Macbeth · William Shakespeare
SCENE III. The same.
Enter a Porter. Knocking within. PORTER. Here’s a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of hell gate, he should have old turning the key. [_Knocking._] Knock, knock, knock. Who’s there, i’ th’ name of Belzebub? 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._] Knock, knock! Who’s there, i’ th’ 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._] 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._] 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 th’ everlasting bonfire. [_Knocking._] Anon, anon! I pray you, remember the porter. [_Opens the gate._] Enter Macduff and Lennox. MACDUFF. Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed, That you do lie so late? PORTER. Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock; and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things.
MACDUFF. What three things does drink especially provoke? PORTER. 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. MACDUFF. I believe drink gave thee the lie last night. PORTER. 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. MACDUFF. Is thy master stirring? Enter Macbeth. Our knocking has awak’d him; here he comes. LENNOX. Good morrow, noble sir! MACBETH. Good morrow, both! MACDUFF. Is the King stirring, worthy thane? MACBETH. Not yet. MACDUFF. He did command me to call timely on him. I have almost slipp’d the hour. MACBETH. I’ll bring you to him. MACDUFF. I know this is a joyful trouble to you; But yet ’tis one. MACBETH. The labour we delight in physics pain. This is the door.
MACDUFF. I’ll make so bold to call. For ’tis my limited service. [_Exit Macduff._] LENNOX. Goes the King hence today? MACBETH. He does. He did appoint so. LENNOX. The night has been unruly: where we lay, Our chimneys were blown down and, as they say, Lamentings heard i’ th’ air, strange screams of death, And prophesying, with accents terrible, Of dire combustion and confus’d events, New hatch’d to the woeful time. The obscure bird Clamour’d the live-long night. Some say the earth Was feverous, and did shake. MACBETH. ’Twas a rough night. LENNOX. My young remembrance cannot parallel A fellow to it. Enter Macduff. MACDUFF. O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee! MACBETH, LENNOX. What’s the matter? MACDUFF. Confusion now hath made his masterpiece! Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope The Lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence The life o’ th’ building. MACBETH. What is’t you say? the life? LENNOX. Mean you his majesty? MACDUFF. Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight With a new Gorgon. Do not bid me speak. See, and then speak yourselves. [_Exeunt Macbeth and Lennox._] Awake, awake!— 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!
MACBETH. O, yet I do repent me of my fury, That I did kill them. MACDUFF. Wherefore did you so? MACBETH. Who can be wise, amaz’d, temperate, and furious, Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man: Th’ expedition of my violent love Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan, His silver skin lac’d 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? LADY MACBETH. Help me hence, ho! MACDUFF. Look to the lady. MALCOLM. Why do we hold our tongues, That most may claim this argument for ours? DONALBAIN. 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. MALCOLM. Nor our strong sorrow Upon the foot of motion. BANQUO. Look to the lady:— [_Lady Macbeth is carried out._] And when we have our naked frailties hid, 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 undivulg’d pretence I fight Of treasonous malice.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.