ACT I
ACT I, SCENE I. A desert place.
[Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches]
FIRST WITCH:
- When shall we three meet again
- In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
SECOND WITCH:
- When the hurlyburly's done,
- When the battle's lost and won.
THIRD WITCH:
- That will be ere the set of sun.
FIRST WITCH:
- Where the place?
SECOND WITCH:
- Upon the heath.
THIRD WITCH:
- There to meet with Macbeth.
FIRST WITCH:
- I come, Graymalkin!
SECOND WITCH:
- Paddock calls.
All:
- Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
- Hover through the fog and filthy air.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT I, SCENE II. A camp near Forres.
[Alarum within. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENNOX,
with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Sergeant]
DUNCAN:
- What bloody man is that? He can report,
- As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt
- The newest state.
MALCOLM:
- This is the sergeant
- Who like a good and hardy soldier fought
- 'Gainst my captivity. Hail, brave friend!
- Say to the king the knowledge of the broil
- As thou didst leave it.
Sergeant:
- Doubtful it stood;
- As two spent swimmers, that do cling together
- And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald--
- Worthy to be a rebel, for to that
- The multiplying villanies of nature
- Do swarm upon him--from the western isles
- Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;
- And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
- Show'd like a rebel's whore: but all's too weak:
- For brave Macbeth--well he deserves that name--
- Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel,
- Which smoked with bloody execution,
- Like valour's minion carved out his passage
- Till he faced the slave;
- Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
- Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,
- And fix'd his head upon our battlements.
DUNCAN:
- O valiant cousin! worthy gentleman!
Sergeant:
- As whence the sun 'gins his reflection
- Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break,
- So from that spring whence comfort seem'd to come
- Discomfort swells. Mark, king of Scotland, mark:
- No sooner justice had with valour arm'd
- Compell'd these skipping kerns to trust their heels,
- But the Norweyan lord surveying vantage,
- With furbish'd arms and new supplies of men
- Began a fresh assault.
DUNCAN:
- Dismay'd not this
- Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?
Sergeant:
- Yes;
- As sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.
- If I say sooth, I must report they were
- As cannons overcharged with double cracks, so they
- Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe:
- Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,
- Or memorise another Golgotha,
- I cannot tell.
- But I am faint, my gashes cry for help.
MALCOLM:
- The worthy thane of Ross.
LENNOX:
- What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look
- That seems to speak things strange.
DUNCAN:
- Whence camest thou, worthy thane?
ROSS:
- From Fife, great king;
- Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky
- And fan our people cold. Norway himself,
- With terrible numbers,
- Assisted by that most disloyal traitor
- The thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict;
- Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof,
- Confronted him with self-comparisons,
- Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm.
- Curbing his lavish spirit: and, to conclude,
- The victory fell on us.
ROSS:
- That now
- Sweno, the Norways' king, craves composition:
- Nor would we deign him burial of his men
- Till he disbursed at Saint Colme's inch
- Ten thousand dollars to our general use.
DUNCAN:
- No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive
- Our bosom interest: go pronounce his present death,
- And with his former title greet Macbeth.
DUNCAN:
- What he hath lost noble Macbeth hath won.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT I, SCENE III. A heath near Forres.
[Thunder. Enter the three Witches]
FIRST WITCH:
- Where hast thou been, sister?
SECOND WITCH:
- Killing swine.
THIRD WITCH:
- Sister, where thou?
FIRST WITCH:
- A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,
- And munch'd, and munch'd, and munch'd:--
- 'Give me,' quoth I:
- 'Aroint thee, witch!' the rump-fed ronyon cries.
- Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:
- But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
- And, like a rat without a tail,
- I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.
SECOND WITCH:
- I'll give thee a wind.
FIRST WITCH:
- Thou'rt kind.
THIRD WITCH:
- And I another.
FIRST WITCH:
- I myself have all the other,
- And the very ports they blow,
- All the quarters that they know
- I' the shipman's card.
- I will drain him dry as hay:
- Sleep shall neither night nor day
- Hang upon his pent-house lid;
- He shall live a man forbid:
- Weary se'nnights nine times nine
- Shall he dwindle, peak and pine:
- Though his bark cannot be lost,
- Yet it shall be tempest-tost.
- Look what I have.
SECOND WITCH:
- Show me, show me.
FIRST WITCH:
- Here I have a pilot's thumb,
- Wreck'd as homeward he did come.
-
[Drum within]
THIRD WITCH:
- A drum, a drum!
- Macbeth doth come.
MACBETH:
- So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
BANQUO:
- How far is't call'd to Forres? What are these
- So wither'd and so wild in their attire,
- That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
- And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught
- That man may question? You seem to understand me,
- By each at once her chappy finger laying
- Upon her skinny lips: you should be women,
- And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
- That you are so.
MACBETH:
- Speak, if you can: what are you?
FIRST WITCH:
- All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!
SECOND WITCH:
- All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!
THIRD WITCH:
- All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!
BANQUO:
- Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear
- Things that do sound so fair? I' the name of truth,
- Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
- Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
- You greet with present grace and great prediction
- Of noble having and of royal hope,
- That he seems rapt withal: to me you speak not.
- If you can look into the seeds of time,
- And say which grain will grow and which will not,
- Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
- Your favours nor your hate.
FIRST WITCH:
- Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.
SECOND WITCH:
- Not so happy, yet much happier.
THIRD WITCH:
- Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:
- So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!
FIRST WITCH:
- Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!
MACBETH:
- Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more:
- By Sinel's death I know I am thane of Glamis;
- But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives,
- A prosperous gentleman; and to be king
- Stands not within the prospect of belief,
- No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
- You owe this strange intelligence? or why
- Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
- With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you.
-
[Witches vanish]
BANQUO:
- The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
- And these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd?
MACBETH:
- Into the air; and what seem'd corporal melted
- As breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd!
BANQUO:
- Were such things here as we do speak about?
- Or have we eaten on the insane root
- That takes the reason prisoner?
MACBETH:
- Your children shall be kings.
BANQUO:
- You shall be king.
