What hands are here? Ha, they pluck out mine eyes!
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand?
(2.1)
In the same scene, Macbeth expresses anguish, realizing that nothing will be able to wipe the guilt from his conscience. He proclaims, figuratively, that nothing can wash the blood from his hands, not even all of Neptune's ocean.
Here's the smell of the blood still:
all the perfumes of Arabia
will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!
(2.1)
As the play progresses, Lady Macbeth deteriorates under the psychological burden of her deeds. Just as Macbeth proclaimed earlier with a similar figure of speech, she realizes that nothing can clear her conscience. Finally, in act V, her guilt becomes too great, and she commits suicide.
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
(5.5)
Macbeth's famous words after being told of Lady Macbeth's death; he is filled with anguish, and a expresses a view found in many of Shakespeare's characters, that of life and its seeming futility.
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