| |
[The palace]
Enter LADY MACBETH and a Servant
Lady M. Is Banquo gone from court? | |
| Serv. Ay, madam, but returns again to-night. | |
| Lady M. Say to the King, I would attend his leisure | |
| For a few words. | 4 |
| Serv. Madam, I will. Exit. | |
| Lady M. Nought’s had, all’s spent, | |
| Where our desire is got without content. | |
| ’Tis safer to be that which we destroy | 8 |
| Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy. | |
| |
Enter MACBETH
How now, my lord! why do you keep alone, | |
| Of sorriest fancies your companions making, | |
| Using those thoughts which should indeed have died | 12 |
| With them they think on? Things without all remedy | |
| Should be without regard; what’s done is done. | |
| Macb. We have scotch’d 1 the snake, not kill’d it; | |
| She’ll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice | 16 |
| Remains in danger of her former tooth. | |
| But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer, | |
| Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep | |
| In the affliction of these terrible dreams | 20 |
| That shake us nightly. Better be with the dead | |
| Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace, | |
| Than on the torture of the mind to lie | |
| In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave; | 24 |
| After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well. | |
| Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison, | |
| Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, | |
| Can touch him further. | 28 |
| Lady M. Come on, | |
| Gentle my lord, sleek o’er your rugged looks; | |
| Be bright and jovial among your guests to-night. | |
| Macb. So shall I, love; and so, I pray, be you. | 32 |
| Let your remembrance apply to Banquo; | |
| Present him eminence, 2 both with eye and tongue. | |
| Unsafe the while, that we | |
| Must lave our honours in these flattering streams, | 36 |
| And make our faces vizards to our hearts, | |
| Disguising what they are. | |
| Lady M. You must leave this. | |
| Macb. O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife! | 40 |
| Thou know’st that Banquo and his Fleance lives. | |
| Lady M. But in them nature’s copy’s 3 not eterne. | |
| Macb. There’s comfort yet; they are assailable. | |
| Then be thou jocund; ere the bat hath flown | 44 |
| His cloister’d flight, ere to black Hecate’s summons | |
| The shard-borne 4 beetle with his drowsy hums | |
| Hath rung night’s yawning peal, there shall be done | |
| A deed of dreadful note. | 48 |
| Lady M. What’s to be done? | |
| Macb. Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, | |
| Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling 5 night, | |
| Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day, | 52 |
| And with thy bloody and invisible hand | |
| Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond | |
| Which keeps me pale! Light thickens, and the crow | |
| Makes wing to the rooky wood; | 56 |
| Good things of day begin to droop and drowse, | |
| Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse. | |
| Thou marvell’st at my words, but hold thee still; | |
| Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill. | 60 |
| So, prithee, go with me. Exeunt. | |
