Who, almost dead for breath had scarcely more
Than would make up his message.
He brings great news. [Exit Attendant.] The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me, from the crown to th' toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood,
Stop up
th' access and passage to remorse;
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th' effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murth'ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of Hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor Heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry, "Hold, hold!"—
Enter МАСВЕТН.
Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!
Greater than both, by the All-hail, hereafter!
52 blanket. Fault has, of course, been found with this figure of speech. White judiciously remarked of another reading found in Collier's folio: "The man who does not apprehend the meaning and the pertinence of the figure .. had better shut his Shakespeare, and give his days and nights to the perusal of some more correct and classic writer." (R)