[Spender discusses the unsuccessful efforts of   Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to separate the past, present, and future aspects of time. In the critic's opinion, the couples' happiness depends on their ability to prevent both the anticipated and, later. the remembered murder of Duncan from affecting their present situation. In addition,   the critic observes, the "chaos of time" initiated by Duncan's murder pervades Macbeth until Malcolm restores a proper sense of order at the end of the play. Spender concludes his discussion by paralleling the "loss of the sense of time and measure and place" in Macbeth with a similar loss in the modem world.]

I do not know whether any Shakespearean critic has ever pointed out the significant part played by ideas of time in Macbeth. One often hears quoted:

Come what may
Time and the hour runs through the
roughest day.
[I. iii. 146-...