MACBETH [to the Ghost] What man dare, I dare.
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The armed rhinoceros, or th’Hyrcan tiger.
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble. Or be alive again,
And dare me to the desert with thy sword;
If trembling I inhabit, then protest me
The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow;
Unreal mock’ry, hence!
[Exit Ghost]
Why so; being gone,
I am a man again. [To Lords] Pray you sit still. (3.4.97-106)
Full meltdown: Macbeth confronts the Ghost with an interesting menagerie of similes, but it’s striking that the terms of his defiance are those established by his wife’s taunts. It’s a precarious performance, as he once again screws his courage to the sticking place: What man dare, I dare. I’m a man, a manly man, a daring manly man, daring and undaunted; I’m scared of almost nothing. In general, if you think you’re hard enough, come and have a go. Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, the scariest beariest of bears. Or like the armed rhinoceros, not so much armed with weapons as wearing armour, as it more or less was in the most famous early modern—and mostly imaginary—portrayal, by Dürer. (Macbeth has never seen a rhinoceros, neither has Shakespeare, and it’s unlikely that anyone in the audience had either; most would never have even seen a picture. SCARY is the point here, something between a bear and a tiger in terms of monstrosity and ferocity.) Or like the Hyrcan tiger: tigers are the most savage of beasts and tigers from Hyrcania, by the Caspian sea, are the fiercest of tigers. You can come in any of those appalling, terrifying, beastly shapes, as a tiger, or a bear, or a rhinoceros. That would be fine; bring it on. Just don’t come near me, don’t appear to me, in your current form—take any shape but that, and my firm nerves shall never tremble. I can cope with anything, fight with anything, except—that. Or, almost trying to strike a desperate bargain:be alive again, and dare me to the desert with thy sword. I’ll fight you, we can take it outside, just the two of us (and the desert, here, momentarily brings the heath into the castle, similarly a wasteland, uncultivated, wild) and fight it out, to the death. If I tremble at all at that prospect, if I hold back, then protest me the baby of a girl, and baby here is probably a doll, a child’s toy, rather than a baby-baby, weaker and more pathetic even than an infant. As the speech is constructed, the baby of a girl is the absolute antithesis of the manly man of the opening. Hence, horrible shadow! Unreal mockery, hence! His final addresses are oddly insubstantial in comparison to the intense bodiliness of the way in which he’s described and engaged with the Ghost, but also suggest, at last, that the Ghost isn’t real, that it might be capable of vanishing, as a proper ghost should.
And it does. Why so; being gone, I am a man again. Just like that. A note of surprise, or relief, even a laugh—but surely everyone else on stage is transfixed, aghast, and his protestation, I am a man again, has to ring hollow. Pray, sit you still—don’t go anywhere, no need to get up, let alone leave. Would anyone like another drink? Coffee? It’s clear that that’s what the Lords are doing, though, confused and embarrassed and troubled at witnessing this terrible disintegration. Too late to salvage this particular dinner party…
