MACBETH I have almost forgot the taste of fears.
The time has been my senses would have cooled
To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in’t. I have supped full with horrors.
Direness familiar to my slaughterous thoughts
Cannot once start me.
[Enter Seyton]
Wherefore was that cry?
SEYTON The Queen, my lord, is dead. (5.5.9-16)
I have almost forgot the taste of fears. Almost, but not quite; taste in the sense of a small amount, a touch, a hint, but also, more powerfully, taste, in the mouth, in the body, sour, metallic, cold. (This speech is full of confused sensory experiences: fears taste, a sound is experienced as touch.) I haven’t really felt anything for ages, says Macbeth, and now I feel, feel afraid. Just a bit. A taste. Once upon a time, ages ago, the time has been my senses would have cooled to hear a night-shriek. A scream, a cry; owl, raven, the animal cry of hunter or prey; I’d jump, at least, feel a chill, my blood run cold. More than that, my hair would stand on end, rouse and stir, the hairs on the back of my neck prickle, even at a dismal treatise—a frightening story, read or heard. My body used to respond, be swept with sensation. Now though, nothing. I don’t feel; I don’t experience fear, or anything else. My skin is steel, my body hollow metal. Nothing appals me anymore, because I have supped full with horrors. Supped, eaten, picks up the taste of fears, as if he’s become so glutted with terrible things that he’s heard, seen, and done that nothing has any effect any longer, like a dreadful parody of an epicure, greedy for ever more extreme sensations, tastes, never satisfied. It also recalls the terrible appearance of Banquo’s ghost, the particular horror with which Macbeth has (not quite) supped. Direness familiar to my slaughterous thoughts cannot once start me. Nothing shocks me, because the things that I imagine, the murderousness of my thoughts, the horrors in my mind—those are things that I’ve seen, things that I’ve done. All I do is imagine the worst, over and over. Because I can’t feel anything any longer. It’s almost as if Macbeth is longing for fear, for pain—anything—just to feel something again.
So, what was that noise? Wherefore was that cry? The Queen, my lord, is dead. Either Seyton’s gone to see himself, or a messenger has appeared, whispered the news. A formal, stark announcement. Dead.
