Act III, Scene 4 Quotes — Macbeth

It will have blood, they say, blood will have blood.

I am in blood / Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er.

What man dare, I dare: / Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, / The arm’d rhinoceros, or th’ Hyrcan tiger; / Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves / Shall never tremble

Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect; / Whole as the marble, founded as the rock, / As broad and general as the casing air: / But now I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d, bound in / To saucy doubts and fears.

This is the very painting of your fear: / This is the air-drawn dagger which you said, / Led you to Duncan.

There the grown serpent lies; the worm that’s fled / Hath nature that in time will venom breed, / No teeth for th’ present.—

Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee! / Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; / Thou hast no speculation in those eyes / Which thou dost glare with!

Blood hath been shed ere now, i’ th’ olden time, / Ere humane statute purg’d the gentle weal; / Ay, and since too, murders have been perform’d / Too terrible for the ear: the time has been, / That, when the brains were out, the man would die, / And there an end; but now they rise again, / With twenty mortal murders on their crowns, / And push us from our stools.

Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake / Thy gory locks at me.

Strange things I have in head, that will to hand, / Which must be acted ere they may be scann’d.