Table of Contents
ACT 2, SCENE 1
Setting: Inverness. Court within the castle.
Enter BANQUO, and FLEANCE, bearing a torch before them.
| BANQUO | How goes the night, boy? | |
| FLEANCE | The moon is down; I have not heard the clock. | |
| BANQUO | And she goes down at twelve. | |
| FLEANCE | I take't, 'tis later, sir. | |
| BANQUO | 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? | 10 | |
| MACBETH | A friend. | |
| BANQUO | 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. | ||
| MACBETH | Being unprepared | |
| Our will became the servant to defect | ||
| Which else should free have wrought. | ||
| BANQUO | All's well. | |
| I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters: | 20 | |
| To you they have show'd some truth. | ||
| MACBETH | I think not of them: | |
| Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve, | ||
| We would spend it in some words upon that business, | ||
| If you would grant the time. | ||
| BANQUO | At your kind'st leisure. | |
| MACBETH | If you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis, | |
| It shall make honour for you. | ||
| BANQUO | So I lose none | |
| In seeking to augment it, but still keep | ||
| My bosom franchised and allegiance clear, | ||
| I shall be counsell'd. | ||
| MACBETH | Good repose the while! | |
| BANQUO | Thanks, sir: the like to you! | 30 |
| Exeunt BANQUO and FLEANCE. | ||
| MACBETH | 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 | 40 | |
| 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 halfworld | ||
| Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse | 50 | |
| 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: | 60 | |
| 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. |