How say’st thou, that Macduff denies his person
At our great bidding?

Macduff it is that spoils his sleep.  He shall perish,—­he and aught else that bars the road to peace.

                              For mine own good
     All causes shall give way:  I am in blood
     Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more,
     Returning were as tedious as go o’er: 
     Strange things I have in head that will to hand,
     Which must be acted ere they may be scann’d.

She answers, sick at heart,

     You lack the season of all natures, sleep.

No doubt:  but he has found the way to it now: 

     Come, we’ll to sleep.  My strange and self abuse
     Is the initiate fear that wants hard use;
     We are yet but young in deed.

What a change from the man who thought of Duncan’s virtues, and of pity like a naked new-born babe!  What a frightful clearness of self-consciousness in this descent to hell, and yet what a furious force in the instinct of life and self-assertion that drives him on!

He goes to seek the Witches.  He will know, by the worst means, the worst.  He has no longer any awe of them.

     How now, you secret, black and midnight hags!

—­so he greets them, and at once he demands and threatens.  They tell him he is right to fear Macduff.  They tell him to fear nothing, for none of woman born can harm him.  He feels that the two statements are at variance; infatuated, suspects no double meaning; but, that he may ‘sleep in spite of thunder,’ determines not to spare Macduff.  But his heart throbs to know one thing, and he forces from the Witches the vision of Banquo’s children crowned.  The old intolerable thought returns, ‘for Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind’; and with it, for all the absolute security apparently promised him, there returns that inward fever.  Will nothing quiet it?  Nothing but destruction.  Macduff, one comes to tell him, has escaped him; but that does not matter:  he can still destroy:[223]

                                And even now,
     To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done: 
     The castle of Macduff I will surprise;
     Seize upon Fife; give to the edge o’ the sword
     His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls
     That trace him in’s line.  No boasting like a fool;
     This deed I’ll do before this purpose cool. 
     But no more sights!

No, he need fear no more ‘sights.’  The Witches have done their work, and after this purposeless butchery his own imagination will trouble him no more.[224] He has dealt his last blow at the conscience and pity which spoke through it.

The whole flood of evil in his nature is now let loose.  He becomes an open tyrant, dreaded by everyone about him, and a terror to his country.  She ‘sinks beneath the yoke.’

Each new morn
New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows
Strike heaven on the face.