ABSTRACT
In Macbeth, the Porter interlude serves to stretch the felt time between the preceding murder scene and what is to come by mocking the actual clock-time with fairest show. Shakespeare makes a blessing of the necessity of hiatus: using the sound of knocking for a bridge, he begins to bring some faint light into the dark castle, to break for a moment the terrible grip of the murder scene. The Porter's character easily authenticates his delay in opening his doors. Not that the Porter is merely comic. He is a kind of live image of the Dionysian in man that seethes beneath the masks of the play. In his sensuality he is as open and unabashed as the Sisters. The sodden atmosphere emanating from the Porter, following on the nightmare climate of the murder scene, has thickened and soiled the air. The Porter goes on to the meaningful allusion: the impulse to act baffled, suffering another form of equivocation.
