g is not to understand that King Duncan is dead, but to feel how the characters feel. They may sound a bit melodramatic to us, but of course most of us have never seen the bloody corpse of a someone we loved, and none of us have Shakespeare to help us express our feelings. For Macduff, King Duncan is "the Lord's anointed temple" (2.3.68), which has been vandalized and destroyed. He tells Macbeth and Lennox that they must see for themselves. It will make them blind and turn them to stone, but then they will feel and speak has he does. Macbeth and Lennox go, and Macduff calls out to all those sleeping in the castle, "Awake, awake! / Ring the alarum-bell. Murder and treason!" (2.3.73-74). He calls upon Banquo, Donalbain, and Macolm rise from the apparent death of sleep and confront real death, to rise up like ghosts, because the King's death will be too much for living men. Enter Lady Macbeth:As the alarm bell rings out, the stage fills with people. First comes Lady Macbeth, asking why the terrible bell is ringing. Macduff tells her that the news is not for her to hear, because it would kill a woman, but then Banquo appears, and Lady Macbeth hears Macduff tell Banquo that the king has been murdered. At this point, Lady Macbeth strikes a false note. Her response to the news that her king has been murdered is, "Woe, alas! / What, in our house?" (2.3.87-88). After just two words of mourning, the "What, in our house?" comes very quickly, and it sounds defensive, as though someone had hinted that the sheets weren't clean. Luckily for Lady Macbeth, what she says is hardly noticed in the atmosphere of crisis and outrage. Banquo pleads with Macduff to tell him it didn't happen, and then Macbeth returns, saying that "from this instant, / There 's nothing serious in mortality: / All is but toys: renown and grace is dead" (2.3.92-94). Despite the fact that he is the murderer, this doesn't sound like play-acting. It really does seem that Macbeth feels...
