The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

Home > Fiction > The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works > Page 340
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 340

by William Shakespeare


  At 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,

  40

  As thou art in desire? Would’st thou have that

  Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life,

  And live a coward in thine own esteem,

  Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’

  Like the poor cat i’th’adage?

  MACBETH Pr’ythee, peace.

  45

  I dare do all that may become a man;

  Who dares do more, is none.

  LADY MACBETH 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

  50

  Be so much more the man. Nor time, nor place,

  Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:

  They have made themselves, and that their fitness now

  Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know

  How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me:

  55

  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.

  MACBETH If we should fail?

  LADY MACBETH We fail?

  60

  But screw your courage to the sticking-place,

  And we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep

  (Whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journey

  Soundly invite him), his two chamberlains

  Will I with wine and wassail so convince,

  65

  That memory, the warder of the brain,

  Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason

  A limbeck only: when in swinish sleep

  Their drenched natures lie, as in a death,

  What cannot you and I perform upon

  70

  Th’unguarded Duncan? what not put upon

  His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt

  Of our great quell?

  MACBETH Bring forth men-children only!

  For thy undaunted mettle should compose

  Nothing but males. Will it not be receiv’d,

  75

  When we have mark’d with blood those sleepy two

  Of his own chamber, and us’d their very daggers,

  That they have done’t?

  LADY MACBETH Who dares receive it other,

  As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar

  Upon his death?

  MACBETH I am settled, and bend up

  80

  Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.

  Away, and mock the time with fairest show:

  False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

  Exeunt.

  2.1 Enter BANQUO and FLEANCE,

  with a torch before him.

  BANQUO How goes the night, 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 in heaven;

  Their candles are all out. – Take thee that too.

  5

  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.

  Enter MACBETH, and a servant with a torch.

  Who’s there?

  10

  MACBETH A friend.

  BANQUO 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,

  15

  By the name of most kind hostess, and shut up

  In measureless content.

  MACBETH Being unprepar’d,

  Our will became the servant to defect,

  Which else should free have wrought.

  BANQUO All’s well.

  I dreamt last night of the three Weïrd Sisters:

  20

  To you they have show’d 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, when ’tis,

  25

  It shall make honour for you.

  BANQUO So I lose none

  In seeking to augment it, but still keep

  My bosom franchis’d, and allegiance clear,

  I shall be counsell’d.

  MACBETH Good repose, the while!

  BANQUO Thanks, Sir: the like to you.

  30

  Exeunt Banquo and Fleance.

  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.

  35

  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 yet, in form as palpable

  40

  As this which now I draw.

  Thou marshall’st 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: I see thee still;

  45

  And on thy blade, and dudgeon, gouts of blood,

  Which was not so before. – There’s no such thing.

  It is the bloody business which informs

  Thus to mine eyes. – Now o’er the one half-world

  Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse

  50

  The curtain’d sleep: Witchcraft celebrates

  Pale Hecate’s off ‘rings; and wither’d Murther,

  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

  55

  Moves like a ghost. – Thou sure and firm-set earth,

  Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear

  Thy very stones prate of my where-about,

  And take the present horror from the time,

  Which now suits with it. – Whiles I threat, he lives:

  60

  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

  That summons thee to Heaven, or to Hell. Exit.

  2.2 Enter LADY MACBETH.

  LADY MACBETH

  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, the fatal bellman,

  Which gives the stern’st good-night. He is about it.

  The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms

  5

  Do mock their charge with snores: I have drugg’d their possets,

  That Death and Nature do contend about them,

  Whether they live, or die.

  MACBETH [within] Who’s there? – what, ho!

  LAD
Y MACBETH Alack! I am afraid they have awak’d,

  And ’tis not done: – th’attempt and not the deed

  10

  Confounds us. – Hark! – I laid their daggers ready;

  He could not miss ‘em. – Had he not resembled

  My father as he slept, I had done’t. – My husband!

  Enter MACBETH.

  MACBETH

  I have done the deed. – Didst thou not hear a noise?

  LADY MACBETH

  I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry.

  15

  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.

  20

  LADY MACBETH A foolish thought to say a sorry sight.

  MACBETH

  There’s one did laugh in’s sleep, and one cried, ‘Murther!’

  That they did wake each other: I stood and heard them;

  But they did say their prayers, and address’d them

  Again to sleep.

  LADY MACBETH There are two lodg’d together.

  25

  MACBETH

  One cried, ‘God bless us!’ and, ‘Amen,’ the other,

  As 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 could not I pronounce ‘Amen’?

  30

  I had most need of blessing, and ‘Amen’

  Stuck in my throat.

  LADY MACBETH These deeds must not be thought

  After these ways: so, it will make us mad.

  MACBETH

  Methought, I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more!

  Macbeth does murther Sleep,’ – the innocent Sleep;

  35

  Sleep, that knits up the ravell’d sleave 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; –

  LADY MACBETH What do you mean?

  MACBETH

  Still it cried, ‘Sleep no more!’ to all the house:

  40

  ‘Glamis hath murther’d 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 your noble strength, to think

  So brainsickly of things. Go, get some water,

  45

  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.

  MACBETH I’ll go no more:

  I am afraid to think what I have done;

  50

  Look on’t again I dare not.

  LADY MACBETH 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,

  55

  For it must seem their guilt. Exit.

  [Knocking within.]

  MACBETH 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

  60

  The multitudinous seas incarnadine,

  Making the green one red.

  Re-enter LADY MACBETH.

  LADY MACBETH

  My hands are of your colour; but I shame

  To wear a heart so white. [knock] I hear a knocking

  At the south entry: – retire we to our chamber.

  65

  A little water clears us of this deed:

  How easy is it then! Your constancy

  Hath left you unattended. –

  [knock] Hark! more knocking.

  Get on your night-gown, lest occasion call us,

  And show us to be watchers. – Be not lost

  70

  So poorly in your thoughts.

 

‹ Prev