The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Chronicles #39 ｜ Macbeth： Part 3 with Harry Robinson

00:00:00.000 So Macbeth brings the murderers in, and I love that the names are literally just murderer one, murderer two, because that's all you have to know about them.

00:00:21.520 Yeah, I mean, what would have been the point in confusing everybody with extra names?

00:00:25.600 Yes.

00:00:26.280 Jeff, Travis and Dave, or, you know, whatever it may be.

00:00:30.000 But there's an interesting point here as well, where you can tell that Macbeth is just basically sowing them with your real fortune is because of Banquo.

00:00:40.880 And so if you kill Banquo for me, I will raise your fortunes. 0.99

00:00:45.040 Oh, and make sure, of course, you kill his son as well. 1.00

00:00:48.020 And Macbeth talks about the fact that he gives this analogy of they're like dogs. 0.97

00:00:54.240 You know, there are so many breeds of dog and every one of them has their own advantages.

00:00:58.820 advantages. They have their own particular skill set and they have their own demerits. And you're

00:01:03.660 just like dogs. You're just like dogs. What you're good at is killing. How flattering. Yeah. And so 0.98

00:01:12.920 it's not just the evil in Macbeth as well. It's his ability to bring evil out of others.

00:01:21.340 You know, it constantly speaks to the very way that he deals with these murderers, you know, gives us an insight into how he will govern the entire kingdom, which is to reduce them to their base instincts, to make them adhere to the principles that he cares about, their own self-interest, which is material advancement, which Banquo didn't give them.

00:01:46.320 It's not really explained. And obviously, as well, to make sure that they transgress as many of the divine laws of nature as they possibly can.

00:01:56.380 And they go through with this. And so we do get a very quick scene of Banquo being murdered by one thing as well, actually, is that Macbeth speaks to two murderers in the scene.

00:02:09.700 but three murderers go to kill Banquo,

00:02:13.100 which suggests to us that Macbeth was so insecure

00:02:16.780 about the deed being done

00:02:18.980 that he sent one guy to make sure

00:02:21.460 that the other two guys do it properly.

00:02:24.220 You know, there's this continuing escalation

00:02:26.800 of distrust of everyone around him.

00:02:29.620 It speaks to this internal paranoia.

00:02:32.200 I'd not picked up on that.

00:02:33.100 I would have just assumed that this was just a third character

00:02:35.380 that the other murderers got involved in to it as well.

00:02:37.980 But that's an interesting interpretation.

00:02:39.700 Yeah. No, they don't know who he is when he comes.

00:02:42.200 Like, who sent you? It's like, oh, Macbeth sent me.

00:02:43.860 Oh, yes.

00:02:45.780 Yeah, you're right. Yeah, Macbeth is really just going home.

00:02:48.580 Yeah, absolutely.

00:02:50.240 Already, almost immediately.

00:02:53.140 And so they murder Banquo, and it's very sad.

00:02:56.640 Brings a tear to your eye.

00:02:58.220 But Fleance, his son, does manage to escape.

00:03:02.440 Because fate willed it, I suppose.

00:03:04.980 Well, yes.

00:03:05.620 The witch's prophecy said there would be a... 0.98

00:03:07.600 And how would his progeny end up being kings down the line

00:03:10.140 if his progeny get snuffed out?

00:03:11.960 So there you are. 0.99

00:03:12.660 These murderers could kill big, powerful, proud Banquo, 0.99

00:03:17.540 but they couldn't kill a child. 0.99

00:03:19.480 That child got away.

00:03:21.580 It does raise the question, what's in it for the witches?

00:03:25.300 What is the purpose?

00:03:27.360 Are they purposefully trying to sow discord?

00:03:32.940 Do they have their own motivations operating in the background

00:03:37.320 that we're just not witness to?

00:03:39.000 Or are they prophets of fate

00:03:42.200 who aren't actually in control or believe

00:03:44.760 or know why they're presenting the things that they are,

00:03:48.720 but they just have to?

00:03:53.160 It's often a cut from most standard editions of Macbeth,

00:03:58.960 but there is also the character of Hecate

00:04:01.080 who the witches do seem to answer to

00:04:04.160 and who Hecate doesn't actually seem to have a great deal

00:04:08.140 of liking or confidence in, her other, the members of the coven.

00:04:12.660 But it does speak to, I think, something older,

00:04:15.800 obviously Hecate coming from the ancient Greek tradition of mythology.

