[Verse 1] Candlelight, a letter trembling in her hand, three weird sisters' promise rising cross the land, thane of Cawdor now, a crown is what comes next, she reads the hungry future folded in the text. She weighs the metal of her husband's quiet mind, worries he's too gentle, too kind for what's designed, she says it plain, no riddle, no disguise: "It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness," she sighs. [Chorus] Unsex me here, strip the softness out, fill me top to toe with cruelty, no doubt, she's calling spirits down to harden every vein, turning mercy into murder, turning sunshine into rain. The golden round — that's the crown she means, sitting just past reach behind ambitious scenes. [Verse 2] A messenger comes running, breathless at the door, Duncan's riding here to Inverness, he swore, tonight's the night, the messenger makes clear, hie thee hither means hurry, husband, get up here. She calls on spirits tending every mortal thought, "Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here," pour your poison where the mother's milk once was, thicken up my blood and silence pity's cause. "Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell" — dunnest means the darkest, the deepest kind of spell, so no knife sees the wound it's about to make, no heaven peeks through the blanket crying, stop, for pity's sake. [Verse 3] Macbeth arrives; she greets him before the door can close, "Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!" she crows, tells him flat: their guest won't live to see the morning sun, "look like the innocent flower, / But be the serpent under't," is how it's done. Keep your face a party while the storm cooks underneath, beguile the time means fooling every watcher with your teeth, she'll handle the details, the whispers and the hour, he just needs the nerve to climb the golden round of power. [Bridge] Earlier, Macbeth himself had asked the dark the same request — stars, hide your fires, don't let the eyes undress what's hiding in his chest; now she's the one who prays, two voices, one ambition, swallowing the days. [Chorus] Unsex me here, strip the softness out, fill me top to toe with cruelty, no doubt, she's calling spirits down to harden every vein, turning mercy into murder, turning sunshine into rain. The golden round — that's the crown she means, sitting just past reach behind ambitious scenes. [Outro] Flower on the outside, serpent coiled beneath, beguile the time with smiling, keep the dagger sheathed, she asked the dark to thicken, asked her heart to close — watch how far the milk of kindness goes.
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