At what it did so freely? From this time
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour,
40
As thou art in desire? Would’st thou have that
Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’
Like the poor cat i’th’adage?
MACBETH Pr’ythee, peace.
45
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is none.
LADY MACBETH What beast was’t then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
50
Be so much more the man. Nor time, nor place,
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me:
55
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn
As you have done to this.
MACBETH If we should fail?
LADY MACBETH We fail?
60
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep
(Whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journey
Soundly invite him), his two chamberlains
Will I with wine and wassail so convince,
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That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only: when in swinish sleep
Their drenched natures lie, as in a death,
What cannot you and I perform upon
70
Th’unguarded Duncan? what not put upon
His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt
Of our great quell?
MACBETH Bring forth men-children only!
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males. Will it not be receiv’d,
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When we have mark’d with blood those sleepy two
Of his own chamber, and us’d their very daggers,
That they have done’t?
LADY MACBETH Who dares receive it other,
As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar
Upon his death?
MACBETH I am settled, and bend up
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Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
Away, and mock the time with fairest show:
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
Exeunt.
2.1 Enter BANQUO and FLEANCE,
with a torch before him.
BANQUO How goes the night, boy?
FLEANCE
The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.
BANQUO And she goes down at twelve.
FLEANCE I take’t, ’tis later, Sir.
BANQUO
Hold, take my sword. – There’s husbandry in heaven;
Their candles are all out. – Take thee that too.
5
A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
And yet I would not sleep: merciful Powers!
Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose! – Give me my sword.
Enter MACBETH, and a servant with a torch.
Who’s there?
10
MACBETH A friend.
BANQUO What, Sir! not yet at rest? The King’s a-bed:
He hath been in unusual pleasure, and
Sent forth great largess to your offices.
This diamond he greets your wife withal,
15
By the name of most kind hostess, and shut up
In measureless content.
MACBETH Being unprepar’d,
Our will became the servant to defect,
Which else should free have wrought.
BANQUO All’s well.
I dreamt last night of the three Weïrd Sisters:
20
To you they have show’d some truth.
MACBETH I think not of them:
Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve,
We would spend it in some words upon that business,
If you would grant the time.
BANQUO At your kind’st leisure.
MACBETH If you shall cleave to my consent, when ’tis,
25
It shall make honour for you.
BANQUO So I lose none
In seeking to augment it, but still keep
My bosom franchis’d, and allegiance clear,
I shall be counsell’d.
MACBETH Good repose, the while!
BANQUO Thanks, Sir: the like to you.
30
Exeunt Banquo and Fleance.
MACBETH
Go, bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. –
Exit servant.
Is this a dagger, which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee: –
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
35
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
40
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use. –
Mine eyes are made the fools o’th’ other senses,
Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;
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And on thy blade, and dudgeon, gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. – There’s no such thing.
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. – Now o’er the one half-world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
50
The curtain’d sleep: Witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate’s off ‘rings; and wither’d Murther,
Alarum’d by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design
55
Moves like a ghost. – Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my where-about,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. – Whiles I threat, he lives:
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Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
[A bell rings.]
I go, and it is done: the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to Heaven, or to Hell. Exit.
2.2 Enter LADY MACBETH.
LADY MACBETH
That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold:
What hath quench’d them hath given me fire. –
Hark! – Peace!
It was the owl that shriek’d, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern’st good-night. He is about it.
The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms
5
Do mock their charge with snores: I have drugg’d their possets,
That Death and Nature do contend about them,
Whether they live, or die.
MACBETH [within] Who’s there? – what, ho!
LAD
Y MACBETH Alack! I am afraid they have awak’d,
And ’tis not done: – th’attempt and not the deed
10
Confounds us. – Hark! – I laid their daggers ready;
He could not miss ‘em. – Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done’t. – My husband!
Enter MACBETH.
MACBETH
I have done the deed. – Didst thou not hear a noise?
LADY MACBETH
I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry.
15
Did not you speak?
MACBETH When?
LADY MACBETH Now.
MACBETH As I descended?
LADY MACBETH Ay.
MACBETH Hark!
Who lies i’th’ second chamber?
LADY MACBETH Donalbain.
MACBETH This is a sorry sight.
20
LADY MACBETH A foolish thought to say a sorry sight.
MACBETH
There’s one did laugh in’s sleep, and one cried, ‘Murther!’
That they did wake each other: I stood and heard them;
But they did say their prayers, and address’d them
Again to sleep.
LADY MACBETH There are two lodg’d together.
25
MACBETH
One cried, ‘God bless us!’ and, ‘Amen,’ the other,
As they had seen me with these hangman’s hands.
List’ning their fear, I could not say, ‘Amen,’
When they did say, ‘God bless us.’
LADY MACBETH Consider it not so deeply.
MACBETH
But wherefore could not I pronounce ‘Amen’?
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I had most need of blessing, and ‘Amen’
Stuck in my throat.
LADY MACBETH These deeds must not be thought
After these ways: so, it will make us mad.
MACBETH
Methought, I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murther Sleep,’ – the innocent Sleep;
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Sleep, that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great Nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast; –
LADY MACBETH What do you mean?
MACBETH
Still it cried, ‘Sleep no more!’ to all the house:
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‘Glamis hath murther’d Sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more!’
LADY MACBETH
Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy Thane,
You do unbend your noble strength, to think
So brainsickly of things. Go, get some water,
45
And wash this filthy witness from your hand. –
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there: go, carry them, and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.
MACBETH I’ll go no more:
I am afraid to think what I have done;
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Look on’t again I dare not.
LADY MACBETH Infirm of purpose!
Give me the daggers. The sleeping, and the dead,
Are but as pictures; ’tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal,
55
For it must seem their guilt. Exit.
[Knocking within.]
MACBETH Whence is that knocking? –
How is’t with me, when every noise appals me?
What hands are here? Ha! they pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
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The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
Re-enter LADY MACBETH.
LADY MACBETH
My hands are of your colour; but I shame
To wear a heart so white. [knock] I hear a knocking
At the south entry: – retire we to our chamber.
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A little water clears us of this deed:
How easy is it then! Your constancy
Hath left you unattended. –
[knock] Hark! more knocking.
Get on your night-gown, lest occasion call us,
And show us to be watchers. – Be not lost
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So poorly in your thoughts.
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 340