MACBETH Come in, without there!
Enter Lennox
LENNOX What’s your grace’s will?
MACBETH Saw you the weyard sisters?
LENNOX No, my lord.
MACBETH Came they not by you?
LENNOX No indeed, my lord.
MACBETH Infected be the air whereon they ride,
And damned all those that trust them! I did hear
The galloping of horse. Who was’t came by?
LENNOX ’Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word
Macduff is fled to England.
MACBETH Fled to England?
LENNOX Ay, my good lord. (4.1.133-142)
A slight twist, perhaps, that one could miss in performance (or indeed on the page): Lennox has been waiting outside, keeping watch, keeping guard, awaiting Macbeth’s summons; Macbeth hasn’t gone alone, and Lennox has been frightened or incurious or self-preserving enough not to want to come int. He’s the most loyal of the thanes at the moment, it seems, wanting to stick close to Macbeth, and now he’s summoned in: come in, without there! (He’s been without, outside.) Another retrospective affirmation that the witches just vanished: Lennox didn’t see them go. This could even be most effective if they leave the same way that Lennox enters; it’s not that he missed them, they weren’t visible at all to him. Macbeth seems to confirm this when he asks again, with incredulity, came they not by you? are you sure? you couldn’t miss them, implicitly. A bit of aggression, perhaps, born of fear, leading to Lennox’s polite, slightly anxious second denial: no indeed, my lord. I’m telling the truth, I didn’t see anything! But they really seem to have disappeared into thin air. Infected be the air whereon they ride—well, that’s been the case since the start, fog and filthy air. In some ways Macbeth’s cursing the witches with disease, with miasma, even as they fly away, but one suspects that these witches aren’t going to be bothered by a bit of plague. Damned all those that trust them—QED, that was and is Macbeth, and he’s damned, and damning himself again with his own curse. A shift into the more ordinary world of people and sounds that aren’t hautboys and witchy music and chanting and dancing, the sound of horses, the galloping of horse (plural)—something urgent, a messenger riding post? And not just one, Lennox confirms, ’tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word Macduff is fled to England. A number of messengers, then, competing to bring the news, to demonstrate loyalty, perhaps? Fled to England, confirmation of treachery. Ay, my good lord, says Lennox, politely, staying on side.
