Macbeth: Act 2 Quotes

Hold, take my sword. There's husbandry in heaven; Their candles are all out. Take thee that too. A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, and yet I would not sleep. Merciful powers, restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature gives way to in repose.

Banquo

What, sir, not yet at rest? The King's abed. He hath been in unusual pleasure, and sent forth great largess to you offices. This diamond he greets your wife withal, by the name of most kind hostess, and shut up in measureless content.

Banquo

Being unprepared, our will became the servant to defect, which else should free have wrought.

Macbeth

All's well. I dreamt last night of the three Weird Sisters. To you they have showed some truth.

Banquo

I think not of them. Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve, we would spend it in some words upon that business, if you would grant the time.

Macbeth

If you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis, it shall make honor for you.

Macbeth

So I lose none in seeking to augment it, but still keep my bosom franchised and allegiance clear, I shall be counseled.

Banquo

Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready, she strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight?

Macbeth

Or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable as this which now I draw.

Macbeth

Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going, and such an instrument I was to use. Mine eyes are made the fools o' th' other senses or else worth all the rest. I see thee still, and, on thy blade and dudgeon, gouts of blood, which was not so before.

Macbeth

There's no such thing. It is the bloody business which informs thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one-half world nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse the curtained sleep.

Macbeth

Witchcraft celebrates pale Hecate's off'rings, and withered murder, alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf, whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, with Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design moves like a ghost.

Macbeth

Thou sure and firm-set earth, hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear thy very stones prate of my whereabouts and take the present horror from the time, which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives. Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

Macbeth

I go, and it is done. The bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or to hell.

Macbeth

That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold. What hath quenched them hath given me fire. Hark! Peace. It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman, which gives the stern'st good-night.

Lady Macbeth

He is about it. The doors are open, and the surfeited grooms do mock their charge with snores. I have drugged their possets, that death and nature do contend about them whether they live or die.

Lady Macbeth

Alack, I am afraid they have awaked, and 'tis not done. Th' attempt and not the deed confounds us. Hark! I laid their daggers ready; he could not miss 'em. Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done't.

Lady Macbeth

I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?

Macbeth

I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. Did you not speak?

Lady Macbeth

A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.

Lady Macbeth

There's one did laugh in 's sleep, and one cried "murder!" That they did wake each other. I stood and heard them. But they did say their prayers and addressed them again to sleep.

Macbeth

One cried "God bless us" and "Amen" the other, as they had seen me with these hangman's hands, list'ning their fear. I could not say "Amen" when they did say "God bless us".

Macbeth

Consider it not so deeply.

Lady Macbeth

But wherefore could not I pronounce "Amen"? I had most need of blessing, and "Amen" stuck in my throat.

Macbeth

These deeds must not be thought after these ways; so, it will make us mad.

Lady Macbeth

Methought I heard a voice cry "sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep"--the innocent sleep, sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care, the death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, blam of hurt minds, great nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's feast.

Macbeth

Still it cried "sleep no more!: to all the house. "Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more."

Macbeth

Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane, you do unbend your noble strength to think so brainsickly of things. Go get some water and wash this filthy witness from your hand.

Lady Macbeth

Why did you bring these daggers from the place? They must lie there. Go, carry them and smear the sleepy grooms with blood.

Lady Macbeth

I'll go no more. I am afraid to think what I have done. Look on 't again I dare not.

Macbeth

Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures. 'Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil. If he do bleed, I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal, for it must seem their guilt.

Lady Macbeth

Whence is that knocking? How is 't with me when every noise appalls me? What hands are here! Ha, they pluck out mine eyes. Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.

Macbeth

My hands are of your color, but I shame to wear a heart so white. I hear a knocking at the south entry. Retire we to our chamber.

Lady Macbeth

A little water clears us of this deed. How easy it is, then! Your constancy hath left you unattended.

Lady Macbeth

Hark, more knocking. Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us and show us to be watchers. Be not lost so poorly in your thoughts.

Lady Macbeth

To know my deed 'twere best not know myself. Wake Duncan with thy knocking. I would thou couldst.

