They stared, and were distracted; no man's life
Was to be trusted with them.

_Macb._ O, yet I do repent me of my fury
That I did kill them.

_Macd._ Wherefore did you so?

_Macb._ Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,
Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
The expedition of my violent love
Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin laced with his golden blood;
And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature
For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murderers,
Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breech'd with gore: who could refrain,
That had a heart to love, and in that heart
Courage to make's love known?

At this point Lady Macbeth exclaims, 'Help me hence, ho!' Her husband
takes no notice, but Macduff calls out 'Look to the lady.' This, after a
few words 'aside' between Malcolm and Donalbain, is repeated by Banquo,
and, very shortly after, all except Duncan's sons _exeunt_. (The
stage-direction 'Lady Macbeth is carried out,' after Banquo's
exclamation 'Look to the lady,' is not in the Ff. and was introduced by
Rowe. If the Ff. are right, she can hardly have fainted _away_. But the
point has no importance here.)

Does Lady Macbeth really turn faint, or does she pretend? The latter
seems to have been the general view, and Whately pointed out that
Macbeth's indifference betrays his consciousness that the faint was not
real. But to this it may be answered that, if he believed it to be real,
he would equally show indifference, in order to display his horror at
the murder. And Miss Helen Faucit and others have held that there was no
pretence.

In favour of the pretence it may be said (1) that Lady Macbeth, who
herself took back the daggers, saw the old King in his blood, and
smeared the grooms, was not the woman to faint at a mere description;
(2) that she saw her husband over-acting his part, and saw the faces of
the lords, and wished to end the scene,--which she succeeded in doing.

But to the last argument it may be replied that she would not willingly
have run the risk of leaving her husband to act his part alone. And for
other reasons (indicated above, p. 373 f.) I decidedly believe that she
is meant really to faint. She was no Goneril. She knew that she could