The Same. Another Room in the Palace. | |
| |
Enter LADY MACBETH and a Servant. | |
| Lady M. Is Banquo gone from court? | |
| Serv. Ay, madam, but returns again to-night. | 4 |
| Lady M. Say to the king, I would attend his leisure | |
| For a few words. | |
| Serv. Madam, I will. [Exit. | |
| Lady M. Nought’s had, all’s spent, | 8 |
| Where our desire is got without content: | |
| ’Tis safer to be that which we destroy | |
| Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy. | |
| |
Enter MACBETH. | 12 |
| How now, my lord! why do you keep alone, | |
| Of sorriest fancies your companions making, | |
| Using those thoughts which should indeed have died | |
| With them they think on? Things without all remedy | 16 |
| Should be without regard: what’s done is done. | |
| Macb. We have scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it: | |
| She’ll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice | |
| Remains in danger of her former tooth. | 20 |
| 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 | |
| That shake us nightly. Better be with the dead, | 24 |
| 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; | |
| After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well; | 28 |
| Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison, | |
| Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing | |
| Can touch him further. | |
| Lady M. Come on; | 32 |
| 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. | |
| Let your remembrance apply to Banquo; | 36 |
| Present him eminence, both with eye and tongue: | |
| Unsafe the while, that we | |
| Must lave our honours in these flattering streams, | |
| And make our faces vizards to our hearts, | 40 |
| Disguising what they are. | |
| Lady M. You must leave this. | |
| Macb. O! full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife; | |
| Thou know’st that Banquo and his Fleance lives. | 44 |
| Lady M. But in them nature’s copy’s not eterne. | |
| Macb. There’s comfort yet; they are assailable; | |
| Then be thou jocund. Ere the bat hath flown | |
| His cloister’d flight, ere, to black Hecate’s summons | 48 |
| The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums | |
| Hath rung night’s yawning peal, there shall be done | |
| A deed of dreadful note. | |
| Lady M. What’s to be done? | 52 |
| Macb. Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, | |
| Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night, | |
| Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day, | |
| And with thy bloody and invisible hand | 56 |
| Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond | |
| Which keeps me pale! Light thickens, and the crow | |
| Makes wing to the rooky wood; | |
| Good things of day begin to droop and drowse, | 60 |
| 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: | |
| So, prithee, go with me. [Exeunt. | 64 |
