TPTT The Tragedy of Macbeth: ACT III
Introduction
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
SCENE I. Forres. The palace.
SCENE II. The palace.
SCENE III. A park near the palace.
SCENE IV. The same. Hall in the palace.
SCENE V. A Heath.
SCENE VI. Forres. The palace.
ACT IV
ACT V
About the Play
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SCENE II. The palace.
Enter LADY MACBETH and a Servant
LADY MACBETH
      Is Banquo gone from court?
Servant
      Ay, madam, but returns again to-night.
LADY MACBETH
      Say to the king, I would attend his leisure
      For a few words.
Servant
5     Madam, I will.
Exit
LADY MACBETH
      Nought's had, all's spent,
      Where our desire is got without content:
      'Tis safer to be that which we destroy
      Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.

Enter MACBETH

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