As Porteous digs into the past and Hannah does her best to avoid her memories of that same past, the mystery of what happened to Michael Grey slowly begins to come to light, but not before more lives are lost. That being the case, there's absolutely no need whatsoever for Macbeth to be afraid of them. They cannot hurt him any more than scary pictures can. For him to be frightened of them, therefore, is childish in the extreme. Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood/ Clean from my hand?’– Similar images are to be found in a number of classical tragedies: Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus , 1227; Seneca, Phaedra , 715-8; Seneca Hercules Furens , 1323-9. the sleeping, and the dead,/ Are but as pictures’ – The idea of death being the ‘picture’ or image of sleep, and vice versa, is common in both Shakespeare and other writers of the period, but, here, Lady Macbeth seems to mean that the sleeping chamberlains and the murdered Duncan are only to be thought of as visual images – ‘pictures’ – since they can do no harm. Duncan, although ‘painted’ with blood, only appears a horror; he can no more threaten or hurt than a ‘painted devil’ in a child’s picture book. Lady Macbeth had earlier considered the close relationship between death and sleep in lines 7-8. Macbeth’s weakness here seems to spur her to recover her own strength of purpose. He has a completely different attitude to such imagined ‘pictures’, which he regards as more disturbing than real horrors (cf. I.iii.137-8). The more significant point she seems to make, however, is that not only is there an effective likeness between sleep and death based on the absence of awareness, but also that in her view, death is no worse than just a kind of sleep, albeit a perpetual one. Lady Macbeth fears nothing, essentially because she believes in nothing. As with Edmund in King Lear, nature (i.e., the natural or material world) is her "goddess." The idea that the dead will live forever is foreign to her: death is merely a physical state which has no more importance than the harmless condition of not being awake. Her mindset dictates that killing someone is, for all intents and purposes, no worse than just making that person go to sleep, and Macbeth should see himself not as a guilty party in the manner that religion and morality would declare him to be.

Lady Macbeth grows increasingly frustrated with her cowardly husband, which prompts her to speak the following lines: Act 4, scene 1 Macbeth approaches the witches to learn how to make his kingship secure. In response they summon for him three apparitions: an armed head, a bloody child, and finally a child crowned, with a tree in his hand. These apparitions instruct Macbeth to beware Macduff but reassure him that no man born of woman can harm him and that he will not be overthrown until Birnam Wood moves to Dunsinane. Macbeth is greatly reassured, but his confidence in the future is shaken when the witches show him a line of kings all in the image of Banquo. After the witches disappear, Macbeth discovers that Macduff has fled to England and decides to kill Macduff’s family immediately. The judging panel consisted of Geoff Bradley (non-voting Chair), Lyn Brown MP (a committee member on the London Libraries service), Frances Gray (an academic who writes about and teaches courses on modern crime fiction), Heather O'Donoghue (academic, linguist, crime fiction reviewer for The Times Literary Supplement, and keen reader of all crime fiction) and Barry Forshaw (reviewer and editor of Crime Time magazine). I've read a lot of novels by Ann Cleeves lately - why is that, you ask? Answer: she's written a lot of books, and our local libraries have a lot of them on the shelves. Not to mention the fact that I have liked most of the ones I have read. Act 3, scene 5 The presentation of the witches in this scene (as in 4.1.38 SD–43 and 141–48) differs from their presentation in the rest of the play. Most editors and scholars believe that neither this scene nor the passages in 4.1 were written by Shakespeare.

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Act 2, scene 1 Banquo, who has accompanied Duncan to Inverness, is uneasy because he too is tempted by the witches’ prophecies, although only in his dreams. Macbeth pretends to have forgotten them. Left alone by Banquo, Macbeth sees a gory dagger leading him to Duncan’s room. Hearing the bell rung by Lady Macbeth to signal completion of her preparations for Duncan’s death, Macbeth exits to kill the king.

