Low ability - LO - To look at how the character of Lady Macbeth changes in her soliloquoy. Slide 2 - context setting Slide 3 - mix and match quotes from middle English to modern English. Slide 4 - video links (not mine - Youtube.com) - Dench video - http://youtu.be/2xHlngY6Bgk Animated video - http://youtu.be/2jU4JtcQ0zU

1. How does Lady Macbeth change?
Lady Macbeth – Calling the evil spirits
www.englishabc.co.uk 2014

2. Macbeth’s Castle
A messenger arrives and tells Lady Macbeth that King
Duncan rides towards the castle, and that Macbeth is on his
way as well. As she waits for her husband, Lady Macbeth
starts talking to herself, and anyone else who is listening.
On the next page…
Decide which text box on the left has the same meaning as
the text box on the right. Example: ‘1a’, ‘2d’ …
Lady Macbeth – Calling the evil spirits

3. 1 The raven himself is hoarse that croaks the
fatal entrance of Duncan under my
battlements.
A Come to my female breast and turn my
mother’s milk into poisonous acid, you
murdering demons,
2 Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
B so that no human compassion can stop my
evil plan or prevent me from accomplishing
it!
3 and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of
direst cruelty! make thick my blood; Stop up the
access and passage to remorse,
C so that my sharp knife can’t see the wound it
cuts open, and so heaven can’t peep
through the darkness and cry, “No! Stop!”
4 That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
the effect and it!
D Come, you spirits that assist murderous
thoughts, make me less like a woman and
more like a man
5 Come to my woman's breasts, and take my milk
for gall, you murdering ministers,
E So the messenger is short of breath, like a
hoarse raven, as he announces Duncan’s
entrance into my fortress, where he will die.
6 Wherever in your sightless substances you wait
on nature's mischief!
F Come, thick night, and cover the world in the
darkest smoke of hell,
7 Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest
smoke of hell,
G wherever you hide, invisible and waiting to
do evil!
8 That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
to cry 'Hold, hold!'
H and fill me from head to toe with deadly
cruelty! Thicken my blood and clog up my
veins so I won’t feel remorse
Lady Macbeth – Calling the evil spirits

4. Lady Macbeth – Calling the evil spirits
Video links
– Dame Judy Dench version
– animated version (not verbatim script)