ACT THE SECOND.

SCENE I.
Court of MACBETH's castle.
Enter Banduo, and FLEANCE bearing a torch

before him. Ban. How goes the night, boy? FLE. The moon is down; I have not heard the

clock. Ban. And she goes down at twelve. FLE.

I take ́t, 'tis later, sir. Ban. Hold, take my sword. There's husbandry

in heaven;
Their candles are all out. Take thee that too.
A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
And yet I would not sleep: merciful powers,
Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose !
Enter MACBETH, and a Servant with a torch.

Give me my sword.
Who's there?

MACB. A friend.
Ban. What, sir, not yet at rest? The king's

a-bed :
He hath been in unusual pleasure, and
Sent forth great largess to your

offices. This diamond he greets your wife withal, By the name of most kind hostess; and shut up In measureless content.

МАСв. .

Being unprepared,
Our will became the servant to defect;
Which else should free have wrought.
Ban.

All's well.
I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters :
To you they have show'd some truth.
МАСв. .

I think not of them : Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve, Wewould spend it in some words upon

that business, If you would grant the time. Ban.

At
your

kind'st leisure. MacB. If you shall cleave to my consent, when

'tis,
It shall make honour for you.
BAN.

So I lose none
In seeking to augment it, but still keep
My bosom franchised and allegiance clear,
I shall be counsell’d.
МАСв.

Good
repose

the while ! Ban. Thanks, sir: the like to you !

[Exeunt BANQUO and FlEANCE. MACB. Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is

ready, She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.

[Exit Servant. Is this a dagger which I see before me, 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 marshall’st me the way that I was going ;
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. "Now o'er the one half-world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings, and wither'd murder,
Alarum’d by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy

pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

[A bell rings. go, and it is done; the bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell That summons thee to heaven or to hell.

I

[Exit.

26

SCENE II.

The sume.

Enter LADY MACBETH.
LADY M. That which hath made them drunk

hath made me bold; What hath quench'd them hath given me fire.

Hark! Peace! It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman, Which gives the stern’st good-night. He is about it: The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms Do mock their charge with snores: I have drugg’d

their possets, That death and nature do contend about them, Whether they live or die.

MacB. [Within] Who's there? what, ho!

LADY M, Alack, I am afraid they have awaked, And 'tis not done. The attempt and not the deed Confounds us. Hark! I laid their daggers ready; He could not miss 'em. Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done 't. Enter MACBETH.

My husband ! Macb. I have done the deed. Didst thou not

hear a noise ? LADY M. I heard the owl scream and the

crickets cry. Did not you speak? MACB.

When?
Lady M.

Now.
МАСв.

As I descended ?

fire

LADY M. Ay.

MACB. Hark!
Who lies i' the second chamber?
LADY M.

Donalbain.
MACB. This is a sorry sight. [Looking on his hands.
Lady M. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.
Macb. There's one did laugh in's sleep, and

one cried Murder ! That they did wake each other: I stood and

heard them :
But they did say their prayers, and address’d them
Again to sleep.

Lady M. There are two lodged together..
MacB. One cried God bless us! and Amen the

atit:

other;

As they had seen me with these hangman's hands.
Listening their fear, I could not say Amen,
When they did say God bless us !
Lady M.

Consider it not so deeply.
Macb. But wherefore could not I pronounce

Amen?
I had most need of blessing, and Amen

throat.
LADY M. These deeds must not be thought
After these ways; so, it will make us mad.
MACB. Methought I heard a voice cry Sleep no

more!
Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravelld sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,

Stuck in my