MACBETH:
- And thane of Cawdor too: went it not so?
BANQUO:
- To the selfsame tune and words. Who's here?
-
[Enter ROSS and ANGUS]
ROSS:
- The king hath happily received, Macbeth,
- The news of thy success; and when he reads
- Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight,
- His wonders and his praises do contend
- Which should be thine or his: silenced with that,
- In viewing o'er the rest o' the selfsame day,
- He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,
- Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,
- Strange images of death. As thick as hail
- Came post with post; and every one did bear
- Thy praises in his kingdom's great defence,
- And pour'd them down before him.
ANGUS:
- We are sent
- To give thee from our royal master thanks;
- Only to herald thee into his sight,
- Not pay thee.
ROSS:
- And, for an earnest of a greater honour,
- He bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor:
- In which addition, hail, most worthy thane!
- For it is thine.
BANQUO:
- What, can the devil speak true?
MACBETH:
- The thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress me
- In borrow'd robes?
ANGUS:
- Who was the thane lives yet;
- But under heavy judgment bears that life
- Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined
- With those of Norway, or did line the rebel
- With hidden help and vantage, or that with both
- He labour'd in his country's wreck, I know not;
- But treasons capital, confess'd and proved,
- Have overthrown him.
MACBETH:
-
[Aside]
- Glamis, and thane of Cawdor!
- The greatest is behind.
-
[To ROSS and ANGUS]
- Thanks for your pains.
-
[To BANQUO]
- Do you not hope your children shall be kings,
- When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me
- Promised no less to them?
BANQUO:
- That trusted home
- Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,
- Besides the thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange:
- And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
- The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
- Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
- In deepest consequence.
- Cousins, a word, I pray you.
MACBETH:
-
[Aside]
- Two truths are told,
- As happy prologues to the swelling act
- Of the imperial theme.--I thank you, gentlemen.
-
[Aside]
- Cannot be ill, cannot be good: if ill,
- Why hath it given me earnest of success,
- Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor:
- If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
- Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
- And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
- Against the use of nature? Present fears
- Are less than horrible imaginings:
- My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
- Shakes so my single state of man that function
- Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is
- But what is not.
BANQUO:
- Look, how our partner's rapt.
MACBETH:
-
[Aside]
- If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me,
- Without my stir.
BANQUO:
- New horrors come upon him,
- Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould
- But with the aid of use.
MACBETH:
-
[Aside]
- Come what come may,
- Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
BANQUO:
- Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.
MACBETH:
- Give me your favour: my dull brain was wrought
- With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains
- Are register'd where every day I turn
- The leaf to read them. Let us toward the king.
- Think upon what hath chanced, and, at more time,
- The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak
- Our free hearts each to other.
MACBETH:
- Till then, enough. Come, friends.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT I, SCENE IV. Forres. The palace.
[Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENNOX, and Attendants]
DUNCAN:
- Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not
- Those in commission yet return'd?
MALCOLM:
- My liege,
- They are not yet come back. But I have spoke
- With one that saw him die: who did report
- That very frankly he confess'd his treasons,
- Implored your highness' pardon and set forth
- A deep repentance: nothing in his life
- Became him like the leaving it; he died
- As one that had been studied in his death
- To throw away the dearest thing he owed,
- As 'twere a careless trifle.
MACBETH:
- The service and the loyalty I owe,
- In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part
- Is to receive our duties; and our duties
- Are to your throne and state children and servants,
- Which do but what they should, by doing every thing
- Safe toward your love and honour.
DUNCAN:
- Welcome hither:
- I have begun to plant thee, and will labour
- To make thee full of growing. Noble Banquo,
- That hast no less deserved, nor must be known
- No less to have done so, let me enfold thee
- And hold thee to my heart.
BANQUO:
- There if I grow,
- The harvest is your own.
DUNCAN:
- My plenteous joys,
- Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves
- In drops of sorrow. Sons, kinsmen, thanes,
- And you whose places are the nearest, know
- We will establish our estate upon
- Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter
- The Prince of Cumberland; which honour must
- Not unaccompanied invest him only,
- But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
- On all deservers. From hence to Inverness,
- And bind us further to you.
MACBETH:
- The rest is labour, which is not used for you:
- I'll be myself the harbinger and make joyful
- The hearing of my wife with your approach;
- So humbly take my leave.
DUNCAN:
- My worthy Cawdor!
MACBETH:
-
[Aside]
- The Prince of Cumberland! that is a step
- On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,
- For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;
- Let not light see my black and deep desires:
- The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be,
- Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.
-
[Exit]
DUNCAN:
- True, worthy Banquo; he is full so valiant,
- And in his commendations I am fed;
- It is a banquet to me. Let's after him,
- Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome:
- It is a peerless kinsman.
-
[Flourish. Exeunt]
ACT I, SCENE V. Inverness. Macbeth's castle.
[Enter LADY MACBETH, reading a letter]
LADY MACBETH:
- 'They met me in the day of success: and I have
- learned by the perfectest report, they have more in
- them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire
- to question them further, they made themselves air,
- into which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in
- the wonder of it, came missives from the king, who
- all-hailed me 'Thane of Cawdor;' by which title,
- before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referred
- me to the coming on of time, with 'Hail, king that
- shalt be!' This have I thought good to deliver
- thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thou
- mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being
- ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it
- to thy heart, and farewell.'
- Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
- What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature;
- It is too full o' the milk of human kindness
- To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great;
- Art not without ambition, but without
- The illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly,
- That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
- And yet wouldst wrongly win: thou'ldst have, great Glamis,
- That which cries 'Thus thou must do, if thou have it;
- And that which rather thou dost fear to do
- Than wishest should be undone.' Hie thee hither,
- That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
- And chastise with the valour of my tongue
- All that impedes thee from the golden round,
- Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
- To have thee crown'd withal.
-
[Enter a Messenger]
- What is your tidings?
Messenger:
- The king comes here to-night.
LADY MACBETH:
- Thou'rt mad to say it:
- Is not thy master with him? who, were't so,
- Would have inform'd for preparation.
