what reason does macbeth give for not returning to duncan’s bed chamber?
Macbeth
Please see the bottom of the page and the highlighted text for full explanatory notes and helpful resources.| Deed Ii SCENE Ii | The same. | |
| [Enter LADY MACBETH] | ||
| LADY MACBETH | That which hath made them drunkard hath made me bold; | |
| What hath quench'd them hath given me fire. | ||
| Hark! Peace! | ||
| It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman, | ||
| Which gives the stern'st good-night. He is about it: | 5 | |
| The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms | ||
| Do mock their charge with snores: I have drugg'd | ||
| their possets, | ||
| That death and nature do debate about them, | ||
| Whether they live or die. | 10 | |
| MACBETH | [Inside] Who's in that location? what, ho! | |
| LADY MACBETH | Alack, I am afraid they take awaked, | |
| And 'tis non done. The endeavor and not the deed | ||
| Confounds united states. Hark! I laid their daggers ready; | ||
| He could not miss 'em. Had he not resembled | 15 | |
| My father as he slept, I had washed't. | ||
| [Enter MACBETH] | ||
| My husband! | ||
| MACBETH | I take done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise? | |
| LADY MACBETH | I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. | |
| Did not you speak? | 20 | |
| MACBETH | When? | |
| LADY MACBETH | Now. | |
| MACBETH | As I descended? | |
| LADY MACBETH | Ay. | |
| MACBETH | Hark! | 25 |
| Who lies i' the second chamber? | ||
| LADY MACBETH | Donalbain. | |
| MACBETH | This is a sorry sight. | |
| [Looking on his hands] | ||
| LADY MACBETH | A foolish thought, to say a sad sight. | |
| MACBETH | At that place's one did express joy in's slumber, and one cried | 30 |
| 'Murder!' | ||
| That they did wake each other: I stood and heard them: | ||
| But they did say their prayers, and address'd them | ||
| Once more to sleep. | ||
| LADY MACBETH | There are two lodged together. | 35 |
| MACBETH | One cried 'God bless us!' and 'Amen' the other; | |
| Every bit they had seen me with these hangman'due south easily. | ||
| Listening their fear, I could not say 'Amen,' | ||
| When they did say 'God bless u.s.!' | ||
| LADY MACBETH | Consider it not so deeply. | 40 |
| MACBETH | Just wherefore could non I pronounce 'Amen'? | |
| I had nearly need of approving, and 'Amen' | ||
| Stuck in my throat. | ||
| LADY MACBETH | These deeds must not be idea | |
| After these ways; so, it will make u.s. mad. | 45 | |
| MACBETH | Methought I heard a vocalization cry 'Slumber no more! | |
| Macbeth does murder sleep', the innocent sleep, | ||
| Slumber that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care, | ||
| The death of each day'due south life, sore labour's bathroom, | ||
| Balm of injure minds, dandy nature'due south second course, | 50 | |
| Master nourisher in life'southward feast,-- | ||
| LADY MACBETH | What do y'all mean? | |
| MACBETH | Yet it cried 'Sleep no more than!' to all the house: | |
| 'Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor | ||
| Shall slumber no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more.' | 55 | |
| LADY MACBETH | Who was information technology that thus cried? Why, worthy thane, | |
| Yous practice unbend your noble force, to think | ||
| So brainsickly of things. Become go some water, | ||
| And wash this filthy witness from your hand. | ||
| Why did you bring these daggers from the place? | 60 | |
| They must lie at that place: go carry them; and smear | ||
| The sleepy grooms with blood. | ||
| MACBETH | I'll go no more: | |
| I am afraid to retrieve what I have done; | ||
| Wait on't again I dare non. | 65 | |
| LADY MACBETH | Infirm of purpose! | |
| Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the dead | ||
| Are simply as pictures: 'tis the center of childhood | ||
| That fears a painted devil. If he exercise bleed, | ||
| I'll social club the faces of the grooms withal; | 70 | |
| For information technology must seem their guilt. | ||
| [Exit. Knocking inside] | ||
| MACBETH | Whence is that knocking? | |
| How is't with me, when every noise appals me? | ||
| What hands are here? ha! they pluck out mine eyes. | ||
| Will all swell Neptune's body of water wash this blood | 75 | |
| Clean from my hand? No, this my hand volition rather | ||
| The multitudinous seas in incarnadine, | ||
| Making the green one ruby. | ||
| [Re-enter LADY MACBETH] | ||
| LADY MACBETH | My easily are of your color; just I shame | |
| To wear a center then white. | 80 | |
| [Knocking inside] | ||
| I hear a knocking | ||
| At the south entry: retire we to our sleeping accommodation; | ||
| A lilliputian water clears usa of this act: | ||
| How easy is it, then! Your constancy | ||
| Hath left you unattended. | 85 | |
| [Knocking inside] | ||
| Hark! more than knocking. | ||
| Go on your nightgown, lest occasion telephone call us, | ||
| And testify united states to be watchers. Exist not lost | ||
| So poorly in your thoughts. | ||
| MACBETH | To know my human action, 'twere all-time not know myself. | ninety |
| [Knocking within] | ||
| Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst! | ||
| [Exeunt] | ||
Next: Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 3
______ Explanatory Notes for Act 2, Scene 2
From Macbeth. Ed. Thomas Marc Parrott. New York: American Volume Co.
