MACB. The table 's full.

LEN.

MACB. Where?

Here is a place reserved, sir.

LEN. Here, my good lord. What is 't that

moves your highness?

MACB. Which of you have done this?

LORDS.

What, my good lord?

MACB. Thou canst not say I did it: never shake locks at me.

Thy gory

Ross. Gentlemen, rise: his highness is not well. LADY M. Sit, worthy friends: my lord is often thus,

And hath been from his youth: pray you, keep seat;
The fit is momentary; upon a thought

He will again be well: if much you note him,
You shall offend him and extend his passion:

Feed, and regard him not. Are you a man?
MACB. Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that
Which might appal the devil.

LADY M.

O proper stuff!
This is the very painting of your fear:

This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said,
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts,
Impostors to true fear, would well become
A woman's story at a winter's fire,

Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!

Why do you make such faces? When all's done, You look but on a stool.

MACB. Prithee, see there! behold! look! lo! how say you?

Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.
If charnel-houses and our graves must send
Those that we bury back, our monuments

Shall be the maws of kites.

LADY M.

[Ghost vanishes.

What, quite unmann'd in folly?

Fie, for shame!

MACB. If I stand here, I saw him.

LADY M.

MACB. Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the

olden time,

Ere human statute purged the gentle weal;
Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd
Too terrible for the ear: the times have been,
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end; but now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools: this is more strange
Than such a murder is.

LADY M.

My worthy lord, Your noble friends do lack you.

МАСВ.

I do forget.

Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends;

I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing

To those that know me. Come, love and health

to all;

Then I'll sit down.

Give me some wine; fill full. I drink to the general joy o' the whole table, And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss; Would he were here! to all, and him, we thirst, And all to all.

LORDS.

Our duties, and the pledge.

E

Re-enter Ghost.

MACB. Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the

earth hide thee!

Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with!

LADY M.

Think of this, good peers,

But as a thing of custom: 'tis no other;
Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.
MACB. What man dare, I dare:

Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble: or be alive again,
And dare me to the desert with thy sword;
If trembling I inhabit then, protest me
The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow !
Unreal mockery, hence!
[Ghost vanishes.

Why, so being gone,

I am a man again. Pray you, sit still.

LADY M. You have displaced the mirth, broke

the good meeting,

With most admired disorder.

MACB.

Can such things be,

And overcome us like a summer's cloud,

Without our special wonder? You make me strange

Even to the disposition that I owe,

When now I think you can behold such sights,

And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks,

When mine is blanch'd with fear.

Ross.

What sights, my lord?

LADY M. I pray you, speak not; he grows worse

and worse;

Question enrages him. At once, good night:

Stand not upon the order of your going,

But go at once.

LEN.

Good night; and better health

Attend his majesty !

LADY M.

A kind good night to all! [Exeunt all but MACBETH and LADY M.

MACB. It will have blood; they say, blood will

have blood:

Stones have been known to move and trees to speak; Augurs and understood relations have

By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth The secret'st man of blood. What is the night? LADY M. Almost at odds with morning, which is which.

MACB. How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his

person

At our great bidding?

LADY M.

Did you send to him, sir?

MACB. I hear it by the way; but I will send :
There's not a one of them but in his house
I keep a servant fee'd. I will to-morrow,
And betimes I will, to the weird sisters:

More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,
By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good,
All causes shall give way: I am in blood
Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,

Returning were as tedious as go

o'er :

Strange things I have in head, that will to hand; Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd. LADY M. You lack the season of all natures, sleep.

MACB. Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse

Is the initiate fear that wants hard use:

We are yet but young in deed.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V.

Thunder.

A Heath.

Enter the three Witches, meeting HECATE.

FIRST WITCH. Why, how now,

angerly.

Hecate! you look

HEC. Have I not reason, beldams as you are,

Saucy and overbold? How did you

To trade and traffic with Macbeth
In riddles and affairs of death;
And I, the mistress of your charms,
The close contriver of all harms,
Was never call'd to bear my part,
Or show the glory of our art?

dare

And, which is worse, all you have done
Hath been but for a wayward son,
Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,
Loves for his own ends, not for you.
But make amends now: get you gone,
And at the pit of Acheron

Meet me i' the morning: thither he
Will come to know his destiny:

Your vessels and your spells provide,