LENNOX Who cannot want the thought how monstrous
It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain
To kill their gracious father? Damnèd fact!
How it did grieve Macbeth! Did he not straight
In pious rage the two delinquents tear
That were the slaves of drink and thralls of sleep?
Was not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely too,
For ’twould have angered any heart alive
To hear the men deny’t. So that I say
He has borne all things well, and I do think
That, had he Duncan’s sons under his key—
As, an’t please heaven he shall not—they should find
What ’twere to kill a father. So should Fleance. (3.6.8-20)
So Lennox continues with his careful irony, his maximum deniability; the elaborate circumlocution of who cannot want the thought, who doesn’t lack the assumption, that is, who really thinks how monstrous it was for Malcolm and for Donalbain to kill their gracious father? Damnèd fact! What a terrible deed! And wasn’t Macbeth utterly distraught at it? After all, straight away, in pious rage, full of righteous anger and apparent loyalty, he immediately did tear the two delinquents, the two servants, the slaves of drink and thralls of sleep, who had (he said) been paid by the princes to kill their father. Tear here is appropriately violent, Macbeth the killer, out of control, and to describe the blameless servants as slaves of drink and thralls of sleep emphasises their powerlessness and low status, their total lack of agency. Was not that nobly done? nobly adds even more emphasis to the power imbalance, the class dimension here—killing a couple of sleeping grooms, very noble. Ay, and wisely too—wasn’t that clever of him? for ’twould have angered any heart alive to hear the men deny’t. It was imperative that they not have any chance to defend themselves, or any opportunity to incriminate anyone else in that terrible crime. So that I say he has borne all things well: Macbeth’s controlled the narrative so far, killed anyone who might offer an alternative, got away with it. And I do think that, had he Duncan’s sons under his key—as an’t please heaven he shall not—they should find what ’twere to kill a father. So should Fleance. (That Fleance may still be very young, and that Lennox absolutely believes that Macbeth would kill him, adds to the terror of this scenario.) It’s just as well that Malcolm and Donalbain and Fleance have all fled, because they’d meet the same fate, if Macbeth had them in his power, under his key. Summary extrajudicial murder. (A flashback to the execution of the Thane of Cawdor at the beginning of the play when there was, however brutal, due process followed, on Duncan’s orders.) Lennox is so careful in his words, but perhaps the so far silent thane to whom he speaks has been nodding along, encouraging him, agreeing, so that Lennox can let his guard down, just a little, in expressing the fervent hope that, an’t please heaven, Malcolm and Donalbain, and Fleance, will continue to evade Macbeth’s clutches.
