MACBETH Seyton!
Enter Seyton
SEYTON What’s your gracious pleasure?
MACBETH What news more?
SEYTON All is confirmed, my lord, which was reported.
MACBETH I’ll fight till from my bones my flesh be hacked.
Give me my armour.
SEYTON ’Tis not needed yet.
MACBETH I’ll put it on.
Send out more horses; skirr the country round.
Hang those that talk of fear. Give me mine armour. (5.3.31-39)
Shouting, shouting—Seyton!—so that Seyton’s What’s your gracious pleasure? can surely be spoken with knowing, insolent irony, or with oleaginous obsequiousness. Whatever, Seyton seems to have Macbeth’s trust; he’s being quite chippy, and gets away with it. What news more? Can Seyton say anything other than that the English troops are massing. No: All is confirmed, my lord, which was reported. It’s just as the other guy said, the one you sent away just now with a flea in his ear. But Macbeth doesn’t respond to the substance of this directly, he’s just defiant: I’ll fight till from my bones my flesh be hacked. A reminder of his warrior credentials, his berserker ferocity, and also of what’s being contemplated, the clash of steel, the hacking of flesh. Give me my armour. A declaration: it’s time to fight, let’s get ready. Nah, says Seyton, not time yet. Too early. Arming takes time, and so does disarming; to be fully armed will make Macbeth less mobile, less agile, more dependent on others. (It’ll also, presumably, force the rest of his supporters to arm too.) Arming means endgame. (Theatrically, arming will take a long time, with buckles and straps, and it’s skilled and tricky. Shakespeare turns arming into a tragicomic scene in Antony and Cleopatra, a year or so later, when Cleopatra tries to ‘help’ Antony arm. There’s an interesting reversal/echo, too, of the scene of Emilia undressing Desdemona a year or so earlier. These are activities that need skill, training, rehearsal, and experience for actors.) Macbeth mostly overlooks this insubordination. (I wonder, could Seyton be one of the murderers? What hold does he have over Macbeth, that he can be this offhand with the tyrant, the king? Does he literally know where the bodies are buried?) I’ll put it on, he repeats, I will. And now some orders: Send out more horses—scouts, but also a show of force and power, to the enemy and, even more, to Macbeth’s remaining troops and supporters. Skirr the country round, ride out at speed, pass through, be visible. Skirr also suggests scour, clean up, purify, which anticipates what Macbeth’s about to speak of with the doctor, but here also, perhaps suggests flush out traitors and waverers, and hang those that talk of fear. Make an example of them. (And Macbeth’s terrified enough already, at some level. He doesn’t need to hear anyone else talking about how frightened they are. It’s fear itself that he wants to destroy.) Give me mine armour. Let me hide my body, my face in that carapace of steel. Let me believe myself invincible, untouchable, impenetrable, hard.
