Credit: Folger Shakespeare Library
Thunder and Lightning. Enter three Witches.
FIRST WITCH
When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
SECOND WITCH
When the hurly-burly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.
THIRD WITCH
That will be ere the set of sun.
FIRST WITCH
Where the place?
SECOND WITCH Upon the heath.
THIRD WITCH
There to meet with Macbeth.
FIRST WITCH I come, Graymalkin.
SECOND WITCH Paddock calls.
THIRD WITCH Anon.
ALL
Fair is foul, and foul is fair;
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
They exit.
Alarum within. Enter King Duncan, Malcolm,
Donalbain, Lennox, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding
Captain.
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.
CAPTAIN
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 villainies of nature
Do swarm upon him) from the Western Isles
Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;
And Fortune, on his damnèd quarrel smiling,
Showed like a rebel’s whore. But all’s too weak;
For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name),
Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like Valor’s minion, carved out his passage
Till he faced the slave;
Which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops,
And fixed his head upon our battlements.
DUNCAN
O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman!
CAPTAIN
As whence the sun ’gins his reflection
So from that spring whence comfort seemed to
come
Discomfort swells. Mark, King of Scotland, mark:
No sooner justice had, with valor armed,
Compelled these skipping kerns to trust their heels,
But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage,
With furbished arms and new supplies of men,
Began a fresh assault.
DUNCAN
Dismayed not this our captains, Macbeth and
Banquo?
CAPTAIN
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 memorize another Golgotha,
I cannot tell—
But I am faint. My gashes cry for help.
DUNCAN
So well thy words become thee as thy wounds:
They smack of honor both.—Go, get him surgeons.
The Captain is led off by Attendants.
Enter Ross and Angus.
Who comes here?
MALCOLM
The worthy Thane of Ross.
LENNOX
What a haste looks through his eyes!
So should he look that seems to speak things
strange.
ROSS
God save the King.
DUNCAN
Whence cam’st 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, lapped in proof,
Confronted him with self-comparisons,
Point against point, rebellious arm ’gainst arm,
Curbing his lavish spirit. And to conclude,
The victory fell on us.
DUNCAN
Great happiness!
ROSS
That now Sweno,
The Norways’ king, craves composition.
Nor would we deign him burial of his men
Till he disbursèd at Saint Colme’s Inch
Ten thousand dollars to our general use.
DUNCAN
No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive
Our bosom interest. Go, pronounce his present
death,
And with his former title greet Macbeth.
ROSS
I’ll see it done.
DUNCAN
What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.
They exit.
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 munched and munched and munched. “Give
me,” quoth I.
“Aroint thee, witch,” the rump-fed runnion cries.
Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’ th’ 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
Th’ art 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’ th’ shipman’s card.
I’ll drain him dry as hay.
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his penthouse lid.
He shall live a man forbid.
Weary sev’nnights, nine times nine,
Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine.
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tossed.
Look what I have.
SECOND WITCH
Show me, show me.
FIRST WITCH
Here I have a pilot’s thumb,
Wracked as homeward he did come.
Drum within.
THIRD WITCH
A drum, a drum!
Macbeth doth come.
ALL, dancing in a circle
The Weïrd Sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,
Thus do go about, about,
Thrice to thine and thrice to mine
And thrice again, to make up nine.
Peace, the charm’s wound up.
Enter Macbeth and Banquo.
MACBETH
So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
BANQUO
How far is ’t called to Forres?—What are these,
So withered, and so wild in their attire,
That look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ 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 choppy 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, that shalt be king hereafter!
BANQUO
Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair?—I’ th’ name of truth,
Are you fantastical, or that indeed
Which outwardly you 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 favors nor your hate.
FIRST WITCH
Hail!
SECOND WITCH
Hail!
THIRD WITCH
Hail!
FIRST WITCH
Lesser than Macbeth and greater.
SECOND WITCH
Not so happy, yet much happier.
THIRD WITCH
Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.
So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!
