The Sea-coast Act II Scene 1 summary and analysis

Act II: Scene 1

The Sea-coast 

the sea coast 12th night

Summary

The second act begins on the seacoast of Illyria. Viola's twin brother, Sebastian, was not drowned after all. He survived the shipwreck and enters on stage talking with Antonio, a sea captain (not the same sea captain who managed to reach shore with Viola). Sebastian, like his sister Viola, is deeply grieved; he is sure that Viola was lost at sea and perished in the storm. He blames the stars and "the malignancy of [his] fate" for his dark mood and his misfortune. He turns to the sea captain, and, feeling that he can be straightforward with him because of what they have both just experienced, he tells the captain that he wants to be alone. He needs solitude because of his terrible grief; his troubles are many, and he fears that they will spread like an illness and "distemper" the sea captain's mood. He cares too much for the captain to unburden his woes on him.

Antonio, however, will not leave Sebastian; his friendship for the young man is strong enough to withstand Sebastian's emotionalism. Sebastian's composure suddenly breaks, and he bewails his lot; if Antonio had not saved him, he would now be dead at the bottom of the sea, alongside his beloved sister. "If the heavens had been pleased," his fate would have been the same as his sister's. He then recalls his sister's beauty, and he remembers her keen mind, a mind that was extraordinary and enviable. At this point, Antonio protests. Sebastian was correct when he spoke earlier of his dark moodiness being able to "distemper" Antonio's temperament. The sea captain says that Sebastian's lamentations are "bad entertainment," a fact that Sebastian quickly realizes and quickly apologizes for.

Antonio changes the subject to matters more practical and more immediate. He asks Sebastian if he can be the young man's servant. That single favor would please him immensely. That single favor, however, Sebastian cannot grant him, for as much as he would like to do so, he dare not take Antonio with him. His destination is Duke Orsino's court and Antonio has "many enemies" in Orsino's court. Yet "come what may," Antonio says that he will always treasure his friendship with Sebastian. Thus, he will go with Sebastian. Antonio's devotion to Sebastian is admirable; he recognizes the dangers ahead if he follows Sebastian to Orsino's palace, but after the horrors of the shipwreck, future "danger shall seem sport."

Analysis

This scene takes us away from the regal households and out to the seashore on another part of the coast of Illyria. The two new characters who are introduced, Sebastian and Antonio, form the third plot line of the comedy. Sebastian is Viola's twin brother whom she believes was probably drowned at sea, and this fact will create comic complications, which will be resolved in the fifth act. Like his sister, Sebastian is kind and good-looking. When Sebastian describes his sister as a lady "though it was said she much resembled me, was yet of many accounted beautiful," we are being prepared for the confusion later in the play when Sebastian will be mistaken for Cesario (Viola), and Viola (as Cesario) will be mistaken for Sebastian by Antonio, the sea captain.

Sebastian will appear throughout the rest of the comedy as more impulsive and more emotional than his twin sister; for example, he will consent to marry a woman (Olivia) whom he has just met — an act of extreme impetuosity. But yet we must assume that Sebastian possesses many good qualities to have attracted the loyalty of such a stalwart man as the sea captain, who decides to risk his life to accompany the handsome young lad to Duke Orsino's court.

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MACBETH ACT 2 FULL ACT LECTURE ANALYSIS

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Macbeth Act 2, Scene 4: Outside Macbeth's castle summary and analysis

Act II: Scene 4

Summary

On his way from the castle, the Thane of Ross encounters an Old Man, who confirms the widespread reports of disruption in the natural world. Macduff appears with fresh news that Duncan is buried, that his sons have fled, and that the kingship has passed to Macbeth. The opening prophecies of the Witches have been completed.

