Act 2 Macbeth

Act 2, Scene 1
The night falls over the castle at Iverness. Banquo comments to his son, Fleance, that it is as black a night as he has seen. Banquo is having trouble sleeping, for the prophecy of the Witches is the only thing on his mind. He hints that he too has been thinking ambitious thoughts and he begs the heavens for the will to suppress them: "Merciful powers/Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature/Gives way to in repose" (2.1.7-9). Banquo meets Macbeth in the courtyard and he tries to bring up the subject of the Witches but Macbeth refuses to discuss them or their predictions. He bluntly replies "I think not of them", and bids Banquo goodnight. Macbeth goes to an empty room and waits for his wife to ring the bell, signalling that Duncan's guards are in a drunken slumber. Macbeth's mind is racing with thoughts of the evil he is about to perform and he begins to hallucinate, seeing a bloody dagger appear in the air. He soliloquizes on the wickedness in the world before concluding that talking about the murder will only make the deed that much harder to complete. Suddenly, a bell rings out. Macbeth braces himself and utters these final words:
I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven, or to hell. (2.1.62-4)
In this scene the reader will feel tensed as Macbeth is about to kill the king.
Macbeth's famous soliloquy at the beginning of this act introduces an important theme: visions and hallucinations caused by guilt. The "dagger of the mind" that Macbeth sees is not "ghostly" or supernatural so much as a manifestation of the inner struggle that Macbeth feels as he contemplates the regicide. It "marshals him the way he was going," leading him toward the bloody deed he has resolved to commit, haunting and perhaps also taunting him


Act 2, Scene 2
Lady Macbeth has drugged Duncan's guards and she waits in her chamber for Macbeth to commit the murder. She hears moans of torture coming from Duncan's quarters and she loses some of herself-control. She fears that they have awoken the guards and she confesses that she would have killed the King herself if he did not resemble her own father. Macbeth returns a murderer; his hands dripping in blood of his victims. The two whispers about the deed and Macbeth nervously recounts the cries each man made before he stabbed them. Lady Macbeth tells him to "consider it not so deeply" (line 30), but Macbeth can focus only on their screams and the frightening realization that, when one cried "God bless us!", he tried to say "Amen" in response, but the word stuck in his throat. Lady Macbeth pleads with her husband to put the act out of his mind but Macbeth only thinks harder upon what he has done. He hears a voice cry "Glamis hath murther'd sleep: and therefore Cawdor/Shall sleep no more: Macbeth shall sleep no more!" (lines 41-3). This shows an overwhelming sense of guilt will prevent “innocent sleep” from giving Macbeth respite from his tormented conscience. While he has consigned Duncan to eternal rest, he himself lives now in eternal anxiety.
Lady Macbeth insists that he go wash his face and hands and place the daggers that he has so carelessly brought back with him in the hands of the guards. Macbeth refuses to return to the scene of the crime and so Lady Macbeth goes instead. Alone, Macbeth stares at his blood-soaked hands: He is guilt-stricken and mourns.
What hands are here? Ha! they pluck out mine eyes!
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. (lines 59-63)
Lady Macbeth comes back, now with hands equally bloody. They hear a knock at the castle doors and Lady Macbeth again demands that Macbeth wash up and go to bed, for they must pretend that they have been sound asleep the entire night. Macbeth's words of regret bring the scene to a close: "To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!" (Lines73-6).


Act 2, Scene 3
The knocking at the south entrance grows louder and more frequent. In a scene of comic relief a porter walks slowly to open the doors, pondering what it would be like to be the door-keeper of hell. He imagines admitting a farmer who has committed suicide after a bad harvest, an "equivocator" who has committed a sin by swearing to half-truths, and an English tailor who stole cloth to make fashionable clothes and visited brothels. Since it is "too cold for hell" at the gate, he opens the door instead of continuing with a longer catalogue of sinners. There are many gothic elements here. Macduff and Lennox are at the doors, arriving to visit King Duncan. Macbeth comes down to greet the two noblemen. Overnight he has fully regained his composure and pretends that their early morning knocking has awakened him. Macduff proceeds to the King's chambers while Lennox tells Macbeth about the fierce storm they encountered on their journey to Inverness. In the howling wind they heard 'strange screams of death' (lines 46), and there were reports of the earth shaking. Macbeth's response is ironic and cruelly comical: "Twas a rough night" (line 47). Macduff re-enters, screaming that the King has been slain. He tells Lennox that it is a horrible and bloody sight, comparing it to Medusa herself. He rings the alarm bell while Macbeth runs to King Duncan's quarters. Macbeth reaches the guards who have been awakened by the bell. Before they can proclaim their innocence, Macbeth kills them and reports to Macduff that he has murdered Duncan's assassins in a fit of fury. Lady Macbeth pretends to collapse in a shock and, while the rest of the men tend to her, Malcolm whispers to his brother, Donalbain. The brothers are not as easily deceived as the others and they know their lives are in grave danger: "There's daggers in men's eyes" Donalbain adds, and they agree to flee Scotland. Malcolm will go to England and, to be extra cautious, Donalbain will go to Ireland.

Act 2, Scene 4
In this brief transition scene, an old man reports to Ross the strange omens that have coincided with Duncan's murder. Days are as dark as nights, owls hunt falcons, and Duncan's horses have gone mad and eaten each other. These are the events that echo the slaughter of Duncan by Macbeth. Thus the unnatural death of Duncan plunges the country into both physical and spiritual turmoil.
Macduff enters and tells Ross that, since the King's two sons have fled Scotland, they are presumed to be the masterminds behind their father's murder. As a result of their treachery, their claim to the throne is forfeit, and Macbeth will be named the new King of the Scots.
In scene 4 Ross reports that "by the clock ‘tis day, and yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp" lines 6-7). This image of the darkness strangling the light of day is a meteorological manifestation of the murder of Duncan; the light of nature is suffocated just as Duncan's life is extinguished.
In Act 2, characters discuss or see birds in almost every scene. While Lady Macbeth is waiting for Macbeth to finish killing Duncan, for example, she hears an owl hooting and calls the owl a "fatal bellman"—a bird whose call is like a bell tolling for Duncan's death (act 2 scene 2 line 3). The owl could also be "fatal" as an instrument of Fate, just as Macbeth is in some ways an instrument of Fate through the intervention of the Weird Sisters. In this respect, one observes a mirroring between Macbeth and the owl: both hunt at night; the owl is observed killing a falcon, just as Macbeth kills Duncan.