{"collection":"sks","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/sks/mac/mac.htm","path":"sks/mac/mac.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/sks/mac/mac.htm","text":"MACBETH\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\nDUNCAN king of Scotland.\nMALCOLM |\n| his sons.\nDONALBAIN |\nMACBETH |\n| generals of the king's army.\nBANQUO |\nMACDUFF |\n|\nLENNOX |\n|\nROSS |\n| noblemen of Scotland.\nMENTEITH |\n|\nANGUS |\n|\nCAITHNESS |\nFLEANCE son to Banquo.\nSIWARD Earl of Northumberland, general of the English forces.\nYOUNG SIWARD his son.\nSEYTON an officer attending on Macbeth.\nBoy, son to Macduff. (Son:)\nAn English Doctor. (Doctor:)\nA Scotch Doctor. (Doctor:)\nA Soldier.\nA Porter.\nAn Old Man\nLADY MACBETH:\nLADY MACDUFF:\nGentlewoman attending on Lady Macbeth. (Gentlewoman:)\nHECATE:\nThree Witches.\n(First Witch:)\n(Second Witch:)\n(Third Witch:)\nApparitions.\n(First Apparition:)\n(Second Apparition:)\n(Third Apparition:)\nLords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldiers, Murderers,\nAttendants, and Messengers. (Lord:)\n(Sergeant:)\n(Servant:)\n(First Murderer:)\n(Second Murderer:)\n(Third Murderer:)\n(Messenger:)\nSCENE Scotland: England.\nMACBETH\nACT I\nSCENE I A desert place.\n[Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches]\nFirst Witch When shall we three meet again\nIn thunder, lightning, or in rain?\nSecond Witch When the hurlyburly's done,\nWhen the battle's lost and won.\nThird Witch That will be ere the set of sun.\nFirst Witch Where the place?\nSecond Witch Upon the heath.\nThird Witch There to meet with Macbeth.\nFirst Witch I come, Graymalkin!\nSecond Witch Paddock calls.\nThird Witch Anon.\nALL Fair is foul, and foul is fair:\nHover through the fog and filthy air.\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT I\nSCENE II A camp near Forres.\n[Alarum within. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN,\nLENNOX, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Sergeant]\nDUNCAN What bloody man is that? He can report,\nAs seemeth by his plight, of the revolt\nThe newest state.\nMALCOLM This is the sergeant\nWho like a good and hardy soldier fought\n'Gainst my captivity. Hail, brave friend!\nSay to the king the knowledge of the broil\nAs thou didst leave it.\nSergeant Doubtful it stood;\nAs two spent swimmers, that do cling together\nAnd choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald--\nWorthy to be a rebel, for to that\nThe multiplying villanies of nature\nDo swarm upon him--from the western isles\nOf kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;\nAnd fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,\nShow'd like a rebel's whore: but all's too weak:\nFor brave Macbeth--well he deserves that name--\nDisdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel,\nWhich smoked with bloody execution,\nLike valour's minion carved out his passage\nTill he faced the slave;\nWhich ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,\nTill he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,\nAnd fix'd his head upon our battlements.\nDUNCAN O valiant cousin! worthy gentleman!\nSergeant As whence the sun 'gins his reflection\nShipwrecking storms and direful thunders break,\nSo from that spring whence comfort seem'd to come\nDiscomfort swells. Mark, king of Scotland, mark:\nNo sooner justice had with valour arm'd\nCompell'd these skipping kerns to trust their heels,\nBut the Norweyan lord surveying vantage,\nWith furbish'd arms and new supplies of men\nBegan a fresh assault.\nDUNCAN Dismay'd not this\nOur captains, Macbeth and Banquo?\nSergeant Yes;\nAs sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.\nIf I say sooth, I must report they were\nAs cannons overcharged with double cracks, so they\nDoubly redoubled strokes upon the foe:\nExcept they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,\nOr memorise another Golgotha,\nI cannot tell.\nBut I am faint, my gashes cry for help.\nDUNCAN So well thy words become thee as thy wounds;\nThey smack of honour both. Go get him surgeons.\n[Exit Sergeant, attended]\nWho comes here?\n[Enter ROSS]\nMALCOLM The worthy thane of Ross.\nLENNOX What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look\nThat seems to speak things strange.\nROSS God save the king!\nDUNCAN Whence camest thou, worthy thane?\nROSS From Fife, great king;\nWhere the Norweyan banners flout the sky\nAnd fan our people cold. Norway himself,\nWith terrible numbers,\nAssisted by that most disloyal traitor\nThe thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict;\nTill that Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof,\nConfronted him with self-comparisons,\nPoint against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm.\nCurbing his lavish spirit: and, to conclude,\nThe victory fell on us.\nDUNCAN Great happiness!\nROSS That now\nSweno, the Norways' king, craves composition:\nNor would we deign him burial of his men\nTill he disbursed at Saint Colme's inch\nTen thousand dollars to our general use.\nDUNCAN No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive\nOur bosom interest: go pronounce his present death,\nAnd with his former title greet Macbeth.\nROSS I'll see it done.\nDUNCAN What he hath lost noble Macbeth hath won.\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT I\nSCENE III A heath near Forres.\n[Thunder. Enter the three Witches]\nFirst Witch Where hast thou been, sister?\nSecond Witch Killing swine.\nThird Witch Sister, where thou?\nFirst Witch A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,\nAnd munch'd, and munch'd, and munch'd:--\n'Give me,' quoth I:\n'Aroint thee, witch!' the rump-fed ronyon cries.\nHer husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:\nBut in a sieve I'll thither sail,\nAnd, like a rat without a tail,\nI'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.\nSecond Witch I'll give thee a wind.\nFirst Witch Thou'rt kind.\nThird Witch And I another.\nFirst Witch I myself have all the other,\nAnd the very ports they blow,\nAll the quarters that they know\nI' the shipman's card.\nI will drain him dry as hay:\nSleep shall neither night nor day\nHang upon his pent-house lid;\nHe shall live a man forbid:\nWeary se'nnights nine times nine\nShall he dwindle, peak and pine:\nThough his bark cannot be lost,\nYet it shall be tempest-tost.\nLook what I have.\nSecond Witch Show me, show me.\nFirst Witch Here I have a pilot's thumb,\nWreck'd as homeward he did come.\n[Drum within]\nThird Witch A drum, a drum!\nMacbeth doth come.\nALL The weird sisters, hand in hand,\nPosters of the sea and land,\nThus do go about, about:\nThrice to thine and thrice to mine\nAnd thrice again, to make up nine.\nPeace! the charm's wound up.\n[Enter MACBETH and BANQUO]\nMACBETH So foul and fair a day I have not seen.\nBANQUO How far is't call'd to Forres? What are these\nSo wither'd and so wild in their attire,\nThat look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,\nAnd yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught\nThat man may question? You seem to understand me,\nBy each at once her chappy finger laying\nUpon her skinny lips: you should be women,\nAnd yet your beards forbid me to interpret\nThat you are so.\nMACBETH Speak, if you can: what are you?\nFirst Witch All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!\nSecond Witch All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!\nThird Witch All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!\nBANQUO Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear\nThings that do sound so fair? I' the name of truth,\nAre ye fantastical, or that indeed\nWhich outwardly ye show? My noble partner\nYou greet with present grace and great prediction\nOf noble having and of royal hope,\nThat he seems rapt withal: to me you speak not.\nIf you can look into the seeds of time,\nAnd say which grain will grow and which will not,\nSpeak then to me, who neither beg nor fear\nYour favours nor your hate.\nFirst Witch Hail!\nSecond Witch Hail!\nThird Witch Hail!\nFirst Witch Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.\nSecond Witch Not so happy, yet much happier.\nThird Witch Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:\nSo all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!\nFirst Witch Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!\nMACBETH Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more:\nBy Sinel's death I know I am thane of Glamis;\nBut how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives,\nA prosperous gentleman; and to be king\nStands not within the prospect of belief,\nNo more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence\nYou owe this strange intelligence? or why\nUpon this blasted heath you stop our way\nWith such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you.\n[Witches vanish]\nBANQUO The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,\nAnd these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd?\nMACBETH Into the air; and what seem'd corporal melted\nAs breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd!\nBANQUO Were such things here as we do speak about?\nOr have we eaten on the insane root\nThat takes the reason prisoner?\nMACBETH Your children shall be kings.\nBANQUO You shall be king.\nMACBETH And thane of Cawdor too: went it not so?\nBANQUO To the selfsame tune and words. Who's here?\n[Enter ROSS and ANGUS]\nROSS The king hath happily received, Macbeth,\nThe news of thy success; and when he reads\nThy personal venture in the rebels' fight,\nHis wonders and his praises do contend\nWhich should be thine or his: silenced with that,\nIn viewing o'er the rest o' the selfsame day,\nHe finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,\nNothing afeard of what thyself didst make,\nStrange images of death. As thick as hail\nCame post with post; and every one did bear\nThy praises in his kingdom's great defence,\nAnd pour'd them down before him.\nANGUS We are sent\nTo give thee from our royal master thanks;\nOnly to herald thee into his sight,\nNot pay thee.\nROSS And, for an earnest of a greater honour,\nHe bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor:\nIn which addition, hail, most worthy thane!\nFor it is thine.\nBANQUO What, can the devil speak true?\nMACBETH The thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress me\nIn borrow'd robes?\nANGUS Who was the thane lives yet;\nBut under heavy judgment bears that life\nWhich he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined\nWith those of Norway, or did line the rebel\nWith hidden help and vantage, or that with both\nHe labour'd in his country's wreck, I know not;\nBut treasons capital, confess'd and proved,\nHave overthrown him.\nMACBETH [Aside] Glamis, and thane of Cawdor!\nThe greatest is behind.\n[To ROSS and ANGUS]\nThanks for your pains.\n[To BANQUO]\nDo you not hope your children shall be kings,\nWhen those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me\nPromised no less to them?\nBANQUO That trusted home\nMight yet enkindle you unto the crown,\nBesides the thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange:\nAnd oftentimes, to win us to our harm,\nThe instruments of darkness tell us truths,\nWin us with honest trifles, to betray's\nIn deepest consequence.\nCousins, a word, I pray you.\nMACBETH [Aside] Two truths are told,\nAs happy prologues to the swelling act\nOf the imperial theme.--I thank you, gentlemen.\n[Aside] This supernatural soliciting\nCannot be ill, cannot be good: if ill,\nWhy hath it given me earnest of success,\nCommencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor:\nIf good, why do I yield to that suggestion\nWhose horrid image doth unfix my hair\nAnd make my seated heart knock at my ribs,\nAgainst the use of nature? Present fears\nAre less than horrible imaginings:\nMy thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,\nShakes so my single state of man that function\nIs smother'd in surmise, and nothing is\nBut what is not.\nBANQUO Look, how our partner's rapt.\nMACBETH [Aside] If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me,\nWithout my stir.\nBANQUO New horrors come upon him,\nLike our strange garments, cleave not to their mould\nBut with the aid of use.\nMACBETH [Aside] Come what come may,\nTime and the hour runs through the roughest day.\nBANQUO Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.\nMACBETH Give me your favour: my dull brain was wrought\nWith things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains\nAre register'd where every day I turn\nThe leaf to read them. Let us toward the king.\nThink upon what hath chanced, and, at more time,\nThe interim having weigh'd it, let us speak\nOur free hearts each to other.\nBANQUO Very gladly.\nMACBETH Till then, enough. Come, friends.\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT I\nSCENE IV Forres. The palace.\n[Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENNOX,\nand Attendants]\nDUNCAN Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not\nThose in commission yet return'd?\nMALCOLM My liege,\nThey are not yet come back. But I have spoke\nWith one that saw him die: who did report\nThat very frankly he confess'd his treasons,\nImplored your highness' pardon and set forth\nA deep repentance: nothing in his life\nBecame him like the leaving it; he died\nAs one that had been studied in his death\nTo throw away the dearest thing he owed,\nAs 'twere a careless trifle.\nDUNCAN There's no art\nTo find the mind's construction in the face:\nHe was a gentleman on whom I built\nAn absolute trust.\n[Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSS, and ANGUS]\nO worthiest cousin!