LADY              You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting,

With most admired disorder.

MACBETH                  Can such things be,

And overcome us like a summer’s cloud,

Without our special wonder? You make me strange

Even to the disposition that I own,

When now I think you can behold such sights

And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks

When mine is blanched with fear.   (3.4.107-114)

Macbeth has ruined everything. It sounds a bit as if Lady Macbeth is saying, you’re such a downer! But it’s bigger than that; it speaks both to the party that’s been comprehensively pooped (as it were) and to the more general state of things. Displaced the mirth is interesting: yes, Macbeth has changed the tone, wrecked the mood, stopped everyone having a good time, but displaced has a nice sense of everything being knocked out of kilter, off-centre, like Hamlet’s ‘the time is out of joint’. He’s broke the good meeting, ruptured what was meant to be the gathering of a community, an important celebration of identity and solidarity. The disorder that’s been created, and also the disorder of Macbeth himself, is admired because it has been wondered at. Everyone’s staring at him, goggling, wondering what’s going on, and what they should do. Macbeth agrees: how could it not occasion our special wonder, such a thing, he asks? Can such things be, simply exist (and he’s never actually come out and said what he can see, has to make do with such things) and overcome us like a summer’s cloud, so sudden, so unexpected, and not have that effect? You’re making me feel even stranger, making me strange, estranging me even to the disposition that I own—you’re making me doubt my own reactions, own experience, my own sanity—when now I think you can behold such sights and keep the natural ruby of your cheeks when mine is blanched with fear. Can’t you see it? And also, perhaps especially to Lady Macbeth (although it could be addressed to all of them) don’t you believe me? How is it that you are so calm, so unaffected, rather than white with fear? It’s a neat transition, Macbeth’s panic and terror at the Ghost now being overlaid with his disbelief (and panic and terror) at the reactions of the others, and in particular his wife. His fear that he is going mad.