And yet would'st wrongly win: thou'd'st have, great

Glamis,

That which cries, Thus thou must do, if thou have it :

And that which rather thou dost fear to do,

Than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither,

That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crown'd withal.-What is your tidings?

Enter an Attendant.

Atten. The king comes here to-night.

Lady M.

Thou'rt mad to say it:

Is not thy master with him? who, wer't so,

Would have inform'd for preparation.

Atten. So please you, it is true; our thane is coming;

One of my fellows had the speed of him;

Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

Under my battlements. Come, come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here;
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse;

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect, and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell!
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes ;
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry, Hold, hold!—Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!
Enter Macbeth.

Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!
Thy letters have transported me beyond

This ignorant present, and I feel now

The future in the instant.

Macb.

Duncan comes here to-night.

My dearest love,

And when goes hence?

O, never

Macb. To-morrow,-as he purposes.

Lady M.

Lady M.

Shall sun that morrow see!

Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men
May read strange matters;-To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,

Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under it. He that's coming

Must be provided for: and

you

shall put

This night's great business into my despatch;
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.

Lady M. He has almost supp'd; Why have you.

left the chamber?

Macb. Hath he ask'd for me?

Lady M.

Know you not, he has ?

Macb. We will proceed no further in this business : He hath honour'd 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 dress'd 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? Would'st thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem;

Letting I dare not wait upon I would,
Like the poor cat i' the adage?—

Macb.

I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is none.

Lady M.

Pr'ythee peace:

What beast was it then,

That made you break this enterprize 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 fitness

now

Does unmake you, I have given suck; and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would,-while it was smiling in my face,-
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,-
And dash'd the brains out,-had I so sworn, as you
Have done to this!

Macb.
Lady M.

If we should fail,

We fail!

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 drenched 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 mettle should compose
Nothing but males. Will it not be receiv'd,

When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two
Of his own chamber, and us'd their very daggers,
That they have don't?

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.

ACT II.

SCENE I.-The same. Court within the Castle.

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

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 marshal'st me the way that I was going;