FIRST WITCH
Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!
MACBETH
Stay, you imperfect speakers. Tell me more.
By Sinel’s death I know I am Thane of Glamis.
But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives
A prosperous gentleman, and to be king
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
You owe this strange intelligence or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting. Speak, I charge you.
Witches vanish.
BANQUO
The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them. Whither are they vanished?
MACBETH
Into the air, and what seemed corporal melted,
As breath into the wind. Would they had stayed!
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 th’ 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’ th’ selfsame day
He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,
Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,
Strange images of death. As thick as tale
Came post with post, and every one did bear
Thy praises in his kingdom’s great defense,
And poured 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 honor,
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 borrowed 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 labored in his country’s wrack, I know not;
But treasons capital, confessed and proved,
Have overthrown him.
MACBETH, aside
Glamis and Thane of Cawdor!
The greatest is behind. To Ross and Angus. Thanks
for your pains.
Aside 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.
They step aside.
MACBETH, aside
Two truths are told
As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme.—I thank you, gentlemen.
Aside. This supernatural soliciting
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 smothered 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 honors come upon him,
Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mold
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 favor. My dull brain was wrought
With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains
Are registered where every day I turn
The leaf to read them. Let us toward the King.
Aside to Banquo. Think upon what hath chanced,
and at more time,
The interim having weighed it, let us speak
Our free hearts each to other.
BANQUO
Very gladly.
MACBETH
Till then, enough.—Come, friends.
They exit.
Flourish. Enter King Duncan, Lennox, Malcolm,
Donalbain, and Attendants.
DUNCAN
Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not
Those in commission yet returned?
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 confessed his treasons,
Implored your Highness’ pardon, and set forth
A deep repentance. Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it. He died
As one that had been studied in his death
To throw away the dearest thing he owed
As ’twere a careless trifle.
DUNCAN
There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face.
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.
Enter Macbeth, Banquo, Ross, and Angus.
O worthiest cousin,
The sin of my ingratitude even now
Was heavy on me. Thou art so far before
That swiftest wing of recompense is slow
To overtake thee. Would thou hadst less deserved,
That the proportion both of thanks and payment
Might have been mine! Only I have left to say,
More is thy due than more than all can pay.
MACBETH
The service and the loyalty I owe
In doing it pays itself. Your Highness’ part
Is to receive our duties, and our duties
Are to your throne and state children and servants,
Which do but what they should by doing everything
Safe toward your love and honor.
DUNCAN
Welcome hither.
I have begun to plant thee and will labor
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 fullness, 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 honor 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 labor 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.
He exits.
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. They exit.
Enter Macbeth’s Wife, alone, with a letter.
LADY MACBETH, reading the letter
They met me in the
day of success,
and I have learned by the perfect’st
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 Weïrd 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
might’st 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’ th’ 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 ’dst 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 valor of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crowned withal.
Enter Messenger.
What is your tidings?
MESSENGER
The King comes here tonight.
LADY MACBETH
Thou ’rt mad to say it.
Is not thy master with him, who, were ’t so,
Would have informed 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.
Messenger exits.
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 th’ access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts
And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring 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 tonight.
LADY MACBETH
And when goes hence?
MACBETH
Tomorrow, 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 th’ 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 favor ever is to fear.
Leave all the rest to me.
They exit.
Hautboys and Torches. Enter King 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 pendant bed and procreant cradle.
Where they most breed and haunt, I have
observed,
The air is delicate.
Enter Lady Macbeth.
DUNCAN
See, see our honored 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 honors deep and broad wherewith
Your Majesty loads our house. For those of old,
And the late dignities heaped 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 helped
him
To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess,
We are your guest tonight.
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.
Taking her hand.
Conduct me to mine host. We love him highly
And shall continue our graces towards him.
By your leave, hostess.
They exit.
Hautboys. Torches. Enter a Sewer and divers Servants
with dishes and service over the stage. Then enter
Macbeth.
