"Macbeth" Vocabulary from Act III

Why, by the verities on thee made good,
May they not be my oracles as well,
And set me up in hope?

If he had been forgotten,
It had been as a gap in our great feast,
And all-thing unbecoming.

We should have else desired your good advice,
Which still hath been both grave and prosperous,
In this day's council.

I wish your horses swift and sure of foot;

To that dauntless temper of his mind,
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
To act in safety.

Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown,
And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,
Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand,
No son of mine succeeding. If 't be so,
For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind

Rather than so, come fate into the list.
And champion me to the utterance!

Know that it was he in the times past which held you
So under fortune, which you thought had been
Our innocent self.

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.

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

We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it:

She'll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice
Remains in danger of her former tooth.

There's comfort yet; they are assailable;
Then be thou jocund.

Ere the bat hath flown
His cloister'd flight, ere to black Hecate's summons
The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums
Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done
A deed of dreadful note.

Ere the bat hath flown
His cloister'd flight, ere to black Hecate's summons
The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums
Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done
A deed of dreadful note.

Now spurs the lated traveller apace
To gain the timely inn.

See, they encounter thee with their hearts' thanks.
Both sides are even: here I'll sit i' the midst:
Be large in mirth; anon we'll drink a measure
The table round.

Thou art the best o' the cut-throats: yet he's good
That did the like for Fleance: if thou didst it,
Thou art the nonpareil.

Ay, my good lord: safe in a ditch he bides,
With twenty trenched gashes on his head;
The least a death to nature.

Now, good digestion wait on appetite,
And health on both!

Here had we now our country's honour roof'd,
Were the graced person of our Banquo present;
Who may I rather challenge for unkindness
Than pity for mischance!

Thou canst not say I did it: never shake
Thy gory locks at me.

Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time,
Ere human statute purged the gentle weal

Hence, horrible shadow!
Unreal mockery, hence!

Augurs and understood relations have
By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth
The secret'st man of blood.

How did you dare
To trade and traffic with Macbeth
In riddles and affairs of death

Which is worse, all you have done
Hath been but for a wayward son,a
Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,
Loves for his own ends, not for you.

That distill'd by magic sleights
Shall raise such artificial sprites
As by the strength of their illusion
Shall draw him on to his confusion

But, peace! for from broad words and 'cause he fail'd
His presence at the tyrant's feast, I hear
Macduff lives in disgrace: