by Noah Lukeman
SCENE I
Tower. Dunsinane.
Enter Macbeth, in her cell.
Enter Malcolm, in the shadows.
MALCOLM (aside) Can she sit so content in such a place,
as if this worldly setting held no threat?
See how her lips move; how she kneels
so softly upon unyielding stone, as if
repenting for every soul in Dunsinane.
Such prayers must go unanswered whilst I inhabit.
My descent to Hades is set, the only question
being the time of my arrival. Satan:
you shall have your prize. But not yet.
For whilst she lives I too have cause to live.
See how she floats to the window, as a bird to light.
Hark! She speaks.
MACBETH The hangman tightens his tool with alacrity,
and the crowd thickens to watch me swing. They think
they’ll take my life; but it was long since took
with news of my unholy origin.
If, as the Bible proclaims, our parents’ sins
spill over generations, then ’tis best
that they stop here, lest I, by my progeny,
should pass them down again. Ambition is foreign
to me; never have I pined for power
or pearls. Our monastery did not afford
the chance, its vaults stowed with naught but dreams
and prayers. Yet perchance the propensity
sits in my blood. If so, better I hang
now, and be punished for sins still uncommitted.
MALCOLM (aside) My lady, your virtues are so true they shame
this Cain to lurk in your shadow. You’ve siphoned
the best of the Macbeths, your nature proving
their sins came not by blood, but by earthly
lusts. I wonder if you’ve mistaken your birth.
MACBETH I dreamt that I would die in that very
place. Dreamt I, too, of this cell: such stone,
a door of equal height, a window as this.
Except my illusioned window held no bars,
and in that dream was I set free. A Joseph
delivered to Pharaoh. How imperfect a vision
this was.
Malcolm unlocks the door and enters the cell.
MALCOLM Yet perfect enough.
MACBETH Whence
came you? Stood you there all the while?
MALCOLM I own
the key.
MACBETH Eavesdropping does not become
a king.
MALCOLM Such speech does not become a Macbeth.
MACBETH It was a speech meant for mine ears alone.
MALCOLM Then grace be to God that I was present.
MACBETH Have you
not finished mourning your dear brother’s death?
MALCOLM Your virtues compound my grief.
MACBETH Tomorrow you’ll have
more cause, when I’m hanged for public display.
MALCOLM I can stay your execution.
MACBETH If God
desires it be stayed, it will, by you
or by some other agent. If He desires
otherwise, then I am content.
MALCOLM I knew
your mother and father. Too well. I cannot imagine
you are their issue.
MACBETH ’Tis not a name I would
claim otherwise.
MALCOLM You never met them?
MACBETH I was delivered to the nuns newborn.
MALCOLM But why?
MACBETH I’ve wondered at this myself, but have
not found the cause. Perhaps I was a hindrance
on their road to ambition. Perhaps
they had no love for children.
MALCOLM Then why mourn them?
MACBETH If not I, who?
MALCOLM But why now? Their death
was ten years past.
MACBETH It is fresh for me,
deaf to Scotland’s news until my nuns
deemed fit to share it.
MALCOLM But ’twas a perilous journey
for a woman alone.
MACBETH Nuns pilgrimage
to far Jersualem; ’twas but a trifle
beside that.
MALCOLM If released, will you
return to Iona?
MACBETH If God has me released
I cannot imagine a life elsewhere.
MALCOLM Then allow
me to imagine for you. My lady, I am
in love. . . . Have you no reply?
MACBETH Forgive, my lord. I know not what to say.
MALCOLM Say it is requited.
MACBETH Requited? How?
I’ve never loved a man, and what I know
of you points to less than that—taker
of your brother’s life, warder and would-be
executioner of my own self.
How should I love thee, exactly? What words
would you have me speak? Riddles and affairs
of love are not my currency. I’ve not
been taught the false nothings and idle flatteries
of love’s language, have not been reared in the ways
to cloud desire, to twist metaphor and meaning.
And if, my lord, you know already the words
you long to hear, why not recite them to
yourself, hold out a polished glass and mock
my voice? What need you of a living thing
to ape what you can with ease imagine?
It is not requited. And if it were,
I would have no extravagant way
to frame the words, have no device to gild
my syllables, but only say, I love you.
MALCOLM Those words I long to hear, not by my voice
but by yours, for love a single voice
cannot create. The witches said I would love
Macbeth. I knew not what it meant until
this day.
MACBETH Speak not to me of witches. They are
things of darkness.
MALCOLM They tricked me to take
my brother’s life; yet they also led
me unto you.
MACBETH And now you are a murderer.
MALCOLM Please, use not that word so freely.
