y of the banquet scene she makes a
prodigious and magnificent effort; her strength, and with it her
ascendancy, returns, and she saves her husband at least from an open
disclosure. But after this she takes no part whatever in the action. We
only know from her shuddering words in the sleep-walking scene, 'The
Thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?' that she has even learned
of her husband's worst crime; and in all the horrors of his tyranny over
Scotland she has, so far as we hear, no part. Disillusionment and
despair prey upon her more and more. That she should seek any relief in
speech, or should ask for sympathy, would seem to her mere weakness, and
would be to Macbeth's defiant fury an irritation. Thinking of the change
in him, we imagine the bond between them slackened, and Lady Macbeth
left much alone. She sinks slowly downward. She cannot bear darkness,
and has light by her continually: 'tis her command. At last her nature,
not her will, gives way. The secrets of the past find vent in a disorder
of sleep, the beginning perhaps of madness. What the doctor fears is
clear. He reports to her husband no great physical mischief, but bids
her attendant to remove from her all means by which she could harm
herself, and to keep eyes on her constantly. It is in vain. Her death is
announced by a cry from her women so sudden and direful that it would
thrill her husband with horror if he were any longer capable of fear. In
the last words of the play Malcolm tells us it is believed in the
hostile army that she died by her own hand. And (not to speak of the
indications just referred to) it is in accordance with her character
that even in her weakest hour she should cut short by one determined
stroke the agony of her life.

The sinking of Lady Macbeth's nature, and the marked change in her
demeanour to her husband, are most strikingly shown in the conclusion of
the banquet scene; and from this point pathos is mingled with awe. The
guests are gone. She is completely exhausted, and answers Macbeth in
listless, submissive words which seem to come with difficulty. How
strange sounds the reply 'Did you send to him, sir?' to his imperious
question about Macduff! And when he goes on, 'waxing desperate in
imagination,' to speak of new deeds of blood, she seems to sicken at the
thought, and there is a deep pathos in that answer which tells at once
of her care for him and of the misery she herself has silently endured,

You lack