Re-enter Lady MACBETH.

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

To wear a heart so white. [Knocking.] 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.] Hark! more knocking:

Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us,
And show us to be watchers:

So poorly in your thoughts.

Be not lost

Macb. To know my deed,-'twere best not know

Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou

myself.

[Knocking.

could'st!

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.

The same.

Enter a Porter.

[Knocking within.

Porter. Here's a knocking, indeed! [Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock: Who's there? Come in time; have napkins enough about you. [Knocking.] Knock, knock: Who's there? [Knocking.] Knock, knock: Never at quiet! What are you? [Knocking.] Anon, anon; I pray you remember the porter. [Opens the gate.

Enter MACDUFF and LENOX.

Macd. Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,

Port. 'Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock.

Macd. Is thy master stirring?

Our knocking has awak'd him; here he comes.

Enter MACBETH.

Len. Good-morrow, noble sir!

Good-morrow, both!

Macb.
Macd. Is the king stirring, worthy thane?
Macb.

Not yet.

Macd. He did command me to call timely on

him;

I have almost slipp'd the hour.

Macb.
I'll bring you to him.
Macd. I know this is a joyful trouble to you;

But yet, 'tis one.

Macb. The labour we delight in physics' pain. This is the door.

Macd.

I'll make so bold to call,

For 'tis my limited service."

Len.

From hence to day?

Macb.

He does:- he did appoint it so.

Len. The night has been unruly: Where we

lay,

Our chimnies were blown down; and, as they say, Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death;

And prophesying, with accents terrible,

Of dire combustion, and confus'd events,

New hatch'd to the woeful time. The obscure bird Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth Was feverous, and did shake.

Macb.

'Twas a rough night.

Len. My young remembrance cannot parallel

A fellow to it.

i. e. Affords a cordial to it.

2 Appointed service.

Re-enter MACDUFF.

Macd. O horror! horror! horror! Tongue, nor

heart,

Cannot conceive nor name thee!

Macb. Len.

What's the matter?

Macd. Confusion now hath made his master-piece! Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope

The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
The life o' the building.

Macb.

What is't you say? the life?

Len. Mean you his majesty!

Macd. Approach the chamber, and destroy your

sight

With a new Gorgon :-Do not bid me speak;
See, and then speak yourselves.-Awake! awake!
[Exeunt MACBETH and LENOX.
Ring the alarum-bell :-Murder, and treason!
Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm! awake!
Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,
And look on death itself!-up, up, and see
The great doom's image!

Malcolm! Banquo!

As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprights, To countenance this horror.

Lady M.

Enter Lady Macbeth.

[Bell rings.

What's the business,

O, gentle lady,

That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
The sleepers of the house? speak, speak,-
Macd.

'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:

The repetition, in a woman's ear,

Would murder as it fell.O Banquo! Banquo!

Ban.

Woe, alas!

Too cruel, any where.

Dear Duff, I pr'ythee, contradict thyself, it is not so.

And say,

Re-enter MACBETH and LENOX.

Macb. Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had liv'd a blessed time; for, from this instant, There's nothing serious in mortality:

All is but toys: renown, and grace, is dead;
The wine of life is drawn, and the meer lees
Is left this vault to brag of.

Enter MALCOLM and DONALBAIN.

Don. What is amiss?

Macb.

You are, and do not know it:

The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood Is stopp'd; the very source of it is stopp'd. Macd. Your royal father's murder'd.

Mal.

O! by whom?

Len. Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had

done't:

Their hands and faces were all badg'd with blood,
So were their daggers, which, unwip'd, we found
Upon their pillows:

They star'd, and were distracted; no man's life
Was to be trusted with them.

Macb. O, yet I do repent me of my fury,

That I did kill them.

Macd.

Wherefore did you so?

Macb. Who can be wise, amaz'd, temperate, and

furious,

Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man :
The expedition of my violent love

Out-ran the pauser reason.-Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood;

And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in na

ture,

For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murderers, Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers Unmannerly breech'd with gore3: Who could re

frain,

That had a heart to love, and in that heart
Courage, to make his love known?

Lady M.

Macd. Look to the lady.

Mal.

Help me hence, ho!

Why do we hold our tongues,

That most may claim this argument for our's?
Don. What should be spoken here,

Where our fate, hid within an augre-hole,

May rush and seize us? Let's away; our tears
Are not yet brew'd.

Mal.

The foot of motion.

Ban.

Nor our strong sorrow on

Look to the lady :

[Lady MACBETH is carried out.

And when we have our naked frailties hid,

That suffer in exposure, let us meet,

And question this most bloody piece of work,
To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us:
In the great hand of God I stand; and, thence,
Against the undivulg'd pretence I fight

Of treasonous malice.

Macb.

All.

Macb.

All.

And so do I.

So all.

Let's briefly put on manly readiness,

And meet i' the hall together.

Well contented.

[Exeunt all but MAL. and Don.

Mal. What will you do? Let's not consort with

them :

To show an unfelt sorrow, is an office

Which the false man does easy: I'll to England.

3 Covered with blood to their hilt.