MACBETH
If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly. If th’ 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’d 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 th’ inventor. This even-handed justice
Commends th’ ingredience of our poisoned 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 newborn babe
Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin 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 th’ other—
Enter Lady Macbeth.
How now, what news?
LADY MACBETH
He has almost supped. Why have you left the
chamber?
MACBETH
Hath he asked for me?
LADY MACBETH
Know you not he has?
MACBETH
We will proceed no further in this business.
He hath honored 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 dressed 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 valor
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’ th’ 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 plucked my nipple from his boneless gums
And dashed 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 drenchèd natures lies as in a death,
What cannot you and I perform upon
Th’ 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 marked 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 clamor 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.
They exit.
Enter Banquo, and Fleance with a torch before him.
BANQUO
How goes the night, boy?
FLEANCE
The moon is down. I have not heard the clock.
BANQUO
And she goes down at twelve.
FLEANCE
I take ’t ’tis later, sir.
BANQUO
Hold, take my sword.
He gives his sword to Fleance.
There’s husbandry in heaven;
Their candles are all out. Take thee that too.
A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
And yet I would not sleep. Merciful powers,
Restrain in me the cursèd thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose.
Enter Macbeth, and a Servant with a torch.
Give me my sword.—Who’s
there?
MACBETH
A friend.
BANQUO
What, sir, not yet at rest? The King’s abed.
He hath been in unusual pleasure, and
Sent forth great largess to your offices.
This diamond he greets your wife withal,
By the name of most kind hostess, and shut up
In measureless content.
He gives Macbeth a jewel.
MACBETH
Being unprepared,
Our will became the servant to defect,
Which else should free have wrought.
BANQUO
All’s well.
I dreamt last night of the three Weïrd Sisters.
To you they have showed some truth.
MACBETH
I think not of
them.
Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve,
We would spend it in some words upon that
business,
If you would grant the time.
BANQUO
At your kind’st leisure.
MACBETH
If you shall cleave to my consent, when ’tis,
It shall make honor for you.
BANQUO
So I lose none
In seeking to augment it, but still keep
My bosom franchised and allegiance clear,
I shall be counseled.
MACBETH
Good repose the while.
BANQUO
Thanks, sir. The like to you.
Banquo and Fleance exit.
MACBETH
Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.
Servant exits.
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch
thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation
Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
He draws his dagger.
Thou marshal’st me the way that I was going,
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o’ th’ other senses
Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still,
And, on thy blade and dudgeon, gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There’s no such thing.
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one-half world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtained sleep. Witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate’s off’rings, and withered murder,
Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his
design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabouts
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives.
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
A bell rings.
I go, and it is done. The bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
He exits.
Enter Lady Macbeth.
LADY MACBETH
That which hath made them drunk hath made me
bold.
What hath quenched them hath given me fire.
Hark!—Peace.
It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern’st good-night. He is about it.
The doors are open, and the surfeited grooms
Do mock their charge with snores. I have drugged
their possets,
That death and nature do contend about them
Whether they live or die.
MACBETH, within
Who’s there? what, ho!
LADY MACBETH
Alack, I am afraid they have awaked,
And ’tis not done. Th’ attempt and not the deed
Confounds us. Hark!—I laid their daggers ready;
He could not miss ’em. Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done ’t.
Enter Macbeth with bloody daggers.
My husband?
MACBETH
I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?
LADY MACBETH
I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
Did not you speak?
MACBETH
When?
LADY MACBETH
Now.
MACBETH
As I descended?
LADY MACBETH
Ay.
MACBETH
Hark!—Who lies i’ th’ second chamber?
LADY MACBETH
Donalbain.
MACBETH
This is a sorry sight.
LADY MACBETH
A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.
MACBETH
There’s one did laugh in ’s sleep, and one cried
“Murder!”
That they did wake each other. I stood and heard
them.
But they did say their prayers and addressed them
Again to sleep.
LADY MACBETH
There are two lodged together.
