The Tragedy of Macbeth
By William Shakespeare.
Premiered between 1603 and 1608, perhaps August 1606.
Contents
Dramatis Personæ.
- DUNCAN, king of Scotland.
- MALCOLM, elder son of Duncan.
- DONALBAIN, younger son of Duncan.
- MACBETH, Thane of Glamis and Cawdor, a general in the King's army.
- LADY MACBETH.
- BANQUO, Thane of Lochaber, a general in the King's army.
- MACDUFF, Thane of Fife, a nobleman of Scotland.
- LADY MACDUFF.
- LENNOX, ROSS, MENTEITH, ANGUS, CAITHNESS, noblemen 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.
- SON, Boy, son to Macduff.
- An English Doctor.
- A Scotch Doctor.
- A Soldier.
- A Porter.
- An Old Man.
- GENTLEWOMAN, gentlewoman attending on Lady Macbeth.
- HECATE, Queen of the Witches.
- Three Witches.
- Three Apparitions.
- Lords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldiers, Murderers, Attendants, and Messengers.
Scene.
Scotland.
Act I.
Scene i. A desert 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!
- Second Witch: Paddock calls.
- Third Witch: Anon.
- All: Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
- Hover through the fog and filthy air.
- Exeunt
Scene ii. A camp near Forres.
- Alarum within. Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Sergeant
- 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.
- Sergeant: 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 villanies 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 smoked with bloody execution,
- Like valour's minion carved out his passage
- Till he faced the slave;
- Which 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!
- Sergeant: 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 valour 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?
- Sergeant: Yes;
- As sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.
- If I say sooth, I must report they were
- As cannons overcharged with double cracks, so they
- Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe:
- Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,
- Or memorise 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 honour both. Go get him surgeons.
- Exit Sergeant, attended
- Who comes here?
- Enter Ross
- Malcolm: The worthy thane of Ross.
- Lennox: What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look
- That seems to speak things strange.
- Ross: God save the king!
- Duncan: Whence camest 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 near Forres.
- 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 munch'd, and munch'd, and munch'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'rt 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 se'nnights 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, thou 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 favours 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 received, 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: silenced with that,
- In viewing o'er the rest o' the selfsame 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 defence,
- 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 honour,
- 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 judgment bears that life
- Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined
- 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. [To [Ross] and [Angus]] Thanks for your pains.
- [To [Banquo]] Do you not hope your children shall be kings,
- When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me
- Promised 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] 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 horrors 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 favour: 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 chanced, 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. 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,
- Implored 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 owed,
- 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 deserved,
- 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 every thing
- Safe toward your love and honour.
- Duncan: Welcome hither:
- I have begun to plant thee, and will labour
- To make thee full of growing. Noble Banquo,
- That hast no less deserved, nor must be known
- No less to have done so, let me enfold 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 honour 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 labour, which is not used 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's after him,
- Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome:
- It is a peerless kinsman.
- Flourish. Exeunt
Scene v. Inverness. 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 promised: 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'ldst 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 valour 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 a Messenger
- What is your tidings?
- Messenger: The king comes here to-night.
- Lady Macbeth: Thou'rt mad to say it:
- Is not thy master with him? who, were't so,
- Would have inform'd for preparation.
- Messenger: 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 Messenger
- 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, you 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 to-night.
- 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 dispatch;
- 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 favour ever is to fear:
- Leave all the rest to me.
- Exeunt
Scene vi. Before Macbeth's castle.
- Hautboys and torches. 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 loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath
- Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,
- Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
- Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle:
- Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed,
- 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 coursed 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 to-night.
- 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. Macbeth's castle.
- Hautboys and torches. Enter a Sewer, and divers Servants with dishes and service, and pass over the stage. 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'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases
- We still have judgment 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 cherubim, horsed
- 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 valour
- 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: Prithee, 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 limbeck 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 received,
- When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two
- Of his own chamber and used their very daggers,
- That they have done't?
- Lady Macbeth: Who dares receive it other,
- As we shall make our griefs and clamour 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. 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
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
Act IV.
Scene i. A cavern. In the middle, a boiling cauldron.
