Bertie's Paraphrases of Famous Scenes from Shakespeare: Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 1 (The Sleepwalking Scene)

This scene takes place in a room in Dunsinane Castle, Scotland. The characters are a gentlewoman (one of Lady Macbeth's personal attendants), a physician, and Lady Macbeth, now Queen of Scotland. Earlier in the play Lady Macbeth has persuaded her husband, a successful soldier, to murder King Duncan while he was a guest at their castle. Since then Macbeth has become king and tyrant, murdering his friend Banquo and the wife and young son of MacDuff, Lord of Fife. The scene shows how Lady Macbeth's conscience and fear are preying on her mind. It is celebrated as displaying Shakespeare's profound knowlege of human psychology.

[Enter a doctor, and a gentlewoman.]

DOCTOR: I have watched with you for two nights, but can
perceive no truth in your report.
: When was it she last walked?

GENTLEWOMAN: Since his majesty went into the field of battle,
I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her
dressing-gown upon her, unlock her desk, take out
paper, fold it, write upon it, read it, afterwards
seal it, and return to bed again; yet all this
while in a very deep sleep.

DOCTOR: It is a great disturbance in one's nature, to
receive the benefit of sleep and do the actions of
waking, both at once.
: What, in this slumbery agitation, besides her walking
and performing other actions, have you heard her say
at any time?

GENTLEWOMAN : That, sir, which I will not report after her.

DOCTOR: You may to me; and it's most proper you should.

GENTLEWOMAN: Neither to you nor anyone; having no witness to
confirm what I say.

[Enter Lady Macbeth, carrying a lighted candle.]

: Look! - here she comes.
: This is the very way she behaves; and, I swear
upon my life, fast asleep.
: Observe her: stand hidden.

DOCTOR: How did she come by that light?

GENTLEWOMAN: Why, it stood by her bed.
: She has light by her continually; it's her command.

DOCTOR: You see, her eyes are open.

GENTLEWOMAN: Yes, but their senses are shut.

DOCTOR: What is it she's doing now?
: Look how she rubs her hands.

GENTLEWOMAN: It is an habitual action with her, to seem to be
washing her hands like that.
: I have known her to continue in this a quarter
of an hour.

LADY M.: Yet here's a spot [of blood].

DOCTOR: Listen! - she's speaking.
: I will write down what comes from her, to support my
memory the more strongly.

LADY M.: Away, damned spot! - away, I say!

[As if hearing a tolling bell]: One; two: why, then it's time to do it!
[pause]
: Hell is murky.
[pause]
: Bah, my lord, bah! - a soldier, and afraid?
: What need we fear who knows it, when none can call
our power to account?
[pause]
: Yet who would have thought the old man to have had
so much blood in him?
[Note: this is an intensely dramatic sentence. The blood she means
is not only Duncan's, but also all the blood shed because of
Macbeth's tyranny.]

DOCTOR: Do you hear that?

LADY M.: The lord of Fife had a wife: where is she now?
: What, will these hands never be clean?
[pause]
: No more of that, my lord, no more of that: you spoil
everything with this twitching.

DOCTOR [To gentlewoman]: Go away, go away: you have heard what
you should not.

GENTLEWOMAN: She has spoken what she should not, I am sure of
that.
: Heaven knows what she has known.

LADY M. : Here's the smell of the blood still.
: All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this
little hand.
[sighing] Oh, oh, oh!

DOCTOR : What a sigh is there!
: The heart is heavily burdened.

GENTLEWOMAN: I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the
worth of the whole body.

DOCTOR : Well, well, well.

GENTLEWOMAN: Pray to God it shall be [well], sir.

DOCTOR : This disease is beyond my practice.
: Yet I have known those which have walked in their
sleep, who have died holily in their beds.

LADY M.: Wash your hands; put on your dressing-gown.
[pause]
: Don't look so pale: I tell you yet again, Banquo's
buried: he cannot come out of his grave.

DOCTOR: Even this?

LADY M. : To bed, to bed: there's knocking at the gate.
: Come, come, come, come, give me your hand.
: What's done cannot be undone.
: To bed, to bed, to bed.

[Exit Lady Macbeth.]

DOCTOR : Will she go to bed now?

GENTLEWOMAN : Directly.

DOCTOR: Foul whisperings are about.
: Unnatural deeds breed unnatural troubles.
: Infected minds will unload their secrets to their deaf
pillows.
: She needs the priest more than the physician.
: God, god forgive us all!
: Look after her: remove from her all means of harm; and
always keep eyes upon her.
: So, good night.
: She has puzzled my mind, and amazed my sight.
: I think, but dare not speak.

GENTLEWOMAN [sarcastically?] Good night, good doctor.

[Exit both.]

[End of scene]