Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Pour in sow's blood
that hath eaten her nine farrow;
grease that's sweaten from the muderer's gibbet
throw into the flame;
finger of birth-strangled babe,
ditch-deliver'd by a drab;
Make the gruel thick and slab,
like a hell-broth boil and bubble,
for a charm of powerful trouble.
When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightening or in rain?
When the hurlyburly's done.
When the battle's lost and won.
That will be ere the set of sun.
Where to meet with
Macbeth?
By the pricking of my thumbs,
something wicked this way comes.
So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
A drum, a drum!
Macbeth doth come.
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee,
thane of Glamis!
What are these that look not like
the inhabitants o' the earth, and yet are on't?
Speak, if you can: what are you?
Hail!
What is't you do?
Hail!
Hail!
Hail to thee, thane of Cawdor.
All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!
If you can look into the seeds 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.
Hail!
Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.
Not so happy, yet much happier.
Thou shalt get kings,
though thou be none.
So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!
Go herefrom! Leave!
Stay, you imperfect speakers,
tell me more.
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 relief,
no more than to be Cawdor.
My lord, Macbeth!
Kind gentlemen.
The king hath happily received, Macbeth,
the news of thy success
As thick as hail came post with post
and every one did bear
thy praises in his kingdom's great defence,
We give thee from our royal master thanks.
He bade us, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor.
What, can the devil speak true?
In which addition, hail, most worthy thane!
for it is thine.
The thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you
dress me in borrow'd robes?
Who was the thane lives yet;
but under heavy judgment bears that life
which he deserves to lose.
Treasons capital, confess'd and proved
have overthrown him.
Glamis, and thane of Cawdor!
The greatest is behind.
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?
Worthy Macbeth,
we stay upon your leisure.
Give me your favour: my dull brain was
wrought with things forgotten.
He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear,
he hopes 'bove wisdom, grace and fear
Let us toward the king.
Hail!
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!'
Stars, hide your fires, let not light see
my black and deep desires:
Lord Banqou!
Do you not hope your children shall be kings,
when those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me
promised no less to them?
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.
Your children shall be kings.
You shall be king.
If chance will have me king, why,
chance may crown me, without my stir.
Look, how our partner's rapt.
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.
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!'
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.
My dearest love,
Duncan comes here to-night.
And when goes hence?
To-morrow, as he purposes.
He that's coming must be provided for.
We will speak further.
Put this night's business into my dispatch.
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.
When Duncan is asleep, whereto the rather shall
his day's hard journey soundly invite him,
I'll drug his servents' wine
King Duncan is my kinsman.
He 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.
Saint Michael, the archy angel, be our safeguard
against the viles and wickedness of the devil.
Do thou, oh prince of the heavenly host,
by the divine power,
thrust into hell satan and the other evil spirits,
who wrong through the world,
seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen!
Thus thou renounce satan?
I renounce him.
And all his works?
I renounce them.
And all his palms?
I renounce them.
Amen!
My son, is execution done on Cawdor?
My liege, it is. And 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.
There's no art to find the mind's construction
in the face: he was a gentleman,
on whom I built an absolute trust.
But where is Macbeth, the thane of Cawdor?
Oh, worthy Cawdor!
Would thou hadst less deserved,
that the proportion both of thanks and payment might have been mine!
The service and the loyalty I owe in doing it,
pays itself.
Noble Banquo, thou hadst no less deserved,
nor must be known no less to have done so.
Give me your hand.
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.
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.
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?
Bring forth men-children only;
For thy undaunted mettle should compose nothing but males.
Fiten!
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?
Who dares receive it other, as we shall make
our griefs and clamour roar upon his death?
Leave all the rest to me.
How goes the night, boy?
The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.
Hold, take my sword.
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 cursed thoughts
that nature gives way to in repose!
Give me my sword.
Who's there?
A friend.
What, sir, not yet at rest?
The king's a-bed.
