Block, SkipCaptcha, Automoderated users, edit
1,942
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Line 117:
Line 117: + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
→Act Five: Act Five
===Act Five===
===Act Five===
====Scene One====
A gentlewoman who once attended Lady Macbeth is meeting with a Physic (doctor), and she introduces the new Lady Macbeth, a woman who is asleep and appearing to mime the act of washing her hands - "Why, here's a spot!" she notes. From there, the doctor writes everything she says in her sleep.
{{cquote|Fie, my / lord, fie, a soldier and afeard? What need we fear / who knows it, when one can call our power to / account? Yet who would have thought the old man / to have had so much blood in him? ... 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. ... Here's the smell of blood still. All / the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little / hand. O, O, O!}} She continues to speak, struggling to clean her hands, and ends by hearing the knock of the porter at the door. This is the fate of Lady Macbeth; every night she hallucinates again the night of the murder, and her hands are forever marked with blood. The doctor observes: {{cquote|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 amazed my sight. / I think but dare not speak.}}
====Scene Two====
Menteith, Caithness, Ross, Angus, and drums and flags gather in Birnam Wood to meet the English army. They converse to reveal to the audience the further actions of Macbeth: he fortifies a castle at Dunsinane. He has gone mad, and his murders gather in his mind. His subjects move on command, not loyalty. They must move to restore the country.
====Scene Three====
A tyrannical Macbeth demands no more reports from a servant about the army gathering, for Malcolm was born of woman and thus cannot harm him. He curses out the servant and calls for Seyton, who confirms the report and prepares him for battle. A doctor informs Macbeth of Lady Macbeth's strange illness. Macbeth says she is overstating the impact of the murder, as she told him that night, and sends away the doctor and all medicine. The doctor decides never to return to Dunsinane.
====Scene Four====
Two commanders, Malcolm and Siward, meet each other at Birnam Wood, join forces, and develop a plan: each man will take some branches from the forest with which to conceal himself, and they will march to Dunsinane.
====Scene Five====
Macbeth scoffs at the invading forces, figuring they will die waiting to enter the castle. A women's cry fails to grab his attention, only his curiosity, though it is his wife's cry. She is dead. Macbeth becomes his most dramatic here, saying about himself, {{cquote|I have almost forgot the taste of fears. / The time has been my senses would have cooled / to hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair / would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir / as life were in 't. I have supped full with horrors. / Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, / cannot once start me. ... (upon the death of the Queen) She should have died hereafter. / There would have been time for such a word. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow / creeps in this petty pace from day to day / to the last syllable of recorded time, / and all our yesterdays have lighted fools / the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! / Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player / that struts and frets his hour upon the stage / and then is heard no more. It is a tale / told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / signifying nothing.}}
A messenger timidly arrives to tell him that he thought he saw the woods move, and Macbeth threatens to kill him if this is false.
====Scene Six====
Malcolm, Siward, Macduff, and the army proceed. Malcolm bids them to set down their camouflage.
====Scene Seven====
Macbeth, believing himself invincible against human warriors, meets the young Siward, who finds there is no more despicable name than Macbeth. The two fight, and young Siward is killed. Macduff then arrives, seeking Macbeth, and Malcolm and Siward follow.
====Scene Eight====
Macduff finally meets his enemy, an indifferent Macbeth who is galvanized by a single remark: "Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripped." He realizes he must fight or be captured and held in spectacle, and does fight. Macduff is victorious.
Meanwhile, Ross informs Siward that his son has died. Siward is proud to have a son who died in glory. Macduff then arrives with the head of Macbeth, and hails Malcolm as the King of Scotland. Malcolm invites all who are present to Scone for the decisions of royal titles.
==Lines and Quotes==
==Lines and Quotes==
"Is this a dagger which I see before me," <br /> - Act II, Scene 1
"Is this a dagger which I see before me," <br /> - Act II, Scene 1