and the murderer is abroad. This was the time when lady Macbeth waked
to plot the murder of the king. She would not have undertaken a deed so
abhorrent to her sex, but that she feared her husband's nature, that it
was too full of the milk of human kindness, to do a contrived murder.
She knew him to be ambitious, but withal to be scrupulous, and not yet
prepared for that height of crime which commonly in the end accompanies
inordinate ambition. She had won him to consent to the murder, but she
doubted his resolution; and she feared that the natural tenderness of
his disposition (more humane than her own) would come between, and
defeat the purpose. So with her own hands armed with a dagger, she
approached the king's bed; having taken care to ply the grooms of his
chamber so with wine, that they slept intoxicated, and careless of
their charge. There lay Duncan in a sound sleep after the fatigues of
his journey, and as she viewed him earnestly, there was something in
his face, as he slept, which resembled her own father; and she had not
the courage to proceed.

She returned to confer with her husband. His resolution had begun to
stagger. He considered that there were strong reasons against the deed.
In the first place, he was not only a subject, but a near kinsman to
the king; and he had been his host and entertainer that day, whose
duty, by the laws of hospitality, it was to shut the door against his
murderers, not bear the knife himself. Then he considered how just and
merciful a king this Duncan had been, how clear of offence to his
subjects, how loving to his nobility, and in particular to him; that
such kings are the peculiar care of Heaven, and their subjects doubly
bound to revenge their deaths. Besides, by the favours of the king,
Macbeth stood high in the opinion of all sorts of men, and how would
those honours be stained by the reputation of so foul a murder!

In these conflicts of the mind lady Macbeth found her husband inclining
to the better part, and resolving to proceed no further. But she being
a woman not easily shaken from her evil purpose, began to pour in at
his ears words which infused a portion of her own spirit into his mind,
assigning reason upon reason why he should not shrink from what he had
undertaken, how easy the deed was; how soon it would be over; and how
the action of one short night would give to all their nights and days
to come sovereign sway and royalty! Then she threw contempt on his