Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Act 3 - Scene 2
The palace.
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
[p]For a few words.
Servant : Madam, I will.
Lady Macbeth : Nought's had, all's spent,
[p]Where our desire is got without
content:
[p]'Tis safer to be that which we destroy
[p]Than by
destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
[p][Enter MACBETH]
[p]How now, my
lord! why do you keep alone,
[p]Of sorriest fancies your companions
making,
[p]Using those thoughts which should indeed have died
[p]With
them they think on? Things without all remedy
[p]Should be without
regard: what's done is done.
Macbeth : We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it:
[p]She'll close and be
herself, whilst our poor malice
[p]Remains in danger of her former
tooth.
[p]But let the frame of things disjoint, both the
[p]worlds
suffer,
[p]Ere we will eat our meal in fear and sleep
[p]In the
affliction of these terrible dreams
[p]That shake us nightly: better
be with the dead,
[p]Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to
peace,
[p]Than on the torture of the mind to lie
[p]In restless
ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
[p]After life's fitful fever he
sleeps well;
[p]Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor
poison,
[p]Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
[p]Can touch him
further.
Lady Macbeth : Come on;
[p]Gentle my lord, sleek o'er your rugged looks;
[p]Be bright
and jovial among your guests to-night.
Macbeth : So shall I, love; and so, I pray, be you:
[p]Let your remembrance
apply to Banquo;
[p]Present him eminence, both with eye and
tongue:
[p]Unsafe the while, that we
[p]Must lave our honours in these
flattering streams,
[p]And make our faces vizards to our
hearts,
[p]Disguising what they are.
Lady Macbeth : You must leave this.
Macbeth : O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!
[p]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;
[p]Then be thou jocund: ere
the bat hath flown
[p]His cloister'd flight, ere to black Hecate's
summons
[p]The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums
[p]Hath rung
night's yawning peal, there shall be done
[p]A deed of dreadful note.
Lady Macbeth : What's to be done?
Macbeth : Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
[p]Till thou applaud the
deed. Come, seeling night,
[p]Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful
day;
[p]And with thy bloody and invisible hand
[p]Cancel and tear to
pieces that great bond
[p]Which keeps me pale! Light thickens; and the
crow
[p]Makes wing to the rooky wood:
[p]Good things of day begin to
droop and drowse;
[p]While night's black agents to their preys do
rouse.
[p]Thou marvell'st at my words: but hold thee still;
[p]Things
bad begun make strong themselves by ill.
[p]So, prithee, go with me.
Previous: Act 3 - Scene 1
Next: Act 3 - Scene 3
