Macbeth Group
Question:
pito156
Student
High School - 12th Grade
What is the literal meaning of the following passage in Act V, Scene 1 of "Macbeth"?
LADY MACBETH: Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One- two -why then 'tis
time to do't. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and
afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our
power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have
had so much blood in him?
DOCTOR: Do you mark that?
LADY MACBETH: The Thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now? What,
will these hands neer be clean? No more o' that, my lord, no more
o' that. You mar all with this starting.
DOCTOR: Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
GENTLEWOMAN: She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that.
Heaven knows what she has known.
LADY MACBETH: Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes
of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!
Answers:
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sagesource Teacher
High School - 12th GradePosted by sagesource on Thursday May 15, 2008 at 2:17 AMBest answer as selected by question asker.
Lady Macbeth's words reflect the workings of her conscience, which is driving her to madness. She can no longer hide her guilt and cannot help revealing her crime to those around her.
The references to the blood hark back to the murder of Duncan. She had said (Act II/2) "A little water clears us of this deed," but now no quantity is enough. She had used blood to incriminate the innocent grooms,
If he do bleed,
I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal,
For it must seem their guilt.and now it follows her, impossible to remove.
Remarks that scold Macbeth for his timidness, such as "A soldier, and afeared?" and "No more o' that" again evoke the scene before and after Duncan's murder, where Lady Macbeth treated all of Macbeth's doubts with utter contempt:
Why, worthy thane,
You do unbend your noble strength to think
So brainsickly of things.The memory now haunts her, since as she probably realizes, without her urging Macbeth may well have shrunk away from committing the murder.
"The Thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now?" show that Lady Macbeth is also haunted by the less direct consequences of her actions. Macduff was Thane of Fife, and Macbeth had had his wife and family murdered in his rage at the witches' second set of predictions (Act IV/1, 2).
Finally, "Hell is murky" indicates Lady Macbeth feels she is damned, something that had also occured to her husband, though he had set it aside (Act I/7)
Sources:
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Posted by brandih on Thursday May 15, 2008 at 12:22 PM
This quote is also discussed at our free Shakespeare Quotes section.
