Page 2108 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

MACDUFF

Your royal father’s murdered.

MALCOLM
O, by whom?

LENNOX
Those of his chamber, as it seemed, had done’t:
Their hands and faces were all badged with blood,

So were their daggers, which, unwiped, we found [100]
Upon their pillows; they stared and were distracted;
No man’s life was to be trusted with them.

MACBETH
O yet I do repent me of my fury,
That I did kill them.

MACDUFF
Wherefore did you so?

MACBETH

Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,
Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man.
The expedition of my violent love
Outrun the pauser reason. Here lay Duncan,

His silver skin laced with his golden blood,
And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature [110]
For ruin’s wasteful entrance; there the murderers,
Steeped in the colours of their trade, their daggers

Unmannerly breeched with gore. Who could refrain,
That had a heart to love, and in that heart
Courage to make’s love known?

LADY
[swooning] Help me hence, ho!

MACDUFF