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The End of Lady Macbeth's Soliloquy
Context and Language Videos
Act 1,
Scene 5
Lines 49-53a

A discussion of the end of Lady Macbeth's soliloquy in Act 1, Scene 5 of myShakespeare's Macbeth.

myShakespeare | Macbeth 1.5 Discussion: The End of Lady Macbeth's Soliloquy

Lady Macbeth

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.'
Video Transcript: 

DAVINA: Lady Macbeth closes her soliloquy with an appeal to a personified night to bring a darkness as impenetrable as the smoke from hell. This will prevent the knife she uses for the murder from seeing the wounds it makes and calling out for her to stop.

RALPH: This wonderfully creepy line echoes what Macbeth said at the end of Scene 4, "Stars hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires"

DAVINA:  I don’t know, Ralph.  Seems like a bad sign if the thing you want to do is so horrible that you can’t even watch yourself doing it.  If you can’t bring yourself to see it, how can you bring yourself to do it!

RALPH:  With the help of ‘murdering ministers’, I suppose!