![]() ![]() To her, it must seem that there's some magic at work, because just as she's thinking about killing the King, here comes the news that he's going to be sleeping under her roof. ![]() "Thou'rt mad to say it!" (1.5.31), she exclaims. Lady Macbeth's first reaction is almost enough to give her away. After all, it's only that fear that's keeping him from wearing the crown.Īs Lady Macbeth is wrapped up in these murderous thoughts, a messenger comes in with the news that the King is coming to stay the night. In other words, she plans to nag him until he's ashamed of himself for being afraid to be bad. She tells her absent husband that he should hurry home so that she can "chastise with the valour of my tongue / All that impedes thee from the golden round" (1.5.27-28). In her view, he's something of a coward, because he has that within him that tells him what he must do if he is to have the throne, but he's afraid to do it. She says that he "wouldst not play false, / And yet wouldst wrongly win" (1.5.21-22). Ambition "should" be accompanied by "illness." Yet she does not believe that Macbeth is really good. She, like the witches, believes that foul is fair. She says to her absent husband, "Thou wouldst be great / Art not without ambition, but without / The illness should attend it" (1.5.18-20). In addition, Lady Macbeth seems to share the witches' views on good and bad. And this is always his wife's assumption. For both of them, murder is the "nearest way." In an earlier scene, Macbeth had commented that "If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, / Without my stir" (1.3.143-144), but later he assumes that he must be an assassin in order to be king. Her reaction to the letter shows that Lady Macbeth is a woman who knows her husband very well, perhaps because she shares some of his instincts. Speaking to him as though he were really there, she says: "Yet do I fear thy nature / It is too full o' the milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way" (1.5.16-18). She is determined that he will be king, but she suspects that he doesn't have the right stuff to do what needs to be done. That is, he believes that she has a right to rejoice because she will be a queen. But Macbeth seems to trust the witches absolutely, because he is writing to his wife, his "dearest partner of greatness," so that she "mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing" (1.5.11-12). ![]() If that's the case, he has ignored the advice of Banquo, who is quite sure that witches can't be trusted. "The perfectest report" means "the most reliable information," so it appears that Macbeth has been asking people what they know about the reliability of witches. The letter tells of the witches' prophecy for him, which is treated as a certainty, because "I have learned by the perfectest report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge" (1.5.1-3). Lady Macbeth tells her husband to look innocent and follow her lead.Īs the scene opens, Lady Macbeth is reading a letter from her husband. Lady Macbeth works herself up to work Macbeth up to murder. Lady Macbeth reads Macbeth's letter about the weird sisters. Detailed Summary of Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 5 ![]()
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