Messenger:
- So please you, it is true: our thane is coming:
- One of my fellows had the speed of him,
- Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
- Than would make up his message.
LADY MACBETH:
- Give him tending;
- He brings great news.
-
[Exit Messenger]
- The raven himself is hoarse
- That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
- Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
- That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
- And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
- Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
- Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
- That no compunctious visitings of nature
- Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
- The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
- And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
- Wherever in your sightless substances
- You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
- And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
- That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
- Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
- To cry 'Hold, hold!'
-
[Enter MACBETH]
- Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!
- Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!
- Thy letters have transported me beyond
- This ignorant present, and I feel now
- The future in the instant.
MACBETH:
- My dearest love,
- Duncan comes here to-night.
LADY MACBETH:
- And when goes hence?
MACBETH:
- To-morrow, as he purposes.
LADY MACBETH:
- O, never
- Shall sun that morrow see!
- Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
- May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
- Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
- Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
- But be the serpent under't. He that's coming
- Must be provided for: and you shall put
- This night's great business into my dispatch;
- Which shall to all our nights and days to come
- Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.
MACBETH:
- We will speak further.
LADY MACBETH:
- Only look up clear;
- To alter favour ever is to fear:
- Leave all the rest to me.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT I, SCENE VI. Before Macbeth's castle.
[Hautboys and torches. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, BANQUO,
LENNOX, MACDUFF, ROSS, ANGUS, and Attendants]
DUNCAN:
- This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
- Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
- Unto our gentle senses.
BANQUO:
- This guest of summer,
- The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
- By his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath
- Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,
- Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
- Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle:
- Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed,
- The air is delicate.
-
[Enter LADY MACBETH]
DUNCAN:
- See, see, our honour'd hostess!
- The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,
- Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you
- How you shall bid God 'ild us for your pains,
- And thank us for your trouble.
LADY MACBETH:
- All our service
- In every point twice done and then done double
- Were poor and single business to contend
- Against those honours deep and broad wherewith
- Your majesty loads our house: for those of old,
- And the late dignities heap'd up to them,
- We rest your hermits.
DUNCAN:
- Where's the thane of Cawdor?
- We coursed him at the heels, and had a purpose
- To be his purveyor: but he rides well;
- And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp him
- To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess,
- We are your guest to-night.
LADY MACBETH:
- Your servants ever
- Have theirs, themselves and what is theirs, in compt,
- To make their audit at your highness' pleasure,
- Still to return your own.
DUNCAN:
- Give me your hand;
- Conduct me to mine host: we love him highly,
- And shall continue our graces towards him.
- By your leave, hostess.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT I, SCENE VII. Macbeth's castle.
[Hautboys and torches.
Enter a Sewer, and divers Servants with dishes and service,
and pass over the stage. Then enter MACBETH]
MACBETH:
- If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
- It were done quickly: if the assassination
- Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
- With his surcease success; that but this blow
- Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
- But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
- We'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases
- We still have judgment here; that we but teach
- Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
- To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
- Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
- To our own lips. He's here in double trust;
- First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
- Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
- Who should against his murderer shut the door,
- Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
- Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
- So clear in his great office, that his virtues
- Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
- The deep damnation of his taking-off;
- And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
- Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
- Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
- Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
- That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
- To prick the sides of my intent, but only
- Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
- And falls on the other.
-
[Enter LADY MACBETH]
- How now! what news?
LADY MACBETH:
- He has almost supp'd: why have you left the chamber?
MACBETH:
- Hath he ask'd for me?
LADY MACBETH:
- Know you not he has?
MACBETH:
- We will proceed no further in this business:
- He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought
- Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
- Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
- Not cast aside so soon.
LADY MACBETH:
- Was the hope drunk
- Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?
- And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
- At what it did so freely? From this time
- Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
- To be the same in thine own act and valour
- As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
- Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
- And live a coward in thine own esteem,
- Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'
- Like the poor cat i' the adage?
MACBETH:
- Prithee, peace:
- I dare do all that may become a man;
- Who dares do more is none.
LADY MACBETH:
- What beast was't, then,
- That made you break this enterprise to me?
- When you durst do it, then you were a man;
- And, to be more than what you were, you would
- Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
- Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
- They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
- Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
- How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
- I would, while it was smiling in my face,
- Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
- And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
- Have done to this.
MACBETH:
- If we should fail?
LADY MACBETH:
- We fail!
- But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
- And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep--
- Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey
- Soundly invite him--his two chamberlains
- Will I with wine and wassail so convince
- That memory, the warder of the brain,
- Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
- A limbeck only: when in swinish sleep
- Their drenched natures lie as in a death,
- What cannot you and I perform upon
- The unguarded Duncan? what not put upon
- His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt
- Of our great quell?
MACBETH:
- Bring forth men-children only;
- For thy undaunted mettle should compose
- Nothing but males. Will it not be received,
- When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two
- Of his own chamber and used their very daggers,
- That they have done't?
LADY MACBETH:
- Who dares receive it other,
- As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar
- Upon his death?
MACBETH:
- I am settled, and bend up
- Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
- Away, and mock the time with fairest show:
- False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT III
ACT III, SCENE I. Forres. The palace.
[Enter BANQUO]
BANQUO:
- Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
- As the weird women promised, and, I fear,
- Thou play'dst most foully for't: yet it was said
- It should not stand in thy posterity,
- But that myself should be the root and father
- Of many kings. If there come truth from them--
- As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine--
- Why, by the verities on thee made good,
- May they not be my oracles as well,
- And set me up in hope? But hush! no more.
-
[Sennet sounded. Enter MACBETH, as king, LADY MACBETH, as queen,
LENNOX, ROSS, Lords, Ladies, and Attendants]
MACBETH:
- Here's our chief guest.
LADY MACBETH:
- If he had been forgotten,
- It had been as a gap in our great feast,
- And all-thing unbecoming.
MACBETH:
- To-night we hold a solemn supper sir,
- And I'll request your presence.
