Do you find Your patience so predominant
Macbeth
Do you find
Your patience so predominant in your nature
That you can let this go? Are you so gospeled
To pray for this good man and for his issue,
Whose heavy hand hath bowed you to the grave
And beggared yours forever?
It is concluded. Banquo, thy soul’s flight,
If it find heaven, must find it out tonight.
First Murderer
We are men, my liege.
Macbeth
Ay, in the catalogue you go for men,
As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves are clept
All by the name of dogs. The valued file
Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,
The housekeeper, the hunter, every one
According to the gift which bounteous nature
Hath in him closed; whereby he does receive
Particular addition, from the bill
That writes them all alike. And so of men.
Now, if you have a station in the file,
Not i’ th’ worst rank of manhood, say ’t,
And I will put that business in your bosoms
Whose execution takes your enemy off,
Grapples you to the heart and love of us,
Who wear our health but sickly in his life,
Which in his death were perfect.
Second Murderer
I am one, my liege,
Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world
Hath so incensed that I am reckless what
I do to spite the world.
First Murderer
And I another
So weary with disasters, tugged with fortune,
That I would set my life on any chance,
To mend it or be rid on ’t.
Macbeth
Both of you
Know Banquo was your enemy.
Murderers
True, my lord.
Macbeth
So is he mine, and in such bloody distance
That every minute of his being thrusts
Against my near’st of life. And though I could
With barefaced power sweep him from my sight
And bid my will avouch it, yet I must not,
For certain friends that are both his and mine,
Whose loves I may not drop, but wail his fall
Who I myself struck down. And thence it is
That I to your assistance do make love,
Masking the business from the common eye
For sundry weighty reasons.
Second Murderer
We shall, my lord,
Perform what you command us.
First Murderer
Though our lives—
Macbeth
Your spirits shine through you. Within this hour at most
I will advise you where to plant yourselves,
Acquaint you with the perfect spy o’ th’ time,
The moment on ’t, for ’t must be done tonight
And something from the palace; always thought
That I require a clearness. And with him
To leave no rubs nor botches in the work
Fleance, his son, that keeps him company,
Whose absence is no less material to me
Than is his father’s, must embrace the fate
Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart.
I’ll come to you anon.
Murderers
We are resolved, my lord.
Macbeth
I’ll call upon you straight. Abide within.
Murderers exit.
It is concluded. Banquo, thy soul’s flight,
If it find heaven, must find it out tonight.
He exits.