He hath been in unusual pleasure, and
sent forth great largess to your offices.
This diamond he greets your wife withal.
I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters:
To you they have show'd some truth.
I think not of them.
Good repose the while!
Thanks, sir: the like to you!
Now o'er the one halfworld nature seems dead,
and wicked dreams abuse the curtain'd sleep.
witchcraft celebrates pale Hecate's offerings,
and wither'd murder,
Alarum'd 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.
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.
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;
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-oppressed brain?
I see thee still, and on thy blade and dudgeon
gouts of blood,
which was not so before.
There's no such thing.
What news?
The doors are open;
and the surfeited grooms do mock
their charge with snores.
We will proceed no further in this business.
Was the hope drunk wherein you dress'd yourself?
hath it slept since?
and wakes it now, to look so green and pale
on 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?
I dare do all that may become a man;
who dares do more is none.
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.
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.
If we should fail?
We fail!
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
and we'll not fail.
Thou sure and firm-set earth,
hear not my steps, which way they walk,
for fear thy very stones prate of my whereabout.
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.
That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold;
What hath quench'd them hath given me fire.
Hark!
Peace!
It was the owl that shriek'd.
He is about it.
Who's there? What, ho!
Alack!
I am afraid they have awaked,
and 'tis not done.
The attempt and not the deed confounds us.
Hark!
I laid their daggers ready; he could not miss 'em.
I have done the deed.
Didst thou not hear a noise?
I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
Did not you speak? /When?
/Now.
As I descended?/ Ay.
/Hark!
This is a sorry sight.
A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.
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 address'd them again to sleep.
There are two lodged together.
One cried 'God bless us!' and 'Amen' the other,
as they had seen me with these hangman's hands.
Listening their fear, I could not say 'Amen,'
when they did say 'God bless us!'
Consider it not so deeply.
But wherefore could not I pronounce 'Amen'?
I had most need of blessing,
and 'Amen' stuck in my throat.
These deeds must not be thought after these ways;
so, it will make us mad.
Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had lived a blessed 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.
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.
I'll go no more.
I am afraid to think what I have done.
Look on't again I dare not.
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.
Whence is that knocking?
How is't with me, when every noise appals 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 in incarnadine,
making the green one red.
My hands are of your colour;
but I shame to wear a heart so white.
Retire we to our chamber;
A little water clears us of this deed.
How easy is it, then!
Hark! More knocking.
Get on your nightgown lest occasion call us,
and show us to be watchers.
To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself.
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!
Who's there?
Knock, knock! Never at quiet!
Knock, knock! Knock, knock! Knock!
It is Macduff!
Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed, that you do lie so late?
Faith sir, we were carousing till the second cock.
Is thy master stirring?
Macduff!
Good morrow, noble sir.
Good morrow, both.
Is the king stirring, worthy thane?
Not yet.
He did command me to call timely on him:
I have almost slipp'd the hour.
There is the door.
I'll make so bold to call.
Goes the king hence to-day?
He does: he did appoint so.
The night has been unruly: where we lay,
our chimneys were blown down;
As they say, lamentings heard i' the air
Strange screams of death,
and prophesying with accents terrible
of dire combustion and confused events
new hatch'd to the woeful time,
the obscure bird clamour'd the livelong night,
Some say, the earth was feverous and did shake.
'Twas a rough night.
Murder and treason!
What is 't you say?
Mean you his majesty?
Ring the alarum-bell.
Awake! Malcolm! Malcolm!
Malcolm! Awake!
My lord!
/ Murder and treason!
Malcolm, Malcolm!
Malcolm! Awake!
Husband!
Horror, horror, horror!
Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee!
Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
What's the matter.
[New Text]
What is amiss?
You are, and do not know't:
The spring, the head, the fountain of your
blood is stopp'd.
The very source of it is stopp'd.
Your royal father 's murder'd.
By whom?
Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done 't:
Their hands and faces were an badged with blood;
So were their daggers.
They stared, and were distracted.
No man's life was to be trusted with them.
O, yet I do repent me of my fury, that I did kill them.
Wherefore did you so?
Here lay Duncan, his silver skin laced with
his golden blood;
And his gash'd stabs look'd like
a breach in nature for ruin's wasteful entrance.
There, the murderers, steep'd in the colours of their trade,
their daggers unmannerly breech'd with gore:
Who could refrain, that had a heart to love?
Help me, hence, ho!
/ Look to the lady.
And when we have our naked frailties hid,
that suffer in exposure,
let's meet to 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 I.
So all.
How goes the world, sir, now?
Why, see you not?
Is't known who did this more than bloody deed?
Those that Macbeth hath slain.
I have seen hours dreadful and things strange,
but this sore night hath trifled former knowings.
By the clock, 'tis day,
and yet dark night strangles the travelling 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?
'Tis unnatural,
Even like the deed that's done.
What will you do?
Do?
Where we are, there's daggers in men's smiles:
the near in blood, the nearer bloody.
Therefore, to horse!
My husband!
And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,
but shift away!
Farewell, father.
God's benison go with you,
and with those that would make good of bad,
and friends of foes!
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?
Malcolm and Macduff, my lord, are fled to England.
Fled to England!
We can entreat an hour to serve; we'll spend it
in some words upon that business,
If you would grant the time.
At your kind'st leisure.
You shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis,
it shall make honour for you.
So I lose none in seeking to augment.
You lack the season of all natures.
Sleep.
To bed.
To bed.
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.
Banquo?
He chid the sisters when first they put
the name of king upon me,
and bade them speak to him:
then prophet-like they hail'd him
father to a line of kings:
Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown.
and put a barren sceptre in my gripe.
Thence to be wrench'd 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 murder'd;
Put rancours 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 seed of Banquo kings!
Things without all remedy should be without regard:
What's done is done.
To bed.
To bed. Come.
Liar and slave!
My strange and self-abuse is the initiate fear that wants hard use:
We are yet but young in deed.
Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep',
the innocent sleep,
sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,
the death of each day's life,
sore labour's bath, balm of hurt minds,
great nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's feast!
What do you mean?
Still it cried 'Sleep no more!' to all the house.
'Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor
shall sleep no more;
Macbeth shall sleep no more.'
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.
To be thus is nothing
but to be safely thus.
What had he done, to make him fly the land?
You must have patience, madam.
He had none: his flight was madness:
when our actions do not,
our fears do make us traitors.
You know not whether it was his wisdom or his fear.
Wisdom!
to leave his wife, to leave his babes,
all in a place from whence himself does fly?
We hear, Macdoff and Malcolm are gone hence,
not confessing their cruel murders,
but filling their hearers with strange invention.
But of that to-morrow, here's our chief guest.
If he had been forgotten,
it had been as a gap in our great feast,
And all-thing unbecoming.
To-night we hold a solemn supper sir,
and I'll request your presence.
Let your highness command upon me.
Ride you this afternoon?
Ay, my good lord.
We should have else desired your good advice,
in this day's council,
but we'll take to-morrow.
Is't far you ride?
As far, my lord, as will fill up the time
'twixt this and supper.
Fail not our feast.
My lord, I will not.
Farewell.
Let every man be master of his time till seven at night:
To make society the sweeter welcome,
we will keep ourself till supper-time alone.
While then, God be with you!
Our fears in Banquo stick deeper.
and in his royalty of nature reigns that which would be fear'd
'tis much he dares;
And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,
he hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour 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.
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.
Attend those men our pleasure?
They are, my lord, without the palace gate.
Bring them before us.
Was it not yesterday we spoke together?
It was, so please your highness.
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.
You made it known to us.
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?
We are men, my liege.
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.
But if you have a station in the file,
not i' the worst rank of manhood.
Say 't!
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.
And I another
Both of you know Banquo was your enemy.
True, my lord.
So is he mine.
and in such bloody distance that every minute of
his being thrusts against my near'st of life.
We shall, my lord, perform what you command us.
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 castle
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.
We are resolved, my lord.
It is concluded. Banquo, thy soul's flight,
if it find heaven, must find it out to-night.
Gentle, my lord, sleek o'er your rugged looks.
Be bright and jovial among your guests to-night.
O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!
Yet 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.
What's to be done?
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.
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.
/Hark!
Then 'tis he.
/Stand to't.
It will be rain to-night.
Let it come down.
Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly!
The son is fled.
We have lost best half of our affair.
Well, let's away, and say how much is done.
There's blood on thy face.
'Tis Banquo's then.
Is he dispatch'd?
My lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him.
Thou art the best o' the cut-throats:
yet he's good that did the like for Fleance
Most royal sir, Fleance is 'scaped.
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?
Ay, my good lord: safe in a ditch he bides,
with twenty trenched gashes on his head,
the least a death to nature.
Thanks for that.
Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all; all,
as the weird women promised.
And, I fear, thou play'dst most foully for't.
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.
Is't far you ride?
As far, my lord, as will fill up the time
'twixt this and supper
Fail not our feast.
My lord, I will not.
I will not.
I will not.
I will not.
I will not fail your feast.
You know your own degrees
Sit down.
And first and last the hearty welcome.
Here had we now our country's honour roof'd,
Were the graced person of our Banquo present;
His absence, sir, lays blame upon his promise.
My royal lord, you do not give the cheer.
Sweet remembrancer!
I drink to our good friend Banquo
whom we miss!
Would he were here!
Which of you have done this?
What is't that moves your highness?
Thou canst not say I did it;
Never shake thy gory locks at me.
Gentlemen, rise. His highness is not well.
Sit, worthy friends.
My lord is often thus, and hath been from his youth.
Look!
Lo!
How say you?
Think of this, good peers, but as a thing of custom:
'tis no other.
Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.
Shame itself!
Why do you make such faces?
When all's done, you look but on a stool.
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!
The fit is momentary;
upon a thought he will again be well.
What man dare, I dare:
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
the arm'd rhinoceros, or the 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!
This is the very painting of your fear.
This is the air-drawn dagger
which, you said, led you to Duncan.
Duncan!
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.
Fie, for shame!
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.
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.
What sights, my lord?
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.
Good night; and better health attend his majesty!
A kind good night to all!
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?
Almost at odds with morning, which is which.
How say'st thou, that Macduff denies
his person at our great bidding?
Did you send to him, sir?
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.
More shall they speak;
for now I am bent to know, by the worst means, the worst.
How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!
I conjure you, by that which you profess.
Howe'er you come to know it, answer me.
Though you untie the winds and
let them fight against the churches;
Though the yesty waves confound and
swallow navigation up;
Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down;
Though castles topple on their warders' heads;
Though palaces and pyramids do slope
their heads to their foundations;
Though the treasure of nature's germens tumble all together,
even till destruction sicken;
Answer me!
Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!
beware Macduff;
Macduff, beware Macduff!
He's fled to England.
But I'll reach him still; give to the edge o' the sword his wife, his babes,
and all unfortunate souls that trace him in his line.
No boasting like a fool; This deed I'll do
before this purpose cool.
Macbeth! be bloody, bold, and resolute;
laugh to scorn the power of man;
for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth.
Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill.
shall come against him.
That will never be.
Who can impress the forest, bid the tree
unfix his earth-bound root?
Then live, Macduff: what need I fear of thee?
Beware Macduff! Beware Macduff!
But yet I'll make assurance double sure,
and take a bond of fate: thou shalt not live.
That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies,
and sleep in spite of thunder.
Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be
til Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.
Sweet bodements! good!
