ROSS               What sights, my lord?

LADY              I pray you, speak not. He grows worse and worse.

Question enrages him. At once, good night.

Stand not upon the order of your going,

But go at once.

LENNOX         Good night, and better health

Attend his majesty.

LADY                          A kind good-night to all.

Exeunt Lords [and attendants]

MACBETH      It will have blood, they say: blood will have blood.

Stones have been known to move and trees to speak.

Augurs and understood relations have

By maggot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth

The secret’st man of blood. What is the night?

LADY              Almost at odds with morning, which is which.      (3.4.114-125)

 

What sights, my lord? Ross has started asking questions, voicing the questions that all the lords—and servants—surely have, and that’s enough; Lady Macbeth doesn’t trust her husband not to rave and rant about the things that he is apparently able to see that no one else can, these horrific sights, or, perhaps even worse, she doesn’t trust him not to tell all, to confess things that he hasn’t even told her about what he’s done. So the plug must be pulled, the lights turned on: the party’s over and the guests have to get out of there as fast as possible. I pray you, speak not; no time for talk, let alone asking questions. He grows worse and worse: all pretence that this is just one of those things, a minor and accustomed inconvenience, has gone. Question enrages him, and whether it does or not, having people ask him things, or perhaps question his motives, it’s an emphatic way of shutting Ross down: you’ll just make it worse if you ask. At once, good night. Stand not upon the order of your going, but go at once. Everyone needs to go right now, paying no attention to hierarchy or status or order. Leave at once using all available exits, the antithesis of the formal procession which probably began the scene. Lennox does try to have the last word, or perhaps just to maintain some sort of proprieties, or to make sure that Ross doesn’t have the last word, that he, Lennox, is being noted for his solicitousness even as he’s obeying orders. Good night, and better health attend his majesty. Indeed. You don’t want the king going full meltdown like this, apparently without prior warning or explanation—or remedy.

 

Once it’s just the two of them, Macbeth really lets rip, and one option here is for him to sound as if he’s channelling a voice that’s not his own, with this dreadful vision, these dreadful demands. It will have blood, they say: blood will have blood: revenge, blood vengeance. Banquo’s blood cries out for vengeance, like Duncan’s before him, and like Abel’s, victim of the first biblical murder at the hands of his brother Cain—and that vengeance could well be ultimately enacted, Macbeth suspects, with great weariness, by Banquo’s blood, by his descendant Fleance. And three repetitions of blood in that single line, less like drops than clots, or so much blood that it drips rhythmically to the ground. What’s more, the murder of Banquo—which Macbeth still hasn’t revealed in as many words to Lady Macbeth—will surely be discovered, perhaps by supernatural means. Because stones have been known to move and trees to speak, to reveal murders (trees bleed, too, in Dante and Spenser, screaming as they do so). And sometimes murders have been brought to light by other means, by augurs, soothsayers, prophecies, and by birds such as maggot-pies and choughs, magpies and crows (birds again, again ill-omened ones, and also birds that were sacrificed in sooth-saying in classical times). Above all he’s probably thinking of cruentation, the belief that a corpse started to bleed again in the presence of its murderer; that’s why Banquo is a bloody ghost, with so much attention given to his wounds. His very appearance is identifying Macbeth as his murderer, or as good as; his wounds are like mouths, and they speak. Even the secret’st man of blood will be brought forth: even the most carefully concealed, secretive murderer will be discovered. Macbeth now sees himself irrevocably as that man of blood and it’s only a matter of time before everyone knows it.

 

And then that weary, flat, ordinary question: what is the night? he’s back in the moment (it’s not an existential question, although on the page one might be forgiven for thinking that he’s tipped over into asking such things: what is the night, really?) What time is it? he’s asking. Lady Macbeth replies with equal weariness: it’s almost at odds with morning, which is which. It’s almost dawn, the grey hour, drained and chill. They’ve been up all night again.