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As whence the sun 'gins his reflectionShipwracking storms and direful thunders breakSo from that spring whence comfort seemed to comeDiscomfort swells …SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth1
With its characteristic momentum of consequential action, Macbeth moves us forward from one nurturing situation to the next, each time promising a sense of continuity and mutual trust, and each time betraying that expectation. Structurally Macbeth seems linked together by those frustrated efforts at communion—those times when characters appear to be trying to nurse one another (physically or emotionally), feast together, share secret pacts and agreements, and sleep without their usual defences.
Even Lady Macbeth is not unaware of the vulnerable condition of one in such a 'feeding' situation. During one of her most telling exchanges with her husband, she urges him to imagine an infant with 'his boneless gums' (less capable of aggression), face smiling into hers, eyes 'drinking in' her warmth (or gall), lips sucking with a rhythmic hum of contentment. Of course she adds her own characteristic bite to this image:
I have given suck, and knowHow tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me—I would, while it was smiling in my face,