Read the excerpt from act 1, scene 5 of The Tragedy of Macbeth.Lady Macbeth. Give him tending;He brings great news.—[Exit Messenger.] The raven himself is hoarseThat croaks the fatal entrance of DuncanUnder my battlements. Come, you spiritsThat tend on mortal thoughts! unsex me here,And fill me from the crown to the toe top fullOf direst cruelty; make thick my blood,Stop up the access and passage to remorse,That no compunctious visitings of natureShake my fell purpose, nor keep peace betweenThe effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,Wherever in your sightless substancesYou wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night,And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,To cry, "Hold, hold!”
Read the excerpt from act 1, scene 5 of The Tragedy Macbeth.Lady Macbeth. O! neverShall sun that morrow see.Your face, my thane, is as a book where menMay read strange matters. To beguile the time,Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,But be the serpent under ’t. He that’s comingMust be provided for; and you shall putThis night’s great business into my dispatch;Which shall to all our nights and days to comeGive solely sovereign sway and masterdom.
Read the excerpt from act 1, scene 7 of The Tragedy of Macbeth.Lady Macbeth. Was the hope drunk,Wherein you dress’d yourself? hath it slept since,And wakes it now, to look so green and paleAt what it did so freely? From this timeSuch I account thy love. Art thou afeardTo be the same in thine own act and valourAs thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have thatWhich thou esteem’st the ornament of life,And live a coward in thine own esteem,Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’Like the poor cat i’ the adage?
Read the excerpt from act 1, scene 7 of The Tragedy of Macbeth.Lady Macbeth. We fail!But screw your courage to the sticking-place,And we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep,Whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journeySoundly invite him, his two chamberlainsWill I with wine and wassail so convinceThat memory, the warder of the brain,Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reasonA limbeck only; when in swinish sleepTheir drenched natures lie, as in a death,What cannot you and I perform uponThe unguarded Duncan? what not put uponHis spongy officers, who shall bear the guiltOf our great quell?
Read the excerpt from act 1, scene 5 of The Tragedy Macbeth.Lady Macbeth. Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!Thy letters have transported me beyondThis ignorant present, and I feel nowThe future in the instant.
Read the excerpt from act 1, scene 7 of The Tragedy of Macbeth.Macbeth. We will proceed no further in this business:He hath honour’d me of late; and I have boughtGolden opinions from all sorts of people,Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,Not cast aside so soon.
Read the excerpt from act 1, scene 7 of The Tragedy of Macbeth.Lady Macbeth. What beast was ’t, then,That made you break this enterprise to me?When you durst do it then you were a man;And, to be more than what you were, you wouldBe so much more the man. Nor time nor placeDid then adhere, and yet you would make both:They have made themselves, and that their fitness nowDoes unmake you. I have given suck, and knowHow tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me:I would, while it was smiling in my face,Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums,And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as youHave done to this.
Read the excerpt from act 1, scene 7 of The Tragedy of Macbeth.Lady Macbeth. Was the hope drunk,Wherein you dress’d yourself? hath it slept since,And wakes it now, to look so green and paleAt what it did so freely? From this timeSuch I account thy love. Art thou afeardTo be the same in thine own act and valourAs thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have thatWhich thou esteem’st the ornament of life,And live a coward in thine own esteem,Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’Like the poor cat i’ the adage? Macbeth. Prithee, peace.I dare do all that may become a man;Who dares do more is none.
Read the excerpt from act 1, scene 7 of The Tragedy of Macbeth.Lady Macbeth. We fail!But screw your courage to the sticking-place,And we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep,Whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journeySoundly invite him, his two chamberlainsWill I with wine and wassail so convinceThat memory, the warder of the brain,Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reasonA limbeck only; when in swinish sleepTheir drenched natures lie, as in a death,What cannot you and I perform uponThe unguarded Duncan? what not put uponHis spongy officers, who shall bear the guiltOf our great quell? Macbeth. Bring forth men-children only;For thy undaunted mettle should composeNothing but males. Will it not be receiv’d,When we have mark’d with blood those sleepy twoOf his own chamber, and us’d their very daggers,That they have done ’t? Lady Macbeth. Who dares receive it other,As we shall make our griefs and clamour roarUpon his death? Macbeth. I am settled, and bend upEach corporal agent to this terrible feat.Away, and mock the time with fairest show:False face must hide what the false heart doth know. [Exeunt.]
Read the excerpt from act 1, scene 7 of The Tragedy of Macbeth.[Macbeth.] He’s here in double trust:First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,Who should against his murderer shut the door,Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this DuncanHath borne his faculties so meek, hath beenSo clear in his great office, that his virtuesWill plead like angels trumpet-tongu’d againstThe deep damnation of his taking-off;And pity, like a naked new-born babe,Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin, hors’dUpon the sightless couriers of the air,Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spurTo prick the sides of my intent, but onlyVaulting ambition, which o’er-leaps itselfAnd falls on the other.—
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