A monologue from the play by William Shakespeare
LADY MACBETH: He has almost supped.
Why have you left the chamber?Was the hope drunkWherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since?And wakes it now to look so green and paleAt what it did so freely? From this timeSuch I account thy love. Art thou afeardTo be the same in thine own act and valorAs thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have thatWhich thou esteem’st the ornament of life,And live a coward in thine own esteem,Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,”Like the poor cat i’ the adage?What beast was’t thenThat 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 wouldBe so much more the man. Nor time nor placeDid then adhere, and yet you would make both.They have made themselves, and that their fitness nowDoes unmake you.
I have given suck, and knowHow tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me:I would, while it was smiling in my face,Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gumsAnd dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as youHave done this. If we should fail?Screw your courage to the sticking placeAnd we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep(Whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journeySoundly invite him), his two chamberlainsWill I with wine and wassail so convinceThat memory, the warder of the brain,Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reasonA limbeck only. When in swinish sleepTheir drenched natures lies as in a death,What cannot you and I perform uponTh’ unguarded Duncan? what not put uponHis spongy officers, who shall bear the guiltOf our great quell?
