Lady Macbeth — “Come, You Spirits”
Lady Macbeth has just read her husband's letter about the witches' prophecy and learned Duncan will sleep under her roof tonight. Alone, she calls on the spirits of darkness to strip away everything soft in her so she can steel herself and her husband to murder the king. She wants the resolve to kill, right now.
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! make thick my blood,
Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th’ effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, your murd’ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark
To cry, “Hold, hold!”
How to Play It
Play the active objective: this is a summoning, not a mood. She is calling the spirits into her body and giving them orders — every imperative (unsex, fill, make thick, stop up, come) is a demand aimed at an unseen force in the room. Keep the target specific and outside yourself.
The trap is generalized evil — hissing the words and indicating wickedness. That reads as acting, not wanting. The power comes from how much she has to overcome her own nature to do this; let the effort cost her something.
Land on strong verbs, not adjectives. If you punch the doing-words and let the images do the rest, the speech drives itself and you never have to push for intensity.
Best for actors in their 20s–40s who can hold stillness under pressure. It is famous, so casting has heard it — but it stays fresh when the ambition underneath is specific and human rather than melodramatic.
Want Will to Coach You Through It?
A monologue is a two-person scene where the other person never speaks. Working it 1-on-1 with a working actor is the fastest way to make it land.