lady macbeth

• my dearest partner of greatness 


  In a letter to his wife, Macbeth recognises her power in their relationship
• I fear thy nature It is too full of the milk of human kindness


  LM believes M is too nice/kind to kill the king despite wanting it
• The fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements


  LM believes that she is creating a battleground where the King will die
• Come you spirits Unsex me here


  LM asks evil spirits to remove her femininity
• Take my milk for gall


  LM wants everything that makes her feminine - such as nourishing milk - to be changed into poison
• Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under't


  LM tells M he needs to be duplicitous
• Live a coward / Art thou afeard


  LM accuses M of being too afraid or frightened
• When you durst do it then you were a man


  LM questions M's masculinity
• While it was smiling in my face, Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums And dash'd the brains out


  LM says that if she had promised something - no matter how evil or traumatising - she would still go through with it so M has no excuse
• My hands are of your colour, but I shame To wear a heart so white


  LM returns having planted the daggers on the servants. She is now as guilty as he is, but is showing her strength by reprimanding him
• Out, damned spot! Out, I say


  LM cannot clean the spot of blood from her hand. It clearly isn't as simple as a bit of water. Her role in the regicide is causing irreparable damage.
• What, will these hands never be clean?


  LM is so guilty that she desperately wants the torture to end but knows nothing will stop her seeing the blood of Duncan.
• All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand


  LM acknowledges that nothing will get rid of the stench of blood. This is good line to compare to M's line about Neptune's ocean because he has the same feeling immediately after killing King Duncan.
• What's done cannot be undone


  LM knows that she can't take back what has happened.