BANQUO:
- Let your highness
- Command upon me; to the which my duties
- Are with a most indissoluble tie
- For ever knit.
MACBETH:
- Ride you this afternoon?
BANQUO:
- Ay, my good lord.
MACBETH:
- We should have else desired your good advice,
- Which still hath been both grave and prosperous,
- In this day's council; but we'll take to-morrow.
- Is't far you ride?
BANQUO:
- As far, my lord, as will fill up the time
- 'Twixt this and supper: go not my horse the better,
- I must become a borrower of the night
- For a dark hour or twain.
MACBETH:
- Fail not our feast.
BANQUO:
- My lord, I will not.
MACBETH:
- We hear, our bloody cousins are bestow'd
- In England and in Ireland, not confessing
- Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers
- With strange invention: but of that to-morrow,
- When therewithal we shall have cause of state
- Craving us jointly. Hie you to horse: adieu,
- Till you return at night. Goes Fleance with you?
BANQUO:
- Ay, my good lord: our time does call upon 's.
ATTENDANT:
- They are, my lord, without the palace gate.
First Murderer:
- It was, so please your highness.
MACBETH:
- Well then, now
- Have you consider'd of my speeches? Know
- That it was he in the times past which held you
- So under fortune, which you thought had been
- Our innocent self: this I made good to you
- In our last conference, pass'd in probation with you,
- How you were borne in hand, how cross'd,
- the instruments,
- Who wrought with them, and all things else that might
- To half a soul and to a notion crazed
- Say 'Thus did Banquo.'
First Murderer:
- You made it known to us.
MACBETH:
- I did so, and went further, which is now
- Our point of second meeting. Do you find
- Your patience so predominant in your nature
- That you can let this go? Are you so gospell'd
- To pray for this good man and for his issue,
- Whose heavy hand hath bow'd you to the grave
- And beggar'd yours for ever?
First Murderer:
- We are men, my liege.
MACBETH:
- Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men;
- As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
- Shoughs, water-rugs and demi-wolves, are clept
- All by the name of dogs: the valued file
- Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,
- The housekeeper, the hunter, every one
- According to the gift which bounteous nature
- Hath in him closed; whereby he does receive
- Particular addition. from the bill
- That writes them all alike: and so of men.
- Now, if you have a station in the file,
- Not i' the worst rank of manhood, say 't;
- And I will put that business in your bosoms,
- Whose execution takes your enemy off,
- Grapples you to the heart and love of us,
- Who wear our health but sickly in his life,
- Which in his death were perfect.
Second Murderer:
- I am one, my liege,
- Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world
- Have so incensed that I am reckless what
- I do to spite the world.
First Murderer:
- And I another
- So weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune,
- That I would set my lie on any chance,
- To mend it, or be rid on't.
MACBETH:
- Both of you
- Know Banquo was your enemy.
Both Murderers:
- True, my lord.
MACBETH:
- So is he mine; and in such bloody distance,
- That every minute of his being thrusts
- Against my near'st of life: and though I could
- With barefaced power sweep him from my sight
- And bid my will avouch it, yet I must not,
- For certain friends that are both his and mine,
- Whose loves I may not drop, but wail his fall
- Who I myself struck down; and thence it is,
- That I to your assistance do make love,
- Masking the business from the common eye
- For sundry weighty reasons.
Second Murderer:
- We shall, my lord,
- Perform what you command us.
First Murderer:
- Though our lives--
MACBETH:
- Your spirits shine through you. Within this hour at most
- I will advise you where to plant yourselves;
- Acquaint you with the perfect spy o' the time,
- The moment on't; for't must be done to-night,
- And something from the palace; always thought
- That I require a clearness: and with him--
- To leave no rubs nor botches in the work--
- Fleance his son, that keeps him company,
- Whose absence is no less material to me
- Than is his father's, must embrace the fate
- Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart:
- I'll come to you anon.
Both Murderers:
- We are resolved, my lord.
MACBETH:
- I'll call upon you straight: abide within.
-
[Exeunt Murderers]
- It is concluded. Banquo, thy soul's flight,
- If it find heaven, must find it out to-night.
-
[Exit]
ACT III, SCENE II. The palace.
[Enter LADY MACBETH and a Servant]
LADY MACBETH:
- Is Banquo gone from court?
Servant:
- Ay, madam, but returns again to-night.
LADY MACBETH:
- Say to the king, I would attend his leisure
- For a few words.
Servant:
- Madam, I will.
-
[Exit]
LADY MACBETH:
- Nought's had, all's spent,
- Where our desire is got without content:
- 'Tis safer to be that which we destroy
- Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
-
[Enter MACBETH]
- How now, my lord! why do you keep alone,
- Of sorriest fancies your companions making,
- Using those thoughts which should indeed have died
- With them they think on? Things without all remedy
- Should be without regard: what's done is done.
MACBETH:
- We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it:
- She'll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice
- Remains in danger of her former tooth.
- But let the frame of things disjoint, both the
- worlds suffer,
- Ere we will eat our meal in fear and sleep
- In the affliction of these terrible dreams
- That shake us nightly: better be with the dead,
- Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
- Than on the torture of the mind to lie
- In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
- After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;
- Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
- Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
- Can touch him further.
LADY MACBETH:
- Come on;
- Gentle my lord, sleek o'er your rugged looks;
- Be bright and jovial among your guests to-night.
MACBETH:
- So shall I, love; and so, I pray, be you:
- Let your remembrance apply to Banquo;
- Present him eminence, both with eye and tongue:
- Unsafe the while, that we
- Must lave our honours in these flattering streams,
- And make our faces vizards to our hearts,
- Disguising what they are.
LADY MACBETH:
- You must leave this.
MACBETH:
- O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!
- Thou know'st that Banquo, and his Fleance, lives.
LADY MACBETH:
- But in them nature's copy's not eterne.
MACBETH:
- There's comfort yet; they are assailable;
- Then be thou jocund: ere the bat hath flown
- His cloister'd flight, ere to black Hecate's summons
- The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums
- Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done
- A deed of dreadful note.
