LADY MACBETH
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!
The messenger's departure allows Lady Macbeth's soliloquy to resume, and she consumes our attention with her powerful language and physical presence. She comments that the "raven himself is hoarse", which could refer to the messenger who was quite literally out of breath - whose harshness of heavy breathing is emphasised by the alliteration of "h". More likely, the "raven" operates symbolically, a bird which forebodes death and misfortune. Ravens (and crows - a bird Macbeth will reference in his 'come, seeling night' speech in 3.1 which seems to parallel this one) are associated with the goddess Morrigan from Irish mythology, who appeared when war loomed and death was imminent, and the reference plunges us into an ominous atmosphere. The raven perhaps also shows the parasitic nature of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth - they will purloin power from people with greater power and healthier minds, just as ravens eat the decaying flesh of the wounded and dying. The verb "croaks" is similarly evocative of chaos; it is physical, guttural and animalistic, conjuring the sounds of the witches (particularly the cauldron scene in 4.1). Chaos, then, is entering "my battlements", the possessive pronoun (and gesture it seems to suggest) asserting her confidence and power. Unlike many women of the time, Lady Macbeth is in possession of considerable control, a control she will exercise over many of Macbeth's actions - at least in the first two acts of the play. The ominous imagery gives way to a stronger atmosphere of evil: the caesura allows a mid-line pause, a drawing of breath (for the actress - it's a long sentence! - but also for us), before the imperative "come" signals the beginning of her invocation. We begin to see her true malign intent as she summons the "spirits that tend on mortal thoughts". The "spirits" evoke the supernatural, called to turn thoughts into action, required to numb her to mercy or remorse, to allow her to be intoxicated by her "mortal thoughts" (where "mortal" is of death (mortality), but also perhaps human - a suggestion that Lady Macbeth's weakness is a profoundly human one). She commands the spirits to "unsex me here", a powerful display of desire for freedom from the limitations of not just femininity but humanity itself. Her deep yearning for power, for impulsiveness, for freedom from "remorse", is reflected too in the sound of her language, the sharpened, plosive repetitions of "t" and "d" lending a ferocity which renders the effect of the spirits even more unsettling. The invocations, fronted with imperative verbs - "come", "unsex", "fill", "make", "stop" - continues. She desires the spirits to "fill me from the crown to the toe top-full", a line which (like Duncan's "full" in 1.4) suggests a metaphorical hunger. It perhaps recalls too the "carving" of Macbeth in 1.2 - though where Macbeth's movement of his sword was "from the nave to the chops", upwards for the glory of the King, the movement here is downward and dishonourable. It perhaps foreshadows, too, the fate of Lady Macbeth: a downward spiral of suffering, beginning with the "crown" (the top of the skull, but clearly conjuring the "golden round" of kingship). As her invocation gathers momentum, the all-consuming nature of her ambition becomes clear, the compound adjective "top-full" creating a precarious image of brimming with an all-consuming power. The focus on the body, on the physicality of this invocation, continues with her plea to "make thick my blood; stop up the access and passage to remorse". The assonance in "access and passage" give flow, but they are truncated by the words surrounding it, clogging up the line in much the same manner as she desires of the spirits. The heart - the producer of blood - connotes emotions; by sealing her vessels she can prevent morals and mercy from plaguing her ambitions and so rid herself of weakness. The image of thickened blood connects Lady Macbeth to the witches and the common belief that witches could not bleed (presumably stemming from a deep-seated suspicion of the female body and the 'unnaturalness' of the menopause. The physical unnaturalness of the body mirrors the unnaturalness of the act of murder she proposes, and she desires the "nature" (and conscience) not to interfere "nor keep peace between the effect and it!". There is a distance between her "fell purpose" (cruel desire) and the act itself - indirectly referenced in "it". The subtle assonance of "ee" here slows the pace and gives us a brief feeling of balance only to quickly replace these with sharper quicker sounds mirroring the ephemeral nature of balance in the play and leaving us with an impression of chaos. Like most of the play, the lines are in iambic pentameter, the mask of order and respectability, but the enjambment here shows the lingering madness behind it.
- Leah and Kirsten