Macbeth
Scene #2 · Act I, Scene 5
Lady Macbeth reads Macbeth's letter describing his encounter with the witches and their prophecy that he will be king. After analyzing her husband's character as too kind and moral to seize power ruthlessly, she learns that King Duncan will arrive at their castle that night. Upon hearing this news, she calls upon dark spirits to "unsex" her, fill her with cruelty, and block any natural feelings of remorse or compassion. She invokes "thick night" and the "dunnest smoke of hell" to hide the murder she is already planning, asking that darkness prevent even heaven from seeing the knife wound she intends to make.
This moment establishes Lady Macbeth as the driving force behind the plot to murder Duncan, revealing her willingness to reject her femininity and humanity to achieve power. Her invocation of evil spirits introduces the play's exploration of the supernatural's role in human ambition and moral corruption. The scene accelerates the plot from prophecy to action, transforming the witches' prediction into an immediate murderous conspiracy.
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!
Act I, Scene 5 · Lady Macbeth
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!”
Act I, Scene 5 · Lady Macbeth
Yet do I fear thy nature; / It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way.
Act I, Scene 5 · Lady Macbeth
O, never / Shall sun that morrow see!
Act I, Scene 5 · Lady Macbeth
Thou wouldst be great; / Art not without ambition, but without / The illness should attend it.
Act I, Scene 5 · Lady Macbeth