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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 honor for you.

BANQUO.

So I lose none

In seeking to augment it, but still keep

My bosom franchised and allegiance clear,

I shall be counsel'd.

MACBETH.

Good repose the while.

BANQUO.

Thanks, sir, the like to you.

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

As this which now I draw.

Thou marshal'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 Murther,

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.

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.

SCENE II. The same.

Enter Lady Macbeth.

LADY MACBETH. 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.

MACBETH.

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

LADY MACBETH.

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!

MACBETH.

I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?

LADY MACBETH.

I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.

Did not you speak?

MACBETH.

When?

LADY MACBETH.

Now.

MACBETH.

As I descended?

LADY MACBETH.

Ay.

MACBETH.

Hark!

Who lies i' the second chamber?

LADY MACBETH.

Donalbain.

MACBETH.

This is a sorry sight. [Looks on his hands.

LADY MACBETH.

A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.

MACBETH.

There's one did laugh in 's sleep, and one cried,

"Murther!"

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 MACBETH.

There are two lodged together.

MACBETH.

One cried, "God bless us!" and "Amen" the 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 MACBETH.

Consider it not so deeply.

MACBETH.

But wherefore could not I pronounce "Amen"?

I had most need of blessing, and "Amen"

Stuck in my throat.

LADY MACBETH.

These deeds must not be thought

After these ways; so, it will make us mad.

MACBETH.

I heard a voice