Macbeth

Here's a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of hell gate, he should have old turning the key. Knock, knock, knock! Who's there, i' th' name of Beelzebub? Here's a farmer that hanged himself on th' expectation of plenty. Come in time! Have napkins enough about you; here you'll sweat for 't.

Porter

Knock, knock! Who's there, in 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.

Porter

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.

Porter

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. Anon, anon!

Porter

I pray you, remember the porter.

Porter

Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed that you do lie so late?

Macduff

Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock, and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things.

Porter

What three things does drink especially provoke?

Macduff

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.

Porter

I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.

Macduff

That it did, sir, i' th' 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.

Porter

He did command me to call timely on him. I have almost slipped the hour.

Macduff

I know this is a joyful trouble to you, but yet 'tis one.

Macduff

The labor we delight in physics pain. This is the door.

Macbeth

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 confused events new hatch to th' woeful time. The obscure bird clamored the livelong night. Some say the earth was feverous and did shake.

Lennox

O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee!

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.

Macduff

Approach the chamber and destroy your sight with a new Gorgon. Do not bid me speak. See and then speak yourselves.

Macduff

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. Ring the bell.

Macduff

What's the business, that such a hideous trumpet calls to parley that sleepers of the house? Speak, speak!

Lady Macbeth

O gentle lady, 'tis not for you to hear what I can speak. The repetition in a woman's ear would murder as it fell.

Macduff

Woe, alas! What, in our house?

Lady Macbeth

Too cruel anywhere. Dear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself and say it is not so.

Banquo

Had I but died an hour before this chance, 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.

Macbeth

You are, and do not know't. The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood is stopped; the very source of it is stopped.

Macbeth to Donalbain

Those of his chamber, as it seemed, had done't. Their hands and faces were all 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.

Lennox

O, yet I do repent me of my fury, that I did kill them.

Macbeth

Who can be wise, amazed, temp'rate, and furious, loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man. Th' expedition of my violent love outrun the pause, reason.

Macbeth

Here lay Duncan, his silver skin laced with his golden blood, and his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature for ruin's wasteful entrance; there the murderers, steeped in the colors of their trade, their daggers unmannerly breeched with gore. Who could refrain that had a heart to love, and in that heart courage to make 's love known?

Macbeth

Help me hence, ho!

Lady Macbeth

Why do we hold our tongues, that most may claim this argument for ours?

Malcolm to 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 brewed.

Donalbain to Malcolm

Look to the lady. 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 undivulged pretense I fight of treasonous malice.

Banquo

Let's briefly put on manly readiness and meet i' th' hall together.

Macbeth

What will you do? Let's not consort with them. To show an unfelt sorrow is an office which the false man does easy. I'll to England.

Malcolm

To Ireland I. Our separated fortune shall keep us both the safer. Where we are, there's daggers in men's smiles. The near in blood, the nearer bloody.

Donalbain

This murderous shaft that's shot 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.

Malcolm

Threescore and ten I can remember well, within the volume of which time I have seen hours dreadful and things strange, but this sore night hath trifled former knowings.

Old Man

Ha, good father, thou sees the heavens, as troubled with man's act, threatens his bloody stage. By th' clock 'tis day, and yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp. Is 't night's predominance or the day's same that darkness does the face of earth entomb when living light should kiss it?

Ross

'Tis unnatural, even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last a falcon, towering in her pride of place, was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed.

Old Man

And Duncan's horses (a thing most strange and certain), beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out, contending 'against obedience, as they would make war with mankind.

Ross

They did so, to th' amazement of mine eyes that looked upon 't.

Ross to Old Man

Is 't known who did this more than bloody deed?

Ross

They were suborned. Malcolm and Donalbain, the King's two sons, are stolen away and fled, which puts upon them suspicion of the deed.

Macduff

'Gainst nature still! Thriftless ambition, that will ravin up thine own lives' means. Then 'tis most like the sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth.

Ross

He is already named and gone to Scone to be invested.

Macduff

Carried to Colmekill, the sacred storehouse of his predecessors and guardian of their bones.

Macduff (about Duncan's body)

No, cousin, I'll to Fife.

Macduff

Well, may you see things well done there. Adieu, lest our old robes sit easier than our new.

Macduff

God's benison go with you and with those that would make good of bad and friends of foes.

Old Man