There would be nothing wrong with Lennox seeing Macbeth
killing Duncan's two guards. Macbeth wants to silence them, but he pretends he is
carried away by righteous anger and is executing them on the spot for killing the King.
Macbeth is a high-ranking thane and can do such a thing without being in any legal
jeopardy. The two grooms are nobodies. The only reason Macduff questions Macbeth's
action is that it would have been much better to keep these two unfortunate men alive in
order to question them about the assassination of the man they were supposed to be
guarding. It seems obvious that if they were actually guilty of murdering King Duncan,
which they of course deny, then somebody must have bribed them to do it. Naturally
everybody--except Macbeth--would want to know who was the brains behind the
plot.
Lennox is presented as a young, naive lad. He was an
eye-witness to Macbeth's execution of the two terrified guards, but Lennox assumes that
they were guilty and that Macbeth acted justifiably in the heat of anger. When Malcolm
asks who killed his father, Lennox explains his
opinion:
Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had
done't:
Their hands and faces were all badged with blood;
So were
their daggers, which unwiped we found
Upon their pillows:
They
stared, and were distracted; no man's life
Was to be trusted with them.
(2.3)
When Malcolm and
Donalbain decide to flee for their lives, it is easy for Macbeth to blame them for
hiring the two grooms to kill their father. But in Act 3, Scene 6, some time has passed,
and Lennox has become much older and wiser. He puts a much different spin on what
happened when he and Macbeth entered the dead king's
chamber.
Men
must not walk too late.
Who cannot want the thought, how
monstrous
It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain
To kill their
gracious father? Damned fact!
How it did grieve Macbeth! Did he
not straight,
In pious rage, the two delinquents tear,
That were the
slaves of drink and thralls of sleep?
Was not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely
too,
For ’twould have anger'd any heart alive
To hear the men
deny't.
Lennox is no longer
gullible. He has learned to see through appearances and to talk in innuendo. He realizes
the truth. Macbeth killed Duncan and then killed the two guards to keep them from giving
any evidence. From what Macbeth says to his wife after returning from killing the King,
it is possible that one of the guards might actually have seen Macbeth in the King's
chamber.
There's one did laugh in's sleep, and one
cried,
“Murder!”
That they did wake each other: I stood and heard
them:
But they did say their prayers and address'd them
Again to
sleep.
(2.2)
In any case, Macbeth
thought it prudent to kill them both. They were dead men anyway from the time Macbeth
and his wife hatched the plot to murder Duncan. The grooms were to be smeared with blood
and found that way when Duncan's body was discovered. Naturally it would be assumed that
they were paid by someone, but they would deny their guilt and would not be able to name
anyone who might have bribed them. Macbeth has an opportunity to kill them immediately
and seizes it.
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