These are the opening lines of Lady Macbeth's entry speech, a
soliloquy, in act 1 scene 5. The lines refer to what Macbeth has confided to his wife in the
letter just read out by Lady Macbeth. Macbeth was the Thane of Glamis, and he has been crowned
with the title of Cawdor by King Duncan as a reward for his exemplary performance in the battles
against the rebels. Lady Macbeth endorses the proclamation of the witches that her husband shall
also be the king. But she is afraid of some constraint which she believes to be inherent in
Macbeth's nature: It is too full o' the milk of human kindness. This is a
mistake on the part of a wife who does not possess enough insight into her husband's dilemma. She
mistakes Macbeth's habit of shilly-shallying for kindness of disposition. If Macbeth is unable to
settle down to "catch the nearest way" (an euphemism for murder), it is not because he is
characteristically of a very sympathetic disposition. Further on here, Lady Macbeth
under-estimates her husband's deep-seated ambition, and over-estimates his conscientious scruples
about the means to that end:
.......................................thou wouldst be
great;
Art not without ambition, but
without
The illness should attend it: what thou wouldst
highly,
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play
false...
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