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FORTIFIED BY THE WITCHES' PROPHECIES IN ACT 5, Macbeth scoffs at incoming reports that his own soldiers are defecting: "Then fly, false thanes," he proclaims, "And mingle with the English epicures" (Macbeth, 5.3.7-8).1 Macbeth's fearlessness grabs our attention here, distracting us, perhaps, from his slightly odd characterization of the enemy. Why should Macbeth call the English "epicures"? Those familiar with Anglo-Scottish relations of the period may recognize that Macbeth employs a stereotype that the Scots were abstemious, compared to their more indulgent southern neighbors.2 And yet the insult still seems unsuitable. Since Macbeth is anticipating battle, calling his opponents fearful or cowardly would not only be more appropriate but also ring true as genuine Scottish mockery of the English.3 So why should Macbeth call them a nation of gourmands?
Macbeth, of course, abuses the term "epicure" itself. He does not mean to invoke Epicureanism in its complex form as a classical philosophical position, revived (and rehabilitated) by many early modern thinkers and identified with Stoicism in its privileging of moderation and self-restraint.4 Macbeth depends, instead, on a popular conception of epicures as degenerately self-indulgent and directly opposed to the tempered and controlled stoic.5 While the insult is predominantly a moral judgment, it also involves assumptions about the ecologically embedded nature of early modern selfhood and ethnicity. Macbeth may critique the English diet, but he implicitly aims to cast the Scots as more temperate than the English in other ways as well-in habits, behaviors, and humoral complexion.6 To be English, in the sense that Macbeth intends, is to incorporate what is external, foreign, and corrupting and to do so in excess.
Macbeth's characterization of the English can be traced to one of the play's recognized primary sources, John Bellenden's introductory chapter on Scottish manners in his 1540 Scots translation of Hector Boece's History and Chronicles of Scotland.7 Bellenden's introduction frames Boece's history as nostalgic and anti-English in its short description of ancient Scottish virtues. Some forty years later, English historian William Harrison included a fairly accurate translation of Bellenden's preface as the thirteenth chapter in his "Description of Scotland," published in Raphael Holinshed's The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland.8 Harrison adheres to Bellenden's main thesis: before the Scots interacted regularly with their English neighbors, they...