I have given suck, and know / How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me: / I would, while it was smiling in my face, / Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums / And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you / Have done to this.
Act I, Scene 7 · Lady Macbeth
Context
Lady Macbeth escalates her attack on Macbeth's hesitation by declaring that she would kill her own nursing infant if she had sworn to do so, as Macbeth swore to murder Duncan.
Analysis
The grotesque specificity of 'pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums / And dash'd the brains out' forces the audience to visualize an act of intimate violence—nursing, the ultimate image of maternal care, becomes the setup for infanticide. Lady Macbeth does not just say she would kill a child; she describes the physical mechanics in a way that makes refusal of the oath more horrifying than the murder itself, trapping Macbeth in a loyalty test where breaking his word is worse than regicide.
Essay Tip
Use this to argue that Lady Macbeth redefines masculinity as the ability to perform any violence once promised—her hypothetical infanticide is not about motherhood but about making oath-keeping more sacred than morality, so that Macbeth's hesitation looks like betrayal rather than conscience.