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Home > Macbeth > ACT III - SCENE II. The palace.

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ACT III - SCENE II. The palace.
Enter LADY MACBETH and a Servant

LADY MACBETH
1    Is Banquo gone from court?
Servant
2    Ay, madam, but returns again to-night.
LADY MACBETH
3    Say to the king, I would attend his leisure
4    For a few words.
Servant
5    Madam, I will.
Exit

LADY MACBETH
6    Nought's had, all's spent,
7    Where our desire is got without content:
8    'Tis safer to be that which we destroy
9    Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
Enter MACBETH
10   How now, my lord! why do you keep alone,
11   Of sorriest fancies your companions making,
12   Using those thoughts which should indeed have died
13   With them they think on? Things without all remedy
14   Should be without regard: what's done is done.
MACBETH
15   We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it:
16   She'll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice
17   Remains in danger of her former tooth.
18   But let the frame of things disjoint, both the
19   worlds suffer,
20   Ere we will eat our meal in fear and sleep
21   In the affliction of these terrible dreams
22   That shake us nightly: better be with the dead,
23   Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
24   Than on the torture of the mind to lie
25   In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
26   After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;
27   Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
28   Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
29   Can touch him further.
LADY MACBETH
30   Come on;
31   Gentle my lord, sleek o'er your rugged looks;
32   Be bright and jovial among your guests to-night.
MACBETH
33   So shall I, love; and so, I pray, be you:
34   Let your remembrance apply to Banquo;
35   Present him eminence, both with eye and tongue:
36   Unsafe the while, that we
37   Must lave our honours in these flattering streams,
38   And make our faces vizards to our hearts,
39   Disguising what they are.
LADY MACBETH
40   You must leave this.
MACBETH
41   O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!
42   Thou know'st that Banquo, and his Fleance, lives.
LADY MACBETH
43   But in them nature's copy's not eterne.
MACBETH
44   There's comfort yet; they are assailable;
45   Then be thou jocund: ere the bat hath flown
46   His cloister'd flight, ere to black Hecate's summons
47   The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums
48   Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done
49   A deed of dreadful note.
LADY MACBETH
50   What's to be done?
MACBETH
51   Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
52   Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night,
53   Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day;
54   And with thy bloody and invisible hand
55   Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
56   Which keeps me pale! Light thickens; and the crow
57   Makes wing to the rooky wood:
58   Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;
59   While night's black agents to their preys do rouse.
60   Thou marvell'st at my words: but hold thee still;
61   Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.
62   So, prithee, go with me.
Exeunt

< (Previous) ACT III, SCENE IACT III, III (Next) >
Scene Index
ACT I
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III
  • SCENE IV
  • SCENE V
  • SCENE VI
  • SCENE VII


  • ACT II
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III
  • SCENE IV


  • ACT III
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III
  • SCENE IV
  • SCENE V
  • SCENE VI


  • ACT IV
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III


  • ACT V
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III
  • SCENE IV
  • SCENE V
  • SCENE VI
  • SCENE VII
  • SCENE VIII

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