Rebellion's head, rise never
till the wood of Birnam rise,
and our high-placed Macbeth shall
live the lease of nature,
pay his breath to time and mortal custom.
What, is it so?
Ay, sir, all this is so.
Your father's dead, my child; And what will you do now?
My father is not dead, for all your saying.
Yes, he is dead; how wilt thou do for a father?
Nay, how will you do for a husband?
Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.
Then you'll buy 'em to sell again.
Thou speak'st with all thy wit: and yet, i' faith,
with wit enough for thee.
Was my father a traitor, mother?
Ay, that he was.
What is a traitor?
Why, one that swears and lies.
And be all traitors that do so?
Every one that does so is a traitor,
and must be hanged.
And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?
Every one.
/Who must hang them?
Why, the honest men.
Then the liars and swearers are fools,
for there are liars and swearers enow to beat
the honest men and hang up them.
Now, God help thee, poor monkey!
How wilt thou do for a father?
If he were dead, you'ld weep for him;
if you would not, it were a good sign
that I should quickly have a new father.
Poor prattler, how thou talk'st!
Bless you, fair dame!
I doubt some danger does approach you nearly.
Be not found here; hence, with your little ones.
To fright you thus, methinks, I am too savage;
To do worse to you were fell cruelty, which is too nigh your person.
Heaven preserve you!
Whither should I fly?
I must abide no longer.
I have done no harm.
Where is your husband?
I hope, in no place so unsanctified
where such as thou mayst find him.
He's a traitor.
Thou liest!
He has kill'd me, mother!
Nought's had, all's spent,
where our desire is got without content.
I am in blood stepp'd in so far that,
should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er:
'Tis safer to be that which we destroy
than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
Each new morn, new widows howl,
new orphans cry, new sorrows strike
heaven on the face,
that it resounds as if it felt with Scotland
and yell'd out like syllable of dolour.
I am not treacherous, but Macbeth is.
I think our country sinks beneath the yoke.
It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day
a gash is added to her wounds.
I think withal there would be hands uplifted in my right;
And here from gracious England have I offer
of goodly thousands.
See who comes here.
Good God, betimes remove the means
that makes us strangers!
Sirs, amen.
Stands Scotland where it did?
Alas, poor country! Almost afraid to know itself.
It cannot be call'd our mother, but our grave;
where nothing, but who knows nothing,
is once seen to smile.
where sighs and groans and shrieks
that rend the air are made, not mark'd;
where violent sorrow seems a modern ecstasy;
the dead man's knell is there scarce ask'd for who;
and good men's lives expire
before the flowers in their caps,
dying or ere they sicken.
How does my wife?
Why, well.
And all my children?
Well too.
The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?
No; they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.
But not a niggard of your speech: how goes't?
Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
would create soldiers,
make our women fight, to doff their dire distresses.
Be't their comfort. We are coming thither.
Gracious England hath lent us good Siward
and ten thousand men.
An older and a better soldier none
that Christendom gives out.
Would I could answer this comfort with the like!
But I have words that would be howl'd out
in the desert air,
where hearing should not latch them.
What concern they?
The general cause?
No mind that's honest but in it shares some woe;
though the main part pertains to you alone.
Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever,
that shall possess them with the heaviest sound
that ever yet they heard.
I guess at it.
Your castle is surprised.
/No!
Your wife and babes savagely slaughter'd.
Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak
whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.
My children too?
Wife, children, servants, all that could be found.
And I must be from thence!
My wife kill'd too?
Be comforted:
Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,
to cure this deadly grief.
He has no children.
All my pretty ones? Did you say "all"?
O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
at one fell swoop?
Dispute it like a man.
I shall do so. But I must also feel it as a man.
I cannot but remember such things were, that were most precious to me.
Did heaven look on, and would not take their part?
Be this the whetstone of your sword.
Let grief convert to anger!
Blunt not the heart, enrage it!
O, I could play the woman with mine eyes
and braggart with my tongue!
