Shakespeare at Sixty
‘Macbeth’: Hubris And Mortality
Oedipus, The Riddle of the Sphinx and Modernity
“Seyton! — I am sick at heart,
When I behold — Seyton, I say! — This push
Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.
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 honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not. Seyton!”— William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Scene III
When I was much younger, I found this speech by Macbeth very disappointing and at odds with his single-minded — I have always viewed Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as a single-minded entity in effect — dedication to the will to power. Yet now I find it at my age of “the yellow leaf” very profound and very moving.
It is Shakespeare at his most poetic on murderous usurpers and does perfectly describe the melancholic disposition that has overcome even the old warrior Macbeth as he understands his moment has now gone, to rule. But there is a sympathy here with the Machiavellian murderer that borders on bathos. How could one have sympathy for such a devil? Shakespeare tries.
