SCENE II. The same.
Enter LADY MACBETH
LADY MACBETH
That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold; What hath quench'd them hath given me fire. Hark! Peace! It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman, Which gives the stern'st good-night. He is about it: The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms Do mock their charge with snores: I have drugg'd their possets, That death and nature do contend about them, Whether they live or die.
MACBETH
[Within] Who's there? what, ho!
LADY MACBETH
Alack, I am afraid they have awaked, And 'tis not done. The attempt and not the deed Confounds us. Hark! I laid their daggers ready; He could not miss 'em. Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done't.
We begin Act 2 with the entrance of Lady Macbeth, who reflects on her role in drugging the servants. Her opening line has a neatness to it, the isocolon "hath made them drunk, hath made me bold" juxtaposing the guards' fall (and, by extension, Duncan's) with her rise. Her use of the passive voice suggests her evasion of responsibility; the path has been laid out for Macbeth, but he is left to commit the final act. Her claim to be "bold" - a word more likely to describe a knight - seems a delusion, suggesting she sees herself as brave, perhaps even as righteous. She repeats the isocolon's symmetry in the opposition of "quench'd" and "fire"; by extinguishing the power of the guards, she gains it herself and there is something powerful in the elemental (even perhaps hellish) metaphor of "fire". Her claim to boldness is broken by the sharp, startled exclamations - "Hark! Peace!" - which punctuate the line, disrupting the iambic pentameter and betraying Lady Macbeth's fear in her attempts to silence and calm. She is startled by "the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman", a description which bears stark resemblance to the "raven...that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan" in 1.5. She feels unsafe, scared by the smallest sound and leaping immediately to ideas of fate and fatality. The change from the "raven" to the "owl" matches the change from day to night, but the owl is also commonly associated with death (and witchcraft, the screeching manifestation of Hecate). The night is eerie and alive, in league with the Macbeth's as it signals Duncan's death (the still euphemistic "good night"). Setting aside the distractions, Lady Macbeth focuses on her husband and the "deed" he is committing off-stage (or has already committed – the present tense of "is about" shows Lady Macbeth's uncertainty of the current state of affairs, but the imminent arrival of her husband suggests it has already happened). She gains confidence by remembering her preparations and that "the doors are open", a literal necessity for Macbeth's entrance, but seeming to herald the change in regime (even evoking the opening of the doors of Hell). She turns back to the drunken, snoring grooms, failing in their ability to guard their watch, unaware that their fates lie in the balance. Again, her speech goes part way to reflection before it is again broken by an off-stage noise, this time the monosyllabic, abrupt calls of Macbeth - "Who's there? What ho?". Again startled, she seems not to recognise him, heightening tension within the cover of darkness on stage. Her fear is not so much of what they have done, but of being caught before "th'attempt" can be completed. Her thoughts shift again, and we experience the first bit of kindness (or – in her eyes – weakness) as we learn that she could not have killed him because "he resembled my father as he slept". The hint of compassion briefly humanises her; it may feel out of place within the darkness of 2.2 and it may only be fleeting, but it shows the spark of guilt and fear which will lead to her madness and downfall in 5.1.
- Jacob, Leah and Ruiyun