(Line numbers have been altered.)
______
In that location is really no change of scene here. Lady Macbeth enters the courtyard as Macbeth leaves it and waits in that location for his return from Duncan's sleeping room. Her soliloquy fills upwardly the time during which the murder is performed and her dialogue with her husband on his return carries us on till the knocking at the gate shows that the solar day is dawning and the inmates of the castle awaking.
1. That which, etc. Lady Macbeth has fortified herself with a draught of wine against the strain of these terrible hours. This is some other proof of her physical weakness.
5. the stern'st good-night. The grimmest good-dark, or farewell. The owl's cry was then and long afterward considered an omen of death.
5. He is near information technology. Macbeth is actually committing the murder.
6. The doors are open. Lady Macbeth must have unlocked the doors into Duncan's room. Her words in lines [fourteen, fifteen] show that she had been in this room afterwards the king had gone to sleep.
5. the surfeited grooms, the drunken attendants of the king.
vii. mock their accuse, turn their intendance of the male monarch'due south person into a mockery.
8, 9. The sleeping-potion which Lady Macbeth had mingled in the possets was so strong that the grooms were one-half poisoned by it.
eleven. Who's there? Macbeth utters these words as he is returning from Duncan's chamber. Every bit he says in line [18], he heard a noise, and he probably thought for a moment that some one had surprised him.
13. the attempt and not the deed, an unsuccessful try.
16. Had he non resembled. This reference to her male parent is one of the few traces of womanly feeling that Lady Macbeth shows. It is a genuinely Shakespearean bear on which saves even so wicked a graphic symbol from utter inhumanity.
25. Hark! This line is usually accompanied in stage representations past a handclapping of thunder. This really detracts from the horror of the scene. Macbeth'due south fretfulness are so overwrought that he starts at imaginary noises. His side by side words evidence that he fancies he has heard a vocalisation.
26. the second chamber, the room next to Duncan's.
27. Donalbain, the second son of Duncan, here mentioned for the start time.
30. There's. Macbeth is perchance referring to the "2d chamber." As he descended he heard some people in it talking in their sleep.
33. address'd them, turned themselves.
25. two lodged together. Lady Macbeth, who is trying to quiet her husband, remarks calmly that there are ii men sleeping in the 2nd chamber, Donalbain and an attendant.
37. hangman's hands, bloody hands. In Shakespeare'southward day the hangman non only adjusted the noose and pushed the victims from the ladder, just in cases of treason chopped up the bodies of the criminals. Thus this phrase suggested a brilliant picture to Shakespeare's hearers.
38. 'Amen.' The phrase "God anoint usa" was used as a charm confronting witchcraft and the devil. Macbeth, who has sold himself to evil, cannot say amen to this prayer.
44, 45. idea Later these ways, thought of in this style.
45. mad. At that place is a dreadful irony in these words; Macbeth is half mad already; and before the play closes, Lady Macbeth'south strong mind breaks down utterly. Cf. 5. i.
50, 51. nature'south 2nd course, Principal nourisher, etc. In Shakespeare's day the second form of a dinner was the almost substantial.
52. What do you mean? Macbeth is talking so wildly that his wife cannot follow him.
56-sixty. Lady Macbeth tries to recall her husband from his ravings by pointing out the necessity for prompt activeness if they are to escape discovery.
59. witness, evidence; the rex's blood which would testify to Macbeth's guilt.
70, 71. gild ... guilt. The pun on "club" and "guilt" was doubtless plainer to Shakespeare's hearers than to us. Gold was regularly spoken of in the old songs as "red." Lady Macbeth's ghastly jest was maybe intended to rouse her hubby to a perception of his cowardice; he is afraid to re-enter the chamber of expiry, she is ready non merely to go there, just fifty-fifty to jest about it.
72. knocking. This knocking is explained by the dialogue of the adjacent scene. De Quincey has a famous essay upon The Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth, in which he points out that the knocking makes known that the reaction against the world of unnatural horror, which we have been contemplating, has commenced; that the pulses of life are starting time to beat over again. The whole essay should, if possible, be read by every student of the play.
78. one scarlet, entirely red.
81, 82. With these lines compare the cleaved utterances of the sleep-walking scene, v. i. 35, 39, 48, 49, and 68-70.
84, 85. Your continuance ... unattended. Your firmness has deserted yous.
87. nightgown. In Shakespeare'south day people went to bed naked. The "nightgown" was the garment they threw around them on first rising, respective to our dressing-gown. Lady Macbeth wants her husband to undress and put on his "nightgown" so that he may appear, when the alarm is given, just to have sprung from his bed.
87, 88. lest occasion ... watchers, lest necessity summon us, and reveal the fact that nosotros have not been in bed.
90. To know, etc. This obscure line is an reply to Lady Macbeth'due south reproach that he is "poorly lost" in his thoughts. Macbeth says in effect that he had improve remain lost, "non know myself," than awake to a full realization of what he had washed, "know my deed."
91. I would k couldst. This is the first notation of genuine remorse that has appeared in Macbeth's speeches in this scene.
________
How to cite the explanatory notes:________
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Ed. Thomas Marc Parrott. New York: American Volume Co., 1904. Shakespeare Online. 10 Aug. 2010. < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/macbeth_2_2.html >.
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Source: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/macbeth_2_2.html
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