"Macbeth does murder sleep"
It all started with a simple plot: kill the king and ascend the throne. Macbeth and his wife just had to intoxicate the guards, stab them, stab the king, and blame the whole bloody mess on the now dead watch. But things are never that easy. Macbeth and his wife had not taken into consideration the ramifications of murdering a sleeping sovereign. They did not stop to think about or question what would happen to the king's supernatural entity, the body politic, upon the hour of the body natural's death. But, more importantly, neither Macbeth nor Lady Macbeth realized that the very method they used to murder a man would also yield an unseen victim--sleep.
MACBETH
Methought I heard a voice cry "Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep," the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast--
LADY MACBETH
What do you mean?
MACBETH
Still it cried "Sleep no more!" to all the house:
"Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more." (2.2.32-40)
This crime is, perhaps, the most frightening of all. But how can someone murder sleep? Does it have a body? And how does that play into Duncan's death?
Parris's article "The Body Is With The King, But The King Is Not With The Body: Sovereign Sleep In Hamlet and Macbeth" makes some very compelling arguments that answer the above queries. First, sleep is to be considered as a part of the sovereign's body natural. It is what allows for the physical restoration of the flesh; thus, giving the king the energy that is necessary to maintain the power of the body politic. However, Parris cautions that "sleep divides an otherwise continuous stream of waking consciousness in life, by plunging the soul's mind into a temporary void" (123). Therefore, the function of sleep is both a strong asset and dangerous weakness for a sovereign because it acts as a temporary wedge between the king's two bodies.
Macbeth uses this "wedge" to deprive Duncan of his power and his life. This method of execution does not fall outside of Macbeth's character. "Macbeth's presence is both divided and as having the power to divide" (Parris, 124). Shakespeare punctuates this point as the very beginning of the play. For instance, in the first act the wounded sergeant claims that Macbeth killed the traitor Macdonwald by "unseam[ing] him from the nave to th' chops" (1.1.22). This act earns him the title of Glamis while still maintaining the previous identity of Cawdor, further dividing Macbeth's identity. Even so, the division of the self does not weaken Macbeth's presence. In fact, it is this "split personality" that grants him the strange ability to "cleave" the king's natural body from the body politic by using sleep as a weapon; hence, murdering the man as well as the very thing he will need to maintain authority over his kingdom.
MACBETH
Methought I heard a voice cry "Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep," the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast--
LADY MACBETH
What do you mean?
MACBETH
Still it cried "Sleep no more!" to all the house:
"Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more." (2.2.32-40)
This crime is, perhaps, the most frightening of all. But how can someone murder sleep? Does it have a body? And how does that play into Duncan's death?
Parris's article "The Body Is With The King, But The King Is Not With The Body: Sovereign Sleep In Hamlet and Macbeth" makes some very compelling arguments that answer the above queries. First, sleep is to be considered as a part of the sovereign's body natural. It is what allows for the physical restoration of the flesh; thus, giving the king the energy that is necessary to maintain the power of the body politic. However, Parris cautions that "sleep divides an otherwise continuous stream of waking consciousness in life, by plunging the soul's mind into a temporary void" (123). Therefore, the function of sleep is both a strong asset and dangerous weakness for a sovereign because it acts as a temporary wedge between the king's two bodies.
Macbeth uses this "wedge" to deprive Duncan of his power and his life. This method of execution does not fall outside of Macbeth's character. "Macbeth's presence is both divided and as having the power to divide" (Parris, 124). Shakespeare punctuates this point as the very beginning of the play. For instance, in the first act the wounded sergeant claims that Macbeth killed the traitor Macdonwald by "unseam[ing] him from the nave to th' chops" (1.1.22). This act earns him the title of Glamis while still maintaining the previous identity of Cawdor, further dividing Macbeth's identity. Even so, the division of the self does not weaken Macbeth's presence. In fact, it is this "split personality" that grants him the strange ability to "cleave" the king's natural body from the body politic by using sleep as a weapon; hence, murdering the man as well as the very thing he will need to maintain authority over his kingdom.
"Sleep No More": two types of Insomnia
So what happens when sleep is murdered? Shakespeare plays with this notion as Lady Macbeth and her husband deal with the consequences of their horrific deed: chronic insomnia.
