Later in the same scene, when he is alone and waiting for the bell that will summon him to kill King Duncan, Macbeth hallucinates, and sees a dagger. If we think back, we may remember that this is exactly the kind of night Macbeth wanted, because he thought it might conceal his own guilt from himself. He means that there's not a star to be seen in the sky. This elaborate metaphor suggests that pity for King Duncan will be like that kind of wind that blows so hard that it brings tears to your eyes.Īfter the moon has gone down on the night in which Macbeth kills King Duncan, Banquo says to Fleance, "There's husbandry in heaven / Their candles are all out" (2.1.4-5). "Cherubins" are small angels, portrayed as chubby, naked children we call them "cherubs." And "the sightless couriers of the air" are the winds, imagined as invisible ("sightless") horses. When Macbeth is thinking about what's going to happen after he has killed King Duncan, he says that "pity, like a naked new-born babe, / Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubins, horsed / Upon the sightless couriers of the air, / Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, / That tears shall drown the wind" (1.7.21-25). In both its ideas and imagery, this passage is remarkably similar to Macbeth's speech in the previous scene. In short, his desires are so terrible, that he can't stand to have the stars shine on them he doesn't even want to look at them himself.Īt the end of a soliloquy in which Lady Macbeth talks herself into a murderous state of mind, she calls upon night to hide her deed from heaven and from herself: Come, thick night, / And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, / That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, / Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, / To cry "Hold, hold!" (1.5.50-54). Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see. The eye wink at the hand yet let that be, Let not light see my black and deep desires: As he is thinking of murdering both the King and Malcolm, he says to himself: Moments later Macbeth also uses starlight as a metaphor for what is good and noble. The King promises that "signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine / On all deservers" (1.4.41-42). When King Duncan announces that his eldest son Malcolm is heir to the throne, he says that Malcolm won't be the only one who receives new honors.
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