Lady Macbeth’s lines in Macbeth

Lady Macbeth

1(Reading the letter) They met me in the day of success, and I have learned by the perfect’st report they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them further, they made themselves air, into which they vanished.

2(Reading the letter) Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it came missives from the King, who all-hailed me “Thane of Cawdor,” by which title, before, these Weïrd Sisters saluted me and referred me to the coming on of time with “Hail, king that shalt be.”

3(Reading the letter) This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thou might’st not lose the dues of rejoicing by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell.

4Glamis 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 To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great, Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly, That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false And yet wouldst wrongly win.

5Thou ’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 All that impedes thee from the golden round, Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem To have thee crowned withal.

6What is your tidings?

Lady Macbeth

8Thou ’rt mad to say it.

9Is not thy master with him, who, were ’t so, Would have informed for preparation?

Lady Macbeth

12Give him tending.

13He brings great news.

14The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 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.

15Make thick my blood. Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between Th’ effect and it.

16Come to my woman’s breasts And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night, 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!”

17Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor, Greater than both by the all-hail hereafter! Thy letters have transported me beyond This ignorant present, and I feel now The future in the instant.

Lady Macbeth

19And when goes hence?

Lady Macbeth

21O, never

22Shall sun that morrow see!

23Your face, my thane, is as a book where men

24May read strange matters. To beguile the time,

25Look like the time. Bear welcome in your eye,

26Your hand, your tongue. Look like th’ innocent flower,

27But be the serpent under ’t. He that’s coming

28Must be provided for; and you shall put

29This night’s great business into my dispatch,

30Which shall to all our nights and days to come

31Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.

Lady Macbeth

33Only look up clear.

34To alter favor ever is to fear.

35Leave all the rest to me.

Lady Macbeth

6All our service, In every point twice done and then done double, Were poor and single business to contend

7Against those honors deep and broad wherewith Your Majesty loads our house. For those of old, And the late dignities heaped up to them, We rest your hermits.

Lady Macbeth

14Your servants ever Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs in compt

15To make their audit at your Highness’ pleasure,

16Still to return your own.

Lady Macbeth

7He has almost supped. Why have you left the chamber?

Lady Macbeth

9Know you not he has?

Lady Macbeth

12Was the hope drunk Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since? And wakes it now, to look so green and pale At what it did so freely? From this time Such I account thy love.

13Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valor As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life And live a coward in thine own esteem, Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,” Like the poor cat i’ th’ adage?

Lady Macbeth

15What beast was ’t, then, That made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man; And to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place Did then adhere, and yet you would make both.

16They have made themselves, and that their fitness now Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me. I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you Have done to this.

Lady Macbeth

18We fail! But screw your courage to the sticking place And we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep Whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journey Soundly invite him, his two chamberlains Will I with wine and wassail so convince That memory, the warder of the brain, Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason A limbeck only.

19When in swinish sleep Their drenchèd natures lies as in a death, What cannot you and I perform upon Th’ unguarded Duncan? What not put upon His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt Of our great quell?

Lady Macbeth

21Who dares receive it other, As we shall make our griefs and clamor roar Upon his death?

Lady Macbeth

1That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold. What hath quenched them hath given me fire. Hark!—Peace. It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman, Which gives the stern’st good-night.

2He is about it. The doors are open, and the surfeited grooms Do mock their charge with snores. I have drugged their possets, That death and nature do contend about them Whether they live or die.

Lady Macbeth

4Alack, I am afraid they have awaked, And ’tis not done. Th’ attempt and not the deed Confounds us. Hark!—I laid their daggers ready; He could not miss ’em. Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done ’t.

5My husband?

Lady Macbeth

7I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. Did not you speak?

Lady Macbeth

9Now.

Lady Macbeth

11Ay.

Lady Macbeth

13Donalbain.

Lady Macbeth

15A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.

Lady Macbeth

17There are two lodged together.

Lady Macbeth

19Consider it not so deeply.

Lady Macbeth

21These deeds must not be thought After these ways; so, it will make us mad.

Lady Macbeth

23What do you mean?

Lady Macbeth

25Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane, You do unbend your noble strength to think So brainsickly of things. Go get some water And wash this filthy witness from your hand.— Why did you bring these daggers from the place? They must lie there. Go, carry them and smear The sleepy grooms with blood.

Lady Macbeth

27Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead 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.

Lady Macbeth

29My hands are of your color, but I shame To wear a heart so white.

30I 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.

31Hark, more knocking. Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us And show us to be watchers. Be not lost So poorly in your thoughts.

Lady Macbeth

37What’s the business, That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley The sleepers of the house? Speak, speak!

Lady Macbeth

40Woe, alas! What, in our house?

Lady Macbeth

52Help me hence, ho!

Lady Macbeth

4If he had been forgotten, It had been as a gap in our great feast And all-thing unbecoming.

Lady Macbeth

1Is Banquo gone from court?

Lady Macbeth

3Say to the King I would attend his leisure For a few words.

Lady Macbeth

5Naught’s had, all’s spent, Where our desire is got without content. ’Tis safer to be that which we destroy Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.

6How now, my lord, why do you keep alone, Of sorriest fancies your companions making, Using those thoughts which should indeed have died With them they think on? Things without all remedy Should be without regard. What’s done is done.

Lady Macbeth

9Come on, gentle my lord, Sleek o’er your rugged looks. Be bright and jovial Among your guests tonight.

Lady Macbeth

11You must leave this.

Lady Macbeth

13But in them nature’s copy’s not eterne.

Lady Macbeth

15What’s to be done?

Lady Macbeth

4Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends, For my heart speaks they are welcome.

Lady Macbeth

14My royal lord, You do not give the cheer. The feast is sold That is not often vouched, while ’tis a-making, ’Tis given with welcome. To feed were best at home; From thence, the sauce to meat is ceremony; Meeting were bare without it.

Lady Macbeth

27Sit, worthy friends. My lord is often thus And hath been from his youth. Pray you, keep seat. The fit is momentary; upon a thought He will again be well. If much you note him You shall offend him and extend his passion. Feed and regard him not.

28Are you a man?

Lady Macbeth

30O, proper stuff! This is the very painting of your fear. This is the air-drawn dagger which you said Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts, Impostors to true fear, would well become A woman’s story at a winter’s fire, Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself! Why do you make such faces? When all’s done, You look but on a stool.

Lady Macbeth

32What, quite unmanned in folly?

Lady Macbeth

34Fie, for shame!

Lady Macbeth

37My worthy lord, Your noble friends do lack you.

Lady Macbeth

43Think of this, good peers, But as a thing of custom. ’Tis no other; Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.

Lady Macbeth

46You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting With most admired disorder.

Lady Macbeth

49I pray you, speak not. He grows worse and worse. Question enrages him. At once, good night. Stand not upon the order of your going, But go at once.

Lady Macbeth

51A kind good night to all.

Lady Macbeth

53Almost at odds with morning, which is which.

Lady Macbeth

55Did you send to him, sir?

Lady Macbeth

58You lack the season of all natures, sleep.

Lady Macbeth

14Yet here’s a spot.

Lady Macbeth

16Out, 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?

Lady Macbeth

18The 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.

Lady Macbeth

21Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, O, O!

Lady Macbeth

27Wash your hands. Put on your nightgown. Look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on ’s grave.

Lady Macbeth

29To 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.