If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well

It were done quickly. If the assassination

Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,

With his surcease, success – that but this blow

Might be the be-all and the end-all! – here,

But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,

We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases

We still have judgement here – that we but teach

Bloody instructions, which being taught return

To plague the inventor. This even-handed justice

Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice

To our own lips. He’s here in double trust:

First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,

Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,

Who should against his murderer shut the door,

Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan

Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

So clear in his great office, that his virtues

Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued against

The deep damnation of his taking-off;

And pity, like a naked new-born babe

Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin, horsed

Upon the sightless curriers of the air,

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself

And falls on the other.

[II, i, 33–64] As he steels his nerves to kill the sleeping Duncan, an all but delirious Macbeth can hardly tell where his fantasies of power leave off and murderous fact takes up the story:

Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee–

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still!

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but

A dagger of the mind, a false creation,

Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?

I see thee yet, in form as palpable

As this which now I draw.

Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going,

And such an instrument I was to use.–

Mine eyes are made the fools o’ the other senses,

Or else worth all the rest. – I see thee still,

And on thy blade and dudgeon, gouts of blood,

Which was not so before. There’s no such thing:

It is the bloody business which informs

Thus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one half-world

Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse

The curtained sleep. Witchcraft celebrates

Pale Hecat’s offerings; and withered Murder,

Alarumed by his sentinel the wolf,

Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,

With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design

Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,

Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear

Thy very stones prate of my whereabout

And take the present horror from the time

Which now suits with it. – Whiles I threat, he lives:

Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

(A bell rings.)

I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.