Macbeth and SLEEP
Banquo: 2.1 (p. 49): "A heavy
summons lies like lead upon me/ And yet I would not sleep. Merciful
powers , / Restrain in me the cursèd thoughts that nature / Gives
way to in repose"
Macbeth: 2.1 (p. 53): "Now o'er
the one half world / Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse/ The curtained
sleep."
Macbeth: 2.2 (p. 57): "Methought I heard
a voice cry 'Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep' -- the innocent
sleep, /Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care, /The death of each
day's life, sore labor's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second
course,/ Chief nourisher in life's feast."
Macbeth: 3.2 (p. 93): "But let the frame
of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer, / Ere we will eat our meal in
fear, and sleep / In the affliction of these terrible dreams / That shake
us nightly. Better be with the dead, / Whom we, to gain our peace,
have sent to peace, / Than on the torture of the mind to lie / In restless
ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave, / After life's fitful fever he sleeps
well. / Treason has done his worst; nor steel or poison, / Malice domestic,
foreign levy, nothing / Can touch him further."