Macd. I believe, drink gave thee the lie last night.

Por. That it did, sir, i' the very throat o'me: but I requited him for his lie; and, I think, oeing too strong for him, though he took up my legs sometime, yet I made a shift to cast him.

Macd. Is thy master stirring?—

Our knocking has awaked him; here he comes.

Enter МАСВЕТН.

Len. Good-morrow, noble sir!

Macb.

Good-morrow, both!

Not yet.

Macd. Is the king stirring, worthy thane?
Macb.

Macd. He did command me to call timely on

him:

I have almost slipp'd the hour.

Macb.

I'll bring you to him.

Macd. I know, this is a joyful trouble to you;

But yet, 'tis one.

Macb. The labor we delight in, physics pain.

This is the door.

Macd.

I'll make so bold to call.

For 'tis my limited 1 service.

Len. Goes the king hence to-day?

Macb.

[Exit Macduff.

Len. The night has been unruly. Where we lay, Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,

1 Appointed.

Lamentings heard i'the air; strange screams of

death;

And prophesying, with accents terrible,

Of dire combustion, and confused events,

New hatch'd to the woeful time. The obscure bird Clamor'd the livelong night: some say, the earth Was feverous, and did shake.

Macb.

'Twas a rough night.

Len. My young remembrance cannot parallel A fellow to it.

Re-enter Macduff.

Macd. O horror! horror! horror! Tongue, nor

Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope

The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence

The life o' the building.

Macb.

What is 't you say? the life?

Len. Mean you his majesty?

Macd. Approach the chamber, and destroy your

sight

With a new Gorgon.-Do not bid me speak;

See, and then speak yourselves.-Awake! awake!—
[Exeunt Macbeth and Lenox.
Ring the alarum-bell :-Murder! and treason!
Banquo, and Donalbain! Malcolm! awake!
Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,

And look on death itself!-up, up, and see

The great doom's image!- -Malcolm! Banquo!
As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprights,
To countenance this horror!
[bell rings.

Enter LADY MACBETH.

L. Macb.

What's the business,

That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
The sleepers of the house? speak, speak,-

Macd.

O gentle lady, 'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak : The repetition, in a woman's ear,

Dear Duff, I pr'ythee, contradict thyself,

And say, it is not so.

Re-enter MACBETH and LENOX.

Macb. Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had lived a blessed time; for, from this instant,

There's nothing serious in mortality :

All is but toys: renown, and grace, is dead:
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.

Enter MALCOLM and DONALBAIN.

Don. What is amiss?

Macb.

You are, and do not know 't:

The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood is stopp'd; the very source of it is stopp'd.

Macd. Your royal father's murder'd.

Mal.

O, by whom?

Len. Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had

done 't:

Their hands and faces were all badged with blood;
So were their daggers, which, unwiped, we found
Upon their pillows.

They stared, and were distracted; no man's life
Was to be trusted with them.

Macb. O, yet I do repent me of my fury,

That I did kill them.

Macd.

Wherefore did you so?

Macb. Who can be wise, amazed, temperate, and

furious,

Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man.

The expedition of my violent love

Outran the pauser reason. Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin laced with his golden blood;
And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature,
For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murderers,
Steep'd in the colors of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breech'd with gore : 1-Who could re-
frain,

1 Covered with blood to the hilts.

That had a heart to love, and in that heart

Courage, to make his love known?

L. Macb.

Macd. Look to the lady.

Mal.

Help me hence, ho!

Why do we hold our tongues,

That most may claim this argument for ours?

Don. What should be spoken

Here, where our fate, hid in an augre-hole,

May rush, and seise us? Let's away; our tears
Are not yet brew'd.

And when we have our naked frailties hid,

That suffer in exposure, let us meet,

And question this most bloody piece of work,

To know it farther. Fears and scruples shake

us.

In the great hand1 of God I stand; and, thence,
Against the undivulged pretence I fight

Of treasonous malice.

Macb.

All.

And so do I.

So all.

Macb. Let's briefly put on manly readiness, And meet i' the hall together.

All.

Well contented.

[Exeunt all but Mal. and Don.

1 Power.

2 Design.