Act II, scene i: Inverness Castle, just after midnight (the witching hour)
Banquo and his little kid, Fleance, are keeping the watch. With no small amount of nervousness, he greets his friend Macbeth and gives him the diamond that Duncan had entrusted unto him as a gift for Lady Mac. Duncan really is a nice, generous man--who has minutes to live, as it turns out. For the second time, Mac asks Banquo for advice, but Banquo, failing to pick up on the urgent tone, says, "Sure, have your people call my people," which is in one way kind of a brush-off. Macbeth has lost his moral compass, and he might be able to rely on Banquo as some kind of ethical anchor. Or not.
In a notable soliloquy, Macbeth then fantasizes that he sees a dagger floating in the air in front of him. He pulls out his real knife, and the dagger-apparition is suddenly "gouged with blood." If I saw apparitions like this, I would be pretty freaked out, but he blathers on about how he is just like a rapist, preparing to violate the innocent, and he waits for the Pavlovian bell his wife rings to bid him to commit murder.
The bell rings, and he says, "Hear it not Duncan, for it is a knell/That summons thee to heaven, or to hell." And he does off to do his wife's bidding--or is it his own?
Act II, scene ii: Elsewhere in Macbeth's castle
Lady Macbeth is startled by the noises of the night, and she is plainly nervous. We do not expect an amoral creature such as she to feel frightened, but we quickly discern that her nerves are due more to a lack of faith in her husband's murderous abilities than in the deed itself. She also reveals that she would have done the killing herself had Duncan not resembled her father as he slept, thus intimating that she either has major Daddy issues or she has a kernel of goodness buried somewhere within that breast-feeding-killing bosom. Macbeth limps into the room, clutching two bloody daggers that she doesn't see at first. The two speak to each other quickly, disjointedly, dazedly. Macbeth is in a sorry state, convinced that he has murdered sleep and that his soul is dead. "Wherefore could I not say Amen?" he laments irrelevantly, "I had most need of blessing."
The contrast between the two is stunning in this sequence: she urges him to wash his hands; he stares at "his hangman's hands" and utters the famous lines: "the multitudinous seas incarnadine/Making the green one red," implying that all of the water of the oceans cannot clean him of his evil. She shrieks with anger when she realizes that he has erred in this most basic of deeds by bringing the weapons out with him, thus destroying their plan, and she orders him back into the room.
"I can't go back in there! He's dead!" Macbeth weeps.
Disgusted with her unmanly husband, she does it, contemptuously saying, "The sleeping and the dead/Are but as pictures," and she not only lays the daggers beside the guards (who, incidentally, she drugged--she keeps DRUGS at home? What kind of creeper-dealer is she?) she smears them with the blood of the slain king. Talk about fingerpainting.
As the scene closes, a loud series of knocks is heard at the south gate. It is dawn. Time has lost all meaning, having been suspended in what Thomas de Quincey calls "that awful parenthesis". Duncan's body is about to be discovered. . .
They rush off to bed to wash up and change into their nighties. Duncan is dead, the castle is now a seat of hellishness, and their souls are damned.
Act II, scene iii: The outer gate of Inverness Castle
A drunk porter yells knock-knock jokes while utterly failing to open the gate to the thanes waiting outside. He makes frequent references to devils, hell, liars, and criminals, and each time a knock is sounded, he yells, "Knock knock!" This scene is played for comic effect, but as we discussed in class, it probably serves other notable purposes:
1. The comic relief allows the actors playing Mac and LadyMac time to change;
2. In-universe, it allows the characters of Mac and LadyMac time to change;
3. It delays the discovery of Duncan's corpse, thus imbuing a stronger sense of fear and suspense in the audience. The time from the creation of Duncan's corpse (off-stage) to its unveiling (also off-stage) is exacerbated by distraction, allowing the audience to laugh nervously at the porter's antics while still being keenly aware that something Awful has happened;
4. The porter symbolizes the complete transformation of Macbeth's home from heaven to hell.
When he finally opens the gate, he greets an exasperated MacDuff and other thanes, who are there to transport Duncan to his next destination. MacDuff engages in some banter with the porter after refusing to tip him for his non-efforts, and the porter reveals that he has been drinking all night and has thrown up twice. The porter also reveals some other, more bawdy things, to the great delight of the audience, before Macbeth comes on out, rubbing the "sleep" from his eyes. Faker.
While Macbeth makes conversation with Lennox, another thane, and discovers that the weather that night had been particularly foul and mysterious (see Shakespeare Meteorological Imagery 101 for clarification on this key point) MacDuff goes in to awaken his beloved King. Then all hell breaks loose.
Everyone in the castle "shakes off. ..downy sleep" with the ringing of bells, the trumpeting of instruments, and MacDuff's hysterical yells. Both princes, Donalbain and Malcolm, stumble out of bed; Banquo runs in; Lady Mac comes out of her bedchamber looking "confused," and it is just chaos. MacDuff is appalled at his royal master's murder, and demands that Macbeth and Lennox go in and see the deed.
Macbeth, who seemingly minutes before was unable to go in and see what he had done, rushes in with Lennox and is gone for approximately thirty seconds. This will be vitally important to note, very soon.
MacDuff flails around, genuinely surprised, and aware that every single person in the castle that night is Suspect Numero Uno.
Macbeth and Lennox come back in, and Macbeth has completely transformed into the Triple Vodka Sour of Evil. To wit: In the teeny amount of time he has been offstage, he has killed both guards. Everyone else is amazed, and not in a good way. MacDuff demands, "Wherefore did you so?" and in excessively poetic language, Macbeth defends his utterly indefensible actions. When his wife realizes that her husband has blundered, and badly, she faints (or pretends to) and everyone finds their inner chivalry and helps her up, thus refocusing their attention from him (and his arrogant stupidity) to her (and her feigned waifishness.)
All of the men agree to get dressed and discuss this matter further, and leave the room, leaving behind the two bewildered and orphaned princes.
These boys are smart. "There are daggers in men's smiles," says 14-year-old Donalbain, who might be a freshman but has his wits about him. Malcolm decides to flee to England; Donalbain decides Ireland is nice this time of year. If they stay, they know they are next. They know they didn't do it, so therefore one of their many trusted "uncles" must have borne the knife. So out of town they go, unwittingly allowing Macbeth an easy transition to the throne of Scotland.
Act II, scene iv: Outdoors.
Ross, an Old Man (who is around 70, by his own admission, which in 1050 Scotland would be like 150 now) and MacDuff have a chat. Ross reveals that the sky has experienced an eclipse, which even in Shakespeare's day was an event of considerable supernatural implications. MacDuff states that the guards did the deed, even though he doesn't sound convinced; he then goes on to say that since the young princes slinked away in the middle of the chaos, they must have "suborned" the guards (i.e. paid them.) Macbeth will be crowned King at Scone, the traditional crowning gallery of kings. However--and this is fascinating--MacDuff is not going. Nope, he is skipping the ceremony (major faux pas!) and going home to his own castle in Fife. The die is cast; MacDuff will definitely get a detention for missing this mandatory meeting. Or will he?
