LORD                          Thither Macduff

Is gone to pray the holy King upon his aid

To wake Northumberland and warlike Siward,

That by the help of these, with Him above

To ratify the work, we may again

Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights,

Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives,

Do faithful homage, and receive free honours,

All which we pine for now. And this report

Hath so exasperate this king that he

Prepares for some attempt of war.              (3.6.29-39)

Finally: news, action, hope. Macduff has gone to England, to ask for support from King Edward, the holy King, and there are specifics, there seems to be a plan: he wants help from Northumberland and warlike Siward, a northern lord and followers; he wants to raise an army. (Northumberland here is probably the county itself, and Siward is the earl, rather than two lords.) It’s logical in geographical terms to raise the north for an invasion of Scotland but there would be, even with a Scottish king on the English throne, a deep memory of border wars, war against the Scots (the Battle of Flodden Field was not quite a century before, 1513), and also a long record of the fierce independence and sometimes the unpredictability of the northern lords. Macduff’s going about it the right way, is part of the point, going to the English king rather than directly to Siward, formally getting his support. And this enterprise will also be divinely sanctioned, with Him above to ratify the work; Edward the Confessor’s sanctity will add to this too. Such work—and to call it this gives it a grim rolling-up-your-sleeves-and-getting-on-with-it quality—is going to restore the simple, taken-for-granted good things of life which have, it seems, been so catastrophically disrupted. The end of Macbeth will give to our tables meat (people have even been starving? the ability to eat together in peace is one of the markers of the godly, peaceful, prosperous land in the bible), sleep to our nights (everyone—including Macbeth, ironically—has been too terrified to sleep) and free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives. No one but Macbeth saw Banquo’s bloody ghost, but that’s what the audience must remember here, alongside the suggestion that there have been, what, massacres? assassinations? at banquets and feasts, renewing the trope of violated hospitality that’s run through the play. (Does this exchange between Lennox and the Lord have to be projected back into the banquet scene? Are the guests there already jumpy, expecting something terrible to happen because that’s what’s been happening at other feasts, going through the motions because it’s better than not showing up at all? in a modern dress production in particular, the possibility of the thanes having to surrender their weapons, show empty holsters, be patted down, even, as they enter.) Whatever, the juxtaposition of feasts and banquets and bloody knives emphasises how bad things are. You can’t even eat in peace with your friends; you don’t know who to trust. And, more generally, the end of Macbeth will restore the possibility of faithful homage and free honours, proper, heartfelt and honest displays and pledges of loyalty, rewarded freely, rather than false protestations, oaths that are made to be broken, and honours that are a kind of blackmail. All which we pine for now. Everything is broken, all the bonds which hold together a community, a country. We’re desperate.

But Macbeth already knows about Macduff going to England. He’s exasperate—anxious, angry, frustrated—and he’s preparing already for some attempt of war, for an invasion. Some editors argue that this king refers to King Edward, in England, deeply concerned by what he’s heard about the state of things in Scotland, and therefore willing to back the invasion. It’s their king in F, but editors have often emended to the or, as here, this. Either is possible, although the description of Edward thus far doesn’t suggest the sort of character who might be exasperated, with its suggestions of quick annoyance. Perhaps the grammatical uncertainty is a return to the opaque deniability, the tendency to name no names, to refer to Macbeth as a tyrant obliquely, that has marked the scene so far.