” Come to my woman’s
breasts…Hold! Hold !”
Lady Macbeth is the speaker.
Lady Macbeth knows that she will have to play a very terrible role. On the one hand, she will have to tune her husband to the deed and on the other, she will have to work out the details as regards how to compass the murder. At the same time, she knows her own weakness too. She feels diffident and unsure of herself. She requires strength of will to tune herself to the terrible role that she has to play. So she calls upon the spirits who help murderers to convert her milk into gall or bitterness. From a woman, she wants to be changed to a cruel murderer. She solicits their help to fill herself with terrible cruelty.
She appeals to black night to come covered with the darkest smoke of hell so that even her knife cannot see the wound that it inflicts upon Duncan and heaven may not see through the thick covering of darkness and prevent her from the unnatural deed.
This invocation to murdering ministers indicates the essential womanliness of Lady Macbeth. If she had been naturally cruel and ruthless as she wanted to be to rise to the occasion that has come up with the predictions of the witches and the ensuing visit of Duncan to their castle, she would not have felt the necessity of this appeal.