William Shakespeare: Macbeth

ACT III. 4. SCENE IV. The same. A Room of state in the Palace. A banquet (continued)

MACBETH.
Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee!
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with!

LADY MACBETH.
Think of this, good peers,
But as a thing of custom: 'tis no other,
Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.

MACBETH.
What man dare, I dare:
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble: or be alive again,
And dare me to the desert with thy sword;
If trembling I inhabit then, protest me
The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!
Unreal mockery, hence!

[Ghost disappears.]

Why, so;--being gone,
I am a man again.--Pray you, sit still.

LADY MACBETH.
You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting,
With most admir'd disorder.

MACBETH.
Can such things be,
And overcome us like a summer's cloud,
Without our special wonder? You make me strange
Even to the disposition that I owe,
When now I think you can behold such sights,
And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks,
When mine are blanch'd with fear.

ROSS.
What sights, my lord?

LADY MACBETH.
I 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.

LENNOX.
Good-night; and better health
Attend his majesty!

LADY MACBETH.
A kind good-night to all!

[Exeunt all Lords and Atendants.]

MACBETH.
It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood:
Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;
Augurs, and understood relations, have
By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth
The secret'st man of blood.--What is the night?

LADY MACBETH.
Almost at odds with morning, which is which.