William Shakespeare: Macbeth

ACT I. 7. SCENE VII. The same. A Lobby in the Castle. (continued)

MACBETH.
Pr'ythee, peace!
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.

LADY MACBETH.
What 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:
They 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 pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.

MACBETH.
If we should fail?

LADY MACBETH.
We 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 limbec only: when in swinish sleep
Their drenched natures lie as in a death,
What cannot you and I perform upon
The unguarded Duncan? what not put upon
His spongy officers; who shall bear the guilt
Of our great quell?

MACBETH.
Bring forth men-children only;
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males. Will it not be receiv'd,
When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two
Of his own chamber, and us'd their very daggers,
That they have don't?

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

MACBETH.
I am settled, and bend up
Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
Away, and mock the time with fairest show:
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

[Exeunt.]