Enter LADY MACBETH.
Dun. See, see! our honoured 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 yield us for your pains, And thank us for your trouble. All our service
Lady M.
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 heaped up to them,
We rest your hermits.
Dun.
Where's the thane of Cawdor?
We coursed 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
To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess,
We are your guest to-night.
Your servants ever
Lady M. Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt,
To make their audit at your highness' pleasure, Still to return your own.
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.
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 't is done, then
't were well
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 poisoned chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust:
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
The deep damnation of his taking-off:
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
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-How now, what news?
Enter LADY MACBETH.
Lady M. He has almost supped: Why have you left the chamber?
Macb. Hath he asked for me?
Lady M.
Know you not he has?
Macb. We will proceed no further in this
business:
He hath honoured me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.
Lady M.
Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dressed yourself? hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
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,
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live à coward in thine own esteem;
Letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would,"
Like the poor cat i' the adage?
Macb.
Pr'y thee, peace:
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is none.
Lady M. What beast was it, 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 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 fit
ness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck; and know
How tender 't is to love the babe that milks me :
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn
As you have done to this.
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 wassel so convince,
That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only. When in swinish sleep
Their drenchéd natures lie, as in a death,
What cannot you and I perform upon
The unguarded Duncan? what not put upon
His
spongy officers? who shall bear the guilt
Of our great quell.
Macb.
Bring forth men-children only! For thy undaunted metal should compose Nothing but males. Will it not be received, When we have marked with blood those sleepy two Of his own chamber, and used their very daggers, That they have done 't?
Lady M. Who dares receive it other, As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar Upon his death?
Macb. I am settled, and bend up 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.
Macb. Good repose the while. Ban. Thanks, sir; the like to you. [Exit BANQUO. Macb. 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.
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
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' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still;
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
The curtained sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings; and withered murder,
Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf,
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
The 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 g 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.
SCENE II.-The same.
Enter LADY MACBETH.
Lady M. That which hath made them drunk, hath made me bold:
What hath quenched them, hath given me fire. Hark! Peace!
It was the owl that shrieked; the fatal bellman, Which gives the stern'st good-night. He is
about it:
The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms Do mock their charge with snores: I have drugged their possets,
That death and nature do contend about them, Whether they live or die.
Macb. [within.] Who's there? what, ho! Lady M. Alack! I am afraid they have awaked, And 't is not done :-the attempt, and not the deed, Confounds us. Hark! I laid their daggers ready; He could not miss them.-Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done 't.—My husband?
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