Macbeth Page #3

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that his virtues

would plead like angels,

trumpet-tongued against

the deep damnation of his taking-off.

I have no spur

to prick the sides of my intent

but only vaulting ambition

which o'erleaps itself

and falls on the other.

We will proceed no further

in this business.

Was the hope drunk

wherein you dressed yourself?

Hath it slept since?

And wakes it now

to look so green and pale

at what it did so freely?

From this time

such I account thy love.

Art thou afeard to be the same

in thine own act and valour

as thou art in desire?

Wouldst thou have that

which thou esteem'st the ornament of life

and live a coward in thy own esteem,

letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would"?

Prithee, peace.

I dare do all that may become a man.

Who dares do more is none.

What beast 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.

I have given suck

and know how tender 'tis

to love the babe that milks me.

I would, while it was smiling in my face,

have plucked my nipple

from his boneless gums

and dashed the brains out

had I so sworn,

as you have done, to this.

If we should fail?

We fail.

But screw your courage

to the sticking place

and we'll not fail.

When Duncan is asleep

his two chamberlains will I

with wine and wassail 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 the unguarded Duncan?

What not put upon his spongy officers

who shall bear the guilt

of our great quell?

I am settled

and bend up each corporal agent

to this terrible feat.

Take my sword.

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.

Is this a dagger

which I see before me?

The handle toward my hand.

Come,

let me clutch thee.

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.

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.

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 curtained sleep.

Witchcraft celebrates

and withered murder

moves like a ghost.

I see thee yet,

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