MACBETH
One cried “God bless us” and “Amen” the other,
As they had seen me with these hangman’s hands,
List’ning their fear. I could not say “Amen”
When they did say “God bless us.”
LADY MACBETH
Consider it not so deeply.
MACBETH
But wherefore could not I pronounce “Amen”?
I had most need of blessing, and “Amen”
Stuck in my throat.
LADY MACBETH
These deeds must not be thought
After these ways; so, it will make us mad.
MACBETH
Methought I heard a voice cry “Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep”—the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.
LADY MACBETH
What do you mean?
MACBETH
Still it cried “Sleep no more!” to all the house.
“Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore
Cawdor
Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more.”
LADY MACBETH
Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane,
You do unbend your noble strength to think
So brainsickly of things. Go get some water
And wash this filthy witness from your hand.—
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there. Go, carry them and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.
MACBETH
I’ll go no more.
I am afraid to think what I have done.
Look on ’t again I dare not.
LADY MACBETH
Infirm of purpose!
Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead
Are but as pictures. ’Tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal,
For it must seem their guilt.
She exits with the daggers.
Knock within.
MACBETH
Whence is that
knocking?
How is ’t with me when every noise appalls me?
What hands are here! Ha, they pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
Enter Lady Macbeth.
LADY MACBETH
My hands are of your color, but I shame
To wear a heart so white.
Knock.
I hear a knocking
At the south entry. Retire we to our chamber.
A little water clears us of this deed.
How easy is it, then! Your constancy
Hath left you unattended.
Knock.
Hark, more knocking.
Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us
And show us to be watchers. Be not lost
So poorly in your thoughts.
MACBETH
To know my deed ’twere best not know myself.
Knock.
Wake Duncan with thy knocking. I would thou
couldst.
They exit.
Knocking within. Enter a Porter.
PORTER
Here’s a knocking indeed! If a man were
porter of hell gate, he should have old turning the
key.
(Knock.) Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there, i’
th’ name of Beelzebub? Here’s a farmer that hanged
himself on th’ expectation of plenty. Come in time!
Have napkins enough about you; here you’ll sweat
for ’t. (Knock.) Knock, knock! Who’s there, in th’
other devil’s name? Faith, here’s an equivocator
that could swear in both the scales against either
scale, who committed treason enough for God’s
sake yet could not equivocate to heaven. O, come in,
equivocator. (Knock.) Knock, knock, knock! Who’s
there? Faith, here’s an English tailor come hither for
stealing out of a French hose. Come in, tailor. Here
you may roast your goose. (Knock.) Knock, knock!
Never at quiet.—What are you?—But this place is
too cold for hell. I’ll devil-porter it no further. I had
thought to have let in some of all professions that go
the primrose way to th’ everlasting bonfire. (Knock.)
Anon, anon!
The Porter opens the door to Macduff and Lennox.
I pray you, remember the porter.
MACDUFF
Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed
That you do lie so late?
PORTER
Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second
cock, and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three
things.
MACDUFF
What three things does drink especially
provoke?
PORTER
Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine.
Lechery, sir, it provokes and unprovokes. It provokes
the desire, but it takes away the performance.
Therefore much drink may be said to be an
equivocator with lechery. It makes him, and it
mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it
persuades him and disheartens him; makes him
stand to and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates
him in a sleep and, giving him the lie, leaves
him.
MACDUFF
I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.
PORTER
That it did, sir, i’ th’ very throat on me; but I
requited him for his lie, and, I think, being too
strong for him, though he took up my legs sometime,
yet I made a shift to cast him.
MACDUFF
Is thy master stirring?
Enter Macbeth.
Our knocking has awaked him. Here he comes.
Porter exits.
LENNOX
Good morrow, noble sir.
MACBETH
Good morrow, both.
MACDUFF
Is the King stirring, worthy thane?
MACBETH
Not yet.
MACDUFF
He did command me to call timely on him.
I have almost slipped the hour.
MACBETH
I’ll bring you to him.
