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Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst !

Enter a Porter. Knocking within.

[Exeunt.

Porter. Here's a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate, he should have old turning the key.-[Knocking within.] Knock, knock, knock! Who's there, i' the name of Beelzebub? 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 within.] 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: 0, come in, equivocator.-[Knocking within.] 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 within.] 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 within.] Anon, anon! I pray you, remember the porter. [Opens the gate.

Enter MACDUFF and LENNOX.

Macd. Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed, That you do lie so late?

Port. Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock: and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things.

Macd. What three things does drink especially provoke? Port. 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.

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

Port. That it did, sir, i' the very throat on me: but I requited him for his lie; and, I think, being too strong for him,

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though he took up my legs sometime, yet I made a shift to cast him.

Macd. Is thy master stirring?—

Our knocking has awak'd him; here he comes.

Len. Good morrow, noble sir.

Macb.

Re-enter MACBeth.

Good morrow, both.

Not yet.

Macd. Is the king stirring, worthy thane?

Macb.

Macd. He did command me to call timely on him:

I've 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 labour we delight in physics pain. This is the door.

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For 'tis my limited service.

Len. Goes the king hence to-day?

Macb.

[Exit.

He does: he did appoint so.

Len. The night has been unruly: where we lay, Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say, Lamentings heard i' th' air; strange screams of death; And prophesying, with accents terrible,

Of dire combustion and confus'd events

New hatch'd to the woful time: the obscure bird(45)
Clamour'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 heart Cannot conceive nor name thee!

Macb. Len.

What's the matter?

Macd. 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!

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. [Exeunt Macb. and Len.
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 (46)
As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites,
To countenance this horror!

[Alarum-bell rings.

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Re-enter MACBETH and LENNOX.(48)

Macb. Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had liv'd a blessèd time; for, from this instant, There's nothing serious in mortality:

grace

All is but toys: renown and 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.
The spring, the head, the fountain of your
Is stopp'd, the very source of it is stopp'd.
Macd. Your royal father's murder'd.

You are, and do not know't:

Mal.

blood

O, by whom?

Len. 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.

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, 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 M.

Macd. Look to the lady.

Mal. [aside to Don.]

Help me hence, ho!

Why do we hold our tongues,

That most may claim this argument for ours?

Don. [aside to Mal.] 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.

Mal. [aside to Don.]

Upon the foot of motion.

Nor our strong sorrow

Ban.

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 undivulg'd pretence I fight

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Macb. Let's briefly put on manly readiness,

And meet i' th' hall together.

All.

Well contented.

[Exeunt all except Malcolm and Donalbain.

Mal. 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.

Don. 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.

Mal.

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.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. The same. Without MACBETH's castle.

Enter Ross and an Old Man.

Old M. Threescore and ten I can remember well:
Within the volume of which time I've seen

Hours dreadful and things strange; but this sore night
Hath trifled former knowings.

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Ah, good father,

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