Was heavy on me. Thou art so far before,
That swiftest winds of recompense is slow
To overtake thee: would thou hadst less deserv'd,
That the proportion both of thanks and payment
Might have been more! only I have left to say,
More is thy due than more than all can pay.

Mach. The service and the loyalty I owe,
In doing it pays itself. Your highness' part
Is to receive our duties: and our duties

Are to your throne and state, children, and servants; Which do but what they should, by doing every thing Safe toward your love and honour.

My plenteous joys,

Dun.

Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves
In drops of sorrow. --Sons, kinsmen, thanes,
And you whose places are the nearest, know,
We will establish our estate upon

Our eldest, Malcolm; whom we name hereafter
The prince of Cumberland: which honour must
Not, unaccompanied, invest him only,

But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
On all deservers. - From hence to Inverness,
And bind us farther to you.

Mach. The rest is labour, which is not us'd for you,
I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful
The hearing of my wife with your approach;
So, humbly take my leave.
Dun.

My worthy Cawdor!

[Exit.

Dun. True, worthy Banquo: he is full so valiant,

And in his commendations I am fed;

It is a banquet to me. Let us after him,
Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome:

It is a peerless kinsman.

[Flourish. Exeunt.

SCENE V.- Inverness. A Room in MACBETH'S Castle. Enter Lady MACBETH, with a letter.

Lady M. [Reads.] "They met me in the day of success; and I have learned by the perfectest report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them farther, they made themselves air, into which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from the king, who all-hailed me, 'Thane of Cawdor;' by which title, before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referred me to the coming on of time, with, 'Hail, king that shalt be!" This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thou mightest not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell."

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be

What thou art promis'd. - Yet I do fear thy nature : It is too full o' the milk of human kindness,

To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great; Art not without ambition; but without

The illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly, That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,

And yet wouldst wrongly win: thou 'dst have, great Glamis,

That which cries, "Thus thou must do, if thou have it; And that which rather thou dost fear to do,

Than wishest should be undone." Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,

And chastise with the valour of my tongue,
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem

To have thee crown'd withal.

Enter an Attendant.

himself is hoarse,

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

Under my battlements. Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty: make thick my blood

Stop up th' access and passage to remorse;
That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th' effect and it. Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blankness1 of the dark,
To cry, "Hold, hold!"

Enter MACВЕТН.
Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!

Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!

Thy letters have transported me beyond
This ignorant present, and I feel now
The future in the instant.

Macb.

Duncan comes here to-night. Lady M.

[They embrace.2

My dearest love,

And when goes hence?

Mach. To-morrow, as he purposes. Lady M.

O! never

Shall sun that morrow see.
Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men
May read strange matters: to beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under it. He that's coming
Must be provided for; and you shall put
This night's great business into my despatch,
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.

Macb. We will speak farther.
Lady M.

To alter favour ever is to fear,
Leave all the rest to me.

Only look up clear:

[Exeunt.

The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his lov'd mansionry, that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,

Buttress, nor coigne of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed, and procreant cradle:
Where they much breed and haunt, I have observ'd,

The air is delicate.

Dun.

Enter Lady MАСВЕТН.

See, see! our honour'd hostess.

The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,
Which still we thank as love: herein I teach you,
How you shall bid God yield us for your pains,
And thank us for your trouble.

Lady M.

All our service,

In every point twice done, and then done double,
Were poor and single business to contend
Against those honours deep and broad, wherewith
Your majesty loads our house. For those of old,
And the late dignities heap'd up to them,

It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,

But here, upon this bank and shoal" of time,
We'd jump the life to come. --But in these cases,
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague th' inventor: thus3 even-handed justice
Commends th' ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust :
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject;
Strong both against the deed: then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead, like angels trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind.-I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'er-leaps itself,
And falls on the other.-

Lady M.

What boast was 't, then,

That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time, nor place,
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
How tender 't is to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.

Macb.

Laky M.

If we should fail?

We fail?"

But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we 'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep,
(Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey
Soundly invite him) his two chamberlains
Will I with wine and wassel so convince,
That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only: when in swinish sleep
Their drenched natures lie, as in a death,
What cannot you and I perform upon
Th' unguarded Duncan? what not put upon
His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt
Of our great quell?
Macb.

Bring forth men-children only!

For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males. Will it not be receiv'd
When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two
Of his own chamber, and us'd their very daggers,
That they have done't?

Lady M.

Who dares receive it other,

As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar
Upon his death?
Macb.

I am settled; and bend up
Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
Away, and mock the time with fairest show:
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

SCENE I. - The Same. Court within the Castle. Enter BANQUO, and FLEANCE, with 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, 't is later, sir. Ban. Hold, take my sword. --There 's husbandry in heaven;

[Exeunt.

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! - Give me my sword.-

Enter MACBETH, and a Servant with a torch.
Who's there?
Macb. A friend.

Ban. What, sir, not yet at rest? The king's a-bed :