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Inverness. Court within the Castle. | |
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Enter BANQUO and FLEANCE, with a Servant 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. | 5 |
| 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! | 10 |
| Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature | |
| Gives way to in repose. | |
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Enter MACBETH, and a Servant with a torch. | |
| Give me my sword.— | |
| Who’s there? | 15 |
| 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, | 20 |
| By the name of most kind hostess; and shut up | |
| In measureless content. | |
| Macb. Being unprepar’d, | |
| Our will became the servant to defect, | |
| Which else should free have wrought. | 25 |
| Ban. All’s well. | |
| I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters: | |
| To you they have show’d some truth. | |
| Macb. I think not of them: | |
| Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve, | 30 |
| We would 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. | 35 |
| Ban. So I lose none | |
| In seeking to augment it, but still keep | |
| My bosom franchis’d and allegiance clear, | |
| I shall be counsell’d. | |
| Macb. Good repose the while! | 40 |
| 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: | 45 |
| 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? | 50 |
| 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, | 55 |
| 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 | 60 |
| 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, | 65 |
| With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, toward 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, | 70 |
| Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat he lives: | |
| Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. [A bell rings. | |
| I 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. [Exit. | 75 |
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