Modern Age - Fall 2015 - 151

THE ART OF POLITICAL HEALING IN MACBETH

man's cooperating with others in order that they might be led
back to God. But a man cannot accomplish this by effecting an
interior movement in the others, since this belongs to God alone;
rather, he can accomplish it only exteriorly, by teaching and persuading. And so gratuitously given graces include those which a
man needs for instructing others in those divine matters that lie
beyond reason" (ST, pt. 1-2, Q. 111, article 4). The application to
the body of Christ is clear enough; however, the concern in Macbeth is the body politic. So why point to something apparently so
restricted to theology as a form of political medicine?
The answer will become clear if we reflect on Macbeth's wickedness and the consequent corruption of Scotland, which has so
sorely vexed the lords as his nature has steadily become clear.
On three major occasions in the play Macbeth expresses his full
appreciation of the godlessness of his desires. The first is from
act 1, scene 4, in his "Stars hide your fires" (50) speech, Macbeth's
aside following the investiture of Malcolm as Prince of Cumberland, an act that ratifies him as successor to his father Duncan.
The word stars, as anyone might guess, points to the heavens, to
God's all-seeing eye; it also suggests the light that God places in
men that helps them distinguish right from wrong. That Macbeth
does not want God or the light that God puts in men to reveal
to others or to himself the wickedness of his plan is spelled out
in the rest of the speech: "Let not light see my black and deep
desires: / The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be, / Which the eye
fears, when it is done, to see" (51-53).
There is something peculiarly insane in the petition, rather like
asking God to kindly stop existing or at least stop paying attention to His own creation. But ask Macbeth does. To this he will
add three scenes later a shocking disregard for divine retribution
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