The Sleeping and the Dead

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I don't know if Porteous figured in any more stories, I certainly haven't noticed any. Maybe he left the force and became an auditor or something.

Shakespeare is full of these reverberations, and it is astonishing when you consider the connections that exist between seemingly simple lines of text and actions and words spoken by other characters in the play.

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Act 3, scene 2 Both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth express their unhappiness. Macbeth speaks of his fear of Banquo especially. He refers to a dreadful deed that will happen that night but does not confide his plan for Banquo’s murder to Lady Macbeth.

Act 3, scene 5 The presentation of the witches in this scene (as in 4.1.38 SD–43 and 141–48) differs from their presentation in the rest of the play. Most editors and scholars believe that neither this scene nor the passages in 4.1 were written by Shakespeare. It's somewhat ironic, given later events in the play, that Lady Macbeth should be urging her husband not to be scared of the sleeping and the dead. Later on, in the grip of a nightmare, she will sleepwalk the halls of the castle at night, desperately trying to scrub hallucinated blood from her hands. She is comparing the dead king with the sort of scary pictures, dummies, and wooden dolls that are brought out on occasions like Halloween. They are intended to be frightening, but only little children are ever frightened. So she is saying that her husband is acting childishly. The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures, and the painted devils are also only pictures. There is obviously a difference in their characters. She is a realist. She can look at the dead king without feeling frightened because she knows he is like a picture; whereas Macbeth is not frightened at the prospect of merely looking at Duncan but horrified at the prospect of being reminded of what a truly awful thing he has done. Duncan may be dead, but there is still a lot more to come--which Lady Macbeth doesn't even think about. She will be relieved of a lot of that stress because she is a woman. As Macduff says in Act 2, Scene 3: Now that I think about it, there were also a few things left unexplained. Needless to say I do not recommend this book. There are far more interesting detective novels out there.Lady Macbeth grows increasingly frustrated with her cowardly husband, which prompts her to speak the following lines: Act 5, scene 1 A gentlewoman who waits on Lady Macbeth has seen her walking in her sleep and has asked a doctor’s advice. Together they observe Lady Macbeth make the gestures of repeatedly washing her hands as she relives the horrors that she and Macbeth have carried out and experienced. The doctor concludes that she needs spiritual rather than medical aid.