Michael Grey, an enigmatic and secretive young man who was reported missing by his foster parents in 1972. Later, in Act V, Macbeth seems to have taken on the point of view expressed in the lines you quote when he says: Act 5, scene 1 A gentlewoman who waits on Lady Macbeth has seen her walking in her sleep and has asked a doctor’s advice. Together they observe Lady Macbeth make the gestures of repeatedly washing her hands as she relives the horrors that she and Macbeth have carried out and experienced. The doctor concludes that she needs spiritual rather than medical aid. It's somewhat ironic, given later events in the play, that Lady Macbeth should be urging her husband not to be scared of the sleeping and the dead. Later on, in the grip of a nightmare, she will sleepwalk the halls of the castle at night, desperately trying to scrub hallucinated blood from her hands. Act 3, scene 6 Lennox and an unnamed lord discuss politics in Scotland. Lennox comments sarcastically upon Macbeth’s “official” versions of the many recent violent deaths. The nameless lord responds with news of Macduff’s flight to England to seek help in overthrowing Macbeth.

The Sleeping and the Dead, Ann Cleeve's second stand-alone novel (in addition to numerous novels in two mystery series), is a taut, well-crafted tale of psychological suspense that cements her position among such masters as Minette Walters and Barbara Vine. I don't know if Porteous figured in any more stories, I certainly haven't noticed any. Maybe he left the force and became an auditor or something. Act 2, scene 4 An old man and Ross exchange accounts of recent unnatural happenings. Macduff joins them to report that Malcolm and Donalbain are now accused of having bribed the servants who supposedly killed Duncan. Macduff also announces that Macbeth has been chosen king. Ross leaves for Scone and Macbeth’s coronation, but Macduff resolves to stay at his own castle at Fife. A woman canoeing on Cranwell Lake makes a grisly discovery -- a body, tied to an anchor, that has clearly been in the water for many, many years. Detective Peter Porteous, who transferred to Cranford precisely to avoid pressure and stress, never expected that the nearby lake would provide him with the most difficult case of his career.

For the National Year of Reading, Ann was made reader-in-residence for three library authorities. It came as a revelation that it was possible to get paid for talking to readers about books! She went on to set up reading groups in prisons as part of the Inside Books project, became Cheltenham Literature Festival's first reader-in-residence and still enjoys working with libraries. Even though Macbeth has finally done the dirty deed and murdered Duncan, his scheming wife, Lady Macbeth, is still full of harsh words for him. In the run-up to the murder, she was constantly exhorting her husband to stand firm and not to get cold feet about what had to be done. She questioned his manhood, made him out to be a coward—anything to stiffen his resolve and make him go through with Duncan's murder. On a second thought, I might have disliked Porteous too if I would have read more of his thoughts. After all I didn't really like anyone. I liked part one and three and I would have enjoyed the book way more if it would have been all written from Porteous' point of view. I was really interested in the investigation, how they figure it out, who they suspect, why, what does the forensics find, and all that exciting stuff, but instead I got this insecure librarian who's just been through a divorce, and her rebel teenage daughter who thinks she's all grown up. At some point I was so bored and ready to drop it. The only thing keeping me reading was wanting to know who did it.Act 5, scene 7 On the battlefield Macbeth kills young Siward, the son of the English commander. After Macbeth exits, Macduff arrives in search of him. Dunsinane Castle has already been surrendered to Malcolm, whose forces have been strengthened by deserters from Macbeth’s army. It is also worth noting the foreshadowing of Lady Macbeth's demise later in the play with these words. She will be the one, ultimately, who is haunted by pictures of "the dead" and she will replay her nightmare of killing Duncan while "sleep"walking.

