Page 2101 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

LADY

Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane,
You do unbend your noble strength, to think
So brain-sickly 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.

MACBETH
I’ll go no more. [50]

I am afraid to think what I have done;
Look on’t again I dare not.

LADY
Infirm 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.
Exit.

Knock within.

MACBETH
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 [60]

Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.

Enter Lady Macbeth.

LADY
My hands are of your colour; but I shame