\nThe sin of my ingratitude even now\nWas heavy on me: thou art so far before\nThat swiftest wing of recompense is slow\nTo overtake thee. Would thou hadst less deserved,\nThat the proportion both of thanks and payment\nMight have been mine! only I have left to say,\nMore is thy due than more than all can pay.\nMACBETH The service and the loyalty I owe,\nIn doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part\nIs to receive our duties; and our duties\nAre to your throne and state children and servants,\nWhich do but what they should, by doing every thing\nSafe toward your love and honour.\nDUNCAN Welcome hither:\nI have begun to plant thee, and will labour\nTo make thee full of growing. Noble Banquo,\nThat hast no less deserved, nor must be known\nNo less to have done so, let me enfold thee\nAnd hold thee to my heart.\nBANQUO There if I grow,\nThe harvest is your own.\nDUNCAN My plenteous joys,\nWanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves\nIn drops of sorrow. Sons, kinsmen, thanes,\nAnd you whose places are the nearest, know\nWe will establish our estate upon\nOur eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter\nThe Prince of Cumberland; which honour must\nNot unaccompanied invest him only,\nBut signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine\nOn all deservers. From hence to Inverness,\nAnd bind us further to you.\nMACBETH The rest is labour, which is not used for you:\nI'll be myself the harbinger and make joyful\nThe hearing of my wife with your approach;\nSo humbly take my leave.\nDUNCAN My worthy Cawdor!\nMACBETH [Aside] The Prince of Cumberland! that is a step\nOn which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,\nFor in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;\nLet not light see my black and deep desires:\nThe eye wink at the hand; yet let that be,\nWhich the eye fears, when it is done, to see.\n[Exit]\nDUNCAN True, worthy Banquo; he is full so valiant,\nAnd in his commendations I am fed;\nIt is a banquet to me. Let's after him,\nWhose care is gone before to bid us welcome:\nIt is a peerless kinsman.\n[Flourish. Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT I\nSCENE V Inverness. Macbeth's castle.\n[Enter LADY MACBETH, reading a letter]\nLADY MACBETH 'They met me in the day of success: and I have\nlearned by the perfectest report, they have more in\nthem than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire\nto question them further, they made themselves air,\ninto which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in\nthe wonder of it, came missives from the king, who\nall-hailed me 'Thane of Cawdor;' by which title,\nbefore, these weird sisters saluted me, and referred\nme to the coming on of time, with 'Hail, king that\nshalt be!' This have I thought good to deliver\nthee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thou\nmightst not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being\nignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it\nto thy heart, and farewell.'\nGlamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be\nWhat thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature;\nIt is too full o' the milk of human kindness\nTo catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great;\nArt not without ambition, but without\nThe illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly,\nThat wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,\nAnd yet wouldst wrongly win: thou'ldst have, great Glamis,\nThat which cries 'Thus thou must do, if thou have it;\nAnd that which rather thou dost fear to do\nThan wishest should be undone.' Hie thee hither,\nThat I may pour my spirits in thine ear;\nAnd chastise with the valour of my tongue\nAll that impedes thee from the golden round,\nWhich fate and metaphysical aid doth seem\nTo have thee crown'd withal.\n[Enter a Messenger]\nWhat is your tidings?\nMessenger The king comes here to-night.\nLADY MACBETH Thou'rt mad to say it:\nIs not thy master with him? who, were't so,\nWould have inform'd for preparation.\nMessenger So please you, it is true: our thane is coming:\nOne of my fellows had the speed of him,\nWho, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more\nThan would make up his message.\nLADY MACBETH Give him tending;\nHe brings great news.\n[Exit Messenger]\nThe raven himself is hoarse\nThat croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan\nUnder my battlements. Come, you spirits\nThat tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,\nAnd fill me from the crown to the toe top-full\nOf direst cruelty! make thick my blood;\nStop up the access and passage to remorse,\nThat no compunctious visitings of nature\nShake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between\nThe effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,\nAnd take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,\nWherever in your sightless substances\nYou wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,\nAnd pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,\nThat my keen knife see not the wound it makes,\nNor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,\nTo cry 'Hold, hold!'\n[Enter MACBETH]\nGreat Glamis! worthy Cawdor!\nGreater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!\nThy letters have transported me beyond\nThis ignorant present, and I feel now\nThe future in the instant.\nMACBETH My dearest love,\nDuncan comes here to-night.\nLADY MACBETH And when goes hence?\nMACBETH To-morrow, as he purposes.\nLADY MACBETH O, never\nShall sun that morrow see!\nYour face, my thane, is as a book where men\nMay read strange matters. To beguile the time,\nLook like the time; bear welcome in your eye,\nYour hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,\nBut be the serpent under't. He that's coming\nMust be provided for: and you shall put\nThis night's great business into my dispatch;\nWhich shall to all our nights and days to come\nGive solely sovereign sway and masterdom.\nMACBETH We will speak further.\nLADY MACBETH Only look up clear;\nTo alter favour ever is to fear:\nLeave all the rest to me.\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT I\nSCENE VI Before Macbeth's castle.\n[Hautboys and torches. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM,\nDONALBAIN, BANQUO, LENNOX, MACDUFF, ROSS, ANGUS,\nand Attendants]\nDUNCAN This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air\nNimbly and sweetly recommends itself\nUnto our gentle senses.\nBANQUO This guest of summer,\nThe temple-haunting martlet, does approve,\nBy his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath\nSmells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,\nButtress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird\nHath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle:\nWhere they most breed and haunt, I have observed,\nThe air is delicate.\n[Enter LADY MACBETH]\nDUNCAN See, see, our honour'd hostess!\nThe love that follows us sometime is our trouble,\nWhich still we thank as love. Herein I teach you\nHow you shall bid God 'ild us for your pains,\nAnd thank us for your trouble.\nLADY MACBETH All our service\nIn every point twice done and then done double\nWere poor and single business to contend\nAgainst those honours deep and broad wherewith\nYour majesty loads our house: for those of old,\nAnd the late dignities heap'd up to them,\nWe rest your hermits.\nDUNCAN Where's the thane of Cawdor?\nWe coursed him at the heels, and had a purpose\nTo be his purveyor: but he rides well;\nAnd his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp him\nTo his home before us. Fair and noble hostess,\nWe are your guest to-night.\nLADY MACBETH Your servants ever\nHave theirs, themselves and what is theirs, in compt,\nTo make their audit at your highness' pleasure,\nStill to return your own.\nDUNCAN Give me your hand;\nConduct me to mine host: we love him highly,\nAnd shall continue our graces towards him.\nBy your leave, hostess.\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT I\nSCENE VII Macbeth's castle.\n[Hautboys and torches. Enter a Sewer, and divers\nServants with dishes and service, and pass over the\nstage. Then enter MACBETH]\nMACBETH If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well\nIt were done quickly: if the assassination\nCould trammel up the consequence, and catch\nWith his surcease success; that but this blow\nMight be the be-all and the end-all here,\nBut here, upon this bank and shoal of time,\nWe'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases\nWe still have judgment here; that we but teach\nBloody instructions, which, being taught, return\nTo plague the inventor: this even-handed justice\nCommends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice\nTo our own lips. He's here in double trust;\nFirst, as I am his kinsman and his subject,\nStrong both against the deed; then, as his host,\nWho should against his murderer shut the door,\nNot bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan\nHath borne his faculties so meek, hath been\nSo clear in his great office, that his virtues\nWill plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against\nThe deep damnation of his taking-off;\nAnd pity, like a naked new-born babe,\nStriding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed\nUpon the sightless couriers of the air,\nShall blow the horrid deed in every eye,\nThat tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur\nTo prick the sides of my intent, but only\nVaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself\nAnd falls on the other.\n[Enter LADY MACBETH]\nHow now! what news?\nLADY MACBETH He has almost supp'd: why have you left the chamber?\nMACBETH Hath he ask'd for me?\nLADY MACBETH Know you not he has?\nMACBETH We will proceed no further in this business:\nHe hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought\nGolden opinions from all sorts of people,\nWhich would be worn now in their newest gloss,\nNot cast aside so soon.\nLADY MACBETH Was the hope drunk\nWherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?\nAnd wakes it now, to look so green and pale\nAt what it did so freely? From this time\nSuch I account thy love. Art thou afeard\nTo be the same in thine own act and valour\nAs thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that\nWhich thou esteem'st the ornament of life,\nAnd live a coward in thine own esteem,\nLetting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'\nLike the poor cat i' the adage?\nMACBETH Prithee, peace:\nI dare do all that may become a man;\nWho dares do more is none.\nLADY MACBETH What beast was't, then,\nThat made you break this enterprise to me?\nWhen you durst do it, then you were a man;\nAnd, to be more than what you were, you would\nBe so much more the man. Nor time nor place\nDid then adhere, and yet you would make both:\nThey have made themselves, and that their fitness now\nDoes unmake you. I have given suck, and know\nHow tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:\nI would, while it was smiling in my face,\nHave pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,\nAnd dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you\nHave done to this.\nMACBETH If we should fail?\nLADY MACBETH We fail!\nBut screw your courage to the sticking-place,\nAnd we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep--\nWhereto the rather shall his day's hard journey\nSoundly invite him--his two chamberlains\nWill I with wine and wassail so convince\nThat memory, the warder of the brain,\nShall be a fume, and the receipt of reason\nA limbeck only: when in swinish sleep\nTheir drenched natures lie as in a death,\nWhat cannot you and I perform upon\nThe unguarded Duncan? what not put upon\nHis spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt\nOf our great quell?\nMACBETH Bring forth men-children only;\nFor thy undaunted mettle should compose\nNothing but males. Will it not be received,\nWhen we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two\nOf his own chamber and used their very daggers,\nThat they have done't?\nLADY MACBETH Who dares receive it other,\nAs we shall make our griefs and clamour roar\nUpon his death?\nMACBETH I am settled, and bend up\nEach corporal agent to this terrible feat.\nAway, and mock the time with fairest show:\nFalse face must hide what the false heart doth know.\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT II\nSCENE I Court of Macbeth's castle.\n[Enter BANQUO, and FLEANCE bearing a torch before him]\nBANQUO How goes the night, boy?\nFLEANCE The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.\nBANQUO And she goes down at twelve.\nFLEANCE I take't, 'tis later, sir.\nBANQUO Hold, take my sword. There's husbandry in heaven;\nTheir candles are all out. Take thee that too.\nA heavy summons lies like lead upon me,\nAnd yet I would not sleep: merciful powers,\nRestrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature\nGives way to in repose!\n[Enter MACBETH, and a Servant with a torch]\nGive me my sword.\nWho's there?\nMACBETH A friend.\nBANQUO What, sir, not yet at rest? The king's a-bed:\nHe hath been in unusual pleasure, and\nSent forth great largess to your offices.\nThis diamond he greets your wife withal,\nBy the name of most kind hostess; and shut up\nIn measureless content.\nMACBETH Being unprepared,\nOur will became the servant to defect;\nWhich else should free have wrought.\nBANQUO All's well.\nI dreamt last night of the three weird sisters:\nTo you they have show'd some truth.\nMACBETH I think not of them:\nYet, when we can entreat an hour to serve,\nWe would spend it in some words upon that business,\nIf you would grant the time.\nBANQUO At your kind'st leisure.\nMACBETH If you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis,\nIt shall make honour for you.\nBANQUO So I lose none\nIn seeking to augment it, but still keep\nMy bosom franchised and allegiance clear,\nI shall be counsell'd.\nMACBETH Good repose the while!\nBANQUO Thanks, sir: the like to you!\n[Exeunt BANQUO and FLEANCE]\nMACBETH Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,\nShe strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.\n[Exit Servant]\nIs this a dagger which I see before me,\nThe handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.\nI have thee not, and yet I see thee still.\nArt thou not, fatal vision, sensible\nTo feeling as to sight? or art thou but\nA dagger of the mind, a false creation,\nProceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?\nI see thee yet, in form as palpable\nAs this which now I draw.\nThou marshall'st me the way that I was going;\nAnd such an instrument I was to use.\nMine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,\nOr else worth all the rest; I see thee still,\nAnd on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,\nWhich was not so before. There's no such thing:\nIt is the bloody business which informs\nThus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one halfworld\nNature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse\nThe curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates\nPale Hecate's offerings, and wither'd murder,\nAlarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,\nWhose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.\nWith Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design\nMoves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,\nHear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear\nThy very stones prate of my whereabout,\nAnd take the present horror from the time,\nWhich now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:\nWords to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.\n[A bell rings]\nI go, and it is done; the bell invites me.\nHear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell\nThat summons thee to heaven or to hell.\n[Exit]\nMACBETH\nACT II\nSCENE II The same.\n[Enter LADY MACBETH]\nLADY MACBETH That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold;\nWhat hath quench'd them hath given me fire.\nHark! Peace!\nIt was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,\nWhich gives the stern'st good-night. He is about it:\nThe doors are open; and the surfeited grooms\nDo mock their charge with snores: I have drugg'd\ntheir possets,\nThat death and nature do contend about them,\nWhether they live or die.\nMACBETH [Within] Who's there? what, ho!\nLADY MACBETH Alack, I am afraid they have awaked,\nAnd 'tis not done. The attempt and not the deed\nConfounds us. Hark! I laid their daggers ready;\nHe could not miss 'em. Had he not resembled\nMy father as he slept, I had done't.\n[Enter MACBETH]\nMy husband!\nMACBETH I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?\nLADY MACBETH I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.\nDid not you speak?\nMACBETH When?\nLADY MACBETH Now.\nMACBETH As I descended?\nLADY MACBETH Ay.\nMACBETH Hark!\nWho lies i' the second chamber?\nLADY MACBETH Donalbain.\nMACBETH This is a sorry sight.\n[Looking on his hands]\nLADY MACBETH A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.\nMACBETH There's one did laugh in's sleep, and one cried\n'Murder!'\nThat they did wake each other: I stood and heard them:\nBut they did say their prayers, and address'd them\nAgain to sleep.\nLADY MACBETH There are two lodged together.\nMACBETH One cried 'God bless us!' and 'Amen' the other;\nAs they had seen me with these hangman's hands.\nListening their fear, I could not say 'Amen,'\nWhen they did say 'God bless us!'\nLADY MACBETH Consider it not so deeply.\nMACBETH But wherefore could not I pronounce 'Amen'?\nI had most need of blessing, and 'Amen'\nStuck in my throat.\nLADY MACBETH These deeds must not be thought\nAfter these ways; so, it will make us mad.\nMACBETH Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!\nMacbeth does murder sleep', the innocent sleep,\nSleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,\nThe death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,\nBalm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,\nChief nourisher in life's feast,--\nLADY MACBETH What do you mean?\nMACBETH Still it cried 'Sleep no more!' to all the house:\n'Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor\nShall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more.'\nLADY MACBETH Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane,\nYou do unbend your noble strength, to think\nSo brainsickly of things. Go get some water,\nAnd wash this filthy witness from your hand.\nWhy did you bring these daggers from the place?\nThey must lie there: go carry them; and smear\nThe sleepy grooms with blood.\nMACBETH I'll go no more:\nI am afraid to think what I have done;\nLook on't again I dare not.\nLADY MACBETH Infirm of purpose!\nGive me the daggers: the sleeping and the dead\nAre but as pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood\nThat fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,\nI'll gild the faces of the grooms withal;\nFor it must seem their guilt.\n[Exit. Knocking within]\nMACBETH Whence is that knocking?\nHow is't with me, when every noise appals me?\nWhat hands are here? ha! they pluck out mine eyes.\nWill all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood\nClean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather\nThe multitudinous seas in incarnadine,\nMaking the green one red.\n[Re-enter LADY MACBETH]\nLADY MACBETH My hands are of your colour; but I shame\nTo wear a heart so white.\n[Knocking within]\nI hear a knocking\nAt the south entry: retire we to our chamber;\nA little water clears us of this deed:\nHow easy is it, then! Your constancy\nHath left you unattended.\n[Knocking within]\nHark! more knocking.\nGet on your nightgown, lest occasion call us,\nAnd show us to be watchers. Be not lost\nSo poorly in your thoughts.\nMACBETH To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself.\n[Knocking within]\nWake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT II\nSCENE III The same.\n[Knocking within. Enter a Porter]\nPorter Here's a knocking indeed! If a\nman were porter of hell-gate, he should have\nold turning the key.\n[Knocking within]\nKnock,\nknock, knock! Who's there, i' the name of\nBeelzebub? Here's a farmer, that hanged\nhimself on the expectation of plenty: come in\ntime; have napkins enow about you; here\nyou'll sweat for't.\n[Knocking within]\nKnock,\nknock! Who's there, in the other devil's\nname? Faith, here's an equivocator, that could\nswear in both the scales against either scale;\nwho committed treason enough for God's sake,\nyet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come\nin, equivocator.\n[Knocking within]\nKnock,\nknock, knock! Who's there? Faith, here's an\nEnglish tailor come hither, for stealing out of\na French hose: come in, tailor; here you may\nroast your goose.\n[Knocking within]\nKnock,\nknock; never at quiet! What are you? But\nthis place is too cold for hell. I'll devil-porter\nit no further: I had thought to have let in\nsome of all professions that go the primrose\nway to the everlasting bonfire.\n[Knocking within]\nAnon, anon! I pray you, remember the porter.\n[Opens the gate]\n[Enter MACDUFF and LENNOX]\nMACDUFF Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,\nThat you do lie so late?\nPorter 'Faith sir, we were carousing till the\nsecond cock: and drink, sir, is a great\nprovoker of three things.\nMACDUFF What three things does drink especially provoke?\nPorter Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and\nurine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes;\nit provokes the desire, but it takes\naway the performance: therefore, much drink\nmay be said to be an equivocator with lechery:\nit makes him, and it mars him; it sets\nhim on, and it takes him off; it persuades him,\nand disheartens him; makes him stand to, and\nnot stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him\nin a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.\nMACDUFF I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.\nPorter That it did, sir, i' the very throat on\nme: but I requited him for his lie; and, I\nthink, being too strong for him, though he took\nup my legs sometime, yet I made a shift to cast\nhim.\nMACDUFF Is thy master stirring?\n[Enter MACBETH]\nOur knocking has awaked him; here he comes.\nLENNOX Good morrow, noble sir.\nMACBETH Good morrow, both.\nMACDUFF Is the king stirring, worthy thane?\nMACBETH Not yet.\nMACDUFF He did command me to call timely on him:\nI have almost slipp'd the hour.\nMACBETH I'll bring you to him.\nMACDUFF I know this is a joyful trouble to you;\nBut yet 'tis one.\nMACBETH The labour we delight in physics pain.\nThis is the door.\nMACDUFF I'll make so bold to call,\nFor 'tis my limited service.\n[Exit]\nLENNOX Goes the king hence to-day?\nMACBETH He does: he did appoint so.\nLENNOX The night has been unruly: where we lay,\nOur chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,\nLamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death,\nAnd prophesying with accents terrible\nOf dire combustion and confused events\nNew hatch'd to the woeful time: the obscure bird\nClamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth\nWas feverous and did shake.\nMACBETH 'Twas a rough night.\nLENNOX My young remembrance cannot parallel\nA fellow to it.\n[Re-enter MACDUFF]\nMACDUFF O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart\nCannot conceive nor name thee!\nMACBETH |\n| What's the matter.\nLENNOX |\nMACDUFF Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!\nMost sacrilegious murder hath broke ope\nThe Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence\nThe life o' the building!\nMACBETH What is 't you say? the life?\nLENNOX Mean you his majesty?\nMACDUFF Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight\nWith a new Gorgon: do not bid me speak;\nSee, and then speak yourselves.\n[Exeunt MACBETH and LENNOX]\nAwake, awake!\nRing the alarum-bell. Murder and treason!\nBanquo and Donalbain! Malcolm! awake!\nShake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,\nAnd look on death itself! up, up, and see\nThe great doom's image! Malcolm! Banquo!\nAs from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites,\nTo countenance this horror! Ring the bell.\n[Bell rings]\n[Enter LADY MACBETH]\nLADY MACBETH What's the business,\nThat such a hideous trumpet calls to parley\nThe sleepers of the house? speak, speak!\nMACDUFF O gentle lady,\n'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:\nThe repetition, in a woman's ear,\nWould murder as it fell.\n[Enter BANQUO]\nO Banquo, Banquo,\nOur royal master 's murder'd!\nLADY MACBETH Woe, alas!\nWhat, in our house?\nBANQUO Too cruel any where.\nDear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself,\nAnd say it is not so.\n[Re-enter MACBETH and LENNOX, with ROSS]\nMACBETH Had I but died an hour before this chance,\nI had lived a blessed time; for, from this instant,\nThere 's nothing serious in mortality:\nAll is but toys: renown and grace is dead;\nThe wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees\nIs left this vault to brag of.\n[Enter MALCOLM and DONALBAIN]\nDONALBAIN What is amiss?\nMACBETH You are, and do not know't:\nThe spring, the head, the fountain of your blood\nIs stopp'd; the very source of it is stopp'd.\nMACDUFF Your royal father 's murder'd.\nMALCOLM O, by whom?\nLENNOX Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done 't:\nTheir hands and faces were an badged with blood;\nSo were their daggers, which unwiped we found\nUpon their pillows:\nThey stared, and were distracted; no man's life\nWas to be trusted with them.\nMACBETH O, yet I do repent me of my fury,\nThat I did kill them.\nMACDUFF Wherefore did you so?\nMACBETH Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,\nLoyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:\nThe expedition my violent love\nOutrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan,\nHis silver skin laced with his golden blood;\nAnd his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature\nFor ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murderers,\nSteep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers\nUnmannerly breech'd with gore: who could refrain,\nThat had a heart to love, and in that heart\nCourage to make 's love known?\nLADY MACBETH Help me hence, ho!\nMACDUFF Look to the lady.\nMALCOLM [Aside to DONALBAIN] Why do we hold our tongues,\nThat most may claim this argument for ours?\nDONALBAIN [Aside to MALCOLM] What should be spoken here,\nwhere our fate,\nHid in an auger-hole, may rush, and seize us?\nLet 's away;\nOur tears are not yet brew'd.\nMALCOLM [Aside to DONALBAIN] Nor our strong sorrow\nUpon the foot of motion.\nBANQUO Look to the lady:\n[LADY MACBETH is carried out]\nAnd when we have our naked frailties hid,\nThat suffer in exposure, let us meet,\nAnd question this most bloody piece of work,\nTo know it further. Fears and scruples shake us:\nIn the great hand of God I stand; and thence\nAgainst the undivulged pretence I fight\nOf treasonous malice.\nMACDUFF And so do I.\nALL So all.\nMACBETH Let's briefly put on manly readiness,\nAnd meet i' the hall together.\nALL Well contented.\n[Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain.\nMALCOLM What will you do? Let's not consort with them:\nTo show an unfelt sorrow is an office\nWhich the false man does easy. I'll to England.\nDONALBAIN To Ireland, I; our separated fortune\nShall keep us both the safer: where we are,\nThere's daggers in men's smiles: the near in blood,\nThe nearer bloody.