are to postpone decision. "We will speak further," he says, whereupon
the woman takes the lead, warns him to dissemble, and adds, "leave all
the rest to me." Macbeth's doubting, irresolution, and dislike of action
could hardly be more forcibly portrayed.
The seventh scene of the first act begins with another long soliloquy by
Macbeth, and this soliloquy shows us not only Hamlet's irresolution and
untimely love of meditation, but also the peculiar pendulum-swing of
Hamlet's thought:
"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success: that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all; here,
But here upon this bank and shoal of time
We'd jump the life to come. . . . ."
Is not this the same soul which also in a soliloquy questions
fate?--"Whether 'tis better in the mind...."
Macbeth, too, has Hamlet's peculiar and exquisite intellectual
fairness--a quality, be it remarked in passing, seldom found in a
ruthless murderer. He sees even the King's good points:
...... "this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking off."
Is it not like Hamlet to be able to condemn himself in this way
beforehand? Macbeth ends this soliloquy with words which come from the
inmost of Hamlet's heart:
"I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other."
Hamlet, too, has no spur to prick the sides of his intent, and Hamlet,
too, would be sure to see how apt ambition is to overleap itself, and so
would blunt the sting of the desire. This monologue alone should have
been sufficient to reveal to all critics the essential identity of
Hamlet and Macbeth. Lady Macbeth, too, tells us that Macbeth left the
supper table where he was entertaining the King, in order to indulge
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