Analysis

Like the Witches, the Old Man is a traditional figure in many works of literature. In contrast to the Witches' vision of what will be, the old man exemplifies the certainty of what has been: The notion of age, tradition and natural continuity, as well as wisdom are all bound up in this single figure. In words that recall those of the much younger Lennox in the previous scene, the old man describes how the world that he knows and trusts has been turned on its head. All the named events are not simply natural disasters; they are reversals of the expected natural order: Daylight has been replaced by night; a falcon (a bird of prey) has been killed by an owl, a much smaller creature; and the horses of the king's stables are said to have eaten each other.

The entry of Macduff allows Shakespeare to consolidate the first half of the play and to confirm that Macbeth has been named king and has already gone to Scone, the traditional place of coronation for Scottish kings, to be crowned. The imagery of this scene acts partly as a bridge between the first half of the play and the second. It recalls the first soliloquy of Lady Macbeth in Act I, Scene 5 ("Come, you Spirits"), and it foreshadows the language at the end of Act III, Scenes 2 and 3, concerning the murder of Banquo. The subplot of this second murder forms the basis of the whole of the next act.

Glossary

trifled (4) made trivial

travelling lamp (7) the sun

minions of their race (15) best of their breed

suborn'd (24) bribed

ravin (28) eat up

benison (40) blessing

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Macbeth summary and analysis Act 2, Scene 3: The same 2 Court of Macbeth's castle

Act II: Scene 3

Summary

The knocking continues, but the porter does not immediately open the door. Instead, he plays a game with himself in which he imagines himself as the porter of hell and jokes about the kind of sinners he might let in. Eventually, however, he opens the door to Lennox and Macduff, who have been commanded to call upon the king to arrange the royal departure. It is early morning, and most of those in the castle are still asleep. One who is not is Macbeth, and he directs Macduff to the king's chamber. Only a moment passes before the news breaks: King Duncan has been murdered.

On hearing the terrible revelation, the Macbeths' acts are beyond suspicion, but Macbeth admits to having killed the guards of the King's chamber — not part of the original plan — and Lady Macbeth faints. The assembled thanes of Scotland resolve to avenge the act of treason. Duncan's sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, thinking themselves open to the charge of murdering their father, plan to flee to England and Ireland.

Analysis

This busy scene begins with a moment of light comedy, which serves to heighten the suspense. The porter of Macbeth's castle, drunk from the previous night's revels, complains that his job is worse than that of the porter of hell. In a private game with the audience, he engages in a piece of stand-up comedy in which he imagines himself as that beleaguered servant, opening and closing the gate on the damned. The first two examples he uses (that of a farmer and an equivocator) have specific religious and historical connotations. A few months before Macbeth was performed at court in front of the Protestant King James I, the infamous Gunpowder Plot (the aim of which was to murder the English king) took place. The conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, may have been encouraged by a Catholic convert called John Garnett, whose nickname was "farmer." The practice of lying in court about one's religion by employing confusing or ambiguous language was known as equivocation. Many examples of ambiguous language are heard throughout Macbeth, and of course the words of the Witches themselves are not entirely clear. So the porter's examples are not entirely without significance, even though they may be unintentional.

The humor continues when the porter unbolts the door to Macduff and Lennox and offers a series of bawdy jokes, momentarily distracting the audience from the fact that Macbeth must at this very moment be washing his hands of the blood of the previous scene. Then Macbeth enters, apparently at ease, to direct Macduff to the king's room.

While Macduff goes to wake the king, Lennox remarks upon the extraordinary weather of the previous night. His catalogue of unnatural events — high winds, screaming and wailing voices, the calling of birds, and tremors in the earth — is apocalyptic in character and suggests a direct connection between the events of the universe at large and the events within the castle. Macbeth's response — "@'Twas a rough night" — is so anticlimactic as to provoke incredulity. Is Lennox's subsequent line — "My young remembrance cannot parallel / A fellow to it" (64-65) — intended to be spoken with puzzlement at Macbeth's reaction?

