Monday, April 26, 2010

Did King Duncan have a banquet in Macbeth's castle before he died?

Yes, after the battle in which Macbeth shows his bravery and becomes Thane of Cawdor, Duncan and his men come to Macbeth's castle for a banquet. This gives the Macbeths the perfect opportunity to kill Duncan, who is completely unsuspecting, and it adds greatly to the horror of the act. In that time and place, the hospitality code was highly valued and meant a host was under an active obligation to protect his guests. To murder Duncan when he was under the Macbeths' care was a double violation of the loyalty they owed the king, both as monarch and as guest. Lady Macbeth, when she contemplates this, asks the spirits to "unsex" her and fill her with "direst cruelty," in part, we may imagine, because she knows it's wrong to murder a guest under her roof. Macbeth himself will say that his role as host means he should shut the door against anyone who is trying to murder Duncan, not murder him himself. The fact that the Macbeths would wine and dine Duncan in their own home with smiles and welcome and then kill him highlights their ruthless ambition.

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