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.

MACB.

[Exit. Knocking within. Whence is that knocking?

How is 't with me, when every noise appals 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 incarnardine,

Making the green one red.

Re-enter LADY MACBETH.

LADY M. My hands are of your colour, but I shame To wear a heart so white.-(Knocking within.) I hear a knocking

At the south entry; retire we to our chamber;

A little water clears us of this deed;

How easy is it, then! Your constancy

Hath left you unattended. (Knocking within.) Hark! more knocking.

Get on your night-gown, lest occasion call us,

And show us to be watchers. Be not lost

So poorly in your thoughts.

MACB. To know my deed 'twere best not know myself.

[Knocking within.

Wake Duncan with thy knocking ! I would thou couldst ! [Exeunt.

ACT V.

Scene I.-Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle.

Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman. DOCT. I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked ?

GEN. 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 slumbery agitation, besides her walking and other actual performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say?

GEN. That, sir, which I will not report after her.

DOCT. You may to me, and 'tis most meet you should. GEN. 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? GEN. Why, it stood by her tinually; 'tis her command.

she has light by her con

DOCT. You see, her eyes are open. GEN. Ay, but their sense is shut. DOCT. What is it she does now? hands.

Look, how she rubs her

GEN. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands. I have known her to continue in this a quarter of an hour.

LADY M. 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 M. Out, damned spot: out, I say! One; two: why, then, 'tis time to do 't. Hell is murky! Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? 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 had so much blood in him?

DOCT. Do you mark that?

LADY. M. 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.

GEN. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that Heaven knows what she has known.

LADY M. 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 charged. GEN. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.

DOCT. Well, well, well.

GEN. Pray God it be, sir.

DOCT. This disease is beyond my practice: yet I have

known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.

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

DOCT. Even so?

LADY M. 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.

DOCT. Will she go now to bed?

'GEN. Directly.

[Exit.

DOCT. Foul whisperings are abroad. Unnatural deeds Do breed unnatural troubles; infected minds

To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets;
More needs she the divine than the physician.
God, God forgive us all! Look after her;
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
And still keep eyes upon her. So, good-night.

[Exeunt.

HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ACT I.

Scene II-A Room of State in the Castle. Enter the KING, QUEEN, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants.

KING. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death The memory be green, and that it us befitted

To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom

To be contracted in one brow of woe,

Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
The imperial jointress of this war-like state,
Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,
With one auspicious and one dropping eye,
With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole,
Taken to wife nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along for all, our thanks.
And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of some suit; what is 't, Laertes ?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,

And lose your voice; what wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What wouldst thou have, Laertes ?

LAER.

Dread, my lord,

Your leave and favour to return to France;
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
To show my duty in your coronation,

Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,

My thoughts and wishes bend again towards France
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.

KING. Have you your

Polonius ?

father's leave? What says

POL. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave By laboursome petition, and at last

Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:

I do beseech you, give him leave to go.

KING. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine, And thy best graces spend it at thy will.

But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,

HAM. (Aside). A little more than kin, and less than kind. KING. How is it that the clouds still hang on you? HAM. Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun. QUEEN. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not for ever with thy vailed lids

Seek for thy noble father in the dust:

Thou know'st 'tis common; all that live must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

НАМ,
QUEEN.

Ay, madam, it is common.

Why seems it so particular with thee?

HAM. Seems, madam!

If it be,

Nay, it is; I know not 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,

Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly; these indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play :
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

seems."

KING. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father:

But, you must know, your father lost a father;

That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound

In filial obligation for some term

To do obsequious sorrow; but to persevere

In obstinate condolement is a course

Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief :

It shows a will most incorrect to heaven.