But, gentle heavens, cut short all intermission;
front to front bring thou this fiend of Scotland
and myself;
Within my sword's length set him
if he 'scape, heaven forgive him too!
This tune goes manly.
Come, go we to the king!
Our power is ready;
Our lack is nothing but our leave.
Macbeth is ripe for shaking,
and the powers above put on their instruments.
Receive what cheer you may: the night is long
that never finds the day.
What does the tyrant?
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.
Now does he feel his secret murders
sticking on his hands;
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.
Lord!
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 devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!
Where got'st thou that goose look?
There is ten thousand--/Geese, villain!/
--soldiers, sir.
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?
The English force, so please you.
Take thy face hence.
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!
What is your gracious pleasure?
What news more?
All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported.
Give me mine armour.
Send out more horses.
Skirr the country round.
Hang those that talk of fear.
Give me mine armour.
How does your patient, doctor?
Not so sick, my lord, as she is troubled
with thick coming fancies,
that keep her from her rest.
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?
Therein the patient must minister to himself.
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?
I will not be afraid of death and bane,
till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.
What wood is this before us?
The wood of Birnam.
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.
It shall be done.
I have two nights watched with you,
but can perceive no truth in your report.
Doctor, 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.
what, at any time, have you heard her say?
That, doctor, which I will not report after her.
You may to me: and 'tis most meet you should.
Lo you, here she comes!
And, upon my life, fast asleep.
How came she by that light?
She has light by her continually;
'tis her command.
You see, her eyes are open.
/Ay, but their sense is shut.
Yet here's a spot.
Look, how she rubs her hands.
It is an accustomed action with her,
to seem thus washing her hands.
Out, damned spot! out, I say!
One: two: why, then, 'tis time to do't.
Hell is murky!
Fie, my lord, fie!
Do you mark that?
Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him.
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.
Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that.
Here's the smell of the blood still.
All the perfumes of Arabia will not
sweeten this little hand.
The heart is sorely charged.
I would not have such a heart in my bosom
for the dignity of the whole body.
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.
There's knocking at the gate:
To bed, to bed!
Come, come, come, come, give me your hand.
What's done cannot be undone.
To bed, to bed!
God forgive us all!
What is that noise?
It is the cry of women, my good lord.
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.
Wherefore was that cry?
The queen, my lord, is dead.
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
then is heard no more.
It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.
Gracious my lord!
I should report that which I say I saw,
but know not how to do it.
Well, say, sir.
As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
the wood began to move.
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! 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!
Seyton!
Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.
I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms
are hired to bear their staves
Either thou, Macbeth, or else my sword
with an unbatter'd edge
I sheathe again undeeded.
Our castle's strength will laugh a siege to scorn.
Here let you lie till famine and the ague eat you up.
Were you not forced with those that should be ours,
We might have met you dareful, beard to beard,
and beat you backward home.
This way, my lord; the castle's gently render'd.
We have met with foes that strike beside us.
What's he that was not born of woman?
Such a one am I to fear, or none.
Poor a child(?)
Thou wast born of woman; but swords I smile at,
weapons laugh to scorn,
Brandish'd by man that's of a woman born.
Tyrant, show thy face!
If thou be'st slain and with no stroke of mine,
my wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still.
Turn, hell-hound, turn!
Of all men else I have avoided thee; but get thee back.
My soul is too much charged with
blood of thine already.
I have no words; my voice is in my sword.
I bear a charmed life, which must not yield,
to one of woman born.
Despair thy charm.
And let the angel whom thou still hast served tell thee,
Macduff was from his mother's womb
untimely ripp'd.
Untimely ripp'd!
Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
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.
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.'
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.
Lay on, Macduff.
And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'
Hail, king! for so thou art.
Behold, where stands the usurper's cursed head.
The time is free.
Hail, Malcolm, king of Scotland!
Hail!
Peace! the charm's wound up.