\nMALCOLM This murderous shaft that's shot\nHath not yet lighted, and our safest way\nIs to avoid the aim. Therefore, to horse;\nAnd let us not be dainty of leave-taking,\nBut shift away: there's warrant in that theft\nWhich steals itself, when there's no mercy left.\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT II\nSCENE IV Outside Macbeth's castle.\n[Enter ROSS and an old Man]\nOld Man Threescore and ten I can remember well:\nWithin the volume of which time I have seen\nHours dreadful and things strange; but this sore night\nHath trifled former knowings.\nROSS Ah, good father,\nThou seest, the heavens, as troubled with man's act,\nThreaten his bloody stage: by the clock, 'tis day,\nAnd yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp:\nIs't night's predominance, or the day's shame,\nThat darkness does the face of earth entomb,\nWhen living light should kiss it?\nOld Man 'Tis unnatural,\nEven like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last,\nA falcon, towering in her pride of place,\nWas by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.\nROSS And Duncan's horses--a thing most strange and certain--\nBeauteous and swift, the minions of their race,\nTurn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,\nContending 'gainst obedience, as they would make\nWar with mankind.\nOld Man 'Tis said they eat each other.\nROSS They did so, to the amazement of mine eyes\nThat look'd upon't. Here comes the good Macduff.\n[Enter MACDUFF]\nHow goes the world, sir, now?\nMACDUFF Why, see you not?\nROSS Is't known who did this more than bloody deed?\nMACDUFF Those that Macbeth hath slain.\nROSS Alas, the day!\nWhat good could they pretend?\nMACDUFF They were suborn'd:\nMalcolm and Donalbain, the king's two sons,\nAre stol'n away and fled; which puts upon them\nSuspicion of the deed.\nROSS 'Gainst nature still!\nThriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up\nThine own life's means! Then 'tis most like\nThe sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth.\nMACDUFF He is already named, and gone to Scone\nTo be invested.\nROSS Where is Duncan's body?\nMACDUFF Carried to Colmekill,\nThe sacred storehouse of his predecessors,\nAnd guardian of their bones.\nROSS Will you to Scone?\nMACDUFF No, cousin, I'll to Fife.\nROSS Well, I will thither.\nMACDUFF Well, may you see things well done there: adieu!\nLest our old robes sit easier than our new!\nROSS Farewell, father.\nOld Man God's benison go with you; and with those\nThat would make good of bad, and friends of foes!\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT III\nSCENE I Forres. The palace.\n[Enter BANQUO]\nBANQUO Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all,\nAs the weird women promised, and, I fear,\nThou play'dst most foully for't: yet it was said\nIt should not stand in thy posterity,\nBut that myself should be the root and father\nOf many kings. If there come truth from them--\nAs upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine--\nWhy, by the verities on thee made good,\nMay they not be my oracles as well,\nAnd set me up in hope? But hush! no more.\n[Sennet sounded. Enter MACBETH, as king, LADY\nMACBETH, as queen, LENNOX, ROSS, Lords, Ladies, and\nAttendants]\nMACBETH Here's our chief guest.\nLADY MACBETH If he had been forgotten,\nIt had been as a gap in our great feast,\nAnd all-thing unbecoming.\nMACBETH To-night we hold a solemn supper sir,\nAnd I'll request your presence.\nBANQUO Let your highness\nCommand upon me; to the which my duties\nAre with a most indissoluble tie\nFor ever knit.\nMACBETH Ride you this afternoon?\nBANQUO Ay, my good lord.\nMACBETH We should have else desired your good advice,\nWhich still hath been both grave and prosperous,\nIn this day's council; but we'll take to-morrow.\nIs't far you ride?\nBANQUO As far, my lord, as will fill up the time\n'Twixt this and supper: go not my horse the better,\nI must become a borrower of the night\nFor a dark hour or twain.\nMACBETH Fail not our feast.\nBANQUO My lord, I will not.\nMACBETH We hear, our bloody cousins are bestow'd\nIn England and in Ireland, not confessing\nTheir cruel parricide, filling their hearers\nWith strange invention: but of that to-morrow,\nWhen therewithal we shall have cause of state\nCraving us jointly. Hie you to horse: adieu,\nTill you return at night. Goes Fleance with you?\nBANQUO Ay, my good lord: our time does call upon 's.\nMACBETH I wish your horses swift and sure of foot;\nAnd so I do commend you to their backs. Farewell.\n[Exit BANQUO]\nLet every man be master of his time\nTill seven at night: to make society\nThe sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself\nTill supper-time alone: while then, God be with you!\n[Exeunt all but MACBETH, and an attendant]\nSirrah, a word with you: attend those men\nOur pleasure?\nATTENDANT They are, my lord, without the palace gate.\nMACBETH Bring them before us.\n[Exit Attendant]\nTo be thus is nothing;\nBut to be safely thus.--Our fears in Banquo\nStick deep; and in his royalty of nature\nReigns that which would be fear'd: 'tis much he dares;\nAnd, to that dauntless temper of his mind,\nHe hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour\nTo act in safety. There is none but he\nWhose being I do fear: and, under him,\nMy Genius is rebuked; as, it is said,\nMark Antony's was by Caesar. He chid the sisters\nWhen first they put the name of king upon me,\nAnd bade them speak to him: then prophet-like\nThey hail'd him father to a line of kings:\nUpon my head they placed a fruitless crown,\nAnd put a barren sceptre in my gripe,\nThence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand,\nNo son of mine succeeding. If 't be so,\nFor Banquo's issue have I filed my mind;\nFor them the gracious Duncan have I murder'd;\nPut rancours in the vessel of my peace\nOnly for them; and mine eternal jewel\nGiven to the common enemy of man,\nTo make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings!\nRather than so, come fate into the list.\nAnd champion me to the utterance! Who's there!\n[Re-enter Attendant, with two Murderers]\nNow go to the door, and stay there till we call.\n[Exit Attendant]\nWas it not yesterday we spoke together?\nFirst Murderer It was, so please your highness.\nMACBETH Well then, now\nHave you consider'd of my speeches? Know\nThat it was he in the times past which held you\nSo under fortune, which you thought had been\nOur innocent self: this I made good to you\nIn our last conference, pass'd in probation with you,\nHow you were borne in hand, how cross'd,\nthe instruments,\nWho wrought with them, and all things else that might\nTo half a soul and to a notion crazed\nSay 'Thus did Banquo.'\nFirst Murderer You made it known to us.\nMACBETH I did so, and went further, which is now\nOur point of second meeting. Do you find\nYour patience so predominant in your nature\nThat you can let this go? Are you so gospell'd\nTo pray for this good man and for his issue,\nWhose heavy hand hath bow'd you to the grave\nAnd beggar'd yours for ever?\nFirst Murderer We are men, my liege.\nMACBETH Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men;\nAs hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,\nShoughs, water-rugs and demi-wolves, are clept\nAll by the name of dogs: the valued file\nDistinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,\nThe housekeeper, the hunter, every one\nAccording to the gift which bounteous nature\nHath in him closed; whereby he does receive\nParticular addition. from the bill\nThat writes them all alike: and so of men.\nNow, if you have a station in the file,\nNot i' the worst rank of manhood, say 't;\nAnd I will put that business in your bosoms,\nWhose execution takes your enemy off,\nGrapples you to the heart and love of us,\nWho wear our health but sickly in his life,\nWhich in his death were perfect.\nSecond Murderer I am one, my liege,\nWhom the vile blows and buffets of the world\nHave so incensed that I am reckless what\nI do to spite the world.\nFirst Murderer And I another\nSo weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune,\nThat I would set my lie on any chance,\nTo mend it, or be rid on't.\nMACBETH Both of you\nKnow Banquo was your enemy.\nBoth Murderers True, my lord.\nMACBETH So is he mine; and in such bloody distance,\nThat every minute of his being thrusts\nAgainst my near'st of life: and though I could\nWith barefaced power sweep him from my sight\nAnd bid my will avouch it, yet I must not,\nFor certain friends that are both his and mine,\nWhose loves I may not drop, but wail his fall\nWho I myself struck down; and thence it is,\nThat I to your assistance do make love,\nMasking the business from the common eye\nFor sundry weighty reasons.\nSecond Murderer We shall, my lord,\nPerform what you command us.\nFirst Murderer Though our lives--\nMACBETH Your spirits shine through you. Within this hour at most\nI will advise you where to plant yourselves;\nAcquaint you with the perfect spy o' the time,\nThe moment on't; for't must be done to-night,\nAnd something from the palace; always thought\nThat I require a clearness: and with him--\nTo leave no rubs nor botches in the work--\nFleance his son, that keeps him company,\nWhose absence is no less material to me\nThan is his father's, must embrace the fate\nOf that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart:\nI'll come to you anon.\nBoth Murderers We are resolved, my lord.\nMACBETH I'll call upon you straight: abide within.\n[Exeunt Murderers]\nIt is concluded. Banquo, thy soul's flight,\nIf it find heaven, must find it out to-night.\n[Exit]\nMACBETH\nACT III\nSCENE II The palace.\n[Enter LADY MACBETH and a Servant]\nLADY MACBETH Is Banquo gone from court?\nServant Ay, madam, but returns again to-night.\nLADY MACBETH Say to the king, I would attend his leisure\nFor a few words.\nServant Madam, I will.\n[Exit]\nLADY MACBETH Nought's had, all's spent,\nWhere our desire is got without content:\n'Tis safer to be that which we destroy\nThan by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.\n[Enter MACBETH]\nHow now, my lord! why do you keep alone,\nOf sorriest fancies your companions making,\nUsing those thoughts which should indeed have died\nWith them they think on? Things without all remedy\nShould be without regard: what's done is done.\nMACBETH We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it:\nShe'll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice\nRemains in danger of her former tooth.\nBut let the frame of things disjoint, both the\nworlds suffer,\nEre we will eat our meal in fear and sleep\nIn the affliction of these terrible dreams\nThat shake us nightly: better be with the dead,\nWhom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,\nThan on the torture of the mind to lie\nIn restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;\nAfter life's fitful fever he sleeps well;\nTreason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,\nMalice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,\nCan touch him further.\nLADY MACBETH Come on;\nGentle my lord, sleek o'er your rugged looks;\nBe bright and jovial among your guests to-night.\nMACBETH So shall I, love; and so, I pray, be you:\nLet your remembrance apply to Banquo;\nPresent him eminence, both with eye and tongue:\nUnsafe the while, that we\nMust lave our honours in these flattering streams,\nAnd make our faces vizards to our hearts,\nDisguising what they are.\nLADY MACBETH You must leave this.\nMACBETH O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!\nThou know'st that Banquo, and his Fleance, lives.\nLADY MACBETH But in them nature's copy's not eterne.\nMACBETH There's comfort yet; they are assailable;\nThen be thou jocund: ere the bat hath flown\nHis cloister'd flight, ere to black Hecate's summons\nThe shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums\nHath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done\nA deed of dreadful note.\nLADY MACBETH What's to be done?\nMACBETH Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,\nTill thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night,\nScarf up the tender eye of pitiful day;\nAnd with thy bloody and invisible hand\nCancel and tear to pieces that great bond\nWhich keeps me pale! Light thickens; and the crow\nMakes wing to the rooky wood:\nGood things of day begin to droop and drowse;\nWhile night's black agents to their preys do rouse.\nThou marvell'st at my words: but hold thee still;\nThings bad begun make strong themselves by ill.\nSo, prithee, go with me.\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT III\nSCENE III A park near the palace.\n[Enter three Murderers]\nFirst Murderer But who did bid thee join with us?\nThird Murderer Macbeth.\nSecond Murderer He needs not our mistrust, since he delivers\nOur offices and what we have to do\nTo the direction just.\nFirst Murderer Then stand with us.\nThe west yet glimmers with some streaks of day:\nNow spurs the lated traveller apace\nTo gain the timely inn; and near approaches\nThe subject of our watch.\nThird Murderer Hark! I hear horses.\nBANQUO [Within] Give us a light there, ho!\nSecond Murderer Then 'tis he: the rest\nThat are within the note of expectation\nAlready are i' the court.\nFirst Murderer His horses go about.\nThird Murderer Almost a mile: but he does usually,\nSo all men do, from hence to the palace gate\nMake it their walk.\nSecond Murderer A light, a light!\n[Enter BANQUO, and FLEANCE with a torch]\nThird Murderer 'Tis he.\nFirst Murderer Stand to't.\nBANQUO It will be rain to-night.\nFirst Murderer Let it come down.\n[They set upon BANQUO]\nBANQUO O, treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!\nThou mayst revenge. O slave!\n[Dies. FLEANCE escapes]\nThird Murderer Who did strike out the light?\nFirst Murderer Wast not the way?