571Banq. How goes the Night, Boy?

572Fleance. The Moone is downe: I haue not heard the

573Clock.

574Banq. And she goes downe at Twelue.

575Fleance. I take't, 'tis later, Sir.

576Banq. Hold, take my Sword:

577There's Husbandry in Heauen,

578Their Candles are all out: take thee that too.

mm2 A

579A heauie Summons lyes like Lead vpon me,

580And yet I would not sleepe:

581Mercifull Powers, restraine in me the cursed thoughts

582That Nature giues way to in repose.

584Giue me my Sword: who's there?

585Macb. A Friend.

586Banq. What Sir, not yet at rest? the King's a bed.

587He hath beene in vnusuall Pleasure,

588And sent forth great Largesse to your Offices.

589This Diamond he greetes your Wife withall,

590By the name of most kind Hostesse,

591And shut vp in measurelesse content.

592Mac. Being vnprepar'd,

593Our will became the seruant to defect,

594Which else should free haue wrought.

595Banq. All's well.

596I dreamt last Night of the three weyward Sisters:

597To you they haue shew'd some truth.

598Macb. I thinke not of them:

599Yet when we can entreat an houre to serue,

600We would spend it in some words vpon that Businesse,

601If you would graunt the time.

602Banq. At your kind'st leysure.

603Macb. If you shall cleaue to my consent,

604When 'tis, it shall make Honor for you.

605Banq. So I lose none,

606In seeking to augment it, but still keepe

607My Bosome franchis'd, and Allegeance cleare,

608I shall be counsail'd.

609Macb. Good repose the while.

610Banq. Thankes Sir: the like to you. Exit Banquo.

611Macb. Goe bid thy Mistresse, when my drinke is ready,

612She strike vpon the Bell. Get thee to bed. Exit.

613Is this a Dagger, which I see before me,

614The Handle toward my Hand? Come, let me clutch thee:

615I haue thee not, and yet I see thee still.

616Art thou not fatall Vision, sensible

617To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but

618A Dagger of the Minde, a false Creation,

619Proceeding from the heat-oppressed Braine?

620I see thee yet, in forme as palpable,

621As this which now I draw.

622Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going,

623And such an Instrument I was to vse.

624Mine Eyes are made the fooles o'th'other Sences,

625Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;

626And on thy Blade, and Dudgeon, Gouts of Blood,

627Which was not so before. There's no such thing:

628It is the bloody Businesse, which informes

629Thus to mine Eyes. Now o're the one halfe World

630Nature seemes dead, and wicked Dreames abuse

631The Curtain'd sleepe: Witchcraft celebrates

632Pale Heccats Offrings: and wither'd Murther,

633Alarum'd by his Centinell, the Wolfe,

634Whose howle's his Watch, thus with his stealthy pace,

635With Tarquins rauishing sides, towards his designe

636Moues like a Ghost. Thou sowre and firme-set Earth

637Heare not my steps, which they may walke, for feare

638Thy very stones prate of my where-about,

639And take the present horror from the time,

640Which now sutes with it. Whiles I threat, he liues:

641Words to the heat of deedes too cold breath giues.

643I goe, and it is done: the Bell inuites me.

644Heare it not, Duncan, for it is a Knell,

645That summons thee to Heauen, or to Hell. Exit.