Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
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.

Macb.

I'll go no more.
I am afraid to think what I have done;
Look on't again, I dare not.

Lady M.

Infirm of purpose!

Give me the daggers. The sleeping, and the dead,
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. Whence is that knocking?

Macb.

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

Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,

Making the green-one red.

Re-enter LADY MACBETH.

Lady M. My hands are of your color; 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 night-gown, lest occasion call us,
And show us to be watchers.- Be not lost

So poorly in your thoughts.

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

[Knock.

Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou could'st!

[Exeunt.

SCENE III. The same.

Enter a Porter.

[Knocking within. Porter. 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 Beelzebub? 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 the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire. [Knocking.] Anon, anon; 1 pray you, remember the porter. [Opens the gate. 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 MACBETH.

Len. Good-morrow, noble sir!

Macb.

Good-morrow, both!
Not yet.

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

Macd. He did command me to call timely on him;

I have almost slipped 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 labor, we delight in, physics pain. This is the door.

Macd.

I'll make so bold to call,

For 'tis my limited service.

Len. Goes the king hence to-day?
Macb.

[Exit MACDUFF.

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
Clamored 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.

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 masterpiece!

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 drowsy sleep, death's counterfeit,

T

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.

[Bell rings

Enter LADY MACBETH.

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!

Dear Duff, I pr'ythee, 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.

You are, and do not know it.

Don. What is amiss?
Macb.
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 done't.
Their hands and faces were all badged with blood;
So were their daggers, which unwiped we found
Upon their pillows.

They stared, 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, amazed, temperate, and furious,
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 colors of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breeched with gore. Who could refrain,
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 ours?
Don. What should be spoken,

Here, where our fate, hid in an auger-hole,

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

Mal.

Upon the foot of motion.
Ban.

Nor

our strong sorrow

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 undivulged pretence I fight

Of treasonous malice.

Macb.

All.

And so do I.

So all.

Macb. Let's briefly put on manly readiness, And meet i' the hall together.

All.

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.
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;