expectation of plenty. Come in time; have napkins enow about you; here you'll sweat for't. -Knocking.] Knock, knock! Who's there, i' 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 LENOX.

Macd. 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.

Macd. 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. Macd. 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. Macd. Is thy master stirring?—

Our knocking has awaked him; here he comes.

Enter MACBETH.

Len. Good-morrow, noble sir!

Good-morrow, both!

Macb.
Macd. Is the king stirring, worthy thane?
Macb.

Not yet.

Macd. He did command me to call timely on

him;

I have 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.

Macd.

I'll make so bold to call

For 'tis my limited service.

Len. Goes the king hence to-day?

Macb. He does :-he did appoint so.

[Exit.

Len. 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 confused events,

New hatch'd to the woeful time,

The obscure bird clamour'd the live-long 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. —Awake!
awake!- [Exeunt MACBETH and LENOX.
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.

Enter LADY MACBETH.

Lady M. What's the business,

[Bell rings.

That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
The sleepers of the house? speak, speak!

Macd.
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 M. Woe, alas! what, in our house?
Too cruel, anywhere.
Dear Duff, I pr'ythee contradict thyself,
And say, it is not so.

Ban.

Re-enter MACBETH and LENOX.

Macb. 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.

Don. What is amiss?

Macb.

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.

Macd. Your royal father's murder'd.

O, by whom?

Mal.
Len. Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had

done't:

Their hands and faces were all 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.

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, amazed, temperate, and furious,

Loyal, and neutral, in a moment? No man: The expedition of my violent love

Outran 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 mur

derers,

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 his love known?

Lady M.

Macd. Look to the lady.

Mal.

Help me hence, ho!

Why do we hold our tongues,

That most may claim this argument for ours?

Don. What should be spoken here,

Where our fate, hid in an auger-hole,

May rush, and seize us?

Are not yet brew'd.

Mal.

Let's away; our tears

Nor our strong sorrow

Upon the foot of motion.

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: