Lady Macbeth
Play
Summary
Lady Macbeth is Macbeth's wife and the most ferocious driving force behind the murder of King Duncan, calling on spirits to "unsex" her and fill her with cruelty. She engineers the assassination with cold precision, yet her suppressed conscience erupts in sleepwalking episodes that destroy her; she dies offstage, almost certainly by her own hand.
Notable Quotations
"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!" *(I.5)*
"Out, damned spot! out, I say!" *(V.1)*
"Here's the smell of the blood still: all the / perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand." *(V.1)*
"Come on; / Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the dead / Are but as pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood / That fears a painted devil." *(II.2)*
"A little water clears us of this deed: / How easy is it, then!" *(II.2)*