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Act 2, Scene 2
Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine
Making the green one red.
Macbeth speaks this line when he encounters his wife right after murdering Duncan. He refers to the literal blood on his hand, but also to his sense of guilt. He uses grand and dramatic language to imply that the blood could stain all the world’s oceans red (“incarnidine”). His language implies that the consequences of his action will not be easily hidden, even though Lady Macbeth implies that blood can be simply washed away. He will forever be a changed man because of what he has done. Later in the play, Lady Macbeth will also hallucinate that she has blood on her hands and cannot get them clean, symbolizing her own sense of guilt.
Act 3, Scene 4
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
(seeing the GHOST) Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee.
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold.
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with!
Macbeth says these lines to Banquo’s ghost when it appears to him at the banquet. Macbeth’s vision of the ghost shows his guilt for ordering the murder of Banquo and his young son. Macbeth speaks these lines to try and reassure himself that Banquo is truly dead, because his guilt is so powerful that he is losing his sense of reality.
Act 5, Scene 1
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.
Lady Macbeth speaks these lines after she has gone mad in Act 5, Scene 1. They are the final words she utters in the play, and they reveal how guilt has crushed her strong and assertive personality. She now has to be cared for like a child, and has no plans for the future. No matter how much she repents, the violence and death cannot be undone.
