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- Macbeth
- by William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
- November, 1998 [Etext #1533]
- Project Gutenberg Etext of Macbeth by Shakespeare
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- ---BEGIN---
- MACBETH
- by William Shakespeare
- Persons Represented
- DUNCAN, King of Scotland.
- MALCOLM, his Son.
- DONALBAIN, his Son.
- MACBETH, General in the King's Army.
- BANQUO, General in the King's Army.
- MACDUFF, Nobleman of Scotland.
- LENNOX, Nobleman of Scotland.
- ROSS, Nobleman of Scotland.
- MENTEITH, Nobleman of Scotland.
- ANGUS, Nobleman of Scotland.
- CAITHNESS, Nobleman of Scotland.
- FLEANCE, Son to Banquo.
- SIWARD, Earl of Northumberland, General of the English Forces.
- YOUNG SIWARD, his Son.
- SEYTON, an Officer attending on Macbeth.
- BOY, Son to Macduff.
- An English Doctor. A Scotch Doctor. A Soldier. A Porter. An Old
- Man.
- LADY MACBETH.
- LADY MACDUFF.
- Gentlewoman attending on Lady Macbeth.
- HECATE,and three Witches.
- Lords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldiers, Murderers, Attendants,
- and Messengers.
- The Ghost of Banquo and several other Apparitions.
- SCENE: In the end of the Fourth Act, in England; through the rest
- of the Play, in Scotland; and chiefly at Macbeth's Castle.
- ACT I.
- SCENE I. An open Place. Thunder and Lightning.
- [Enter three Witches.]
- FIRST WITCH.
- When shall we three meet again?
- In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
- SECOND WITCH.
- When the hurlyburly's done,
- When the battle's lost and won.
- THIRD WITCH.
- That will be ere the set of sun.
- FIRST WITCH.
- Where the place?
- SECOND WITCH.
- Upon the heath.
- THIRD WITCH.
- There to meet with Macbeth.
- FIRST WITCH.
- I come, Graymalkin!
- ALL.
- Paddock calls:--anon:--
- Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
- Hover through the fog and filthy air.
- [Witches vanish.]
- SCENE II. A Camp near Forres.
- [Alarum within. Enter King Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox,
- with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Soldier.]
- DUNCAN.
- What bloody man is that? He can report,
- As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt
- The newest state.
- MALCOLM.
- This is the sergeant
- Who, like a good and hardy soldier, fought
- 'Gainst my captivity.--Hail, brave friend!
- Say to the king the knowledge of the broil
- As thou didst leave it.
- SOLDIER.
- Doubtful it stood;
- As two spent swimmers that do cling together
- And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald,--
- Worthy to be a rebel,--for to that
- The multiplying villainies of nature
- Do swarm upon him,--from the Western isles
- Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;
- And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
- Show'd like a rebel's whore. But all's too weak;
- For brave Macbeth,--well he deserves that name,--
- Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel,
- Which smok'd with bloody execution,
- Like valor's minion,
- Carv'd out his passag tTill he fac'd the slave;
- And ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
- Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,
- And fix'd his head upon our battlements.
- DUNCAN.
- O valiant cousin! worthy gentleman!
- SOLDIER.
- As whence the sun 'gins his reflection
- Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break;
- So from that spring, whence comfort seem'd to come
- Discomfort swells. Mark, King of Scotland, mark:
- No sooner justice had, with valor arm'd,
- Compell'd these skipping kerns to trust their heels,
- But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage,
- With furbish'd arms and new supplies of men,
- Began a fresh assault.
- DUNCAN.
- Dismay'd not this
- Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?
- SOLDIER.
- Yes;
- As sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.
- If I say sooth, I must report they were
- As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks;
- So they
- Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe:
- Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,
- Or memorize another Golgotha,
- I cannot tell:--
- But I am faint; my gashes cry for help.
- DUNCAN.
- So well thy words become thee as thy wounds;
- They smack of honor both.--Go, get him surgeons.
- [Exit Soldier, attended.]
- Who comes here?
- MALCOLM.
- The worthy Thane of Ross.
- LENNOX.
- What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look
- That seems to speak things strange.
- [Enter Ross.]
- ROSS.
- God save the King!
- DUNCAN.
- Whence cam'st thou, worthy thane?
- ROSS.
- From Fife, great king;
- Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky
- And fan our people cold.
- Norway himself, with terrible numbers,
- Assisted by that most disloyal traitor
- The Thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict;
- Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof,
- Confronted him with self-comparisons,
- Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm,
- Curbing his lavish spirit: and, to conclude,
- The victory fell on us.
- DUNCAN.
- Great happiness!
- ROSS.
- That now
- Sweno, the Norways' king, craves composition;
- Nor would we deign him burial of his men
- Till he disbursed, at Saint Colme's-inch,
- Ten thousand dollars to our general use.
- DUNCAN.
- No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive
- Our bosom interest:--go pronounce his present death,
- And with his former title greet Macbeth.
- ROSS.
- I'll see it done.
- DUNCAN.
- What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.
- [Exeunt.]
- SCENE III. A heath.
- [Thunder. Enter the three Witches.]
- FIRST WITCH.
- Where hast thou been, sister?
- SECOND WITCH.
- Killing swine.
- THIRD WITCH.
- Sister, where thou?
- FIRST WITCH.
- A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,
- And mounch'd, and mounch'd, and mounch'd:--"Give me," quoth I:
- "Aroint thee, witch!" the rump-fed ronyon cries.
- Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:
- But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
- And, like a rat without a tail,
- I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.
- SECOND WITCH.
- I'll give thee a wind.
- FIRST WITCH.
- Thou art kind.
- THIRD WITCH.
- And I another.
- FIRST WITCH.
- I myself have all the other:
- And the very ports they blow,
- All the quarters that they know
- I' the shipman's card.
- I will drain him dry as hay:
- Sleep shall neither night nor day
- Hang upon his pent-house lid;
- He shall live a man forbid:
- Weary seven-nights nine times nine
- Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine:
- Though his bark cannot be lost,
- Yet it shall be tempest-tost.--
- Look what I have.
- SECOND WITCH.
- Show me, show me.
- FIRST WITCH.
- Here I have a pilot's thumb,
- Wreck'd as homeward he did come.
- [Drum within.]
- THIRD WITCH.
- A drum, a drum!
- Macbeth doth come.
- ALL.
- The weird sisters, hand in hand,
- Posters of the sea and land,
- Thus do go about, about:
- Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
- And thrice again, to make up nine:--
- Peace!--the charm's wound up.
- [Enter Macbeth and Banquo.]
- MACBETH.
- So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
- BANQUO.
- How far is't call'd to Forres?--What are these
- So wither'd, and so wild in their attire,
- That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
- And yet are on't?--Live you? or are you aught
- That man may question? You seem to understand me,
- By each at once her chappy finger laying
- Upon her skinny lips:--you should be women,
- And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
- That you are so.
- MACBETH.
- Speak, if you can;--what are you?
- FIRST WITCH.
- All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!
- SECOND WITCH.
- All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!
- THIRD WITCH.
- All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter!
- BANQUO.
- Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear
- Things that do sound so fair?-- I' the name of truth,
- Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
- Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
- You greet with present grace and great prediction
- Of noble having and of royal hope,
- That he seems rapt withal:--to me you speak not:
- If you can look into the seeds of time,
- And say which grain will grow, and which will not,
- Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
- Your favors nor your hate.
- FIRST WITCH.
- Hail!
- SECOND WITCH.
- Hail!
- THIRD WITCH.
- Hail!
- FIRST WITCH.
- Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.
- SECOND WITCH.
- Not so happy, yet much happier.
- THIRD WITCH.
- Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:
- So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!
- FIRST WITCH.
- Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!
- MACBETH.
- Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more:
- By Sinel's death I know I am Thane of Glamis;
- But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives,
- A prosperous gentleman; and to be king
- Stands not within the prospect of belief,
- No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
- You owe this strange intelligence? or why
- Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
- With such prophetic greeting?--Speak, I charge you.
- [Witches vanish.]
- BANQUO.
- The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
- And these are of them:--whither are they vanish'd?
- MACBETH.
- Into the air; and what seem'd corporal melted
- As breath into the wind.--Would they had stay'd!
- BANQUO.
- Were such things here as we do speak about?
- Or have we eaten on the insane root
- That takes the reason prisoner?
- MACBETH.
- Your children shall be kings.
- BANQUO.
- You shall be king.
- MACBETH.
- And Thane of Cawdor too; went it not so?
- BANQUO.
- To the selfsame tune and words. Who's here?
- [Enter Ross and Angus.]
- ROSS.
- The king hath happily receiv'd, Macbeth,
- The news of thy success: and when he reads
- Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight,
- His wonders and his praises do contend
- Which should be thine or his: silenc'd with that,
- In viewing o'er the rest o' the self-same day,
- He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,
- Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,
- Strange images of death. As thick as hail
- Came post with post; and every one did bear
- Thy praises in his kingdom's great defense,
- And pour'd them down before him.
- ANGUS.
- We are sent
- To give thee, from our royal master, thanks;
- Only to herald thee into his sight,
- Not pay thee.
- ROSS.
- And, for an earnest of a greater honor,
- He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor:
- In which addition, hail, most worthy thane,
- For it is thine.
- BANQUO.
- What, can the devil speak true?
- MACBETH.
- The Thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress me
- In borrow'd robes?
- ANGUS.
- Who was the Thane lives yet;
- But under heavy judgement bears that life
- Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combin'd
- With those of Norway, or did line the rebel
- With hidden help and vantage, or that with both
- He labour'd in his country's wreck, I know not;
- But treasons capital, confess'd and proved,
- Have overthrown him.
- MACBETH.
- [Aside.] Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor:
- The greatest is behind.--Thanks for your pains.--
- Do you not hope your children shall be kings,
- When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me
- Promis'd no less to them?
- BANQUO.
- That, trusted home,
- Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,
- Besides the Thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange:
- And oftentimes to win us to our harm,
- The instruments of darkness tell us truths;
- Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
- In deepest consequence.--
- Cousins, a word, I pray you.
- MACBETH.
- [Aside.] Two truths are told,
- As happy prologues to the swelling act
- Of the imperial theme.--I thank you, gentlemen.--
- [Aside.] This supernatural soliciting
- Cannot be ill; cannot be good:--if ill,
- Why hath it given me earnest of success,
- Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor:
- If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
- Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,
- And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
- Against the use of nature? Present fears
- Are less than horrible imaginings:
- My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
- Shakes so my single state of man, that function
- Is smother'd in surmise; and nothing is
- But what is not.
- BANQUO.
- Look, how our partner's rapt.
- MACBETH.
- [Aside.] If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me
- Without my stir.
- BANQUO.
- New honors come upon him,
- Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould
- But with the aid of use.
- MACBETH.
- [Aside.] Come what come may,
- Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
- BANQUO.
- Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.
- MACBETH.
- Give me your favor:--my dull brain was wrought
- With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains
- Are register'd where every day I turn
- The leaf to read them.--Let us toward the king.--
- Think upon what hath chanc'd; and, at more time,
- The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak
- Our free hearts each to other.
- BANQUO.
- Very gladly.
- MACBETH.
- Till then, enough.--Come, friends.
- [Exeunt.]
- SCENE IV. Forres. A Room in the Palace.
- [Flourish. Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, and
- Attendants.]
- DUNCAN.
- Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not
- Those in commission yet return'd?
- MALCOLM.
- My liege,
- They are not yet come back. But I have spoke
- With one that saw him die: who did report,
- That very frankly he confess'd his treasons;
- Implor'd your highness' pardon; and set forth
- A deep repentance: nothing in his life
- Became him like the leaving it; he died
- As one that had been studied in his death,
- To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd
- As 'twere a careless trifle.
- DUNCAN.
- There's no art
- To find the mind's construction in the face:
- He was a gentleman on whom I built
- An absolute trust.--
- [Enter Macbeth, Banquo, Ross, and Angus.]
- O worthiest cousin!
- The sin of my ingratitude even now
- Was heavy on me: thou art so far before,
- That swiftest wing of recompense is slow
- To overtake thee. Would thou hadst less deserv'd;
- That the proportion both of thanks and payment
- Might have been mine! only I have left to say,
- More is thy due than more than all can pay.
- MACBETH.
- The service and the loyalty I owe,
- In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part
- Is to receive our duties: and our duties
- Are to your throne and state, children and servants;
- Which do but what they should, by doing everything
- Safe toward your love and honor.
- DUNCAN.
- Welcome hither:
- I have begun to plant thee, and will labor
- To make thee full of growing.--Noble Banquo,
- That hast no less deserv'd, nor must be known
- No less to have done so,let me infold thee
- And hold thee to my heart.
- BANQUO.
- There if I grow,
- The harvest is your own.
- DUNCAN.
- My plenteous joys,
- Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves
- In drops of sorrow.--Sons, kinsmen, thanes,
- And you whose places are the nearest, know,
- We will establish our estate upon
- Our eldest, Malcolm; whom we name hereafter
- The Prince of Cumberland: which honor must
- Not unaccompanied invest him only,
- But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
- On all deservers.--From hence to Inverness,
- And bind us further to you.
- MACBETH.
- The rest is labor, which is not us'd for you:
- I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful
- The hearing of my wife with your approach;
- So, humbly take my leave.
- DUNCAN.
- My worthy Cawdor!
- MACBETH.
- [Aside.] The Prince of Cumberland!--That is a step,
- On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,
- For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires!
- Let not light see my black and deep desires:
- The eye wink at the hand! yet let that be,
- Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.
- [Exit.]
- DUNCAN.
- True, worthy Banquo!--he is full so valiant;
- And in his commendations I am fed,--
- It is a banquet to me. Let us after him,
- Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome:
- It is a peerless kinsman.
- [Flourish. Exeunt.]
- SCENE V. Inverness. A Room in Macbeth's Castle.
- [Enter Lady Macbeth, reading a letter.]
- LADY MACBETH.
- "They met me in the day of success; and I have
- learned by the perfectest report they have more in them than
- mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them
- further, they made themselves air, into which they vanished.
- Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from
- the king, who all-hailed me, 'Thane of Cawdor'; by which title,
- before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referred me to the
- coming on of time, with 'Hail, king that shalt be!' This have
- I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of
- greatness; that thou mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing, by
- being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy
- heart, and farewell."
- Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
- What thou art promis'd; yet do I fear thy nature;
- It is too full o' the milk of human kindness
- To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great;
- Art not without ambition; but without
- The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly,
- That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
- And yet wouldst wrongly win: thou'dst have, great Glamis,
- That which cries, "Thus thou must do, if thou have it:
- And that which rather thou dost fear to do
- Than wishest should be undone." Hie thee hither,
- That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
- And chastise with the valor of my tongue
- All that impedes thee from the golden round,
- Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
- To have thee crown'd withal.
- [Enter an Attendant.]
- What is your tidings?
- ATTENDANT.
- The king comes here tonight.
- LADY MACBETH.
- Thou'rt mad to say it:
- Is not thy master with him? who, were't so,
- Would have inform'd for preparation.
- ATTENDANT.
- So please you, it is true:--our thane is coming:
- One of my fellows had the speed of him;
- Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
- Than would make up his message.
- LADY MACBETH.
- Give him tending;
- He brings great news.
- [Exit Attendant.]
- The raven himself is hoarse
- That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
- Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
- That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here;
- And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
- Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood,
- Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
- That no compunctious visitings of nature
- Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
- The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
- And take my milk for gall, your murdering ministers,
- Wherever in your sightless substances
- You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
- And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell
- That my keen knife see not the wound it makes
- Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark
- To cry, "Hold, hold!"
- [Enter Macbeth.]
- Great Glamis! Worthy Cawdor!
- Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!
- Thy letters have transported me beyond
- This ignorant present, and I feel now
- The future in the instant.
- MACBETH.
- My dearest love,
- Duncan comes here tonight.
- LADY MACBETH.
- And when goes hence?
- MACBETH.
- To-morrow,--as he purposes.
- LADY MACBETH.
- O, never
- Shall sun that morrow see!
- Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
- May read strange matters:--to beguile the time,
- Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
- Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
- But be the serpent under't. He that's coming
- Must be provided for: and you shall put
- This night's great business into my despatch;
- Which shall to all our nights and days to come
- Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.
- MACBETH.
- We will speak further.
- LADY MACBETH.
- Only look up clear;
- To alter favor ever is to fear:
- Leave all the rest to me.
- [Exeunt.]
- SCENE VI. The same. Before the Castle.
- [Hautboys. Servants of Macbeth attending.]
- [Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Banquo, Lennox, Macduff, Ross,
- Angus, and Attendants.]
- DUNCAN.
- This castle hath a pleasant seat: the air
- Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
- Unto our gentle senses.
- BANQUO.
- This guest of summer,
- The temple-haunting martlet, does approve
- By his lov'd mansionry, that the heaven's breath
- Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze, buttress,
- Nor coigne of vantage, but this bird hath made
- His pendant bed and procreant cradle:
- Where they most breed and haunt, I have observ'd
- The air is delicate.
- [Enter Lady Macbeth.]
- DUNCAN.
- See, see, our honour'd hostess!--
- The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,
- Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you
- How you shall bid God ild us for your pains,
- And thank us for your trouble.
- LADY MACBETH.
- All our service
- In every point twice done, and then done double,
- Were poor and single business to contend
- Against those honours deep and broad wherewith
- Your majesty loads our house: for those of old,
- And the late dignities heap'd up to them,
- We rest your hermits.
- DUNCAN.
- Where's the Thane of Cawdor?
- We cours'd him at the heels, and had a purpose
- To be his purveyor: but he rides well;
- And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp him
- To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess,
- We are your guest tonight.
- LADY MACBETH.
- Your servants ever
- Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt,
- To make their audit at your highness' pleasure,
- Still to return your own.
- DUNCAN.
- Give me your hand;
- Conduct me to mine host: we love him highly,
- And shall continue our graces towards him.
- By your leave, hostess.
- [Exeunt.]
- SCENE VII. The same. A Lobby in the Castle.
- [Hautboys and torches. Enter, and pass over, a Sewer and divers
- Servants with dishes and service. Then enter Macbeth.]
- MACBETH.
- If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
- It were done quickly. If the assassination
- Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
- With his surcease, success; that but this blow
- Might be the be-all and the end-all--here,
- But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,--
- We'd jump the life to come. But in these cases
- We still have judgement here; that we but teach
- Bloody instructions, which being taught, return
- To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
- Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
- To our own lips. 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 cherubin, hors'd
- Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
- Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
- That tears shall drown the wind.--I have no spur
- To prick the sides of my intent, but only
- Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
- And falls on the other.
- [Enter Lady Macbeth.]
- How now! what news?
- LADY MACBETH.
- He has almost supp'd: why have you left the chamber?
- MACBETH.
- Hath he ask'd for me?
- LADY MACBETH.
- Know you not he has?
- MACBETH.
- We will proceed no further in this business:
- He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought
- Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
- Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
- Not cast aside so soon.
- LADY MACBETH.
- Was the hope drunk
- Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?
- And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
- At what it did so freely? From this time
- Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
- To be the same in thine own act and valor
- As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
- Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
- And live a coward in thine own esteem;
- Letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would,"
- Like the poor cat i' the adage?
- MACBETH.
- Pr'ythee, peace!
- I dare do all that may become a man;
- Who dares do more is none.
- LADY MACBETH.
- What beast was't, then,
- That made you break this enterprise to me?
- When you durst do it, then you were a man;
- And, to be more than what you were, you would
- Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
- Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
- They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
- Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
- How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
- I would, while it was smiling in my face,
- Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums
- And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
- Have done to this.
- MACBETH.
- If we should fail?
- LADY MACBETH.
- We fail!
- But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
- And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep,--
- Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey
- Soundly invite him, his two chamberlains
- Will I with wine and wassail so convince
- That memory, the warder of the brain,
- Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
- A limbec only: when in swinish sleep
- Their drenched natures lie as in a death,
- What cannot you and I perform upon
- The unguarded Duncan? what not put upon
- His spongy officers; who shall bear the guilt
- Of our great quell?
- MACBETH.
- Bring forth men-children only;
- For thy undaunted mettle should compose
- Nothing but males. Will it not be receiv'd,
- When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two
- Of his own chamber, and us'd their very daggers,
- That they have don't?
- LADY MACBETH.
- Who dares receive it other,
- As we shall make our griefs and clamor roar
- Upon his death?
- MACBETH.
- I am settled, and bend up
- Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
- Away, and mock the time with fairest show:
- False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
- [Exeunt.]
- ACT II.
- SCENE I. Inverness. Court within the Castle.
- [Enter Banquo, preceeded by Fleance with a torch.]
- BANQUO.
- How goes the night, boy?
- FLEANCE.
- The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.
- BANQUO.
- And she goes down at twelve.
- FLEANCE.
- I take't, 'tis later, sir.
- BANQUO.
- Hold, take my sword.--There's husbandry in heaven;
- Their candles are all out:--take thee that too.--
- A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
- And yet I would not sleep:--merciful powers,
- Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
- Gives way to in repose!--Give me my sword.
- Who's there?
- [Enter Macbeth, and a Servant with a torch.]
- MACBETH.
- A friend.
- BANQUO.
- What, sir, not yet at rest? The king's a-bed:
- He hath been in unusual pleasure and
- Sent forth great largess to your officers:
- This diamond he greets your wife withal,
- By the name of most kind hostess; and shut up
- In measureless content.
- MACBETH.
- Being unprepar'd,
- Our will became the servant to defect;
- Which else should free have wrought.
- BANQUO.
- All's well.
- I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters:
- To you they have show'd some truth.
- MACBETH.
- I think not of them:
- Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve,
- We would spend it in some words upon that business,
- If you would grant the time.
- BANQUO.
- At your kind'st leisure.
- MACBETH.
- If you shall cleave to my consent,--when 'tis,
- It shall make honor for you.
- BANQUO.
- So I lose none
- In seeking to augment it, but still keep
- My bosom franchis'd, and allegiance clear,
- I shall be counsell'd.
- MACBETH.
- Good repose the while!
- BANQUO.
- Thanks, sir: the like to you!
- [Exeunt Banquo and Fleance.]
- MACBETH.
- Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
- She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.
- [Exit Servant.]
- Is this a dagger which I see before me,
- The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:--
- I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
- Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
- To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
- A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
- Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
- I see thee yet, in form as palpable
- As this which now I draw.
- Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;
- And such an instrument I was to use.
- Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
- Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;
- And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
- Which was not so before.--There's no such thing:
- It is the bloody business which informs
- Thus to mine eyes.--Now o'er the one half-world
- Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
- The curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
- Pale Hecate's offerings; and wither'd murder,
- Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
- Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
- With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
- Moves like a ghost.--Thou sure and firm-set earth,
- Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
- Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
- And take the present horror from the time,
- Which now suits with it.--Whiles I threat, he lives;
- Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
- [A bell rings.]
- I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
- Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell
- That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
- [Exit.]
- [Enter Lady Macbeth.]
- LADY MACBETH.
- That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold:
- What hath quench'd them hath given me fire.--Hark!--Peace!
- It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,
- Which gives the stern'st good night. He is about it:
- The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms
- Do mock their charge with snores: I have drugg'd their possets
- That death and nature do contend about them,
- Whether they live or die.
- MACBETH.
- [Within.] Who's there?--what, ho!
- LADY MACBETH.
- Alack! I am afraid they have awak'd,
- And 'tis not done: the attempt, and not the deed,
- Confounds us.--Hark!--I laid their daggers ready;
- He could not miss 'em.--Had he not resembled
- My father as he slept, I had done't.--My husband!
- [Re-enter Macbeth.]
