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 within.]
Hark! more knocking:

Get on your nightgown,1 lest occasion call us,
And show us to be watchers:-be not lost 71
So poorly in your thoughts.

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

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

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 within.] Knock, knock, knock! Who's there, i' the name of Beelzebub? Here's a farmer that hang'd himself on the expectation of plenty: come in time; have napkins enow about you; here you'll sweat for 't. [Knocking within.] Knock, knock! Who's there, in 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 within.] 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 within.] 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 within.] Anon, anon! I pray you, remember the porter.

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30

And prophesying, with accents terrible,
Of dire combustion4 and confus'd events
New hatch'd to the woful time: the óbscure

bird 5 Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the

earth Was feverous and did shake. Macb.

'T was a rough night.
Len. My young remembrance cannot parallel
A fellow to it.
Macd. [Without] O horror, horror, horror!

Tongue nor heart
Cannot conceive nor name thee!

40

Port. Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock:1 [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. í Macd. I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.

Port. That it did, sir, i' the very throat on 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?

Enter MACBETH.
Our knocking has awak'd him; here he comes.

Len. Good morrow, noble sir.
Macb.

Good morrow, both.
Macd. Is the king stirring, worthy thane?
Jach.
Macd. He did command me to call timely

on him: I have almost slipp'd the hour. Macb.

I'll bring you to him. Macd. I know this is a joyful trouble to you; But yet 't is one.

Macb. The labour we delight in physics pain. This is the door. Macd.

I'll make so bold to call, For 't is my limited service.

[Exit. 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,

Re-enter MACDUFF. Macb. Len.

What's the matter? Macd. Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!

71 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.

[Exeunt Macbeth and Lennox.

Awake, awake! Ring the alarum-bell.-Murder and treason! Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm! awake! Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit, 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

sprites, To countenance this horror! Ring the bell.

[Bell rings.

Not yet.

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84

Enter LADY MACBETH. Lady M.

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

O gentle lady, 'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak: The repetition, in a woman's ear, Would murder as it fell.

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90

Enter MALCOLM and DONALBAIN. Don. What is amiss? Macb. You are,1 and do not know 't: The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood Is stopp'd, the very source of it is stopp'd. Macd. Your royal father's murder'd. Mal. O, by whom? Len. Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done 't:

Their hands and faces were all badg'd with blood;

So were their daggers, which unwip'd we found Upon their pillows:

They star'd, 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.

111

Wherefore did you so? Macb. Who can be wise, amaz'd, temperate and furious,

Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
The expedition of my violent love
Outrun the pauser, reason.-Here lay Dun-

can;

His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood; And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in

nature

For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the mur

derers,

120

refrain,

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

Lady M.

Macd. Look to the lady.

Help me hence, ho!

Mal. [Aside to Donalbain] Why do we hold our tongues,

That most may claim this argument for ours? Don. [Aside to Malcolm] [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 brew'd.

Mal. [Aside to Donalbain] Nor our strong

sorrow

130

Within the volume of which time I have seen Hours dreadful and things strange, but this sore night

Hath trifled former knowings.
Ross.
Ah, good father,
Thou seest, the heavens, as troubled with
man's act,

Threaten his bloody stage: by the clock 't is day,

And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp:

Is 't night's predominance, or the day's shame, That darkness does the face of earth entomb, When living light should kiss it?

Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out, Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make War with mankind.-(Act ii. 4. 14-18.)

Ross. They did so, to the amazement of

mine eyes, That look'd upon ’t. Here comes the good

Macduff.

SO

20

Enter MacDUFF.

How goes the world, sir, now?
Macd.

Why, see you not?
Ross. Is 't known who did this more than

bloody deed?
Macd. Those that Macbeth hath slain.
Ross.

Alas, the day!
What good could they pretend ?1
Macd.

They were suborn'd: Malcolm and Donalbain, the king's two sons, Are stol'n away and fled; which puts upon

them Suspicion of the deed. Ross.

'Gainst nature still: Thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up

Thine own life's means! Then 't is most like
The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth.
Macd. He is already nam'd, and gone to

Scone
To be invested.
Ross.

Where is Duncan's body?
Macd. Carried to Colme-kill,
The sacred storehouse of his predecessors,
And guardian of their bones.
Ross.

Will you to Scone?
Macd. No, cousin, I'll to Fife.
Ross.

Well, I will thither. Macd. Well, may you see things well done

there: adieu!
Lest our old robes sit easier than our new!

Ross. Farewell, father.
Old M. God’s benison go with you, and

with those That would make good of bad and friends of foes!

[Exeunt.]

40

SCENE I. Forres. Hall in the palace.
Ross, LENNOX, and Lords discovered.

Enter BANQUO.
Ban. Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor,

Glamis, all, As the weird women promis'd; and, I fear, Thou play'dst most foully for 't: yet it was

said It hould not stand in thy posterity, But that myself should be the root and father Of many kings. If there come truth from

them,-
As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine,-
Why, by the verities on thee made good,
May they not be my oracles as well,
And set me up in hope? But, hush; no more.
Sennet sounded. Enter Macbeth, as king;

LADY MACBETH, as queen; Lords, Ladies,
and Attendants.
Macb. Here's our chief guest.
Lady M.

If he had been forgotten,

It had been as a gap in our great feast,
And all-thing? unbecoming.
Macb. To-night we hold a solemn supper,

sir,
And I'll request your presence.
Ban.

Let your highness
Command upon me; to the which my duties
Are with a most indissoluble tie
For ever knit.

Macb. Ride you this afternoon?
Ban.

Ay, my good lord. Macb. We should have else desir'd your

good advice, Which still hath been both grave and pros

perous, In this day's council; but we'll take to-morrow; Is 't far you ride?

Ban. As far, my lord, as will fill up the time 'Twixt this and supper: go not my horse the

better,
I must become a borrower of the night
For a dark hour or twain.
Macb.

Fail not our feast.

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a