Duncan. Unlike his first struggle this history excites
little suspense or anxiety on his account: we have now no hope for him.
But it is an engrossing spectacle, and psychologically it is perhaps the
most remarkable exhibition of the _development_ of a character to be
found in Shakespeare's tragedies.

That heart-sickness which comes from Macbeth's perception of the
futility of his crime, and which never leaves him for long, is not,
however, his habitual state. It could not be so, for two reasons. In the
first place the consciousness of guilt is stronger in him than the
consciousness of failure; and it keeps him in a perpetual agony of
restlessness, and forbids him simply to droop and pine. His mind is
'full of scorpions.' He cannot sleep. He 'keeps alone,' moody and
savage. 'All that is within him does condemn itself for being there.'
There is a fever in his blood which urges him to ceaseless action in the
search for oblivion. And, in the second place, ambition, the love of
power, the instinct of self-assertion, are much too potent in Macbeth to
permit him to resign, even in spirit, the prize for which he has put
rancours in the vessel of his peace. The 'will to live' is mighty in
him. The forces which impelled him to aim at the crown re-assert
themselves. He faces the world, and his own conscience, desperate, but
never dreaming of acknowledging defeat. He will see 'the frame of things
disjoint' first. He challenges fate into the lists.

The result is frightful. He speaks no more, as before Duncan's murder,
of honour or pity. That sleepless torture, he tells himself, is nothing
but the sense of insecurity and the fear of retaliation. If only he were
safe, it would vanish. And he looks about for the cause of his fear; and
his eye falls on Banquo. Banquo, who cannot fail to suspect him, has not
fled or turned against him: Banquo has become his chief counsellor. Why?
Because, he answers, the kingdom was promised to Banquo's children.
Banquo, then, is waiting to attack him, to make a way for them. The
'bloody instructions' he himself taught when he murdered Duncan, are
about to return, as he said they would, to plague the inventor. _This_
then, he tells himself, is the fear that will not let him sleep; and it
will die with Banquo. There is no hesitation now, and no remorse: he has
nearly learned his lesson. He hastens feverishly, not to murder Banquo,
but to procure his murder: some strange idea is in his mind that the
t