- MACBETH.
- I have done the deed.--Didst thou not hear a noise?
- LADY MACBETH.
- I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
- Did not you speak?
- MACBETH.
- When?
- LADY MACBETH.
- Now.
- MACBETH.
- As I descended?
- LADY MACBETH.
- Ay.
- MACBETH.
- Hark!--
- Who lies i' the second chamber?
- LADY MACBETH.
- Donalbain.
- MACBETH.
- This is a sorry sight.
- [Looking on his hands.]
- LADY MACBETH.
- A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.
- MACBETH.
- There's one did laugh in's sleep, and one cried, "Murder!"
- That they did wake each other: I stood and heard them:
- But they did say their prayers, and address'd them
- Again to sleep.
- LADY MACBETH.
- There are two lodg'd together.
- MACBETH.
- One cried, "God bless us!" and, "Amen," the other;
- As they had seen me with these hangman's hands.
- Listening their fear, I could not say "Amen,"
- When they did say, "God bless us."
- LADY MACBETH.
- Consider it not so deeply.
- MACBETH.
- But wherefore could not I pronounce "Amen"?
- I had most need of blessing, and "Amen"
- Stuck in my throat.
- LADY MACBETH.
- These deeds must not be thought
- After these ways; so, it will make us mad.
- MACBETH.
- I heard a voice cry, "Sleep no more!
- Macbeth does murder sleep,"--the innocent sleep;
- Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
- The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
- Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
- Chief nourisher in life's feast.
- LADY MACBETH.
- What do you mean?
- MACBETH.
- Still it cried, "Sleep no more!" to all the house:
- "Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor
- Shall sleep no more,--Macbeth shall sleep no more!"
- LADY MACBETH.
- Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane,
- You do unbend your noble strength to think
- So brainsickly of things.--Go get some water,
- And wash this filthy witness from your hand.--
- Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
- They must lie there: go carry them; and smear
- The sleepy grooms with blood.
- MACBETH.
- I'll go no more:
- I am afraid to think what I have done;
- Look on't again I dare not.
- LADY MACBETH.
- Infirm of purpose!
- Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the dead
- Are but as pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood
- That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
- I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal,
- For it must seem their guilt.
- [Exit. Knocking within.]
- MACBETH.
- Whence is that knocking?
- How is't with me, when every noise appals me?
- What hands are here? Ha, they pluck out mine eyes!
- Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
- Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
- The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
- Making the green one red.
- [Re-enter Lady Macbeth.]
- LADY MACBETH.
- My hands are of your color, but I shame
- To wear a heart so white. [Knocking within.] I hear knocking
- At the south entry:--retire we to our chamber.
- A little water clears us of this deed:
- How easy is it then! Your constancy
- Hath left you unattended.--[Knocking within.] Hark, more
- knocking:
- Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us
- And show us to be watchers:--be not lost
- So poorly in your thoughts.
- MACBETH.
- To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself. [Knocking within.]
- Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!
- [Exeunt.]
- [Enter a Porter. Knocking within.]
- PORTER.
- Here's a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate, he
- should have old turning the key. [Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock.
- Who's there, i' the name of Belzebub? Here's a farmer that hanged
- himself on the expectation of plenty: come in time; have napkins
- enow about you; here you'll sweat for't.--[Knocking.] Knock,
- knock! Who's there, in the other devil's name? Faith, here's an
- equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either
- scale, who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not
- equivocate to heaven: O, come in, equivocator. [Knocking.] Knock,
- knock, knock! Who's there? Faith, here's an English tailor come
- hither, for stealing out of a French hose: come in, tailor; here
- you may roast your goose.-- [Knocking.] Knock, knock: never at
- quiet! What are you?--But this place is too cold for hell.
- I'll devil-porter it no further: I had thought to have let in
- some of all professions, that go the primrose way to the
- everlasting bonfire. [Knocking.] Anon, anon! I pray you, remember
- the porter.
- [Opens the gate.]
- [Enter Macduff and Lennox.]
- MACDUFF.
- Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,
- That you do lie so late?
- PORTER.
- Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock: and
- drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things.
- MACDUFF.
- What three things does drink especially provoke?
- PORTER.
- Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir,
- it provokes and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it
- takes away the performance: therefore much drink may be said to
- be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it
- sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and
- disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to: in
- conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and giving him the lie,
- leaves him.
- MACDUFF.
- I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.
- PORTER.
- That it did, sir, i' the very throat o' me; but I requited
- him for his lie; and, I think, being too strong for him,
- though he took up my legs sometime, yet I made a shift to cast
- him.
- MACDUFF.
- Is thy master stirring?--
- Our knocking has awak'd him; here he comes.
- [Enter Macbeth.]
- LENNOX.
- Good morrow, noble sir!
- MACBETH.
- Good morrow, both!
- MACDUFF.
- Is the king stirring, worthy thane?
- MACBETH.
- Not yet.
- MACDUFF.
- He did command me to call timely on him:
- I have almost slipp'd the hour.
- MACBETH.
- I'll bring you to him.
- MACDUFF.
- I know this is a joyful trouble to you;
- But yet 'tis one.
- MACBETH.
- The labour we delight in physics pain.
- This is the door.
- MACDUFF.
- I'll make so bold to call.
- For 'tis my limited service.
- [Exit Macduff.]
- LENNOX.
- Goes the king hence to-day?
- MACBETH.
- He does: he did appoint so.
- LENNOX.
- The night has been unruly: where we lay,
- Our chimneys were blown down: and, as they say,
- Lamentings heard i' the air, strange screams of death;
- And prophesying, with accents terrible,
- Of dire combustion and confus'd events,
- New hatch'd to the woeful time: the obscure bird
- Clamour'd the live-long night; some say the earth
- Was feverous, and did shake.
- MACBETH.
- 'Twas a rough night.
- LENNOX.
- My young remembrance cannot parallel
- A fellow to it.
- [Re-enter Macduff.]
- MACDUFF.
- O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart
- Cannot conceive nor name thee!
- MACBETH, LENNOX.
- What's the matter?
- MACDUFF.
- Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
- Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
- The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
- The life o' the building.
- MACBETH.
- What is't you say? the life?
- LENNOX.
- Mean you his majesty?
- MACDUFF.
- Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight
- With a new Gorgon:--do not bid me speak;
- See, and then speak yourselves.
- [Exeunt Macbeth and Lennox.]
- Awake, awake!--
- Ring the alarum bell:--murder and treason!
- Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm! awake!
- Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,
- And look on death itself! up, up, and see
- The great doom's image! Malcolm! Banquo!
- As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites
- To countenance this horror!
- [Alarum-bell rings.]
- [Re-enter Lady Macbeth.]
- LADY MACBETH.
- What's the business,
- That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
- The sleepers of the house? speak, speak!
- MACDUFF.
- O gentle lady,
- 'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:
- The repetition, in a woman's ear,
- Would murder as it fell.
- [Re-enter Banquo.]
- O Banquo, Banquo!
- Our royal master's murder'd!
- LADY MACBETH.
- Woe, alas!
- What, in our house?
- BANQUO.
- Too cruel any where.--
- Dear Duff, I pr'ythee, contradict thyself,
- And say it is not so.
- [Re-enter Macbeth and Lennox, with Ross.]
- MACBETH.
- Had I but died an hour before this chance,
- I had liv'd a blessed time; for, from this instant
- There's nothing serious in mortality:
- All is but toys: renown and grace is dead;
- The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
- Is left this vault to brag of.
- [Enter Malcolm and Donalbain.]
- DONALBAIN.
- What is amiss?
- MACBETH.
- You are, and do not know't:
- The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
- Is stopp'd; the very source of it is stopp'd.
- MACDUFF.
- Your royal father's murder'd.
- MALCOLM.
- O, by whom?
- LENNOX.
- Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done't:
- Their hands and faces were all badg'd with blood;
- So were their daggers, which, unwip'd, we found
- Upon their pillows:
- They star'd, and were distracted; no man's life
- Was to be trusted with them.
- MACBETH.
- O, yet I do repent me of my fury,
- That I did kill them.
- MACDUFF.
- Wherefore did you so?
- MACBETH.
- Who can be wise, amaz'd, temperate, and furious,
- Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
- The expedition of my violent love
- Outrun the pauser reason. Here lay Duncan,
- His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood;
- And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature
- For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murderers,
- Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers
- Unmannerly breech'd with gore: who could refrain,
- That had a heart to love, and in that heart
- Courage to make's love known?
- LADY MACBETH.
- Help me hence, ho!
- MACDUFF.
- Look to the lady.
- MALCOLM.
- Why do we hold our tongues,
- That most may claim this argument for ours?
- DONALBAIN.
- What should be spoken here, where our fate,
- Hid in an auger hole, may rush, and seize us?
- Let's away;
- Our tears are not yet brew'd.
- MALCOLM.
- Nor our strong sorrow
- Upon the foot of motion.
- BANQUO.
- Look to the lady:--
- [Lady Macbeth is carried out.]
- And when we have our naked frailties hid,
- That suffer in exposure, let us meet,
- And question this most bloody piece of work
- To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us:
- In the great hand of God I stand; and thence,
- Against the undivulg'd pretense I fight
- Of treasonous malice.
- MACDUFF.
- And so do I.
- ALL.
- So all.
- MACBETH.
- Let's briefly put on manly readiness,
- And meet i' the hall together.
- ALL.
- Well contented.
- [Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain.]
- MALCOLM.
- What will you do? Let's not consort with them:
- To show an unfelt sorrow is an office
- Which the false man does easy. I'll to England.
- DONALBAIN.
- To Ireland, I; our separated fortune
- Shall keep us both the safer: where we are,
- There's daggers in men's smiles: the near in blood,
- The nearer bloody.
- MALCOLM.
- This murderous shaft that's shot
- Hath not yet lighted; and our safest way
- Is to avoid the aim. Therefore to horse;
- And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,
- But shift away: there's warrant in that theft
- Which steals itself, when there's no mercy left.
- [Exeunt.]
- SCENE II. The same. Without the Castle.
- [Enter Ross and an old Man.]
- OLD MAN.
- Threescore and ten I can remember well:
- Within the volume of which time I have seen
- Hours dreadful and things strange; but this sore night
- Hath trifled former knowings.
- ROSS.
- Ah, good father,
- Thou seest, the heavens, as troubled with man's act,
- Threaten his bloody stage: by the clock 'tis day,
- And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp;
- Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame,
- That darkness does the face of earth entomb,
- When living light should kiss it?
- OLD MAN.
- 'Tis unnatural,
- Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last,
- A falcon, towering in her pride of place,
- Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.
- ROSS.
- And Duncan's horses,--a thing most strange and certain,--
- Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,
- Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,
- Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make
- War with mankind.
- OLD MAN.
- 'Tis said they eat each other.
- ROSS.
- They did so; to the amazement of mine eyes,
- That look'd upon't.
- Here comes the good Macduff.
- [Enter Macduff.]
- How goes the world, sir, now?
- MACDUFF.
- Why, see you not?
- ROSS.
- Is't known who did this more than bloody deed?
- MACDUFF.
- Those that Macbeth hath slain.
- ROSS.
- Alas, the day!
- What good could they pretend?
- MACDUFF.
- They were suborn'd:
- Malcolm and Donalbain, the king's two sons,
- Are stol'n away and fled; which puts upon them
- Suspicion of the deed.
- ROSS.
- 'Gainst nature still:
- Thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up
- Thine own life's means!--Then 'tis most like,
- The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth.
- MACDUFF.
- He is already nam'd; and gone to Scone
- To be invested.
- ROSS.
- Where is Duncan's body?
- MACDUFF.
- Carried to Colme-kill,
- The sacred storehouse of his predecessors,
- And guardian of their bones.
- ROSS.
- Will you to Scone?
- MACDUFF.
- No, cousin, I'll to Fife.
- ROSS.
- Well, I will thither.
- MACDUFF.
