[Susan McLean]

Got Milk of Human Kindness? Take Mine--Please!

The raven is hoarse as he croaks the approach
to my castle of Duncan, that royal slow coach.
So come, all you spirits that tend on things human,
unsex me! I’ve had it with being a woman.
Extinguish compunction and stopper remorse:
allow my fell purpose to follow its course.

You murdering ministers, come to my call
and convert all the milk in my bosom to gall.
Come, spirits of mischief! Come, thick night, as well,
in a cloak of dun smoke from the caverns of hell,
so the wound that it makes can’t be seen by my knife,
nor the heavens cry “Hold!” as I take Duncan’s life.


Robert Browning, “How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix”