had else been perfect”—Macbeth longs to possess a form of completeness, the hardness, solidity, and invulnerability of stone or, alternatively, the pervasiveness, invisibility, and unlimited extension of air. In either case, the dream is to escape from the human condition, which he experiences as unendurably claustrophobic. The longing is almost pitiable; it seems even to harbor an unrealizable spiritual dimension, until one takes in that the means by which Macbeth hopes to become “perfect” is the double murder of his friend and his friend’s son.
