MACDUFF.Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
The Lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence
The life o’ the building.
MACBETH.
What is’t you say? the life?
LENNOX.
Mean you his majesty?
MACDUFF.
Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight
With a new Gorgon:—do not bid me speak;
See, and then speak yourselves.
[Exeunt Macbeth and Lennox.]
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!
[Alarum-bell rings.]
[Re-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.
[Re-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 pr’ythee, 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 liv’d 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 all badg’d with blood;
So were their daggers, which, unwip’d, we found
Upon their pillows:
They star’d, 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, amaz’d, temperate, and furious,
Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
The expedition of my violent love
Outrun the pauser reason. Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin lac’d 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 known?
LADY MACBETH.
Help me hence, ho!
MACDUFF.
Look to the lady.
MALCOLM.
Why do we hold our tongues,
That most may claim this argument for ours?
DONALBAIN.
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.
Nor our strong sorrow
Upon the foot of motion.
BANQUO.
Look to the lady:—