00:04:20.800 So I think it speaks to something primordial,

00:04:24.180 something more ancient than Christian morality,

00:04:28.080 but obviously something very, very volatile and very dangerous as well.

00:04:33.860 Well, again, that brings to the question that if they are an expression of kind of like an ancient evil from before the times of Christian grace, bringing true morality and connection to the divine, to the European peoples, why would they also predict the future of Banquo? 0.63

00:04:50.440 Why would Hecate also present to them this idea that Banquo's children will be kings and that Banquo himself is lesser and yet greater?

00:05:04.420 Are they agents of chaos? Is there a grander plan that they're working towards?

00:05:09.440 Are they secret agents of the English who want to destabilize the Scottish monarchy and put the new Scottish monarch of Malcolm in the English's debt forever? 0.58

00:05:18.660 based witches 0.97

00:05:20.680 that's the question that I have

00:05:23.540 well there is actually

00:05:24.740 there's absolutely something in that

00:05:26.720 what you say though which is the fact that

00:05:28.700 of course in order

00:05:30.960 for Banquo's children

00:05:32.480 to eventually become

00:05:35.000 to set up this dynasty

00:05:38.540 of course there is an implication

00:05:40.900 that the events of Macbeth had to

00:05:42.980 take place, that all of these

00:05:44.960 horrid things had to happen

00:05:46.620 so we can get to a more enlightened destination down the road,

00:05:53.260 which is often a theme of...

00:05:54.920 Other than Macbeth being dethroned by the end,

00:05:57.880 it's Malcolm and therefore Duncan's line still on the throne.

00:06:02.660 So that would mean down the line,

00:06:06.300 the only thing that we could assume

00:06:08.060 is that either that Duncan's line become dethroned

00:06:11.260 or that Banquo's family marries into Duncan's line somewhere.

00:06:15.860 Yeah. And of course, as well, around all of this, there is the larger meta point about James I and Banquo being his ancestor alleged.

00:06:26.360 Just to show, James, guess what? Your ancestor didn't do nothing.

00:06:30.440 Yeah.

00:06:30.820 Didn't do nothing wrong. It was all that evil Macbeth.

00:06:35.100 A lot of finger wagging in the audience that night.

00:06:38.360 Could you believe how naughty Macbeth was?

00:06:40.380 Yeah.

00:06:40.720 Not that Banquo, though. What an honourable hero.

00:06:42.780 A very dead hero. Although not so dead, it turns out, because Macbeth is about to get quite a shock at dinner with all of his vassals about him. And we see here as well a real window into the fact that Macbeth is at the feasting hall and all of his lords are around him and Lady Macbeth is there.

00:07:04.060 And we do see in it a charismatic king.

00:07:07.760 We see someone who is able to work a crowd,

00:07:10.340 someone who, under other circumstances,

00:07:12.920 could inspire loyalty in his bannermen.

00:07:16.780 But, of course, the problem is it's all been built on evil and lies.

00:07:22.300 Stardust you mean to go on?

00:07:23.400 Yes.

00:07:24.140 And so immediately Macbeth, you know,

00:07:28.340 they're constantly trying to get him to,

00:07:30.320 oh, sit on our bench, my lord, sit with us.

00:07:32.400 Macbeth sees that the murderers have come back

00:07:35.080 and so he goes over there

00:07:36.600 and he sees that one of them has blood on them

00:07:38.420 and he tells him well it's Banquo's blood

00:07:40.560 excuse me

00:07:42.160 and he's

00:07:44.380 immediately overjoyed of course

00:07:46.960 by this

00:07:48.360 but upon the hearing that Fleance had escaped

00:07:50.640 all of a sudden

00:07:52.100 that prophecy is looking

00:07:54.420 really believable

00:07:56.560 right now and if my prophecy

00:07:58.480 guaranteed it

00:07:59.360 and if my prophecy was true

00:08:01.560 from the witches why wouldn't banquo's prophecy be true as well uh but for the time being he uh

00:08:08.580 to be honest with you i would say that macbeth takes it quite well um in terms of his like well

00:08:15.340 you know you've done a good you've killed a man that i absolutely despised and we'll get fleance

00:08:20.180 another day but then you don't realize mr murderers fleance was the brains behind the whole

00:08:26.400 operation yeah yeah yeah really we need to well in fact really it's like you you think that

00:08:32.320 macbeth would have been more contented had banquo lived in flayance had been killed