MACDUFF
I know this is a joyful trouble to you,
But yet ’tis one.
MACBETH
The labor we delight in physics pain.
This is the door.
MACDUFF
I’ll make so bold to call,
For ’tis my limited service.
Macduff exits.
LENNOX
Goes the King hence today?
MACBETH
He does. He did appoint so.
LENNOX
The night has been unruly. Where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i’ th’ air, strange screams of
death,
And prophesying, with accents terrible,
Of dire combustion and confused events
New hatched to th’ woeful time. The obscure bird
Clamored the livelong night. Some say the Earth
Was feverous and did shake.
MACBETH
’Twas a rough night.
LENNOX
My young remembrance cannot parallel
A fellow to it.
Enter Macduff.
MACDUFF
O horror, horror, horror!
Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee!
MACBETH AND LENNOX
What’s the matter?
MACDUFF
Confusion now hath made his masterpiece.
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
The Lord’s anointed temple and stole thence
The life o’ th’ building.
MACBETH
What is ’t you say? The life?
LENNOX
Mean you his Majesty?
MACDUFF
Approach the chamber and destroy your sight
With a new Gorgon. Do not bid me speak.
See and then speak yourselves.
Macbeth and Lennox exit.
Awake, awake!
Ring the alarum bell.—Murder and treason!
Banquo and Donalbain, Malcolm, awake!
Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit,
And look on death itself. Up, up, and see
The great doom’s image. Malcolm, Banquo,
As from your graves rise up and walk like sprites
To countenance this horror.—Ring the bell.
Bell rings.
Enter Lady Macbeth.
LADY MACBETH
What’s the business,
That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
The sleepers of the house? Speak, speak!
MACDUFF
O gentle lady,
’Tis not for you to hear what I can speak.
The repetition in a woman’s ear
Would murder as it fell.
Enter Banquo.
O Banquo, Banquo,
Our royal master’s murdered.
LADY MACBETH
Woe, alas!
What, in our house?
BANQUO
Too cruel anywhere.—
Dear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself
And say it is not so.
Enter Macbeth, Lennox, and Ross.
MACBETH
Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had lived a blessèd time; for from this instant
There’s nothing serious in mortality.
All is but toys. Renown and grace is dead.
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.
Enter Malcolm and Donalbain.
DONALBAIN
What is amiss?
MACBETH
You are, and do not know ’t.
The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
Is stopped; the very source of it is stopped.
MACDUFF
Your royal father’s murdered.
MALCOLM
O, by whom?
LENNOX
Those of his chamber, as it seemed, had done ’t.
Their hands and faces were all badged with blood.
So were their daggers, which unwiped we found
Upon their pillows. They stared and were distracted.
No man’s life was to be trusted with them.
MACBETH
O, yet I do repent me of my fury,
That I did kill them.
MACDUFF
Wherefore did you so?
MACBETH
Who can be wise, amazed, temp’rate, and furious,
Loyal, and neutral, in a moment? No man.
Th’ expedition of my violent love
Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin laced with his golden blood,
And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature
For ruin’s wasteful entrance; there the murderers,
Steeped in the colors of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breeched with gore. Who could refrain
That had a heart to love, and in that heart
Courage to make ’s love known?
LADY MACBETH
Help me hence, ho!
MACDUFF
Look to the lady.
MALCOLM, aside to Donalbain
Why do we hold our
tongues,
That most may claim this argument for ours?
DONALBAIN, aside to Malcolm
What should be spoken here, where our fate,
Hid in an auger hole, may rush and seize us?
Let’s away. Our tears are not yet brewed.
MALCOLM, aside to Donalbain
Nor our strong sorrow upon the foot of motion.
BANQUO
Look to the lady.
Lady Macbeth is assisted to leave.
And when we have our naked frailties hid,
That suffer in exposure, let us meet
And question this most bloody piece of work
To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us.
In the great hand of God I stand, and thence
Against the undivulged pretense I fight
Of treasonous malice.