MACBETH You’ll needn’t
hear it soon enough, as I shall be
silenced by the gallows.
MALCOLM I shall arrange
your release.
MACBETH Upon what condition?
MALCOLM None. As I am king.
MACBETH Then I shall humbly
thank you and take my leave. What, my lord?
Why do you block the gate?
MALCOLM Every woman
in Scotland has petitioned me to marry.
Do you scorn what others crave?
MACBETH I crave
naught but piety, which I’ll not find in a murderer’s
arms.
MALCOLM You know me only as this. Before
today I was a wise and valiant king,
who dearly loved the brother he so rashly
slayed. O Donalbain!
Malcolm weeps.
MACBETH ’Tis a heavy deed you have committed.
Yet penance is possible for all of God’s children.
MALCOLM Then there is hope?
MACBETH There is always hope.
MALCOLM E’en for my hand?
MACBETH I am not a queen,
my lord. I would not crave the title.
MALCOLM ’Tis why
it should be yours. I pray you, my lady, consider
what I propose: Scotland needs an heir.
If you desire penance for your parents’
past deeds, then you have found the place. You need
not love me yet. Just take my hand in marriage
and let time teach the rest.
MACBETH ’Tis folly, my lord.
Would you have your subjects convert their most
hated villain into their beloved queen?
MALCOLM My people are but an extension of my will—
they shall be pleased by that which pleases me.
My lady, I vow to repent deeply my actions
past; to renounce all violence; and to
ne’er again seek the witches. I will
become the king I was.
MACBETH My life was took with the news of my
unhappy origin. You would wed but an empty
shell.
MALCOLM They say that shells encase the secrets
of the deep. I’d rather such shell than the
oyster-laden pearl.
MACBETH Then, as you will.
They kiss.
Exeunt.
SCENE II
Dunsinane.
Enter Malcolm, Macduff, Siward, Seyton and Attendants.
MACDUFF My lord, she must be hanged! Stand you by
Whilst a Macbeth is here set free?
MALCOLM I
am king, and she is free.
SEYTON My liege, Macduff
speaks true. Our soil is still stained by the reign
of the Macbeths. If the past the future paints,
this rose you now release will one day show
its thorns, pricking not just you but our
entire court.
MALCOLM The key’s long lost; she roams
freely. Further, she is now my guest
in Dunsinane. I’ve given her parents’ quarters
to her, and you shall know that I mean
to make of her my queen.
SEYTON Queen!
SIWARD What!
MACDUFF Queen Macbeth!
MALCOLM “Lady Malcolm” shall she
be called—not Macbeth.
SEYTON How will the people
abide?
MALCOLM Have they not hoped for an heir?
Now they can be content.
MACDUFF An heir—
not a Macbeth!
MALCOLM A Malcolm.
SEYTON Have we then ousted
the parents only to grant dominion to
the seed?
MALCOLM By this royal act the growing
multitude distressed over my brother’s
death will also be distracted. Including
myself.
SIWARD Donalbain defied your
decree and breached our shores with brandished arms.
Sure as he stepped foot on Scottish soil,
death became him.
MALCOLM Say again, traitor,
and you will hang. My brother shall be enshrined
as the hero he was; a statue is being erected
as we speak. He died a hero; it shall
be spoke no other.
MACDUFF Do you think it wise,
my lord, to let a Macbeth gain control
of half the throne?
MALCOLM Kings control thrones,
not queens.
SEYTON Then to let the bloodline of Macbeth
be heir to Scotland’s throne?
MALCOLM Evil does not
always come by blood.
SEYTON Yet evil of such
proven depth cannot filter with ease.
MALCOLM The prophecy for succession lies in
the seed of Banquo, not Macbeth. I see
no harm thereby. Therefore, occupy
yourselves with the preparation. We marry
tomorrow: Saint Andrew’s Day.
MACDUFF Think you now
the most opportune time for
a wedding? Norway prepares.
SEYTON And we shall lose
the chase with Lennox, Angus and Ross.
SIWARD We must
stop them before they reach the Irish shore.
MALCOLM I have spoken. Go to.
Exeunt all but Macduff.
MACDUFF My lord, if you recall that fateful day,
’twas I who found your father’s bloody corpse,
carved cruelly at the hand of a Macbeth.
No seed of such a monster can be pure.
MALCOLM When you found him, did you know it was
the work of Macbeth?
MACDUFF I suspected thus.
MALCOLM Yet I knew it the moment the bell tolled.
We fled; yet you remained.
MACDUFF I was not certain
MALCOLM But I was. Just as I am now; and just
as you again are not. You have proved
a wise and loyal friend; but counsel me not
on the nature of my Lady Malcolm.
