ROSS Nor would we deign him burial of his men
Till he disbursèd at St Columb’s Inch
Ten thousand dollars to our general use.
KING No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive
Our bosom interest. Go, pronounce his present death,
And with his former title greet Macbeth.
ROSS I’ll see it done.
KING What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.
Exeunt (1.2.60-67)
Ross has all the details: it’s been a crushing victory over the rebel forces and their Norwegian allies, a total rout. And Macbeth and his forces wouldn’t allow the Norwegian king to bury the dead without the payment of a ransom (standard practice on the early modern battlefield), nor would we deign him burial of his men, as if such a thing were a favour not just granted but paid for, rather than human decency. (This is a tough world; cruelty and inhumanity, as well as violence, are ever-present. There are lots of suggestions about what it means to be a warrior in this play, and what war does to men.) No burial of the dead until a massive sum of money’s paid, ten thousand dollars—which sounds oddly contemporary, but it’s simply a reference to a common currency in the period; there were both Spanish and German dollars, thalers in the case of the latter. (Shakespeare probably knew that some Scandinavian currencies had cognate names, such as the Danish rigsdaler and the Swedish riksdaler). The money’s to be handed over, paid up at St Columb’s Inch, Inchcolm in the Firth of Forth, St Columba’s Island (a good bit of local colour). But the King doesn’t react directly to this canny and lucrative piece of triumphalism; he’s still brooding on Cawdor’s treachery. No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive our bosom interest. They’ve been close, it seems, and the Thane has been a trusted and intimate friend, party to all the concerns and secrets of the King and of the state. The King has been not only betrayed but deceived by someone close to him, whom he trusted… So that’s it for Cawdor, no mercy: go, pronounce his present death. Have him executed immediately; the King doesn’t even want to see his former intimate before his execution. And with his former title greet Macbeth. Macbeth’s the hero of the hour, after all, and he’s to be rewarded with the title of Thane of Cawdor. A couplet to conclude the scene: I’ll see it done, Ross says, the efficient functionary pivoting from reporting a battle and the resulting financial arrangements to ordering a traitor’s summary execution. The couplet is smooth and orderly, and the scene concludes with a focus on noble Macbeth and what he hath won. The title of a traitor… Two scenes in, and no Macbeth yet.
