51�Թ�

The result was that you were yourself on foot, armed only with steel, against an adversary who weighed a good deal more than you did and who could unseam you from the nave to the chaps, and set your head upon his battlements.

The body count starts high—before the audience has even laid eyes on him, the valiant warrior Macbeth is described as hacking his way across a battlefield to “unseam” a foe “from the nave to the chops”—and only gets higher.

But the willingness of film directors to unseam the play and thereby expose the dramatic skeleton may be what has allowed a notable few of them to elude the curse on-screen.

Unseam, un-sēm, v.t. to undo a piece of sewing, to split.

‘Till he unseam’d him from the nave to the chaps.’