00:08:36.760 but it happened to be that way around and uh of course that sews into his insecurity

00:08:43.360 and this is all just thrown uh into um this moment where um banquo's ghost appears now

00:08:53.000 shakespeare loves a ghost yeah but the adaptations never do even in the royal shakes sucks yeah it's

00:09:00.080 annoying even in the adaptation uh the 79 adaptation it's delivered as though ian mckellen is just

00:09:06.380 breaking down at the sight of nothing and we have to assume that he's seeing it same thing with the

00:09:11.680 2015 one you don't same thing with the dagger none of these things are there but they are in

00:09:16.540 his mind and he does you don't get in the 2015 film him talking to the ghost of banquo you just

00:09:23.440 get him shouting at absent space and it's annoying because it was annoying with the 79 version because

00:09:30.920 it just felt a little bit like a little tiny bit of added laziness um with the 2015 version

00:09:37.760 after the battle banquo and macbeth both run into the weird sisters and so you get the confirmation

00:09:45.460 of the Weird Sisters being real people

00:09:47.880 through Banquo being there as well.

00:09:50.840 Yes.

00:09:51.160 But the rest of the film does portray it

00:09:53.980 almost like they're just in his head.

00:09:56.860 So that would make sense as to why they portray it

00:09:59.440 so that you're not seeing the ghost of Banquo.

00:10:02.620 Because the guilt and the crime is personal to him.

00:10:05.700 Yeah, you could say that he's just gone mad

00:10:08.920 and he's screaming at visions

00:10:10.380 or that he's screaming at things that aren't there.

00:10:12.520 But again, the fact that Banquo sees them

00:10:14.220 at the beginning as well,

00:10:15.200 i think if they wanted to go with a fuller interpretation of what they seem to be gesturing

00:10:19.420 at that they should have just had it so that banquo was like maybe he only shows up after

00:10:25.960 they've already left or something and he's just paranoid about macbeth because i mean come on

00:10:31.120 it's obvious that macbeth's the one that killed duncan um and macbeth is paranoid because he got

00:10:36.420 the he's the one who heard the prophecy about banquo so it felt a little bit like a half

00:10:41.260 interpretation there, because it felt

00:10:43.540 like they were trying to say

00:10:45.220 no, this is all in Macbeth's

00:10:47.700 head, because outside of that one scene

00:10:49.600 he's the only one who ever interacts

00:10:51.500 with the Weird Sisters. Again, they skip

00:10:53.540 out Hecate, because nobody ever 1.00

00:10:55.540 wants to adapt Hecate, either.

00:10:57.120 Poor old Hecate. Nobody mourns

00:10:59.560 for Hecate and her

00:11:01.700 coven. Tragedy. But I do

00:11:03.600 like in the play that it is...

00:11:05.320 Doesn't Banquo deliver a few lines

00:11:07.400 as well as a ghost? No, I don't believe

00:11:09.540 that Banquo has any lines in the play,

00:11:12.760 but as the ghost...

00:11:13.920 Banquo's ghost, yeah.

00:11:14.780 Yeah, sorry, Banquo's ghost doesn't say anything,

00:11:17.400 but obviously the hysteria that Macbeth treats all of this with

00:11:22.820 is entirely in the presence of all of his men.

00:11:27.180 And Lady Macbeth...

00:11:27.980 There's a bit of a dampener on the whole thing.

00:11:30.020 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:11:31.160 Lady Macbeth's like, you have killed the atmosphere in here.

00:11:33.960 Bro, you've killed the mood.

00:11:35.660 It was such a nice vibe.

00:11:37.320 I'm coming down now.

00:11:39.540 and so are the lords as well but obviously the thing that she's terrified of is if this mania

00:11:45.300 continues he's just going to confess to the entire thing in front of all of these people

00:11:51.140 and uh i believe it's ross um eventually ends up having a scene where he says yeah that

00:11:56.180 that i was on the fence but that that tipped me over the edge you know so it's it's too late

00:12:02.360 it's too late by the time that he has done this any hopes that macbeth may have had in ruling

00:12:10.100 over a stable kingdom and getting to enjoy all of the things that you highlighted in act one

00:12:15.860 sorry in part one of the discussion about just you know having the big castles and having the

00:12:21.260 fancy trumpets you know call for you when you when you come and the golden chat all of that gone

00:12:26.180 it's like you're not going to enjoy that you haven't got time to enjoy those things now

00:12:30.360 because everyone knows that you're guilty

00:12:32.400 and everyone is going to raise war against you.

