Here, in his delirium he summons the darkness as if it was acting on its own and ready to perform the crime instigated by him – being the murder of his companion Banquo, immediately following this scene:
“Come, seeling night, / Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day / And with thy bloody and invisible hand / Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond / Which keeps me pale. Light thickens, […] / Good things of day begin to droop and drowse, / Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse. […] Things bad begun, make strong themselves by ill.” (Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 2, ll.47–56).
In the course of this a kind of frenzy, almost a feeling of pleasure, resonates in the air; a strange mixture of shudder on the one side and happiness, even a certain fascination with evil – which will be expressed in the following criminal deed – on the other side; just like during an experience of something holy. The night and the misdeed committed during it have an ecstatic, numinous character for Macbeth (see Naumann, p.391, l.30-31; l.34-37). His invocation of the night shows how he is not only open, but prone to the world that surrounds us, of which we are shielded in normal life through the governance of our mind. His character is in agitation, which breaks through the shell of the usual consciousness and, therefore, is capable of visions of the extra-human, such as the now following apparitions of Banquo’s ghost and later the incantation of the witches (Naumann, p.392, l.1-8).
9.1.4 Macbeth’s Vision of Banquo’s Ghost During the Banquet Scene
He now displays an experience of passion, the utmost excited disposition, which does not stand under the control of guiding rationality anymore and, therefore, perceives beings and apparitions that surround us in the dark. This ability, along with its dread and threat, is now being demonstrated to us by means of the appearance of the ghost.
This scene (Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4, ll.38-106), being the peripeteia or turning point, constitutes – next to the dagger-monologue covered above – the second climax of Shakespearean introspection into the psyche of the protagonist within the drama, which once again impressively illustrates the discrepancy between imagination and reality to the audience.
Out of all things, the murdered Banquo– whom Macbeth should no longer be fearing – appears to the new king in the middle of the banquet. As soon as Macbeth mentions him and hypocritically bemoans his absence, Banquo becomes physically present to him – but not for the others – due to the mention and the conception created by it and appears in the gruesome state in which he is now, namely murdered. Just like already before, Shakespeare here again illustrates the horror of inner-worldly loneliness and menace through a projection in daily external life (Naumann, p.392, ll.25-33).
To a greater extent than with the products of his imagination beforehand, the imaginary ghost of Banquo affects, even represses Macbeth’s sense of reality in this scene since, ultimately, Macbeth is the only one who is able to see this vision. Therefore he is completely distraught because he doubts his own sanity. This visionary horror image – interpretable as a product of his tortured ‘conscience’ and of his imagination, or as the personified fear of the initiator of the cowardly murder – entirely captivates him, so that reality is here certainly also concealed almost completely by his imagination, at least as long as Banquo’s ghost is seemingly really existent for him. Being utterly beside himself and outright hysterical he conducts a dialogue with the product of his imagination, as if out of his mind, and screams, appalled, when he sees the ghost for the second time in a row: “Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee. / Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; / Thou hast no speculation in those eyes / Which thou dost glare with.“ (Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4, l.91–94).
By means of this scene it becomes especially clear how he – due to his so strongly pronounced power of imagination – can work himself up so deeply into his delusions that he, in the process, hardly pays any attention to the entire environment around him and often even seems to completely forget about it during the moments of intensified activity of his imagination.
9.1.5 Macbeth’s Summoning of the Witches
The prophesying apparitions, that the witches let emerge from their cauldron right in the beginning of the fourth act (Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1, ll.68-123), also ultimately constitute – from today’s perspective – visions created by Macbeth’s imagination. Therefore they certainly know what he is thinking. When he says: “Tell me, thou unknown power -“, the first witch responds with: “He knows thy thought“ (Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1, l.68).