WIFE   Sirrah, your father’s dead;

And what will you do now? How will you live?

SON     As birds do, mother.

WIFE   What, with worms and flies?

SON     With what I get, I mean, and so do they.

WIFE   Poor bird, thou’dst never fear the net nor lime,

The pitfall nor the gin.

SON     Why should I, mother?

Poor birds they are not set for.

My father is not dead, for all your saying.

WIFE   Yes, he is dead. How wilt thou do for a father?

SON     Nay, how will you do for a husband?

WIFE   Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.

SON     Then you’ll buy ’em to sell again.

WIFE   Thou speak’st with all thy wit,

And yet, i’faith, with wit enough for thee.  (4.2.30-43)

 

Lady Macduff has a clear-eyed pragmatism to her: sirrah, your father’s dead. He’s gone, not coming back, so he might as well be. In a sense she’s saying it, and also asking, for herself: what will she do now, how will she live—but she focuses her anguish and her uncertainty on her son, affectionately addressed with the informal sirrah. An early modern audience would probably be far more readily aware of the dire straits of a family left without a breadwinner: no safety net, and horribly vulnerable. Sirrah emphasises that the son is a child; he can’t step up. He has the answer though (which might be knowing or innocent, or a childish combination of both): I will live as birds do, mother. (The birds are back.) What, with worms and flies? There can be a laugh there. With what I get, I mean, and so do they. I’ll manage. We’ll manage, somehow. Poor bird, you’d never fear being snared in a net, then, or stuck with lime to a branch, falling into a pit, or being caught by a gin trap. Implicit: aren’t you afraid of the hunter? Aren’t you afraid of being hunted? (She is, and she’s trying not to show it.) Why should I be afraid, he answers, such traps are not set for poor birds, young, insignificant, worthless. True, but also naïve. Not all hunters care about such things; some kill for other reasons.

 

Then a shift (the child is doing the puddle-jumping thing of approaching upset and trauma sporadically, addressing a bit of the situation, and then shying away into a tangent. It rings true.) My father is not dead, for all your saying. He can’t believe it, perhaps, or more, he’s more worldly than his mother wants to think. He knows something confused and deeply unsettling is going on. She has to believe it, argue it—that seems, heart-breakingly, the safer, more straightforward course: yes, he is dead. Dead to us. How wilt thou do for a father? Playfully, or childishly, naively, he distracts her again, makes her laugh, perhaps (although it’s too close to the bone, too painful): how will you do for a husband? She must catch her breath, a reminder of her particular loss, her particular betrayal, as she thinks. But she has to laugh it off: why, I can buy me twenty at any market. Husbands? Ten a penny. And the son is pert here: going into business, then, buying and selling husbands? You could only do that by some pretty dodgy trades. Perhaps there’s an insight here into the easy, slightly risqué banter that Lady Macduff has shared with her husband: we never see them together (although sometimes their relationship is silently staged) but part of what this little episode does is to create the sense of a close, loving, trusting family, with little jokes, at ease with itself. That’s what’s been lost and betrayed by Macduff’s departure, as his wife thinks. Thou speak’st with all thy wit, mother tells son, and yet, i’faith, with wit enough for thee. You’re smart, you are; out of the mouths of babes and children comes truth and insight, more than they sometimes realise.