TEXT:
Enter a Messenger
What is your tidings?
Messenger
The king comes here tonight.
LADY MACBETH
Thou'rt mad to say it:
Is not thy master with him? who, were't so,
Would have informed for preparation.
Messenger
So please you, it is true: our thane is coming:
One of my fellows had the speed of him,
Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
Than would make up his message.
LADY MACBETH
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 the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering 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!'
NOTES:
The Ornithology of Shakespeare
This is a fabulous book, which appears to list and describe every bird mentioned in Shakespeare. Best of all, it’s old enough to be out of copyright, and so you can find it online - right here!
Seneca
In ancient Rome Lucius Annaeus Seneca was primarily a philosopher, but also a playwright. His plays are seldom performed today, since we tend to be more enthralled by the ancient Greek dramas that preceded them (and often tell the same stories…) But Shakespeare would very likely have read and enjoyed Seneca’s tragedies, and some might even make the claim that without Seneca, there would be no Macbeth. For a very convincing argument - if your library has access - you can explore Inga-Stina Ewbank’s 1967 essay “The Fiend-Like Queen: A Note on Macbeth and Seneca’s Medea”. (It’s in Shakespeare Survey No. 19 via the Cambridge University Press.)