Monologue

Lady Macbeth Monologue

From Macbeth by William Shakespeare

female · dark · 1:27 min

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Give him tending. He brings great news. (Exit Messenger.) The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood, Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between Th’ effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall, your murd’ring ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark To cry, “Hold, hold!” Enter Macbeth. Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor! Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter! Thy letters have transported me beyond This ignorant present, and I feel now The future in the instant.

About this piece

Lady Macbeth is invoking dark spirits to strip her of feminine qualities and fill her with cruelty as she prepares for King Duncan's murder, expressing her ambition and desire for power.

30s · determination · ambition · power · fate · madness

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