Lady Macbeth, upon learning that King Duncan will visit their castle, calls upon dark spirits to strip her of feminine compassion so she can help murder the king. This chilling invocation reveals her ruthless ambition.
Act 1, Scene 5. Lady Macbeth is alone at Inverness, having just finished reading a letter from her husband describing the witches' prophecy on the heath. A messenger has interrupted to tell her that Duncan, the King of Scotland, will arrive at the castle that very night to stay as their guest. Macbeth himself is still on the road home. She has perhaps fifteen minutes — possibly less — between learning Duncan is coming and Duncan walking through her door. In those minutes she decides he must be murdered under her roof. The speech is the moment of that decision being made and sealed. There is no one else on stage; the next entrance is Macbeth himself, and she will need to be ready to overpower his hesitation when he arrives. The raven she names is the actual messenger croaking outside, which she reads as omen.
Lady Macbeth is not naturally a murderer — that is the point of the speech. She is asking to be made into one. What she wants from the "spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts" is very specific: the removal of feminine pity ("the milk of human kindness" she has just accused her husband of), the thickening of her blood so remorse cannot reach her, the replacement of her mother's milk with gall. The language is medical and surgical, not vague invocation. Underneath is the knowledge that she is going to have to be stronger than her husband for this to work, and a clear-eyed understanding that what makes her a person — empathy, hesitation, the body that could feed a child — is precisely what will stop her doing it. She is asking to be hollowed out so she can use herself as a weapon.
Do not play this as a witch. The temptation to go gothic, to incant, to grow huge, will destroy the speech. She is summoning something, but she is summoning it because she does not have it. Stay close to the body — "blood," "breasts," "milk," "knife" — these are physical words and the speech is physical, not mystical. Mark the imperative verbs: "Come," "Stop up," "Make thick," "Come to my woman's breasts," "Come, thick night." These are commands she is issuing, not prayers. The shift at "Come, thick night, / And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell" is when she stops asking the spirits to change her and starts asking night to cover the murder itself — she has moved from preparation to logistics. The final line — "That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, / Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark / To cry 'Hold, hold!'" — should be quiet. The speech does not end in a scream; it ends in a woman who has just successfully done something terrible to herself, and is now ready to greet her husband. Macbeth's entrance immediately after should find her composed.
A reliable, high-impact classical piece for women, particularly for MFA programs, classical theatre generals, and any audition testing how you handle verse with stakes. It shows control, intelligence, and the capacity to play someone genuinely dangerous without melodrama. It is well-used but not saturated — every panel has heard it, but a good version still stands out because most actors play the witchcraft instead of the woman. It works especially well in audition rooms because it is short, self-contained, has a clear arc (decision to commitment), and does not require a scene partner. Avoid it if you are auditioning for screen-naturalistic comedy or contemporary television where the verse and the demonic invocation will land as theatrical. Also avoid if you have not done the work on what each physical image actually means — generic "evil" playing dies fast in front of a classical panel.
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry 'Hold, hold!'