Today’s Totally Random
Lines
Dispute
it like a man.
Malcolm
Macbeth Act IV, Scene iii, Line 220
Well, here we go. We’ve actually happened upon a pretty famous line. What is Malcolm talking about when he tells Macduff to dispute it like a man? Oh nothing really, just the slaughter of his wife and children, that’s all.
Just previous to today’s line Macduff has been
told that his wife and children have all been murdered. Then Malcolm counsels
him to ‘Let’s make us medicines of our great revenge.’ But that’s not
what Macduff wants to hear right now. He responds,
He has no children.(referring to the fact that Malcolm has no children, so
he doesn’t know how it feels to lose them)— All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? — Oh hell-kite!— All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?
And that’s when Malcolm says Dispute it like a
man. Easy for him to say. It wasn’t his wife and kids that got massacred.
Macduff’s reply to Malcolm is worth noting as well.
But I must also feel it as a man:
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me. - Did heaven look
on?
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
They were all struck for thee! Naught that I am,
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
Fell slaughter on their souls: heaven rest them
now.
There’s that word fell again. Yah, fell
slaughter, and one fell swoop. So remember, the next time you’re
thinking about using the phrase ‘in one fell swoop’ that ‘fell’ in this phrase
means evil, very evil. That’s the true meaning of that phrase. Macduff’s whole
family was massacred in one evil swoop.
4 comments:
"Did heaven look on? And would not take their part?"
Does this mean - Was God watching and just let it happen? Or is it a different meaning?
That sounds about right.
That's the first time I think I was really struck by how pretty and well put a line was in Shakespeare-speak rather than modern-speak.
Interesting. But nice to see you appreciating Will's words.
But it's all modern-speak, in a sense. Isn't it?
Did God watch, and just let it happen? Did heaven look on, and would not take their part?
The same thought, both using different, modern words.
Of course Will's words sound better. Of course.
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