Go to.
MACDUFF (aside) I cannot abide while he
builds a ladder for a Macbeth’s ascent.
If too clouded by love to guard himself,
then I must for him. I will confront
the evil offspring, and dissuade her from
this place. If not, I’ll bring a dagger, and perform
the task myself. Better I should hang,
than Scotland slowly strangle.
Exeunt.
SCENE III
Seyton’s castle.
Enter Seyton and Syna.
SYNA Marriage! To a Macbeth!
SEYTON Calm, my child—
SYNA Calm! Calm! Malcolm is mine! By your word,
I am set to marry! Not to be
passed over for a harlot from Iona,
a fake monk stealing into Dunsinane
to snatch away my ring! I will be queen!
SEYTON Malcolm had never consented to your—
SYNA I had consented! What need I from him?
You pretend to have his ear. Fool!
You have only influence enough
to make a mockery of your own flesh:
to see me, your own issue, thus debased.
SEYTON I did not—
SYNA Or are you so powerless
you cannot sway a feeble king to glance
at your own seed, to behold the best beauty
in his land?
SEYTON I petitioned many
times. He promised an audience. But not
to wed. He was against marriage—
SYNA Against!
Against! He is clearly for. Just not
for you.
SEYTON There is little I can do.
He is set to marry tomorrow.
SYNA Never
shall sun that morrow see! What, do you
plan to sit idly by and have
a stranger make your daughter husbandless?
Make you bereft of royal lineage?
Have you lost all desire for the crown?
SEYTON I have desire—
SYNA Then act on that desire!
SEYTON I have tried. He is resolved.
SYNA You’ve not
tried hard enough. Malcolm cannot marry
a corpse.
SEYTON Do not speak thus. Suspicion of
the deed would fall on us. Malcolm, unhinged,
would then never marry. I have a better
way. I know a certain nurse who,
for a sum, will attend our newfound
queen, and report to me her private doings.
I can then inform our Malcolm of his lady’s
true intent, and thereby convert him ’gainst
his false beloved. Then you, my willful Syna,
will I present to him.
SYNA A fair plan.
I begin to calm. But what if this
nurse finds no
evil in this ugly,
villainous thing?
SEYTON Better to find in her
an ounce of the real thing; but if there’s none,
why, we shall create. I know just
the woman: a servant who suffered greatly by
the hand of Macbeth. But, my daughter, if we
should fail—
SYNA We fail? How your weakness sickens
me! You are Syna’s father. Act
in kind! Fail me again, and I shall tell
Malcolm of all your machinations, and see
you hang, e’en if my head rolls with yours.
The queen’s throne lies in my grasp; I shall
not rest until it’s mine.
Exeunt.
SCENE IV
Dunsinane. Macbeth’s bedroom.
Macbeth, seated. Enter Macduff.
MACDUFF (aside) What illusion is this? She sits so soft,
prayer beads on knuckles white, as if to shame
me for holding this hidden means of death.
But I must not steer from the required course.
And surely she feigns. No Macbeth would e’er
embrace a rosary, unless to pray
for greater treachery.
(to her) Lady Macbeth.
Or shall I dub thee Lady Malcolm?
MACBETH For a few hours more I am Macbeth,
yet you may dub me as you wish.
Who, pray, are you? Why such silent entrance?
MACDUFF I am Macduff, husband of the slain
Lady Macduff, father of the boy
Macduff: all my pretty ones, all
butchered by your parents’ hand.
MACBETH Alas!
Reports of their tyranny do not
seem to cease. I will include your child
and lady in my long list of abridged souls.
I pray for your forgiveness.
MACDUFF (aside) Is such piety practiced? Is she more skilled
in the art of deception than even her parents?
I will out her yet.
(to her) You needn’t pray on your father’s behalf.
I’ve already sent him to Hades, dispatched
him with this very sword: I am the man
of no woman born.
MACBETH A Gabriel
sent to an unrepentant Sodom.
As my father’s taker, I cannot offer
you my thanks; but as courier of the One
above, I will accept your decree.
MACDUFF (aside) What? Does not e’en this taunt her to true
color? ’Tis unnatural to not show
the least sign of enmity. I falter
in my resolve. Out with it, then.
(to her) Lady, to the point: as I have known
your father and mother both too well, I know
you better than you know yourself. If you
truly be their issue, then we need only
wait ’til the day you hatch and subvert us all,
when your latent ambition will, and must,
reach beyond these castle walls. To prevent,
I demand you take your leave at once,
and tell our Malcolm you will not marry. For to
protect him is my sworn duty, and by
my honor, I shall not allow him to
be vanquished by one so close.
