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Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,
Then Heav'n forgive him too!

ACT V. SC. 1.

LADY MACBETH'S SOMNAMBULISM.

Enter a Doctor of Physic, and a Gentlewoman.

Doct. I have two nights watch'd with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walk'd?

Gent. Since his Majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon't, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.

Doct. A great perturbation in nature! to receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching. In this slumb'ry agitation, besides her walking, and other actual performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say?

Gent. That, Sir, which I will not report after her.

Doct. You may to me, and 'tis most meet you should.

Gent. Neither to you, nor any one, having no witness to confirm my speech.

Enter Lady Macbeth with a taper.

Lo, you! here she comes.

This is her very guise, and, upon my

life, fast asleep. Observe her, stand close.

Doct. How came she by that light?

Gent. Why, it stood by her. She has light by her continually; 'tis her command.

Doct. You see her oyes are open.

Gent. Ay, but their sense is shut.

Doct. What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands. Gent. It is an accustom'd action with her to seem thus washing her hands; I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour. Lady. Yet here's a spot.

Doct. Hark, she speaks. I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.

Lady. Out! damned spot; out, I say-One, two; why, then 'tis time to do't- -Hell is murky. Fy, my Lord, fy! a soldier, and afeared? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account ?--Yet who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him?

Doct. Do you mark that?

Lady. The Thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now? What! will these hands ne'er be clean ?-No more o' that, my Lord, no more o' that you mar all with this starting.

Doct. Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.

Gent. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that. Heav'n knows what she has known.

Lady. Here's the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh!

Doct. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charg'd.

Gent. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.

Doct. Well, well, well

Gent. Pray God it be, Sir.

Doct. This disease is beyond my practice; yet I have known those which have walk'd in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds.

Lady. Wash your hands, put on your night-gown, look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out of his grave.

Doct. Ev'n so?

Lady. To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand: what's done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed.1 [Exit Lady.

Doct. Will she go now to bed?
Gent. Directly.

ACT V. SC. 5.

THE APPROACH OF MACBETH'S FATE.

Macbeth. Hang out our banners on the outward walls: The cry is still, they come. Our castle's strength

Will laugh a siege to scorn.

Here let them lie,

Till famine and the ague eat them up.

Were they not 'forc'd with those that should be ours,
We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
And beat them backward home. What is that noise?
[A cry within of women.

Seyton. It is the cry of women, my good Lord.
Macb. I have almost forgot the taste of fears:
The time has been my senses would have cool'd
To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair,
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir,
As life were in't. I have supp'd full of horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaught'rous thoughts,
Cannot once start me. Wherefore was that cry?
Sey. The Queen, my Lord, is dead.

Macb. She should have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for such a word.3
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded1 time;

Lady Macbeth's ferocious strength of character represses her external appearance of remorse, except when sleep deprives her will of control: Macbeth's softer nature is unable to conceal its exhibition in his waking hours. See "the Banquet," p. 100.

2 Re-enforced.

3 Intelligence.

⚫ Destined or limited by Providence.

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty1 death. Out, out, brief candle !
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more! it is a tale,

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing!

Enter a Messenger.

Thou com'st to use thy tongue. Thy story-quickly.
Mess. My gracious Lord,

I should report that which, I say, I saw,
But know not how to do't.

Macb. Well, say it, Sir.

Mess. As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The wood began to move.

Macb. Liar, and slave!

[Striking him.

Mess. Let me endure your wrath if't be not so:
Within this three mile2 you may see it coming;
I say, a moving grove.

Macb. If thou speak'st false,

Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
Till famine cling thee; if thy speech be sooth,

I care not if thou dost for me as much.

-I pull in resolution, and begin

To doubt th' equivocation of the fiend,

That lies like truth. Fear not, till Birnam-wood
Do come to Dunsinane,- -and now a wood
Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!
If this which he avouches does appear,
There is nor flying hence, nor tarrying here;
I 'gin to be aweary of the sun,

And wish the state o' th' world were now undone.
Ring the alarum bell. Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.

FROM KING RICHARD II.

ACT III. SC. 4.

RICHARD'S DESPAIR.

Of comfort no man speak!

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth!
Let's chuse executors, and talk of wills;
And yet not so-for what can we bequeath,

"The dust of death."-Psalm xxii. 15.-Steevens.

2 See note 5, p. 15.

Save our deposéd bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own, but death;
And that small model1 of the barren earth,
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For Heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
How some have been deposed, some slain in war;
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed;
All murdered.-For within the hollow crown,
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,
Keeps Death his court; and there the Antic2 sits,
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene

To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable; and, humoured thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin

Bores through his castle-wall, and-farewell king!
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn rev'rence; throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty;
For you have but mistook me all this while;
I live on bread like you, feel want like you,
Taste grief, need friends, like you; subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?

ACT V. SC. 3.

YORK'S CONTRAST of BOLINGBROKE AND RICHARD.

York and his Duchess.

Duch. My Lord, you told me you would tell the rest,
When weeping made you break the story off,

Of our two cousins coming into London.

York. Where did I leave?

Duch. At that sad stop, my Lord,

Where rude misgovern'd hands, from window tops,

Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard's head.

York. Then, as I said, the Duke, great Bolingbroke,

Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed,

Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know,

With slow, but stately pace, kept on his course;

For mould; that earth which, closing upon the body, takes its form."-Johnson. Model might mean here simply the bodily flesh.

2 The fool of the old farces.-See note 1, p. 86.

3 These humours or dispositions being thus formed in him.

* Some read addition, that is, title of honour.-See note 3, p. 92.

5 In all respects resembling a subject.

While all tongues cry'd, God save thee, Bolingbroke !
You wou'd have thought the very windows spake,
So many greedy looks of young and old
Through casements darted their desiring eyes
Upon his visage; and that all the walls,
With painted imagery, had said at once,
Jesu, preserve thee! welcome Bolingbroke!
Whilst he, from one side to the other turning,
Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed's neck,
Bespoke them thus: I thank you, countrymen;
And thus still doing, thus he passed along.

Duch. Alas! poor Richard, where rides he the while?
York. As in a theatre, the eyes of men,

After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious:

Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes
Did scowl on Richard! no man cry'd, God save him!
No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home;
But dust was thrown upon his sacred head;
Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,
His face still combating with tears and smiles,
The badges of his grief and patience,

That had not God, for some strong purpose steel'd
The hearts of men, they must, perforce, have melted,
And barbarism itself have pitied him.

FROM SECOND PART OF HENRY IV.

ACT III. SC. 1.

HENRY'S SOLILOQUY ON SLEEP.

How many thousands of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,

Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,

Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,

Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?

O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile

In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch
A watch-case, or a common 'larum bell ?1
Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast,
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains,

1 The alarm of danger was communicated by the watchman in garrison towns by a bell. "He had a case or box to shelter him from the weather."-Hanmer.

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