to come,' his imagination bears witness against him, and
shows us that what really holds him back is the hideous vileness of the
deed:

He's here in double trust;
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind.

It may be said that he is here thinking of the horror that others will
feel at the deed--thinking therefore of consequences. Yes, but could he
realise thus how horrible the deed would look to others if it were not
equally horrible to himself?

It is the same when the murder is done. He is well-nigh mad with horror,
but it is not the horror of detection. It is not he who thinks of
washing his hands or getting his nightgown on. He has brought away the
daggers he should have left on the pillows of the grooms, but what does
he care for that? What _he_ thinks of is that, when he heard one of the
men awaked from sleep say 'God bless us,' he could not say 'Amen'; for
his imagination presents to him the parching of his throat as an
immediate judgment from heaven. His wife heard the owl scream and the
crickets cry; but what _he_ heard was the voice that first cried
'Macbeth doth murder sleep,' and then, a minute later, with a change of
tense, denounced on him, as if his three names gave him three
personalities to suffer in, the doom of sleeplessness:

Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more.

There comes a sound of knocking. It should be perfectly familiar to him;
but he knows not whence, or from what world, it comes. He looks down at
his hands, and starts violently: 'What hands are here?' For they seem
alive, they move, they mean to pluck out his eyes. He looks at one of
them again; it does not move; but the blood upon it is enough to dye the
whole ocean red. What has all this to do with fear of 'consequences'? It
is his soul speaking in the on