00:12:35.840 Well, it's an interesting thing as well

00:12:37.900 is that the play was written in a time

00:12:40.380 that's currently thought of as a time

00:12:43.600 of monarchy and absolution.

00:12:47.760 Sorry, absolutism,

00:12:49.580 where the monarch was seen as this all-powerful figure

00:12:52.560 that nobody could contradict

00:12:53.760 and it took a civil war

00:12:55.060 and it took the parliament rising up

00:12:56.800 to actually unseat that.

00:12:58.420 This is very clear that, no,

00:13:00.100 the kingship has never been such a secure position and i think it's ridiculous for people to think

00:13:05.960 back and think that the king was this kind of figure where he could just snap his fingers and

00:13:09.900 whatever he what he wants happens because it plays like this goes to show that even back then they

00:13:14.600 were well aware that you need the support you need the support of your allied castles around you or

00:13:21.220 else they will just raise banners and usurp you well just look at the kingdom of england and its

00:13:25.960 portrayal in the play of course it's uh it's the court of edward the confessor and it shows that

00:13:31.480 um uh england is being ruled uh wisely and well but by by a pious man who understands morality

00:13:39.420 and faith and you know that he is uh he himself is a servant of something higher than himself so

00:13:46.240 wrong so soon after and then of course we have hastings and we know all of the instabilities

00:13:50.880 that led to so yes even in a good kingdom it doesn't necessarily mean that you know

00:13:55.500 all this sorrow isn't around the corner all we can do is obviously try to steady the realm as

00:14:00.820 much as we can and try to um govern in the best way that you know in the most harmonious way

00:14:06.540 possible that works for the king the lords and all of the subjects and so we get to a point where

00:14:12.820 the scottish lords are becoming very very suspect of macbeth now and macbeth decides at the beginning

00:14:19.620 of Act 4, that he will go and see the witches once more. Because at this point as well, he's

00:14:26.480 dependent on them as well. This is the thing. Banquo in shunning them never outsourced his

00:14:33.260 agency to his wife, to the witches, to no one. Banquo was his own man, and he knew his own moral

00:14:41.780 compass macbeth has become entirely dependent on prophecy on ambiguous you know soothsayings and

00:14:50.080 it's like and that's that what what he gets from this meeting with them as well like macbeth shall

00:14:56.780 fear no man born of woman it's so ambiguous as to what that even means really obviously you find

00:15:03.340 out that what it means was that a man who was naturally born by a woman um and the loophole

00:15:09.240 is a caesarean section um but macbeth just kind of assumes oh i'm i'm immortal then basically i'm

00:15:16.940 invincible in battle and what's more as well with that invincibility it gives him license to be as

00:15:24.480 tyrannical as he wants because he can do it without anyone hurting him he completely indulges in his

00:15:29.780 hubris yes um and then you you get this uh so yeah we get the beware of macduff he's just told

00:15:35.900 point blank uh you won't be killed by any man of woman born which gives him this feeling of um

00:15:42.020 invincibility and then of course you know it'll all come to ruin for you when burnham wood uh

00:15:48.340 marches on dunsinane uh on macbeth's castle and it's like well the forest is never going to get

00:15:54.340 up and move and obviously this is what ended up inspiring tolkien with the march of the end oh

00:15:59.740 yeah uh on eisengard which is just tremendous that the forest literally does get up and move

00:16:05.660 But there's another point as well here,

00:16:07.480 which is that for all of the witches talking there, 0.95

00:16:10.700 you know, double, double, toil and trouble,

00:16:12.720 fire burn and cauldron bubble,

00:16:14.760 I also just wanted to read a passage

00:16:16.500 from one of the other things that they say as well

00:16:19.920 when they're brewing their potions

00:16:21.520 and they're prophesying

00:16:22.520 and they're getting all the magic together

00:16:24.620 to show Macbeth these things.