\nThird Murderer There's but one down; the son is fled.\nSecond Murderer We have lost\nBest half of our affair.\nFirst Murderer Well, let's away, and say how much is done.\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT III\nSCENE IV The same. Hall in the palace.\n[A banquet prepared. Enter MACBETH, LADY MACBETH,\nROSS, LENNOX, Lords, and Attendants]\nMACBETH You know your own degrees; sit down: at first\nAnd last the hearty welcome.\nLords Thanks to your majesty.\nMACBETH Ourself will mingle with society,\nAnd play the humble host.\nOur hostess keeps her state, but in best time\nWe will require her welcome.\nLADY MACBETH Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends;\nFor my heart speaks they are welcome.\n[First Murderer appears at the door]\nMACBETH See, they encounter thee with their hearts' thanks.\nBoth sides are even: here I'll sit i' the midst:\nBe large in mirth; anon we'll drink a measure\nThe table round.\n[Approaching the door]\nThere's blood on thy face.\nFirst Murderer 'Tis Banquo's then.\nMACBETH 'Tis better thee without than he within.\nIs he dispatch'd?\nFirst Murderer My lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him.\nMACBETH Thou art the best o' the cut-throats: yet he's good\nThat did the like for Fleance: if thou didst it,\nThou art the nonpareil.\nFirst Murderer Most royal sir,\nFleance is 'scaped.\nMACBETH Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect,\nWhole as the marble, founded as the rock,\nAs broad and general as the casing air:\nBut now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in\nTo saucy doubts and fears. But Banquo's safe?\nFirst Murderer Ay, my good lord: safe in a ditch he bides,\nWith twenty trenched gashes on his head;\nThe least a death to nature.\nMACBETH Thanks for that:\nThere the grown serpent lies; the worm that's fled\nHath nature that in time will venom breed,\nNo teeth for the present. Get thee gone: to-morrow\nWe'll hear, ourselves, again.\n[Exit Murderer]\nLADY MACBETH My royal lord,\nYou do not give the cheer: the feast is sold\nThat is not often vouch'd, while 'tis a-making,\n'Tis given with welcome: to feed were best at home;\nFrom thence the sauce to meat is ceremony;\nMeeting were bare without it.\nMACBETH Sweet remembrancer!\nNow, good digestion wait on appetite,\nAnd health on both!\nLENNOX May't please your highness sit.\n[The GHOST OF BANQUO enters, and sits in\nMACBETH's place]\nMACBETH Here had we now our country's honour roof'd,\nWere the graced person of our Banquo present;\nWho may I rather challenge for unkindness\nThan pity for mischance!\nROSS His absence, sir,\nLays blame upon his promise. Please't your highness\nTo grace us with your royal company.\nMACBETH The table's full.\nLENNOX Here is a place reserved, sir.\nMACBETH Where?\nLENNOX Here, my good lord. What is't that moves your highness?\nMACBETH Which of you have done this?\nLords What, my good lord?\nMACBETH Thou canst not say I did it: never shake\nThy gory locks at me.\nROSS Gentlemen, rise: his highness is not well.\nLADY MACBETH Sit, worthy friends: my lord is often thus,\nAnd hath been from his youth: pray you, keep seat;\nThe fit is momentary; upon a thought\nHe will again be well: if much you note him,\nYou shall offend him and extend his passion:\nFeed, and regard him not. Are you a man?\nMACBETH Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that\nWhich might appal the devil.\nLADY MACBETH O proper stuff!\nThis is the very painting of your fear:\nThis is the air-drawn dagger which, you said,\nLed you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts,\nImpostors to true fear, would well become\nA woman's story at a winter's fire,\nAuthorized by her grandam. Shame itself!\nWhy do you make such faces? When all's done,\nYou look but on a stool.\nMACBETH Prithee, see there! behold! look! lo!\nhow say you?\nWhy, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.\nIf charnel-houses and our graves must send\nThose that we bury back, our monuments\nShall be the maws of kites.\n[GHOST OF BANQUO vanishes]\nLADY MACBETH What, quite unmann'd in folly?\nMACBETH If I stand here, I saw him.\nLADY MACBETH Fie, for shame!\nMACBETH Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time,\nEre human statute purged the gentle weal;\nAy, and since too, murders have been perform'd\nToo terrible for the ear: the times have been,\nThat, when the brains were out, the man would die,\nAnd there an end; but now they rise again,\nWith twenty mortal murders on their crowns,\nAnd push us from our stools: this is more strange\nThan such a murder is.\nLADY MACBETH My worthy lord,\nYour noble friends do lack you.\nMACBETH I do forget.\nDo not muse at me, my most worthy friends,\nI have a strange infirmity, which is nothing\nTo those that know me. Come, love and health to all;\nThen I'll sit down. Give me some wine; fill full.\nI drink to the general joy o' the whole table,\nAnd to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss;\nWould he were here! to all, and him, we thirst,\nAnd all to all.\nLords Our duties, and the pledge.\n[Re-enter GHOST OF BANQUO]\nMACBETH Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee!\nThy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;\nThou hast no speculation in those eyes\nWhich thou dost glare with!\nLADY MACBETH Think of this, good peers,\nBut as a thing of custom: 'tis no other;\nOnly it spoils the pleasure of the time.\nMACBETH What man dare, I dare:\nApproach thou like the rugged Russian bear,\nThe arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;\nTake any shape but that, and my firm nerves\nShall never tremble: or be alive again,\nAnd dare me to the desert with thy sword;\nIf trembling I inhabit then, protest me\nThe baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!\nUnreal mockery, hence!\n[GHOST OF BANQUO vanishes]\nWhy, so: being gone,\nI am a man again. Pray you, sit still.\nLADY MACBETH You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting,\nWith most admired disorder.\nMACBETH Can such things be,\nAnd overcome us like a summer's cloud,\nWithout our special wonder? You make me strange\nEven to the disposition that I owe,\nWhen now I think you can behold such sights,\nAnd keep the natural ruby of your cheeks,\nWhen mine is blanched with fear.\nROSS What sights, my lord?\nLADY MACBETH I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse;\nQuestion enrages him. At once, good night:\nStand not upon the order of your going,\nBut go at once.\nLENNOX Good night; and better health\nAttend his majesty!\nLADY MACBETH A kind good night to all!\n[Exeunt all but MACBETH and LADY MACBETH]\nMACBETH It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood:\nStones have been known to move and trees to speak;\nAugurs and understood relations have\nBy magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth\nThe secret'st man of blood. What is the night?\nLADY MACBETH Almost at odds with morning, which is which.\nMACBETH How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his person\nAt our great bidding?\nLADY MACBETH Did you send to him, sir?\nMACBETH I hear it by the way; but I will send:\nThere's not a one of them but in his house\nI keep a servant fee'd. I will to-morrow,\nAnd betimes I will, to the weird sisters:\nMore shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,\nBy the worst means, the worst. For mine own good,\nAll causes shall give way: I am in blood\nStepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,\nReturning were as tedious as go o'er:\nStrange things I have in head, that will to hand;\nWhich must be acted ere they may be scann'd.\nLADY MACBETH You lack the season of all natures, sleep.\nMACBETH Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse\nIs the initiate fear that wants hard use:\nWe are yet but young in deed.\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT III\nSCENE V A Heath.\n[Thunder. Enter the three Witches meeting HECATE]\nFirst Witch Why, how now, Hecate! you look angerly.\nHECATE Have I not reason, beldams as you are,\nSaucy and overbold? How did you dare\nTo trade and traffic with Macbeth\nIn riddles and affairs of death;\nAnd I, the mistress of your charms,\nThe close contriver of all harms,\nWas never call'd to bear my part,\nOr show the glory of our art?\nAnd, which is worse, all you have done\nHath been but for a wayward son,\nSpiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,\nLoves for his own ends, not for you.\nBut make amends now: get you gone,\nAnd at the pit of Acheron\nMeet me i' the morning: thither he\nWill come to know his destiny:\nYour vessels and your spells provide,\nYour charms and every thing beside.\nI am for the air; this night I'll spend\nUnto a dismal and a fatal end:\nGreat business must be wrought ere noon:\nUpon the corner of the moon\nThere hangs a vaporous drop profound;\nI'll catch it ere it come to ground:\nAnd that distill'd by magic sleights\nShall raise such artificial sprites\nAs by the strength of their illusion\nShall draw him on to his confusion:\nHe shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear\nHe hopes 'bove wisdom, grace and fear:\nAnd you all know, security\nIs mortals' chiefest enemy.\n[Music and a song within: 'Come away, come\naway,' &c]\nHark! I am call'd; my little spirit, see,\nSits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me.\n[Exit]\nFirst Witch Come, let's make haste; she'll soon be back again.\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT III\nSCENE VI Forres. The palace.\n[Enter LENNOX and another Lord]\nLENNOX My former speeches have but hit your thoughts,\nWhich can interpret further: only, I say,\nThings have been strangely borne. The\ngracious Duncan\nWas pitied of Macbeth: marry, he was dead:\nAnd the right-valiant Banquo walk'd too late;\nWhom, you may say, if't please you, Fleance kill'd,\nFor Fleance fled: men must not walk too late.\nWho cannot want the thought how monstrous\nIt was for Malcolm and for Donalbain\nTo kill their gracious father? damned fact!\nHow it did grieve Macbeth! did he not straight\nIn pious rage the two delinquents tear,\nThat were the slaves of drink and thralls of sleep?\nWas not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely too;\nFor 'twould have anger'd any heart alive\nTo hear the men deny't. So that, I say,\nHe has borne all things well: and I do think\nThat had he Duncan's sons under his key--\nAs, an't please heaven, he shall not--they\nshould find\nWhat 'twere to kill a father; so should Fleance.\nBut, peace! for from broad words and 'cause he fail'd\nHis presence at the tyrant's feast, I hear\nMacduff lives in disgrace: sir, can you tell\nWhere he bestows himself?\nLord The son of Duncan,\nFrom whom this tyrant holds the due of birth\nLives in the English court, and is received\nOf the most pious Edward with such grace\nThat the malevolence of fortune nothing\nTakes from his high respect: thither Macduff\nIs gone to pray the holy king, upon his aid\nTo wake Northumberland and warlike Siward:\nThat, by the help of these--with Him above\nTo ratify the work--we may again\nGive to our tables meat, sleep to our nights,\nFree from our feasts and banquets bloody knives,\nDo faithful homage and receive free honours:\nAll which we pine for now: and this report\nHath so exasperate the king that he\nPrepares for some attempt of war.\nLENNOX Sent he to Macduff?\nLord He did: and with an absolute 'Sir, not I,'\nThe cloudy messenger turns me his back,\nAnd hums, as who should say 'You'll rue the time\nThat clogs me with this answer.'\nLENNOX And that well might\nAdvise him to a caution, to hold what distance\nHis wisdom can provide. Some holy angel\nFly to the court of England and unfold\nHis message ere he come, that a swift blessing\nMay soon return to this our suffering country\nUnder a hand accursed!\nLord I'll send my prayers with him.\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT IV\nSCENE I A cavern. In the middle, a boiling cauldron.\n[Thunder. Enter the three Witches]\nFirst Witch Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.\nSecond Witch Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.\nThird Witch Harpier cries 'Tis time, 'tis time.\nFirst Witch Round about the cauldron go;\nIn the poison'd entrails throw.\nToad, that under cold stone\nDays and nights has thirty-one\nSwelter'd venom sleeping got,\nBoil thou first i' the charmed pot.\nALL Double, double toil and trouble;\nFire burn, and cauldron bubble.\nSecond Witch Fillet of a fenny snake,\nIn the cauldron boil and bake;\nEye of newt and toe of frog,\nWool of bat and tongue of dog,\nAdder's fork and blind-worm's sting,\nLizard's leg and owlet's wing,\nFor a charm of powerful trouble,\nLike a hell-broth boil and bubble.\nALL Double, double toil and trouble;\nFire burn and cauldron bubble.\nThird Witch Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,\nWitches' mummy, maw and gulf\nOf the ravin'd salt-sea shark,\nRoot of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,\nLiver of blaspheming Jew,\nGall of goat, and slips of yew\nSilver'd in the moon's eclipse,\nNose of Turk and Tartar's lips,\nFinger of birth-strangled babe\nDitch-deliver'd by a drab,\nMake the gruel thick and slab:\nAdd thereto a tiger's chaudron,\nFor the ingredients of our cauldron.\nALL Double, double toil and trouble;\nFire burn and cauldron bubble.\nSecond Witch Cool it with a baboon's blood,\nThen the charm is firm and good.\n[Enter HECATE to the other three Witches]\nHECATE O well done! I commend your pains;\nAnd every one shall share i' the gains;\nAnd now about the cauldron sing,\nLive elves and fairies in a ring,\nEnchanting all that you put in.\n[Music and a song: 'Black spirits,' &c]\n[HECATE retires]\nSecond Witch By the pricking of my thumbs,\nSomething wicked this way comes.