- Thunder. Enter the three Witches
- First Witch: Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.
- Second Witch: Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.
- Third Witch: Harpier cries 'Tis time, 'tis time.
- First Witch: Round about the cauldron 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 cauldron bubble.
- Second Witch: Fillet of a fenny snake,
- In the cauldron 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 owlet's wing,
- For a charm of powerful trouble,
- Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
- All: Double, double toil and trouble;
- Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
- Third Witch: Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
- Witches' 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
- Silver'd in the moon's eclipse,
- Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
- Finger of birth-strangled babe
- Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
- Make the gruel thick and slab:
- Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
- For the ingredients of our cauldron.
- All: Double, double toil and trouble;
- Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
- Second Witch: Cool it with a baboon's blood,
- Then the charm is firm and good.
- Enter Hecate to the other three Witches
- Hecate: O well done! I commend your pains;
- And every one shall share i' the gains;
- And now about the cauldron sing,
- Live elves and fairies in a ring,
- Enchanting all that you put in.
- Music and a song: 'Black spirits,' & c
- Hecate retires
- 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 lodged 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 germens 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. First Apparition: an armed Head
- Macbeth: Tell me, thou unknown power,—
- First Witch: He knows thy thought:
- Hear his speech, but say thou nought.
- First 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. Second Apparition: A bloody Child
- Second Apparition: Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!
- Macbeth: Had I three ears, I'ld hear thee.
- Second 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.
- Thunder. Third Apparition: a Child crowned, with a tree in his hand
- What is this
- 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.
- Third 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-placed 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!
- A show of Eight Kings, the last with a glass in his hand; Ghost Of Banquo following
- Macbeth: Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo: down!
- Thy crown does sear mine eye-balls. 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 two-fold balls and treble scepters carry:
- Horrible sight! Now, I see, 'tis true;
- For the blood-bolter'd Banquo smiles upon me,
- And points at them for his.
- Apparitions vanish
- 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, with Hecate
- 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 anticipatest 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. 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'ldst never fear the net nor lime,
- The pitfall 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 a 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: Every one 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 honour 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?
- Enter Murderers
- What are these faces?
- 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-hair'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!' Exeunt Murderers, following her
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 dishonours,
- 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 cheque 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 compared
- 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 inclined.
- Malcolm: With this there grows
- In my most ill-composed 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 foisons 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 accursed,
- 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, reconciled 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.
- Enter Ross
- Macduff: See, who comes here?
- Malcolm: My countryman; but yet I know him not.
- 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 rend 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: But 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: Hum! I guess at it.
- Ross: Your castle is surprised; 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 eyes
- 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. Ante-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 night-gown upon
- her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it,
- write upon't, 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.
- Enter Lady Macbeth, with a taper
- Lo you, here she comes! 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 practise: 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 amazed my sight.
- I think, but dare not speak.
- Gentlewoman: Good night, good doctor.
- Exeunt
Scene ii. The country near Dunsinane.
- Drum and colours. Enter [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 owed:
- 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 pronounced 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-faced loon!
- Where got'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 cheer me ever, or disseat me now.
- I have lived 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 is 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 diseased,
- 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, dispatch. 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, cyme, 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.
- Doctor: [Aside] Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,
- Profit again should hardly draw me here.
- Exeunt
Scene iv. Country near Birnam wood.
- Drum and colours. Enter Malcolm, Siward and Young Siward, 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 Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers, with drum and colours
- 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 forced 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 slaughterous 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 comest 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!
- 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 aweary 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. Dunsinane. Before the castle.
- Drum and colours. Enter Malcolm, Siward, Macduff, 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. Another part of the field.
- 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 Siward 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 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. 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 charged
- 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 served
- 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 believed,
- 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 on 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 opposed, 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. Alarums
- Retreat. Flourish. Enter, with drum and colours, Malcolm, Siward, Ross, the other Thanes, and Soldiers
- Malcolm: I would the friends we miss were safe arrived.
- 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 lived 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?
- Ross: Ay, and brought off the field: your cause of sorrow
- Must not be measured 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 named. What's more to do,
- Which would be planted newly with the time,
- As calling home our exiled 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
- --oOo-- -