Macbeth

by William Shakespeare

There’s no art To find the mind’s construction in the face.

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature. It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness 17 To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great, Art not without ambition, but without 19 The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly, 20 That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, And yet wouldst wrongly win.

Thou’dst have, great Glamis, That which cries “Thus thou must do” if thou have it; And that which rather thou dost fear to do Than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither, That I may pour my spirits in thine ear And chastise with the valor of my tongue 27 All that impedes thee from the golden round 28 Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem 29 To have thee crowned withal.

Come, you spirits 40 That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe topfull Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood; 43 Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse, 44 That no compunctious visitings of nature 45 Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts 47 And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers, 48 Wherever in your sightless substances 49 You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night, 50 And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark To cry “Hold, hold.”

Your face, my thane, is as a book where men 62 May read strange matters. To beguile the time, 63 Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue; look like th’ innocent flower, But be the serpent under’t.

This guest of summer, 4 The temple-haunting martlet, does approve 5 By his loved mansionry that the heaven’s breath 6 Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze, 7 Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird 8 Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle. Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed 10 The air is delicate.

Methought I heard a voice cry “Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep” – the innocent sleep, 40 Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care, The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath, 42 Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, Chief nourisher in life’s feast.

Who can be wise, amazed, temp’rate and furious, 107 Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man. 108 The expedition of my violent love Outrun the pauser, reason.

Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men, 93 As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, 94 Shoughs, waterrugs, and demiwolves are clept 95 All by the name of dogs. The valued file Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle, 97 The housekeeper, the hunter, every one According to the gift which bounteous nature 99 Hath in him closed, whereby he does receive 100 Particular addition, from the bill That writes them all alike; and so of men.