He brings great news.— Exit Messenger.
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 40
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts! unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood,— 44
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, 49
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, 52
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry 'Hold, hold!'
Enter Macbeth.
Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!
Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter! 56
Thy letters have transported me beyond
This ignorant present, and I feel now
The future in the instant.
Macb. My dearest love,
Duncan comes here to-night.
Lady M. And when goes hence? 60
Macb. To-morrow, as he purposes.
Lady M. O! never
42 mortal: murderous
45 remorse: relenting
46 compunctious visitings of nature: humane scruples
47 fell: fierce
keep peace between: separate
48 effect: accomplishment
49 take . . . for: turn to
50 sightless: invisible
52 pall: enshroud
dunnest: murkiest