\nOpen, locks,\nWhoever knocks!\n[Enter MACBETH]\nMACBETH How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!\nWhat is't you do?\nALL A deed without a name.\nMACBETH I conjure you, by that which you profess,\nHowe'er you come to know it, answer me:\nThough you untie the winds and let them fight\nAgainst the churches; though the yesty waves\nConfound and swallow navigation up;\nThough bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down;\nThough castles topple on their warders' heads;\nThough palaces and pyramids do slope\nTheir heads to their foundations; though the treasure\nOf nature's germens tumble all together,\nEven till destruction sicken; answer me\nTo what I ask you.\nFirst Witch Speak.\nSecond Witch Demand.\nThird Witch We'll answer.\nFirst Witch Say, if thou'dst rather hear it from our mouths,\nOr from our masters?\nMACBETH Call 'em; let me see 'em.\nFirst Witch Pour in sow's blood, that hath eaten\nHer nine farrow; grease that's sweaten\nFrom the murderer's gibbet throw\nInto the flame.\nALL Come, high or low;\nThyself and office deftly show!\n[Thunder. First Apparition: an armed Head]\nMACBETH Tell me, thou unknown power,--\nFirst Witch He knows thy thought:\nHear his speech, but say thou nought.\nFirst Apparition Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! beware Macduff;\nBeware the thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough.\n[Descends]\nMACBETH Whate'er thou art, for thy good caution, thanks;\nThou hast harp'd my fear aright: but one\nword more,--\nFirst Witch He will not be commanded: here's another,\nMore potent than the first.\n[Thunder. Second Apparition: A bloody Child]\nSecond Apparition Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!\nMACBETH Had I three ears, I'ld hear thee.\nSecond Apparition Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn\nThe power of man, for none of woman born\nShall harm Macbeth.\n[Descends]\nMACBETH Then live, Macduff: what need I fear of thee?\nBut yet I'll make assurance double sure,\nAnd take a bond of fate: thou shalt not live;\nThat I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies,\nAnd sleep in spite of thunder.\n[Thunder. Third Apparition: a Child crowned,\nwith a tree in his hand]\nWhat is this\nThat rises like the issue of a king,\nAnd wears upon his baby-brow the round\nAnd top of sovereignty?\nALL Listen, but speak not to't.\nThird Apparition Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no care\nWho chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are:\nMacbeth shall never vanquish'd be until\nGreat Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill\nShall come against him.\n[Descends]\nMACBETH That will never be\nWho can impress the forest, bid the tree\nUnfix his earth-bound root? Sweet bodements! good!\nRebellion's head, rise never till the wood\nOf Birnam rise, and our high-placed Macbeth\nShall live the lease of nature, pay his breath\nTo time and mortal custom. Yet my heart\nThrobs to know one thing: tell me, if your art\nCan tell so much: shall Banquo's issue ever\nReign in this kingdom?\nALL Seek to know no more.\nMACBETH I will be satisfied: deny me this,\nAnd an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know.\nWhy sinks that cauldron? and what noise is this?\n[Hautboys]\nFirst Witch Show!\nSecond Witch Show!\nThird Witch Show!\nALL Show his eyes, and grieve his heart;\nCome like shadows, so depart!\n[A show of Eight Kings, the last with a glass in\nhis hand; GHOST OF BANQUO following]\nMACBETH Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo: down!\nThy crown does sear mine eye-balls. And thy hair,\nThou other gold-bound brow, is like the first.\nA third is like the former. Filthy hags!\nWhy do you show me this? A fourth! Start, eyes!\nWhat, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?\nAnother yet! A seventh! I'll see no more:\nAnd yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass\nWhich shows me many more; and some I see\nThat two-fold balls and treble scepters carry:\nHorrible sight! Now, I see, 'tis true;\nFor the blood-bolter'd Banquo smiles upon me,\nAnd points at them for his.\n[Apparitions vanish]\nWhat, is this so?\nFirst Witch Ay, sir, all this is so: but why\nStands Macbeth thus amazedly?\nCome, sisters, cheer we up his sprites,\nAnd show the best of our delights:\nI'll charm the air to give a sound,\nWhile you perform your antic round:\nThat this great king may kindly say,\nOur duties did his welcome pay.\n[Music. The witches dance and then vanish,\nwith HECATE]\nMACBETH Where are they? Gone? Let this pernicious hour\nStand aye accursed in the calendar!\nCome in, without there!\n[Enter LENNOX]\nLENNOX What's your grace's will?\nMACBETH Saw you the weird sisters?\nLENNOX No, my lord.\nMACBETH Came they not by you?\nLENNOX No, indeed, my lord.\nMACBETH Infected be the air whereon they ride;\nAnd damn'd all those that trust them! I did hear\nThe galloping of horse: who was't came by?\nLENNOX 'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word\nMacduff is fled to England.\nMACBETH Fled to England!\nLENNOX Ay, my good lord.\nMACBETH Time, thou anticipatest my dread exploits:\nThe flighty purpose never is o'ertook\nUnless the deed go with it; from this moment\nThe very firstlings of my heart shall be\nThe firstlings of my hand. And even now,\nTo crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done:\nThe castle of Macduff I will surprise;\nSeize upon Fife; give to the edge o' the sword\nHis wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls\nThat trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool;\nThis deed I'll do before this purpose cool.\nBut no more sights!--Where are these gentlemen?\nCome, bring me where they are.\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT IV\nSCENE II Fife. Macduff's castle.\n[Enter LADY MACDUFF, her Son, and ROSS]\nLADY MACDUFF What had he done, to make him fly the land?\nROSS You must have patience, madam.\nLADY MACDUFF He had none:\nHis flight was madness: when our actions do not,\nOur fears do make us traitors.\nROSS You know not\nWhether it was his wisdom or his fear.\nLADY MACDUFF Wisdom! to leave his wife, to leave his babes,\nHis mansion and his titles in a place\nFrom whence himself does fly? He loves us not;\nHe wants the natural touch: for the poor wren,\nThe most diminutive of birds, will fight,\nHer young ones in her nest, against the owl.\nAll is the fear and nothing is the love;\nAs little is the wisdom, where the flight\nSo runs against all reason.\nROSS My dearest coz,\nI pray you, school yourself: but for your husband,\nHe is noble, wise, judicious, and best knows\nThe fits o' the season. I dare not speak\nmuch further;\nBut cruel are the times, when we are traitors\nAnd do not know ourselves, when we hold rumour\nFrom what we fear, yet know not what we fear,\nBut float upon a wild and violent sea\nEach way and move. I take my leave of you:\nShall not be long but I'll be here again:\nThings at the worst will cease, or else climb upward\nTo what they were before. My pretty cousin,\nBlessing upon you!\nLADY MACDUFF Father'd he is, and yet he's fatherless.\nROSS I am so much a fool, should I stay longer,\nIt would be my disgrace and your discomfort:\nI take my leave at once.\n[Exit]\nLADY MACDUFF Sirrah, your father's dead;\nAnd what will you do now? How will you live?\nSon As birds do, mother.\nLADY MACDUFF What, with worms and flies?\nSon With what I get, I mean; and so do they.\nLADY MACDUFF Poor bird! thou'ldst never fear the net nor lime,\nThe pitfall nor the gin.\nSon Why should I, mother? Poor birds they are not set for.\nMy father is not dead, for all your saying.\nLADY MACDUFF Yes, he is dead; how wilt thou do for a father?\nSon Nay, how will you do for a husband?\nLADY MACDUFF Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.\nSon Then you'll buy 'em to sell again.\nLADY MACDUFF Thou speak'st with all thy wit: and yet, i' faith,\nWith wit enough for thee.\nSon Was my father a traitor, mother?\nLADY MACDUFF Ay, that he was.\nSon What is a traitor?\nLADY MACDUFF Why, one that swears and lies.\nSon And be all traitors that do so?\nLADY MACDUFF Every one that does so is a traitor, and must be hanged.\nSon And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?\nLADY MACDUFF Every one.\nSon Who must hang them?\nLADY MACDUFF Why, the honest men.\nSon Then the liars and swearers are fools,\nfor there are liars and swearers enow to beat\nthe honest men and hang up them.\nLADY MACDUFF Now, God help thee, poor monkey!\nBut how wilt thou do for a father?\nSon If he were dead, you'ld weep for\nhim: if you would not, it were a good sign\nthat I should quickly have a new father.\nLADY MACDUFF Poor prattler, how thou talk'st!\n[Enter a Messenger]\nMessenger Bless you, fair dame! I am not to you known,\nThough in your state of honour I am perfect.\nI doubt some danger does approach you nearly:\nIf you will take a homely man's advice,\nBe not found here; hence, with your little ones.\nTo fright you thus, methinks, I am too savage;\nTo do worse to you were fell cruelty,\nWhich is too nigh your person. Heaven preserve you!\nI dare abide no longer.\n[Exit]\nLADY MACDUFF Whither should I fly?\nI have done no harm. But I remember now\nI am in this earthly world; where to do harm\nIs often laudable, to do good sometime\nAccounted dangerous folly: why then, alas,\nDo I put up that womanly defence,\nTo say I have done no harm?\n[Enter Murderers]\nWhat are these faces?\nFirst Murderer Where is your husband?\nLADY MACDUFF I hope, in no place so unsanctified\nWhere such as thou mayst find him.\nFirst Murderer He's a traitor.\nSon Thou liest, thou shag-hair'd villain!\nFirst Murderer What, you egg!\n[Stabbing him]\nYoung fry of treachery!\nSon He has kill'd me, mother:\nRun away, I pray you!\n[Dies]\n[Exit LADY MACDUFF, crying 'Murder!' Exeunt\nMurderers, following her]\nMACBETH\nACT IV\nSCENE III England. Before the King's palace.\n[Enter MALCOLM and MACDUFF]\nMALCOLM Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there\nWeep our sad bosoms empty.\nMACDUFF Let us rather\nHold fast the mortal sword, and like good men\nBestride our down-fall'n birthdom: each new morn\nNew widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows\nStrike heaven on the face, that it resounds\nAs if it felt with Scotland and yell'd out\nLike syllable of dolour.\nMALCOLM What I believe I'll wail,\nWhat know believe, and what I can redress,\nAs I shall find the time to friend, I will.\nWhat you have spoke, it may be so perchance.\nThis tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,\nWas once thought honest: you have loved him well.\nHe hath not touch'd you yet. I am young;\nbut something\nYou may deserve of him through me, and wisdom\nTo offer up a weak poor innocent lamb\nTo appease an angry god.\nMACDUFF I am not treacherous.\nMALCOLM But Macbeth is.\nA good and virtuous nature may recoil\nIn an imperial charge. But I shall crave\nyour pardon;\nThat which you are my thoughts cannot transpose:\nAngels are bright still, though the brightest fell;\nThough all things foul would wear the brows of grace,\nYet grace must still look so.\nMACDUFF I have lost my hopes.\nMALCOLM Perchance even there where I did find my doubts.\nWhy in that rawness left you wife and child,\nThose precious motives, those strong knots of love,\nWithout leave-taking? I pray you,\nLet not my jealousies be your dishonours,\nBut mine own safeties. You may be rightly just,\nWhatever I shall think.\nMACDUFF Bleed, bleed, poor country!\nGreat tyranny! lay thou thy basis sure,\nFor goodness dare not cheque thee: wear thou\nthy wrongs;\nThe title is affeer'd! Fare thee well, lord:\nI would not be the villain that thou think'st\nFor the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp,\nAnd the rich East to boot.\nMALCOLM Be not offended:\nI speak not as in absolute fear of you.\nI think our country sinks beneath the yoke;\nIt weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash\nIs added to her wounds: I think withal\nThere would be hands uplifted in my right;\nAnd here from gracious England have I offer\nOf goodly thousands: but, for all this,\nWhen I shall tread upon the tyrant's head,\nOr wear it on my sword, yet my poor country\nShall have more vices than it had before,\nMore suffer and more sundry ways than ever,\nBy him that shall succeed.\nMACDUFF What should he be?\nMALCOLM It is myself I mean: in whom I know\nAll the particulars of vice so grafted\nThat, when they shall be open'd, black Macbeth\nWill seem as pure as snow, and the poor state\nEsteem him as a lamb, being compared\nWith my confineless harms.\nMACDUFF Not in the legions\nOf horrid hell can come a devil more damn'd\nIn evils to top Macbeth.\nMALCOLM I grant him bloody,\nLuxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,\nSudden, malicious, smacking of every sin\nThat has a name: but there's no bottom, none,\nIn my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters,\nYour matrons and your maids, could not fill up\nThe cistern of my lust, and my desire\nAll continent impediments would o'erbear\nThat did oppose my will: better Macbeth\nThan such an one to reign.\nMACDUFF Boundless intemperance\nIn nature is a tyranny; it hath been\nThe untimely emptying of the happy throne\nAnd fall of many kings. But fear not yet\nTo take upon you what is yours: you may\nConvey your pleasures in a spacious plenty,\nAnd yet seem cold, the time you may so hoodwink.\nWe have willing dames enough: there cannot be\nThat vulture in you, to devour so many\nAs will to greatness dedicate themselves,\nFinding it so inclined.