- Well, may you see things well done there,--adieu!--
- Lest our old robes sit easier than our new!
- ROSS.
- Farewell, father.
- OLD MAN.
- God's benison go with you; and with those
- That would make good of bad, and friends of foes!
- [Exeunt.]
- ACT III.
- SCENE I. Forres. A Room in the Palace.
- [Enter Banquo.]
- BANQUO.
- Thou hast it now,--king, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
- As the weird women promis'd; and, I fear,
- Thou play'dst most foully for't; yet it was said
- It should not stand in thy posterity;
- But that myself should be the root and father
- Of many kings. If there come truth from them,--
- As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine,--
- Why, by the verities on thee made good,
- May they not be my oracles as well,
- And set me up in hope? But hush; no more.
- [Sennet sounded. Enter Macbeth as King, Lady Macbeth
- as Queen; Lennox, Ross, Lords, Ladies, and Attendants.]
- MACBETH.
- Here's our chief guest.
- LADY MACBETH.
- If he had been forgotten,
- It had been as a gap in our great feast,
- And all-thing unbecoming.
- MACBETH.
- To-night we hold a solemn supper, sir,
- And I'll request your presence.
- BANQUO.
- Let your highness
- Command upon me; to the which my duties
- Are with a most indissoluble tie
- For ever knit.
- MACBETH.
- Ride you this afternoon?
- BANQUO.
- Ay, my good lord.
- MACBETH.
- We should have else desir'd your good advice,--
- Which still hath been both grave and prosperous,--
- In this day's council; but we'll take to-morrow.
- Is't far you ride?
- BANQUO.
- As far, my lord, as will fill up the time
- 'Twixt this and supper: go not my horse the better,
- I must become a borrower of the night,
- For a dark hour or twain.
- MACBETH.
- Fail not our feast.
- BANQUO.
- My lord, I will not.
- MACBETH.
- We hear our bloody cousins are bestow'd
- In England and in Ireland; not confessing
- Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers
- With strange invention: but of that to-morrow;
- When therewithal we shall have cause of state
- Craving us jointly. Hie you to horse: adieu,
- Till you return at night. Goes Fleance with you?
- BANQUO.
- Ay, my good lord: our time does call upon's.
- MACBETH.
- I wish your horses swift and sure of foot;
- And so I do commend you to their backs.
- Farewell.--
- [Exit Banquo.]
- Let every man be master of his time
- Till seven at night; to make society
- The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself
- Till supper time alone: while then, God be with you!
- [Exeunt Lady Macbeth, Lords, Ladies, &c.]
- Sirrah, a word with you: attend those men
- Our pleasure?
- ATTENDANT.
- They are, my lord, without the palace gate.
- MACBETH.
- Bring them before us.
- [Exit Attendant.]
- To be thus is nothing;
- But to be safely thus:--our fears in Banquo.
- Stick deep; and in his royalty of nature
- Reigns that which would be fear'd: 'tis much he dares;
- And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,
- He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
- To act in safety. There is none but he
- Whose being I do fear: and under him,
- My genius is rebuk'd; as, it is said,
- Mark Antony's was by Caesar. He chid the sisters
- When first they put the name of king upon me,
- And bade them speak to him; then, prophet-like,
- They hail'd him father to a line of kings:
- Upon my head they plac'd a fruitless crown,
- And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,
- Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand,
- No son of mine succeeding. If't be so,
- For Banquo's issue have I fil'd my mind;
- For them the gracious Duncan have I murder'd;
- Put rancours in the vessel of my peace
- Only for them; and mine eternal jewel
- Given to the common enemy of man,
- To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings!
- Rather than so, come, fate, into the list,
- And champion me to the utterance!--Who's there?--
- [Re-enter Attendant, with two Murderers.]
- Now go to the door, and stay there till we call.
- [Exit Attendant.]
- Was it not yesterday we spoke together?
- FIRST MURDERER.
- It was, so please your highness.
- MACBETH.
- Well then, now
- Have you consider'd of my speeches? Know
- That it was he, in the times past, which held you
- So under fortune; which you thought had been
- Our innocent self: this I made good to you
- In our last conference, pass'd in probation with you
- How you were borne in hand, how cross'd, the instruments,
- Who wrought with them, and all things else that might
- To half a soul and to a notion craz'd
- Say, "Thus did Banquo."
- FIRST MURDERER.
- You made it known to us.
- MACBETH.
- I did so; and went further, which is now
- Our point of second meeting. Do you find
- Your patience so predominant in your nature,
- That you can let this go? Are you so gospell'd,
- To pray for this good man and for his issue,
- Whose heavy hand hath bow'd you to the grave,
- And beggar'd yours forever?
- FIRST MURDERER.
- We are men, my liege.
- MACBETH.
- Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men;
- As hounds, and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
- Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves are clept
- All by the name of dogs: the valu'd file
- Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,
- The house-keeper, the hunter, every one
- According to the gift which bounteous nature
- Hath in him clos'd; whereby he does receive
- Particular addition, from the bill
- That writes them all alike: and so of men.
- Now, if you have a station in the file,
- Not i' the worst rank of manhood, say it;
- And I will put that business in your bosoms,
- Whose execution takes your enemy off;
- Grapples you to the heart and love of us,
- Who wear our health but sickly in his life,
- Which in his death were perfect.
- SECOND MURDERER.
- I am one, my liege,
- Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world
- Have so incens'd that I am reckless what
- I do to spite the world.
- FIRST MURDERER.
- And I another,
- So weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune,
- That I would set my life on any chance,
- To mend it or be rid on't.
- MACBETH.
- Both of you
- Know Banquo was your enemy.
- BOTH MURDERERS.
- True, my lord.
- MACBETH.
- So is he mine; and in such bloody distance,
- That every minute of his being thrusts
- Against my near'st of life; and though I could
- With barefac'd power sweep him from my sight,
- And bid my will avouch it, yet I must not,
- For certain friends that are both his and mine,
- Whose loves I may not drop, but wail his fall
- Who I myself struck down: and thence it is
- That I to your assistance do make love;
- Masking the business from the common eye
- For sundry weighty reasons.
- SECOND MURDERER.
- We shall, my lord,
- Perform what you command us.
- FIRST MURDERER.
- Though our lives--
- MACBETH.
- Your spirits shine through you. Within this hour at most,
- I will advise you where to plant yourselves;
- Acquaint you with the perfect spy o' the time,
- The moment on't; for't must be done to-night
- And something from the palace; always thought
- That I require a clearness; and with him,--
- To leave no rubs nor botches in the work,--
- Fleance his son, that keeps him company,
- Whose absence is no less material to me
- Than is his father's, must embrace the fate
- Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart:
- I'll come to you anon.
- BOTH MURDERERS.
- We are resolv'd, my lord.
- MACBETH.
- I'll call upon you straight: abide within.
- [Exeunt Murderers.]
- It is concluded:--Banquo, thy soul's flight,
- If it find heaven, must find it out to-night.
- [Exit.]
- SCENE II. The same. Another Room in the Palace.
- [Enter Lady Macbeth and a Servant.]
- LADY MACBETH.
- Is Banquo gone from court?
- SERVANT.
- Ay, madam, but returns again to-night.
- LADY MACBETH.
- Say to the king, I would attend his leisure
- For a few words.
- SERVANT.
- Madam, I will.
- [Exit.]
- LADY MACBETH.
- Naught's had, all's spent,
- Where our desire is got without content:
- 'Tis safer to be that which we destroy,
- Than, by destruction, dwell in doubtful joy.
- [Enter Macbeth.]
- How now, my lord! why do you keep alone,
- Of sorriest fancies your companions making;
- Using those thoughts which should indeed have died
- With them they think on? Things without all remedy
- Should be without regard: what's done is done.
- MACBETH.
- We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it;
- She'll close, and be herself; whilst our poor malice
- Remains in danger of her former tooth.
- 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, nor poison,
- Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
- Can touch him further.
- LADY MACBETH.
- Come on;
- Gently my lord, sleek o'er your rugged looks;
- Be bright and jovial 'mong your guests to-night.
- MACBETH.
- So shall I, love; and so, I pray, be you:
- Let your remembrance apply to Banquo;
- Present him eminence, both with eye and tongue:
- Unsafe the while, that we
- Must lave our honors in these flattering streams;
- And make our faces vizards to our hearts,
- Disguising what they are.
- LADY MACBETH.
- You must leave this.
- MACBETH.
- O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!
- Thou know'st that Banquo, and his Fleance, lives.
- LADY MACBETH.
- But in them nature's copy's not eterne.
- MACBETH.
- There's comfort yet; they are assailable;
- Then be thou jocund: ere the bat hath flown
- His cloister'd flight, ere to black Hecate's summons,
- The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsy hums,
- Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done
- A deed of dreadful note.
- LADY MACBETH.
- What's to be done?
- MACBETH.
- Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
- Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night,
- Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day;
- And with thy bloody and invisible hand
- Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
- Which keeps me pale!--Light thickens; and the crow
- Makes wing to the rooky wood:
- Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;
- Whiles night's black agents to their preys do rouse.--
- Thou marvell'st at my words: but hold thee still;
- Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill:
- So, pr'ythee, go with me.
- [Exeunt.]
- SCENE III. The same. A Park or Lawn, with a gate leading to the
- Palace.
- [Enter three Murderers.]
- FIRST MURDERER.
- But who did bid thee join with us?
- THIRD MURDERER.
- Macbeth.
- SECOND MURDERER.
- He needs not our mistrust; since he delivers
- Our offices and what we have to do
- To the direction just.
- FIRST MURDERER.
- Then stand with us.
- The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day:
- Now spurs the lated traveller apace,
- To gain the timely inn; and near approaches
- The subject of our watch.
- THIRD MURDERER.
- Hark! I hear horses.
- BANQUO.
- [Within.] Give us a light there, ho!
- SECOND MURDERER.
- Then 'tis he; the rest
- That are within the note of expectation
- Already are i' the court.
- FIRST MURDERER.
- His horses go about.
- THIRD MURDERER.
- Almost a mile; but he does usually,
- So all men do, from hence to the palace gate
- Make it their walk.
- SECOND MURDERER.
- A light, a light!
- THIRD MURDERER.
- 'Tis he.
- FIRST MURDERER.
- Stand to't.
- [Enter Banquo, and Fleance with a torch.]
- BANQUO.
- It will be rain to-night.
- FIRST MURDERER.
- Let it come down.
- [Assaults Banquo.]
- BANQUO.
- O, treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!
- Thou mayst revenge.--O slave!
- [Dies. Fleance escapes.]
- THIRD MURDERER.
- Who did strike out the light?
- FIRST MURDERER.
- Was't not the way?
- THIRD MURDERER.
- There's but one down: the son is fled.
- SECOND MURDERER.
- We have lost best half of our affair.
- FIRST MURDERER.
- Well, let's away, and say how much is done.
- [Exeunt.]
- SCENE IV. The same. A Room of state in the Palace. A banquet
- prepared.
- [Enter Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Ross, Lennox, Lords, and
- Attendants.]
- MACBETH.
- You know your own degrees: sit down. At first
- And last the hearty welcome.
- LORDS.
- Thanks to your majesty.
- MACBETH.
- Ourself will mingle with society,
- And play the humble host.
- Our hostess keeps her state; but, in best time,
- We will require her welcome.
- LADY MACBETH.
- Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends;
- For my heart speaks they are welcome.
- MACBETH.
- See, they encounter thee with their hearts' thanks.--
- Both sides are even: here I'll sit i' the midst:
- [Enter first Murderer to the door.]
- Be large in mirth; anon we'll drink a measure
- The table round.--There's blood upon thy face.
- MURDERER.
- 'Tis Banquo's then.
- MACBETH.
- 'Tis better thee without than he within.
- Is he despatch'd?
- MURDERER.
- My lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him.
- MACBETH.
- Thou art the best o' the cut-throats; yet he's good
- That did the like for Fleance: if thou didst it,
- Thou art the nonpareil.
