LADY When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both.
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me.
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn
As you have done to this. (1.7.49-59)
Lady Macbeth continues to taunt. You were a man when you durst do it, when you dared, when you were prepared to kill Duncan. And if you did it, to become king, to be more than what you were (that is, a subject, an ordinary thane, an ordinary man) you would be so much more the man. You’d be more of a man, a big man, a hard man. (Sorry about this. But it’s all implicit in the text.) At the point when you first dared to do it, dared even to think it, neither time nor place did then adhere, come together; you had no idea where or when you might have the opportunity, but you were still up for it, and you were prepared to make it happen, to make and take any chance. And now time and place have made themselves, you have the perfect opportunity to do it—and that’s unmaking you, and unmanning you. You can’t cope, you’ve lost your nerve, you’re bottling it.
Now she really pulls out all the stops. I have given suck: it surely comes a shock to the audience; do the Macbeths have children? where are they, then? (Historically Lady Macbeth had a child from a previous marriage.) But her delivery in performance, and Macbeth’s reaction, will almost always suggest that they have no children living, that this is a trauma (perhaps a repeated trauma) in their lives together, and perhaps one that they don’t mention, that’s too painful, too raw. Now she’s ripping off the plaster and going nuclear. I know what it’s like to love a child, the babe that milks me, to feel that dependence, that nurturing, that union in my body, my very flesh. And I’d violate that bond, I would, while it was smiling in my face (a little older, then, than Macbeth’s imagined naked newborn babe; tender images of mother and child, Christ and his mother, the closeness, the warm weight on the knee, the gummy latch)—I would have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out. Shockingly violent, reminiscent of that horrific evocation of Macbeth eviscerating his opponents on the battlefield–but also casual, a small, delicate movement followed by a single, catastrophic moment of destruction, a little life snuffed out against wall or floor. Genuinely distressing stuff, for both of the Macbeths, and for the audience. But I’d do it, she says. I’d do it, knowing (and this is implicit, but a frequent note in performance) the agony of a child’s death, and how much worse it would be to be the one responsible for it. If I’d sworn to do it—as you have done to this—I’d do it.