\nMALCOLM With this there grows\nIn my most ill-composed affection such\nA stanchless avarice that, were I king,\nI should cut off the nobles for their lands,\nDesire his jewels and this other's house:\nAnd my more-having would be as a sauce\nTo make me hunger more; that I should forge\nQuarrels unjust against the good and loyal,\nDestroying them for wealth.\nMACDUFF This avarice\nSticks deeper, grows with more pernicious root\nThan summer-seeming lust, and it hath been\nThe sword of our slain kings: yet do not fear;\nScotland hath foisons to fill up your will.\nOf your mere own: all these are portable,\nWith other graces weigh'd.\nMALCOLM But I have none: the king-becoming graces,\nAs justice, verity, temperance, stableness,\nBounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,\nDevotion, patience, courage, fortitude,\nI have no relish of them, but abound\nIn the division of each several crime,\nActing it many ways. Nay, had I power, I should\nPour the sweet milk of concord into hell,\nUproar the universal peace, confound\nAll unity on earth.\nMACDUFF O Scotland, Scotland!\nMALCOLM If such a one be fit to govern, speak:\nI am as I have spoken.\nMACDUFF Fit to govern!\nNo, not to live. O nation miserable,\nWith an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd,\nWhen shalt thou see thy wholesome days again,\nSince that the truest issue of thy throne\nBy his own interdiction stands accursed,\nAnd does blaspheme his breed? Thy royal father\nWas a most sainted king: the queen that bore thee,\nOftener upon her knees than on her feet,\nDied every day she lived. Fare thee well!\nThese evils thou repeat'st upon thyself\nHave banish'd me from Scotland. O my breast,\nThy hope ends here!\nMALCOLM Macduff, this noble passion,\nChild of integrity, hath from my soul\nWiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts\nTo thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth\nBy many of these trains hath sought to win me\nInto his power, and modest wisdom plucks me\nFrom over-credulous haste: but God above\nDeal between thee and me! for even now\nI put myself to thy direction, and\nUnspeak mine own detraction, here abjure\nThe taints and blames I laid upon myself,\nFor strangers to my nature. I am yet\nUnknown to woman, never was forsworn,\nScarcely have coveted what was mine own,\nAt no time broke my faith, would not betray\nThe devil to his fellow and delight\nNo less in truth than life: my first false speaking\nWas this upon myself: what I am truly,\nIs thine and my poor country's to command:\nWhither indeed, before thy here-approach,\nOld Siward, with ten thousand warlike men,\nAlready at a point, was setting forth.\nNow we'll together; and the chance of goodness\nBe like our warranted quarrel! Why are you silent?\nMACDUFF Such welcome and unwelcome things at once\n'Tis hard to reconcile.\n[Enter a Doctor]\nMALCOLM Well; more anon.--Comes the king forth, I pray you?\nDoctor Ay, sir; there are a crew of wretched souls\nThat stay his cure: their malady convinces\nThe great assay of art; but at his touch--\nSuch sanctity hath heaven given his hand--\nThey presently amend.\nMALCOLM I thank you, doctor.\n[Exit Doctor]\nMACDUFF What's the disease he means?\nMALCOLM 'Tis call'd the evil:\nA most miraculous work in this good king;\nWhich often, since my here-remain in England,\nI have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,\nHimself best knows: but strangely-visited people,\nAll swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,\nThe mere despair of surgery, he cures,\nHanging a golden stamp about their necks,\nPut on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken,\nTo the succeeding royalty he leaves\nThe healing benediction. With this strange virtue,\nHe hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,\nAnd sundry blessings hang about his throne,\nThat speak him full of grace.\n[Enter ROSS]\nMACDUFF See, who comes here?\nMALCOLM My countryman; but yet I know him not.\nMACDUFF My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither.\nMALCOLM I know him now. Good God, betimes remove\nThe means that makes us strangers!\nROSS Sir, amen.\nMACDUFF Stands Scotland where it did?\nROSS Alas, poor country!\nAlmost afraid to know itself. It cannot\nBe call'd our mother, but our grave; where nothing,\nBut who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;\nWhere sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air\nAre made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems\nA modern ecstasy; the dead man's knell\nIs there scarce ask'd for who; and good men's lives\nExpire before the flowers in their caps,\nDying or ere they sicken.\nMACDUFF O, relation\nToo nice, and yet too true!\nMALCOLM What's the newest grief?\nROSS That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker:\nEach minute teems a new one.\nMACDUFF How does my wife?\nROSS Why, well.\nMACDUFF And all my children?\nROSS Well too.\nMACDUFF The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?\nROSS No; they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.\nMACDUFF But not a niggard of your speech: how goes't?\nROSS When I came hither to transport the tidings,\nWhich I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour\nOf many worthy fellows that were out;\nWhich was to my belief witness'd the rather,\nFor that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot:\nNow is the time of help; your eye in Scotland\nWould create soldiers, make our women fight,\nTo doff their dire distresses.\nMALCOLM Be't their comfort\nWe are coming thither: gracious England hath\nLent us good Siward and ten thousand men;\nAn older and a better soldier none\nThat Christendom gives out.\nROSS Would I could answer\nThis comfort with the like! But I have words\nThat would be howl'd out in the desert air,\nWhere hearing should not latch them.\nMACDUFF What concern they?\nThe general cause? or is it a fee-grief\nDue to some single breast?\nROSS No mind that's honest\nBut in it shares some woe; though the main part\nPertains to you alone.\nMACDUFF If it be mine,\nKeep it not from me, quickly let me have it.\nROSS Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever,\nWhich shall possess them with the heaviest sound\nThat ever yet they heard.\nMACDUFF Hum! I guess at it.\nROSS Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes\nSavagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner,\nWere, on the quarry of these murder'd deer,\nTo add the death of you.\nMALCOLM Merciful heaven!\nWhat, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;\nGive sorrow words: the grief that does not speak\nWhispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.\nMACDUFF My children too?\nROSS Wife, children, servants, all\nThat could be found.\nMACDUFF And I must be from thence!\nMy wife kill'd too?\nROSS I have said.\nMALCOLM Be comforted:\nLet's make us medicines of our great revenge,\nTo cure this deadly grief.\nMACDUFF He has no children. All my pretty ones?\nDid you say all? O hell-kite! All?\nWhat, all my pretty chickens and their dam\nAt one fell swoop?\nMALCOLM Dispute it like a man.\nMACDUFF I shall do so;\nBut I must also feel it as a man:\nI cannot but remember such things were,\nThat were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,\nAnd would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,\nThey were all struck for thee! naught that I am,\nNot for their own demerits, but for mine,\nFell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now!\nMALCOLM Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief\nConvert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.\nMACDUFF O, I could play the woman with mine eyes\nAnd braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,\nCut short all intermission; front to front\nBring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;\nWithin my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,\nHeaven forgive him too!\nMALCOLM This tune goes manly.\nCome, go we to the king; our power is ready;\nOur lack is nothing but our leave; Macbeth\nIs ripe for shaking, and the powers above\nPut on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may:\nThe night is long that never finds the day.\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT V\nSCENE I Dunsinane. Ante-room in the castle.\n[Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman]\nDoctor I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive\nno truth in your report. When was it she last walked?\nGentlewoman Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen\nher rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon\nher, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it,\nwrite upon't, read it, afterwards seal it, and again\nreturn to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.\nDoctor A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once\nthe benefit of sleep, and do the effects of\nwatching! In this slumbery agitation, besides her\nwalking and other actual performances, what, at any\ntime, have you heard her say?\nGentlewoman That, sir, which I will not report after her.\nDoctor You may to me: and 'tis most meet you should.\nGentlewoman Neither to you nor any one; having no witness to\nconfirm my speech.\n[Enter LADY MACBETH, with a taper]\nLo you, here she comes! This is her very guise;\nand, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.\nDoctor How came she by that light?\nGentlewoman Why, it stood by her: she has light by her\ncontinually; 'tis her command.\nDoctor You see, her eyes are open.\nGentlewoman Ay, but their sense is shut.\nDoctor What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.\nGentlewoman It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus\nwashing her hands: I have known her continue in\nthis a quarter of an hour.\nLADY MACBETH Yet here's a spot.\nDoctor Hark! she speaks: I will set down what comes from\nher, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.\nLADY MACBETH Out, damned spot! out, I say!--One: two: why,\nthen, 'tis time to do't.--Hell is murky!--Fie, my\nlord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we\nfear who knows it, when none can call our power to\naccount?--Yet who would have thought the old man\nto have had so much blood in him.\nDoctor Do you mark that?\nLADY MACBETH The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?--\nWhat, will these hands ne'er be clean?--No more o'\nthat, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with\nthis starting.\nDoctor Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.\nGentlewoman She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of\nthat: heaven knows what she has known.\nLADY MACBETH Here's the smell of the blood still: all the\nperfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little\nhand. Oh, oh, oh!\nDoctor What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.\nGentlewoman I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the\ndignity of the whole body.\nDoctor Well, well, well,--\nGentlewoman Pray God it be, sir.\nDoctor This disease is beyond my practise: yet I have known\nthose which have walked in their sleep who have died\nholily in their beds.\nLADY MACBETH Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so\npale.--I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he\ncannot come out on's grave.\nDoctor Even so?\nLADY MACBETH To bed, to bed! there's knocking at the gate:\ncome, come, come, come, give me your hand. What's\ndone cannot be undone.--To bed, to bed, to bed!\n[Exit]\nDoctor Will she go now to bed?\nGentlewoman Directly.\nDoctor Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds\nDo breed unnatural troubles: infected minds\nTo their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets:\nMore needs she the divine than the physician.\nGod, God forgive us all! Look after her;\nRemove from her the means of all annoyance,\nAnd still keep eyes upon her. So, good night:\nMy mind she has mated, and amazed my sight.\nI think, but dare not speak.\nGentlewoman Good night, good doctor.\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT V\nSCENE II The country near Dunsinane.\n[Drum and colours. Enter MENTEITH, CAITHNESS, ANGUS,\nLENNOX, and Soldiers]\nMENTEITH The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,\nHis uncle Siward and the good Macduff:\nRevenges burn in them; for their dear causes\nWould to the bleeding and the grim alarm\nExcite the mortified man.\nANGUS Near Birnam wood\nShall we well meet them; that way are they coming.\nCAITHNESS Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?\nLENNOX For certain, sir, he is not: I have a file\nOf all the gentry: there is Siward's son,\nAnd many unrough youths that even now\nProtest their first of manhood.\nMENTEITH What does the tyrant?\nCAITHNESS Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies:\nSome say he's mad; others that lesser hate him\nDo call it valiant fury: but, for certain,\nHe cannot buckle his distemper'd cause\nWithin the belt of rule.\nANGUS Now does he feel\nHis secret murders sticking on his hands;\nNow minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;\nThose he commands move only in command,\nNothing in love: now does he feel his title\nHang loose about him, like a giant's robe\nUpon a dwarfish thief.\nMENTEITH Who then shall blame\nHis pester'd senses to recoil and start,\nWhen all that is within him does condemn\nItself for being there?\nCAITHNESS Well, march we on,\nTo give obedience where 'tis truly owed:\nMeet we the medicine of the sickly weal,\nAnd with him pour we in our country's purge\nEach drop of us.\nLENNOX Or so much as it needs,\nTo dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds.\nMake we our march towards Birnam.\n[Exeunt, marching]\nMACBETH\nACT V\nSCENE III Dunsinane. A room in the castle.