MACBETH You perform
your duty well. Would that I had such
a trusted friend. Yet I cannot concede.
I answer only to the Lord above,
and I do now believe He has put
me here to atone for my parents’ sins.
MACDUFF Have I slain your father only to kneel
to his seed?
MACBETH Kneel not to me, but to God.
MACDUFF I stopped kneeling the day He took from me
all that was dear: my whole life stole in one
fateful missive. All I have left is a hardened
heart, and guilt for my cowardice. O!
Would that I had stayed!
Macduff weeps. Macbeth rises from the throne and embraces him.
MACBETH O terrible fortune!
Most foul Macbeth. Detestable thy name!
A name I’ll change in a few hours more;
yet I do not think a simple service
will wipe clean the sins of my lineage.
If punishing myself would lessen your
great loss, I would it gladly undergo.
Macduff reaches up to embrace her, and his knife falls to the floor.
Macbeth backs away.
MACDUFF O my lady! Forgive! ’Twas a dagger
meant for you—a dagger I shall never use!
Now I see that thou art not the stamp
of thine own parents, but a true seraph.
Punish your would-be murderer: if thou
desirest now my hanging, I shall hasten
to the gallows.
MACBETH I desire nothing
but the lifting of thy guilt.
MACDUFF Can it be? I’m shamed to the neck.
Thou art my true, sworn queen; I vow to serve
thee ever after. If I could not protect
Lady Macduff, at least I can shield you.
What a fortunate king Malcolm shall be!
What a fortunate land of Scotland!
Exit Macduff.
MACBETH Not as fortunate as thou dost think.
I spoke to Malcolm that I’d ne’er known love,
and ’twas true. Yet not anymore:
Macduff, thou hast educated. It is
a wisdom I wish I lacked. O faithless queen!
O Dunsinane! Can your walls so quickly corrupt?
Exeunt.
SCENE V
Dunsinane. Courtyard.
A lavish wedding ceremony.
Enter Malcolm, Macbeth, Macduff, Siward, various Nobles and Attendants.
Enter Nurse.
NURSE Such ceremony stands me right on edge.
Good flowers torn to shreds; ’twill be a mess
to clean. And flower girls, dressed in such finery:
frivoling the time when they could be
at home, mending clothes and scrubbing floors,
as I did at their age. When I was wed,
no one came to gape. My husband paid
but half a pence, and they cheered us with a pint
of ale. Such was our marriage ceremony.
No flowers lived in that place; no silks or brocade,
as I was the only lady there.
Enter Seyton.
SEYTON ’Tis an odd turn in events. I cannot
recall in kind. But yesterday this rabble
cried for her head; now they cheer her crowning.
Art thou studied on the business to be done?
NURSE But look: how they lavish her with sparkling
jewels, promote her with a royal crown.
When I was married, I was handed a stick
to beat back fleas, crowned with a net to hold
back lice—
SEYTON I say, nurse, art thou clear?
For I will not part with this treasure ‘til you
parrot back my purpose. If not, I’ll find
another.
NURSE Clear? Why, yes, of course: clear
as a day in Scotland when the fog lifts, clear
as a—
SEYTON Nurse!
NURSE The business is simple enough.
I will attend our newly minted queen,
present myself as nurse to her, and use
this pretense to catch her words and malign
her to the king.
SEYTON To me. You will report
to me. You’ll not report to Malcolm ’cept—
NURSE Yes, yes, clear enough.
SEYTON And if you witness
no vices, what then?
NURSE Then I shall encourage.
SEYTON And if without success?
NURSE Then I’ll invent.
SEYTON Thou art artful in thy craft.
NURSE ’Tis hardly
a craft demanding art. For treachery
is our oldest profession. One need summon
naught but instinct, that warder of the brain,
and let it freely work. Besides, I hardly
lack for motive: Lady Macbeth daily
used me as her whipping thing. She carved
these scars upon my back; still not satisfied,
she turned then to my daughter, and had her lynched
for spying. I vowed revenge yet never it fulfilled.
In death I cannot touch the mother; but here
her daughter I can reach. Revenge so imperfect
imperfectly sates, yet satisfies more
than none at all.
SEYTON Here’s the purse. Perform
your business quickly. We cannot allow this vine
to take its root too deep, past the point
we cannot extract.
Exit Seyton.
NURSE You needn’t tutor me,
old man. I am so practiced in my craft,
that this new queen comes as a lamb to slaughter.
She shall meet her new nurse; and crave physic
thereafter.
Exit.