LADY MACBETH
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry "Hold, hold!" (1.5.38-54)
As discussed prior to this analysis, medical authorities during this century believed that immoderate sleep was directly related to the health of the body rather than the psychology of the mind. The chief suspect would be an imbalance of humours occupying the head, chest, or stomach. In the case of Lady Macbeth, "She actively seeks these accursed, 'sightless substances' [ . . . ] the swirling spirits from which bodily humors take on shaping temperaments" (Parris, 127). The thickening of blood could easily be traced back one of the four ruling humors that balanced the body. Additionally, by "stopping up her passages" from "visitings of nature" Lady Macbeth bars herself from receiving the healing affects of sleep. In essence, she has spiritually damned herself to suffer the same sleepless fate as Macbeth.
By the fifth act of the play we see Lady Macbeth diminish into little more than a former ghost of herself as she walks the halls of her castle in a nightgown, awake in her dreaming. This behavior, although disturbing to the extreme, would not have come across as strange to an English audience. As already established from the section of sleeping disorders, sleepwalking was quite a common occurrence during this period. So let's look beyond the purely physical oddity and explore the condition of Lady Macbeth's mind. Carroll Camden's work entitled "Shakespeare on Sleep and Dreams" dabbles with the possibility of dreams being either natural or diabolical. Natural dreams, as the author writes, are "those which are due to the predominant complexion or humor of the individual" (123). On the other hand, dreams of a diabolical nature are "those which are framed in the brain by Satan" (125). In this case, I am inclined to believe the first since "Elizabethan writers on the psychology of sleep usually define sleep as a kind of separation of the soul from the body, or a rest of the five senses, together with the sixth or common sense" (Camden, 107). If this is true, then Lady Macbeth's ability to walk and talk and experience the murder of Duncan while repeatedly using her five senses is an indication that her soul is still trapped inside her body. Therefore, her dreams are the result of those sightless substances building up inside Lady Macbeth's body as they gradually pollute her mind.
LADY MACBETH
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry "Hold, hold!" (1.5.38-54)
As discussed prior to this analysis, medical authorities during this century believed that immoderate sleep was directly related to the health of the body rather than the psychology of the mind. The chief suspect would be an imbalance of humours occupying the head, chest, or stomach. In the case of Lady Macbeth, "She actively seeks these accursed, 'sightless substances' [ . . . ] the swirling spirits from which bodily humors take on shaping temperaments" (Parris, 127). The thickening of blood could easily be traced back one of the four ruling humors that balanced the body. Additionally, by "stopping up her passages" from "visitings of nature" Lady Macbeth bars herself from receiving the healing affects of sleep. In essence, she has spiritually damned herself to suffer the same sleepless fate as Macbeth.
By the fifth act of the play we see Lady Macbeth diminish into little more than a former ghost of herself as she walks the halls of her castle in a nightgown, awake in her dreaming. This behavior, although disturbing to the extreme, would not have come across as strange to an English audience. As already established from the section of sleeping disorders, sleepwalking was quite a common occurrence during this period. So let's look beyond the purely physical oddity and explore the condition of Lady Macbeth's mind. Carroll Camden's work entitled "Shakespeare on Sleep and Dreams" dabbles with the possibility of dreams being either natural or diabolical. Natural dreams, as the author writes, are "those which are due to the predominant complexion or humor of the individual" (123). On the other hand, dreams of a diabolical nature are "those which are framed in the brain by Satan" (125). In this case, I am inclined to believe the first since "Elizabethan writers on the psychology of sleep usually define sleep as a kind of separation of the soul from the body, or a rest of the five senses, together with the sixth or common sense" (Camden, 107). If this is true, then Lady Macbeth's ability to walk and talk and experience the murder of Duncan while repeatedly using her five senses is an indication that her soul is still trapped inside her body. Therefore, her dreams are the result of those sightless substances building up inside Lady Macbeth's body as they gradually pollute her mind.
However, Rebecca Totaro's article "Securing Sleep in Hamlet" claims that Lady Macbeth's habit of sleepwalking is more than a mere physical ailment. It "is another form of extreme watch, an early modern symptom of her physiological intemperance if also of her conscience of her crime" (413). By this token, it is something far more sinister than a physical disorder. The doctor observing Lady Macbeth's behavior supports this argument: "This disease is beyond my practise [ . . . ] Foul whisperings are abroad. Unnatural deeds / Do breed unnatural troubles; infected minds / To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. More needs she the divine than the physician" (5.1.59, 71-74). If the malady is not wholly physical then could it be a sickness of a spiritual nature?
