It may be seen that the really cruel one is here first Lady Macbeth and not her husband. He on the contrary must always torture himself with scruples and doubts. He constantly holds before himself the outward results of his deed, brings everything together which should protect Duncan from his dagger and can only say in regard to the opposite course: "I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'er-leaps itself, And falls on the other." And he explains to his wife, "We will proceed no further in this business." Then must Lady Macbeth rebuke him as a coward, no longer trust his love, if he, when time and place so wait upon him, retract from his purpose. She lays on the strongest accent, yes, uses the "word of fury": "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."-- and finally develops the entire plan and promises her assistance, before she can persuade her husband to the murder. She has stupefied the two chamberlains, upon whom the guilt shall be rolled, with spiced wine and drunk herself full of courage for the deed, as so many criminals. "That which hath made them drunk, hath made me bold; What hath quenched them, hath given me fire." Then she hears Macbeth within at his gruesome work uttering a terrified question, and continues: "Alack! I am afraid they have awaked, And 'tis not done:--the attempt, and not the deed, Confounds us;--Hark!--I laid their daggers ready, He could not miss them.--Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done't." Then her husband appears with the daggers. As he looks at his bloody hands a cry is wrung from him, "This is a sorry sight." Yet the Lady repulses him harshly, "A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight." Macbeth: "Methought, I heard a voice cry, _Sleep no more! Macbeth doth murder sleep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . And therefore ... Macbeth shall sleep no more!_" Lady Macbeth quiets him but he weakens his high courage by brooding over the deed. "Go, get some water, And wash this filthy witness from your hand.-- Why did you bring these daggers from the place? They must lie there. Go, carry them; and smear The sleepy grooms with blood." Then however as her husband refuses to look again upon his deed Lady Macbeth herself seizes the daggers: "The sleeping and the dead Are but as pictures; 'tis the eye of childhood, That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed, I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal." Macbeth (alone):