MACDUFF
And so do I.
ALL
So all.
MACBETH
Let’s briefly put on manly readiness
And meet i’ th’ hall together.
ALL
Well contented.
All but Malcolm and Donalbain exit.
MALCOLM
What will you do? Let’s not consort with them.
To show an unfelt sorrow is an office
Which the false man does easy. I’ll to England.
DONALBAIN
To Ireland I. Our separated fortune
Shall keep us both the safer. Where we are,
There’s daggers in men’s smiles. The near in blood,
The nearer bloody.
MALCOLM
This murderous shaft that’s shot
Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way
Is to avoid the aim. Therefore to horse,
And let us not be dainty of leave-taking
But shift away. There’s warrant in that theft
Which steals itself when there’s no mercy left.
They exit.
Enter Ross with an Old Man.
OLD MAN
Threescore and ten I can remember well,
Within the volume of which time I have seen
Hours dreadful and things strange, but this sore
night
Hath trifled former knowings.
ROSS
Ha, good father,
Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man’s act,
Threatens his bloody stage. By th’ clock ’tis day,
And yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp.
Is ’t night’s predominance or the day’s shame
That darkness does the face of earth entomb
When living light should kiss it?
OLD MAN
’Tis unnatural,
Even like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last
A falcon, tow’ring in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed.
ROSS
And Duncan’s horses (a thing most strange and
certain),
Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,
Turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,
Contending ’gainst obedience, as they would
Make war with mankind.
OLD MAN
’Tis said they eat each
other.
ROSS
They did so, to th’ amazement of mine eyes
That looked upon ’t.
Enter Macduff.
Here comes the good
Macduff.—
How goes the world, sir, now?
MACDUFF
Why, see you not?
ROSS
Is ’t known who did this more than bloody deed?
MACDUFF
Those that Macbeth hath slain.
ROSS
Alas the day,
What good could they pretend?
MACDUFF
They were suborned.
Malcolm and Donalbain, the King’s two sons,
Are stol’n away and fled, which puts upon them
Suspicion of the deed.
ROSS
’Gainst nature still!
Thriftless ambition, that will ravin up
Thine own lives’ means. Then ’tis most like
The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth.
MACDUFF
He is already named and gone to Scone
To be invested.
ROSS
Where is Duncan’s body?
MACDUFF
Carried to Colmekill,
The sacred storehouse of his predecessors
And guardian of their bones.
ROSS
Will you to Scone?
MACDUFF
No, cousin, I’ll to Fife.
ROSS
Well, I will thither.
MACDUFF
Well, may you see things well done there. Adieu,
Lest our old robes sit easier than our new.
ROSS
Farewell, father.
OLD MAN
God’s benison go with you and with those
That would make good of bad and friends of foes.
All exit.
Enter Banquo.
BANQUO
Thou hast it now—king, Cawdor, Glamis, all
As the Weïrd Women promised, and I fear
Thou played’st 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, Lennox, Ross, Lords, 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
Tonight 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
Forever 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 tomorrow.
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 bestowed
In England and in Ireland, not confessing
Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers
With strange invention. But of that tomorrow,
When therewithal we shall have cause of state
Craving us jointly. Hie you to horse. Adieu,
Till you return at night. Goes Fleance with you?
BANQUO
Ay, my good lord. Our time does call upon ’s.
MACBETH
I wish your horses swift and sure of foot,
And so I do commend you to their backs.
Farewell.
Banquo exits.
Let every man be master of his time
Till seven at night. To make society
The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself
Till suppertime alone. While then, God be with you.
Lords and all but Macbeth and a Servant exit.
Sirrah, a word with you. Attend those men
Our pleasure?
SERVANT
They are, my lord, without the palace gate.
MACBETH
Bring them before us.
Servant exits.
