These hangman’s hands (William Shakespeare: Macbeth)

Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips, / Finger of birth-strangled babe  / Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,  / Make the gruel thick and slab.

Jeg ser alltid for meg Shakespeare som en som ikke kunne dy seg for å putte inn comic relief (i tillegg til at det var en sjangerkonvensjon, selvfølgelig), men Macbeth er nesten helt svart – det eneste som kommer i nærheten, er heksenes trollbryggsanger (og det var jo sant å si for deres skyld at jeg tok denne turen til Skottland – «Eye of newt and toe of frog!»). Men utover det er det en ren studie i paranoia og skyldfølelsens kvaler («Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?»), og ender i bitterhet og aske.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow 
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day 
To the last syllable of recorded time; 
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! 
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player 
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage 
And then is heard no more. It is a tale 
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 
Signifying nothing.