Macbeth speaks these lines in Shakespeare's Macbeth at act 2, scene 3.
In exploring the meaning of these lines, it helps to look at the lines in the context of the play itself, and in the context of the speech in which the lines appear.
It's early in the morning after Macbeth killed King Duncan the night before. At the end of the previous scene, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are washing Duncan's blood from their hands, and they hear knocking at their castle gate. Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth to change from his bloody clothes into his nightshirt, and to pull himself together to meet whoever has come to the castle.
Act 2, scene 3 begins with the famous comic interlude of the Porter going to answer the knocking at the castle gate.
PORTER: Here's a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of
hell-gate, he should have old turning the key. [2.3.1-2]
Considering what happened the night before, the Porter is indeed the keeper of hell's gate. Shakespeare often interjects comic scenes into his tragic plays in order to relieve the tension for the audience, and to set them up for further tragic scenes.
The Porter admits Macduff and Lennox into the castle and engages them in some witty early-morning banter.
Acting like he just woke up, Macbeth comes into the courtyard to meet Macduff and Lennox. After some small talk, Macduff goes to wake the King, and discovers that Duncan has been murdered. Macbeth and Lennox go to investigate the scene of the murder.
Lady Macbeth and Banquo soon appear, wondering what's going on, and they're told what's happened. Lady Macbeth acts shocked and dismayed that this has happened in her own house. Banquo questions why Lady Macbeth is more concerned about where the murder happened than the murder itself.
Macbeth and Lennox return from seeing Duncan's death scene, and that's when Macbeth speaks these lines . . .
MACBETH: Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had lived a blessed time; for from this instant
There's nothing serious in mortality:
All is but toys; renown and grace is dead;
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of. [3.2.99-104]
Macbeth is acting. He might well be upset from having to return to the scene of his crime (which refused to do the night before) and at seeing what he did to Duncan again, but Macbeth has to draw suspicion away from himself and convince all of the people gathered in the courtyard that he is truly distraught at Duncan's death.
So Macbeth makes the melodramatic declaration that even though he's had a great life, his life is no longer worth living without Duncan. "The wine of life is drawn," meaning Duncan is dead, and there's nothing left to live for except "the mere lees" of life. "Lees" is the sediment that is left at the bottom of an empty wine barrel.
Macbeth could also mean that compared to the great Duncan, "the wine of life," everyone else is just the common dregs of society, or the bottom of the barrel.
Macbeth isn't talking only to the people in the courtyard. He's also talking to himself.
Macbeth was happy with his life. He was a famous warrior, he'd just been given a new title, Thane of Cawdor, and new lands, and things were going well for him.
Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had lived a blessed time . . .
Then he killed Duncan, and everything changed for the worse.
. . . for from this instant
There's nothing serious in mortality:
All is but toys; renown and grace is dead . . .
All of the things Macbeth stood for in his life are gone. His fame and glory are now meaningless, and his honor and reputation are destroyed.
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.
By murdering Duncan, Macbeth has lost his soul, and there's nothing for Macbeth to look forward to but a life of emptiness, guilt, and regret.
This quote is taken from act 2, scene 3. At this point in the play, Macbeth has just murdered King Duncan but is pretending to be innocent—he is putting on a show of grief for the benefit of the other characters on stage.
When Macbeth says, "The wine of life is drawn," he means that King Duncan's blood, metaphorically represented by the wine, has been poured out of (or has spilled from) his body.
The "mere lees" is a reference to the dregs of the wine; or, in other words, the sediment which is sometimes left at the bottom of the bottle after the wine has been poured out.
What Macbeth means then is that the King's blood—and thus his life—has been drained from his body, and now all that remains to speak (or "brag") of are the useless signs of the life lost. These useless signs are perhaps King Duncan's physical features, which point to the life that was once there, as the lees might point to the wine that was once in the bottle.
No comments:
Post a Comment