By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The raven himself is hoarse / That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan’: so begins Lady Macbeth’s first great soliloquy or monologue in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The speech comes in Act 1 Scene 5, immediately after Lady Macbeth has received news from a messenger that Duncan, the King, will be arriving at the castle that night, accompanied by Lady Macbeth’s own husband, Macbeth, who has just been made Thane of Cawdor by Duncan.