She is comparing the dead king with the sort of scary pictures, dummies, and wooden dolls that are brought out on occasions like Halloween. They are intended to be frightening, but only little children are ever frightened. So she is saying that her husband is acting childishly. The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures, and the painted devils are also only pictures. There is obviously a difference in their characters. She is a realist. She can look at the dead king without feeling frightened because she knows he is like a picture; whereas Macbeth is not frightened at the prospect of merely looking at Duncan but horrified at the prospect of being reminded of what a truly awful thing he has done. Duncan may be dead, but there is still a lot more to come--which Lady Macbeth doesn't even think about. She will be relieved of a lot of that stress because she is a woman. As Macduff says in Act 2, Scene 3: Shakespeare is full of these reverberations, and it is astonishing when you consider the connections that exist between seemingly simple lines of text and actions and words spoken by other characters in the play. Act 5, scene 5 Macbeth is confident that he can withstand any siege from Malcolm’s forces. He is then told of Lady Macbeth’s death and of the apparent movement of Birnam Wood toward Dunsinane Castle, where he waits. He desperately resolves to abandon the castle and give battle to Malcolm in the field. Contento, William G. "Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections". Archived from the original on 2008-01-06 . Retrieved 2008-01-07. In this passage, Lady Macbeth is chiefly attempting to quiet her husband and to impress upon him that no one has actually witnessed the murder he has committed. Macbeth is terrified that his killing of Duncan will be discovered. Both this fear and his sense of guilt are causing him in effect to hallucinate, as he will continue to do as the action of the drama develops. A voice has been heard crying that Macbeth has "murdered sleep" and that he shall "sleep no more." In Macbeth and other works of Shakespeare, it's often an open question as to whether such perceptions by people in a hyperemotional state are in fact illusory or are, rather, supernatural occurrences. But whatever our interpretation, it's clear that Lady Macbeth wishes to dismiss her husband's fears and that she's impatient with him and even slightly disgusted with the terrified manner in which he has reacted to the situation. By saying that the sleeping and the dead are mere pictures, she's implying that they can't hurt him any more than a lifeless picture or image could do.

The Sleeping and the Dead

Porteous isn't the only one whose life is disrupted by the body's emergence after 30 years. Prison librarian Hannah Morton has more than enough stress in her life. Her husband recently abandoned her for another woman and her teenaged daughter is increasingly rebellious. Hannah needs to get away, but a visit to her hometown of Cranford and her old friend Sally doesn't bring her the respite she'd hoped for. Instead, she learns that the body in the lake has been identified and it's her old boyfriend, Michael Grey. Act 3, scene 3 A third man joins the two whom Macbeth has already sent to kill Banquo and Fleance. The three assassins manage to kill Banquo. Fleance escapes. Act 1, scene 4 Duncan demands and receives assurances that the former thane of Cawdor has been executed. When Macbeth, Banquo, Ross, and Angus join Duncan, he offers thanks to Macbeth and Banquo. He then announces his intention to have his son Malcolm succeed him as king and his plan to visit Macbeth at Inverness. Macbeth sets out ahead of him to prepare for the royal visit. Now that Malcolm has been named Duncan’s successor, Macbeth is convinced that he can become king only by killing Duncan. No, this my hand will rather/ The multitudinous seas incarnadine/ Making the green one red.’ – ‘multitudinous’ refers to the many seas found around the globe; ‘incarnadine’ is the first recorded use of the word as a verb. Etymologically, it means ‘make flesh-coloured or pink’, but Shakespeare clearly means ‘make blood-red’ here, perhaps by confusion or association with the word ‘carmine’. The manner in which Macbeth’s speech patterns sway from impetuously flowing polysyllables to the stark stresses of ‘the green one red’ adds to the impression of his unbalanced mental state. Act 5, scene 8 Macduff finds Macbeth, who is reluctant to fight with him because Macbeth has already killed Macduff’s whole family and is sure of killing Macduff too if they fight. When Macduff announces that he is not, strictly speaking, a man born of woman, having been ripped prematurely from his mother’s womb, then Macbeth is afraid to fight. He fights with Macduff only when Macduff threatens to capture him and display him as a public spectacle. Macduff kills Macbeth, cuts off his head, and brings it to Malcolm. With Macbeth dead, Malcolm is now king and gives new titles to his loyal supporters.