Macbeth - Act 3 Scene 2
The palace.
Enter LADY MACBETH and a Servant
LADY MACBETH
Is Banquo gone from court?
Servant
Ay, madam, but returns again tonight.
LADY MACBETH
Say to the King, I would attend his leisure
For a few words.
As the scene opens, Lady Macbeth is in private, but with a servant, so that she must still keep up her guard and her persona as Queen. Once the servant leaves, Lady Macbeth is free to express her most private fears and dissatisfactions.
Servant
Madam, I will.
Exit
LADY MACBETH
Nought's had, all's spent,
Where our desire is got without content:
'Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
Once Macbeth enters, Lady Macbeth puts her fears aside. She may be genuinely concerned for her husband, or she may be attempting to find out what he's concealing, or some combination of both.
Enter MACBETH
How now, my lord! Why do you keep alone,
Of sorriest fancies your companions making,
Using those thoughts which should indeed have died
With them they think on? Things without all remedy
Should be without regard. What's done is done.
Macbeth very quickly transitions from an oath of defiant determination to an envious rumination on Duncan. Once again, Macbeth frames his envy of the dead in terms of rest and sleep.
MACBETH
We have scorched the snake, not killed it:
She'll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice
Remains in danger of her former tooth.
But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,
Ere we will eat our meal in fear and sleep
In the affliction of these terrible dreams
That shake us nightly. Better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.
LADY MACBETH
Come on,
Gentle my lord, sleek o'er your rugged looks;
Be bright and jovial among your guests tonight.
Macbeth's comment suggests that, though he's gained some skill at lying, he's bitter at having to maintain a deceptive public persona.
MACBETH
So shall I, love; and so, I pray, be you.
Let your remembrance apply to Banquo;
Present him eminence, both with eye and tongue.
Unsafe the while, that we
Must lave our honours in these flattering streams,
And make our faces vizards to our hearts,
Disguising what they are.
LADY MACBETH
You must leave this.
MACBETH
O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!
Thou know'st that Banquo, and his Fleance, lives.
LADY MACBETH
But in them nature's copy's not eterne.
MACBETH
There's comfort yet; they are assailable;
Then be thou jocund: ere the bat hath flown
His cloistered flight, ere to black Hecate's summons
The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums
Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done
A deed of dreadful note.
LADY MACBETH
What's to be done?
Macbeth's conjuring of the night is reminiscent of Lady Macbeth's calling on dark powers in 1.5, as well as Macbeth's own contemplation of night and murder in 2.1
The "bond" in this case refers to the lives of Banquo and Fleance; it was an idiom of the time to consider a person's life as a kind of bond or lease granted by God or Nature. By killing Banquo and his son, Macbeth cancels their bond, and releases himself from fear of the Witches' prophecy.
MACBETH
Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night,
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day;
And with thy bloody and invisible hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me pale! Light thickens; and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood:
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;
While night's black agents to their preys do rouse.
Thou marvell'st at my words: but hold thee still;
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.
So, prithee, go with me.
Exeunt