Macbeth (7 page)

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
.