Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this bloodClean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
[Re-enter Lady Macbeth.]
LADY MACBETH.
My hands are of your color, but I shame
To wear a heart so white. [Knocking within.] I hear knocking
At the south entry:—retire we to our chamber.
A little water clears us of this deed:
How easy is it then! Your constancy
Hath left you unattended.—[Knocking within.] Hark, more
knocking:
Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us
And show us to be watchers:—be not lost
So poorly in your thoughts.
MACBETH.
To know my deed, ‘twere best not know myself. [Knocking within.]
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. The same.
[Enter a Porter. Knocking within.]
PORTER. Here’s a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate, he should have old turning the key. [Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock. Who’s there, i’ the name of Belzebub? Here’s a farmer that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty: come in time; have napkins enow about you; here you’ll sweat for’t.—[Knocking.] Knock, knock! Who’s there, in the other devil’s name? Faith, here’s an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either scale, who committed treason enough for God’s sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come in, equivocator. [Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there? Faith, here’s an English tailor come hither, for stealing out of a French hose: come in, tailor; here you may roast your goose.— [Knocking.] Knock, knock: never at quiet! What are you?—But this place is too cold for hell. I’ll devil-porter it no further: I had thought to have let in some of all professions, that go the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire. [Knocking.] Anon, anon! I pray you, remember the porter.
[Opens the gate.]
[Enter Macduff and Lennox.]
MACDUFF.
Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,
That you do lie so late?
PORTER. Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock: and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things.
MACDUFF.
What three things does drink especially provoke?
PORTER. Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance: therefore much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to: in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and giving him the lie, leaves him.
MACDUFF.
I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.
PORTER. That it did, sir, i’ the very throat o’ me; but I requited him for his lie; and, I think, being too strong for him, though he took up my legs sometime, yet I made a shift to cast him.
MACDUFF.
Is thy master stirring?—
Our knocking has awak’d him; here he comes.
[Enter Macbeth.]
LENNOX.
Good morrow, noble sir!
MACBETH.
Good morrow, both!
MACDUFF.
Is the king stirring, worthy thane?
MACBETH.
Not yet.
MACDUFF.
He did command me to call timely on him:
I have almost slipp’d the hour.
MACBETH.
I’ll bring you to him.
MACDUFF.
I know this is a joyful trouble to you;
But yet ‘tis one.
MACBETH.
The labour we delight in physics pain.
This is the door.
MACDUFF.
I’ll make so bold to call.
For ‘tis my limited service.
[Exit Macduff.]
LENNOX.
Goes the king hence to-day?
MACBETH.
He does: he did appoint so.
LENNOX.
The night has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down: and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i’ the air, strange screams of death;
And prophesying, with accents terrible,
Of dire combustion and confus’d events,
New hatch’d to the woeful time: the obscure bird
Clamour’d the livelong night; some say the earth
Was feverous, and did shake.
MACBETH.
‘Twas a rough night.
LENNOX.
My young remembrance cannot parallel
A fellow to it.
[Re-enter Macduff.]
MACDUFF.
O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart
Cannot conceive nor name thee!
MACBETH, LENNOX.
