In Act 3, Scene 2, Macbeth is talking to Lady Macbeth just
before the evening's big formal dinner. Macbeth is determined to free himself of all
enemies and especially Banquo and Fleance. Banquo is more than suspicious of Macbeth,
and the witches said that Banquo's children would live to be kings, generation after
generation. He wants Banquo and Fleance dead this very
night.
The mood created by the following exchange is one of
darkness and danger, anger, fear, determination and
death:
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MACBETH:
O, full of
scorpions is my mind, dear wife!
Thou know'st that Banquo
and his Fleance lives.
LADY
MACBETH:
But in them nature's copy's not
eterne.
MACBETH:
There's
comfort yet; they are assailable.
Then be thou jocund. Ere
the bat hath flown
His cloister'd flight; ere to black
Hecate's summons
The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy
hums
Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be
done
A deed of dreadful
note.
LADY MACBETH:
What's to
be done?
MACBETH:
Be innocent
of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
Till thou applaud the
deed. Come, seeling night,
Scarf up the tender eye of
pitiful day,
And with thy bloody and invisible
hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great
bond
Which keeps me pale! Light thickens, and the
crow
Makes wing to the rooky
wood:
Good things of day begin to droop and
drowse,
Whiles night's black agents to their preys do
rouse.
Thou marvell'st at my words, but hold thee
still:
Things bad begun make strong themselves by
ill.
So, prithee, go with
me.
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