William Shakespeare: Macbeth, Act II, Scene III
Knocking within. Enter a 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: O, 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
Opens the gate
Enter Macduff and Lennox
'Faith sir, we were carousing till the second cock: and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things.
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.
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, though he took up my legs sometime, yet I made a shift to cast him.
Exit
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 livelong night: some say, the earth
Was feverous and did shake.
Re-enter Macduff
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
The life o' the building!
With a new Gorgon: do not bid me speak;
See, and then speak yourselves.
Exeunt Macbeth and Lennox
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. [Bell rings]
Enter Lady Macbeth
That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
The sleepers of the house? speak, speak!
'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:
The repetition, in a woman's ear,
Would murder as it fell.
Enter Banquo
Our royal master 's murder'd!
Re-enter Macbeth and Lennox, with Ross
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
The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
Is stopp'd; the very source of it is stopp'd.
Their hands and faces were an 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.
Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
The expedition my violent love
Outrun 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 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?
Aside to Malcolm
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.
Lady Macbeth is carried out
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 undivulged pretence I fight
Of treasonous malice.
Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain
To show an unfelt sorrow is an office
Which the false man does easy. I'll to England.
Shall keep us both the safer: where we are,
There's daggers in men's smiles: the near in blood,
The nearer bloody.
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
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