Close Reading Exercise
Who can be wise, amaz’d, temp’rate and furious,
Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man.
Th’expedition of my violent love
Outran the pauser, the reason. Here lay Duncan
His silver skin lac’d with his golden blood
And his gash’d stabs look’d like a breach in nature
For ruin’s wasteful entrance. There the murderers
Steep’d in the colors of their trade; their daggers
Unmannerly breech’d with gore. Who could refrain,
That had a heart to love and in that heart
Courage to make’s love known?
Macbeth’s uses rhetorical questions throughout his speech to command and engage attention, empowering himself and thus disempowering the people around him.
Several times in his speech, Macbeth describes the “expedition” he has gone through, comparing his foremost anger, his realization of the culprit and his resulting murder of the guards to a journey.
Macbeth’s uses rhetorical questions throughout his speech to command and engage attention, empowering himself and thus disempowering the people around him. He begins his speech with a rhetorical question, listing out adjectives that describe his emotions, each one polarized against the next. He answers this initial question, saying that “no man” can be “wise, amaz’d, temp’rate”, “loyal and neutral” all “in a moment”. He ends his speech with another rhetorical question, asking who, that “had a heart” as an instrument to “love” with, and “in that heart” the “courage” to make his “love known” could “refrain” from acting in such a way? Here, he attributes the act of murdering the guards to his courage – that his love for Duncan was so intense that it gave him “courage” to kill the guards, the supposed murderers of the king.