00:16:26.520 And they say,

00:16:27.760 Of the ravine's salt sea shark,

00:16:29.940 Root of hemlock digdeth dark,

00:16:32.600 Lither of blaspheming dew,

00:16:34.480 Gaul of goat and slips of ewe

00:16:37.180 Silvered in the moon eclipse

00:16:39.300 Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips 0.98

00:16:41.740 Now all of these things, you know, hemlock, ewe

00:16:46.140 These are poison elements in herbology

00:16:49.220 And obviously, you know, the idea of blaspheming Jews and Turks

00:16:54.000 Muslim Turks and Tartars 1.00

00:16:55.440 It's basically everything anti-Christian 0.98

00:16:57.780 Is going into everything, every heretical thing

00:17:01.800 Is going into this

00:17:03.480 specifically the turk's nose the least christian part of a turk's body as determined by science

00:17:09.720 and shakespeare and shakespeare well we know this now yes he was he was ahead of the game

00:17:14.940 that shakespeare uh on the turk's nose um and yeah and then he gets my pub i'm gonna call it

00:17:22.280 when i when i start my own pub yeah that's the first one that's going to be the next one is

00:17:28.900 going to be called the blaspheming juba it's probably not going to go down as well 0.79

00:17:33.140 the tartar's lips oh no geez um yeah no that'll be my whorehouse that 0.99

00:17:40.060 there's that pub in manchester the uh the lower turk's head which i go in every time we get 0.99

00:17:45.700 great pub great little pub they've also got the i forget the name of it there's the tiny

00:17:49.340 little pub as well in manchester there's just a little hole in the wall with a bar down it's

00:17:54.540 And then we get the news, of course, as well, that Macduff had been sent for to court and had decided he wasn't going to accept that invitation.

00:18:06.320 And then we get told that Macduff has, in fact, fled to England, where, you know, sensible people do flee to because it's such a good country.

00:18:13.840 He had the black guy in a horror movie reaction. 1.00

00:18:16.140 I ain't here for that shit. 1.00

00:18:17.340 and then leaves. And Macbeth responds to this very proportionately by murdering Macduff's wife and 1.00

00:18:24.800 son. Makes sense. I mean, the witches didn't say anything about his family or children. They just

00:18:31.820 said specifically Macduff. It was like the most specific thing they've ever said to Macbeth,

00:18:37.940 outside of just saying, you will be Thane of Cawdor and king. And he goes, I've got to kill 0.93

00:18:44.660 their children i've got to kill his children well of course and again like i said in the adaptation 0.99

00:18:50.860 it's interesting because in the play it's the murderers they go and go and assassinate he 0.99

00:18:55.980 really found like the most unscrupulous people in all of scotland and england yeah to just go

00:19:02.960 you're all right with killing women and children aren't you is there a reason no not really no 0.96

00:19:09.240 okay all right sure let's go for it i don't remember having to explain myself to you 0.66

00:19:14.320 good point good point yeah whereas in in the film it's interesting that they have him deliver

00:19:19.260 the killing blow himself by lighting the pyre that burns all of them um you know i don't know

00:19:26.100 which is which is worse this kind of like abstract detached brutality of play of play macbeth or the

00:19:36.340 more hands-on tyranny of of the film version i think that's an interesting contrast yeah yeah

00:19:43.160 I mean, he does obviously murder others by his own hand in the battle.

00:19:48.080 He kills young Seawood in the final battle.

00:19:51.320 But again, it's in the battle.

00:19:53.260 So it's one of those.

00:19:54.320 Macbeth has been killing people on the battlefield for most of his adult life.

00:19:58.060 And it's never been considered a sin because it's warfare.

00:20:02.560 It's, you know, they're all marching.

00:20:03.780 I'm not going to say it's all consensual.

00:20:05.680 It's not how feudalism works.

00:20:07.180 But you get my point.

00:20:08.320 I can assure you that there is that bit.

00:20:10.840 It's like in Blackadder where it's like they just go and meet in a field

00:20:14.780 and eventually at some point it's like, I guess we fight now.

00:20:18.680 I guess it's time for us to charge at one another.

00:20:22.080 But there is another point to this as well with what you were saying, 1.00

00:20:25.960 which is that, oh, well, and now I'm just going to have to kill his children. 0.99

00:20:29.680 It's like, are you, though? 1.00

00:20:31.100 But the thing is that...

00:20:32.700 Do you, really?

00:20:35.660 No one's asking you to do this, Macbeth.

00:20:37.960 Even the witches are like, ooh, don't you see that?

00:20:41.800 That's not what we meant.

00:20:43.280 If you enjoyed this piece of premium content from the Lotus Eaters,

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The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - March 21, 2026

PREVIEW： Chronicles #39 ｜ Macbeth： Part 3 with Harry Robinson

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