Anguish

But now I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d, bound in To saucy doubts and fears.

So weary with disasters, tugg’d with fortune, That I would set my life on any chance, To mend it or be rid on ’t.

Methought I heard a voice cry “Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep,” the innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care, The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, Chief nourisher in life’s feast.

I had most need of blessing, and “Amen” Stuck in my throat.

Had he not resembled My father as he slept I had done ’t.

The attempt and not the deed Confounds us.

The bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell That summons thee to heaven or to hell.

Now o’er the one half-world Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse The curtain’d sleep; witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate’s offerings.

Thou sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear The very stones prate of my whereabout.

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-oppressed brain?

Merciful powers! Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature Gives way to in repose.

I am Thane of Cawdor: If good, why do I yield to that suggestion Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, Against the use of nature? Present fears Are less than horrible imaginings.

Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears Do scald like molten lead.

I have full cause of weeping, but this heart Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws Or ere I’ll weep. O fool! I shall go mad.

Hysterica passio! down, thou climbing sorrow! Thy element’s below.

My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr’d; And I myself see not the bottom of it.

Reason, in itself confounded, Saw division grow together.

O! woe is me, To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.

O! that this too too solid 30 flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew; Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world.

To persever In obstinate condolement is a course Of impious stubbornness; ’tis unmanly grief: It shows a will most incorrect to heaven, A heart unfortified, a mind impatient.

For this relief much thanks; ’tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart.

Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream: The genius and the mortal instruments Are then in council; and the state of man, Like to a little kingdom, suffers then The nature of an insurrection.

O polish’d perturbation! golden care! That keep’st the ports of slumber open wide To many a watchful night!