LADY MACBETH

They met me in the day of success: and I have learned by the perfectest report, they have more in them, then mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them further they made themselves Air, into which they vanished. While I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came Missives from the King, who all-hail'd me Thane of Cawdor, by which Title before, these weyward Sisters saluted me, and refer worser me to the coming on of time, with hail King that shalt be. This have I thought good to deliver thee (my dearest Partner of Greatness) that thou mightest not lose the dues of rejoicing by being ignorant of what Greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell. Glamys thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy Nature, It is too full of the Milk of humane kindness, To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great, Art not without Ambition, but without The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly, That wouldst thou holily: wouldst not play false, And yet wouldst wrongly win. Thould'st have, great Glamys that which cries, Thus thou must do, if thou have it; And that which rather thou dost fear to do, Then wishest should be undone. High thee hither, That I may pour my Spirits in thine Ear, And chastise with the valour of my Tongue All that impeides thee from the Golden Round, Which Fate and Metaphysical aid does seem To have thee crowned withal. What is your tidings? Thou'rt mad to say it. Is not thy Master with him? who, were't so, Would have informed for preparation. Give him tending, He brings great news. The Raven himself is hoarse, That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my Battlements. Come you Spirits, That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the Crown to the Toe, topful 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 hit. Come to my Woman's Breasts, And take my Milk for Gall, you murdering 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 Glamys, worthy Cawdor, Greater then both, by the all-ha le hereafter, Thy Letters have transported me beyond This ignorant present, and I feel now The future in the instant. And when goes hence? Oh never, 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 vnder't. He that's coming, Must be provided for: and you shall put This Nights great Business into my dispatch, Which shall to all our Nights, and Days to come, Give solely sovereign sway, and Masterdom. Only look up clear: To altar favour, ever is to fear: Leave all the rest to me. All our service, In every point twice done, and then done double, Were poor, and single Business, to contend Against those Honours deep, and broad, Wherewith your Majesty loads our House: For those of old, and the late Dignities, Heaped up to them, we rest your Ermites. We fail? But screw your courage to the sticking place, And we'll not fail: when Duncan is asleep, (Whereto the rather shall his days hard Journey Soundly invite him) his two Chamberlains Will I with Wine, and Wassell, 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 Nature's lies 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 gilded Of our great quell. Who dares receive it other, As we shall make our Griefs and Clamor roar, Upon his Death? Alack, I am afraid they have awaked, And it's not done: the attempt, and not the deed, Confounds us: hark: I laid their Daggers ready, He could not miss they. Had he not resembled My Father as he slept, I had don't. My Husband? I herd the Owl schreame, and the Crickets cry. Did not you speak? Now. I. Donalbaine. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sighed. There are two lodged together. Consider it not so deeply. These deeds must not be thought After these ways: so, it will make us mad. What do you mean? Who was it, that thus cried? why worthy Thane, You do unbend your Noble strength, to think So braine-sickly 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 smeare The sleepy Grooms with blood. Infirm of purpose: Give me the Daggers: the sleeping, and the dead, Are but as Pictures: it's the Eye of Childhood, That fears a painted Devil. If he do bleed, I'll guild the Faces of the Grooms withal, For it must seem their Gilded. My Hands are of your colour: but I shame To wear a Heart so white. 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. Hark, more knocking. Get on your Nightgown, least occasion call us, And show us to be Watchers: be not lost So poorly in your thoughts. What's the Business? That such a hideous Trumpet calls to parley The sleepers of the House? speak, speak. Woe, alas: What, in our House? Help me hence, hoa. Is Banquo gone from Court? Say to the King, I would attend his leisure, For a few words. Nought's had, all's spent, Where our desire is God without content: It's safer, to be that which we destroy, Then by destruction dwell in doubtful joy. How now, my Lord, why do you keep alone? Of sorryest Fancies your Companions making, Using those Thoughts, which should indeed have died With them they think on: things without all remedy Should be without regard: what's done, is done. Come on: Gentle my Lord, sleek over your rugged Looks, Be bright and Jovial among your Guests to Night. You must leave this. But in them, Nature's Coppie's not eterne. What's to be done? My Royal Lord, You do not give the Cheer, the Feast is sold That is not often vouched, while it's a making: It's given, with welcome: to feed were best at home: From thence, the sauce to meat is Ceremony, Meeting were bore without it. Fit worthy Friends: my Lord is often thus, And hath been from his youth. Pray you keep Seat, The fit is momentary, upon a thought He will again be well. If much you note him You shall offend him, and extend his Passion, Feed, and regard him not. Are you a man? To bed, to bed: there's knocking at the gate: Come, come, come, come, give me your hand: What's done, cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed. Your Servants ever, Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs in count, To make their Audit at your Highness pleasure, Still to return your own. He has almost supped: why have you left the chamber? Know you not, he ha? Was the hope drunk, Wherein you dressed your self? 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 affeared To be the same in thine own Act, and Valour, As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that Which thou esteemest the Ornament of Life, And live a Coward in thine own Esteem? Letting I dare not, wait upon I would, Like the poor Cat in the Addage. What Beast was't then That made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man: And to be more then 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 Do's unmake you. I have given Suck, and know How tender it's to love the Babe that milks me, I would, while it was smiling in my Face, Have plucked my Nipple from his Boneless Gums, And dashed the Brains out, had I so sworn As you have done to this. That which hath made the ̄ 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 sternest goodnight. 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, Whither they live, or die. If he had been forgotten, It had be as a gap in our great Feast, And al-thing unbecoming. Pronounce it for me Sir, to all our Friends, For my heart speaks, they are welcome. Oh proper stuff: This is the very painting of your fear: This is the Ayre-drawne-Dagger which you said Led you to Duncan. Oh, these flaws and starts (Impostors to true fear) would well become A woman's story, at a Winter's fire Authorized by her Grandam: shame it self, Why do you make such faces? When all's done You look but on a stool. What? quite unmanned in folly. Fie for shame. My worthy Lord Your Noble Friends do lack you. Think of this good Peers But as a thing of Custom: It's no other, Only it spoils the pleasure of the time. You have displaced the mirth, Broke the good meeting, with most admired disorder. I pray you speak not: he grows worse & worse Question enrages him: at once, goodnight. Stand not upon the order of your going, But go at once. A kind goodnight to all. Almost at odds with morning, which is which. You lack the season of all Nature's, sleep. Out damned spot: out I say. One: Two: Why then it's time to doo't: Hell is murky. Fie, my Lord, fie, a Soldier, and affeared? what needs we fear? who knows it, when none can call our pour to account: yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him. Here's the smell of the blood still: all the per fumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, o, o. Did you send to him Sir? Yet here's a spot. The Thane of Fife, had a wife: where is she now? What will these hands never be clean? No more of that my Lord, no more of that: you mar all with this star ting. Wash your hands, put on your Nightgown, look not so pale: I tell you yet again Banquo is buried; he cannot come out on's graven.