MACBETH
Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep', the innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care, The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast,--
LADY MACBETH
What do you mean?
In the depths of guilt and paranoia, Macbeth questions his own sanity in the doubtful "methought". Even in the most literal part of this extract, there is ambiguity: the guards "cry", either an exclamation of shock or of pain. The voice he hears is more obviously imaginary than the previous cry of "murder" and far more accusatory, eerie in its imperative force and lack of clear speaker: "Sleep no more / Macbeth doth murder sleep". "Sleep" is repeated four times in three lines and it shifts in its associations. Macbeth is punished by sleeplessness because he has "murder[ed] sleep". The personification of sleep shows the causality – he has sacrificed his own sleep by putting Duncan to a permanent 'sleep'. He alienates himself from recovery and, like the murder, he sees this as an irreversible state. He cannot forget that the sleep is "innocent"; it is a vulnerable, victim-like state, but also its tranquillity is the preserve of the innocent. Macbeth continues to expound the benefits of sleep through a gentle, feminine image of sleep "that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care". The metaphor is of fabric ("sleave" an archaic word for a type of fine thread), of tangled threads smoothed out and knitted up by the diligent attention of (here) sleep. The image is a beautiful one, despite Macbeth's tortured state, showing the powerfully restorative effects of sleep within a chaotic and disordered world. He doesn't stop with it, though, layering up parallel clauses and rapidly moving between metaphors. He turns next to the contrast of night and day – sleep as "the death of each day's life" - and the imagery brings back the symbolism of light and dark. Rather than good and evil, as it is elsewhere in the play, the contrast seems more natural here, a rhythmical cycle uncorrupted by Macbeth's "black and deep desires". If Macbeth cannot sleep, though, this day will not die and he will remain tangled in it. The metaphor shifts again to the idea of sleep's healing power, with "sore labour's bath" suggesting that sleep's restorative power is a material, physical one and the "balm of hurt minds" suggesting a psychological one. Macbeth recognises that his sleeplessness will lead to insanity and the inability to heal. He moves finally to the metaphor of food and sleep as "great nature's second course, / Chief nourisher in life's feast", the reward for a day's work. The layering of clauses and metaphors is somewhat confusing, almost losing the impact of each one as it spirals, but the cumulative effect is to convey Macbeth's agony and desperation. In his fixated repetitions, he is trapping himself in an eternal hell of his own design. Macbeth's imaginative flight of fancy is in stark contrast to Lady Macbeth's sharp "what do you mean?", which could be either curious and probing or scathing and sarcastic. Regardless, she cannot understand why he is responding the way he is. There is a distance between them – they are talking in different registers and with different concerns. Where Macbeth's concern is philosophical, Lady Macbeth's is immediate and, as she attempts to coax him back into what she needs him to be, she has little time for his turmoil.
- Kate
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