Read the following extract from Act 1 Scene 7 of Macbeth and then answer the question
that follows.
At this point in the play, Macbeth has decided that he is no longer prepared to carry out
the plan to murder King Duncan.
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LADY MACBETH Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since?
And wakes it now to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time,
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour,
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting I dare not wait upon I would,
Like the poor cat i’th’adage?
MACBETH Prithee, peace.
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.
LADY MACBETH What beast was’t then
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man.
And to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time, nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both.
They have made themselves and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck and know
How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn
As you have done to this.
MACBETH If we should fail?
LADY MACBETH We fail?
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we’ll not fail.