Scene 1 of Act II ends with Macbeth following a floating dagger towards Duncan's chamber and holding his own dagger in his hand.
A bell rings.I go, and it is done: the bell invites me.Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knellThat summons thee to heaven, or to hell.
Scene 2 of Act II opens in an unspecified place, probably representing the Macbeths' chambers. Lady Macbeth is waiting for her husband and...
Scene 1 of Act II ends with Macbeth following a floating dagger towards Duncan's chamber and holding his own dagger in his hand.
A bell rings.
I go, and it is done: the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.
Scene 2 of Act II opens in an unspecified place, probably representing the Macbeths' chambers. Lady Macbeth is waiting for her husband and speaks a long soliloquy beginning with these lines:
That which hath made them drunk hath
made me bold;
What hath quench'd them hath given me fire.
At the end of this soliloquy her husband enters. The murder of King Duncan is skipped over between Scene 1 and Scene 2. Presumably Macbeth has returned to his chambers directly after murdering Duncan. However, Macbeth has forgotten to leave the murder weapons, the grooms' two daggers behind. This suggests that he is in a sort of trance brought on by the horror of killing Duncan without really wanting to do it but driven by his wife. She reproaches him:
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there. Go carry them, and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.
Macbeth must have returned to his own chambers in great haste because of his mixed feelings of guilt, fear, and horror. He replies:
I'll go no more:
I am afraid to think what I have done;
Look on't again I dare not.
So Macbeth goes to his chambers after killing King Duncan and stays there until he is forced to go downstairs to find out who is knocking at his gate and why the Porter is not opening it.
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