To be thus is nothing,
But to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo
Stick deep, and in his royalty of nature
Reigns that which would be feared. ’Tis much he
dares,
And to that dauntless temper of his mind
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valor
To act in safety. There is none but he
Whose being I do fear; and under him
My genius is rebuked, as it is said
Mark Antony’s was by Caesar. He chid the sisters
When first they put the name of king upon me
And bade them speak to him. Then, prophet-like,
They hailed him father to a line of kings.
Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown
And put a barren scepter in my grip,
Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand,
No son of mine succeeding. If ’t be so,
For Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind;
For them the gracious Duncan have I murdered,
Put rancors in the vessel of my peace
Only for them, and mine eternal jewel
Given to the common enemy of man
To make them kings, the seeds of Banquo kings.
Rather than so, come fate into the list,
And champion me to th’ utterance.—Who’s there?
Enter Servant and two Murderers.
To the Servant. Now go to the door, and stay there
till we call.
Servant exits.
Was it not yesterday we spoke together?
MURDERERS
It was, so please your Highness.
MACBETH
Well then, now
Have you considered 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, passed in probation with you
How you were borne in hand, how crossed, 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 gospeled
To pray for this good man and for his issue,
Whose heavy hand hath bowed you to the grave
And beggared yours forever?
FIRST MURDERER
We are men, my liege.
MACBETH
Ay, in the catalogue you 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’ th’ 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
Hath so incensed that I am reckless what
I do to spite the world.
FIRST MURDERER
And I another
So weary with disasters, tugged with fortune,
That I would set my life on any chance,
To mend it or be rid on ’t.
MACBETH
Both of you
Know Banquo was your enemy.
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’ th’ time,
The moment on ’t, for ’t must be done tonight
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.
MURDERERS
We are resolved, my lord.
MACBETH
I’ll call upon you straight. Abide within.
Murderers exit.
It is concluded. Banquo, thy soul’s flight,
If it find heaven, must find it out tonight.
He exits.
Enter Macbeth’s Lady and a Servant.
LADY MACBETH
Is Banquo gone from court?
SERVANT
Ay, madam, but returns again tonight.
LADY MACBETH
Say to the King I would attend his leisure
For a few words.
SERVANT
Madam, I will.
He exits.
LADY MACBETH
Naught’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 scorched the snake, not killed 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 tonight.
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 honors 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 cloistered flight, ere to black Hecate’s summons
The shard-born 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 th’ rooky wood.
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,
Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do
rouse.—
Thou marvel’st at my words, but hold thee still.
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.
So prithee go with me.
They exit.
Enter three Murderers.
FIRST MURDERER
But who did bid thee join with us?
THIRD MURDERER
Macbeth.
SECOND MURDERER, to the First 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 traveler 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’ th’ court.
FIRST MURDERER
His horses go about.
THIRD MURDERER
Almost a mile; but he does usually
(So all men do) from hence to th’ palace gate
Make it their walk.
Enter Banquo and Fleance, with a torch.
SECOND MURDERER
A light, a light!
THIRD MURDERER
’Tis he.
FIRST MURDERER
Stand to ’t.
BANQUO, to Fleance
It will be rain tonight.
FIRST MURDERER
Let it come down!
The three Murderers attack.
BANQUO
O treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!
Thou mayst revenge—O slave!
He dies. Fleance exits.
THIRD MURDERER
Who did strike out the light?
FIRST MURDERER
Was ’t 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.
They exit.
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.
They sit.
LORDS
Thanks to your Majesty.
MACBETH
Ourself will mingle with society
And play the humble host.
Our hostess keeps her state, but in best time
We will require her welcome.
LADY MACBETH
Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends,
For my heart speaks they are welcome.
Enter First Murderer to the door.
MACBETH
See, they encounter thee with their hearts’ thanks.
Both sides are even. Here I’ll sit i’ th’ midst.
Be large in mirth. Anon we’ll drink a measure
The table round.
He approaches the Murderer.
There’s
blood upon thy face.
MURDERER
’Tis Banquo’s then.
MACBETH
’Tis better thee without than he within.
Is he dispatched?
