MACBETH      Avaunt and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee!

Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;

Thou hast no speculation in those eyes

Which thou dost glare with.

LADY                          Think of this, good peers,

But as a thing of custom; ’tis no other;

Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.        (3.4.91-96)

GO AWAY! Avaunt and quit my sight, go somewhere I don’t have to look at you, don’t have to see you, or think about you, because out of sight is out of mind. If I can’t see you, then maybe I might have some chance of forgetting what I’ve done. That’s part of Macbeth’s horror, this reminder of his crimes, having to think about them, about what he’s done, what he’s become. Coupled with that horror at himself, there’s an even more universal primal horror at the apparently undead: let the earth hide thee! (because then I won’t have to see you) because you’re dead, that’s where you should be, buried, gone. And you’re dead! Perhaps it’s apparent from the ghostliness of the Ghost, that thy bones are marrowless (a horrible hollowed out image, especially at a feast, a sucking clean) and thy blood is cold. You’re dead, admit it, act like it! (Macbeth’s blood is certainly cold at this point, the cold-blooded killer’s blood running cold; curious how that idiom cuts both ways.) And, in particular, thou hast no speculation in those eyes which thou dost glare with: the vacant, fixed stare of the dead-undead. There’s no intelligence, no comprehension in that gaze, it seems, which perhaps makes it even worse. Banquo is a zombie! (and this Ghost is so very different from Hamlet’s father’s ghost, who is so sad, so angry, in so much pain; perhaps because there’s so much emphasis on Banquo’s eyes, their vacancy, and above all because he doesn’t speak.)

You can’t fault Lady Macbeth for trying, launching yet another salvage operation. Think of this, good peers, but as a thing of custom; ’tis no other. It’s just one of those things! It’ll pass! No need to worry, good peers, reminding them of their status, but also that they’re a community, that they’re all on the same team. Only it spoils the pleasure of the time—hissed at Macbeth, vainly? You’re ruining everything. It was going to be such a lovely party. (Although it’s been established already that Macbeth’s having a rotten time as king, paranoid, full of guilt, shame, fear.) Pleasure is a word, a thought now so out of place in this moment that it can only add to the sense of the uncanny, the pile-up of formality, hierarchy, already centred on a socially-awkward host, perhaps some jostling over status and favour, forced jollity, a missing guest of honour—and now a complete, inexplicable melt-down by the new-ish King, who is a complete gibbering mess and apparently—Seeing Things. Nothing in the etiquette manuals for usurpers and their wives which even begins to cover it.