- MURDERER.
- Most royal sir,
- Fleance is 'scap'd.
- MACBETH.
- Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect;
- Whole as the marble, founded as the rock;
- As broad and general as the casing air:
- But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd, bound in
- To saucy doubts and fears. But Banquo's safe?
- MURDERER.
- Ay, my good lord: safe in a ditch he bides,
- With twenty trenched gashes on his head;
- The least a death to nature.
- MACBETH.
- Thanks for that:
- There the grown serpent lies; the worm that's fled
- Hath nature that in time will venom breed,
- No teeth for the present.--Get thee gone; to-morrow
- We'll hear, ourselves, again.
- [Exit Murderer.]
- LADY MACBETH.
- My royal lord,
- You do not give the cheer: the feast is sold
- That is not often vouch'd, while 'tis a-making,
- 'Tis given with welcome; to feed were best at home;
- From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony;
- Meeting were bare without it.
- MACBETH.
- Sweet remembrancer!--
- Now, good digestion wait on appetite,
- And health on both!
- LENNOX.
- May't please your highness sit.
- [The Ghost of Banquo rises, and sits in Macbeth's place.]
- MACBETH.
- Here had we now our country's honor roof'd,
- Were the grac'd person of our Banquo present;
- Who may I rather challenge for unkindness
- Than pity for mischance!
- ROSS.
- His absence, sir,
- Lays blame upon his promise. Please't your highness
- To grace us with your royal company?
- MACBETH.
- The table's full.
- LENNOX.
- Here is a place reserv'd, sir.
- MACBETH.
- Where?
- LENNOX.
- Here, my good lord. What is't that moves your highness?
- MACBETH.
- Which of you have done this?
- LORDS.
- What, my good lord?
- MACBETH.
- Thou canst not say I did it: never shake
- Thy gory locks at me.
- ROSS.
- Gentlemen, rise; his highness is not well.
- LADY MACBETH.
- Sit, worthy friends:--my lord is often thus,
- And hath been from his youth: pray you, keep seat;
- The fit is momentary; upon a thought
- He will again be well: if much you note him,
- You shall offend him, and extend his passion:
- Feed, and regard him not.--Are you a man?
- MACBETH.
- Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that
- Which might appal the devil.
- LADY MACBETH.
- O proper stuff!
- This is the very painting of your fear:
- This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said,
- Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws, and starts,--
- Impostors to true fear,--would well become
- A woman's story at a winter's fire,
- Authoriz'd by her grandam. Shame itself!
- Why do you make such faces? When all's done,
- You look but on a stool.
- MACBETH.
- Pr'ythee, see there! behold! look! lo! how say you?--
- Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.--
- If charnel houses and our graves must send
- Those that we bury back, our monuments
- Shall be the maws of kites.
- [Ghost disappears.]
- LADY MACBETH.
- What, quite unmann'd in folly?
- MACBETH.
- If I stand here, I saw him.
- LADY MACBETH.
- Fie, for shame!
- MACBETH.
- Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time,
- Ere humane statute purg'd the gentle weal;
- Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd
- Too terrible for the ear: the time has been,
- That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
- And there an end; but now they rise again,
- With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
- And push us from our stools: this is more strange
- Than such a murder is.
- LADY MACBETH.
- My worthy lord,
- Your noble friends do lack you.
- MACBETH.
- I do forget:--
- Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends;
- I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing
- To those that know me. Come, love and health to all;
- Then I'll sit down.--Give me some wine, fill full.--
- I drink to the general joy o' the whole table,
- And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss:
- Would he were here! to all, and him, we thirst,
- And all to all.
- LORDS.
- Our duties, and the pledge.
- [Ghost rises again.]
- MACBETH.
- Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee!
- Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
- Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
- Which thou dost glare with!
- LADY MACBETH.
- Think of this, good peers,
- But as a thing of custom: 'tis no other,
- Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.
- MACBETH.
- What man dare, I dare:
- Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
- The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;
- Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
- Shall never tremble: or be alive again,
- And dare me to the desert with thy sword;
- If trembling I inhabit then, protest me
- The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!
- Unreal mockery, hence!
- [Ghost disappears.]
- Why, so;--being gone,
- I am a man again.--Pray you, sit still.
- LADY MACBETH.
- You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting,
- With most admir'd disorder.
- MACBETH.
- Can such things be,
- And overcome us like a summer's cloud,
- Without our special wonder? You make me strange
- Even to the disposition that I owe,
- When now I think you can behold such sights,
- And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks,
- When mine are blanch'd with fear.
- ROSS.
- What sights, my lord?
- LADY MACBETH.
- I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse;
- Question enrages him: at once, good-night:--
- Stand not upon the order of your going,
- But go at once.
- LENNOX.
- Good-night; and better health
- Attend his majesty!
- LADY MACBETH.
- A kind good-night to all!
- [Exeunt all Lords and Atendants.]
- MACBETH.
- It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood:
- Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;
- Augurs, and understood relations, have
- By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth
- The secret'st man of blood.--What is the night?
- LADY MACBETH.
- Almost at odds with morning, which is which.
- MACBETH.
- How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his person
- At our great bidding?
- LADY MACBETH.
- Did you send to him, sir?
- MACBETH.
- I hear it by the way; but I will send:
- There's not a one of them but in his house
- I keep a servant fee'd. I will to-morrow,
- (And betimes I will) to the weird sisters:
- More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,
- By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good,
- All causes shall give way: I am in blood
- Step't in so far that, should I wade no more,
- Returning were as tedious as go o'er:
- Strange things I have in head, that will to hand;
- Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd.
- LADY MACBETH.
- You lack the season of all natures, sleep.
- MACBETH.
- Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse
- Is the initiate fear that wants hard use:--
- We are yet but young in deed.
- [Exeunt.]
- SCENE V. The heath.
- [Thunder. Enter the three Witches, meeting Hecate.]
- FIRST WITCH.
- Why, how now, Hecate? you look angerly.
- HECATE.
- Have I not reason, beldams as you are,
- Saucy and overbold? How did you dare
- To trade and traffic with Macbeth
- In riddles and affairs of death;
- And I, the mistress of your charms,
- The close contriver of all harms,
- Was never call'd to bear my part,
- Or show the glory of our art?
- And, which is worse, all you have done
- Hath been but for a wayward son,
- Spiteful and wrathful; who, as others do,
- Loves for his own ends, not for you.
- But make amends now: get you gone,
- And at the pit of Acheron
- Meet me i' the morning: thither he
- Will come to know his destiny.
- Your vessels and your spells provide,
- Your charms, and everything beside.
- I am for the air; this night I'll spend
- Unto a dismal and a fatal end.
- Great business must be wrought ere noon:
- Upon the corner of the moon
- There hangs a vaporous drop profound;
- I'll catch it ere it come to ground:
- And that, distill'd by magic sleights,
- Shall raise such artificial sprites,
- As, by the strength of their illusion,
- Shall draw him on to his confusion:
- He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
- His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace, and fear:
- And you all know, security
- Is mortals' chiefest enemy.
- [Music and song within, "Come away, come away" &c.]
- Hark! I am call'd; my little spirit, see,
- Sits in a foggy cloud and stays for me.
- [Exit.]
- FIRST WITCH.
- Come, let's make haste; she'll soon be back again.
- [Exeunt.]
- SCENE VI. Forres. A Room in the Palace.
- [Enter Lennox and another Lord.]
- LENNOX.
- My former speeches have but hit your thoughts,
- Which can interpret further: only, I say,
- Thing's have been strangely borne. The gracious Duncan
- Was pitied of Macbeth:--marry, he was dead:--
- And the right valiant Banquo walk'd too late;
- Whom, you may say, if't please you, Fleance kill'd,
- For Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late.
- Who cannot want the thought, how monstrous
- It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain
- To kill their gracious father? damned fact!
- How it did grieve Macbeth! did he not straight,
- In pious rage, the two delinquents tear
- That were the slaves of drink and thralls of sleep?
- Was not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely too;
- For 'twould have anger'd any heart alive,
- To hear the men deny't. So that, I say,
- He has borne all things well: and I do think,
- That had he Duncan's sons under his key,--
- As, an't please heaven, he shall not,--they should find
- What 'twere to kill a father; so should Fleance.
- But, peace!--for from broad words, and 'cause he fail'd
- His presence at the tyrant's feast, I hear,
- Macduff lives in disgrace. Sir, can you tell
- Where he bestows himself?
- LORD.
- The son of Duncan,
- From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth,
- Lives in the English court and is receiv'd
- Of the most pious Edward with such grace
- That the malevolence of fortune nothing
- Takes from his high respect: thither Macduff
- Is gone to pray the holy king, upon his aid
- To wake Northumberland, and warlike Siward:
- That, by the help of these,--with Him above
- To ratify the work,--we may again
- Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights;
- Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives;
- Do faithful homage, and receive free honours,--
- All which we pine for now: and this report
- Hath so exasperate the king that he
- Prepares for some attempt of war.
- LENNOX.
- Sent he to Macduff?
- LORD.
- He did: and with an absolute "Sir, not I,"
- The cloudy messenger turns me his back,
- And hums, as who should say, "You'll rue the time
- That clogs me with this answer."
- LENNOX.
- And that well might
- Advise him to a caution, to hold what distance
- His wisdom can provide. Some holy angel
- Fly to the court of England, and unfold
- His message ere he come; that a swift blessing
- May soon return to this our suffering country
- Under a hand accurs'd!
- LORD.
- I'll send my prayers with him.
- [Exeunt.]
- ACT IV.
- SCENE I. A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron Boiling.
- [Thunder. Enter the three Witches.]
- FIRST WITCH.
- Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.
- SECOND WITCH.
- Thrice; and once the hedge-pig whin'd.
- THIRD WITCH.
- Harpier cries:--"tis time, 'tis time.
- FIRST WITCH.
- Round about the caldron go;
- In the poison'd entrails throw.--
- Toad, that under cold stone,
- Days and nights has thirty-one
- Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
- Boil thou first i' the charmed pot!
- ALL.
- Double, double, toil and trouble;
- Fire, burn; and caldron, bubble.
- SECOND WITCH.
- Fillet of a fenny snake,
- In the caldron boil and bake;
- Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
- Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
- Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
- Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing,--
- For a charm of powerful trouble,
- Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
- ALL.
- Double, double, toil and trouble;
- Fire, burn; and caldron, bubble.
- THIRD WITCH.
- Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
- Witch's mummy, maw and gulf
- Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
- Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
- Liver of blaspheming Jew,
- Gall of goat, and slips of yew
- Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse,
- Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips,
- Finger of birth-strangl'd babe
- Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,--
- Make the gruel thick and slab:
- Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
- For the ingredients of our caldron.
- ALL.
- Double, double, toil and trouble;
- Fire, burn; and caldron, bubble.
- SECOND WITCH.
- Cool it with a baboon's blood,
- Then the charm is firm and good.
- [Enter Hecate.]
- HECATE.
- O, well done! I commend your pains;
- And everyone shall share i' the gains.
- And now about the cauldron sing,
- Like elves and fairies in a ring,
- Enchanting all that you put in.
- Song.
- Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray;
- Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may.
- [Exit Hecate.]
- SECOND WITCH.
- By the pricking of my thumbs,
- Something wicked this way comes:--
- Open, locks, whoever knocks!
- [Enter Macbeth.]
- MACBETH.
- How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!
- What is't you do?
- ALL.
- A deed without a name.
- MACBETH.
- I conjure you, by that which you profess,--
- Howe'er you come to know it,--answer me:
- Though you untie the winds, and let them fight
- Against the churches; though the yesty waves
- Confound and swallow navigation up;
- Though bladed corn be lodg'd, and trees blown down;
- Though castles topple on their warders' heads;
- Though palaces and pyramids do slope
- Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure
- Of nature's germins tumble all together,
- Even till destruction sicken,--answer me
- To what I ask you.
- FIRST WITCH.
