Can someone help me interpret this Lady Macbeth speech from Act I Scene 5, after Lady Macbeth has received the letter from Macbeth telling her of the witch's predictions? Here's the speech:
The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here; And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood, Stop up the access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts, And take my milk for gall, your murdering ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell That my keen knife see not the wound it makes Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark To cry, "Hold, hold!"
Thank you!! +++++++++++ 12-10-02, 01:24 PM cattywampus Uh, I think Lady Mac is just asking that she be left alone to do what she is about to do. Doesn't sound nearly as good the way I've stated it, huh?
Catty (To be or not to be! Is the question I can't get answered) eek
12-11-02, 12:10 AM John-1 Perhaps Lady M is calling for courage to go ahead with the murder of Duncan, and is trying to steel herself to procede with the deed without deterence from feminine weakness-real or imagined.
12-11-02, 02:52 AM VivienneHa This speech often reminds me of Elizabeth the First's famous speech at Tilbury in 1588. "I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king." John is on the right track,but it is not courage she is asking for so much as help from the supernatural,: "Come, you spirits " What Lady Macbeth is saying is that she is a woman (excepting Queen Elizabeth,think how women were thought of in Shakespeares time) but she needs to shrug off her feminine side to do what must be done "unsex me now" and she is asking to be given the ability to be cold-blooded,cruel and remorseless (not usual feminine characteristics). A moment earlier Lady Macbeth described her husband as "too full of the milk o' human kindness" and now she is calling for her own milk to be turned to "gall" (bitterness). At the end of the speech she is calling for the darkness of night to hide her evil doings and... "Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark To cry, "Hold, hold!" which is, for heaven (presumably God)not to see what she is doing and cry "Hold" (Stop). The play is full themes of what is masculinity/femininity? and this speech is a great example. There are some great sites on the internet that can help with translation/explanation of Macbeth as well as all the other Shakespeare plays.
