The Tragedy of Macbeth
Act III.
Scene i. Forres. The palace.
- Enter Banquo
- Banquo: Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
- As the weird women promised, 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 desired 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 all but Macbeth, and an attendant
- 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 rebuked; 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 placed 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 filed 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 crazed
- 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 for ever?
- 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 valued file
- Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,
- The housekeeper, the hunter, every one
- According to the gift which bounteous nature
- Hath in him closed; 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 't;
- 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 incensed 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 lie on any chance,
- To mend it, or be rid on't.
- Macbeth: Both of you
- Know Banquo was your enemy.
- [First Murderer] and [Second Murderer]: 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 barefaced 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.
- [First Murderer] and [Second Murderer]: We are resolved, 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 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: Nought'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;
- Gentle my lord, sleek o'er your rugged looks;
- Be bright and jovial among 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 honours 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;
- While 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, prithee, go with me.
- Exeunt
Scene iii. A park near 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!
- Enter Banquo, and Fleance with a torch
- Third Murderer: 'Tis he.
- First Murderer: Stand to't.
- Banquo: It will be rain to-night.
- First Murderer: Let it come down.
- They set upon 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: Wast 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. Hall 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.
- First Murderer appears at the door
- Macbeth: See, they encounter thee with their hearts' thanks.
- Both sides are even: here I'll sit i' the midst:
- Be large in mirth; anon we'll drink a measure
- The table round.
- Approaching the door
- There's blood on thy face.
- First Murderer: 'Tis Banquo's then.
- Macbeth: 'Tis better thee without than he within.
- Is he dispatch'd?
- First 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.
- First Murderer: Most royal sir,
- Fleance is 'scaped.
- 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, confined, bound in
- To saucy doubts and fears. But Banquo's safe?
- First 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 enters, and sits in Macbeth's place
- Macbeth: Here had we now our country's honour roof'd,
- Were the graced 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 reserved, 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,
- Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!
- Why do you make such faces? When all's done,
- You look but on a stool.
- Macbeth: Prithee, 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 Of Banquo vanishes
- 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 human statute purged the gentle weal;
- Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd
- Too terrible for the ear: the times have 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.
- Re-enter Ghost Of Banquo
- 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 Of Banquo vanishes
- 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 admired 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 is blanched 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 but Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
- 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
- Stepp'd 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. A 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 every thing 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
- He hopes 'bove wisdom, grace and fear:
- And you all know, security
- Is mortals' chiefest enemy.
- Music and a 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. The palace.
- Enter [Lennox] and another Lord
- Lennox: My former speeches have but hit your thoughts,
- Which can interpret further: only, I say,
- Things 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 received
- 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 accursed!
- Lord: I'll send my prayers with him.
- Exeunt
- --oOo-- -