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?
Owls are nocturnal and traditionally seen as birds of darkness.
Macbeth
When?
These lines are all shared lines, in which Lady Macbeth and Macbeth share lines of iambic pentameter and ask each other questions. What does this tell you about them, how they feel and what might be happening around them? What do their short replies show you?
Macbeth
Hark – Who lies i’th’ second chamber?
Macbeth
This is a sorry sight.
Lady Macbeth
A foolish thought,
To say a sorry sight.
It is silly to think about regret. This is a positive act for us.
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 addressed them again to sleep.
Who is Macbeth scared of here and why? What might make him afraid?
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;
List’ning their fear, I could not say ‘Amen’,
When they did say 'God bless us’.
When they saw me with the blood on my hands like an executioner, the men were scared and cried out to God, but I could not say the last word of the prayer in response.
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 ravelled sleeve of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast’.
What do you think causes Macbeth to hear the voice?
Sleep repairs the damage of the day, in the same way you might sew back the edge of sleeve that has frayed. It is like a relaxing bath at the end of a tiring work day.
Lady Macbeth
What do you mean?
Macbeth
Still it cried ‘Sleep no more’ to all the house:
‘Glamis hath murdered 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 brain-sickly of things – Go get some water,
And wash this filthy witness 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.
You are weakening yourself by thinking in such an anxious way.
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.
(Text edited for rehearsals by Polly Findlay and Zoe Svendsen)