MRS. SIDDONS AS LADY MACBETH 61 



At the south entry : retire we to our chamber : 



A little water clears us of this deed : 



How easy is it, then ! Your constancy 



Hath left you unattended. [Knocking within.'] Hark, more knocking, 



Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us 



And show us to be watchers. Be not lost 



So poorly in your thoughts. 



Macbeth. To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself. 



[Knocking within. 

 Wake Duncan with this knocking ! Oh, would thou couldst ! 44 



[Exeunt. 



The notes are resumed where Lady Macbeth enters as queen. 



ACT III. 



SCENE 2. The Palace. 



Enter LADY MACBETH, as Queen, and SEYTON. 



Lady. 45 Is Banquo gone from court 1 



Seyton. Ay, madam, but returns again to-night. 



Lady. Say to the king, I would attend his leisure 

 For a few words. 



Seyton. Madam, I will. [_Exit. 



Lady. 46 Nought's had, all's spent, 



Where our desire is got without content : 

 'Tis safer to be that which we destroy 

 Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.46 



Enter MACBETH. 



47 How now, my lord ! why do you keep alone, 

 Of sorriest fancies your companions making ; 

 Using those thoughts which should indeed have died 

 With them they think on ? Things without all remedy 

 Should be without regard : what's done is done.47 



near his face ; his eye fixed, agony in his brow ; quite rooted to the spot. She 

 at first directs him with an assured and confident air. Then alarm steals 

 on her, increasing to agony lest his reason be quite gone and discovery be 

 inevitable. Strikes him on the shoulder, pulls him from his fixed posture, 

 forces him away, he talking as he goes. 



45 Great dignity and solemnity of voice ; nothing of the joy of gratified 

 ambition. 46 Very mournful. 



47 Still her accents very plaintive. This is one of the passages in which her 