- Speak.
- SECOND WITCH.
- Demand.
- THIRD WITCH.
- We'll answer.
- FIRST WITCH.
- Say, if thou'dst rather hear it from our mouths,
- Or from our masters?
- MACBETH.
- Call 'em, let me see 'em.
- FIRST WITCH.
- Pour in sow's blood, that hath eaten
- Her nine farrow; grease that's sweaten
- From the murderer's gibbet throw
- Into the flame.
- ALL.
- Come, high or low;
- Thyself and office deftly show!
- [Thunder. An Apparition of an armed Head rises.]
- MACBETH.
- Tell me, thou unknown power,--
- FIRST WITCH.
- He knows thy thought:
- Hear his speech, but say thou naught.
- APPARITION.
- Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff;
- Beware the Thane of Fife.--Dismiss me:--enough.
- [Descends.]
- MACBETH.
- Whate'er thou art, for thy good caution, thanks;
- Thou hast harp'd my fear aright:--but one word more,--
- FIRST WITCH.
- He will not be commanded: here's another,
- More potent than the first.
- [Thunder. An Apparition of a bloody Child rises.]
- APPARITION.--
- Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!
- MACBETH.
- Had I three ears, I'd hear thee.
- APPARITION.
- Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn
- The power of man, for none of woman born
- Shall harm Macbeth.
- [Descends.]
- MACBETH.
- Then live, Macduff: what need I fear of thee?
- But yet I'll make assurance double sure,
- And take a bond of fate: thou shalt not live;
- That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies,
- And sleep in spite of thunder.--What is this,
- [Thunder. An Apparition of a Child crowned, with a tree in his
- hand, rises.]
- That rises like the issue of a king,
- And wears upon his baby brow the round
- And top of sovereignty?
- ALL.
- Listen, but speak not to't.
- APPARITION.
- Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no care
- Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are:
- Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be, until
- Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
- Shall come against him.
- [Descends.]
- MACBETH.
- That will never be:
- Who can impress the forest; bid the tree
- Unfix his earth-bound root? Sweet bodements, good!
- Rebellion's head, rise never till the wood
- Of Birnam rise, and our high-plac'd Macbeth
- Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath
- To time and mortal custom.--Yet my heart
- Throbs to know one thing: tell me,--if your art
- Can tell so much,--shall Banquo's issue ever
- Reign in this kingdom?
- ALL.
- Seek to know no more.
- MACBETH.
- I will be satisfied: deny me this,
- And an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know:--
- Why sinks that cauldron? and what noise is this?
- [Hautboys.]
- FIRST WITCH.
- Show!
- SECOND WITCH.
- Show!
- THIRD WITCH.
- Show!
- ALL.
- Show his eyes, and grieve his heart;
- Come like shadows, so depart!
- [Eight kings appear, and pass over in order, the last with a
- glass in his hand; Banquo following.]
- MACBETH.
- Thou are too like the spirit of Banquo; down!
- Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs:--and thy hair,
- Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first;--
- A third is like the former.--Filthy hags!
- Why do you show me this?--A fourth!--Start, eyes!
- What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?
- Another yet!--A seventh!--I'll see no more:--
- And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass
- Which shows me many more; and some I see
- That twofold balls and treble sceptres carry:
- Horrible sight!--Now I see 'tis true;
- For the blood-bolter'd Banquo smiles upon me,
- And points at them for his.--What! is this so?
- FIRST WITCH.
- Ay, sir, all this is so:--but why
- Stands Macbeth thus amazedly?--
- Come,sisters, cheer we up his sprites,
- And show the best of our delights;
- I'll charm the air to give a sound,
- While you perform your antic round;
- That this great king may kindly say,
- Our duties did his welcome pay.
- [Music. The Witches dance, and then vanish.]
- MACBETH.
- Where are they? Gone?--Let this pernicious hour
- Stand aye accursed in the calendar!--
- Come in, without there!
- [Enter Lennox.]
- LENNOX.
- What's your grace's will?
- MACBETH.
- Saw you the weird sisters?
- LENNOX.
- No, my lord.
- MACBETH.
- Came they not by you?
- LENNOX.
- No indeed, my lord.
- MACBETH.
- Infected be the air whereon they ride;
- And damn'd all those that trust them!--I did hear
- The galloping of horse: who was't came by?
- LENNOX.
- 'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word
- Macduff is fled to England.
- MACBETH.
- Fled to England!
- LENNOX.
- Ay, my good lord.
- MACBETH.
- Time, thou anticipat'st my dread exploits:
- The flighty purpose never is o'ertook
- Unless the deed go with it: from this moment
- The very firstlings of my heart shall be
- The firstlings of my hand. And even now,
- To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done:
- The castle of Macduff I will surprise;
- Seize upon Fife; give to the edge o' the sword
- His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls
- That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool;
- This deed I'll do before this purpose cool:
- But no more sights!--Where are these gentlemen?
- Come, bring me where they are.
- [Exeunt.]
- SCENE II. Fife. A Room in Macduff's Castle.
- [Enter Lady Macduff, her Son, and Ross.]
- LADY MACDUFF.
- What had he done, to make him fly the land?
- ROSS.
- You must have patience, madam.
- LADY MACDUFF.
- He had none:
- His flight was madness: when our actions do not,
- Our fears do make us traitors.
- ROSS.
- You know not
- Whether it was his wisdom or his fear.
- LADY MACDUFF.
- Wisdom! to leave his wife, to leave his babes,
- His mansion, and his titles, in a place
- From whence himself does fly? He loves us not:
- He wants the natural touch; for the poor wren,
- The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
- Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.
- All is the fear, and nothing is the love;
- As little is the wisdom, where the flight
- So runs against all reason.
- ROSS.
- My dearest coz,
- I pray you, school yourself: but, for your husband,
- He is noble, wise, Judicious, and best knows
- The fits o' the season. I dare not speak much further:
- But cruel are the times, when we are traitors,
- And do not know ourselves; when we hold rumour
- From what we fear, yet know not what we fear,
- But float upon a wild and violent sea
- Each way and move.--I take my leave of you:
- Shall not be long but I'll be here again:
- Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward
- To what they were before.--My pretty cousin,
- Blessing upon you!
- LADY MACDUFF.
- Father'd he is, and yet he's fatherless.
- ROSS.
- I am so much a fool, should I stay longer,
- It would be my disgrace and your discomfort:
- I take my leave at once.
- [Exit.]
- LADY MACDUFF.
- Sirrah, your father's dead;
- And what will you do now? How will you live?
- SON.
- As birds do, mother.
- LADY MACDUFF.
- What, with worms and flies?
- SON.
- With what I get, I mean; and so do they.
- LADY MACDUFF.
- Poor bird! thou'dst never fear the net nor lime,
- The pit-fall nor the gin.
- SON.
- Why should I, mother? Poor birds they are not set for.
- My father is not dead, for all your saying.
- LADY MACDUFF.
- Yes, he is dead: how wilt thou do for father?
- SON.
- Nay, how will you do for a husband?
- LADY MACDUFF.
- Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.
- SON.
- Then you'll buy 'em to sell again.
- LADY MACDUFF.
- Thou speak'st with all thy wit; and yet, i' faith,
- With wit enough for thee.
- SON.
- Was my father a traitor, mother?
- LADY MACDUFF.
- Ay, that he was.
- SON.
- What is a traitor?
- LADY MACDUFF.
- Why, one that swears and lies.
- SON.
- And be all traitors that do so?
- LADY MACDUFF.
- Everyone that does so is a traitor, and must be hanged.
- SON.
- And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?
- LADY MACDUFF.
- Every one.
- SON.
- Who must hang them?
- LADY MACDUFF.
- Why, the honest men.
- SON.
- Then the liars and swearers are fools: for there are liars
- and swearers enow to beat the honest men and hang up them.
- LADY MACDUFF.
- Now, God help thee, poor monkey! But how wilt
- thou do for a father?
- SON.
- If he were dead, you'ld weep for him: if you would not, it
- were a good sign that I should quickly have a new father.
- LADY MACDUFF.
- Poor prattler, how thou talk'st!
- [Enter a Messenger.]
- MESSENGER.
- Bless you, fair dame! I am not to you known,
- Though in your state of honor I am perfect.
- I doubt some danger does approach you nearly:
- If you will take a homely man's advice,
- Be not found here; hence, with your little ones.
- To fright you thus, methinks, I am too savage;
- To do worse to you were fell cruelty,
- Which is too nigh your person. Heaven preserve you!
- I dare abide no longer.
- [Exit.]
- LADY MACDUFF.
- Whither should I fly?
- I have done no harm. But I remember now
- I am in this earthly world; where to do harm
- Is often laudable; to do good sometime
- Accounted dangerous folly: why then, alas,
- Do I put up that womanly defence,
- To say I have done no harm?--What are these faces?
- [Enter Murderers.]
- FIRST MURDERER.
- Where is your husband?
- LADY MACDUFF.
- I hope, in no place so unsanctified
- Where such as thou mayst find him.
- FIRST MURDERER.
- He's a traitor.
- SON.
- Thou liest, thou shag-haar'd villain!
- FIRST MURDERER.
- What, you egg!
- [Stabbing him.]
- Young fry of treachery!
- SON.
- He has kill'd me, mother:
- Run away, I pray you!
- [Dies. Exit Lady Macduff, crying Murder, and pursued by the
- Murderers.]
- SCENE III. England. Before the King's Palace.
- [Enter Malcolm and Macduff.]
- MALCOLM.
- Let us seek out some desolate shade and there
- Weep our sad bosoms empty.
- MACDUFF.
- Let us rather
- Hold fast the mortal sword, and, like good men,
- Bestride our down-fall'n birthdom: each new morn
- New widows howl; new orphans cry; new sorrows
- Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
- As if it felt with Scotland, and yell'd out
- Like syllable of dolour.
- MALCOLM.
- What I believe, I'll wail;
- What know, believe; and what I can redress,
- As I shall find the time to friend, I will.
- What you have spoke, it may be so perchance.
- This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,
- Was once thought honest: you have loved him well;
- He hath not touch'd you yet. I am young; but something
- You may deserve of him through me; and wisdom
- To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb
- To appease an angry god.
- MACDUFF.
- I am not treacherous.
- MALCOLM.
- But Macbeth is.
- A good and virtuous nature may recoil
- In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your pardon;
- That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose;
- Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell:
- Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,
- Yet grace must still look so.
- MACDUFF.
- I have lost my hopes.
- MALCOLM.
- Perchance even there where I did find my doubts.
- Why in that rawness left you wife and child,--
- Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,--
- Without leave-taking?--I pray you,
- Let not my jealousies be your dishonors,
- But mine own safeties:--you may be rightly just,
- Whatever I shall think.
- MACDUFF.
- Bleed, bleed, poor country!
- Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,
- For goodness dare not check thee! wear thou thy wrongs,
- The title is affeer'd.--Fare thee well, lord:
- I would not be the villain that thou think'st
- For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp
- And the rich East to boot.
- MALCOLM.
- Be not offended:
- I speak not as in absolute fear of you.
- I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;
- It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash
- Is added to her wounds. I think, withal,
- There would be hands uplifted in my right;
- And here, from gracious England, have I offer
- Of goodly thousands: but, for all this,
- When I shall tread upon the tyrant's head,
- Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country
- Shall have more vices than it had before;
- More suffer, and more sundry ways than ever,
- By him that shall succeed.
- MACDUFF.
- What should he be?
- MALCOLM.
- It is myself I mean: in whom I know
- All the particulars of vice so grafted
- That, when they shall be open'd, black Macbeth
- Will seem as pure as snow; and the poor state
- Esteem him as a lamb, being compar'd
- With my confineless harms.
- MACDUFF.
- Not in the legions
- Of horrid hell can come a devil more damn'd
- In evils to top Macbeth.
- MALCOLM.
