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A ravell'd sleave is a tangled skein of thread or yarn. Macbeth uses it as a metaphor for the kind
of frustration we experience when we have so many problems that we can't see the end to any of
them. In such a case, we often say that we want to sleep on it in order to get everything straight.
Macbeth also compares sleep to a soothing bath after a day of hard work, and to the main course of
a feast. To Macbeth, sleep is not only a necessity of life, but something that makes life worth living,
and he feels that when he murdered his King in his sleep, he murdered sleep itself. [Scene
Summary]
According to Macbeth's Porter--who is still a buzzy from a night of partying--sleep is one of the
side effects of drink, which causes nose-painting, sleep, and urine (2.3.28-29). The Porter also
equates sleep with impossible dreams. He says that drink makes a man horny but unable to do
anything about it, so that he can only dream of having sex: Drink equivocates him in a sleep, and,
giving him the lie, leaves him. (2.3.35-36).
Later in the same scene, after Macduff has discovered the bloody body of King Duncan, he calls
upon Banquo and the King's sons to awake, to Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit, /
And look on death itself! (2.3.76-77). Macduff means that although sleep and death may look
similar, real sleep is downy and comforting, while real death is a horror.
When Macduff rings an alarm bell, Lady Macbeth enters, asking What's the business, / That such a
hideous trumpet calls to parley / The sleepers of the house? (2.3.81-83). Her words should remind
us that most of the people on stage look as if they have just been awakened from deep sleep.
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth certainly appear in their nightclothes, because they want everyone to
think they've been sleeping. In addition, the rest of those who are sleeping in Macbeth's castle --
Banquo, Malcolm, Donalbain, and Ross -- must appear in their nightclothes, too. This is clearly
implied when Banquo proposes that they hold a meeting, when we have our naked frailties hid, /
That suffer in exposure (2.3.126-127).
Macbeth has indeed murdered sleep
Bibliography
none
Word Count: 378
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