CAPTAIN        As whence the sun ’gins his reflection

Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders threaten,

So from that spring whence comfort seemed to come

Discomfort swells. Mark, King of Scotland, mark.

No sooner justice had, with valour armed,

Compelled these skipping kerns to trust their heels,

But the Norwegian lord, surveying vantage,

With furbished arms and new supplies of men

Began a fresh assault.

KING               Dismayed not this

Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?           (1.2.25-34)

It’s charitable to suggest that the Captain is in extremis and therefore not at his most coherent, but the syntax here is pretty wild. There are two possibilities: either the reflection of the sun is the ‘turning back’ of the sun following the spring equinox (this is astrological terminology), which is meant to give rise to storms—so, bad things happen at just the point when everything seemed to have come right—or spring might just mean source, so, you think that the sun’s shining now, but it won’t last, rain always follows sunshine. In which case the spring as a water source, something pure and refreshing, gives way to swelling discomfort, a rising tide of trouble. Another update on titles: Mark, King of Scotland, mark: are you listening to me? Do you follow? No sooner had justice, the King’s righteous cause, with valour armed—that is, performed by brave Macbeth, the personification of valour, dispatching the traitor Macdonald in so emphatic a fashion—no sooner had he done that, compelling the skipping kerns to trust their heels, forcing the Irish and Hebridean mercenaries to turn tail and run away (and it makes them sound lightweights, trivial, in comparison with the strength, solid, rock-hard muscle, of brave Macbeth)—then the next thing happened. (There’s a filmic quality here for the modern reader, the moment when, perhaps, on the field of the Pelennor before Minas Tirith, the smoke clears, a horn sounds, and there is the army of oliphaunts and Haradrim*… But I digress.) A whole new cast of characters: another leader, the Norwegian lord (King Sweno!) sees that he’s got an advantage, a chance, he thinks he’s in here; he’s regrouped, rearmed, he’s got fresh troops just waiting to throw themselves into the fight—and so he began a fresh assault. The King’s face has fallen; it was all going so well. He hardly dares ask: dismayed not this our captains, Macbeth and Banquo? Were they at all, you know, taken aback by this? Are you about to tell me that they are, in fact, dead? (And another name: Banquo, naturally coupled, as it seems, with Macbeth, as our captains, a team.) This is such a cracking opening…

*yes that is an entirely gratuitous Lord of the Rings reference. I show my age.