That ambition--"vaulting ambition"--overtakes all other motives is evident throughout Shakespeare's Macbeth. In the first act, for instance, when Banquo and Macbeth hear that Macbeth is to be Thane of Cawdor and King of Scotland, Banquo, a foil to Macbeth, notes that his friend is "rapt withal." In the fifth scene, Lady Macbeth, too, makes notes of his ambition, but chastises him for not having the wickedness to accompany it, so that he can reach the desired heights:
....Yet do I fear thy nature:
It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness...Thou wouldst be great,
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it...(1.5.14-17)
She, however, goads him into commiting the murder. Before doing so, Macbeth, in a soliloquy, ponders his motives and potential actions, conceding that ambition supercedes all others:
...but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all...
That tears shall drown the the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And fall on th'other (1.7. 4-28)
It is this obsessive ambition which drives Macbeth on his murderous path. With each prediction of the witches, his fear of interference to his aims and paranoia causes him to murder, and murder again. He knows that he is obsessed:
The expedition of my violent love
Outrun the pauser, reason....(3.5.115)
For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind;
For them the gracious duncan have I murdered;
Purt rancors in the vessel of my peace
Only for them, and mine eternal jewel
Given to the common enemy of man....(3.1.69-74)
Yet, he pursues his evil path because he believes that "Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill" (3.3.55). That there is no turning back from the drive of ambition is further exemplfied in Macbeth's remark,
...For mine own good
All causes shall give...no more
Returning were as tedious as go o'er (3.4.24)
Clearly, the tragic Macbeth follows his "air drawn dagger" of ambition all the way "to dusty death."
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