The Tragedy of Macbeth
Act II.
Scene i. Court of Macbeth's castle.
- Enter Banquo, and Fleance bearing a torch before him
- 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!
- Enter Macbeth, and a Servant with a torch
- Give me my sword.
- Who's there?
- 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 offices.
- This diamond he greets your wife withal,
- By the name of most kind hostess; and shut up
- In measureless content.
- Macbeth: Being unprepared,
- 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 honour for you.
- Banquo: So I lose none
- In seeking to augment it, but still keep
- My bosom franchised 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 halfworld
- Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
- The curtain'd sleep; 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
Scene ii. The same.
- 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 awaked,
- 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.
- Enter Macbeth
- My husband!
- 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 lodged 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: Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!
- Macbeth does murder sleep', the innocent sleep,
- Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve 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 in incarnadine,
- Making the green one red.
- Re-enter Lady Macbeth
- Lady Macbeth: My hands are of your colour; but I shame
- To wear a heart so white.
- Knocking within
- I hear a 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
Scene iii. The same.
- Knocking within. Enter a Porter
- Porter: Here's a knocking indeed! If a
- man were porter of hell-gate, he should have
- old turning the key.
- Knocking within
- Knock,
- knock, knock! Who's there, i' the name of
- Beelzebub? 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 within
- 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 within
- 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 within
- 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 within
- 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 on
- 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?
- Enter Macbeth
- Our knocking has awaked him; here he comes.
- 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
- 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 confused events
- New hatch'd to the woeful time: the obscure bird
- Clamour'd the livelong 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] and [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! Ring the bell.
- Bell rings
- 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.
- 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 prithee, 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 lived 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 an badged with blood;
- So were their daggers, which unwiped we found
- Upon their pillows:
- They stared, 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, amazed, temperate and furious,
- Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
- The expedition my violent love
- Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan,
- His silver skin laced 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 kno wn?
- Lady Macbeth: Help me hence, ho!
- Macduff: Look to the lady.
- Malcolm: [Aside to [Donalbain]] Why do we hold our tongues,
- That most may claim this argument for ours?
- Donalbain: [Aside to [Malcolm]] 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: [Aside to [Donalbain]] 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 undivulged pretence 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 iv. Outside Macbeth's 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 named, and gone to Scone
- To be invested.
- Ross: Where is Duncan's body?
- Macduff: Carried to Colmekill,
- 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
- --oOo-- -