At this moment, the dam breaks. Note that the literal truth of Macduff's announcement — "Our royal master's murdered" — is preceded by several lines in which the murder is depicted in a figurative or metaphorical fashion, almost as if Macduff dare not name the deed: "Murther hath broke ope / The Lord's anointed Temple," "destroy your sight / With a new Gorgon," and "see / The great doom's image!" It's interesting to compare these lines of Macduff's, spoken in all innocence, with those of the all-too-guilty Macbeth, who also approaches the matter metaphorically: "The wine of life is drawn . . . " and "The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood / Is stopp'd . . . ."

Excusing his own outburst of passion in killing the guards of the king's chamber, Macbeth explains that he could not act otherwise when he saw the king: "Here lay Duncan, / His silver skin laced with his golden blood; / And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature / For ruin's wasteful entrance" (113-116). That Macbeth cannot refrain from the use of metaphor may be an indication that he, too, cannot bear to consider the bloody truth. His words are at once highly poetic and, at the same time, enormously revealing of the deep ironies of which Macbeth must be aware. Not only has he "murdered sleep," but he has destroyed the actual fabric of nature.

For whatever reason — perhaps because Lady Macbeth thinks that Macbeth's powerfully rhetorical speech is the precursor to an admission of their combined guilt — she suddenly faints. Certainly, as soon as she is carried from the stage, the pace changes. There is no more time for speculation: Macbeth and the other thanes rapidly swear to meet "in manly readiness" to avenge this act of "treasonous malice." Malcolm and Donalbain alone remain to voice their understandable concerns: Their semi-proverbial sentences "To show an unfelt sorrow is an office / Which the false man does easy" (138-139) and "Where we are / There's daggers in men's smiles" (141-142) both uncomfortably recall the language of earlier scenes.

Glossary

old (2) frequent

napkins (6) handkerchiefs

equivocator (9) liar

hose (14) trousers

made a shift to cast him (40) with effort I overpowered the drink

Gorgon (71) hideous monster than turns beholders to stone

lees (93) dregs

vault (94) wine cellar, punning on grave

pauser (109) restraining force of

auger-hole (120) the tiniest crevice

scruples (127) doubts

undivulg'd pretence (129) undisclosed plot of treason

the near in blood . . . bloody (142) close relations are more likely to be suspected of murder

warrant in that theft (143) this kind of stealing (away) is justified

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Act 2, Scene 2: The same Court of Macbeth's castle summary and analysis

Act II: Scene 2

 

Summary

Having drugged the guards of Duncan's chamber, Lady Macbeth now meets her husband in the lower courtyard as he emerges from the king's room itself. Macbeth's conscience is clearly disturbed by what he has done, and once more his wife criticizes his lack of firmness. The success of their plot is also in jeopardy because Macbeth has brought the daggers with him. Lady Macbeth returns to the scene of the murder in order to place the daggers and to smear the king's sleeping servants with blood, a deed that presents her with none of the horror that now affects Macbeth. As the scene closes, we hear, with the Macbeths, a loud and persistent knocking at the door.

Analysis

Lady Macbeth's opening words introduce a new level of emotional intensity. Fear of failure has been replaced with fear of discovery, and even though she describes herself as drunk with boldness and on fire with passion, she is just as easily alarmed as her husband is by the tiniest noises and movements. Her swift changes of thought and speech foreshadow the language of her final lapse into madness in the sleepwalking scene (Act V, Scene 1), when she relives these same moments.

Yet, despite all this, Lady Macbeth appears to be sufficiently hardened to the deed to be able to make several horribly ironic comments, including the observation that she would have committed the murder herself, had she not been put off the idea by the resemblance of the sleeping king to her own father. Note the similarity of this line — by which she seems to excuse something lacking in herself — with her earlier taunt to Macbeth that she would have dashed out the brains of her own child had she sworn to do so. The fact is that what Lady Macbeth would do her husband has actually done. The total reversal of roles that she anticipated cannot now occur because, despite his stricken conscience, Macbeth has done what she could never do.

