Skip to main content

What does Macbeth mean when he refers to his "black and deep desires" (1.4.58)?

Macbeth has recently met with the Weird Sisters who told him that he would become the Thane of Cawdor as well as King of Scotland.  Because he learns from Ross that he has, indeed, been given the title of Cawdor immediately following the Weird Sisters' apparent prediction, Macbeth quickly begins to believe that the second prophecy will come true as well.  He begins to desire the position of king, a role he never seems to have considered for himself before.  When Duncan names his son, Malcolm, the Prince of Cumberland and his heir to the throne, Macbeth is disappointed to say the least.  To himself, he says that he will either have to halt his progress to the throne now or jump over this step to becoming king.  He speaks to the stars, asking them to go dark so that no one will be able to see his "black and deep desires"; in other words, he now fully admits to himself that he wants the throne and everything that comes with it.  This also begins to foreshadow the terrible deeds of which Macbeth will be capable later on.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.