ACT III - Scene II Macbeth

Act 3, Scene 2 is a private conversation between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in the royal palace. Lady Macbeth reveals her own unhappiness, noting that getting what they wanted has brought no contentment. When Macbeth enters, he confesses that he is tormented by terrible dreams and envies the dead King Duncan, who now sleeps beyond the reach of any harm. He tells his wife that their threat is not yet eliminated—"We have scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it"—and hints that he has arranged a violent deed for that evening, though he refuses to share the details. The scene shows the power dynamic between the couple shifting, with Macbeth now taking the lead in planning further murders.

"Scotch’d" means wounded or slashed without killing. Macbeth uses this metaphor to express his fear that murdering King Duncan has only temporarily injured the threat to his power rather than destroying it. The "snake" represents the danger posed by those who might challenge his claim to the throne—particularly Banquo, whose descendants the witches prophesied would be kings. In Elizabethan belief, a wounded snake could recover and strike again, making the image especially vivid for Shakespeare’s audience. The line captures Macbeth’s growing realization that violence begets more violence: having killed once, he must kill again to feel secure.

Act 3, Scene 2 marks a decisive shift in the couple’s power dynamic. In Act 1, Lady Macbeth was the driving force behind Duncan’s murder, questioning her husband’s courage and orchestrating the plan. By Act 3, Scene 2, the roles have reversed. Lady Macbeth is now the one seeking reassurance, telling Macbeth that "What’s done is done." Meanwhile, Macbeth has taken sole command of their violent enterprise, arranging Banquo’s murder without consulting her and instructing her to "Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck." This secrecy introduces an emotional distance that foreshadows their eventual isolation from each other.

This line is one of the most quoted images of psychological torment in the play. Macbeth compares his anxious, guilt-ridden thoughts to scorpions stinging inside his mind. The metaphor conveys that his conscience is not merely troubled but actively tormenting him with venomous, inescapable pain. He speaks this line immediately before revealing his fear that Banquo and Fleance are still alive, suggesting that the specific "scorpion" tormenting him is the witches’ prophecy that Banquo’s descendants, not his own, will inherit the throne. The image also reinforces the scene’s broader pattern of animal and darkness imagery that signals Macbeth’s descent into moral corruption.

When Macbeth says "Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, / Till thou applaud the deed," he is deliberately keeping Lady Macbeth uninformed about his plan to have Banquo and Fleance murdered. This represents a significant change from Duncan’s murder, which they planned together. Scholars interpret this line in multiple ways: Macbeth may be trying to protect his wife from further guilt, asserting his independence as a decision-maker, or simply ensuring she cannot inadvertently reveal the plot. Whatever his motive, the line marks the beginning of the couple’s emotional separation, as Macbeth increasingly acts alone in his spiral of violence.

The closing lines of Act 3, Scene 2 contain some of the play’s most powerful darkness imagery. Macbeth invokes night itself, calling on "seeling night" to "Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day" and asking "thy bloody and invisible hand" to cancel the moral law that restrains him. "Seeling" is a falconry term meaning to sew shut a hawk’s eyelids during training, so Macbeth is literally asking night to blind the day so his crime can go unseen. This echoes Lady Macbeth’s earlier appeal to darkness in Act 1, Scene 5—"Come, thick night"—but now it is Macbeth who seeks the cover of darkness, illustrating how fully he has embraced evil. The imagery of crows, bats, and beetles reinforces the sense that the natural world itself is darkening in response to Macbeth’s corruption.