\n[Enter MACBETH, Doctor, and Attendants]\nMACBETH Bring me no more reports; let them fly all:\nTill Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,\nI cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?\nWas he not born of woman? The spirits that know\nAll mortal consequences have pronounced me thus:\n'Fear not, Macbeth; no man that's born of woman\nShall e'er have power upon thee.' Then fly,\nfalse thanes,\nAnd mingle with the English epicures:\nThe mind I sway by and the heart I bear\nShall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.\n[Enter a Servant]\nThe devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!\nWhere got'st thou that goose look?\nServant There is ten thousand--\nMACBETH Geese, villain!\nServant Soldiers, sir.\nMACBETH Go prick thy face, and over-red thy fear,\nThou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch?\nDeath of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine\nAre counsellors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face?\nServant The English force, so please you.\nMACBETH Take thy face hence.\n[Exit Servant]\nSeyton!--I am sick at heart,\nWhen I behold--Seyton, I say!--This push\nWill cheer me ever, or disseat me now.\nI have lived long enough: my way of life\nIs fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf;\nAnd that which should accompany old age,\nAs honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,\nI must not look to have; but, in their stead,\nCurses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,\nWhich the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not. Seyton!\n[Enter SEYTON]\nSEYTON What is your gracious pleasure?\nMACBETH What news more?\nSEYTON All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported.\nMACBETH I'll fight till from my bones my flesh be hack'd.\nGive me my armour.\nSEYTON 'Tis not needed yet.\nMACBETH I'll put it on.\nSend out more horses; skirr the country round;\nHang those that talk of fear. Give me mine armour.\nHow does your patient, doctor?\nDoctor Not so sick, my lord,\nAs she is troubled with thick coming fancies,\nThat keep her from her rest.\nMACBETH Cure her of that.\nCanst thou not minister to a mind diseased,\nPluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,\nRaze out the written troubles of the brain\nAnd with some sweet oblivious antidote\nCleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff\nWhich weighs upon the heart?\nDoctor Therein the patient\nMust minister to himself.\nMACBETH Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it.\nCome, put mine armour on; give me my staff.\nSeyton, send out. Doctor, the thanes fly from me.\nCome, sir, dispatch. If thou couldst, doctor, cast\nThe water of my land, find her disease,\nAnd purge it to a sound and pristine health,\nI would applaud thee to the very echo,\nThat should applaud again.--Pull't off, I say.--\nWhat rhubarb, cyme, or what purgative drug,\nWould scour these English hence? Hear'st thou of them?\nDoctor Ay, my good lord; your royal preparation\nMakes us hear something.\nMACBETH Bring it after me.\nI will not be afraid of death and bane,\nTill Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.\nDoctor [Aside] Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,\nProfit again should hardly draw me here.\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT V\nSCENE IV Country near Birnam wood.\n[Drum and colours. Enter MALCOLM, SIWARD and YOUNG\nSIWARD, MACDUFF, MENTEITH, CAITHNESS, ANGUS,\nLENNOX, ROSS, and Soldiers, marching]\nMALCOLM Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand\nThat chambers will be safe.\nMENTEITH We doubt it nothing.\nSIWARD What wood is this before us?\nMENTEITH The wood of Birnam.\nMALCOLM Let every soldier hew him down a bough\nAnd bear't before him: thereby shall we shadow\nThe numbers of our host and make discovery\nErr in report of us.\nSoldiers It shall be done.\nSIWARD We learn no other but the confident tyrant\nKeeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure\nOur setting down before 't.\nMALCOLM 'Tis his main hope:\nFor where there is advantage to be given,\nBoth more and less have given him the revolt,\nAnd none serve with him but constrained things\nWhose hearts are absent too.\nMACDUFF Let our just censures\nAttend the true event, and put we on\nIndustrious soldiership.\nSIWARD The time approaches\nThat will with due decision make us know\nWhat we shall say we have and what we owe.\nThoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,\nBut certain issue strokes must arbitrate:\nTowards which advance the war.\n[Exeunt, marching]\nMACBETH\nACT V\nSCENE V Dunsinane. Within the castle.\n[Enter MACBETH, SEYTON, and Soldiers, with drum\nand colours]\nMACBETH Hang out our banners on the outward walls;\nThe cry is still 'They come:' our castle's strength\nWill laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie\nTill famine and the ague eat them up:\nWere they not forced with those that should be ours,\nWe might have met them dareful, beard to beard,\nAnd beat them backward home.\n[A cry of women within]\nWhat is that noise?\nSEYTON It is the cry of women, my good lord.\n[Exit]\nMACBETH I have almost forgot the taste of fears;\nThe time has been, my senses would have cool'd\nTo hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair\nWould at a dismal treatise rouse and stir\nAs life were in't: I have supp'd full with horrors;\nDireness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts\nCannot once start me.\n[Re-enter SEYTON]\nWherefore was that cry?\nSEYTON The queen, my lord, is dead.\nMACBETH She should have died hereafter;\nThere would have been a time for such a word.\nTo-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,\nCreeps in this petty pace from day to day\nTo the last syllable of recorded time,\nAnd all our yesterdays have lighted fools\nThe way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!\nLife's but a walking shadow, a poor player\nThat struts and frets his hour upon the stage\nAnd then is heard no more: it is a tale\nTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,\nSignifying nothing.\n[Enter a Messenger]\nThou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.\nMessenger Gracious my lord,\nI should report that which I say I saw,\nBut know not how to do it.\nMACBETH Well, say, sir.\nMessenger As I did stand my watch upon the hill,\nI look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,\nThe wood began to move.\nMACBETH Liar and slave!\nMessenger Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so:\nWithin this three mile may you see it coming;\nI say, a moving grove.\nMACBETH If thou speak'st false,\nUpon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,\nTill famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,\nI care not if thou dost for me as much.\nI pull in resolution, and begin\nTo doubt the equivocation of the fiend\nThat lies like truth: 'Fear not, till Birnam wood\nDo come to Dunsinane:' and now a wood\nComes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!\nIf this which he avouches does appear,\nThere is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.\nI gin to be aweary of the sun,\nAnd wish the estate o' the world were now undone.\nRing the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack!\nAt least we'll die with harness on our back.\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT V\nSCENE VI Dunsinane. Before the castle.\n[Drum and colours. Enter MALCOLM, SIWARD, MACDUFF,\nand their Army, with boughs]\nMALCOLM Now near enough: your leafy screens throw down.\nAnd show like those you are. You, worthy uncle,\nShall, with my cousin, your right-noble son,\nLead our first battle: worthy Macduff and we\nShall take upon 's what else remains to do,\nAccording to our order.\nSIWARD Fare you well.\nDo we but find the tyrant's power to-night,\nLet us be beaten, if we cannot fight.\nMACDUFF Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath,\nThose clamorous harbingers of blood and death.\n[Exeunt]\nMACBETH\nACT V\nSCENE VII Another part of the field.\n[Alarums. Enter MACBETH]\nMACBETH They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,\nBut, bear-like, I must fight the course. What's he\nThat was not born of woman? Such a one\nAm I to fear, or none.\n[Enter YOUNG SIWARD]\nYOUNG SIWARD What is thy name?\nMACBETH Thou'lt be afraid to hear it.\nYOUNG SIWARD No; though thou call'st thyself a hotter name\nThan any is in hell.\nMACBETH My name's Macbeth.\nYOUNG SIWARD The devil himself could not pronounce a title\nMore hateful to mine ear.\nMACBETH No, nor more fearful.\nYOUNG SIWARD Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword\nI'll prove the lie thou speak'st.\n[They fight and YOUNG SIWARD is slain]\nMACBETH Thou wast born of woman\nBut swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,\nBrandish'd by man that's of a woman born.\n[Exit]\n[Alarums. Enter MACDUFF]\nMACDUFF That way the noise is. Tyrant, show thy face!\nIf thou be'st slain and with no stroke of mine,\nMy wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still.\nI cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms\nAre hired to bear their staves: either thou, Macbeth,\nOr else my sword with an unbatter'd edge\nI sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be;\nBy this great clatter, one of greatest note\nSeems bruited. Let me find him, fortune!\nAnd more I beg not.\n[Exit. Alarums]\n[Enter MALCOLM and SIWARD]\nSIWARD This way, my lord; the castle's gently render'd:\nThe tyrant's people on both sides do fight;\nThe noble thanes do bravely in the war;\nThe day almost itself professes yours,\nAnd little is to do.\nMALCOLM We have met with foes\nThat strike beside us.\nSIWARD Enter, sir, the castle.\n[Exeunt. Alarums]\nMACBETH\nACT V\nSCENE VIII Another part of the field.\n[Enter MACBETH]\nMACBETH Why should I play the Roman fool, and die\nOn mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes\nDo better upon them.\n[Enter MACDUFF]\nMACDUFF Turn, hell-hound, turn!\nMACBETH Of all men else I have avoided thee:\nBut get thee back; my soul is too much charged\nWith blood of thine already.\nMACDUFF I have no words:\nMy voice is in my sword: thou bloodier villain\nThan terms can give thee out!\n[They fight]\nMACBETH Thou losest labour:\nAs easy mayst thou the intrenchant air\nWith thy keen sword impress as make me bleed:\nLet fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;\nI bear a charmed life, which must not yield,\nTo one of woman born.\nMACDUFF Despair thy charm;\nAnd let the angel whom thou still hast served\nTell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb\nUntimely ripp'd.\nMACBETH Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,\nFor it hath cow'd my better part of man!\nAnd be these juggling fiends no more believed,\nThat palter with us in a double sense;\nThat keep the word of promise to our ear,\nAnd break it to our hope. I'll not fight with thee.\nMACDUFF Then yield thee, coward,\nAnd live to be the show and gaze o' the time:\nWe'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,\nPainted on a pole, and underwrit,\n'Here may you see the tyrant.'\nMACBETH I will not yield,\nTo kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,\nAnd to be baited with the rabble's curse.\nThough Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,\nAnd thou opposed, being of no woman born,\nYet I will try the last. Before my body\nI throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,\nAnd damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'\n[Exeunt, fighting. Alarums]\n[Retreat. Flourish. Enter, with drum and colours,\nMALCOLM, SIWARD, ROSS, the other Thanes, and Soldiers]\nMALCOLM I would the friends we miss were safe arrived.\nSIWARD Some must go off: and yet, by these I see,\nSo great a day as this is cheaply bought.\nMALCOLM Macduff is missing, and your noble son.\nROSS Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt:\nHe only lived but till he was a man;\nThe which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd\nIn the unshrinking station where he fought,\nBut like a man he died.\nSIWARD Then he is dead?\nROSS Ay, and brought off the field: your cause of sorrow\nMust not be measured by his worth, for then\nIt hath no end.\nSIWARD Had he his hurts before?\nROSS Ay, on the front.\nSIWARD Why then, God's soldier be he!\nHad I as many sons as I have hairs,\nI would not wish them to a fairer death:\nAnd so, his knell is knoll'd.\nMALCOLM He's worth more sorrow,\nAnd that I'll spend for him.\nSIWARD He's worth no more\nThey say he parted well, and paid his score:\nAnd so, God be with him! Here comes newer comfort.\n[Re-enter MACDUFF, with MACBETH's head]\nMACDUFF Hail, king! for so thou art: behold, where stands\nThe usurper's cursed head: the time is free:\nI see thee compass'd with thy kingdom's pearl,\nThat speak my salutation in their minds;\nWhose voices I desire aloud with mine:\nHail, King of Scotland!\nALL Hail, King of Scotland!\n[Flourish]\nMALCOLM We shall not spend a large expense of time\nBefore we reckon with your several loves,\nAnd make us even with you. My thanes and kinsmen,\nHenceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland\nIn such an honour named. What's more to do,\nWhich would be planted newly with the time,\nAs calling home our exiled friends abroad\nThat fled the snares of watchful tyranny;\nProducing forth the cruel ministers\nOf this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen,\nWho, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands\nTook off her life; this, and what needful else\nThat calls upon us, by the grace of Grace,\nWe will perform in measure, time and place:\nSo, thanks to all at once and to each one,\nWhom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.\n[Flourish. Exeunt]","title":"Macbeth","type":"page"}