e Macbeth in the moment of intoxication of
victory, when his love of glory has been gratified; they cheat his
eyes by exhibiting to him as the work of fate what in reality can be
accomplished only by his own deed, and gain credence for all their
words by the immediate fulfilment of the first prediction. The
opportunity of murdering the King immediately offers; the wife of
Macbeth conjures him not to let it slip; she urges him on with a fiery
eloquence which has at command all those sophisms that serve to throw
a false splendor over crime.

Little more than the mere execution falls to the share of Macbeth; he
is driven into it, as it were, in a tumult of fascination. Repentance
immediately follows, nay, even precedes, the deed, and the stings of
conscience leave him rest neither night nor day. But he is now fairly
entangled in the snares of hell; truly frightful is it to behold that
same Macbeth, who once as a warrior could spurn at death, now that he
dreads the prospect of the life to come, clinging with growing anxiety
to his earthly existence the more miserable it becomes, and pitilessly
removing out of the way whatever to his dark and suspicious mind seems
to threaten danger. However much we may abhor his actions, we can not
altogether refuse to compassionate the state of his mind; we lament
the ruin of so many noble qualities, and even in his last defense we
are compelled to admire the struggle of a brave will with a cowardly
conscience. We might believe that we witness in this tragedy the
overruling destiny of the ancients represented in perfect accordance
with their ideas: the whole originates in a supernatural influence, to
which the subsequent events seem inevitably linked. Moreover, we even
find here the same ambiguous oracles which, by their literal
fulfilment, deceive those who confide in them.

Yet it may be easily shown that the poet has, in his work, displayed
more enlightened views. He wishes to show that the conflict of good
and evil in this world can only take place by the permission of
Providence, which converts the curse that individual mortals draw down
on their heads into a blessing to others. An accurate scale is
followed in the retaliation.

Lady Macbeth, who of all the human participators in the King's murder
is the most guilty, is thrown by the terrors of her conscience into a
state of incurable bodily and mental disease; she dies, unlamented by
her husband, with all the symptoms of reprobati