The quick-fire dialogue and fragmented line structure in this part of the scene denote a sense of frightened urgency in both characters. Macbeth's concern centers on two major areas. First, he believes he has "murder'd sleep." Sleep, he argues, ought to bring physical calm in the same way that prayer soothes the spirit. But in his case, the ability both to pray and to sleep has been cancelled. Macbeth is haunted by the knowledge that he will never again rest easy in his own bed: "Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor / Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more!" (41-42). Lady Macbeth, refusing to accept such "brainsickly" thoughts, reminds Macbeth of the familiar comparison that "the sleeping and the dead / Are but as pictures." Ironically, she is the one who will be kept from sleeping by the picture of death long after it has left Macbeth's mind.

The second area of Macbeth's concern is the bloodiness of the deed and specifically the fact that his own hands bear witness to the unnatural deed of murder. Again, for Lady Macbeth, blood is only like paint used to daub the picture of death and can be easily washed off. But Macbeth is aware of the deep stain beneath the surface. His capacity for recognizing the grand scale of his action, which foreshadows his later remark that he is "in blood stepped in so far," is missing in Lady Macbeth.

At this point, the knocking begins. Like the beating of the heart in Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Tell-Tale Heart," the noise is partly the knocking of their consciences and partly an actual exterior knocking. Symbolically, the knocking is the knocking of justice, or of vengeance.

Glossary

bellman (3) man who summoned condemned prisoners

surfeited (5) drunk

their charge (6) that is, Duncan

second course (38) that is, at the banquet of life

gild (55) paint them with golden blood

incarnadine (61) make red

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Macbeth Act 2, Scene 1: Court of Macbeth's castle summary and analysis

Act II: Scene 1

 

Summary

As Macbeth makes his way toward the king's bedchamber, he encounters Banquo with his son Fleance. Banquo has been unable to sleep and explains to Macbeth that he has been dreaming of the weird sisters. After arranging to meet again in order to discuss the matter, Banquo asserts his allegiance to the king and bids good night to Macbeth. No sooner is Macbeth alone, than he has an extraordinary experience. Either in the heat of the moment or through some supernatural visitation, he sees a ghostly dagger indicating the way to the Duncan. Convinced that "there's no such thing," he climbs to the king's chamber.

Analysis

The opening dialogue sets the scene: It is past midnight, the moon has set, and the "candles" of heaven — the stars — cannot be seen. Symbolically, the airy lightness that greeted Duncan's arrival at the castle in Act I has completely vanished, to be replaced by brooding darkness.

In this opening scene of Act II, as in the later Porter scene, the audience feels momentarily suspended from the action but in no way removed from the intensity of emotion as the innocent Banquo and his son pass the time of night. The moment at which Banquo so very nearly draws his sword on a potential intruder (actually Macbeth) is a master-stroke of dramatic irony: Banquo has no idea of what the audience knows.

The dagger speech (32-65) is, deservedly, one of the most celebrated in Shakespeare. Like "If it were done" (Act I, Scene 7), this soliloquy is a fascinating piece of stage psychology. The structure of the lines precisely echoes the swings from lucidity to mental disturbance that characterize Macbeth throughout the play. There are three false alarms: "I see thee still . . . I see thee yet . . . I see thee still!" Between each of these alarms comes a moment of respite in which Macbeth appeals to the world of the physical senses: "Art thou not . . . sensible to feeling?" "Mine eyes are made the fools of the other senses," and "It is the bloody business which informs thus to mine eyes."

