Enter MACBETH.

Macbeth. I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?

Lady Macbeth. I heard the owl scream and the

Lady Macbeth.

Donalbain.

Macbeth [Looking on his hands.] This is a sorry

sight.

Lady Macbeth. A foolish thought to say a sorry sight.

Macbeth. There's one did laugh in 's sleep, and one cried Murder!'

That they did wake each other: I stood and heard them;

But they did say their prayers, and address'd them Again to sleep.

Lady Macbeth. There are two lodg'd together. Macbeth. One cried' God bless us!' and 'Amen' the other:

As they had seen me with these hangman's hands. Listening their fear, I could not say 'Amen', When they did say ' God bless us !'

Lady Macbeth.

Consider it not so deeply.

Macbeth. But wherefore could not I

• Amen?'

pronounce

I had most need of blessing, and 'Amen'

Stuck in my throat.

Lady Macbeth. These deeds must not be thought After these ways; so, it will make us mad.

Macbeth. Methought I heard a voice cry Sleep

no more!

Macbeth does murder sleep,' the innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast,

Lady Macbeth.

What do you mean? Macbeth. Still it cried, 'Sleep no more!' to all the house:

'Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor

Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more !
Lady Macbeth. Who was it that thus cried ?
Why, worthy thane,

You do unbend your noble strength to think
So brainsickly of things. Go get some water,
And wash this filthy witness from your hand.
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there: go carry them, and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.

Macbeth.

I am afraid to think what I

Look on 't again I dare not.

Lady Macbeth.

I'll go no more :

have done;

Infirm of purpose!

Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead Are but as pictures; 'tis the eye of childhood That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,

I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal;

For it must seem their guilt.

[Exit. Knocking within.

Macbeth. How is 't with me, when every noise appals me ? What hands are here! Ha! they pluck out mine

Whence is that knocking?

eyes.

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean 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 colour, but I shame

To wear a heart so white. [Knocking within.] I hear a 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 night-gown, 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 !

Macbeth, II. ii.

THE WAY TO DUSTY DEATH

Macbeth. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to

morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Macbeth, v. v.

MURDER OF JULIUS CAESAR

Between the acting of a dreadful thing and the first motion.

Brutus. It must be by his death and, for my part,

I know no personal cause to spurn at him,

But for the general. He would be crown'd: How that might change his nature, there's the question :

It is the bright day that brings forth the adder And that craves wary walking. Crown him? that!

And then, I grant, we put a sting in him,
That at his will he may do danger with.
The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins
Remorse from power; and, to speak truth of
Caesar,

I have not known when his affections sway'd
More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
general] general public.

By which he did ascend. So Caesar may:
Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel
Will bear no colour for the thing he is,

Fashion it thus; that what he is, augmented,
Would run to these and these extremities;
And therefore think him as a serpent's egg
Which, hatch'd, would, as his kind, grow mis-
chievous,

And kill him in the shell.

Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar,
I have not slept.

Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream :
The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.

SOME SPEECHES

Julius Caesar, II. i.

I. ANTONY'S ORATION OVER THE BODY OF

CAESAR

Antony. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me

your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them,

The good is often interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious;
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,—
For Brutus is an honourable man;

So are they all, all honourable men,