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Title:Macbeth's 'yet I will try the last' what? (Macbeth, V.viii.32).Author(s):Tom Clayton.Source:

Notes and Queries

44.n4 (Dec 1997): p.p507(2). (684 words) From

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Abstract:

Macbeth's

last words which contained the line 'yet I will try the last' has not been explained the 1992/1997 edition of 'The Complete Works,' 'The Riverside Shakespeare' and 'The Northon Shakespeare.' The explanation that can besurmised is that 'the last' might have referred to the first of the three apparitions and their prophetic utterances in IV.i.Other interpretations of the Apparitions symbolism include the assumption that the armed head was either Macduff'sor

Macbeth

's.

Full Text :

Macbeth's

last words show him summoning up something of the epic-heroic

Macbeth

of I.ii, who 'unseam'd' the'merciless Macdonwald . . . from the nave to th' chops, / And fix'd his head upon our battlements', also 'curbing' the'lavish spirit' of 'that most disloyal traitor, / The Thane of Cawdor' and forcing the invading Norwegian King Sweno tocomposition (I.ii.9-23, 51-61).(1) His initial lack of fear of Macduff is due to his 'security', but even when that proves tohave been a delusion he 'will not yield' and accepts Macduff's challenge with alacrity:Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane, And thou oppos'd, being of no woman born, Yet I will try the last:before my body I throw my warlike shield: lay on, Macduff; And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'(V.viii.30-4, italics mine)There seems to be limited consensus on what 'the last' is that he will try. Neither Muir nor more recently NicholasBrooke (Oxford, 1990) has a note on it. In the most recent editions, Bevington's edition of The Complete Works(1992/1997) has 'i.e., my last resort: my own strength and resolution' (V.iii.32 n., p. 1254b).(2) The RiversideShakespeare, second edition (Boston, 1997), has 'i.e. his unaided strength and courage' (V.iii.34 n., p. 1387a). AndThe Norton Shakespeare has 'the last resort' (V.x.32, p. 2616).(3) But there is no readily available reason why itshould be 'the last' and not 'my strength' (for example); whereas there is a reason for an alternative explanationrelated to the show of Apparitions and their prophetic utterances in IV.i.In

Macbeth's

lines quoted above, immediately following (1) 'Birnham Wood . . . come to Dunsinane' and (2) 'being of no woman born', (3) 'the last' would seem to refer to the first of the three portendings of the Apparitions in IV.i,because the last there - '

Macbeth

shall never vanquish'd be, until / Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill / Shallcome against him' (IV.i.92-4a) - is the first of the equivocal prophecies to be realized, when Birnam Wood 'began tomove' (V.v.35a), and it is the first mentioned here. The second there - 'laugh to scorn / The power of man, for none of woman born / Shall harm

Macbeth

' (IV. i.79-81) - is second in realization and in mention here, leaving the first givenin IV.i, by 'an armed head', as 'the last' to be yet untried in V.viii:

Macbeth

! beware Macduff; Beware the Thane of Fife. - Dismiss me. - Enough.(IV.i.71-2)The fulfillment of the prophecies in reverse order is in the spirit of the Sisters' (and their 'masters") wayward ways, notto mention Shakespeare's ways in such a case. Moreover, although the sense is not the same as that of 'The lastshall be first' in its immediate context in the New Testament (Matthew 19:30), the proverbial formula is apt as well asironical, here. And the chapter is the same in which Jesus says 'of such [as "little children"] is the kingdom of heaven'(14), and 'if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments', first that 'thou shalt do no murder' (17-18).