Act 2, scene 1

Characters: Banquo, Fleance, Macbeth

Summary: Macbeth has a vision of a dagger floating in the air before him, its handle pointing toward his hand and its tip aiming him toward Duncan. Macbeth tries to grasp the weapon and fails. He wonders whether what he sees is real or a “dagger of the mind, a false creation / Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain”

Quotation: “Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight?”

Act 2, Scene 2

Characters: Lady Macbeth & Macbeth

Summary: As Macbeth leaves the hall, Lady Macbeth enters, remarking on her boldness. She imagines that Macbeth is killing the king even as she speaks. Hearing Macbeth cry out, she worries that the chamberlains have awakened. She says that she cannot understand how Macbeth could fail—she had prepared the daggers for the chamberlains herself. She asserts that she would have killed the king herself then and there. Macbeth emerges, his hands covered in blood, and says that the deed is done. Badly shaken, he remarks that he heard the chamberlains awake and say their prayers before going back to sleep. When they said “amen,” he tried to say it with them but found that the word stuck in his throat. He adds that as he killed the king, he thought he heard a voice cry out:

Quotation: “A little water clears us of this deed”

Explanation: Lady Macbeth believes that by washing the blood away they cannot be held responsible for the death of the king.

Act 2, scene 3

Characters: Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Porter, Macduff, Lenox, Banquo, Donalbain.

Macduff and Lennox come to fetch the king. Macduff finds King Duncan murdered in his bed. Lennox accuses Duncan’s attendants, holding daggers and covered in blood, of the King’s murder. Macbeth announces that he killed the attendants out of love for Duncan.

Quotation: “The repetition, in a woman’s ear, would murder as it fell”

Act 2, scene 4

Characters: Old man, Rosse, Macduff

Ross and an old man discuss how strange things have been recently. Macduff joins them and says Duncan’s two attendants are the ones who killed him. … Macduff says that the suspicion falls on Duncan’s sons, Malcolm and Donalbain.

Quotation: “Tis unnatural, Even like the deed that’s done”