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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 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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Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second

course,

Chief nourisher in life's feast;"

Lady M. What do you mean?

Macb. Still it cried, "Sleep no more!" to all the house:

"Glamis hath murdered sleep; and therefore Cawdor

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.

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Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather

The multitudinous seas incarnardine,
Making the green-one red.

Re-enter Lady MACBETH.

Lady M. 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. 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 shew us to be watchers. Be not lost
So poorly in your thoughts.

Macb. To know my deed, 't were best not know
myself.
[Knock.

Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst ! [Exeunt.

SCENE III.-The same.

Enter a Porter. [Knocking within.

Port. Here's a knocking, indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate, he should have old turning the key. [Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock. Who's there, i' the name of Belzebub? Here's a farmer that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty Come in time; have napkins enough about you; here you 'll sweat for 't. [Knocking.] Knock, knock: who's there i' the other devil's name? 'Faith, here's an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either scale; who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come in, equivocator. [Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock; who's there? Faith, here's an English tailor come hither, for stealing out of a French hose: come in, tailor; here you may roast your goose. [Knocking.] Knock, knock: never at quiet! What are you?-But this place is too cold for hell. I'll devil-porter it no further: I had thought to have let in some of all professions that go primrose way to the everlasting bonfire. [Knocking.] Anon, anon; I pray you, remember the porter. [Opens the gate.

the

Enter MACDUFF and LENOX. Macd. Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed, That you do lie so late?

Port. 'Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things.

Macd. What three things does drink especially provoke?

Port. Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes and unprovokes: it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to: in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.

Macd. I believe drink gave thee the lie last

night.

Port. That it did, sir, i' the very throat o' me: but I requited him for his lie; and I think, being too strong for him, though he took up my legs sometime, yet I made a shift to cast him. Macd. Is thy master stirring ?Our knocking has awaked him; here he comes.

Enter МАСВЕТН.

Len. Good-morrow, noble sir.
Macb.

Good-morrow, both.

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Macd.

I'll make so bold to call, For 't is my limited service. [Exit MACDUFF. Len. Goes the King hence to day? Macb. He does: he did appoint so.

Len. The night has been unruly: where we lay, Our chimneys 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 confused events,
New hatched to the woful time. The obscure bird
Clamoured the livelong night: some say, the earth
Was feverous, and did shake.

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Ban.

Too cruel, anywhere.

Dear Duff, I pr'y thee, contradict thyself,
And say, it is not so.

· Re-enter MACBETH and LENOX.

Macb. Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had lived 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 mere 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 stopped; the very source of it is stopped.
Macd. Your royal father's murdered.
Mal. O, by whom?

Len. Those of his chamber, as it seemed, had

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

Outran the pauser reason. Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin laced with his golden blood;
And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature,
For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murderers,
Steeped in the colours of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breeched with gore: Who could re-
frain,

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

Lady M.

[Bell rings.

Mal.

Lady M. What's the business, That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley The sleepers of the house? speak, speak.

Help me hence, ho!

Macd. Look to the lady.

Why do we hold our tongues,

That most may claim this argument for ours?

Don. What should be spoken here, Where our fate, hid in an augre-hole,

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[Exeunt all but MALCOLM and DONALBAIN. Mal. What will you do? Let's not consort with them:

To shew an unfelt sorrow, is an office
Which the false man does easy. I'll to England.
Don. To Ireland, I; our separated fortune
Shall keep us both the safer: where we are,
There's daggers in men's smiles: the near in blood,
The nearer bloody.

Mal.
This murderous shaft that 's shot
Hath not yet lighted; and our safest way
Is to avoid the aim. Therefore, to horse;
And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,
But shift away: there's warrant in that theft,
Which steals itself when there's no mercy left.

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'Gainst nature still:

Thriftless ambition, that will ravin up

Thine own life's means!-Then 't is most like The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth.

Macd. He is already named; and gone to Scone To be invested.

Rosse.

Where is Duncan's body?
Macd. Carried to Colm-kill;

The sacred storehouse of his predecessors,
And guardian of their bones.

Rosse. Will you to Scone?
Macd. No, cousin, I'll to Fife.
Rosse. Well, I will thither.
Macd. Well, may you see things well done
there;-adieu!-

Lest our old robes sit easier than our new!

Rosse. Farewell, father.

Old M. God's benison go with you; and with those

That would make good of bad, and friends of foes. [Exeunt.

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