TO KILL A KING But screw your courage to the
sticking-place, And we'll not fail.
Lady Macbeth's seeming inability to name "the place" where the murder was committed recalls her earlier reference to "the
sticking-place." Faced with her husband's intransigence in the matter of Duncan's murder she urges him to "But screw your courage to the
sticking-place / And we'll not fail" (1.7.60-1)--rousing words to which she promptly adds the further reassurance that Duncan's two warders will be so surfeited with wine "That memory, the warder of the brain, / Shall be a fume [...] When in swinish sleep / Their drenched natures lie as in a death" (1.7.65-68).
IMPORTANT ROLE Sir Ian McKellen, patron of the Little Theatre Guild of Great Britain is keen to support amateur theatre groups across Britain SCREW YOUR COURAGE TO THE
STICKING-PLACE Andrew Barella and Corinne Kilvington will play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
Was it not possible for Gordon Brown to, as the Scottish Play has it, screw his courage to the
sticking-place and decide that the first Speaker driven from office for over 300 years would not go to the Lords?
When he asks, "If we should fail?" and she answers, "But screw your courage to the
sticking-place and we'll not fail," we feel the absence of a co-star more keenly than at any other time in the evening.
TONY Blair has finally screwed his courage to the
sticking-place, and we must follow his lead.