LADY MACBETH:
- What's to be done?
MACBETH:
- Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
- Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night,
- Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day;
- And with thy bloody and invisible hand
- Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
- Which keeps me pale! Light thickens; and the crow
- Makes wing to the rooky wood:
- Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;
- While night's black agents to their preys do rouse.
- Thou marvell'st at my words: but hold thee still;
- Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.
- So, prithee, go with me.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT III, SCENE III. A park near the palace.
[Enter three Murderers]
First Murderer:
- But who did bid thee join with us?
Second Murderer:
- He needs not our mistrust, since he delivers
- Our offices and what we have to do
- To the direction just.
First Murderer:
- Then stand with us.
- The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day:
- Now spurs the lated traveller apace
- To gain the timely inn; and near approaches
- The subject of our watch.
Third Murderer:
- Hark! I hear horses.
BANQUO:
-
[Within]
- Give us a light there, ho!
Second Murderer:
- Then 'tis he: the rest
- That are within the note of expectation
- Already are i' the court.
First Murderer:
- His horses go about.
Third Murderer:
- Almost a mile: but he does usually,
- So all men do, from hence to the palace gate
- Make it their walk.
First Murderer:
- Stand to't.
BANQUO:
- It will be rain to-night.
First Murderer:
- Let it come down.
-
[They set upon BANQUO]
BANQUO:
- O, treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!
- Thou mayst revenge. O slave!
-
[Dies. FLEANCE escapes]
Third Murderer:
- Who did strike out the light?
First Murderer:
- Wast not the way?
Third Murderer:
- There's but one down; the son is fled.
Second Murderer:
- We have lost
- Best half of our affair.
First Murderer:
- Well, let's away, and say how much is done.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT III, SCENE IV. Hall in the palace.
[A banquet prepared. Enter MACBETH, LADY MACBETH,
ROSS, LENNOX, Lords, and Attendants]
MACBETH:
- You know your own degrees; sit down: at first
- And last the hearty welcome.
Lords:
- Thanks to your majesty.
MACBETH:
- Ourself will mingle with society,
- And play the humble host.
- Our hostess keeps her state, but in best time
- We will require her welcome.
MACBETH:
- See, they encounter thee with their hearts' thanks.
- Both sides are even: here I'll sit i' the midst:
- Be large in mirth; anon we'll drink a measure
- The table round.
-
[Approaching the door]
- There's blood on thy face.
First Murderer:
- 'Tis Banquo's then.
MACBETH:
- 'Tis better thee without than he within.
- Is he dispatch'd?
First Murderer:
- My lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him.
MACBETH:
- Thou art the best o' the cut-throats: yet he's good
- That did the like for Fleance: if thou didst it,
- Thou art the nonpareil.
First Murderer:
- Most royal sir,
- Fleance is 'scaped.
MACBETH:
- Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect,
- Whole as the marble, founded as the rock,
- As broad and general as the casing air:
- But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in
- To saucy doubts and fears. But Banquo's safe?
First Murderer:
- Ay, my good lord: safe in a ditch he bides,
- With twenty trenched gashes on his head;
- The least a death to nature.
MACBETH:
- Thanks for that:
- There the grown serpent lies; the worm that's fled
- Hath nature that in time will venom breed,
- No teeth for the present. Get thee gone: to-morrow
- We'll hear, ourselves, again.
-
[Exit Murderer]
LADY MACBETH:
- My royal lord,
- You do not give the cheer: the feast is sold
- That is not often vouch'd, while 'tis a-making,
- 'Tis given with welcome: to feed were best at home;
- From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony;
- Meeting were bare without it.
MACBETH:
- Sweet remembrancer!
- Now, good digestion wait on appetite,
- And health on both!
MACBETH:
- Here had we now our country's honour roof'd,
- Were the graced person of our Banquo present;
- Who may I rather challenge for unkindness
- Than pity for mischance!
ROSS:
- His absence, sir,
- Lays blame upon his promise. Please't your highness
- To grace us with your royal company.
MACBETH:
- The table's full.
LENNOX:
- Here is a place reserved, sir.
LENNOX:
- Here, my good lord. What is't that moves your highness?
MACBETH:
- Which of you have done this?
Lords:
- What, my good lord?
MACBETH:
- Thou canst not say I did it: never shake
- Thy gory locks at me.
ROSS:
- Gentlemen, rise: his highness is not well.
LADY MACBETH:
- Sit, worthy friends: my lord is often thus,
- And hath been from his youth: pray you, keep seat;
- The fit is momentary; upon a thought
- He will again be well: if much you note him,
- You shall offend him and extend his passion:
- Feed, and regard him not. Are you a man?
MACBETH:
- Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that
- Which might appal the devil.
LADY MACBETH:
- O proper stuff!
- This is the very painting of your fear:
- This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said,
- Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts,
- Impostors to true fear, would well become
- A woman's story at a winter's fire,
- Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!
- Why do you make such faces? When all's done,
- You look but on a stool.
LADY MACBETH:
- What, quite unmann'd in folly?
MACBETH:
- If I stand here, I saw him.
LADY MACBETH:
- Fie, for shame!
MACBETH:
- Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time,
- Ere human statute purged the gentle weal;
- Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd
- Too terrible for the ear: the times have been,
- That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
- And there an end; but now they rise again,
- With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
- And push us from our stools: this is more strange
- Than such a murder is.
LADY MACBETH:
- My worthy lord,
- Your noble friends do lack you.
MACBETH:
- I do forget.
- Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends,
- I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing
- To those that know me. Come, love and health to all;
- Then I'll sit down. Give me some wine; fill full.
- I drink to the general joy o' the whole table,
- And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss;
- Would he were here! to all, and him, we thirst,
- And all to all.
MACBETH:
- Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee!
- Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
- Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
- Which thou dost glare with!
LADY MACBETH:
- Think of this, good peers,
- But as a thing of custom: 'tis no other;
- Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.
LADY MACBETH:
- You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting,
- With most admired disorder.
