Somnambulist = Sleepwalker
Whenever I see the word “somnambulist” —I never hear it spoken—I always think of this famed scene from Macbeth (ACT 5, Scene 1)*:
Enter LADY MACBETH, with a taper
Gentleman: Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.
Doctor: How came she by that light?
Gentlewoman: Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; ’tis her command.
Doctor: You see, her eyes are open.
Gentlewoman: Ay, but their sense is shut.
Doctor: What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.
Gentlewoman: It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands: I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.
LADY MACBETH: Yet here’s a spot.
Doctor: Hark! she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
LADY MACBETH: Out, damned spot! out, I say!–One: two: why, then, ’tis time to do’t.–Hell is murky!–Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?–Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.
Doctor: Do you mark that?
LADY MACBETH: The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?– What, will these hands ne’er be clean?–No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that: you mar all with this starting.
Doctor: Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
Gentlewoman: She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: heaven knows what she has known.
LADY MACBETH: Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!
Doctor: What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.
Gentlewoman: I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.
Doctor: Well, well, well,–
Gentlewoman: Pray God it be, sir.
Doctor: This disease is beyond my practise: yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.
LADY MACBETH: Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale.–I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s grave.
Doctor: Even so?
LADY MACBETH: To bed, to bed! there’s knocking at the gate: come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone.–To bed, to bed, to bed!
Exit
Doctor: Will she go now to bed?
Gentlewoman: Directly.Doctor: Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets:
More needs she the divine than the physician.
God, God forgive us all! Look after her;
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night:
My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight.
I think, but dare not speak.Gentlewoman: Good night, good doctor.
Exeunt
Yes, I just dropped some Shakespeare on your ass, biatch! I went to high school!
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* Edited
