Awake, awake!
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 sprites, To countenance this horror! Ring the bell.
Bell rings Enter LADY MACBETH LADY MACBETH What's the business, That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley The sleepers of the house? speak, speak! MACDUFF O gentle lady, 'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:
The repetition, in a woman's ear, Would murder as it fell.
Enter BANQUO
O Banquo, Banquo, Our royal master 's murder'd! LADY MACBETH Woe, alas!
What, in our house? BANQUO Too cruel any where.
Dear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself, And say it is not so.
Re-enter MACBETH and LENNOX, with ROSS MACBETH 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 DONALBAIN What is amiss? MACBETH 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. MACDUFF Your royal father 's murder'd. MALCOLM O, by whom? LENNOX Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done 't:
Their hands and faces were an 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. MACBETH O, yet I do repent me of my fury, That I did kill them. MACDUFF Wherefore did you so? MACBETH Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
The expedition my violent love Outrun 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 colours of their trade, their daggers Unmannerly breech'd with gore: who could refrain, That had a heart to love, and in that heart Courage to make 's love kno wn? LADY MACBETH Help me hence, ho! MACDUFF Look to the lady. MALCOLM [Aside to DONALBAIN] Why do we hold our tongues, That most may claim this argument for ours? DONALBAIN [Aside to MALCOLM] What should be spoken here, where our fate, Hid in an auger-hole, may rush, and seize us?
Let 's away;
Our tears are not yet brew'd. MALCOLM [Aside to DONALBAIN] Nor our strong sorrow Upon the foot of motion. BANQUO Look to the lady:
LADY MACBETH is carried out 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 further. Fears and scruples shake us:
In the great hand of God I stand; and thence Against the undivulged pretence I fight Of treasonous malice. MACDUFF And so do I. ALL So all. MACBETH Let's briefly put on manly readiness, And meet i' the hall together. ALL Well contented.
Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain. MALCOLM What will you do? Let's not consort with them:
To show an unfelt sorrow is an office Which the false man does easy. I'll to England. DONALBAIN To Ireland, I; our separated fortune Shall keep us both the safer: where we are, There's daggers in men's smiles: the near in blood, The nearer bloody. MALCOLM This murderous shaft that's shot Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way Is to avoid the aim. Therefore, to horse;
And let us not be dainty of leave-taking, But shift away: there's warrant in that theft Which steals itself, when there's no mercy left.
