Macbeth
Act V, Scene 1
Dunsinane. An anteroom in the castle.
- Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting Gentlewoman.
Doctor
1 - 2- I have two nights watch’d with you, but can perceive no
- truth in your report. When was it she last walk’d?
Gentlewoman
3 - 7- Since his Majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise
- from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her
- closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon’t, read it,
- afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this
- while in a most fast sleep.
Doctor
8 - 11- A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the
- benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching! In this
- slumb’ry agitation, besides her walking and other actual
- performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say?
Gentlewoman
12- That, sir, which I will not report after her.
Doctor
13- You may to me, and ’tis most meet you should.
Gentlewoman
14 - 17- Neither to you nor any one, having no witness to confirm my
- speech.
- Enter Lady Macbeth with a taper.
- Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise, and upon my
- life, fast asleep. Observe her, stand close.
Doctor
18- How came she by that light?
Gentlewoman
19 - 20- Why, it stood by her. She has light by her continually, ’tis
- her command.
Doctor
21- You see her eyes are open.
Gentlewoman
22- Ay, but their sense are shut.
Doctor
23- What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands.
Gentlewoman
24 - 26- It is an accustom’d action with her, to seem thus washing
- her hands. I have known her continue in this a quarter of an
- hour.
Out, damn’d spot! Out, I say!
Johann Heinrich Ramberg, 1829
Lady Macbeth
27- Yet here’s a spot.
Doctor
28 - 29- Hark, she speaks. I will set down what comes from her, to
- satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
Lady Macbeth
30 - 34- Out, damn’d 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 pow’r to accompt? Yet who would have thought the old man
- to have had so much blood in him?
Doctor
35- Do you mark that?
Lady Macbeth
36 - 38- The Thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now? What, will
- these hands ne’er be clean? No more o’ that, my lord, no
- more o’ that; you mar all with this starting.
Doctor
39- Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
Gentlewoman
40 - 41- She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that; heaven
- knows what she has known.
Lady Macbeth
42- Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, O, O!
Doctor
43- What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charg’d.
Gentlewoman
44 - 45- I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of
- the whole body.
Doctor
46- Well, well, well.
Gentlewoman
47- Pray God it be, sir.
Doctor
48 - 50- This disease is beyond my practice; yet I have known those
- which have walk’d in their sleep who have died holily in
- their beds.
Kate Josephine Bateman as Lady Macbeth
B. Faustin, Alfred Wilcox, 1875
Lady Macbeth
51 - 53- Wash your hands, put on your night-gown, look not so pale. I
- tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on
- ’s grave.
Doctor
54- Even so?
Lady Macbeth
55 - 57- To bed, to bed; there’s knocking at the gate. Come, come,
- come, come, give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone.
- To bed, to bed, to bed.
- Exit Lady.
Doctor
58- Will she go now to bed?
Gentlewoman
59- Directly.
Doctor
60 - 68- Foul whisp’rings are abroad. Unnatural deeds
- Do breed unnatural troubles; infected minds
- To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
- More needs she the divine than the physician.
- God, God, forgive us all! Look after her,
- Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
- And still keep eyes upon her. So good night.
- My mind she has mated, and amaz’d my sight.
- I think, but dare not speak.
Gentlewoman
69- Good night, good doctor.
- Exeunt.
Byam Shaw, 1901