William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s Macbeth
This passage from the first scene in the fifth act of Macbeth is one of the most indelible expressions of guilt in all of literature.
Earlier in the play, Lady Macbeth possessed a stronger resolve and sense of purpose than her husband and was the driving force behind their plot to kill Duncan. When...
LADY MACBETH
Out, damned spot! out, I say!—One: two: why,
Then, 'tis time to do't.—Hell is murky!—Fie, my
Lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we
Fear who knows it, when none can call our power to
Account?—Yet who would have thought the old man
To have had so much blood in him.
DOCTOR
Do you mark that?
LADY MACBETH
The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?—
What, will these hands ne'er be clean?—No more o'
That, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with
This starting.
DOCTOR
Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
GENTLEWOMAN
She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: heaven knows what she has known.
LADY MACBETH
Here's the smell of the blood still:
All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little
Hand. Oh, oh, oh!
DOCTOR
What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.
GENTLEWOMAN
I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the
Dignity of the whole body.
DOCTOR
Well, well, well,—
GENTLEWOMAN
Pray God it be, sir.
DOCTOR
This disease is beyond my practise: yet I have known
Those which have walked in their sleep who have died
Holily in their beds.
LADY MACBETH
Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so
Pale.--I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he
Cannot come out on's grave.
DOCTOR
Even so?
LADY MACBETH
To bed, to bed! there's knocking at the gate:
Come, come, come, come, give me your hand.
What's done cannot be undone.—To bed, to bed, to bed!
Exit
DOCTOR
Will she go now to bed?
GENTLEWOMAN
Directly.
DOCTOR
Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets:
More needs she the divine than the physician.
God, God forgive us all! Look after her;
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night:
My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight.
I think, but dare not speak.
GENTLEWOMAN
Good night, good doctor.
Exeunt
Out, Damned Spot! was written by William Shakespeare.
Out, Damned Spot! was produced by William Shakespeare.