the mad queen

John Singer Sargent, 1889

LADY MACBETH
Yet here’s a spot…Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One, two. Why then ‘tis time to do’ it. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear? Who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?...The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now? What, will these hands ne’er be clean? No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that. You mar all with this starting…Here’s the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, O, O…Wash your hands, put on your night-gown, look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on ‘s grave…To bed, to bed; there’s knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand; what’s done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed. Exit.

Macbeth, 5.1.27, 30-34, 36-38, 42-43, 52-54, 56-58