Macbeth Group

Question:

leighanne
leighanne
Student
High School - 11th Grade

“I am in blood stepped in so far that should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”  What does this quote from "Macbeth", Act 3, mean?

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Posted by leighanne on Monday November 10, 2008 at 4:13 PM and tagged with act three, macbeth, quotes.

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  1. robertwilliam

    eNotes Editor

    Macbeth's image is of somebody standing in a river of blood. He has stepped into the river so far that, even if he continues no further forward, the distance to the side he faces is just as far as the distance should he turn back to the side he climbed in.

    Going forward, in other words, would be as difficult, as "tedious", as going back. The metaphor, of course, represents Macbeth's crimes: and rather than stop committing crimes (presumably, for fear of damnation) Macbeth says that he might as well continue to commit them. One is as pointless ("tedious") as the other.

    But - and this is the interesting character point - Macbeth's word "tedious" can also mean "boring", implying that Macbeth is detatched, unsympathetic, and icily cold about the awful crimes and murders that he has committed. It's the start of what Harold Bloom has commented on in the play - that, while Lady Macbeth goes emotionally mad, Macbeth stays horribly, coldly sane.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/macbeth
    http://www.enotes.com/macbeth/act-iii-summary-analysis

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    Posted by robertwilliam on Monday November 10, 2008 at 4:37 PM