MURDERER
My lord, his throat is cut. That I did for him.
MACBETH
Thou art the best o’ th’ cutthroats,
Yet he’s good that did the like for Fleance.
If thou didst it, thou art the nonpareil.
MURDERER
Most royal sir, Fleance is ’scaped.
MACBETH, aside
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 cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in
To saucy doubts and fears.—But Banquo’s safe?
MURDERER
Ay, my good lord. Safe in a ditch he bides,
With twenty trenchèd 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 th’ present. Get thee gone. Tomorrow
We’ll hear ourselves again.
Murderer exits.
LADY MACBETH
My royal lord,
You do not give the cheer. The feast is sold
That is not often vouched, 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.
Enter the Ghost of Banquo, and sits in Macbeth’s place.
MACBETH, to Lady Macbeth
Sweet remembrancer!—
Now, good digestion wait on appetite
And health on both!
LENNOX
May ’t please your Highness sit.
MACBETH
Here had we now our country’s honor roofed,
Were the graced person of our Banquo present,
Who may I rather challenge for unkindness
Than pity for mischance.
ROSS
His absence, sir,
Lays blame upon his promise. Please ’t your
Highness
To grace us with your royal company?
MACBETH
The table’s full.
LENNOX
Here is a place reserved, sir.
MACBETH
Where?
LENNOX
Here, my good lord. What is ’t that moves your
Highness?
MACBETH
Which of you have done this?
LORDS
What, my good lord?
MACBETH, to the Ghost
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.Drawing Macbeth aside.
Are you a man?
MACBETH
Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that
Which might appall the devil.
LADY MACBETH
O, proper stuff!
This is the very painting of your fear.
This is the air-drawn dagger which you said
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts,
Impostors to true fear, would well become
A woman’s story at a winter’s fire,
Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!
Why do you make such faces? When all’s done,
You look but on a stool.
MACBETH
Prithee, see there. Behold, look! To the Ghost. Lo,
how say you?
Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.—
If charnel houses and our graves must send
Those that we bury back, our monuments
Shall be the maws of kites.Ghost exits.
LADY MACBETH
What, quite unmanned in folly?
MACBETH
If I stand here, I saw him.
LADY MACBETH
Fie, for shame!
MACBETH
Blood hath been shed ere now, i’ th’ olden time,
Ere humane statute purged the gentle weal;
Ay, and since too, murders have been performed
Too terrible for the ear. The time has 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.
Enter Ghost.
I drink to th’ general joy o’ th’ whole table
And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss.
Would he were here! To all, and him we thirst,
And all to all.
LORDS
Our duties, and the pledge.
They raise their drinking cups.
MACBETH, to the Ghost
Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee.
Thy bones are marrowless; thy blood is cold;
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with.
LADY MACBETH
Think of this, good
peers,
But as a thing of custom. ’Tis no other;
Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.
MACBETH, to the Ghost
What man dare, I dare.
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The armed rhinoceros, or th’ Hyrcan tiger;
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble. Or be alive again
And dare me to the desert with thy sword.
If trembling I inhabit then, protest me
The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!
Unreal mock’ry, hence! Ghost exits.
Why so, being gone,
I am a man again.—Pray you sit still.
LADY MACBETH
You have displaced the mirth, broke the good
meeting
With most admired disorder.
MACBETH
Can such things be
And overcome us like a summer’s cloud,
Without our special wonder? You make me strange
Even to the disposition that I owe
When now I think you can behold such sights
And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks
When mine is blanched with fear.
ROSS
What sights, my
lord?
LADY MACBETH
I pray you, speak not. He grows worse and worse.
Question enrages him. At once, good night.
Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once.
LENNOX
Good night, and better health
Attend his Majesty.
LADY MACBETH
A kind good night to all.
Lords and all but Macbeth and Lady Macbeth exit.
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 maggot 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 tomorrow
(And betimes I will) to the Weïrd 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
Stepped 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 scanned.
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.
They exit.