Freud was dissatisfied with his analysis of Macbeth, though he continued to be convinced that it concerned itself with childlessness, a psychological punishment for the crime against the laws of geniture. The concept, typically talion, remains an uncontested psychological construct, probably because it is readily demonstrable clinically. Little attention has been paid to the fact that the psychological aspects of childlessness have not been

completely explored, and that Freud apparently dropped his interest in that theme at the same time that he expressed his dissatisfaction with his analysis of Macbeth. That which he felt was his unproven thesis has been widely accepted, and childlessness has not been extensively investigated analytically. Freud experienced his effort as incomplete, even though he went on to give a brilliant demonstration of the central role played by the prohibition against the fulfillment of oedipal wishes in Ibsen's Rosmersholm.