- I grant him bloody,
- Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,
- Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin
- That has a name: but there's no bottom, none,
- In my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters,
- Your matrons, and your maids, could not fill up
- The cistern of my lust; and my desire
- All continent impediments would o'erbear,
- That did oppose my will: better Macbeth
- Than such an one to reign.
- MACDUFF.
- Boundless intemperance
- In nature is a tyranny; it hath been
- The untimely emptying of the happy throne,
- And fall of many kings. But fear not yet
- To take upon you what is yours: you may
- Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty,
- And yet seem cold, the time you may so hoodwink.
- We have willing dames enough; there cannot be
- That vulture in you, to devour so many
- As will to greatness dedicate themselves,
- Finding it so inclin'd.
- MALCOLM.
- With this there grows,
- In my most ill-compos'd affection, such
- A stanchless avarice, that, were I king,
- I should cut off the nobles for their lands;
- Desire his jewels, and this other's house:
- And my more-having would be as a sauce
- To make me hunger more; that I should forge
- Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal,
- Destroying them for wealth.
- MACDUFF.
- This avarice
- Sticks deeper; grows with more pernicious root
- Than summer-seeming lust; and it hath been
- The sword of our slain kings: yet do not fear;
- Scotland hath foysons to fill up your will,
- Of your mere own: all these are portable,
- With other graces weigh'd.
- MALCOLM.
- But I have none: the king-becoming graces,
- As justice, verity, temperance, stableness,
- Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,
- Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,
- I have no relish of them; but abound
- In the division of each several crime,
- Acting it many ways. Nay, had I power, I should
- Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,
- Uproar the universal peace, confound
- All unity on earth.
- MACDUFF.
- O Scotland, Scotland!
- MALCOLM.
- If such a one be fit to govern, speak:
- I am as I have spoken.
- MACDUFF.
- Fit to govern!
- No, not to live!--O nation miserable,
- With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd,
- When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again,
- Since that the truest issue of thy throne
- By his own interdiction stands accurs'd
- And does blaspheme his breed?--Thy royal father
- Was a most sainted king; the queen that bore thee,
- Oftener upon her knees than on her feet,
- Died every day she lived. Fare-thee-well!
- These evils thou repeat'st upon thyself
- Have banish'd me from Scotland.--O my breast,
- Thy hope ends here!
- MALCOLM.
- Macduff, this noble passion,
- Child of integrity, hath from my soul
- Wiped the black scruples, reconcil'd my thoughts
- To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth
- By many of these trains hath sought to win me
- Into his power; and modest wisdom plucks me
- From over-credulous haste: but God above
- Deal between thee and me! for even now
- I put myself to thy direction, and
- Unspeak mine own detraction; here abjure
- The taints and blames I laid upon myself,
- For strangers to my nature. I am yet
- Unknown to woman; never was forsworn;
- Scarcely have coveted what was mine own;
- At no time broke my faith; would not betray
- The devil to his fellow; and delight
- No less in truth than life: my first false speaking
- Was this upon myself:--what I am truly,
- Is thine and my poor country's to command:
- Whither, indeed, before thy here-approach,
- Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men
- Already at a point, was setting forth:
- Now we'll together; and the chance of goodness
- Be like our warranted quarrel! Why are you silent?
- MACDUFF.
- Such welcome and unwelcome things at once
- 'Tis hard to reconcile.
- [Enter a Doctor.]
- MALCOLM.
- Well; more anon.--Comes the king forth, I pray you?
- DOCTOR.
- Ay, sir: there are a crew of wretched souls
- That stay his cure: their malady convinces
- The great assay of art; but, at his touch,
- Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,
- They presently amend.
- MALCOLM.
- I thank you, doctor.
- [Exit Doctor.]
- MACDUFF.
- What's the disease he means?
- MALCOLM.
- 'Tis call'd the evil:
- A most miraculous work in this good king;
- Which often, since my here-remain in England,
- I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,
- Himself best knows: but strangely-visited people,
- All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
- The mere despair of surgery, he cures;
- Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
- Put on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken,
- To the succeeding royalty he leaves
- The healing benediction. With this strange virtue,
- He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy;
- And sundry blessings hang about his throne,
- That speak him full of grace.
- MACDUFF.
- See, who comes here?
- MALCOLM.
- My countryman; but yet I know him not.
- [Enter Ross.]
- MACDUFF.
- My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither.
- MALCOLM.
- I know him now. Good God, betimes remove
- The means that makes us strangers!
- ROSS.
- Sir, amen.
- MACDUFF.
- Stands Scotland where it did?
- ROSS.
- Alas, poor country,--
- Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot
- Be call'd our mother, but our grave: where nothing,
- But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;
- Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks, that rent the air,
- Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems
- A modern ecstasy; the dead man's knell
- Is there scarce ask'd for who; and good men's lives
- Expire before the flowers in their caps,
- Dying or ere they sicken.
- MACDUFF.
- O, relation
- Too nice, and yet too true!
- MALCOLM.
- What's the newest grief?
- ROSS.
- That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker;
- Each minute teems a new one.
- MACDUFF.
- How does my wife?
- ROSS.
- Why, well.
- MACDUFF.
- And all my children?
- ROSS.
- Well too.
- MACDUFF.
- The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?
- ROSS.
- No; they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.
- MACDUFF.
- Be not a niggard of your speech: how goes't?
- ROSS.
- When I came hither to transport the tidings,
- Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour
- Of many worthy fellows that were out;
- Which was to my belief witness'd the rather,
- For that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot:
- Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
- Would create soldiers, make our women fight,
- To doff their dire distresses.
- MALCOLM.
- Be't their comfort
- We are coming thither: gracious England hath
- Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men;
- An older and a better soldier none
- That Christendom gives out.
- ROSS.
- Would I could answer
- This comfort with the like! But I have words
- That would be howl'd out in the desert air,
- Where hearing should not latch them.
- MACDUFF.
- What concern they?
- The general cause? or is it a fee-grief
- Due to some single breast?
- ROSS.
- No mind that's honest
- But in it shares some woe; though the main part
- Pertains to you alone.
- MACDUFF.
- If it be mine,
- Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.
- ROSS.
- Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever,
- Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound
- That ever yet they heard.
- MACDUFF.
- Humh! I guess at it.
- ROSS.
- Your castle is surpris'd; your wife and babes
- Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner
- Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer,
- To add the death of you.
- MALCOLM.
- Merciful heaven!--
- What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;
- Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak
- Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
- MACDUFF.
- My children too?
- ROSS.
- Wife, children, servants, all
- That could be found.
- MACDUFF.
- And I must be from thence!
- My wife kill'd too?
- ROSS.
- I have said.
- MALCOLM.
- Be comforted:
- Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,
- To cure this deadly grief.
- MACDUFF.
- He has no children.--All my pretty ones?
- Did you say all?--O hell-kite!--All?
- What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
- At one fell swoop?
- MALCOLM.
- Dispute it like a man.
- MACDUFF.
- I shall do so;
- But I must also feel it as a man:
- I cannot but remember such things were,
- That were most precious to me.--Did heaven look on,
- And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
- They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,
- Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
- Fell slaughter on their souls: heaven rest them now!
- MALCOLM.
- Be this the whetstone of your sword. Let grief
- Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.
- MACDUFF.
- O, I could play the woman with mine eye,
- And braggart with my tongue!--But, gentle heavens,
- Cut short all intermission; front to front
- Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
- Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,
- Heaven forgive him too!
- MALCOLM.
- This tune goes manly.
- Come, go we to the king; our power is ready;
- Our lack is nothing but our leave: Macbeth
- Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
- Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may;
- The night is long that never finds the day.
- [Exeunt.]
- ACT V.
- SCENE I. Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle.
- [Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman.]
- DOCTOR.
- I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no
- truth in your report. When was it she last walked?
- GENTLEWOMAN.
- Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her
- rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her
- closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon it, read it,
- afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this
- while in a most fast sleep.
- DOCTOR.
- A great perturbation in nature,--to receive at once the
- benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching-- In this
- slumbery agitation, besides her walking and other actual
- performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say?
- GENTLEWOMAN.
- That, sir, which I will not report after her.
- DOCTOR.
- You may to me; and 'tis most meet you should.
- GENTLEWOMAN.
- Neither to you nor any one; having no witness to confirm my
- speech. Lo you, here she comes!
- [Enter Lady Macbeth, with a taper.]
- This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe
- her; stand close.
- DOCTOR.
- How came she by that light?
- GENTLEWOMAN.
- Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; 'tis her
- command.
- DOCTOR.
- You see, her eyes are open.
- GENTLEWOMAN.
- Ay, but their sense is shut.
- DOCTOR.
- What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands.
- GENTLEWOMAN.
- It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her
- hands: I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.
- LADY MACBETH.
- Yet here's a spot.
- DOCTOR.
- Hark, she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to
- satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
- LADY MACBETH.
- Out, damned spot! out, I say!-- One; two; why, then 'tis
- time to do't ;--Hell is murky!--Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier,
- and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call
- our power to account?--Yet who would have thought the old man to
- have had so much blood in him?
- DOCTOR.
- Do you mark that?
- LADY MACBETH.
- The Thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now?--What,
- will these hands ne'er be clean? No more o' that, my lord, no
- more o' that: you mar all with this starting.
- DOCTOR.
- Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
- GENTLEWOMAN.
- She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that:
- heaven knows what she has known.
- LADY MACBETH.
- Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes
- of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!
- DOCTOR.
- What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.
- GENTLEWOMAN.
- I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the
- dignity of the whole body.
- DOCTOR.
- Well, well, well,--
- GENTLEWOMAN.
- Pray God it be, sir.
- DOCTOR.
- This disease is beyond my practice: yet I have known those
- which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in
- their beds.
- LADY MACBETH.
- Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so
- pale:--I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come
- out on's grave.
- DOCTOR.
- Even so?
- LADY MACBETH.
- To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate: come, come, come,
- come, give me your hand: what's done cannot be undone: to bed, to
- bed, to bed.
- [Exit.]
- DOCTOR.
- Will she go now to bed?
- GENTLEWOMAN.
- Directly.
- DOCTOR.
- Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds
- Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds
- To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
- More needs she the divine than the physician.--
- God, God, forgive us all!--Look after her;
- Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
- And still keep eyes upon her:--so, good-night:
- My mind she has mated, and amaz'd my sight:
- I think, but dare not speak.
- GENTLEWOMAN.
- Good-night, good doctor.
- [Exeunt.]
- SCENE II. The Country near Dunsinane.
- [Enter. with drum and colours, Menteith, Caithness, Angus,
- Lennox, and Soldiers.]
- MENTEITH.
- The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,
- His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff.
- Revenges burn in them; for their dear causes
- Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm
- Excite the mortified man.
- ANGUS.
- Near Birnam wood
- Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming.
- CAITHNESS.
- Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?
- LENNOX.
- For certain, sir, he is not: I have a file
- Of all the gentry: there is Siward's son
- And many unrough youths, that even now
- Protest their first of manhood.
- MENTEITH.
- What does the tyrant?
- CAITHNESS.
- Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies:
- Some say he's mad; others, that lesser hate him,
- Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain,
- He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause
- Within the belt of rule.
- ANGUS.
- Now does he feel
- His secret murders sticking on his hands;
- Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
- Those he commands move only in command,
- Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
- Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
- Upon a dwarfish thief.
- MENTEITH.
- Who, then, shall blame
- His pester'd senses to recoil and start,
- When all that is within him does condemn
- Itself for being there?
- CAITHNESS.
- Well, march we on,
- To give obedience where 'tis truly ow'd:
- Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal;
- And with him pour we, in our country's purge,
- Each drop of us.
- LENNOX.
- Or so much as it needs,
- To dew the sovereign flower, and drown the weeds.
- Make we our march towards Birnam.
- [Exeunt, marching.]
- SCENE III. Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle.
- [Enter Macbeth, Doctor, and Attendants.]
- MACBETH.
- Bring me no more reports; let them fly all:
- Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane
- I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?
- Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know
- All mortal consequences have pronounc'd me thus,--
- "Fear not, Macbeth; no man that's born of woman
- Shall e'er have power upon thee."--Then fly, false thanes,
- And mingle with the English epicures:
- The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear,
- Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.
- [Enter a Servant.]
- The devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac'd loon!
- Where gott'st thou that goose look?
- SERVANT.
- There is ten thousand--
- MACBETH.
- Geese, villain?
- SERVANT.
- Soldiers, sir.
- MACBETH.
- Go prick thy face and over-red thy fear,
- Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch?
- Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine
- Are counsellors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face?
- SERVANT.
- The English force, so please you.
- MACBETH.
- Take thy face hence.
- [Exit Servant.]
- Seyton!--I am sick at heart,
- When I behold--Seyton, I say!- This push
- Will chair me ever or disseat me now.
- I have liv'd long enough: my way of life
- Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf;
- And that which should accompany old age,
- As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
- I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
- Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
- Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.
- Seyton!--
- [Enter Seyton.]
- SEYTON.
- What's your gracious pleasure?
- MACBETH.
- What news more?
- SEYTON.
- All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported.
- MACBETH.
- I'll fight till from my bones my flesh be hack'd.
- Give me my armour.
- SEYTON.
- 'Tis not needed yet.
- MACBETH.
- I'll put it on.
- Send out more horses, skirr the country round;
- Hang those that talk of fear.--Give me mine armour.--
- How does your patient, doctor?
- DOCTOR.
- Not so sick, my lord,
- As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,
- That keep her from her rest.
- MACBETH.
- Cure her of that:
- Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd;
- Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
- Raze out the written troubles of the brain;
- And with some sweet oblivious antidote
- Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
- Which weighs upon the heart?
- DOCTOR.
- Therein the patient
- Must minister to himself.
- MACBETH.
- Throw physic to the dogs,--I'll none of it.--
- Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff:--
- Seyton, send out.--Doctor, the Thanes fly from me.--
- Come, sir, despatch.--If thou couldst, doctor, cast
- The water of my land, find her disease,
- And purge it to a sound and pristine health,
- I would applaud thee to the very echo,
- That should applaud again.--Pull't off, I say.--
- What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug,
- Would scour these English hence? Hear'st thou of them?
- DOCTOR.
- Ay, my good lord; your royal preparation
- Makes us hear something.
- MACBETH.
- Bring it after me.--
- I will not be afraid of death and bane,
- Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.
- [Exeunt all except Doctor.]
- DOCTOR.
- Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,
- Profit again should hardly draw me here.
- [Exit.]
- SCENE IV. Country nearDunsinane: a Wood in view.
- [Enter, with drum and colours, Malcolm, old Siward and his Son,
- Macduff, Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, Ross, and Soldiers,
- marching.]
- MALCOLM.
- Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand
- That chambers will be safe.
- MENTEITH.
- We doubt it nothing.
- SIWARD.
- What wood is this before us?
- MENTEITH.
- The wood of Birnam.
- MALCOLM.
- Let every soldier hew him down a bough,
- And bear't before him; thereby shall we shadow
- The numbers of our host, and make discovery
- Err in report of us.
- SOLDIERS.
- It shall be done.
- SIWARD.
- We learn no other but the confident tyrant
- Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure
- Our setting down before't.
- MALCOLM.
- 'Tis his main hope:
- For where there is advantage to be given,
- Both more and less have given him the revolt;
- And none serve with him but constrained things,
- Whose hearts are absent too.
- MACDUFF.
- Let our just censures
- Attend the true event, and put we on
- Industrious soldiership.
- SIWARD.
- The time approaches,
- That will with due decision make us know
- What we shall say we have, and what we owe.
- Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate;
- But certain issue strokes must arbitrate:
- Towards which advance the war.
- [Exeunt, marching.]
- SCENE V. Dunsinane. Within the castle.
- [Enter with drum and colours, Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers.]
- MACBETH.
- Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
- The cry is still, "They come:" our castle's strength
- Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie
- Till famine and the ague eat them up:
- Were they not forc'd with those that should be ours,
- We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
- And beat them backward home.
- [A cry of women within.]
- What is that noise?
- SEYTON.
- It is the cry of women, my good lord.
- [Exit.]
- MACBETH.
- I have almost forgot the taste of fears:
- The time has been, my senses would have cool'd
- To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
- Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
- As life were in't: I have supp'd full with horrors;
- Direness, familiar to my slaught'rous thoughts,
- Cannot once start me.
- [Re-enter Seyton.]
- Wherefore was that cry?
- SEYTON.
- The queen, my lord, is dead.
- MACBETH.
- She should have died hereafter;
- There would have been a time for such a word.--
- To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
- Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
- To the last syllable of recorded time;
- And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
- The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
- Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
- That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
- And then is heard no more: it is a tale
- Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
- Signifying nothing.
- [Enter a Messenger.]
- Thou com'st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
- MESSENGER.
- Gracious my lord,
- I should report that which I say I saw,
- But know not how to do it.
- MACBETH.
- Well, say, sir.
- MESSENGER.
- As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
- I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
- The wood began to move.
- MACBETH.
- Liar, and slave!
- [Strikimg him.]
- MESSENGER.
- Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so.
- Within this three mile may you see it coming;
- I say, a moving grove.
- MACBETH.
- If thou speak'st false,
- Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
- Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,
- I care not if thou dost for me as much.--
- I pull in resolution; and begin
- To doubt the equivocation of the fiend
- That lies like truth. "Fear not, till Birnam wood
- Do come to Dunsinane;" and now a wood
- Comes toward Dunsinane.--Arm, arm, and out!--
- If this which he avouches does appear,
- There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.
- I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun,
- And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.--
- Ring the alarum bell!--Blow, wind! come, wrack!
- At least we'll die with harness on our back.
- [Exeunt.]
- SCENE VI. The same. A Plain before the Castle.
- [Enter, with drum and colours, Malcolm, old Siward, Macduff, &c.,
- and their Army, with boughs.]
- MALCOLM.
- Now near enough; your leafy screens throw down,
- And show like those you are.--You, worthy uncle,
- Shall with my cousin, your right-noble son,
- Lead our first battle: worthy Macduff and we
- Shall take upon's what else remains to do,
- According to our order.
- SIWARD.
- Fare you well.--
- Do we but find the tyrant's power to-night,
- Let us be beaten, if we cannot fight.
- MACDUFF.
- Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath,
- Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.
- [Exeunt.]
- SCENE VII. The same. Another part of the Plain.
- [Alarums. Enter Macbeth.]
- MACBETH.
- They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,
- But, bear-like I must fight the course.--What's he
- That was not born of woman? Such a one
- Am I to fear, or none.
- [Enter young Siward.]
- YOUNG SIWARD.
- What is thy name?
- MACBETH.
- Thou'lt be afraid to hear it.
- YOUNG SIWARD.
- No; though thou call'st thyself a hotter name
- Than any is in hell.
- MACBETH.
- My name's Macbeth.
- YOUNG SIWARD.
- The devil himself could not pronounce a title
- More hateful to mine ear.
- MACBETH.
- No, nor more fearful.
- YOUNG SIWARD.
- Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword
- I'll prove the lie thou speak'st.
- [They fight, and young Seward is slain.]
- MACBETH.
- Thou wast born of woman.--
- But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,
- Brandish'd by man that's of a woman born.
- [Exit.]
- [Alarums. Enter Macduff.]
- MACDUFF.
- That way the noise is.--Tyrant, show thy face!
- If thou be'st slain and with no stroke of mine,
- My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still.
- I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms
- Are hired to bear their staves; either thou, Macbeth,
- Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd edge,
- I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be;
- By this great clatter, one of greatest note
- Seems bruited. Let me find him, fortune!
- And more I beg not.
- [Exit. Alarums.]
- [Enter Malcolm and old Siward.]
- SIWARD.
- This way, my lord;--the castle's gently render'd:
- The tyrant's people on both sides do fight;
- The noble thanes do bravely in the war;
- The day almost itself professes yours,
- And little is to do.
- MALCOLM.
- We have met with foes
- That strike beside us.
- SIWARD.
- Enter, sir, the castle.
- [Exeunt. Alarums.]
- SCENE VIII. The same. Another part of the field.
- [Enter Macbeth.]
- MACBETH.
- Why should I play the Roman fool, and die
- On mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes
- Do better upon them.
- [Enter Macduff.]
- MACDUFF.
- Turn, hell-hound, turn!
- MACBETH.
- Of all men else I have avoided thee:
- But get thee back; my soul is too much charg'd
- With blood of thine already.
- MACDUFF.
- I have no words,--
- My voice is in my sword: thou bloodier villain
- Than terms can give thee out!
- [They fight.]
- MACBETH.
- Thou losest labour:
- As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air
- With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed:
- Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
- I bear a charmed life, which must not yield
- To one of woman born.
- MACDUFF.
- Despair thy charm;
- And let the angel whom thou still hast serv'd
- Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
- Untimely ripp'd.
- MACBETH.
- Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
- For it hath cow'd my better part of man!
- And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd,
- That palter with us in a double sense;
- That keep the word of promise to our ear,
- And break it to our hope!--I'll not fight with thee.
- MACDUFF.
- Then yield thee, coward,
- And live to be the show and gaze o' the time:
- We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
- Painted upon a pole, and underwrit,
- "Here may you see the tyrant."
- MACBETH.
- I will not yield,
- To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,
- And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
- Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
- And thou oppos'd, being of no woman born,
- Yet I will try the last. Before my body
- I throw my warlike shield: lay on, Macduff;
- And damn'd be him that first cries, "Hold, enough!"
- [Exeunt fighting.]
- [Retreat. Flourish. Enter, with drum and colours, Malcolm, old
- Siward, Ross, Lennox, Angus, Caithness, Menteith, and Soldiers.
- MALCOLM.
- I would the friends we miss were safe arriv'd.
- SIWARD.
- Some must go off; and yet, by these I see,
- So great a day as this is cheaply bought.
- MALCOLM.
- Macduff is missing, and your noble son.
- ROSS.
- Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt:
- He only liv'd but till he was a man;
- The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd
- In the unshrinking station where he fought,
- But like a man he died.
- SIWARD.
- Then he is dead?
- FLEANCE.
- Ay, and brought off the field: your cause of sorrow
- Must not be measur'd by his worth, for then
- It hath no end.
- SIWARD.
- Had he his hurts before?
- ROSS.
- Ay, on the front.
- SIWARD.
- Why then, God's soldier be he!
- Had I as many sons as I have hairs,
- I would not wish them to a fairer death:
- And, so his knell is knoll'd.
- MALCOLM.
- He's worth more sorrow,
- And that I'll spend for him.
- SIWARD.
- He's worth no more:
- They say he parted well, and paid his score:
- And so, God be with him!--Here comes newer comfort.
- [Re-enter Macduff, with Macbeth's head.]
- MACDUFF.
- Hail, king, for so thou art: behold, where stands
- The usurper's cursed head: the time is free:
- I see thee compass'd with thy kingdom's pearl
- That speak my salutation in their minds;
- Whose voices I desire aloud with mine,--
- Hail, King of Scotland!
- ALL.
- Hail, King of Scotland!
- [Flourish.]
- MALCOLM.
- We shall not spend a large expense of time
- Before we reckon with your several loves,
- And make us even with you. My thanes and kinsmen,
- Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland
- In such an honour nam'd. What's more to do,
- Which would be planted newly with the time,--
- As calling home our exil'd friends abroad,
- That fled the snares of watchful tyranny;
- Producing forth the cruel ministers
- Of this dead butcher, and his fiend-like queen,--
- Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands
- Took off her life;--this, and what needful else
- That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace,
- We will perform in measure, time, and place:
- So, thanks to all at once, and to each one,
- Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.
- [Flourish. Exeunt.]
- ---END---
- End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Macbeth by Shakespeare
- PG has multiple editions of William Shakespeare's Complete Works
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