but, though I think this is
so, it can hardly be demonstrated. Perhaps however the following small
indications, mostly of a different kind, tend to the same result.

(1) There is no positive sign of youth. (2) A young man would not be
likely to lead the army. (3) Macbeth is 'cousin' to an old man.[294] (4)
Macbeth calls Malcolm 'young,' and speaks of him scornfully as 'the boy
Malcolm.' He is probably therefore considerably his senior. But Malcolm
is evidently not really a boy (see I. ii. 3 f. as well as the later
Acts). (5) One gets the impression (possibly without reason) that
Macbeth and Banquo are of about the same age; and Banquo's son, the boy
Fleance, is evidently not a mere child. (On the other hand the children
of Macduff, who is clearly a good deal older than Malcolm, are all
young; and I do not think there is any sign that Macbeth is older than
Macduff.) (6) When Lady Macbeth, in the banquet scene, says,

Sit, worthy friends: my lord is often thus,
And hath been from his youth,

we naturally imagine him some way removed from his youth. (7) Lady
Macbeth saw a resemblance to her father in the aged king. (8) Macbeth
says,

I have lived long enough: my way[295] of life
Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf:
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I may not look to have.

It is, surely, of the old age of the soul that he speaks in the second
line, but still the lines would hardly be spoken under any circumstances
by a man less than middle-aged.

On the other hand I suppose no one ever imagined Macbeth, or on
consideration could imagine him, as _more_ than middle-aged when the
action begins. And in addition the reader may observe, if he finds it
necessary, that Macbeth looks forward to having children (I. vii. 72),
and that his terms of endearment ('dearest love,' 'dearest chuck') and
his language in public ('sweet remembrancer') do not suggest that his
wife and he are old; they even suggest that she at least is scarcely
middle-aged. But this discussion tends to grow ludicrous.

For Shakespeare's audience these mysteries were revealed by a glance at
the actors, like the fact that Duncan was an old man, which the text, I
think, does not disclose till V. i. 44.

3. Whether Macbeth had children or (as seems usually to be supposed) had
none, is quite immaterial. But it is material that, if he had none, he
looked forward to