MACBETH:
- Can such things be,
- And overcome us like a summer's cloud,
- Without our special wonder? You make me strange
- Even to the disposition that I owe,
- When now I think you can behold such sights,
- And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks,
- When mine is blanched with fear.
ROSS:
- What sights, my lord?
LADY MACBETH:
- I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse;
- Question enrages him. At once, good night:
- Stand not upon the order of your going,
- But go at once.
LENNOX:
- Good night; and better health
- Attend his majesty!
MACBETH:
- It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood:
- Stones have been known to move and trees to speak;
- Augurs and understood relations have
- By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth
- The secret'st man of blood. What is the night?
LADY MACBETH:
- Almost at odds with morning, which is which.
MACBETH:
- How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his person
- At our great bidding?
LADY MACBETH:
- Did you send to him, sir?
MACBETH:
- I hear it by the way; but I will send:
- There's not a one of them but in his house
- I keep a servant fee'd. I will to-morrow,
- And betimes I will, to the weird sisters:
- More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,
- By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good,
- All causes shall give way: I am in blood
- Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,
- Returning were as tedious as go o'er:
- Strange things I have in head, that will to hand;
- Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd.
LADY MACBETH:
- You lack the season of all natures, sleep.
MACBETH:
- Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse
- Is the initiate fear that wants hard use:
- We are yet but young in deed.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT III, SCENE V. A Heath.
[Thunder. Enter the three Witches meeting HECATE]
FIRST WITCH:
- Why, how now, Hecate! you look angerly.
FIRST WITCH:
- Come, let's make haste; she'll soon be back again.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT III, SCENE VI. Forres. The palace.
[Enter LENNOX and another Lord]
LENNOX:
- My former speeches have but hit your thoughts,
- Which can interpret further: only, I say,
- Things have been strangely borne. The
- gracious Duncan
- Was pitied of Macbeth: marry, he was dead:
- And the right-valiant Banquo walk'd too late;
- Whom, you may say, if't please you, Fleance kill'd,
- For Fleance fled: men must not walk too late.
- Who cannot want the thought how monstrous
- It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain
- To kill their gracious father? damned fact!
- How it did grieve Macbeth! did he not straight
- In pious rage the two delinquents tear,
- That were the slaves of drink and thralls of sleep?
- Was not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely too;
- For 'twould have anger'd any heart alive
- To hear the men deny't. So that, I say,
- He has borne all things well: and I do think
- That had he Duncan's sons under his key--
- As, an't please heaven, he shall not--they
- should find
- What 'twere to kill a father; so should Fleance.
- But, peace! for from broad words and 'cause he fail'd
- His presence at the tyrant's feast, I hear
- Macduff lives in disgrace: sir, can you tell
- Where he bestows himself?
Lord:
- The son of Duncan,
- From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth
- Lives in the English court, and is received
- Of the most pious Edward with such grace
- That the malevolence of fortune nothing
- Takes from his high respect: thither Macduff
- Is gone to pray the holy king, upon his aid
- To wake Northumberland and warlike Siward:
- That, by the help of these--with Him above
- To ratify the work--we may again
- Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights,
- Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives,
- Do faithful homage and receive free honours:
- All which we pine for now: and this report
- Hath so exasperate the king that he
- Prepares for some attempt of war.
LENNOX:
- Sent he to Macduff?
Lord:
- He did: and with an absolute 'Sir, not I,'
- The cloudy messenger turns me his back,
- And hums, as who should say 'You'll rue the time
- That clogs me with this answer.'
LENNOX:
- And that well might
- Advise him to a caution, to hold what distance
- His wisdom can provide. Some holy angel
- Fly to the court of England and unfold
- His message ere he come, that a swift blessing
- May soon return to this our suffering country
- Under a hand accursed!
Lord:
- I'll send my prayers with him.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT V
ACT V, SCENE I. Dunsinane. Ante-room in the castle.
[Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman]
Doctor:
- I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive
- no truth in your report. When was it she last walked?
Gentlewoman:
- Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen
- her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon
- her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it,
- write upon't, read it, afterwards seal it, and again
- return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.
Doctor:
- A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once
- the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of
- watching! In this slumbery agitation, besides her
- walking and other actual performances, what, at any
- time, have you heard her say?
Gentlewoman:
- That, sir, which I will not report after her.
Doctor:
- You may to me: and 'tis most meet you should.
Doctor:
- How came she by that light?
Gentlewoman:
- Why, it stood by her: she has light by her
- continually; 'tis her command.
Doctor:
- You see, her eyes are open.
Gentlewoman:
- Ay, but their sense is shut.
Doctor:
- What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.
Gentlewoman:
- It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus
- washing her hands: I have known her continue in
- this a quarter of an hour.
LADY MACBETH:
- Yet here's a spot.
Doctor:
- Hark! she speaks: I will set down what comes from
- her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
LADY MACBETH:
- Out, damned spot! out, I say!--One: two: why,
- then, 'tis time to do't.--Hell is murky!--Fie, my
- lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we
- fear who knows it, when none can call our power to
- account?--Yet who would have thought the old man
- to have had so much blood in him.
Doctor:
- Do you mark that?
LADY MACBETH:
- The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?--
- What, will these hands ne'er be clean?--No more o'
- that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with
- this starting.
Doctor:
- Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
Gentlewoman:
- She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of
- that: heaven knows what she has known.
LADY MACBETH:
- Here's the smell of the blood still: all the
- perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little
- hand. Oh, oh, oh!
Doctor:
- What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.
Gentlewoman:
- I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the
- dignity of the whole body.
Doctor:
- Well, well, well,--
Gentlewoman:
- Pray God it be, sir.
Doctor:
- This disease is beyond my practise: yet I have known
- those which have walked in their sleep who have died
- holily in their beds.
LADY MACBETH:
- Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so
- pale.--I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he
- cannot come out on's grave.
LADY MACBETH:
- To bed, to bed! there's knocking at the gate:
- come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What's
- done cannot be undone.--To bed, to bed, to bed!
-
[Exit]
Doctor:
- Will she go now to bed?
