“an unweeded garden
That grows to seed; things rank and grass in nature
Possess it merely.”
The heavens, too, are affected; there have been:
“stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun…”
“…To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds” the sovereign is Macbeth and this shows dramatic irony again as God is associated with order and when there is disorder, then it is the devil’s work. Scotland is a healthy country, but now is being poisoned by Macbeth being put on the throne.
We have disobeyed God since the beginning of time, and he has now grown weary of the mistrust of humans. Malcolm has been chosen the “Lord’s anointed” when Duncan dies, not Macbeth. Macbeth has not just killed an innocent man but the divinely appointed king of the state. And the King being attacked by a lesser thane makes the whole situation worse. Now:
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair”.
The whole universe is turned on its head, and only unnatural, evil things will flourish until Macbeth is overthrown.
“…look’d like a breach in Nature” this quote shows dramatic irony as Macbeth speaks the truth about Duncan’s Death. Duncan was a true King, and he was given God’s consent to the throne whereas Macbeth has unlawfully gained the throne by murder. This evil will lead onto other evils, which will affect the whole body politic and the ladder will be disturbed once again.
After the murder has been taken place, the whole universe shakes and becomes turbulent:
“…The night has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blow down; and, as they say,
Lamentings heard I’ th’ air.
It appeared to be easy to remove Duncan- but they have also stabbed Scotland and it is seen as bleeding to death.
“…It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash is added to her wounds”.
Macbeth now comes to realise what he has done and his crime will fit his punishment as he says ‘blood will have blood’. He spoils his prize by the way in which he seizes it, as he himself realizes:
“My way of life is fall’n into the sear, the yellow leaf,
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have…”
In Elizabethan times the people believed that if they had God on their side in battle then they would triumph:
“ Not today, O Lord, O not today, think not upon the fault my father made in compassing the crown!”
In Shakespeare’s ‘Henry the Fifth’ it is vital that Henry has God on his side, as this shows power and leadership. Henry has the Archbishop of Canterbury’s support (thus has the church’s support). He has paid five hundred people a day to sing twice, for his soul. It’s so vital that the King should tell people that God is on his side. That’s why he attacked the French Natural Order.
As Shakespeare wrote it, the chronicle history of Henry the Fifth is an intensely masculine, simple, sanguine drama of kinghood and war. Henry the Fifth (at twenty-eight) had to prove his worthiness for the sceptre by leading his army into war. He invaded France (England's long-time enemy), captured Harfleur and then tried to withdraw his exhausted and vastly outnumbered army to Calais. The French confronted him at Agincourt and Henry urged his soldiers on to incredible victory. English mobility (un-armoured archers) and English firepower (the quick-shooting longbow) proved too much for the heavily armoured French.
In one of the most moving scenes in Shakespeare, Falstaff was killed off. To replace him, his friend, Pistol, the typical imitation of the Elizabethan soul, was played far down to the groundlings.
Olivier's Henry the Fifth frees Shakespeare from such Elizabethan limitations.
Falstaff's death scene, for which the speeches were lifted bodily from Henry IV, Part 2, is boldly invented. In this new context, for the first time perhaps, the piercing line:
"The king has kill'd his heart," is given its full power. In a flash of imagination, Britain's fleet is disclosed through mist as the Chorus, already invisible, says:
"Follow, follow...."
Shakespeare gave to a distrustful soldier the great speech:
“But if the cause be not good… It is not, to be sure, the greatest: the creation of new dramatic poetry is more important than the recreation of old…”
Henry’s people will follow him into battle against the French.
The play of Henry V and Macbeth are very similar in different ways because of the battles that take place e.g. battle of Agincourt and the battle against France in Macbeth. Henry V is not a usurper, but he is always aware that his father was. He had overthrown Richard II and killed him. Like in Macbeth, Macbeth wants to achieve the highest possible position on the hierarchical ladder and he does this by going against God and murdering those nobleman that are in the way of his path. Macbeth at the beginning of the play is appointed Thane of Glamis and so he kills the man in front of him, which is the Thane of Cawdor. In Henry V, Henry reflects back on his father killing the King and earning the throne.
In the Elizabethan era the citizens of both England and Denmark believe that God chooses and arranges the Hierarchy order, but in fact it’s the nobles that decide who should be the next King. Macbeth is appointed King but his reign deteriorates because the citizens don’t think that he is an enthusiastic King. Macbeth had no peace in his reign:
“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”
Henry also puts across to his followers that God will be on their side throughout the whole battle and they should all appreciate that God is.
For the Elizabethans the devil was an ever-present reality always trying to trap and betray man, just like it did to Macbeth. The devil tricked Macbeth and his wife into killing Duncan:
“Gods appointed one”
The witches are the presence of evil in the play of Macbeth as they are “the instruments of darkness”, Macbeth realises this as the play comes to an end:
And be these juggling fiends no more believ’d, that palter with us in a double sense…”
The witches tell Macbeth the truth and his mind deceives him and this leads to evil. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have both put themselves in very deep ground and the devil has grabbed a hold of both of them.
In conclusion, the two Shakespeare plays are all very relevant to the Natural order in England and Denmark, both of the Kings of these two countries have to keep in control of the state and not disobey God’s rule. Lady Macbeth is a lot more dominant over Macbeth; this is not the way of hierarchy in the world. In each quote and speech given in the play there is no part that effects the characters and what the audience interpret them as.
Finally we must see it as significant that Macbeth is so dominated and ruled by his wife. For in the order of nature man was supposed to be superior to woman and the inversion of the sexes, this governing of the husband by the wife, would be seen by Elizabethans as unnatural and therefore as portending no good.