Not far removed from Camden's research that impresses the possibility of Satan's influence over dreams, Totaro argues that Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking is a sign of too much vigilance. As discussed in the section devoted to spiritual bodies, keeping watch over one's soul was part of the religious culture during this period. A person who committed sin threatened their immortal souls if they did not repent. We do not get a formal confession of regret from Macbeth's wife, but we do have this seemingly guilt ridden episode taking place in the dead of night. Could Shakespeare be playing with the idea of the soul's need to leave the body in order to repent it's sin? We can only guess, but it seems probable.
Equally complex as Lady Macbeth's experience with sleep (or lack there of) is Macbeth's struggle with insomnia. On the surface level, it is not difficult to see how Macbeth's guilt over Duncan's murder manifests itself into a poisonous humor of the mind that "lack[s] the season of all natures, sleep" (3.4.140). He sees ghosts of murdered men, seems of melancholic temperament, and even begins to fall prey to workings of witchcraft. But the on a deeper level, Macbeth has done something terrible.
Not far removed from Camden's research that impresses the possibility of Satan's influence over dreams, Totaro argues that Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking is a sign of too much vigilance. As discussed in the section devoted to spiritual bodies, keeping watch over one's soul was part of the religious culture during this period. A person who committed sin threatened their immortal souls if they did not repent. We do not get a formal confession of regret from Macbeth's wife, but we do have this seemingly guilt ridden episode taking place in the dead of night. Could Shakespeare be playing with the idea of the soul's need to leave the body in order to repent it's sin? We can only guess, but it seems probable.
Equally complex as Lady Macbeth's experience with sleep (or lack there of) is Macbeth's struggle with insomnia. On the surface level, it is not difficult to see how Macbeth's guilt over Duncan's murder manifests itself into a poisonous humor of the mind that "lack[s] the season of all natures, sleep" (3.4.140). He sees ghosts of murdered men, seems of melancholic temperament, and even begins to fall prey to workings of witchcraft. But the on a deeper level, Macbeth has done something terrible.
MACDUFF
Stands Scotland where it did? ROSS Alas, poor country! Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot Be call'd our mother, but our grave; where nothing, But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile; Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems A modern ecstasy; the dead man's knell Is there scarce ask'd for who; and good men's lives Expire before the flowers in their caps, Dying or ere they sicken. (4.3.164-173) |
By murdering Duncan in his sleep, the powers invested in a sovereign could not be passed down by the king's word of mouth. Which begs a serious question: what happens when the connection between the body politic and the body natural is severed / destroyed? According to the growing distress inside the play, Shakespeare clearly believes that a kingdom would fall apart.
Since the body politic could theoretically move between hosts of its own volition, there can be a parallel argument presented in which Macbeth does inherit the body politic, but his polluted body putrefies the power of the mantle in his possession. If this is the case, we arrive at the exact same result as the prior theory; however, this one implies that the murder of sleep is having a detrimental affect on both the king (Macbeth) and, through him, his country. |
"The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures"
Writers commonly use sleep as a metaphor for death, but Shakespeare in known for pushing the mundane toward the extraordinary. In the context of Macbeth, I believe Shakespeare leaves makes the concept of death as fluid and transitional as sleep. Rather than place emphasis on the boy, he imparts focus on the transformation of the soul. What happens when we die? Do we sleep eternally or is the permanency of this rest strictly for the mortal body? We are forced to consider these matters as Banquo's ghost visits his murderer's home, as Macbeth sees Banquo's children in a vision, and again as the witches conjure spirits of their own from the dead. "The dead are but as pictures," snapshots of their former selves, no longer physically alive but still thriving in memory.
Regardless of my novice intrigue, it is clear that in Macbeth the unseen victim murdered alongside Duncan's body gets its due vengeance by the conclusion of the play. Those that murdered sleep, ironically, succumb to a fatalistic slumber of their own. This emphasizes, although subtly, that no man can escape the most primitive need of the mind and body--the need for sleep.
Regardless of my novice intrigue, it is clear that in Macbeth the unseen victim murdered alongside Duncan's body gets its due vengeance by the conclusion of the play. Those that murdered sleep, ironically, succumb to a fatalistic slumber of their own. This emphasizes, although subtly, that no man can escape the most primitive need of the mind and body--the need for sleep.