Doctor:
- Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds
- Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds
- To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets:
- More needs she the divine than the physician.
- God, God forgive us all! Look after her;
- Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
- And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night:
- My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight.
- I think, but dare not speak.
Gentlewoman:
- Good night, good doctor.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT V, SCENE II. The country near Dunsinane.
[Drum and colours. Enter MENTEITH, CAITHNESS, ANGUS, LENNOX, and Soldiers]
MENTEITH:
- The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,
- His uncle Siward and the good Macduff:
- Revenges burn in them; for their dear causes
- Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm
- Excite the mortified man.
ANGUS:
- Near Birnam wood
- Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming.
CAITHNESS:
- Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?
LENNOX:
- For certain, sir, he is not: I have a file
- Of all the gentry: there is Siward's son,
- And many unrough youths that even now
- Protest their first of manhood.
MENTEITH:
- What does the tyrant?
CAITHNESS:
- Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies:
- Some say he's mad; others that lesser hate him
- Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain,
- He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause
- Within the belt of rule.
ANGUS:
- Now does he feel
- His secret murders sticking on his hands;
- Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
- Those he commands move only in command,
- Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
- Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
- Upon a dwarfish thief.
MENTEITH:
- Who then shall blame
- His pester'd senses to recoil and start,
- When all that is within him does condemn
- Itself for being there?
CAITHNESS:
- Well, march we on,
- To give obedience where 'tis truly owed:
- Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal,
- And with him pour we in our country's purge
- Each drop of us.
LENNOX:
- Or so much as it needs,
- To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds.
- Make we our march towards Birnam.
-
[Exeunt, marching]
ACT V, SCENE III. Dunsinane. A room in the castle.
[Enter MACBETH, Doctor, and Attendants]
MACBETH:
- Bring me no more reports; let them fly all:
- Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,
- I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?
- Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know
- All mortal consequences have pronounced me thus:
- 'Fear not, Macbeth; no man that's born of woman
- Shall e'er have power upon thee.' Then fly,
- false thanes,
- And mingle with the English epicures:
- The mind I sway by and the heart I bear
- Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.
-
[Enter a Servant]
- The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!
- Where got'st thou that goose look?
Servant:
- There is ten thousand--
MACBETH:
- Go prick thy face, and over-red thy fear,
- Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch?
- Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine
- Are counsellors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face?
Servant:
- The English force, so please you.
MACBETH:
- Take thy face hence.
-
[Exit Servant]
- Seyton!--I am sick at heart,
- When I behold--Seyton, I say!--This push
- Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.
- I have lived long enough: my way of life
- Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf;
- And that which should accompany old age,
- As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
- I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
- Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
- Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not. Seyton!
-
[Enter SEYTON]
SEYTON:
- What is your gracious pleasure?
SEYTON:
- All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported.
MACBETH:
- I'll fight till from my bones my flesh be hack'd.
- Give me my armour.
SEYTON:
- 'Tis not needed yet.
MACBETH:
- I'll put it on.
- Send out more horses; skirr the country round;
- Hang those that talk of fear. Give me mine armour.
- How does your patient, doctor?
Doctor:
- Not so sick, my lord,
- As she is troubled with thick coming fancies,
- That keep her from her rest.
MACBETH:
- Cure her of that.
- Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
- Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
- Raze out the written troubles of the brain
- And with some sweet oblivious antidote
- Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
- Which weighs upon the heart?
Doctor:
- Therein the patient
- Must minister to himself.
MACBETH:
- Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it.
- Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff.
- Seyton, send out. Doctor, the thanes fly from me.
- Come, sir, dispatch. If thou couldst, doctor, cast
- The water of my land, find her disease,
- And purge it to a sound and pristine health,
- I would applaud thee to the very echo,
- That should applaud again.--Pull't off, I say.--
- What rhubarb, cyme, or what purgative drug,
- Would scour these English hence? Hear'st thou of them?
Doctor:
- Ay, my good lord; your royal preparation
- Makes us hear something.
MACBETH:
- Bring it after me.
- I will not be afraid of death and bane,
- Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.
Doctor:
-
[Aside]
- Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,
- Profit again should hardly draw me here.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT V, SCENE IV. Country near Birnam wood.
[Drum and colours. Enter MALCOLM, SIWARD and YOUNG SIWARD, MACDUFF,
MENTEITH, CAITHNESS, ANGUS, LENNOX, ROSS, and Soldiers, marching]
MALCOLM:
- Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand
- That chambers will be safe.
MENTEITH:
- We doubt it nothing.
SIWARD:
- What wood is this before us?
MENTEITH:
- The wood of Birnam.
MALCOLM:
- Let every soldier hew him down a bough
- And bear't before him: thereby shall we shadow
- The numbers of our host and make discovery
- Err in report of us.
Soldiers:
- It shall be done.
SIWARD:
- We learn no other but the confident tyrant
- Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure
- Our setting down before 't.
MALCOLM:
- 'Tis his main hope:
- For where there is advantage to be given,
- Both more and less have given him the revolt,
- And none serve with him but constrained things
- Whose hearts are absent too.
MACDUFF:
- Let our just censures
- Attend the true event, and put we on
- Industrious soldiership.
SIWARD:
- The time approaches
- That will with due decision make us know
- What we shall say we have and what we owe.
- Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,
- But certain issue strokes must arbitrate:
- Towards which advance the war.
-
[Exeunt, marching]
ACT V, SCENE V. Dunsinane. Within the castle.
[Enter MACBETH, SEYTON, and Soldiers, with drum and colours]
MACBETH:
- Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
- The cry is still 'They come:' our castle's strength
- Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie
- Till famine and the ague eat them up:
- Were they not forced with those that should be ours,
- We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
- And beat them backward home.
-
[A cry of women within]
- What is that noise?
SEYTON:
- It is the cry of women, my good lord.
-
[Exit]
MACBETH:
- I have almost forgot the taste of fears;
- The time has been, my senses would have cool'd
- To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
- Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
- As life were in't: I have supp'd full with horrors;
- Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts
- Cannot once start me.
