Page 2122 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

Must lave our honours in these flattering streams
And make our faces vizards to our hearts,
Disguising what they are.

LADY
You must leave this.

MACBETH
O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!

Thou know’st that Banquo and his Fleance lives.

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

MACBETH
There’s comfort yet! They are assailable.
Then be thou jocund. Ere the bat hath flown [40]
His cloistered flight, ere to black Hecat’s summons

The shard-borne beetle, with his dowsy hums,
Hath rung night’s yawning peal, there shall be done
A deed of dreadful note.

LADY
What’s to be done?

MACBETH
Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,

Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night,
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day,
And with thy bloody and invisible hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond

Which keeps me pale. Light thickens [50]
And the crow makes wing to the rooky wood;
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,
Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.

Thou marvell’st at my words; but hold thee still.
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.