MACBETH And with him,
To leave no rubs nor botches in the work,
Fleance his son, that keeps him company,
Whose absence is no less material to me
Than is his father’s, must embrace the fate
Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart;
I’ll come to you anon.
BOTH MURDERERS We are resolved, my lord.
MACBETH I’ll call upon you straight; abide within.
[Exeunt Murderers]
It is concluded. Banquo, thy soul’s flight,
If it find heaven, must find it out tonight.
Exit (3.1.134-143)
The orders are almost given, then; just one final detail. It mightn’t come as a surprise given Macbeth’s probing questions earlier in the scene, but it can still shock: kill the child too. Macbeth approaches it obliquely, delaying its articulation as long as possible, making it seem reasonable, inevitable. It’s just a detail, tidying up a loose end (the textile metaphor is deliberate): to leave no rubs nor botches in the work, no imperfections, like the flaws, the rough places in a piece of weaving, or botches, inadequate mends, temporary fixes, weak points that might be expected to fail again. (A botcher specifically mended and altered clothes, rather than making them; a botcher had the same relationship to a tailor as a cobbler to a shoemaker, and lower status. There’s a connection here with the conceits of ill-fitting, second-hand garments which occur elsewhere in the play.) Macbeth is unequivocal in one sense: the death of Fleance is as crucial as that of Banquo: his absence is no less material to me than is his father’s, and so he too must embrace the fate of that dark hour. He can’t quite bring himself to say, in so many words, kill the boy, though. He simply wants Fleance–absent, not to exist. Does Macbeth leave this detail until last, the ordering of a child’s murder, because he’s only just remembered it? Surely not; he was asking too many questions about whether Fleance would be with his father earlier. Rather, he’s aware that this is a, the great taboo; he’s waited until the murderers have committed themselves before saying, oh, this is also part of the deal, when they’re already in too far to back out. (Macbeth knows that feeling.) But he gives them the possibility of backing out, interestingly (resolve yourselves apart; I’ll come to you anon): is this to make them even more his creatures, because they have the illusion of choice? a projection of his own desire to have done the same? Or he could simply be saying, go away, out of my sight, prepare yourselves somewhere else. The murderers might indeed confer, whisper urgently, together, or there might just be a glance between them before they say, emphatically, we are resolved, my lord. And so that’s that. They’re sent off to wait for the further instructions that he promised, abide within. It is concluded, done, what’s done cannot be undone. (A blasphemous echo, perhaps, of Christ’s words on the cross: consummatum est, it is finished.) Macbeth’s signed his friend’s death warrant, and that of his son too: Banquo, thy soul’s flight, if it find heaven, must find it out tonight. The clock is ticking, and Banquo’s a dead man. And the couplet ends the scene.
