MACBETH The service and the loyalty I owe,
In doing, pays itself. Your highness’ part
Is to receive our duties; and our duties
Are to your throne and state, children and servants,
Which do but what they should by doing everything
Safe toward your love and honour.
KING Welcome hither.
I have begun to plant thee, and will labour
To make thee full of growing. (1.4.22-29)
Macbeth, fearsome soldier that he is, immediately demonstrates that he is also entirely at ease in the niceties of courtly courtesy, exactly matching Duncan’s formal protestations of inadequacy and humility: really, it was nothing; anything I’ve done, because it was done out of service and loyalty to you, was reward enough simply in the doing. (I like the way in which the syntax emphasises doing here. It’s a verb which will become crucial for Macbeth…) It’s an explicit statement of fealty (and he might well kneel to deliver it), and he really spells it out: the only thing I ask of you, your highness’ part, is to receive our duties, this protestation of loyalty, the performance of service—and that service is to your throne and state, to the crown, its dignity and all it represents—and not just to the crown, and you, but also to your children, and your servants, all those who serve you. By doing my duty I’m just doing my duty, he’s almost saying, doing everything possible to serve and preserve your love and honour. It sounds great, but, although it’s (sort of) in the same idiom as Duncan’s copious expressions of gratitude, it becomes circular, a little hollow. The words themselves are dutiful, and the sense of performance is very much reinforced by Macbeth’s suggestion that your highness’ part is to receive our duties: we’re both actors, saying what’s expected of us. You play your part, I play mine. (Is he therefore much more of a Machiavel than he’s seemed; is he already dissembling, lying? An interesting decision for an actor. I think it’s more interesting if, in the moment, Macbeth believes what he’s saying.) Macbeth and Duncan are both articulating the primacy of loyalty and duty, the bonds of honour and service which are central to the Scottish crown and nobility, and which have been so violated by the rebellion, and by Cawdor in particular. The explicit inclusion of children might, retrospectively, seem significant: Duncan’s children (usually played as young adults), Malcolm and Donalbain, are present, and the children of other men (and the lack of children) are going to become important later in the play. Duncan’s reply is elegant and less formulaic than his first statements: I have begun to plant thee, and will labour to make thee full of growing. Macbeth is like a young plant, just being established, who will continue to be nurtured into maturity and fruition. It’s drawing on the tradition of the state as garden, the king as gardener, an image of harmony and prosperity. (Macbeth, however, is already more a man of the wild heath than the orderly garden. Trees and plants provide some of the play’s most striking and, sometimes, disturbing images.)
