you have to tell yourself that if you have to curse yourself to being wicked, probably there's a part of you that doesn't want to be.
It's not the game for you. Yeah, it's probably not for you. So one of the parallels that I think is interesting to play is Lady Macbeth goes from apparently resolute to insane and seeing visions, while Macbeth goes from insane and seeing visions to apparently resolute. And let me interrupt you really quick.
You know who had a big problem with this? Stig So the two reverse roles is what you're kind of like. Yeah, it seems like I think one way to think about that. I don't really have a good grip on this.
One way to think about that is, well, I talked about Macbeth, how I just said, I'm too deep, right? I gotta go full bloody. And so that sense of having lost his immortal soul makes all evil easy for him. So that even when he realized that the prophecies are coming true, he still sticks it out because he's kind of, he knows it's all over.
To him, it seems like none of his actions matter. Whereas for later, he fights till the very end, Alex. Yeah, exactly. So it's a very, he says something like, you're gonna fight me till one of us gets the better grip.
Or he says something like that. Yeah. So he doesn't give in to the prophecy. No, no, no, but the prophecy, once he knows that it's true, he doesn't revert back to his madness, right?
He sticks it out to the end, which I think is remarkable. It implies that it's not the prophecies entirely that are motivating him, but also a kind of a sense of the meaninglessness of his deeds, precisely because he's lost as a mortal soul. Whereas leading Macbeth is kind of been adjacent to the crimes, right? She's pushed him to it, but she hasn't killed anybody herself.
She hasn't ordered anybody to be killed the way that Macbeth has used his power. And so I think her guilt emerges from the sort of solitude she finds herself as Macbeth is working and talking to the witches, and she's just dwelling on her role in things. So do you think it's, do you think the lesson here, then, Elle, is you either go full pagan or you go full Christianity, but this admixture isn't, doesn't resolve in these half-way measures simply won't do psychologically. Yeah.
Same thing I would say. Yeah. And measure for measure. I think it's a common theme that shows how much Shakespeare learned from Machiavelli, or at least to the Machiavellianism in the air, right?
And the problems that early modern thinkers were dealing with in moral and political philosophy. Yeah. And it reminds me that again, as he wrote the new work about it, it's free time. It's a dirty book.
I was thinking, along with women, minor characters, so-called minor characters in this play, upon closer inspection, turned out to have outsized roles. And I'm thinking of Ross in particular, and a character named Satan, and just a slew of other people, again, leading me up, is somebody I would bring in. But you have these minor characters like Ross in particular is interesting to me. He seems to play both sides.
You can make an argument, I think, that he is the most evil character in the Shakespearean cosmos who doesn't come to a bad end. There's an indication at the very, very end of this play where Malcolm says something like, all right, let's all go rejoice or relax. There will be time enough for a giving of accounts to figure out what happened, you know, this autopsy of the crime, where you suspect that Ross will kind of come up and it's not clear. It was throughout.
He's Teflon. And he's a very interesting character. I would urge listeners, if they read Macbeth to keep their eye on him and kind of marvel at the fun tricks and little inventions that Shakespeare is using a minor character to effectuate. But, Al, did you want to say something about Ross?
Well, on the Ross, Polanski has Ross be the third murderer. Oh, he does? He also has him aiding and abetting in various activities and just the drama. Also interesting.
So when you get to Lady Macbeth's counsel, Ross is there or he shows up and he talks to Ray, he's like, I got to go, I got to go. He speaks in terms that seems to suggest, oh, you know, something bad's not to happen, right? Yeah, we know that Macbeth announced his plan to kill the entire McDuffins, the Lennox, another one of the nobles. Right?
So this seems to be a kind of open secret. Perhaps Ross has heard this and said, oh, he can't last that long if he's doing this, right? He's just going to, everybody's going to turn on him. So he goes to Lady Macdough, checks in on her and maybe because he knows he's going to McDuffins England and he wants to join up with him.
But as he leaves the gate in the film, as he leaves out the gate, you see the murdering party come and stuff. They just like, they just fast. It's like, Hey, what's up guys? Oh, yeah, you're here for the murder here.
Go ahead. It's really. And Ross also at the end, when he's crowned Ross is the first one to be like, Oh, well, hail King Malcolm. Yes, that's right.
And McDuff, when he doesn't, he delivered the news to McDuff, about the wife. Yeah, first he says, I was my wife and he's like, Oh, a lot of ins and outs. She's fine. She's great.
Great. When I last saw her. And then he says, well, I actually know, did he go back? He said he was going to go back.
Did he go back and see what happened? Why didn't he come with that as urgent news? And McDuff doesn't further question him, which is weird. And he says I'm going, I'm off, you know, I'm off to see McDuff, but I'll be back and playing that he's going to go to England and then come back.
So how does he know that they've been murdered that everybody's been murdered? Did he hang out and double check? It's very strange. So your Ross is a bit of a slippery fish, but he's not he doesn't seem to, I think he really underestimates Malcolm, because I think Malcolm maybe thinks he's too much like his father.
I think Malcolm has suggested the other players on him. Yeah. Or was he at least going to start asking questions, right? Yeah.
And since I guess we're at the end of the play for listeners, we tried to bubble up in our cauldron. Themes should find interesting. So Alex, just we want to do a mailbag when it has some fun at the very end, give us return to the overarching themes, kind of Machiavelli and Aristotle. And then let's talk about mailbag.
Well, I mean, I think we've kind of worked it out a bit. I mean, I would just go, I would just repeat one point, because I think it is important that I do think Shakespeare wants to say that, okay, this distinction kingship versus tyranny, right? That's comes from Aristotle, the sort of old distinction has been imbued with Christian language. What we mean by king is a Christian king, right?
And the Christian king lacks the necessary unscrupulousness, right, to get things done as Duncan did. Malcolm relaxes that, right? He's willing to pretend to be evil, right? To make tough.
And he's willing to be mistaken for not being Christian. And he's far more willing to kill or have people kill and to settle these accounts. He seems far more realistic. And so I not to give too Machiavelli into reading, but he seems closer to something like a Machiavelli prince who can affect the right morality as circumstance dictates, changes mode, depending on the circumstance.
And so I think maybe he's advocating for a kind of Machiavelli solution to the clash of, you know, Jerusalem and Athens and Christianity in the form that Christianity takes. But at the very least, I think he's saying this has to be dealt with a new way. We need a kind of different theoretical approach to deal with this new theological or moral theological phenomenon. Yeah, yeah, Greg jump in.
But I have a question for you after you're done with your function, I want your thoughts since you know his thought best. Why you suspect Lincoln was so enamored with this play? Sure. I'll come to that in a second.