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- SCENE I. Court of Macbeth's castle.
- Enter BANQUO, and FLEANCE bearing a torch before him
- 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?
- 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:
- 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!
- 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 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
- 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
- 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
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