Monday, December 9, 2019

Liar and slave!

When Macbeth's messenger tells him that a grove of trees are moving to Dunsinane in Act 5, Macbeth calls him a "Liar and a slave!" The former is because Macbeth doesn't want to believe that Birnham Wood could move to his castle because the witches warned him about that. The latter is interesting and not at all unique to Shakespeare's Macbeth. 

In our modern culture, "slave" is not a put down like it once was. If someone calls you "slave" nowadays, it's because you're are controlled by some outside influence such as drugs, video games, or Justin Bieber, but "slave" used by Shakespeare meant a person of lowest rank. Slavery during the Renaissance did involve European colonization, but Shakespeare wasn't involved in colonization. He probably just meant someone of low social standing, like poor people. 

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