MACDUFF What should he be?
MALCOLM It is myself I mean, in whom I know
All the particulars of vice so grafted
That, when they shall be opened, black Macbeth
Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state
Esteem him as a lamb, being compared
With my confineless harms.
MACDUFF Not in the legions
Of horrid hell can come a devil more damned
In evils to top Macbeth. (4.3.50-58)
Macduff is, understandably, confused: who could be worse than Macbeth? and, surely it’s you who will succeed? what should he be, this terrible man you mean, who’s more sinful and vicious even than Macbeth? It is myself I mean, says Malcolm. You what? Especially if this is a young, baby-faced Malcolm, palpably innocent and idealistic and vulnerable, this is hard to pull off. But this is a play which has dealt in the unexpected and the unbelievable, and it has to be possible that even a Malcolm who looks and speaks like an angel could be speaking the truth, a proper Machiavel. Macduff has to choose again: does he believe Malcolm? And if he does, what on earth does he do next?
Malcolm describes himself as full of vices that he has hitherto successfully concealed; they are grafted within him, they have grown inside him, like a poisonous tree grafted on to a virtuous rootstock, secretly nurtured, but when he is able to give them full rein, when all his hidden evils become apparent, are openly seen and known and acted on, opened, like a terrible blossom or like a body on the mortuary slab, anatomised—well, black Macbeth, the evil tyrant, he’s going to look like an amateur, as pure as snow, by comparison with me, and the poor state, battered, wounded Scotland, will think that he was a lamb, they’ll think of him with a fond nostalgia, when he’s compared with my confineless harms, this unbounded appetite I have for doing ill, my complete amorality. Macduff’s trying to compromise: not in the legions of horrid hell can come a devil more damned in evils to top Macbeth. Steady on: Macbeth’s as evil as they come, a devil sent from hell. Nothing could be worse. There’s no way you could be. But Macduff still has to be properly rattled: has he really not known the true Malcolm? (Especially resonant if Macduff’s played as old enough, and Malcolm as young enough, for the former to have known the latter from childhood.) Is he really that poor a judge of character? Is there no hope at all left in the world, no truth, no trust, no goodness?