Nevertheless, as in the earlier scene with his wife, Macbeth eventually capitulates. The urge to become king is now strong in him. In his final lines, as he ascends to the king's chamber, he imagines himself as the personification of Murder itself, stealthily making its way towards its victim. The change of tone to one of high rhetoric and classical allusion (Hecate, Tarquin) may seem out of place, but not if we imagine Macbeth putting on a "mask" of language in preparation for the murder. The distinction between word and deed in the last line is an idea that occurs frequently in Shakespeare. What we say and what we do are frequently very different matters. But in the final couplet, Macbeth seems to transfer his own doubts concerning the afterlife to Duncan: Whether the king will go to heaven or hell is now an academic matter; ironically, for Macbeth himself, the outcome is likely to be more certain.

Glossary

husbandry in heaven (4) the gods are economical with their starlight

cleave to my consent (25) approve of my plan

augment (27) support

dudgeon (46) handle

gouts (46) drops

Hecate (52) goddess of witchcraft

Tarquin (46) murderous king of Rome

prate (58) prattle

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Twelfth Night Act 2 Scene 1 Summary and Analysis

Act II: Scene 1

Summary

The second act begins on the seacoast of Illyria. Viola's twin brother, Sebastian, was not drowned after all. He survived the shipwreck and enters on stage talking with Antonio, a sea captain (not the same sea captain who managed to reach shore with Viola). Sebastian, like his sister Viola, is deeply grieved; he is sure that Viola was lost at sea and perished in the storm. He blames the stars and "the malignancy of [his] fate" for his dark mood and his misfortune. He turns to the sea captain, and, feeling that he can be straightforward with him because of what they have both just experienced, he tells the captain that he wants to be alone. He needs solitude because of his terrible grief; his troubles are many, and he fears that they will spread like an illness and "distemper" the sea captain's mood. He cares too much for the captain to unburden his woes on him.

Antonio, however, will not leave Sebastian; his friendship for the young man is strong enough to withstand Sebastian's emotionalism. Sebastian's composure suddenly breaks, and he bewails his lot; if Antonio had not saved him, he would now be dead at the bottom of the sea, alongside his beloved sister. "If the heavens had been pleased," his fate would have been the same as his sister's. He then recalls his sister's beauty, and he remembers her keen mind, a mind that was extraordinary and enviable. At this point, Antonio protests. Sebastian was correct when he spoke earlier of his dark moodiness being able to "distemper" Antonio's temperament. The sea captain says that Sebastian's lamentations are "bad entertainment," a fact that Sebastian quickly realizes and quickly apologizes for.

Antonio changes the subject to matters more practical and more immediate. He asks Sebastian if he can be the young man's servant. That single favor would please him immensely. That single favor, however, Sebastian cannot grant him, for as much as he would like to do so, he dare not take Antonio with him. His destination is Duke Orsino's court and Antonio has "many enemies" in Orsino's court. Yet "come what may," Antonio says that he will always treasure his friendship with Sebastian. Thus, he will go with Sebastian. Antonio's devotion to Sebastian is admirable; he recognizes the dangers ahead if he follows Sebastian to Orsino's palace, but after the horrors of the shipwreck, future "danger shall seem sport."

 

Analysis

This scene takes us away from the regal households and out to the seashore on another part of the coast of Illyria. The two new characters who are introduced, Sebastian and Antonio, form the third plot line of the comedy. Sebastian is Viola's twin brother whom she believes was probably drowned at sea, and this fact will create comic complications, which will be resolved in the fifth act. Like his sister, Sebastian is kind and good-looking. When Sebastian describes his sister as a lady "though it was said she much resembled me, was yet of many accounted beautiful," we are being prepared for the confusion later in the play when Sebastian will be mistaken for Cesario (Viola), and Viola (as Cesario) will be mistaken for Sebastian by Antonio, the sea captain.

Sebastian will appear throughout the rest of the comedy as more impulsive and more emotional than his twin sister; for example, he will consent to marry a woman (Olivia) whom he has just met — an act of extreme impetuosity. But yet we must assume that Sebastian possesses many good qualities to have attracted the loyalty of such a stalwart man as the sea captain, who decides to risk his life to accompany the handsome young lad to Duke Orsino's court.

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