Macbeth’s message has reminded her that the time is drawing near, and she resolves to chase from his brain—
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
which the witches have placed upon his brow. In the next moment she hears of the king’s expected arrival, and then she knows that the hour so long awaited has come at last, and she nerves herself for the one supreme effort of her life:
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here;
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty!
But it is a vain cry; for throughout the terrible experiences of the next few hours the feminine nature is ever dominant. If there are no women save those who deal in gentle deeds, then Jael did not drive the nail into the forehead of Sisera, and it was not Judith’s hand that compassed the death of Holofernes. And yet, if such as they were truly of the sex which claims them, by a still firmer title may we say of Lady Macbeth that she is every inch a woman. It is the woman who in this same scene greets her husband on his return: