MACBETH That will never be.
Who can impress the forest, bid the tree
Unfix his earth-bound root? Sweet bodements good!
Rebellious dead, rise never till the wood
Of Birnam rise, and our high-placed Macbeth
Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath
To time and mortal custom. Yet my heart
Throbs to know one thing. Tell me, if your art
Can tell so much: shall Banquo’s issue ever
Reign in this kingdom?
ALL WITCHES Seek to know no more.
MACBETH I will be satisfied. Deny me this,
And an eternal curse fall on you. Let me know. (4.1.92-103)
A walking wood? Pah! That will never be. Who can impress the forest, bid the tree unfix his earth-bound root? Tellingly, Macbeth imagines the (impossibility of the) forest as impressed, conscripted for military service, an army of trees; no one can do that! no one could order the tree to uproot itself and walk! Unfix his earth-bound root sounds particularly destabilising, not just a simple uprooting but a kind of brokenness, a rupture. But Macbeth thinks that he has been listening to sweet bodements, excellent omens, promising and foretelling good things. The rebellious dead are those who, like Banquo (who haunts Macbeth still) refuse to stay dead; they shouldn’t rise at all, or at least not until the day of judgement, of which the rising of Birnam Wood would surely have to be a sign, such a far-fetched, impossible, apocalyptic thing it would be.
Because nothing bad can happen, our high-placed Macbeth shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath to time and mortal custom. High-placed because king, and expressing it like that makes it sound as if Macbeth were somehow legitimately installed as king, rather than gaining the crown through murder and usurpation. Talking about yourself in both the royal plural and the third person is never a good sign, and is also frankly weird; it speaks, in this moment, to dangerous, giddy hubris. I’m going to live a long life, he says, live out my allotted span, the lease of nature, die of natural causes, even.
Yet my heart throbs to know one thing—and the sense of the thump in the chest, the lump in the throat is suddenly palpable, a jolt felt deep in the body. Just one thing. Tell me, if you art can tell so much: shall Banquo’s issue ever reign in this kingdom? That’s his gnawing fear, still, the niggle to which he keeps returning. Has all this been for nothing? The confident couplets he’s been speaking in peter out on a half line, and he waits. Seek to know no more, reply the witches; we’ve told you before, you’re not allowed to ask questions! But he’s desperate—this might be a moment for pulling a knife, standing over them with real threat. I will be satisfied. Deny me this, and an eternal curse fall on you. (Foolhardy—hubris again—cursing witches, surely?) Let me know.
