CW: suicidal ideation, brief mention of means
DOCTOR Foul whisp’rings are abroad. Unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles. Infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
More needs she the divine than the physician.
God, God, forgive us all! Look after her.
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night.
My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight.
I think, but dare not speak.
GENTLEWOMAN Good night, good doctor.
Exeunt (5.1.59-68)
Foul whisperings are abroad: there are—rumours—but the suggestion of something foul abroad also sounds witchy; conversation, the very air is infected, with dangerous words. Something is rotten in the state of Scotland. And, although the Doctor isn’t going to be explicit, far too canny for that, he has a diagnosis: unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles. If you kill a king, commit murder at all, in fact, then it’s going to come back to bite you; you’ll go mad, break down, if you violate the natural order in that way. And it comes out in the end, when you go mad: infected minds, stained and maddened with their misdeeds and their sin, to their deaf pillows discharge their secrets. People talk in their sleep, and worse. The infected mind discharging its secrets to the pillow sounds stained, polluted, a weeping wound, an ear infection—bloody linen, foul and stinking. Now being washed in public. More needs she the divine than the physician, he says of Lady Macbeth: she needs a priest. That’s a soul in crisis, burdened to breaking point with the trauma of sin. God, God forgive us all! What’s to be done? All the court—all of Scotland—are now suffering because of this. And we are all sinners, even if not quite so extreme.
The Doctor has been speaking in clichés, some of the time, but there’s a genuine appalled weariness here, perhaps. All he can say is, look after her. (There is, perhaps appropriately, a bit of hand-washing and buck-passing here.) Remove from her the means of all annoyance, and still keep eyes upon her. He knows that Lady Macbeth’s a suicide risk: watch her closely, all the time. Check her pockets, get the knives out of the kitchen drawers, the pills out of the bathroom cabinet. Lock the windows and hide her keys; take the hook off the back of the door. I’m baffled and appalled, but I don’t know what to do, having seen and heard all this. My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight. I think, but dare not speak. And we both know perfectly well, now, what’s at stake here, and what’s going on. But we can’t do a thing about it, not even talk about it more than obliquely and euphemistically. And who would we tell? It’s more than our jobs, perhaps more than our lives, are worth.
Good night, good Doctor, you’ve been no use at all. (Does Macbeth have the best roles for minor characters of all the plays? Certainly a strong contender.)
