MACBETH How does your patient, doctor?
DOCTOR Not so sick, my lord,
As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies
That keep her from her rest.
MACBETH Cure her of that.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the fraught bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
DOCTOR Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.
MACBETH Throw physic to the dogs; I’ll none of it. (5.3.40-50)
Has the Doctor actively been trying to get Macbeth’s attention, or is it simply that Macbeth notices him there, perhaps (in modern dress) in white-coated incongruity in this increasingly military setting? And Macbeth’s enquiry can be grudging, or forced, reluctant: how does your patient, doctor? Does he really want to know? Or is the state of his wife too much to contemplate, too much part of another life? Is he all too well aware of the state she’s in, and at some level think that it’s his ‘fault’? Not so sick, my lord, starts off sounding like an optimistic reassurance: she’s doing better today! stable! some improvement, even! But then the qualifier: it’s not that kind of so, not an intensifier, but rather the Doctor’s drawing a comparison. She’s not sick in the sense of physically unwell, but rather—well, she’s mad. Of course he can’t say that, so he has to come up with this creepy circumlocution. She’s troubled with thick-coming fancies, thick-coming in that there are a lot of them, dense, a crowd of terrible imaginings, pressing in on her. Lady Macbeth had called for thick night, for a smothering, hellish darkness, and that’s what she’s got. And these thoughts, these hallucinations; they’re keeping her awake. She can’t sleep. The Doctor is, presumably, going to try to avoid going any further in explaining the content and the nature of these fancies, and fortunately Macbeth just doesn’t want to know, no time, no spare capacity for love, for worry. Cure her of that. Just sort it, can’t you?
His next question might seem to be about Lady Macbeth, but it’s much more about himself. Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, a mind that is sick, yes, but also uneasy, unable to find ease, rest, sleep? (Macbeth’s insomniac too.) Can’t you do something about the terrible thoughts, the appalling memories which replay and replay and replay, which are deep rooted in the mind, great grief and sorrow? Can’t you just—erase them, raze them out like you were scraping away at the surface of a wax writing tablet, or a piece of parchment? (The wax tablet is an ancient metaphor for memory; Hamlet’s tables, from which he will wipe away everything to do the Ghost’s bidding.) Smooth, untroubled, unmarked, blank. Blissful oblivion again, not remembering, or thinking, or feeling. Can’t you give—the patient—me—something, some sweet oblivious antidote, anything, that will cleanse the fraught, overburdened, bursting bosom, heart and mind, of that perilous stuff, all that crushing weight of terrible deeds and words and thoughts, which weighs upon the heart? Full to bursting, so heavy, on the point of collapse. Can’t you do something? Can’t you help me?
Delicately phrased response; perhaps the Doctor fears that his life may depend on it. Therein the patient must minister to himself. A brief pause before himself? A signal that he knows that Macbeth is speaking personally? And minister, picking up on Macbeth’s verb, but also recalling the way in which the Doctor observed that Lady Macbeth needed a priest rather than a physician. Yes, doctors minister, but the Doctor recognises that Macbeth, like his wife, is having a crisis which is physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual. (And he also wants to forestall any possibility of Macbeth confessing to him, confiding in him anymore. He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want that burden. Hearing Lady Macbeth’s confession has been enough.) You’re no bloody help, you doctors, you experts (Macbeth regrets this moment of anguished vulnerability). Throw physic to the dogs! Useless boffins. I’ll none of it. I don’t need you anyway. I don’t need anyone.
