en the murderer bursts in with
the question 'Where is your husband?' she becomes in a moment the wife,
and the great noble's wife:

I hope, in no place so unsanctified
Where such as thou may'st find him.

What did Shakespeare mean us to think of Macduff's flight, for which
Macduff has been much blamed by others beside his wife? Certainly not
that fear for himself, or want of love for his family, had anything to
do with it. His love for his country, so strongly marked in the scene
with Malcolm, is evidently his one motive.

He is noble, wise, judicious, and best knows
The fits o' the season,

says Ross. That his flight was 'noble' is beyond doubt. That it was not
wise or judicious in the interest of his family is no less clear. But
that does not show that it was wrong; and, even if it were, to represent
its consequences as a judgment on him for his want of due consideration
is equally monstrous and ludicrous.[244] The further question whether he
did fail in due consideration, or whether for his country's sake he
deliberately risked a danger which he fully realised, would in
Shakespeare's theatre have been answered at once by Macduff's expression
and demeanour on hearing Malcolm's words,

Why in that rawness left you wife and child,
Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,
Without leave-taking?

It cannot be decided with certainty from the mere text; but, without
going into the considerations on each side, I may express the opinion
that Macduff knew well what he was doing, and that he fled without
leave-taking for fear his purpose should give way. Perhaps he said to
himself, with Coriolanus,

Not of a woman's tenderness to be,
Requires nor child nor woman's face to see.

Little Macduff suggests a few words on Shakespeare's boys (there are
scarcely any little girls). It is somewhat curious that nearly all of
them appear in tragic or semi-tragic dramas. I remember but two
exceptions: little William Page, who said his _Hic, haec, hoc_ to Sir
Hugh Evans; and the page before whom Falstaff walked like a sow that
hath overwhelmed all her litter but one; and it is to be feared that
even this page, if he is the Boy of _Henry V._, came to an ill end,
being killed with the luggage.

So wise so young, they say, do ne'er live long,

as Richard observed of the little Prince of Wales. Of too many of these
children (some of the 'boys,' _e.g._ those in _Cymbeline_,