Mess. So please you, it is true: our thane is Where they most breed and haunt, I have coming;

observ'd
The air is delicate.

9

One of my fellows had the speed of him,
Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely

more

Than would make up his message.
Lady M.

He brings great news.

40

Give him tending:
Exit Messenger.
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts! unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top full
Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering
ministers,

Enter MACBETH.

Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!
Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter !
Thy letters have transported me beyond
This ignorant present, and I feel now
The future in the instant.

My dearest love,

Macb.

Duncan comes here to-night.
Lady M.

And when goes hence?
Macb. To-morrow, as he purposes.
Lady M.

Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick
night,

50

To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess,
We are your guest to-night.
Lady M.

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry 'Hold, hold!'

|

Your servants ever Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt,

To make their audit at your highness' pleasure,
Still to return your own.

O! never

Shall sun that morrow see.
Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent
flower,

Macb. We will speak further.
Lady M.

To alter favour ever is to fear.
Leave all the rest to me.

61

But be the serpent under 't. He that's coming
Must be provided for; and you shall put
This night's great business into my dispatch;
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.

70

Only look up clear;

Exeunt.

SCENE VI.-The Same. Before the Castle.

Hautboys and torches.

Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, BANQUO, LENNOX, MACDUFF, ROSS, ANGUS, and Attendants.

Enter Lady MACBETH.

Dun.

See, see, our honour'd hostess ! The love that follows us sometime is our trouble, Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you How you shall bid God 'ild us for your pains. And thank us for your trouble.

Lady M.
All our service,
In every point twice done, and then done double,
Were poor and single business, to contend
Against those honours deep and broad, wherewith
Your majesty loads our house for those of old,
And the late dignities heap'd up to them,
We rest your hermits.

This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve
By his lov'd mansionry that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle:

Dun. Where's the Thane of Cawdor?
We cours'd him at the heels, and had a purpose
To be his purveyor; but he rides well,
And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp
him

20

Dun.
Give me your hand;
Conduct me to mine host: we love him highly,
And shall continue our graces towards him.
By your leave, hostess.

Exeunt.

30

SCENE VII.-The Same. A Room in the Castle. Hautboys and torches. Enter, and pass over the stage, a Sewer, and divers Servants with dishes and service. Then enter MACBETH.

Macb. If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well

Dun. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air The deep damnation of his taking-off;
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.
Ban.

It were done quickly; if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'd jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor; this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'dchalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust: 12
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his
host,

Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels trumpet-tongued against

20

And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin, hors'd
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on the other-

Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,

With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his
design

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 whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat he
lives:
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.

SCENE II. - The Same.

Enter Lady MACBETH.

60

Macbeth does murder sleep,' the innocent sleep,
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 M.

What do you mean? 40 Macb. Still it cried 'Sleep no more!' to all the house :

Exit. Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore
Cawdor

Lady M. 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.

about it:

He is

The doors are open, and the surfeited grooms 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.

Mach. Within. Who's there? what, ho! Lady M. Alack! I am afraid they have awak'd, And 'tis not done; the attempt and not the deed 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.

Mach. I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?

14

Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more !'

Lady M. 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,
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.
Macb.

I'll go no more: 50
I am afraid to think what I have done;
Look on 't again I dare not.
Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead
Lady M.
Infirm of purpose!
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;
For it must seem their guilt.

Exit. Knocking within.
Macb.
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 Lady M. I heard the owl scream and the Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will crickets cry.

Did not you speak?

rather

The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.

Re-enter Lady MACBETH.

61

Lady M. My hands are of your colour, but I
shame

To wear a heart so white. Knocking within
I hear a knocking
At the south entry; retire we to our chamber;
A little water clears us of this deed;
How easy is it then! Your constancy
Hath left you unattended. Knocking within.
Hark! more knocking.