The obscure bird / Clamour’d the live-long night. Some say the earth / Was feverous, and did shake.

And Duncan’s horses (a thing most strange and certain) / Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, / Turn’d wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out, / Contending ’gainst obedience, as they would make / War with mankind.

So is he mine; and in such bloody distance, / That every minute of his being thrusts / Against my near’st of life;

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.

Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak; / Augurs, and understood relations, have / By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth / The secret’st man of blood.—

Macduff, this noble passion, / Child of integrity, hath from my soul / Wiped the black scruples, reconcil’d my thoughts / To thy good truth and honour.