TEXT:
ACT II - SCENE II. The same.
Enter LADY MACBETH
LADY MACBETH
That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold;
What hath quenched them hath given me fire.
Hark! Peace!
It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern'st good-night. He is about it:
The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms
Do mock their charge with snores: I have drugged their possets,
That death and nature do contend about them,
Whether they live or die.
MACBETH (within)
Who's there? what, ho!
LADY MACBETH
Alack, I am afraid they have awaked,
And 'tis not done. The attempt and not the deed
Confounds us. Hark! I laid their daggers ready;
He could not miss 'em. Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done't.
Enter MACBETH
My husband!
MACBETH
I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?
LADY MACBETH
I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
Did not you speak?
MACBETH
When?
LADY MACBETH
Now.
MACBETH
As I descended?
LADY MACBETH
Ay.
MACBETH
Hark!
Who lies i' the second chamber?
LADY MACBETH
Donalbain.
MACBETH
This is a sorry sight.
LADY MACBETH
A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.
NOTES:
Antithesis
Antithesis is one of the central keys to unlocking Shakespeare’s language. Simply put, it’s a word or group of words set against its opposite. The contrast between the two juxtaposed ideas - the antithesis - enriches the imagery and depth of thought. The actor must play the antithesis in order to highlight the meaning of the text. Some recognisable examples of antithesis in Shakespeare are:
To be, or not to be. . .
Fair is foul, and foul is fair. . .
What he has lost, noble Macbeth has won. . .
For more information on antithesis, click here to visit The Basics, and scroll down to Episode 04.
Owls
In my excitement to get the podcast out and recorded this week, I overlooked the full text of The Rape of Lucrece. During that awful night, the full line says that there was “no noise but owls, and wolves”…! So it’s even more ominous that Macbeth has already made us think of Murder and his wolves as sentinels, howling, and now Lady Macbeth is hearing owls. It paints a very scary picture.
As promised, here’s a link to the extended survey of owls in Shakespeare: click here.
Crickets
If you want a REALLY obscure piece of reading, may I direct you to the work of Harry B. Weiss, of New Brunswick, NJ. In the June 1930 issue of the Journal of the New York Entomological Society, he published a short essay on “Insects and Witchcraft”. You can find it on JSTOR, or perhaps in the annals of your local library.
Caesura
A caesura is a pause or break in a metrical line of poetry. It is frequently suggested by a punctuation mark or the end of a phrase. The caesura is a longstanding feature of rhythmic poetry, very common across multiple languages. They appear throughout Shakespeare, Beowulf, and as far back as Latin and even Ancient Greek. The first lines of two of the greatest classics, The Iliad and The Aeneid, both have notable caesurae in their opening lines. (Indeed, Virgil’s opening line echoes Homer’s - and there’s every chance Shakespeare was emulating both in the opening line of HIS war epic, Henry V…!)
Homer: The Iliad
μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ <caesura> Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
(Sing, Goddess, of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus…)
Virgil: The Aeneid
Arma virumque cano <caesura> Troiae qui primus ab oris
(Of arms and the man, I sing. || Who first from the shores of Troy...)
Shakespeare: Henry V
O for a muse of fire, <caesura> that would ascend
Possets
Lady Macbeth’s possets - second only to whatever poison Claudius prepared for his brother in Hamlet - are among the most notorious poisons in Shakespeare. Nowadays we associate possets with dessert - and perhaps rightly, since they are a mixture of eggs, cream and sugar. But in Shakespeare’s time they were also made with alcohol, and were believed to have medicinal as well as nutritional properties. No accident, then, that Lady M could find a way to slip a little something into the mix as she prepared them. If you’d like to read more about possets, and indeed find a workable recipe for one (albeit without poison or drugs) click here for a fabulously detailed history from the Folger Shakespeare Library.