ophecy.

It happened at this time that the king, who out of his royal
condescension would oftentimes visit his principal nobility upon
gracious terms, came to Macbeth's house, attended by his two sons,
Malcolm and Donalbain, and a numerous train of thanes and attendants,
the more to honour Macbeth for the triumphal success of his wars.

The castle of Macbeth was pleasantly situated, and the air about
it was sweet and wholesome, which appeared by the nests which the
martlet, or swallow, had built under all the jutting friezes and
buttresses of the building, wherever it found a place of advantage:
for where those birds most breed and haunt, the air is observed to
be delicate. The king entered, well pleased with the place, and not
less so with the attentions and respect of his honoured hostess, lady
Macbeth, who had the art of covering treacherous purposes with smiles;
and could look like the innocent flower, while she was indeed the
serpent under it.

The king, being tired with his journey, went early to bed, and in his
state-room two grooms of his chamber (as was the custom) slept beside
him. He had been unusually pleased with his reception, and had made
presents, before he retired, to his principal officers; and among the
rest, had sent a rich diamond to lady Macbeth, greeting her by the
name of his most kind hostess.

Now was the middle of the night, when over half the world nature seems
dead, and wicked dreams abuse men's minds asleep, and none but the
wolf 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 somethin