-
[Re-enter SEYTON]
- Wherefore was that cry?
SEYTON:
- The queen, my lord, is dead.
MACBETH:
- She should have died hereafter;
- There would have been a time for such a word.
- To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
- Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
- To the last syllable of recorded time,
- And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
- The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
- Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
- That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
- And then is heard no more: it is a tale
- Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
- Signifying nothing.
-
[Enter a Messenger]
- Thou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
Messenger:
- Gracious my lord,
- I should report that which I say I saw,
- But know not how to do it.
Messenger:
- As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
- I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
- The wood began to move.
Messenger:
- Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so:
- Within this three mile may you see it coming;
- I say, a moving grove.
MACBETH:
- If thou speak'st false,
- Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
- Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,
- I care not if thou dost for me as much.
- I pull in resolution, and begin
- To doubt the equivocation of the fiend
- That lies like truth: 'Fear not, till Birnam wood
- Do come to Dunsinane:' and now a wood
- Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!
- If this which he avouches does appear,
- There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.
- I gin to be aweary of the sun,
- And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.
- Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack!
- At least we'll die with harness on our back.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT V, SCENE VI. Dunsinane. Before the castle.
[Drum and colours. Enter MALCOLM, SIWARD, MACDUFF,
and their Army, with boughs]
MALCOLM:
- Now near enough: your leafy screens throw down.
- And show like those you are. You, worthy uncle,
- Shall, with my cousin, your right-noble son,
- Lead our first battle: worthy Macduff and we
- Shall take upon 's what else remains to do,
- According to our order.
SIWARD:
- Fare you well.
- Do we but find the tyrant's power to-night,
- Let us be beaten, if we cannot fight.
MACDUFF:
- Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath,
- Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT V, SCENE VII. Another part of the field.
[Alarums. Enter MACBETH]
MACBETH:
- They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,
- But, bear-like, I must fight the course. What's he
- That was not born of woman? Such a one
- Am I to fear, or none.
-
[Enter YOUNG SIWARD]
YOUNG SIWARD:
- What is thy name?
MACBETH:
- Thou'lt be afraid to hear it.
YOUNG SIWARD:
- No; though thou call'st thyself a hotter name
- Than any is in hell.
MACBETH:
- My name's Macbeth.
YOUNG SIWARD:
- The devil himself could not pronounce a title
- More hateful to mine ear.
MACBETH:
- No, nor more fearful.
MACBETH:
- Thou wast born of woman
- But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,
- Brandish'd by man that's of a woman born.
-
[Exit]
-
[Alarums. Enter MACDUFF]
SIWARD:
- This way, my lord; the castle's gently render'd:
- The tyrant's people on both sides do fight;
- The noble thanes do bravely in the war;
- The day almost itself professes yours,
- And little is to do.
MALCOLM:
- We have met with foes
- That strike beside us.
ACT V, SCENE VIII. Another part of the field.
[Enter MACBETH]
MACBETH:
- Why should I play the Roman fool, and die
- On mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes
- Do better upon them.
-
[Enter MACDUFF]
MACDUFF:
- Turn, hell-hound, turn!
MACBETH:
- Of all men else I have avoided thee:
- But get thee back; my soul is too much charged
- With blood of thine already.
MACDUFF:
- I have no words:
- My voice is in my sword: thou bloodier villain
- Than terms can give thee out!
-
[They fight]
MACBETH:
- Thou losest labour:
- As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air
- With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed:
- Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
- I bear a charmed life, which must not yield,
- To one of woman born.
MACDUFF:
- Despair thy charm;
- And let the angel whom thou still hast served
- Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
- Untimely ripp'd.
MACBETH:
- Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
- For it hath cow'd my better part of man!
- And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
- That palter with us in a double sense;
- That keep the word of promise to our ear,
- And break it to our hope. I'll not fight with thee.
MACDUFF:
- Then yield thee, coward,
- And live to be the show and gaze o' the time:
- We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
- Painted on a pole, and underwrit,
- 'Here may you see the tyrant.'
MACBETH:
- I will not yield,
- To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,
- And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
- Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
- And thou opposed, being of no woman born,
- Yet I will try the last. Before my body
- I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,
- And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'
-
[Exeunt, fighting. Alarums]
-
[Retreat. Flourish. Enter, with drum and colours,
MALCOLM, SIWARD, ROSS, the other Thanes, and Soldiers]
MALCOLM:
- I would the friends we miss were safe arrived.
SIWARD:
- Some must go off: and yet, by these I see,
- So great a day as this is cheaply bought.
MALCOLM:
- Macduff is missing, and your noble son.
ROSS:
- Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt:
- He only lived but till he was a man;
- The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd
- In the unshrinking station where he fought,
- But like a man he died.
ROSS:
- Ay, and brought off the field: your cause of sorrow
- Must not be measured by his worth, for then
- It hath no end.
SIWARD:
- Had he his hurts before?
SIWARD:
- Why then, God's soldier be he!
- Had I as many sons as I have hairs,
- I would not wish them to a fairer death:
- And so, his knell is knoll'd.
MALCOLM:
- He's worth more sorrow,
- And that I'll spend for him.
MACDUFF:
- Hail, king! for so thou art: behold, where stands
- The usurper's cursed head: the time is free:
- I see thee compass'd with thy kingdom's pearl,
- That speak my salutation in their minds;
- Whose voices I desire aloud with mine:
- Hail, King of Scotland!
All:
- Hail, King of Scotland!
-
[Flourish]
MALCOLM:
- We shall not spend a large expense of time
- Before we reckon with your several loves,
- And make us even with you. My thanes and kinsmen,
- Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland
- In such an honour named. What's more to do,
- Which would be planted newly with the time,
- As calling home our exiled friends abroad
- That fled the snares of watchful tyranny;
- Producing forth the cruel ministers
- Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen,
- Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands
- Took off her life; this, and what needful else
- That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace,
- We will perform in measure, time and place:
- So, thanks to all at once and to each one,
- Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.
-
[Flourish. Exeunt]