Macbeth (6 page)

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
³²
?

MESSENGER
    So please you, it is true: our thane is coming.
        One of my fellows
had the speed of
³⁴
him,
        Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
        Than would make up his message.

LADY MACBETH
    Give him
tending
³⁷
:
        He brings great news.
Exit Messenger

        The
raven
³⁹
himself is hoarse
        That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
        Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
        That
tend on
⁴²
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
⁴⁵
,
        That no
compunctious
⁴⁶
visitings of nature
        Shake my
fell
⁴⁷
purpose, nor
keep
peace between
        
Th’effect and it
⁴⁸
. Come to my woman’s breasts
        And
take
⁴⁹
my milk for
gall
, you murd’ring
ministers
,
        Wherever in your
sightless
⁵⁰
substances
        You
wait on
⁵¹
nature’s mischief
. Come, thick night,
        And
pall
⁵²
thee in the
dunnest
smoke of hell,
        That my
keen
⁵³
knife see not the wound it makes,
        Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
        To cry ‘
Hold
⁵⁵
, hold!’—

Enter Macbeth

                    Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor,

    Greater than both by the
all-hail hereafter
⁵⁶
!
        Thy letters have transported me beyond
        This
ignorant
⁵⁸
present, and I feel now
        The future in the
instant
⁵⁹
.

MACBETH
    My dearest love,
        Duncan comes here tonight.

LADY MACBETH
    And when goes hence?

MACBETH
    Tomorrow, as he
purposes
⁶³
.

LADY MACBETH
    O, never
        Shall sun that morrow see!
        Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
        May read
strange
⁶⁷
matters. To
beguile
the time,
        
Look like the time
⁶⁸
: 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
⁷¹
, and you shall put
        This night’s great business into my
dispatch
⁷²
,
        Which shall to all our nights and days to come
        Give
solely
⁷⁴
sovereign
sway
and masterdom.

MACBETH
    We will speak further.

LADY MACBETH
    Only
look up clear
⁷⁶
:
        To
alter favour
⁷⁷
ever is to fear.
        Leave all the rest to me.
Exeunt

Location: outside Macbeth’s castle
  

Hautboys
and
Torches
. Enter King
[
Duncan
]
, Malcolm, Donalbain, Banquo, Lennox, Macduff, Ross, Angus and Attendants

DUNCAN
    This castle hath a pleasant
seat
¹
: the air
        Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
        Unto our
gentle
³
senses.

BANQUO
    This guest of summer,
        The
temple-haunting
⁵
martlet
, does
approve
        By his loved
mansionry
⁶
that the heaven’s breath
        Smells
wooingly
⁷
here: no
jutty
,
frieze
,
        
Buttress
⁸
, nor
coign of vantage
, but this bird
        Hath made his
pendent
⁹
bed and
procreant
cradle:
        Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed
        The air is
delicate
¹¹
.

Enter Lady
[
Macbeth
]

DUNCAN
    See, see, our honoured hostess.—
        
The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,
        Which still we thank as love
¹³
.
Herein
¹⁴
I teach you
        How you shall bid God
yield
¹⁵
us for your pains,
        And thank us for your trouble.

LADY MACBETH
    All our service
        In every
point
¹⁸
twice done, and then done double
        Were poor and
single
¹⁹
business
to
contend
        Against
those honours deep and broad wherewith
        Your majesty loads our house: for
those of old
²¹
,
        And the
late
²²
dignities heaped up to them,
        We
rest your hermits
²³
.

DUNCAN
    Where’s the Thane of Cawdor?
        We
coursed
²⁵
him at the heels, and had a purpose
        To be his
purveyor
²⁶
: but he rides well,
        And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath
holp
²⁷
him
        To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess,
        We are your guest tonight.

LADY MACBETH
    Your servants ever
        Have
theirs
³¹
, themselves and what is theirs,
in compt
        To make their
audit
³²
at your highness’ pleasure,
        
Still to return your own
³³
.

DUNCAN
    Give me your hand,
        Conduct me to mine host: we love him highly,
        And shall continue our
graces
³⁶
towards him.
        
By your leave
³⁷
, hostess.
Exeunt

Location: within Macbeth’s castle
  

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
¹
, then ’twere well
        It were done quickly: if th’assassination
        Could
trammel up
³
the consequence and
catch
        With his
surcease
⁴
success
:
that but
this blow
        Might be the be-all and the end-all—here,
        But here, upon this
bank and shoal
⁶
of time,
        We’d
jump
⁷
the life to come. But in these cases
        We
still
⁸
have judgement
here
,
that
we but teach
        Bloody
instructions
⁹
, which, being taught, return
        To plague
th’inventor
¹⁰
: this even-handed justice
        
Commends
¹¹
th’ingredients 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
¹⁴
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
¹⁷
so meek, hath been
        So
clear
¹⁸
in his great office, that his virtues
        Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
        The deep damnation of his
taking-off
²⁰
:
        And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
        
Striding
²²
the
blast
, or heaven’s
cherubin
,
horsed
        Upon the
sightless couriers
²³
of the air,
        Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
        
That
²⁵
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
²⁷
.—

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 honoured me of late, and I have
bought
³³
        Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
        Which
would
³⁵
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
⁴¹
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
⁴⁴
the
ornament
of life,
        And live a coward in thine own esteem,
        Letting ‘I dare not’
wait upon
⁴⁶
‘I would’,
        Like the poor
cat i’th’
adage
⁴⁷
?

MACBETH
    Prithee, peace.
        I dare
do
⁴⁹
all that may become a man:
        Who dares do more is
none
⁵⁰
.

LADY MACBETH
    What beast was’t, then,
        That made you
break
⁵²
this enterprise to me?
        When you
durst
⁵³
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
⁵⁶
, and yet you would
make both
:
        They have made themselves, and
that their fitness
⁵⁷
now
        Does
unmake
⁵⁸
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
⁶⁶
screw your courage to the
sticking-place
        And we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep—
        
Whereto the rather
⁶⁸
shall his day’s hard journey
        Soundly invite him—his two
chamberlains
⁶⁹
        Will I with wine and
wassail
⁷⁰
so
convince
,
        That memory, the
warder
⁷¹
of the brain,
        Shall be a
fume
⁷²
, and the
receipt
of reason
        A
limbeck
⁷³
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
⁷⁶
        His
spongy
⁷⁷
officers
, who shall bear the guilt
        Of our great
quell
⁷⁸
?

MACBETH
    Bring forth men-children only,
        For thy
undaunted mettle
⁸⁰
should compose
        Nothing but males. Will it not be
received
⁸¹
,
        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
⁸⁵
,
        
As
⁸⁶
we shall make our griefs and clamour roar
        Upon his death?

MACBETH
    I am
settled
⁸⁸
, and
bend up
        Each
corporal agent
⁸⁹
to this terrible feat.
        Away, and
mock
⁹⁰
the time with fairest show:
        
False
⁹¹
face must hide what the false heart doth know.
Exeunt