Macb.

I am settled, and bend up

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Away, and mock the time with fairest show:

Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

Enter BANQUO and FLEANCE, with a torch.

Ban. How goes the night, boy?

Fle. The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.
Ban. And she goes down at twelve.

Fle.
I take 't, 'tis later, sir.
Ban. Hold, take my sword.-There's husbandry in heaven,
Their candles are all out :-take thee that too.
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 ;-
Who's there?

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Enter MACBETH, and a Servant with a torch.

Macb. A friend.

Ban. What, sir, not yet at rest? The king's a-bed:

He hath been in unusual pleasure, and

Sent forth great largess to your officers:

This diamond he greets your wife withal,

By the name of most kind hostess; and shut up
In measureless content.

Macb.

Being unprepar'd,

Our will became the servant to defect;
Which else should free have wrought.

Ban.

All's well.

I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters:
To you they have shew'd some truth.
Macb.

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.

Ban.

At your kind'st leisure.

Macb. If you shall cleave to my consent-when 'tis, It shall make honour for you.

[Exeunt BANQUO and FLEANCE. Macb. Go, bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,

She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.

Is this a dagger which I see before me,

[Exit Servant.

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

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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.

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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

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Thus to mine eyes.-Now o'er the one half world

Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleeper; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings; and withered murder,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,

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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.

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.

[A bell rings.

[Exit.

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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.

He is about it: the doors are open;

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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.

Macb. [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 them.-Had he not resembled
My father as he slept I had done 't-My husband!

Enter MACBETH.

Macb. I have done the deed.-Didst thou not hear a noise?
Lady M. I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.

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Who lies i' the second chamber?

Lady M.

Macb. This is a sorry sight.

Donalbain.

[Looking on his hands.

Lady M. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.

Macb. There's one did laugh in his sleep,

And one cried, 'Murder!' 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 M. There are two lodg'd together.

Macb. One cried, 'God bless us !' and 'Amen,' the other;

As they had seen me with these hangman's hands,
Listening their fear, I could not say, 'Amen,'
When they did say, God bless us.

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