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SCENE II
The same.

Enter LADY MACBETH

LADY MACBETH
That which hath made them drunk 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.¹ He is about it:
The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms.
Do mock their charge with snores:² I have drugg'd
their possets,³
That death and nature do contend about them,
Whether they live or die.

MACBETH
[Within] Who's there? what, ho!

LADY MACBETH
Alack, I am afraid they have awaked,
And 'tis not done. The attempt and not the deed
Confounds us.⁴ Hark! I laid their daggers ready;
He could not miss 'em. Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done't.⁵

Enter MACBETH

My husband!

MACBETH
I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?

LADY MACBETH
I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
Did not you speak?

MACBETH
When?

LADY MACBETH
Now.

MACBETH
As I descended?

LADY MACBETH
Ay.

MACBETH
Hark!
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 sorry sight.

MACBETH
There's one did laugh in's sleep, and one cried
'Murder!'
That they did wake each other: I stood and heard them:
But they did say their prayers, and address'd them
Again to sleep.

LADY MACBETH
There are two lodged together.

MACBETH
One cried 'God bless us!' and 'Amen' the other;
As they had seen me with these hangman's hands.⁶
Listening their fear, I could not say 'Amen,'
When they did say 'God bless us!'

LADY MACBETH
Consider it not so deeply.

MACBETH
But wherefore could not I pronounce 'Amen'?
I had most need of blessing, and 'Amen'
Stuck in my throat.

LADY MACBETH
These deeds must not be thought
After these ways; so, it will make us mad.

MACBETH
Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep', the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,⁷
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,⁸
Chief nourisher in life's feast,-

LADY MACBETH
What do you mean?

MACBETH
Still it cried 'Sleep no more!' to all the house:
'Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more.'

LADY MACBETH
Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane,
You do unbend your noble strength, to think
So brainsickly of things. Go get some water,
And wash this filthy witness⁹ from your hand.
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there: go carry them; and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.¹⁰

MACBETH
I'll go no more:
I am afraid to think what I have done;
Look on't again I dare not.

LADY MACBETH
Infirm of purpose!
Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the dead
Are but as pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal;
For it must seem their guilt.

Exit. Knocking within

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 great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas in incarnadine,
Making the green one red.¹¹

Re-enter LADY MACBETH

LADY MACBETH
My hands are of your colour; but I shame
To wear a heart so white.

Knocking within

I hear a knocking
At the south entry: retire we to our chamber;
A little water clears us of this deed:
How easy is it, then! Your constancy
Hath left you unattended.¹²

Knocking within

Hark! more knocking.
Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us,
And show us to be watchers.¹² Be not lost
So poorly in your thoughts.

MACBETH
To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself.

Knocking within

Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!

Exeunt



FOOTNOTES

¹ In Renaissance England the hoot of an owl flying over one's house was an evil omen, and meant impending death for someone inside. Shakespeare refers to the owl as the "fatal bellman" because it was the bellman's job to ring the parish bell when a person in the town was near death.
² Duncan's officers are drunk and make a mockery of their responsibilities
³ A posset is a hot milk and wine concoction, sweetened with honey and spiced with ginger
⁴ i.e., if we attempt the deed but fail, it will ruin us (confounds=ruin).
⁵ i.e., I laid their daggers ready. Macbeth could not miss them. Had King Duncan not resembled my father as he slept, I would have killed him myself.
⁶ In Jacobean England, a hangman did more than tighten the noose around the condemned's neck. The hangman often carried out the execution in three steps: hanging, drawing, and quartering. Thus the hangman's hands, after disemboweling and beheading the convict, would be dripping with blood. Note that blood imagery permeates Macbeth.
⁷ Sleep ties up (knits up) the frayed (ravell'd) thread (sleave) of care. Note that a sleave is a fine thread of silk.
⁸ i.e., nature's main course. The second course was the main course of a dinner in Shakespeare's England.
⁹ Witness here means "evidence".
¹⁰ If Duncan does bleed I will smear it on his officers' faces, because it must seem that they are guilty of the murder.
¹¹ incarnadine means to turn blood red, from the Italian word incarnadino. It appears Shakespeare is the first to have used the English version of the word. "Making the green one red" means making the green seas one color - red.
¹² You have lost your self-control.
¹³ i.e., Put on your dressing gown before something happens to reveal that we did not go to bed.


SUMMARY

As Macbeth leaves the hall, Lady Macbeth enters, remarking on her boldness. She imagines Macbeth killing the king. Hearing Macbeth cry out, she worries that the chamberlains have woken up. She cannot understand how Macbeth could fail-she had prepared the daggers for the chamberlains herself. She asserts that she would have killed the king herself then and there, "[h]ad he not resembled / [her] father as he slept" (II.ii.12-13).

Macbeth emerges, his hands covered in blood, and says the deed is done. Badly shaken, he says he heard the chamberlains wake up and say their prayers before going back to sleep. When they said "amen," he tried to say it with them but found the word stuck in his throat. He adds that as he killed the king, he thought he heard a voice cry out: "Sleep no more, / Macbeth does murder sleep" (II.ii.33-34)..

Lady Macbeth first tries to steady her husband, but becomes angry when she notices he has forgotten to leave the daggers with the sleeping chamberlains to frame them. He refuses to go back into the room, so she takes the daggers into the room herself, saying she would be ashamed to be as cowardly as Macbeth. As she leaves, Macbeth hears a mysterious knocking. The sound frightens him, and he asks himself, "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?" (II.ii.58-59). As Lady Macbeth reenters the hall, the knocking comes again, and then a third time. She leads her husband back to the bedchamber, where he can wash off the blood. "A little water clears us of this deed," she tells him. "How easy it is then!" (II.ii.65-66).