Authors: William Shakespeare
Location: Macbeth’s castle (probably an open-air courtyard within the building)
Enter Banquo and Fleance, with a Torch
[
bearer
]
before him
BANQUO
How goes the night
1
, boy?
FLEANCE
The moon is down: I have not heard the clock.
BANQUO
And she goes down at twelve.
FLEANCE
I take’t ’tis later, sir.
BANQUO
Hold, take my sword. There’s
husbandry
5
in heaven:
Gives his sword
Their candles are all out
6
. Take thee that too.
Gives cloak?
A heavy
summons
7
lies like lead upon me,
Diamond?
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?
Takes sword
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
15
to your
offices
.
This diamond he greets your wife withal,
Presents a diamond
By the name of most kind hostess, and
shut up
17
In measureless content.
MACBETH
Being unprepared,
Our will became the servant to defect,
Which else should free have wrought
19
.
BANQUO
All’s well.
I dreamt last night of the three weyard 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
30
when ’tis
,
It shall make honour for you.
BANQUO
So
32
I lose none
In seeking to augment it, but still keep
My
bosom franchised
34
and allegiance clear,
I shall be
counselled
35
.
MACBETH
Good repose
the while
36
.
BANQUO
Thanks, sir: the like to you.
Exeunt Banquo
[
with Fleance and Torchbearer
]
MACBETH
Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.—
Exit
[
Servant
]
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision,
sensible
43
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the
heat-oppressèd
46
brain?
I see thee
yet
47
, in form as
palpable
As this which now I draw.
Draws his dagger
Thou
marshall’st
49
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
52
. I see thee still,
And on thy blade and
dudgeon
53
gouts
of blood,
Which was not so before. There’s no such thing:
It is the bloody business which
informs
55
Thus to mine eyes. Now o’er
the one halfworld
56
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The
curtained
58
sleep: witchcraft celebrates
Pale
Hecate’s off’rings
59
: and withered murder,
Alarumed
60
by his
sentinel
the wolf,
Whose howl’s his
watch
61
, thus with his stealthy pace,
With
Tarquin’s
62
ravishing
strides, towards his
design
Moves like a ghost.—Thou
sure
63
and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones
prate
of my whereabout
65
And
take the
present
horror from the time
Which now suits with it
66
.—Whiles I
threat
67
, 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
70
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
Exit
Location: within Macbeth’s castle
Enter Lady
[
Macbeth
]
LADY MACBETH
That which hath made
them
1
drunk hath made
me bold:
What hath
quenched
2
them hath given me fire.—
Hark! Peace!—
It was the
owl
3
that shrieked, the fatal
bellman
Which gives the
stern’st goodnight
4
. He is about it.
The doors are open, and the
surfeited
5
grooms
Do
mock
6
their charge with snores: I have drugged their
possets
,
That
7
death and nature do
contend about
them
Whether they live or die.
Enter Macbeth
Initially within or above or unseen by his wife; with bloody daggers
MACBETH
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
12
us. Hark! I laid their daggers ready:
He could not miss ’em. Had
he
13
not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done’t.—
Sees Macbeth
My husband?
MACBETH
I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?
LADY MACBETH
I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
Did not you speak?
MACBETH
When?
LADY MACBETH
Now.
MACBETH
As I descended?
LADY MACBETH
Ay.
MACBETH
Hark!
Who lies i’th’second chamber?
LADY MACBETH
Donalbain.
MACBETH
This is a sorry sight.
Looks at his hands
LADY MACBETH
A foolish thought, to say ‘a sorry sight’.
MACBETH
There’s
one did laugh in’s sleep, and one
27
cried
‘Murder!’
That they did wake each other: I stood and heard them.
But they did say their prayers, and
addressed them
29
Again to sleep.
LADY MACBETH
There are two lodged together.
MACBETH
One cried ‘God bless us’ and ‘Amen’ the other,
As
33
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
37
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
40
:
so
41
, 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
ravelled
44
sleeve
of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s
bath
45
,
Balm
46
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
53
your noble strength to think
So brainsickly of things. Go get some water
And wash this
filthy witness
55
from your hand.
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must
lie
57
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
Takes the daggers
Are but as pictures: ’tis the eye of childhood
That fears a
painted
65
devil. If he
do bleed
,
I’ll
gild
66
the faces of the grooms withal,
For it must seem their guilt.
Exit
Knock within
MACBETH
Whence
68
is that knocking?
How is’t with me, when every noise
appals me
69
?
What hands are here? Ha? They pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great
Neptune’s
71
ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The
multitudinous
73
seas
incarnadine
,
Making the
green one red
74
.
Enter Lady
[
Macbeth
]
LADY MACBETH
My hands are of your colour, but I
shame
75
To wear a heart so
white
76
.—I hear a knocking
Knock
At the
south entry
77
: retire we to our chamber.
A little water
clears
78
us of this deed:
How easy is it, then! Your
constancy
Hath left you unattended
79
.—Hark! More knocking.
Knock
Get on your
nightgown
81
, lest
occasion
call us
And show us to be
watchers
82
. Be not lost
So
poorly
83
in your thoughts.
MACBETH
To know my deed, ’twere best not know
myself
84
.
Knock
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou
couldst!
Exeunt
Knocking within. Enter a Porter
PORTER
Here’s a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of
hell gate, he should have
old
2
turning the key.
Knock
Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there, i’th’name of
Beelzebub
3
?
Here’s
4
a farmer that hanged himself on
th’expectation of
plenty
:
come in time
5
, have
napkins
enough about you: here
you’ll sweat for’t.
Knock
Knock, knock! Who’s there, in th’
other devil
7
’s name?
Faith
,
here’s an
equivocator
8
that could swear in both the
scales
against either scale, who committed treason enough
for
God’s sake
9
, 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
13
: come in,
tailor: here you may
roast your goose
14
.