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Eng 314
Bro. Samuelson
Word Count: 861
Explicator Article
12/09/2011
Seyton and Satan: Undertones in Wordplay in Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth
Seyton!—I am sick at heart
When I behold—Seyton, I say!—This push
Will cheer me ever or disseat me now.
I have lived long enough. My way of life
Is fall’n into the sere, the yellow leaf,
And that which should accompany old age,
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have, but in their stead
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath
Which the poor heart would fain deny and dare not.—
Seyton! (V.iii.23-34)
When Macbeth first addresses his servant, Seyton, in the play, the audience is jolted. The character Seyton does not appear until the third scene of the fifth act, and, even then, he does not appear until after Macbeth has interrupted his speech to call to him. Because the audience does not yet know of the character’s existence, they hear Macbeth calling to “Satan” and assume that he is addressing the devil. Michael Baird Saenger noticed that “ Macbeth is filled with references and intimations of Satan, hell, and damnation” (133). In the Introductory articles included in the
Folger version of Macbeth
, it says that “Shakespeare plays with language so often and so variously that books are written on the topic….In many plays (
Romeo and Juliet is a good example) Shakespeare uses puns frequently; in Macbeth they are rarely found…” (Shakespeare xxi). Bill Delaney points out that “Shakespeare’s genius is best displayed in his ability to express things that everyone knows but no one has ever tried to express” (209). In this case,
Shakespeare is trying to express Macbeth’s affiliation with the devil after becoming a murderer.

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Some critics have noticed this wordplay, including Saenger, who alludes to it in his discussion of the mystery of the Third Murderer (134). There has also been “[much] critical discussion…on castings of the Third Murderer, which include Macbeth himself or, more plausibly, his terse companion Seyton” (Saenger 134). I intend to show that this clever word usage is more than mere coincidence, and that it was carefully construed to imply that Macbeth was not only addressing his servant, but the devil as well.
According to The Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare , the word “Seyton” only appears four times (not counting stage directions, etc.) in all of Shakespeare’s plays, the first three being in the passage we are examining, the last being a short command to the servant later in the same scene (Spevack). Therefore, even if Seyton’s character appears onstage at some point before
Macbeth calls to him, his name is unknown to the audience up until then. The name “Seyton,” although somewhat common in Shakespeare’s time, mostly as a last name (Ancestry.com), is not common now, as evident by my searching twenty different name-meaning databases, only to find four with the name, with all four defining “Seyton” as “Attendant to Macbeth” (“Names –
Meaning of Seyton – Name Meaning”). All of these findings suggest that even if Seyton was a name in Shakespeare’s time, it is very likely that Shakespeare used the name for its homophone relationship with “Satan.”
“Satan” itself has much meaning behind the word.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines
Satan as “The proper name of the supreme evil spirit, the Devil” (oed.com). Most people familiar with the Bible, however, do not need a dictionary to define Satan. The word “Satan” appears forty-nine times in the Old and New Testaments (“Scriptures Search Results”), first appearing in
First Chronicles as a tempter to David ( King James Version , 1 Chronicles 21:1). In The
American Heritage Dictionary
, the only definition given is “The Devil,” but a side note gives the

roots of the name: “Middle English
Satan , Old English Satan , from Late Latin
Satān
, from
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Greek Satan , from Hebrew śātān , devil, adversary, from śātan , to accuse” (Morris). In researching the Indo-European synonyms of “Devil,” I found that “[most] of the usual
[European] words for ‘devil’ come from a [Greek] word meaning [originally] ‘slanderous, a slanderer’. Besides this group, the [Hebrew] šātān, [originally] ‘adversary’, though rendered by
διάβολος in the LXX…hence the familiar Satan or the like in most [European] languages, but less generic than ‘devil’” (Buck 22.34).
The symbolism of “Seyton” as “Satan” is very clear. During Macbeth’s speech, he at first seems to be addressing the devil, and it isn’t until his attendant appears onstage that the audience realizes otherwise. On the other hand, even though the audience comes to find out that
“Satan” is really “Seyton,” it does not damper the affect that Macbeth seems to be calling out to the devil in despair. “Seyton!” Macbeth cries, “—I am sick at heart / When I behold—Seyton, I say!—This push / Will cheer me ever or disseat me now” (V.iii.23-25). And yet, the audience hears: “
Satan !—I am sick at heart / When I behold— Satan , I say!—This push / Will cheer me ever or disseat me now.” Stuart Sillars suggests that “Macbeth is ‘rapt’ into a hell which he sees as heaven, blinded by the alluring power of the witches and perhaps also by his own ambition”
(17). Shakespeare’s use of “Seyton,” however, suggests that perhaps Macbeth was much more aware of the hell he was in than he first appears.

Works Cited
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"Scriptures Search Results." The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . N.p., n.d. Web. 8
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